Stephano Zanero: Host Based Anomaly Detection on System calls arguments

Traditionally, host-based anomaly detection has dealt with system call sequences, but not with system call arguments. We propose a prototype which is capable of detecting anomalous system calls in an execution flow, thus helping in tracing intrusions. Our tool analyzes each argument of the system call, characterizing its contents and comparing it with a model of the content. It is able to cluster system calls and detect "different uses" of the same syscall in different points of different programs. It is also able to build a Markovian model of the sequence, which is then used to trace and flag anomalies. Stefano Zanero received a Ph.D. degree in Computer Engineering from the Politecnico of Milano technical university, where he is currently spending his post-doc. His current research interests include the development of Intrusion Detection Systems based on unsupervised learning algorithms, security of web applications and computer virology. He has been a speaker at international scientific and technical conferences, and he is the author and co-author of books and articles published in international, peer reviewed journals and conferences. He is a member of the board of the "Journal in Computer Virology", and acts as a reviewer for the "ACM Computing Reviews" and "IEEE Security&Privacy", as well as various primary international conferences. He is a member of the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery), and of ISSA (Information Systems Security Association). He has also been a columnist for Computer World Italy, and has been awarded a journalism award in 2003. Since 2004 he is a partner and CTO of Secure Network, a firm specializing in information security training and consulting, based in Milan."