Bro: a system for detecting network intruders in real-time

Abstract

We describe Bro, a stand-alone system for detecting network intruders in real-time by passively monitoring a network link over which the intruder's traffic transits. We give an overview of the system's design, which emphasizes high-speed (FDDI-rate) monitoring, real-time notification, clear separation between mechanism and policy, and extensibility. To achieve these ends, Bro is divided into an `event engine' that reduces a kernel-filtered network traffic stream into a series of higher-level events, and a `policy script interpreter' that interprets event handlers written in a specialized language used to express a site's security policy. Event handlers can update state information, synthesize new events, record information to disk, and generate real-time notifications via syslog. We also discuss a number of attacks that attempt to subvert passive monitoring systems and defenses against these, and give particulars of how Bro analyzes the six applications integrated into it so far: Finger, FTP, Portmapper, Ident, Telnet and Rlogin. The system is publicly available in source code form.