LaBrea - A New Approach to Securing Our Networks

This paper has been written to illustrate two of the things that are overlooked with most levels of security implemented to provide a depth of defense: what is happening to the IP addresses on the network that are not being used, and how can these be used to tighten security? If available IP addresses could be used to hold spreading worms or probing systems, then there would be a tangible benefit. LaBrea, an application to address this concept, will be discussed. As LaBrea was written in response to the Code Red outbreak, some insight will be provided into how this worm could defeat existing security mechanisms and what benefit the tool LaBrea could offer. To allow us this insight we will look into the history and technology behind this application, the networking fundamentals that allow it to work, and then study the failings of other defenses within existing security solutions.