INTERSECTION Approach to Vulnerability Handling

In this paper our approach to heterogeneous networks vulnerability handling is presented. Vulnerabilities of heterogeneous networks like satellite, GSM/GPRS, UMTS, wireless sensor networks and the Internet have been identified, classified and described in the framework of the European co-funded project, named INTERSECTION (INfrastructure for heTErogeneous, Resilient, SEcure, Complex, Tightly Inter-Operating Networks). Since computer security incidents usually occur across administrative domains and interconnected networks it is quite clear that it would be advantageous for different organizations and network operators to be able to share data on network vulnerabilities. The exchange of vulnerability information and statistics would be crucial for proactive identification of trends that can lead to incident prevention. Network operators have always been reticent to disclose information about attacks on their systems or through their networks. However, this tendency seems to be overcome by the new awareness that it is only through cooperation that networking infrastructures can be made robust to attacks and failures. Starting from these considerations, we developed two components, namely INTERSECTION Vulnerability Database (IVD) and Project INTERSECTION Vulnerability Ontology Tool (PIVOT), for vulnerability data management and classification. Both tools will be presented in this paper.