RFC6684: Guidelines and Template for Defining Extensions to the Incident Object Description Exchange Format (IODEF)
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Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) B. Trammell
Request for Comments: 6684 ETH Zurich
Category: Informational July 2012
ISSN: 2070-1721
Guidelines and Template for Defining Extensions to the
Incident Object Description Exchange Format (IODEF)
Abstract
This document provides guidelines for extensions to the Incident
Object Description Exchange Format (IODEF) described in RFC 5070 for
exchange of incident management data, and it contains a template for
Internet-Drafts describing those extensions, in order to ease the
work and improve the quality of extension descriptions.
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/rfc6684.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2012 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
(http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
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include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction ....................................................2
2. Applicability of Extensions to IODEF ............................3
3. Selecting a Mechanism for IODEF Extension .......................3
4. Security Considerations .........................................5
5. Acknowledgments .................................................5
6. References ......................................................5
6.1. Normative References .......................................5
6.2. Informative References .....................................5
Appendix A. Document Template ......................................7
A.1. Introduction ................................................7
A.2. Terminology .................................................7
A.3. Applicability ...............................................7
A.4. Extension Definition ........................................8
A.5. Security Considerations .....................................8
A.6. IANA Considerations .........................................9
A.7. Manageability Considerations ...............................10
A.8. Appendix A: XML Schema Definition for Extension ............10
A.9. Appendix B: Examples .......................................10
Appendix B. Example Enumerated Type Extension Definition:
Presentation Action ...................................10
Appendix C. Example Element Definition: Test ......................10
1. Introduction
In the five years since the specification of IODEF [RFC5070], the
threat environment has evolved, as has the practice of cooperative
network defense. These trends, along with experience gained through
implementation and deployment, have indicated the need to extend
IODEF. This document provides guidelines for defining these
extensions. It starts by describing the applicability of IODEF
extensions, and the IODEF extension mechanisms, before providing a
section (Appendix A) that contains a template to be the starting
point for any future Internet-Draft about an IODEF extension.
This document is designed to give guidance on the extension of IODEF,
especially for those extension authors who may be new to the IETF
process. Nothing in this document should be construed as defining
policies for the definition of these extensions.
At publication time, the Managed Incident Lightweight Exchange (MILE)
working group of the IETF provides a home for work on IODEF
extensions that do not otherwise have a natural home. IODEF
extensions that require the expertise of other IETF working groups or
other standards development organizations may be done within those
groups with consultation of IODEF experts, such as those appointed
for review as in [RFC6685].
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2. Applicability of Extensions to IODEF
Before deciding to extend IODEF, the first step is to determine
whether an IODEF extension is a good fit for a given problem. There
are two sides to this question:
1. Does the problem involve the reporting or sharing of
observations, indications, or other information about an
incident, whether in progress or completed, hypothetical or real?
"Incident" is defined in the terminology for the original IODEF
requirements [RFC3067]: an event that involves a security
violation, whether a single attack of a group thereof. If the
answer to this question is unequivocally "No", then IODEF is
probably not a good choice as a base technology for the
application area.
2. Can IODEF adequately represent information about the incident
without extension? IODEF has a rich set of incident-relevant
classes. If, after detailed examination of the problem area and
the IODEF specification, and consultation with IODEF experts, the
answer to this question is "Yes", then extension is not
necessary.
Examples of such extensions to IODEF might include the following:
o Leveraging existing work in describing aspects of incidents to
make IODEF more expressive, by standardized reference to external
information bases about incidents and incident-related information
o Allowing the description of new types of entities (e.g., related
actors) or new types of characteristics of entities (e.g.,
information related to financial services) involved in an IODEF
incident report
o Allowing the representation of new types of indicators,
observables, or incidents in an IODEF incident report
o Allowing additional semantic or metadata labeling of IODEF
Documents (e.g., for handling or disposition instructions, or
compliance with data protection and data retention regulations)
3. Selecting a Mechanism for IODEF Extension
IODEF was designed to be extended through any combination of the
following:
1. extending the enumerated values of Attributes, per Section 5.1 of
[RFC5070];
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2. class extension through AdditionalData or RecordItem elements,
per Section 5.2 of [RFC5070]; and/or
3. containment of the IODEF Document element within an external XML
Document, itself containing extension data, as done by Real-time
Inter-network Defense (RID) [RFC6545].
Note that in this final case, the extension will not be directly
interoperable with IODEF implementations, and it must "unwrap" the
IODEF document from its container; nevertheless, this may be
appropriate for certain use cases involving integration of IODEF
within external schemas. Extensions using containment of an IODEF
Document are not further treated in this document, though the
document template in Appendix A may be of some use in defining them.
Certain attributes containing enumerated values within certain IODEF
elements may be extended. For an attribute named "foo", this is
achieved by giving the value of "foo" as "ext-value" and adding a new
attribute named "ext-foo" containing the extended value. The
attributes that can be extended this way are limited to the
following, denoted in 'Element@attribute' format, referencing the
section in which they are defined in [RFC5070]:
Incident@purpose, Section 3.2
AdditionalData@dtype, Section 3.6
Contact@role, Section 3.7
Contact@type, Section 3.7
RegistryHandle@registry, Section 3.7.1
Impact@type, Section 3.10.1
TimeImpact@metric, Section 3.10.2
TimeImpact@duration, Section 3.10.2
HistoryItem@action, Section 3.11.1
Expectation@action, Section 3.13
System@category, Section 3.15
Counter@type, Section 3.16.1
Counter@duration, Section 3.16.1
Address@category, Section 3.16.2
NodeRole@category, Section 3.16.3
RecordPattern@type, Section 3.19.2
RecordPattern@offsetunit, Section 3.19.2
RecordItem@dtype, Section 3.19.3
Note that this list is current as of publication time; the set of
IODEF data types may be extended by future specifications that update
[RFC5070].
An example definition of an attribute extension is given in
Appendix B.
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IODEF Documents can contain extended scalar or XML data using an
AdditionalData element or a RecordItem element. Scalar data
extensions must set the "dtype" attribute of the containing element
to the data type to reference one of the IODEF data types as
enumerated in Section 2 of [RFC5070], and it should use the "meaning"
and "formatid" attributes to explain the content of the element.
XML extensions within an AdditionalData or RecordItem element use a
dtype of "xml", and they should define a schema for the topmost
containing element within the AdditionalData or RecordItem element.
An example definition of an element definition is given in
Appendix C.
When adding elements to the AdditionalData section of an IODEF
document, an extension's namespace and schema should be registered
with IANA; see Appendix A.6 for details.
4. Security Considerations
This document raises no security issues itself. Extensions defined
using the template in Appendix A need to provide an analysis of
security issues they may raise. See Appendix A.5 for details.
5. Acknowledgments
Thanks to David Black, Benoit Claise, Martin Duerst, Eran Hammer, Tom
Millar, Kathleen Moriarty, Peter Saint-Andre, Robert Sparks, Takeshi
Takahashi, Sean Turner, Samuel Weiler, and Peter Yee for their
reviews and comments. This work is materially supported by the
European Union Seventh Framework Program under grant agreement 257315
(DEMONS).
6. References
6.1. Normative References
[RFC5070] Danyliw, R., Meijer, J., and Y. Demchenko, "The Incident
Object Description Exchange Format", RFC 5070,
December 2007.
6.2. Informative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC3067] Arvidsson, J., Cormack, A., Demchenko, Y., and J. Meijer,
"TERENA'S Incident Object Description and Exchange Format
Requirements", RFC 3067, February 2001.
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[RFC3552] Rescorla, E. and B. Korver, "Guidelines for Writing RFC
Text on Security Considerations", BCP 72, RFC 3552,
July 2003.
[RFC5226] Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, "Guidelines for Writing an
IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP 26, RFC 5226,
May 2008.
[RFC5706] Harrington, D., "Guidelines for Considering Operations and
Management of New Protocols and Protocol Extensions",
RFC 5706, November 2009.
[RFC6545] Moriarty, K., "Real-time Inter-network Defense (RID)",
RFC 6545, April 2012.
[RFC6685] Trammell, B., "Expert Review for Incident Object
Description Exchange Format (IODEF) Extensions in IANA XML
Registry", RFC 6685, July 2012.
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Appendix A. Document Template
The document template given in this section is provided as a starting
point for writing an Internet-Draft describing an IODEF extension.
RFCs are subject to additional formatting requirements and must
contain additional sections not described in this template; consult
the RFC Editor style guide
(http://www.rfc-editor.org/styleguide.html) for more information.
This template is informational in nature; in case of any future
conflict with RFC Editor requirements for Internet-Drafts, those
requirements take precedence.
A.1. Introduction
The Introduction section lays out the problem being solved by the
extension, and motivates the development and deployment of the
extension.
A.2. Terminology
The Terminology section introduces and defines terms specific to the
document. Terminology from [RFC5070] or [RFC6545] should be
referenced in this section, but not redefined or copied. If
[RFC2119] terms are used in the document, this should be noted in the
Terminology section.
A.3. Applicability
The Applicability section defines the use cases to which the
extension is applicable, and it details any requirements analysis
done during the development of the extension. The primary goal of
this section is to allow readers to see if an extension is indeed
intended to solve a given problem. This section should also define
and restrict the scope of the extension, as appropriate, by pointing
out any non-obvious situations to which it is not intended to apply.
In addition to defining the applicability, this section may also
present example situations, which should then be detailed in the
examples section, below.
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A.4. Extension Definition
This section defines the extension.
Extensions to enumerated types are defined in one subsection for each
attribute to be extended, enumerating the new values with an
explanation of the meaning of each new value. An example enumeration
extension is shown in Appendix B, below.
Element extensions are defined in one subsection for each element, in
top-down order, from the element contained within AdditionalData or
RecordItem; an example element extension is shown in Appendix C,
below. Each element should be described by a Unified Modeling
Language (UML) diagram as in Figure 1, followed by a description of
each of the attributes, and a short description of each of the child
elements. Child elements should then be defined in a subsequent
subsection, if not already defined in the IODEF Document itself, or
in another referenced IODEF extension document.
+---------------------+
| Element |
+---------------------+
| TYPE attribute0 |<>----------[ChildExactlyOne]
| TYPE attribute1 |<>--{0..1}--[ChildZeroOrOne]
| |<>--{0..*}--[ChildZeroOrMore]
| |<>--{1..*}--[ChildOneOrMore]
+---------------------+
Figure 1: Example UML Element Diagram
Elements containing child elements should indicate the multiplicity
of those child elements, as shown in the figure above. Allowable
TYPEs are enumerated in Section 2 of [RFC5070].
A.5. Security Considerations
Any security considerations [RFC3552] raised by this extension or its
deployment should be detailed in this section. Guidance should focus
on ensuring the users of this extension do so in a secure fashion,
with special attention to non-obvious implications of the
transmission of the information represented by this extension.
[RFC3552] may be a useful reference in determining what to cover in
this section. This section is required by the RFC Editor.
It should also be noted in this section that the security
considerations for IODEF [RFC5070] apply to the extension as well.
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A.6. IANA Considerations
Any IANA considerations [RFC5226] for the document should be detailed
in this section. Note that IODEF extension documents will generally
register new namespaces and schemas. In addition, this section is
required by the RFC Editor, so if there are no IANA considerations,
the section should exist and contain the text "this document has no
actions for IANA".
IODEF Extensions that represent an enumeration should reference an
existing IANA registry or subregistry for the values of that
enumeration. If no such registry exists, this section should define
a new registry to hold the enumeration's values and define the
policies by which additions may be made to the registry.
IODEF Extensions adding elements to the AdditionalData section of an
IODEF Document should register their own namespaces and schemas for
extensions with IANA; therefore, this section should contain at least
a registration request for the namespace and the schema, as follows,
modified as appropriate for the extension:
Registration request for the IODEF My-Extension namespace:
URI: urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:iodef-myextension-1.0
Registrant Contact: Refer here to the Authors' Addresses section of
the document, or to an organizational contact in the case of an
extension supported by an external organization.
XML: None
Registration request for the IODEF My-Extension XML schema:
URI: urn:ietf:params:xml:schema:iodef-myextension-1.0
Registrant Contact: Refer here to the Authors' Addresses section of
the document, or to an organizational contact in the case of an
extension supported by an external organization.
XML: Refer here to the XML Schema in Appendix A of the document, or
to a well-known external reference in the case of an extension with
an externally defined schema.
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A.7. Manageability Considerations
If any of the operational and/or management considerations listed in
Appendix A of [RFC5706] apply to the extension, address them in this
section. If no such considerations apply, this section can be
omitted.
A.8. Appendix A: XML Schema Definition for Extension
The XML Schema describing the elements defined in the Extension
Definition section is given here. Each of the examples in
Appendix A.9 will be verified to validate against this schema by
automated tools.
A.9. Appendix B: Examples
This section contains example IODEF Documents illustrating the
extension. If example situations are outlined in the Applicability
section, documents for those examples should be provided in the same
order as in the Applicability section. Example documents will be
tested to validate against the schema given in the appendix.
Appendix B. Example Enumerated Type Extension Definition: Presentation
Action
This example extends the IODEF Expectation element to represent the
expectation that a slide deck be derived from the IODEF Incident, and
that a presentation be given by the recipient's organization thereon.
Attribute: Expectation@action
Extended value(s): give-a-presentation
Value meaning: generate a slide deck from the provided incident
information and give a presentation thereon.
Additional considerations: the format of the slide deck is left to
the recipient to determine in accordance with its established
practices for the presentation of incident reports.
Appendix C. Example Element Definition: Test
This example defines the Test class for labeling IODEF test data.
The Test class is intended to be included within an AdditionalData
element in an IODEF Document. If a Test element is present, it
indicates that an IODEF Document contains test data, not a
information about a real incident.
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The Test class contains information about how the test data was
generated.
+---------------------+
| Test |
+---------------------+
| ENUM category |
| STRING generator |
| |
| |
+---------------------+
Figure 2: The Test Class
The Test class has two attributes:
category: Required. ENUM. The type of test data. The permitted
values for this attribute are shown below. The default value is
"unspecified".
1. unspecified. The document contains test data, but no further
information is available.
2. internal. The test data is intended for the internal use of
an implementor, and it should not be distributed or used
outside the context in which it was generated.
3. unit. The test data is intended for unit testing of an
implementation, and it may be included with the implementation
to support this as part of the build and deployment process.
4. interoperability. The test data is intended for
interoperability testing of an implementation, and it may be
freely shared to support this purpose.
generator: Optional. STRING. A free-form string identifying the
person, entity, or program that generated the test data.
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Author's Address
Brian Trammell
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich
Gloriastrasse 35
8092 Zurich
Switzerland
Phone: +41 44 632 70 13
EMail: trammell@tik.ee.ethz.ch
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