Information Assurance

9.4. Network Attack Graphs

Network attack graphs represent a collection of possible penetration scenarios in a computer network. Each penetration scenario is a sequence of actions taken by the intruder, typically culminating in a particular goal—administrative access on a particular host, access to a database, service disruption, and so on. For appropriately constructed network models, attack graphs give a bird’s-eye view of every scenario that can lead to a serious security breach.

9.4.1. Network Attack Model

We model a network using either the tuple of inputs, <S,R,S₀, L>, in the first algorithm (Figure 9.1) or the Bücchi automaton, M, of the second algorithm (Figure 9.2).

To be concrete, for the remainder of this chapter we will work in the ...