Quarantine Device for Isolating Malicious API Requests
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Solution Overview
Problem
In federated identity management systems, service providers face challenges in securing sensitive data as they rely on external parties for authentication, making them vulnerable to harmful or unexpected API requests, which can compromise their systems and data.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a system that identifies and isolates potentially harmful API requests by routing them to a quarantine area, where they can be analyzed and processed without impacting production resources, using a quarantine device that generates decoy responses to gather further information and train machine learning models for future threat recognition.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Device complexity
If service providers rely on external parties for authentication in federated identity management systems, then authentication complexity and security burden are reduced, but vulnerability to harmful API requests increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments API traffic into legitimate and compromised streams using a quarantine device that identifies and isolates harmful requests. This segmentation allows the service provider to maintain simplified authentication while blocking targeted attacks, resolving the contradiction between reduced authentication complexity and increased vulnerability.
Solution Approach 2:
A quarantine device is introduced as an intermediary component between the authentication system and production resources. This intermediary monitors and filters API requests without complicating the federated authentication process, enabling the service provider to benefit from external authentication while protecting against harmful requests.
2Reliability
If all API requests are blocked to prevent compromised access, then system security is improved, but system availability for legitimate users deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The quarantine device segments traffic flow by routing only compromised requests through the quarantine area while allowing legitimate requests to reach production resources unchanged. This selective segmentation maintains both security and availability, avoiding the need to block all API requests.
Solution Approach 2:
The system extracts and isolates only the harmful portion of API traffic into a quarantine area, separating it from legitimate requests. This extraction approach ensures that security measures target only compromised traffic, preserving system availability for legitimate users while maintaining security.
3Reliability
If a quarantine area is implemented to isolate harmful requests, then production resources are protected, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The quarantine device serves as a dedicated intermediary component that handles all quarantine logic and traffic routing. By consolidating quarantine functionality into a single specialized device, the system protects production resources without distributing complexity across multiple components, managing system complexity effectively.
4Measurement precision
If machine learning models are trained using quarantined traffic data, then future threat recognition is improved, but data processing requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary action by collecting and storing quarantined traffic data for future training purposes. By preparing training data in advance during normal operation, the system improves future threat detection accuracy without requiring intensive real-time processing, thereby managing energy consumption effectively.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods, systems, devices, and computer-readable media for a quarantining system are provided. A message comprising an application programming interface (API) request may be sent by a client device to a service provider system for access to a first application. The message may be received at a gateway of the service provider system. The gateway may determine that the API request is associated with potentially harmful, malicious, or otherwise unexpected activity. The message may be routed to a quarantine environment and a decoy API configured to interface with a decoy application that uses decoy information to emulate the requested first application may be identified. The API request may be modified to call the decoy API. The decoy application may be executed and a decoy response generated. The decoy response may be sent to the client device in response to the API request.