CybOX™ Version 2.1.1.

Part 01: Overview

Committee Specification Draft 01 /
Public Review Draft 01
20 June 2016
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Technical Committee:
OASIS Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) TC
Chair:
Richard Struse ([email protected]), DHS Office of Cybersecurity and
Communications (CS&C)
Editors:
Trey Darley ([email protected]), Individual member
Ivan Kirillov ([email protected]), MITRE Corporation
Rich Piazza ([email protected]), MITRE Corporation
Desiree Beck ([email protected]), MITRE Corporation
Additional artifacts:
This prose specification is one component of a Work Product whose components are listed in
http://docs.oasis-open.org/cti/cybox/v2.1.1/csprd01/cybox-v2.1.1-csprd01-additional-
artifacts.html.
Related work:
This specification is related to:
 STIX™ Version 1.2.1. Edited by Sean Barnum, Desiree Beck, Aharon Chernin, and Rich
Piazza. 05 May 2016. OASIS Committee Specification 01.
http://docs.oasis-open.org/cti/stix/v1.2.1/cs01/part1-overview/stix-v1.2.1-cs01-part1-
overview.html.
Abstract:
The Cyber Observable Expression (CybOX) is a standardized language for encoding and
communicating high-fidelity information about cyber observables, whether dynamic events or
stateful measures that are observable in the operational cyber domain. By specifying a common
cybox-v2.1.1-csprd01-part01-overview 20 June 2016
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 structured schematic mechanism for these cyber observables, the intent is to enable the potential
for detailed automatable sharing, mapping, detection and analysis heuristics. This document
serves as an overview of those specifications and defines how they are used within the broader
CybOX framework.
Status:
This document was last revised or approved by the OASIS Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) TC on
the above date. The level of approval is also listed above. Check the “Latest version” location
noted above for possible later revisions of this document. Any other numbered Versions and
other technical work produced by the Technical Committee (TC) are listed at https://www.oasis-
open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=cti#technical.
TC members should send comments on this specification to the TC’s email list. Others should
send comments to the TC’s public comment list, after subscribing to it by following the
instructions at the “Send A Comment” button on the TC’s web page at https://www.oasis-
open.org/committees/cti/.
For information on whether any patents have been disclosed that may be essential to
implementing this specification, and any offers of patent licensing terms, please refer to the
Intellectual Property Rights section of the TC’s web page
(https://www.oasis-open.org/committees/cti/ipr.php).
Citation format:
When referencing this specification the following citation format should be used:
[CybOX-v2.1.1-overview]
CybOX™ Version 2.1.1. Part 01: Overview. Edited by Trey Darley, Ivan Kirillov, Rich Piazza, and
Desiree Beck. 20 June 2016. OASIS Committee Specification Draft 01 / Public Review Draft 01.
http://docs.oasis-open.org/cti/cybox/v2.1.1/csprd01/part01-overview/cybox-v2.1.1-csprd01-
part01-overview.html. Latest version: http://docs.oasis-open.org/cti/cybox/v2.1.1/part01-
overview/cybox-v2.1.1-part01-overview.html.

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Portions copyright © United States Government 2012-2016.  All Rights Reserved.

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Table of Contents
1 Introduction......................................................................................................................................... 6
1.1 CybOX Specification Documents...................................................................................................... 6
1.2 Document Conventions..................................................................................................................... 6
1.2.1 Fonts.......................................................................................................................................... 6
1.2.2 UML Package References......................................................................................................... 7
1.2.3 UML Diagrams........................................................................................................................... 7
1.3 Terminology....................................................................................................................................... 8
1.4 Normative References....................................................................................................................... 8
1.5 Non-Normative References............................................................................................................... 8
2 Language Modularity........................................................................................................................... 9
2.1 Core Data Model............................................................................................................................... 9
2.2 Object Models................................................................................................................................... 9
2.3 Events and Actions Data Models..................................................................................................... 11
2.4 Common Data Model....................................................................................................................... 11
2.4.1 Object Property Model............................................................................................................. 11
2.5 Default Extensions Data Model....................................................................................................... 14
2.6 Default Vocabularies....................................................................................................................... 14
2.7 Basic Data Types............................................................................................................................ 14
2.7.1 Common Basic Data Types...................................................................................................... 14
2.7.2 Specializations of the BasicString Data Type...........................................................................15
3 Data Model Conventions................................................................................................................... 17
3.1 UML Packages................................................................................................................................ 17
3.2 Naming Conventions....................................................................................................................... 18
3.3 Identifiers......................................................................................................................................... 18
4 Relationships to Other Externally-defined Data Models....................................................................19
4.1 Customer Information Quality (CIQ)................................................................................................ 19
4.2 Common Platform Enumeration (CPE)............................................................................................ 19
5 Conformance..................................................................................................................................... 20
Appendix A. Acknowledgments................................................................................................................. 21
Appendix B. Revision History.................................................................................................................... 25

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1 Introduction
[All text is normative unless otherwise labeled]
The Cyber Observable Expression (CybOX™) provides a common structure for representing cyber
observables across and among the operational areas of enterprise cyber security. CybOX improves the
consistency, efficiency, and interoperability of deployed tools and processes, and it increases overall
situational awareness by enabling the potential for detailed automatable sharing, mapping, detection, and
analysis heuristics.

This CybOX specification overview document serves as a unifying document for the full set of CybOX
specification documents. In Section , we discuss additional specification documents, in Section 1.2, we
provide document conventions, and in Section 1.3, we provide terminology. References are given in
Sections 1.4 and 1.5. In Section 2 we discusses the modularity of CybOX, and summarizes the
relationship of CybOX to other languages. In section 3, we discuss conventions common across all of the
data models. Conformance information is also provided in Section 4.

1.1 CybOX Specification Documents

The CybOX specification consists of a formal UML model and a set of textual specification documents
that explain the UML model. Specification documents have been written for each of the individual data
models that compose the full CybOX UML model.

CybOX has a modular design comprising two fundamental data models and a collection of Object data
models. The fundamental data models – CybOX Core and CybOX Common – provide essential CybOX
structure and functionality. The CybOX Objects, defined in individual data models, are precise
characterizations of particular types of observable cyber entities (e.g., HTTP session, Windows registry
key, DNS query). Additionally, the full CybOX data model includes various extension data models and a
set of default controlled vocabularies.

Use of the CybOX Core and Common data models is required; however, use of the CybOX Object data
models is purely optional: users select and use only those Objects and corresponding data models that
are needed. Importing the entire CybOX suite of data models is not necessary.

1.2 Document Conventions

The following conventions are used in this document.

1.2.1 Fonts
The following font and font style conventions are used in the document:

 Capitalization is used for CybOX high level concepts, which are defined in CybOX™ Version
2.1.1 Part 1: Overview.

Examples: Action, Object, Event, Property

 The Courier New font is used for writing UML objects.

Examples: ActionType, cyboxCommon:BaseObjectPropertyType

Note that all high level concepts have a corresponding UML object. For example, the Action high
level concept is associated with a UML class named, ActionType.

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  The ‘italic’ font (with single quotes) is used for noting actual, explicit values for CybOX Language
properties. The italic font (without quotes) is used for noting example values.

Example: ‘HashNameVocab-1.0,’ high, medium, low

1.2.2 UML Package References

Each CybOX data model is captured in a different UML package (e.g., Core package) where the
packages together compose the full CybOX UML model. To refer to a particular class of a specific
package, we use the format package_prefix:class, where package_prefix corresponds to
the appropriate UML package.

1.2.3 UML Diagrams

This specification makes use of UML diagrams to visually depict relationships between CybOX Language
constructs. Note that the diagrams have been extracted directly from the full UML model for CybOX; they
have not been constructed purely for inclusion in the specification documents.  Typically, diagrams are
included for the primary class of a data model, and for any other class where the visualization of its
relationships between other classes would be useful.  This implies that there will be very few diagrams for
classes whose only properties are either a data type or a class from the CybOX Common data model. 
Other diagrams that are included correspond to classes that specialize a superclass and abstract or
generalized classes that are extended by one or more subclasses.

In UML diagrams, classes are often presented with their attributes elided, to avoid clutter. A class
presented with an empty section at the bottom of the icon indicates that there are no attributes other than
those that are visualized using associations.

1.2.3.1 Class Properties

Generally, a class property can be shown in a UML diagram as either an attribute or an association (i.e.,
the distinction between attributes and associations is somewhat subjective). In order to make the size of
UML diagrams in the specifications manageable, we have chosen to capture most properties as attributes
and to capture only higher level properties as associations, especially in the main top-level component
diagrams. In particular, we will always capture properties of UML data types as attributes.

1.2.3.2 Diagram Icons and Arrow Types

Diagram icons are used in a UML diagram to indicate whether a shape is a class, enumeration, or a data
type, and decorative icons are used to indicate whether an element is an attribute of a class or an
enumeration literal. In addition, two different arrow styles indicate either a directed association
relationship (regular arrowhead) or a generalization relationship (triangle-shaped arrowhead). The icons
and arrow styles we use are shown and described in Table 1 -1.

Table 1-1. UML diagram icons

Icon Description

This diagram icon indicates a class. If the name is

in italics, it is an abstract class.

This diagram icon indicates an enumeration.

This diagram icon indicates a data type.

This decorator icon indicates an attribute of a

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 class. The green circle means its visibility is public.
If the circle is red or yellow, it means its visibility is
private or protected.

This decorator icon indicates an enumeration

literal.

This arrow type indicates a directed association

relationship.

This arrow type indicates a generalization

relationship.

1.3 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 [RFC2119].

1.4 Normative References

[RFC2119] Bradner, S., “Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels”, BCP
14, RFC 2119, March 1997. http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2119.txt.
[CPE] Common Platform Enumeration (CPE). (2014, Nov. 28). The MITRE Corporation.
[Online]. Available: http://cpe.mitre.org.
[CIQ] Customer Information Quality (CIQ) Specifications Version 3.0. Edited by Ram
Kumar. 8 April 2008. OASIS Public Review Draft 03. Available: http://docs.oasis-
open.org/ciq/v3.0/specs/ciq-specs-v3.html.
[W3DT] “XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes Second Edition,” W3C Recommendation, 28
October 2004. Available: http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-2.
[CAPEC] Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC). (2014, Nov.
7). The MITRE Corporation. [Online]. Available: http://capec.mitre.org.
[CEE] Common Event Expression (CEE). (2014, Nov. 28). The MITRE Corporation.
[Online]. Available: http://cee.mitre.org.
[CVE] Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE). (2015, Jul. 28). The MITRE
Corporation. [Online]. Available: http://cve.mitre.org.
[CWE] Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE). (2014, Jul. 31). The MITRE
Corporation. [Online]. Available: http://cwe.mitre.org.
[ISO8601] Date and time format – ISO 8601 (n.d.). International Organization for
Standardization (ISO). [Online]. Available:
http://www.iso.org/iso/home/standards/iso8601.htm. Accessed Aug. 23, 2015.
[RFC3986] Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R. and Masinter, L., “Uniform Resource Identifier
(URI): Generic Syntax,” STD 66, RFC 3986, January 2005. Available:
https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3986.txt.
[RFC5646] Phillips, A. and Davis, M., “Tags for Identifying Languages,” BCP 47, RFC 5646,
September 2009. Available: http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc5646.txt.
[W3Name] “Namespaces in XML 1.0 (Third Edition),” W3C Recommendation, 8 December
2009. Available: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml-names.

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1.5 Non-Normative References
[UML-2.4.1] Documents associated with Unified Modeling Language (UML), V2.4.1. (Aug.
2011). The Object Management Group (OMG). [Online]. Available:
http://www.omg.org/spec/UML/2.4.1/.

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2 Language Modularity
2.1 Core Data Model
The CybOX Core data model defines the four main classes: Action, Event, Observable and Object which
corresponds to the primary structure characterized in CybOX. Please see CybOX™ Version 2.1.1 Part
3: Core for complete information on the CybOX Core data model.

2.2 Object Models

Each release of the CybOX language includes a particular set of Objects that are part of the release.
There are eighty-eight different Object data models in CybOX 2.1.1. They cover a varied collection of
artifacts that are pertinent to the cyber threat domain. The data model for each of these Objects is defined
by its own UML package that describes the context-specific classes and properties that comprise the
Object. As stated in the introduction, the use of any particular CybOX Object data models is purely
optional: users select and use only those Objects and corresponding data models that are needed.

The grouping of Objects below is for expository purposes only. It does not suggest or imply the need to
use of any particular Object data model.

 Host-based Artifacts
o File-related
 Library
 Windows Pipe
 Pipe
 Unix Pipe
 Windows Filemapping
 File
 File
 Image File
 PDF File
 Archive File
 Windows File
 Unix File
 Windows Executable File
o Memory-related
 Windows Critical Section
 Semaphore
 Windows Semaphore
 Windows Waitable Timer
 Mutex
 Windows Mutex
 Windows Hook
 Windows Kernel Hook
 Windows Memory Page Region
 Windows Handle
 Memory
 Windows Mailslot
o Mobile
 SMS Message
o Process-related
 Process
 Windows Thread

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  Unix Process
 Windows Process
o Disk-related
 Disk
 Disk Partition
 Volume
 Unix Volume
 Windows Volume
o Network-related
 Network Socket
 Socket Address
 Network Route Entry
 Windows Network Route Entry
 Unix Network Route Entry
 Windows Network Share
 Hostname
 ARP Cache
 URL History
o Device/System
 Device
 System
 Windows System
o OS Metadata
 Account
 User Account
 GUI
 GUI
 GUI Window
 GUI Dialog Box
 Unix/Linux
 Unix User Account
 Linux Package
 Windows
 Windows Prefetch
 Windows Task
 Windows Service
 Windows System Restore
 Windows Computer Account
 Windows User Account
 Windows Driver
 Windows Service
 Windows Event
 Windows Event Log
 Windows Registry Key
 Windows Kernel
 Network-based Artifacts
o Email Message
o DNS
 DNS Record
 DNS Query
 DNS Cache
o Network Route
o Network Subnet
o Network Connection
o Network Flow
o Network Packet

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 o HTTP Session
o AS
o Address
o Email Message
o URI
o Port
o Domain Name
o Whois
 Misc.
o Code
o User Session
o API
o Custom
o Link
o Product
o X509 Certificate
o Artifact

The Object data models are split into three major categories: Host-based artifacts, Network-based
artifacts, and the catch-all miscellaneous artifacts. Among the Host-based artifacts, there are many data
models that are extensions of others in order to define properties specific to the Windows or Unix
operating systems. Some of the Object data models are very simple (e.g. DNS_Cache), containing one
or two UML classes or data types; others are quite complex, encompassing many UML classes (e.g.,
PDF_File). Each individual Object data model has a main toplevel class, which is usually named after the
UML package name (e.g., the main class in the PDF File Object data model is PDFFileObjectType).

2.3 Events and Actions Data Models

The Event and Action data models are designed to support modular expression of any event made up of
one or more actions with the ability to relate actions to one another and to relate actions to relevant
objects. The Action data model allows expression of the nature of the action, any relevant arguments and
relationships to any relevant objects including the nature of the relationship and any specific effects the
action has on the object.

2.4 Common Data Model

The CybOX Common data model defines object classes that are shared across the various CybOX data
models. At a high level, the CybOX Common data model provides object property classes, content
aggregation classes, shared classes, and a pattern class for permitting complex (i.e. regular-expression
based) specifications. Please see CybOX™ Version 2.1.1 Part 2: Common for complete information on
the CybOX Common data model.

2.4.1 Object Property Model

The Object Property data model in CybOX is sophisticated, enabling the description of complex
Observables. Observables can be made up of Objects or Events. In this section, we will concentrate on
the Object aspect of an Observable.

Objects have two main properties, Properties and Related_Objects. This is shown in Figure 2 -1.

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Figure 2-1. UML diagram for ObjectType class
The Object data models, described in Section 2.2, are not extensions of ObjectType, but instead are
used in an ObjectType class instance via the Properties property. Accordingly, they are extensions
of ObjectPropertiesType, an abstract class. Notice that only a single toplevel instance from one of
the Object data models is specified in the Properties property. Instances of other Objects can be
referred to via the Related_Objects property.
Once the Object data model to be used in an ObjectType instance is selected, its properties can be
assigned values. Such Object properties are based on one of four different kinds of property types:
 BasicTypes
 ObjectPropertyType extension classes
 Other classes defined in the same Object domain model
 Other toplevel classes from other Object domain models.
The following figures provide an example.

Figure 2-2. Toplevel class of the Email_Message_Object data model

The EmailMessageObjectType class extends the ObjectPropertiesType, and therefore can be

used in the ObjectType class (Figure 2 -2). The properties of EmailMessageObjectType use other
classes from the same UML package as well as StringObjectPropertyType, an extension of
ObjectPropertyType.

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Figure 2-3. Details of other classes of the Email_Message_Object data model
Expanding the detail of the EmailHeaderType class (Figure 2 -3), one can see that in addition to data
type-based properties extended from the ObjectPropertyType class (e.g.,
IntegerObjectPropertyType) it also makes use of a class from the domain model of another Object
(AddressObjectType). Notice that AddressObjectType contains properties that use data types from
the BasicTypes package (see Section 2.7).

Figure 2-4. UML diagram of the BaseObjectPropertyType data type

Use of UML data types that extend from BaseObjectPropertyType enables a producer of content to
include much more detail about the value of an Object’s property (Figure 2 -4).
BaseObjectPropertyType data type extends from BaseObjectPropertyGroup, which is an
abstract data type that contains the auxiliary metadata properties associated with the main property value
being represented. For example, when using StringObjectPropertyType to describe the
File_Name property of a File Object, one might want to include that the observed encoding of the string
is “windows-1251”.
In addition, the BaseObjectPropertyType data type also inherits from PatternFieldGroup data
type. This data type incorporates pattern matching capabilities to all specializations of
BaseObjectPropertyType. An example of using properties from PatternFieldGroup would be to
use a StringObjectPropertyType to specify that the File Object’s File_Extension property
satisfied the condition: not equal to “exe”.

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Accordingly, it follows that properties from BaseObjectPropertyGroup are used only when specifying
an actual observation and properties from PatternFieldGroup are used only when specifying an
observable pattern.

2.5 Default Extensions Data Model

A primary design principle of CybOX is to avoid duplicating data models that already exist for capturing
cyber threat information. Therefore, CybOX leverages a number of other structured languages and
identifiers through the use of default extensions.
More precisely, the CybOX Default Extensions data model provides loose-coupling mechanisms and
default extensions for leveraging constituent data models such as the Common Platform Enumeration
[CPE] and OASIS Customer Information Quality model [CIQ].

Please see CybOX™ Version 2.1.1 Part 4: Default Extensions for complete information on the CybOX
Default Extensions data model.

2.6 Default Vocabularies

For some properties captured in CybOX, a content creator may choose to constrain the set of possible
values by referencing an externally-defined vocabulary or by leveraging a default vocabulary class
defined within CybOX. Alternatively, the content creator may use an arbitrary value without specifying any
vocabulary. Please see CybOX™ Version 2.1.1 Part 5: Vocabularies for more information about the
default vocabularies defined in CybOX.

2.7 Basic Data Types

The Basic Data Types data model defines basic UML data types used in CybOX. As stated in the [UML
2.4.1] specification, UML data types are similar to UML classes, but also different:

“A data type is a special kind of classifier, similar to a class. It differs from a class in
that instances of a data type are identified only by their value. All copies of an instance
of a data type and any instances of that data type with the same value are considered
to be equal instances. Instances of a data type that have attributes (i.e., is a structured
data type) are considered to be equal if the structure is the same and the values of the
corresponding attributes are equal. If a data type has attributes, then instances of that
data type will contain attribute values matching the attributes.”

Although four of the requisite primitive data types (Boolean, Integer, String, UnlimitedNatural)
are defined in UML, the need for a broader set in CybOX drove the decision to define a complete set of
basic data types in a separate, stand-alone UML package (the Basic Data Types data model). We
explicitly define the data types in the Basic Data Types data model in Sections 2.7.1 and 2.7.2.

Note, that the use of UML data types from the Basic Data Types data model (e.g., BasicString,
Boolean) is not the same as using UML data types defined as specializations of
BaseObjectPropertyType (e.g., StringObjectPropertyType,
HexBinaryObjectPropertyType, etc.). The latter data types permits the use of properties from
BaseObjectPropertyGroup and PatternFieldGroup, which allow for a much richer
characterization of cyber observables. Also, it’s worth noting that not all data types defined in the Basic
Data Types data model are used in CybOX.

2.7.1 Common Basic Data Types

Common data types, such as string and integer, are defined in the Basic DataTypes data model and
adhere to the following definitions shown in Table 2 -2. These definitions are based on the specification
of the corresponding data types found in [W3DT].

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Table 2-2. Common basic data types

Data Type Definition

The BasicString data type is a sequence of characters.

BasicString Currently, characters are defined using the UTF-8 character
encoding. The number of characters allowed is finite, but
unbounded.

The Boolean data type is defined with two possible literals: ‘true’
Boolean
and ‘false’.

The Decimal data type is a sequence of decimal digits, with

Decimal perhaps an intervening decimal point, “.”. The number of digits on
either side of the decimal point is finite, but unbounded. Often
used to express currency amounts.

The Integer data type is a sequence of decimal digits, with

Integer perhaps a leading minus sign “-“. The number of decimal digits
allowed is finite, but unbounded.

The NonNegativeInteger data type is a restriction on the

NonNegativeInteger
Integer data type such that the leading minus sign is not allowed.

The PositiveInteger data type is a restriction on the

PositiveInteger
NonNegativeInteger data type that disallows zero (0).

2.7.2 Specializations of the BasicString Data Type

The data types in Table 2 -3 correspond to strings that have semantics associated with them. Because
of this, they usually are restricted to a certain pattern, defined via a regular expression, and/or more
formally defined in a standardization document.

Table 2-3. Specializations of the BasicString Data Type

Data Type Definition

The CAPEC_ID data type is a restriction on the BasicString

CAPEC_ID data type, such that it adheres to the regular expression
“CAPEC-\d+”. The CAPEC_ID values should correspond to
those defined at [CAPEC].

The CCE_ID data type is a restriction on the BasicString

CCE_ID data type such that it adheres to the regular expression “CCE-\
d+\d”. The CCE_ID values should correspond to those defined
at [CEE].

The CVE_ID data type is a restriction on the BasicString

CVE_ID data type such that it adheres to the regular expression “CVE-\
d\d\d\d+\d+”. The CVE_ID values should correspond to those
defined at [CVE].

The CWE_ID data type is a restriction on the BasicString

CWE_ID data type such that it adheres to the regular expression
“CWE-\d+”. The CWE_ID values should correspond to those
defined at [CWE].

DateTime The DateTime data type is a restriction on the BasicString

data type such that it adheres to the standard defined in

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 [ISO8601].

The HexBinary data type is a restriction on the

BasicString data type such that it adheres to the regular
HexBinary expression [0-9A-Fa-f]*. The number of characters allowed is
finite but unbounded. The number of digits must be even in
length.

The LanguageCode data type is a restriction on the

LanguageCode BasicString data type, such that it adheres to the standard
defined in [RFC5646].

The QualifiedName data type is a restriction on the

QualifiedName BasicString data type such that it adheres to the
requirements specified in [W3Name].

The NoEmbeddedQuoteString data type is a restriction on

NoEmbeddedQuoteString the BasicString data type such that it does not include any
double quote characters. This data type captures properties
that were attributes in the XML model.

The URI data type is a restriction on the BasicString data

URI type such that it adheres to the standard defined at
[RFC3986].

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3 Data Model Conventions
The following general information and conventions are used to define the individual data models in
CybOX™ Version 2.1.1 Part 6: UML Model. It should be noted that the CybOX data models actually
evolved as XML schemas, and as a consequence, our UML model follows some conventions so as to be
compatible with the preexisting XML implementation. However, we have abstracted away from the XML
implementation as much as possible.

3.1 UML Packages

Each CybOX data model is captured in a different UML package (e.g., Core package, File_Object
package, etc.). To refer to a particular class of a specific package, we use the format
package_prefix:class, where package_prefix corresponds to the appropriate UML package.
Table 3 -4 lists the basic packages used throughout the CybOX data model specification documents,
along with the prefix notation and an example. Descriptions of the packages are provided in Section 2.

Table 3-4. Package prefixes used by the CybOX Language

Package CybOX Core

Prefix cybox
The CybOX Core data model defines the main classes of the
Description CybOX data model, such as ActionType, EventType,
ObservableType and ObjectType.
Example cyboxCore:ObservableType

Package CybOX Common

Prefix cyboxCommon
The CybOX Common data model defines classes that are
Description
shared across the various CybOX data models.

Example cyboxCommon:ConfidenceType

Package CybOX Default Vocabularies

Prefix cyboxVocabs
The CybOX default vocabularies define the classes for
Description
default controlled vocabularies used within CybOX.

Example cyboxVocabs:ActionTypeVocab

Package CybOX Basic Data Types

Prefix basicDataTypes
The Basic Data Types data model defines the types used
Description
within CybOX.
Example basicDataTypes:URI

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3.2 Naming Conventions
The UML classes, enumerations, and properties defined in CybOX follow the particular naming
conventions outlined in Table 3 -5.

Table 3-5. Naming formats of different object types

Object Type Format Example

Class CamelCase ending with “Type” IndicatorBaseType

Lowercase with underscores

Property (simple) capec_id
between words

Capitalized with underscores

Property (complex) Associated_Actor
between words

Enumeration CamelCase ending with “Enum” DateTimePrecisionEnum

Flash drive; Public Disclosure;

Enumeration value varies
Externally-Located

CamelCase or if the words are

Data type acronyms, all capitalized with PositiveInteger; CVE_ID
underscores between words.

3.3 Identifiers
Optional identifiers (IDs) can be assigned to several CybOX constructs so that the constructs can be
unambiguously referenced. Technically, the decision to specify an ID on a given construct is optional
based on the specifics of the usage context. As a general rule, specifying IDs on particular instances of
constructs enables clear referencing, relating, and pivoting.
In CybOX v2.1.1, each CybOX ID is a fully qualified name, which consists of a producer namespace and
a unique identifier. The producer namespace is a short-hand prefix, which is separated from the unique
identifier by a colon (“:”):
[producer namespace]:[unique identifier]
This format provides high assurance that IDs will be both meaningful and unique. Meaning comes from
producer namespace, which denotes who is producing it, and uniqueness comes from the unique
identifier.

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4 Relationships to Other Externally-defined Data
Models
CybOX™ Version 2.1.1 leverages several other externally-defined data models that are relevant to the
cyber threat domain. A listing of these other data models is given below.

Please see CybOX™ Version 2.2.1 Part 4: Default Extensions for further information on all of the
externally-defined data models CybOX leverages by default (with the exception of CybOX, for which a
different reference is given in Section Error: Reference source not found).

4.1 Customer Information Quality (CIQ)

The OASIS Customer Information Quality (CIQ) Version 3.0 is a set of XML specifications for
representing characteristic information about individuals and organizations [CIQ]. By extending the
CybOX Common AddressAbstractType and IdentityType classes, CybOX™ Version 2.2.1
leverages CIQ Version 3.0 to capture geographic address information and identity information associated
with Threat Actors, victims, and sources of information.

4.2 Common Platform Enumeration (CPE)

CPE is a structured naming scheme for information technology systems, software, and packages. Based
upon the generic syntax for Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI), CPE includes a formal name format, a
method for checking names against a system, and a description format for binding text and tests to a
name. An XSD schema for CPE version 2.3 can be found at [CPE].

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5 Conformance
Implementations have discretion over which parts (components, properties, extensions, controlled
vocabularies, etc.) of CybOX they implement (e.g., Observable/Object).

[1] Conformant implementations must conform to all normative structural specifications of the UML model
or additional normative statements within this document that apply to the portions of CybOX they
implement (e.g., Implementers of the entire Observable class must conform to all normative structural
specifications of the UML model regarding the Observable class or additional normative statements
contained in the document that describes the Observable class).

[2] Conformant implementations are free to ignore normative structural specifications of the UML model
or additional normative statements within this document that do not apply to the portions of CybOX they
implement (e.g., Non-implementers of any particular properties of the Observable class are free to ignore
all normative structural specifications of the UML model regarding those properties of the Observable
class or additional normative statements contained in the document that describes the Observable class).

The conformance section of this document is intentionally broad and attempts to reiterate what already
exists in this document.

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Appendix A. Acknowledgments
The following individuals have participated in the creation of this specification and are gratefully
acknowledged:
Aetna Airbus Group SAS
David Crawford Joerg Eschweiler
AIT Austrian Institute of Technology Marcos Orallo
Roman Fiedler Anomali
Florian Skopik Ryan Clough
Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ Wei Huang
Bank) Hugh Njemanze
Dean Thompson Katie Pelusi
Blue Coat Systems, Inc. Aaron Shelmire
Owen Johnson Jason Trost
Bret Jordan Bank of America
Century Link Alexander Foley
Cory Kennedy Center for Internet Security (CIS)
CIRCL Sarah Kelley
Alexandre Dulaunoy Check Point Software Technologies
Andras Iklody Ron Davidson
Raphaël Vinot Cisco Systems
Citrix Systems Syam Appala
Joey Peloquin Ted Bedwell
Dell David McGrew
Will Urbanski Pavan Reddy
Jeff Williams Omar Santos
DTCC Jyoti Verma
Dan Brown Cyber Threat Intelligence Network, Inc.
Gordon Hundley (CTIN)
Chris Koutras Doug DePeppe
EMC Jane Ginn
Robert Griffin Ben Othman
Jeff Odom DHS Office of Cybersecurity and
Ravi Sharda Communications (CS&C)
Financial Services Information Sharing and Richard Struse
Analysis Center (FS-ISAC) Marlon Taylor
David Eilken EclecticIQ
Chris Ricard Marko Dragoljevic
Fortinet Inc. Joep Gommers
Gavin Chow Sergey Polzunov
Kenichi Terashita Rutger Prins

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Fujitsu Limited Andrei Sîrghi
Neil Edwards Raymon van der Velde
Frederick Hirsch eSentire, Inc.
Ryusuke Masuoka Jacob Gajek
Daisuke Murabayashi FireEye, Inc.
Google Inc. Phillip Boles
Mark Risher Pavan Gorakav
Hitachi, Ltd. Anuj Kumar
Kazuo Noguchi Shyamal Pandya
Akihito Sawada Paul Patrick
Masato Terada Scott Shreve
iboss, Inc. Fox-IT
Paul Martini Sarah Brown
Individual Georgetown University
Jerome Athias Eric Burger
Peter Brown Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
Elysa Jones Tomas Sander
Sanjiv Kalkar IBM
Bar Lockwood Peter Allor
Terry MacDonald Eldan Ben-Haim
Alex Pinto Sandra Hernandez
Intel Corporation Jason Keirstead
Tim Casey John Morris
Kent Landfield Laura Rusu
JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. Ron Williams
Terrence Driscoll IID
David Laurance Chris Richardson
LookingGlass Integrated Networking Technologies, Inc.
Allan Thomson Patrick Maroney
Lee Vorthman Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics
Mitre Corporation Laboratory
Greg Back Karin Marr
Jonathan Baker Julie Modlin
Sean Barnum Mark Moss
Desiree Beck Pamela Smith
Nicole Gong Kaiser Permanente
Jasen Jacobsen Russell Culpepper
Ivan Kirillov Beth Pumo
Richard Piazza Lumeta Corporation
Jon Salwen Brandon Hoffman
Charles Schmidt MTG Management Consultants, LLC.
Emmanuelle Vargas-Gonzalez James Cabral

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 John Wunder National Security Agency
National Council of ISACs (NCI) Mike Boyle
Scott Algeier Jessica Fitzgerald-McKay
Denise Anderson New Context Services, Inc.
Josh Poster John-Mark Gurney
NEC Corporation Christian Hunt
Takahiro Kakumaru James Moler
North American Energy Standards Board Daniel Riedel
David Darnell Andrew Storms
Object Management Group OASIS
Cory Casanave James Bryce Clark
Palo Alto Networks Robin Cover
Vishaal Hariprasad Chet Ensign
Queralt, Inc. Open Identity Exchange
John Tolbert Don Thibeau
Resilient Systems, Inc. PhishMe Inc.
Ted Julian Josh Larkins
Securonix Raytheon Company-SAS
Igor Baikalov Daniel Wyschogrod
Siemens AG Retail Cyber Intelligence Sharing Center (R-
Bernd Grobauer CISC)
Soltra Brian Engle
John Anderson Semper Fortis Solutions
Aishwarya Asok Kumar Joseph Brand
Peter Ayasse Splunk Inc.
Jeff Beekman Cedric LeRoux
Michael Butt Brian Luger
Cynthia Camacho Kathy Wang
Aharon Chernin TELUS
Mark Clancy Greg Reaume
Brady Cotton Alan Steer
Trey Darley Threat Intelligence Pty Ltd
Mark Davidson Tyron Miller
Paul Dion Andrew van der Stock
Daniel Dye ThreatConnect, Inc.
Robert Hutto Wade Baker
Raymond Keckler Cole Iliff
Ali Khan Andrew Pendergast
Chris Kiehl Ben Schmoker
Clayton Long Jason Spies
Michael Pepin TruSTAR Technology
Natalie Suarez Chris Roblee

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 David Waters United Kingdom Cabinet Office
Benjamin Yates Iain Brown
Symantec Corp. Adam Cooper
Curtis Kostrosky Mike McLellan
The Boeing Company Chris O’Brien
Crystal Hayes James Penman
ThreatQuotient, Inc. Howard Staple
Ryan Trost Chris Taylor
U.S. Bank Laurie Thomson
Mark Angel Alastair Treharne
Brad Butts Julian White
Brian Fay Bethany Yates
Mona Magathan US Department of Homeland Security
Yevgen Sautin Evette Maynard-Noel
US Department of Defense (DoD) Justin Stekervetz
James Bohling ViaSat, Inc.
Eoghan Casey Lee Chieffalo
Gary Katz Wilson Figueroa
Jeffrey Mates Andrew May
VeriSign Yaana Technologies, LLC
Robert Coderre Anthony Rutkowski
Kyle Maxwell
Eric Osterweil

The authors would also like to thank the larger CybOX Community for its input and help in
reviewing this document.

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Appendix B. Revision History
Revision Date Editor Changes Made

wd01 15 December 2015 Desiree Beck Initial transfer to OASIS template

Trey Darley
Ivan Kirillov
Rich Piazza

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