Firewall configuration: An application of multiagent metalevel argumentation

Abstract

Abstract. Firewalls are an important tool in the assurance of network security. Packet filtering firewalls are configured by providing a set of rules that identify how to handle individual data packets that arrive at the firewall. In large firewall configurations, conflicts may arise between these rules. Argumentation provides a way of handling conflicts such that their origin is illuminated, and hence can help a system administrator understand the effects of a given configuration. To show how argumentation might help in this domain we examine the use of a system of metalevel argumentation for firewall configuration, showing how it makes conflicts and their origins clear, and showing how different instantiations of a metalevel argumentation system provide alternative ways to resolve conflicts.

GORGIAS: Applying argumentation

“…It was shown that this was possible and that the performance of Gorgias was comparable, on specialized tasks, to state of the art approaches dedicated to network configuration management [53]. In another work [1], following a similar approach of formulating firewalls through argumentation, the authors provided a framework where explanations of the behaviour of the firewalls can be documented and exploited by the administrators and users of the network. Recently, Gorgias was used to study another problem in the area of cyber security, namely that of trying to understand cyber attacks on the Internet and attribute to them a likely source [28].…”

“…S 1 1,3 is refined with x 6 that narrows down the selected options to O 1 and O 6 (row 2). S 1 1,2,8 is refined with x 9 that narrows down the selected options to O 2 (row 6). Moreover, the table shows the case of a combined scenario where the conditions of both of the basic scenarios hold at the same time.…”

“…Moreover, the table shows the case of a combined scenario where the conditions of both of the basic scenarios hold at the same time. This is at row 7 which requires that the options of S 1 1,2,8 are preferred in this combined scenario.…”

“…Given these rows, i.e., rows 1, 2, 5, 6 and 7, we see that there are still conflicts as, for example, there is a conflict between options O 1 and O 6 under the scenario S 1 1,3,6 in row 2. The expert can then examine whether s/he can discriminate between the conflicting options by considering refined scenarios, iterating again STEP 2 of the methodology.…”

“…These include problems of diagnosis, e.g., in the medical domain [10,31] or in other domains such as home networks [12], legal problems [6], or recommendation problems, e.g., medical treatment recommendation systems [37]. More generally, some practical works in the category of "decision making" applications include e-commerce applications [18], negotiating supply strategies [56], making credit assignments [41], managing waste-water discharges [2], deciding about an automatic freight process [8], improving the performance of transport systems in rural areas [54], emergency rescue [57], aggregating clinical evidence [19], smarter electricity [32] and delivering clinical decision support services 1 [13].…”