Network security incidents, such as system compromises, worms, viruses, phishing incidents, and denial of service, typically result in the loss of service, data, and resources both human and system. Network providers and Computer Security Incident Response Teams need to be equipped and ready to assist in communicating and tracing security incidents with tools and procedures in place before the occurrence of an attack. Real-time Inter-network Defense (RID) outlines a proactive inter-network communication method to facilitate sharing incident handling data while integrating existing detection, tracing, source identification, and mitigation mechanisms for a complete incident handling solution. Combining these capabilities in a communication system provides a way to achieve higher security levels on networks. Policy guidelines for handling incidents are recommended and can be agreed upon by a consortium using the security recommendations and considerations. RID has found use within the international research communities, but has not been widely adopted in other sectors. This publication provides the specification to those communities that have adopted it, and communities currently considering solutions for real-time internetwork defense. The specification may also accelerate development of solutions where different transports or message formats are required by leveraging the data elements and structures specified here. Moriarty Informational [Page 1] RFC 6045 RID November 2010 Status of This Memo This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is published for informational purposes. This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has received public review and has been approved for publication by the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Not all documents approved by the IESG are a candidate for any level of Internet Standard; see Section 2 of RFC 5741. Information about the current status of this document, any errata, and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6045.