Internet-Draft | Analytics Interface YANG Data Model | August 2024 |
Lingga, et al. | Expires 7 February 2025 | [Page] |
This document describes an information model and a YANG data model for the Analytics Interface between an Interface to Network Security Functions (I2NSF) Analyzer and a Security Controller in an I2NSF framework. I2NSF Analyzer collects the monitoring data from Network Security Functions (NSF), and analyzes them with Machine Learning (ML) algorithms. This Analytics Interface is used for I2NSF Analyzer to deliver analysis results (e.g., policy reconfiguration and feedback message) to Security Controller for Closed-Loop Security Control in the I2NSF Framework in [I-D.jeong-i2nsf-security-management-automation]. The YANG data model described in this document is based on the YANG data models of the I2NSF NSF-Facing Interface [I-D.ietf-i2nsf-nsf-facing-interface-dm] and the I2NSF Monitoring Interface [I-D.ietf-i2nsf-nsf-monitoring-data-model].¶
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In a framework for Interface to Network Security Functions (I2NSF) [RFC8329], the Monitoring Interface [I-D.ietf-i2nsf-nsf-monitoring-data-model] is defined as an interface to collect monitoring data (e.g., network statistics and resources) from Network Security Functions (NSF). This data can be received by either a query or a report. In a query-based approach, the data is obtained by a request from a client (e.g., I2NSF Analyzer). But in a report-based approach, the data is provided to I2NSF Analyzer by a server (e.g., NSF) when either a notification or an alarm is triggered by an event. In this model, the report-based approach is used in the I2NSF framework for realizing the Security Management Automation (SMA) for cloud-based security services [I-D.jeong-i2nsf-security-management-automation]. Thus, monitoring data is sent automatically by NSFs to an I2NSF Analyzer. Figure 1 shows the I2NSF Framework for Security Management Automation.¶
The automatic reports of monitoring data by the NSFs are collected in a single instance (i.e., I2NSF Analyzer) to analyze them. By analyzing the monitoring data, a new security policy can be produced to further enhance the security of the network. To create the automated system, the analysis of the monitoring data should be performed automatically with the help of Machine Learning (ML) algorithms. The automated analysis is out of the scope of this document.¶
A new security policy needs to be delivered from the I2NSF Analyzer to the Security Controller so the new policy can be listed and monitored properly. For that purpose, this document introduces the Analytics Interface as an intermediary interface between the I2NSF Analyzer and the Security Controller. Then the new policy should be delivered directly to appropriate NSFs by the Security Controller via the NSF-Facing Interface [I-D.ietf-i2nsf-nsf-facing-interface-dm].¶
Therefore, the purpose of this document is to provide an Analytics Interface to a Security Controller in an I2NSF Framework. With the provided Analytics Interface, the realization of Security Management Automation (SMA) is possible through Closed-Loop Security Control in the I2NSF framework. This SMA can facilitate Intent-Based Security Management with Intent-Based Networking (IBN) in [RFC9315].¶
Note that the scope of this document is to propose a YANG data model for a new external interface called Analytics Interface between Security Controller in the I2NSF framework and an I2NSF Analyzer. The I2NSF Analyzer performs the analysis of NSF monitoring data and the generation of analysis results (e.g., policy reconfiguration and feedback message). With this Analytics Interface, the I2NSF framework can perform Security Management Automation (SMC) in term of Closed-Loop Security Control, which is specified in [I-D.jeong-i2nsf-security-management-automation].¶
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.¶
This document uses the terminology described in [RFC8329].¶
This document follows the guidelines of [RFC8407] and adopts the Network Management Datastore Architecture (NMDA). The meaning of the symbols in tree diagrams is defined in [RFC8340].¶
This document introduces an Analytics Interface as an interface to deliver an analytics report for augmentation or generation of a security policy rule created by I2NSF Analyzer to Security Controller [I-D.jeong-i2nsf-security-management-automation]. This allows Security Controller to actively reinforce a target network with its security policy management. Figure 2 shows the high-level concept of Analytics Interface to deliver Analytics Information (i.e., Policy Reconfiguration and Feedback Information) to Security Controller.¶
Both policy reconfiguration and feedback information provide the following high-level abstraction:¶
NSF Name: It is the name or IP address of the NSF for identifying the NSF with problem. The name is a unique string to identify an NSF, including a Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN).¶
Problem: It describes the issue(s) in the NSF that needs to be handled.¶
Solution: It specifies the possible solution(s) for the problem.¶
Policy reconfiguration is the rearrangement of a security policy in a different form or combination of the existing security policy to enhance the security service in the network. A policy reconfiguration is generated by the I2NSF Analyzer after receiving and analyzing monitoring information of NSF Events from an NSF [I-D.ietf-i2nsf-nsf-monitoring-data-model].¶
Policy reconfiguration works together with the three I2NSF interfaces defined for the I2NSF Framework, i.e., NSF-Facing Interface [I-D.ietf-i2nsf-nsf-facing-interface-dm], NSF Monitoring Interface [I-D.ietf-i2nsf-nsf-monitoring-data-model], and Analytics Interface, to create a closed-loop securty system for reinforcing the network security. Figure 3 shows an illustration of the closed-loop system for the I2NSF Framework.¶
Figure 3 shows a closed-loop security system between Security Controller, NSF, and I2NSF Analyzer. The Security Controller delivers a security policy to an appropriate NSF via the NSF-Facing Interface [I-D.ietf-i2nsf-nsf-facing-interface-dm]. The NSF will prepare for a security service according to the given configuration and provide a security service for the network. The NSF SHOULD also provide monitoring data (e.g., NSF Events and System Alarms) to be analyzed. This monitoring data can be delivered by the NSF to an I2NSF Analyzer via the Monitoring Interface [I-D.ietf-i2nsf-nsf-monitoring-data-model]. Then the I2NSF Analyzer analyzes the monitoring data for the reconfiguration of an existing security policy, the generation of a new security policy, and the feedback for security system management (e.g., the scaling-up or scaling-down of resources related to NSFs). To fully automate the closed-loop system, the I2NSF Analyzer should analyze the monitoring data automatically using machine learning techniques (e.g., Deep Learning [Deep-Learning]). The results of the analysis may trigger the reconfiguration of an existing security policy or the generation of a new security policy to strengthen the network security. The reconfiguration or configuration request will be delivered by the I2NSF Analyzer to the Security Controller via the Analytics Interface.¶
To realize the closed-loop security system, the Analytics Interface needs to properly follow the similar guidelines for the I2NSF Framework [RFC8329]. The Analytics Interface follows [I-D.ietf-i2nsf-nsf-facing-interface-dm] to create a security policy to reconfigure an existing security policy of NSF(s) or to generate a new security policy.¶
Analytics Interface holds a list of security policies so that the (re)configuration of a security policy and the feedback information can be provided to the Security Controller. Each policy consists of a list of rule(s) to be enhanced on the NSF. Note that the synchronization of the list of security policies should be done between the Security Controller and the I2NSF Analyzer and the specific mechanism is out of the scope of this document. A (re)configured security policy rule should be able to cope with attacks or failures that can happen to the network in near future. Such a rule is reconfigured or generated by the I2NSF Analyzer to tackle a detected problem in the network. It uses the Event-Condition-Action (ECA) model as the basis for the design of I2NSF Policy (Re)configuration as described in [RFC8329] and [I-D.ietf-i2nsf-capability-data-model].¶
An example of Policy (Re)configuration is a DDoS Attack that is detected by a DDoS Mitigator. The DDoS Mitigator creates monitoring data and delivers it to the I2NSF Analyzer. The I2NSF Analyzer analyzes the monitoring data and generates a new policy to handle the DDoS Attack, such as a firewall rule to drop all packets from the source of the DDoS Attack.¶
The YANG tree structure for policy reconfiguration is provided through the augmentation of the NSF-Facing Interface YANG Module [I-D.ietf-i2nsf-nsf-facing-interface-dm] as follows:¶
The policy reconfiguration must include the following information:¶
NSF Name: The name or IP address (IPv4 or IPv6) of the NSF to be configured. If the given nsf-name is not IP address, the name can be an arbitrary string including a Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN).¶
Problem: The issue that is emitted by an NSF via the I2NSF Monitoring Interface. The problem for policy configuration includes the NSF Events described in NSF Monitoring Interface YANG Data Model [I-D.ietf-i2nsf-nsf-monitoring-data-model], such as DDoS detection, Virus detection, Intrusion detection, Web-attack detection, and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) or Voice over Cellular Network (VoCN) violation detection.¶
Solution: The solution for policy (re)configuration is the security policy that is reconfigured or generated to solve a detected attack. The security policy can be configured using the NSF-Facing Interface YANG data model [I-D.ietf-i2nsf-nsf-facing-interface-dm].¶
Feedback information is information about problem(s) of an NSF for a security service such as either over-usage or malfunction of a system resource. This problem cannot be handled by creating a new policy. In the similar way with the policy reconfiguration in Section 3.1, the feedback information should be delivered by the I2NSF Analyzer to the Security Controller that will be able to handle the reported problem(s).¶
Figure 5 shows the handling of feedback information. For the feedback information, the given feedback is not a security policy, hence the Security Controller needs to take an action to handle the reported problem(s). The action includes the report to the I2NSF User and the query of the system resource management of the relevant NSF(s) to the Developer's Management System (DMS). DMS will communicate with the Management and Orchestration (MANO) Unit in the Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) Framework to deal with the system management issue(s) of the relevant NSFs [I-D.ietf-i2nsf-applicability]. The details of the handling process are out of the scope of this document.¶
The YANG tree structure for feedback information is provided with the use of the NSF Monitoring Interface YANG Module [I-D.ietf-i2nsf-nsf-monitoring-data-model] as follows:¶
Figure 6 shows the high-level abstraction of Feedback Information. The feedback information should include:¶
NSF Name: The name or IP address (IPv4 or IPv6) of the NSF that detected the problem. If the given nsf-name is not IP address, the name can be an arbitrary string including an FQDN.¶
Time: The time of the delivery of the feedback information.¶
Language: The language tag that is used for the natural language text that is included in the "message" and "solution" attributes. The language field is encoded following the rules in Section 2.1 of [RFC5646]. The default language tag is "en-US".¶
Problem: The issue that is emitted by an NSF via the I2NSF Monitoring Interface. The problem for feedback information includes system alarms described in NSF Monitoring Interface YANG Data Model [I-D.ietf-i2nsf-nsf-monitoring-data-model], such as Memory alarm, CPU alarm, Disk alarm, Hardware alarm, and Interface alarm.¶
Solution: A possible solution given as feedback is in the form of a free-form string (e.g., a high-level instruction). This value can be interpreted using a Natural Language Processing (NLP) or manually processed by a network operator.¶
This section shows the YANG module of Analytics Interface. The YANG module in this document is referencing to [RFC6991] [I-D.ietf-i2nsf-nsf-facing-interface-dm] [I-D.ietf-i2nsf-nsf-monitoring-data-model].¶
The YANG module makes references to [RFC5646] [RFC6265] [RFC8343] [RFC9110]¶
This section shows XML configuration examples of analytics information including feedback policy rules, which is delivered by the I2NSF Analyzer to the Security Controller over the Analytics Interface after the I2NSF Analyzer analyzes monitoring data.¶
In this example, the scenario can be seen in Figure 8.¶
In this scenario, a DDoS Mitigator detects a DDoS Attack and sends a notification to the I2NSF Analyzer as shown in Figure 9.¶
In the scenario shown in Figure 9, the description of the XML example is as follows:¶
The DDoS attack is detected at 9 am on August 27 in 2021.¶
The sources of the attack are 192.0.2.8, 192.0.2.9, and 192.0.2.10.¶
The destination of the attack is 203.0.113.0/24.¶
After receiving the monitoring data, the I2NSF Analyzer analyzes it and creates a new feedback policy to enforce the security of the network. The I2NSF Analyzer delivers the feedback policy to the Security Controller as shown in Figure 10.¶
The policy reconfiguration in Figure 10 means the following:¶
The feedback policy is named as "feedback_policy_for_ddos_attack".¶
The rule is named as "deny_ddos_attack".¶
The rule starts from 09:00 am on August 24 in 2021. The condition of the rule is from the sources of the IP addresses of 192.0.2.8, 192.0.2.9, and 192.0.2.10.¶
The action required is to "drop" any access from the IP addresses that have been identified as malicious.¶
The NSF to be configured is named "Firewall".¶
The problem that triggered the generation of the feedback is a DDoS attack from the sources of the IP addresses of 192.0.2.8, 192.0.2.9, and 192.0.2.10 to the protected network of 203.0.113.0/24.¶
In this scenario, an NSF is overloaded and sends a notification to the I2NSF Analyzer as shown in Figure 11.¶
In the scenario shown in Figure 11, the description of the XML example is as follows:¶
The NSF that sends the monitoring data is named "firewall".¶
The memory usage of the NSF triggered the alarm.¶
The memory usage of the NSF is 98 percent.¶
The memory threshold to trigger the alarm is 80 percent.¶
The event is delivered at 2021-08-27T07:43:52.181088+00:00.¶
After receiving the monitoring data, the I2NSF Analyzer analyzes it and creates a new feedback policy to solve the problem that is detected by the NSF. The I2NSF Analyzer delivers the feedback information to the Security Controller as shown in Figure 12.¶
The feedback information in Figure 12 means the following:¶
The name of the NSF that needs to be handled is called "Firewall".¶
The feedback information is delivered at 2021-08-27T08:43:52.000000+00:00.¶
The problem is that the Memory Usage Exceeded the Threshold with the average usage of memory as 95.¶
The problem persists for 3,600 seconds (1 hour) without any fix.¶
The proposed solution to the problem is either to add more memory capacity in hardware to the NSF or to create a new NSF with the same security service.¶
This document requests IANA to register the following URI in the "IETF XML Registry" [RFC3688]:¶
URI: urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-i2nsf-analytics-interface Registrant Contact: The IESG. XML: N/A; the requested URI is an XML namespace.¶
This document requests IANA to register the following YANG module in the "YANG Module Names" registry [RFC7950][RFC8525]:¶
name: ietf-i2nsf-analytics-interface namespace: urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-i2nsf-analytics-interface prefix: i2nsfai reference: RFC XXXX // RFC Ed.: replace XXXX with an actual RFC number and remove // this note.¶
The YANG module specified in this document defines a data schema designed to be accessed through network management protocols such as NETCONF [RFC6241] or RESTCONF [RFC8040]. The lowest NETCONF layer is the secure transport layer, and the required secure transport is Secure Shell (SSH) [RFC6242]. The lowest RESTCONF layer is HTTPS, and the required secure transport is TLS [RFC8446].¶
The NETCONF access control model [RFC8341] provides a means of restricting access to specific NETCONF or RESTCONF users to a preconfigured subset of all available NETCONF or RESTCONF protocol operations and contents.¶
There are a number of data nodes defined in this YANG module that are writable/creatable/deletable (i.e., config true, which is the default). These data nodes may be considered sensitive or vulnerable in some network environments. Write operations (e.g., edit-config) to these data nodes without proper protection can have a negative effect on network operations. The data model in this document uses the data model from NSF-Facing Interface data model, it MUST follow the Security Considerations mentioned in [I-D.ietf-i2nsf-nsf-facing-interface-dm].¶
Some of the readable data nodes in this YANG module may be considered sensitive or vulnerable in some network environments. Thus, it is important to control read access (e.g., via get, get-config, or notification) to these data nodes. This document MUST also follow the Security Considerations about the readable data nodes mentioned in [I-D.ietf-i2nsf-nsf-facing-interface-dm].¶
This document benefited from discussions in the I2NSF Working Group, especially from Linda Dunbar, Yoav Nir, and Diego Lopez. This document took advantage of the review and comments from the following experts: Roman Danyliw and Tom Petch. The authors sincerely appreciate their sincere efforts and kind help.¶
This work was supported by Institute of Information & Communications Technology Planning & Evaluation (IITP) grant funded by the Korea Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT)(RS-2024-00398199).¶
This work was supported in part by Institute of Information & Communications Technology Planning & Evaluation (IITP) grant funded by the Korea Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT)(No. 2022-0-01015, Development of Candidate Element Technology for Intelligent 6G Mobile Core Network).¶
The following are coauthors of this document:¶