Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) are difficult to detect due to their "low-and-slow" attack patterns and frequent use of zero-day exploits. We present UNICORN, an anomalybased APT detector that effectively leverages data provenance analysis. From modeling to detection, UNICORN tailors its design specifically for the unique characteristics of APTs. Through extensive yet time-efficient graph analysis, UNICORN explores provenance graphs that provide rich contextual and historical information to identify stealthy anomalous activities without predefined attack signatures. Using a graph sketching technique, it summarizes long-running system execution with space efficiency to combat slow-acting attacks that take place over a long time span. UNICORN further improves its detection capability using a novel modeling approach to understand long-term behavior as the system evolves. Our evaluation shows that UNICORN outperforms an existing state-of-the-art APT detection system and detects reallife APT scenarios with high accuracy.
Abstract-Pivot is a new JavaScript isolation framework for web applications. Pivot uses iframes as its low-level isolation containers, but it uses code rewriting to implement synchronous cross-domain interfaces atop the asynchronous crossframe postMessage() primitive. Pivot layers a distributed scheduling abstraction across the frames, essentially treating each frame as a thread which can invoke RPCs that are serviced by external threads. By rewriting JavaScript call sites, Pivot can detect RPC invocations; Pivot exchanges RPC requests and responses via postMessage(), and it pauses and restarts frames using a novel rewriting technique that translates each frame's JavaScript code into a restartable generator function. By leveraging both iframes and rewriting, Pivot does not need to rewrite all code, providing an orderof-magnitude performance improvement over rewriting-only solutions. Compared to iframe-only approaches, Pivot provides synchronous RPC semantics, which developers typically prefer over asynchronous RPCs. Pivot also allows developers to use the full, unrestricted JavaScript language, including powerful statements like eval().
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