RE: [cti] Attack Motivations - adds to current list

Jerome hits the nail on the head, no one list will please everyone.  We had that in mind when we (the Threat Agent Analysis team @ Intel) sat down to develop our
 list of motivations.  We spent nearly a year researching prior art, including many of the lists mentioned here, trying to find the sweet spot: enough but not too much, coverage for every condition but not an endless list.  For us, the list we provided has
 worked very well and we have yet to find an instance where it did not cover what was needed, and it has resonated well both within and outside the security teams.  There will probably be some individual cases not included, but we recognize a list of manageable
 size will probably have outliers.

 

For example, Bret’s suggestions easily fit into the current taxonomy:

 

1.            amusement -> Personal Satisfaction

2.            advantage (competitive, political, economic) -> Organizational Gain or Personal Gain, depending on the actor

3.            anarchy -> Dominance

 

Tim

 

 

From:  [mailto:]
On Behalf Of Jerome Athias

Sent: Monday, August 08, 2016 1:34 AM

To: Patrick Maroney <>

Cc: Jordan, Bret <>; 

Subject: Re: [cti] Attack Motivations

 

I concur strongly

Some common taxonomies and enumerations were captured here

http://www.frhack.org/research/Information_Security_Vocabularies.xlsx

 

My experience of developing softwares (for 15+ years) using enumerations in combo lists, etc. in a domain like cybersecurity let me think here that exhaustive "cover them all and please everybody" enumerations can't be found. 

An approach using a hierarchical categorization/classification (I.e. Multi steps for 1) select a general category - mandatory 2) select a more detailed category between the ones of 1) - optional) helps ensuring a minimum of coherence without
 "giving headaches" to those who hate (being specific) spending more than 5s finding The value in a list.

E.g.: views in CWE, CAPEC

On Sunday, 7 August 2016, Patrick Maroney <> wrote:

I know we are on a tight timelime and want to close on these enumerations.  However, I want to add a strategically focused comment here: The overarching point is to advocate for common adoption of taxonomies across standards (formal and
 de facto).  By taking the time to identify and adopt "best of breed" taxonomies, we can then srategically do outreach and advocate for homogenization and drive convergence.  So presuming we will always have a variety of CTI schemas and ontologies (e.g., VERIS,
 OpenIOC, CIF), the convergence and adoption of shared Taxonomies will empower easier transformations between different formats and internal data representations.

 

If we could get all CTI TC members to submit their existing taxonomies for the categories in question, maybe we could quickly reach concurrence and homogenization.  Thoughts?

 

 I know I've seen some very good Motivation Taxonomies with good descriptions.  Have not found "the" one
yet...@Jerome Athias: Your thoughts?

 

Alternatively, here's some of the better ones I've found today. 

 

 

(1) The IBM X-Force taxonomy

 

Since this is copyrighted material I can't provide the spacifics. One can register for the paper here:

https://www-01.ibm.com/marketing/iwm/iwm/web/signup.do?source=ibm-WW_Security_Services&S_PKG=ov47531&S_TACT=C405001W&dynform=21982&ce=ISM0484&ct=SWG&cmp=IBMSocial&cm=h&cr=Security&ccy=US&cm_mc_uid=42640253661614409439900&cm_mc_sid_50200000=1470597188

 

 (We would have to normalize their "Outrage Trolls" Class).  

 

 

(2) VERIS Taxonomy

 

ACTOR.X.MOTIVE

NA: Not Applicable (unintentional action)

Espionage: Espionage or competitive advantage

Fear: Fear or duress

Financial: Financial or personal gain

Fun: Fun, curiosity, or pride

Grudge: Grudge or personal offense

Ideology: Ideology or protest

Convenience: Convenience of expediency

Unknown: Unknown

Other: Other

 

 

 

Patrick Maroney

President

Integrated Networking Technologies, Inc.

Desk: (856)983-0001

Cell: (609)841-5104

Email: 


 

(4) NIST

 

Couldn't find one but believe a taxonomy exists

On Sun, Aug 7, 2016 at 4:13 PM -0400, "Jordan, Bret" <> wrote:

This Taxonomy did come from an existing well vetted solution. aka the Intel Threat Agent work.  But given that work applies to general threat actors, we are trying I tailor it more specifically to the cyber space.

 

The reason I am looking to add a few values is I have been reviewing every taxonomy I can find and make sure our terms and definitions cover everything that cerebrally exists.  

 

Bret 

Sent from my Commodore 64

On Aug 7, 2016, at 12:42 PM, Patrick Maroney <> wrote:

.02:  Like Sophistication, we should directly adopt  an existing, well vetted, Taxonomy.  

 

@Patrick/ISightPartners or @EclecticIQ:  Can you provide reference?

Patrick Maroney

President

Integrated Networking Technologies, Inc.

Desk: (856)983-0001

Cell: (609)841-5104

Email: 


 

On Sun, Aug 7, 2016 at 12:15 AM -0400, "Jordan, Bret" <> wrote:

All, 

 

Intrusion Sets and Threat Actors both use the Attack Motivations vocabulary.  Right now we have the following terms in that vocab:

 

accidental

coercion

dominance

ideology

notoriety

organizational-gain

personal-gain

personal-satisfaction

revenge

unpredictable

 

 

I propose that we add the following thee terms to this list, I missed them when I was putting this list together.  

 

amusement

advantage (competitive, political, economic)

anarchy

 

 

 

 

Thanks,

 

Bret

 

 

 

Bret Jordan CISSP

Director of Security Architecture and Standards | Office of the CTO

Blue Coat Systems

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