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IODEF Enumeration Reference Format
draft-ietf-mile-enum-reference-format-06

The information below is for an old version of the document.
Document Type
This is an older version of an Internet-Draft that was ultimately published as RFC 7495.
Authors Adam W. Montville , David L. Black
Last updated 2014-07-01 (Latest revision 2014-06-20)
Replaces draft-montville-mile-enum-reference-format
RFC stream Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
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Reviews
Additional resources Mailing list discussion
Stream WG state Submitted to IESG for Publication
Document shepherd David Waltermire
Shepherd write-up Show Last changed 2014-06-23
IESG IESG state Became RFC 7495 (Proposed Standard)
Consensus boilerplate Unknown
Telechat date (None)
Responsible AD Kathleen Moriarty
Send notices to mile-chairs@tools.ietf.org, draft-ietf-mile-enum-reference-format@tools.ietf.org
draft-ietf-mile-enum-reference-format-06
INTERNET-DRAFT                                         Adam W. Montville
Intended Status: Standards Track                              (Tripwire)
Updates: 5070 (if approved)                                  David Black
Expires: December 22, 2014                                         (EMC)
                                                                        
                                                           June 20, 2014

                  IODEF Enumeration Reference Format 
                draft-ietf-mile-enum-reference-format-06

Abstract

   The Incident Object Description Exchange Format (IODEF) provides a
   Reference class used to reference external entities (such as
   enumeration identifiers).  However, the method of external entity
   identification has been left unstructured.  This document describes a
   method to provide structure for referencing external entities for the
   IODEF Reference class and thus updates IODEF's ReferenceName
   (RFC5070).

Status of this Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted to IETF in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups.  Note that
   other groups may also distribute working documents as
   Internet-Drafts.

   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
   time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

   The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at
   http://www.ietf.org/1id-abstracts.html

   The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at
   http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html

Copyright and License Notice

   Copyright (c) 2014 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
 

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   document authors. All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
   publication of this document. Please review these documents
   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
   to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

   This document may contain material from IETF Documents or IETF
   Contributions published or made publicly available before November
   10, 2008.  The person(s) controlling the copyright in some of this
   material may not have granted the IETF Trust the right to allow
   modifications of such material outside the IETF Standards Process.
   Without obtaining an adequate license from the person(s) controlling
   the copyright in such materials, this document may not be modified
   outside the IETF Standards Process, and derivative works of it may
   not be created outside the IETF Standards Process, except to format
   it for publication as an RFC or to translate it into languages other
   than English.

Table of Contents

   1  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
     1.1  Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   2.  Referencing External Enumerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   3  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
   4  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
   5 IODEF XML Schema Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
   6  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
     6.1  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
     6.2  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
   Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8

 

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1  Introduction

   There is an identified need to specify a format to include relevant
   enumeration values in an IODEF document.  It is anticipated that this
   requirement will exist in other standardization efforts within
   several IETF Working Groups, but the scope of this document pertains
   solely to IODEF [IODEF].

1.1  Terminology

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
   document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC2119].

2.  Referencing External Enumerations

   The need is to place enumeration identifiers and their references in
   IODEF [IODEF]'s Reference class.  There are several ways to
   accomplish this goal, but the most appropriate at this point is to
   require a specific format for the ReferenceName string of the IODEF
   [IODEF] Reference class, and use an IANA registry to manage the
   resulting reference formats.

      +------------------+
      | Reference        |
      +------------------+
      |                  |<>----------[ ReferenceName ]
      |                  |<>--{0..*}--[ URL           ]
      |                  |<>--{0..*}--[ Description   ]
      +------------------+

                FIGURE 1: IODEF [IODEF] Reference Class 

   Per IODEF [IODEF] the ReferenceName is of type ML_STRING.  This
   becomes problematic when specific references, especially enumerations
   such as CVE [CVE], CCE [CCE], CPE [CPE] and so on, are referenced -
   how is an implementer to know which type of reference this is, and
   thus how to parse it? One solution, presented here, is to require
   that ReferenceName follow a particular format. 

   Inclusion of such enumerations, especially those related to security
   automation, is important to incident communication and investigation.
    Typically, an enumeration identifier is simply an identifier with a
   specific format as defined by an external party.

 2.1 Reference Name Format

 

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   The Reference Name Format uses XML to provide the structure for
   enumeration identification, and requires that a specific Index be
   associated with the ID. An implementer can look up the ID type (as
   referenced by the Index) in the IANA table (see Section 4) to
   understand how the ID is structured. The Index field in the XML
   unambiguously indicates which IANA registry entry is to be used to
   correctly reference the enumeration specification, which avoids
   interpretation of version strings that may have specification-
   specific formats.

      <Reference>
         <ReferenceName>
            <Index>1</Index>
            <ID>CXI-1234-XYZ</ID>
         </ReferenceName>
         <URL>http://cxi.example.com</URL>
         <Description>Foo</Description>
      </Reference>

      LISTING 1: Example Use of IODEF Enumeration Reference Format

   Information in the IANA table (see Section 4) would include:

      Full Name: Concept X Identifier
      Index: 1
      Version: any
      Specification URI: http://cxi.example.com/spec_url

 2.3 Reference Method Applicability

      While the scope of this document pertains to IODEF [IODEF], it
      should be readily apparent that any standard needing to reference
      an enumeration identified by a specially formatted string can use
      this method of providing structure after the standard has been
      published.  In effect, this method provides a standardized
      interface for enumerations, thus allowing a loose coupling between
      a given standard and the enumeration identifiers it needs to
      reference now and in the future.

 

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3  Security Considerations

      Producers of IODEF [IODEF] content SHOULD be careful to ensure a
      proper mapping of enumeration reference ID elements to the correct
      Index. Potential consequences of not mapping correctly include
      inaccurate information references and similar distribution of
      misinformation.

      Use of enumeration reference IDs from trusted sources SHOULD be
      preferred by implementers to mitigate the risk of receiving and/or
      providing misinformation.  Trust decisions with respect to
      enumeration reference providers is beyond the scope of this
      document.

      In some cases it might be possible for a third-party to host
      content associated with an enumeration reference ID.  In such a
      circumstance, trust SHOULD extend from the origin of the
      enumeration reference ID to the third-party, effectively making
      the third-party a trusted third-party in the context of providing
      a particular set of enumeration reference IDs.

4  IANA Considerations

      This document specifies an identifier format for the IODEF [IODEF]
      ReferenceName string of the Reference class.

      This memo creates the following registry for IANA to manage:

      Name of the Registry: "Enumeration Reference Type Identifiers"

      Fields to record in the registry: 

         Full Name: The full name of the enumeration as a string from
         the printable ASCII character set.

         Abbreviation: An abbreviation may be an acronym - it consists
         of upper-case characters (at least two, upper-case is used to
         avoid mismatches due to case differences), as specified by this
         ABNF [RFC5234] syntax:

               ABBREVIATION = 2*UC-ALPHA      ; At least two
               UC-ALPHA = %x41-5A             ; A-Z

               Multiple registrations MAY use the same Abbreviation but
               MUST have different Versions.

         Index: This is an IANA-assigned positive integer that
 

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         identifies the registration.  The first entry added to this
         registry uses the value 1, and this value is incremented for
         each subsequent entry added to the registry.

         Version: The version of the enumeration as a free-form string
         from the printable ASCII character set excepting white space.  

         Specification URI: A list of one or more URIs [RFC3986] from
         which the registered specification can be obtained.  The
         registered specification MUST be readily and publicly available
         from that URI.  The URI SHOULD be a stable reference to a
         specific version of the specification.  URIs that designate the
         latest version of a specification (which changes when a new
         version appears) SHOULD NOT be used.

      Initial registry contents: None.

      Allocation Policy: Specification Required [RFC5226] (which implies
      Expert Review [RFC5226]).

   The Designated Expert is expected to consult with the MILE (Managed
   Incident Lightweight Exchange) working group or its successor if any
   such WG exists (e.g., via email to the working group's mailing list).
   The Designated Expert is expected to review the request and validate
   the appropriateness of the enumeration for the attribute.  If a
   specification is associated with the request, it MUST be reviewed by
   the Designated Expert.

   The Designated Expert is expected to ensure that the Full Name,
   Abbreviation and Version are appropriate and that the information at
   the Specification URI is sufficient to unambiguously parse
   identifiers based on that specification. Additionally, the Designated
   Expert should prefer short Abbreviations over long ones.

5 IODEF XML Schema Changes

   The changes to the IODEF [IODEF] schema are detailed below.  Note
   that in addition to the element changes described below, certain
   attributes of the xs:schema element in the schema document should be
   updated, as well as certain information in the document class.   

   The xs:schema attributes are updated as follows:

      targetNamespace="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:iodef-1.01"

      xmlns="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:iodef-1.01"

      xmlns:iodef="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:iodef-1.01"
 

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   The IODEF-Document element description is updated to have a fixed
   version of "1.01" instead of "1.00", such that:

      <xs:element name="IODEF-Document">
        <xs:complexType>
          <xs:sequence>
            <xs:element ref="iodef:Incident" maxOccurs="unbounded"/>
          </xs:sequence>
          <xs:attribute name="version" type="xs:string" fixed="1.00"/>
          <xs:attribute name="lang" type="xs:language" use="required"/>
          <xs:attribute name="formatid" type="xs:string"/>
        </xs:complexType>
      </xs:element>

   Is changed to:

      <xs:element name="IODEF-Document">
        <xs:complexType>
          <xs:sequence>
            <xs:element ref="iodef:Incident" maxOccurs="unbounded"/>
          </xs:sequence>
          <xs:attribute name="version" type="xs:string" fixed="1.01"/>
          <xs:attribute name="lang" type="xs:language" use="required"/>
          <xs:attribute name="formatid" type="xs:string"/>
        </xs:complexType>
      </xs:element>

   The ReferenceName element is updated by replacing the following line
   in the 1.00 schema:

      <xs:element name="ReferenceName" type="iodef:MLStringType"/>

   With:

      <xs:element name="ReferenceName">
        <xs:complexType>
          <xs:sequence>
           <xs:element name="Index" type="xs:integer"/>
           <xs:element name="ID" type="xs:NCName"/>
          </xs:sequence>
        </xs:complexType>
      </xs:element>

      LISTING 2: IODEF Enumeration Reference Format Schema Changes

   This change to the IODEF [IODEF] schema may cause interoperability
   issues depending on tool implementation.  If strict schema validation
   is used by a 1.00 tool when parsing an incoming IODEF [IODEF] 1.01
 

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   document, the elements under ReferenceName may not be understood and
   could cause errors.  If strict schema validation is not used when
   parsing an incoming IODEF [IODEF] 1.01 document with a 1.00 tool, the
   elements under ReferenceName should simply be present in the object
   model, but this may lead to unpredictable results.  

   Implementers are encouraged to update their code to handle the IODEF
   [IODEF] 1.00 schema and the 1.01 schemas explicitly to avoid any
   unhandled exceptions that may occur when a 1.00 implementation
   attempts to parse a 1.01 document.

6  References

6.1  Normative References

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

   [IODEF]    Danyliw, R., Meijer, J., and Y. Demchenko, "The Incident
              Object Description Exchange Format", RFC 5070, December
              2007.

   [RFC5226]  Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, "Guidelines for Writing an
              IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP 26, RFC 5226,
              May 2008.

   [RFC3986]  Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, "Uniform
              Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax", STD 66,
              RFC 3986, January 2005.

   [RFC5234]  Crocker, D., Ed., and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for
              Syntax Specifications: ABNF", STD 68, RFC 5234, January
              2008.

6.2  Informative References

   [CCE] http://cce.mitre.org

   [CPE] http://cpe.mitre.org

   [CVE] http://cve.mitre.org

Authors' Addresses

 

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   Adam W. Montville

   EMail: adam@stoicsecurity.com

   David Black
   EMC Corporation

   EMail: david.black@emc.com

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