Using VProbes for intrusion detection

Many current intrusion detection systems (IDSes) are vulnerable to intruders because they are running under the same operating system (OS) as a potential attacker. Since an attacker will often be attempting to co-opt the OS, this leaves the IDS vulnerable to subversion by the attacker. While some systems escape this threat, they typically do so by running the OS inside a modified hypervisor. This risks of adding new bugs that reduce the correctness or security of the hypervisor, and may make it harder to incorporate upstream improvements. VMware has a technology called VProbes that allows setting breakpoints, examining machine state, and inspecting memory from a VM host. This thesis introduces VProbe Instrumentation for VM Intrusion Detection (VIVID), which makes subverting the instrumentation much harder while still allowing the use of an off-the-shelf hypervisor.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2013

Author dc:creator

• Dehnert, Alexander Worthington

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• M. Frans Kaashoek and Ricardo Gonzalez.

• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/85414

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/85414