1.0 Scope

1.1  Executive Summary

The HummingBird program deals with detection and distribution of security relevant information between computers in a network.  Information is gathered on each host in the network by various tools and then can be acted upon and distributed to other nodes in the network.  The HummingBird program provides a tool to accomplish information distribution tasks.

However, current information distribution is confined to nodes within a given network and not between two or more networks.  The final product will allow communication between two or more network hosts and will be maintained with a list-serve management scheme, as presented in the prototype 1 walk thru.

In addition, the new HummingBird will undergo new configuration system changes, in which managers (network hosts) will have the ability to configure their hierarchy.  The visualization system and user interface will be upgraded as well.

This product is to be used by system administrators of networked systems.  They use this product in conjunction with a group of data gathering tools to monitor system activity.  After this system has been refined, it is envisioned that it will run on many computer systems and will be used in all types of environments.  It could be used in educational, industrial, and military environments with networks of all sizes.  The system will eventually be ported to many platforms as well.

Separate 'Hummers' (individual machines running the HummingBird program within a HummingBird hierarchical network) will run on each host in the network.  The Hummers will be configurable using WWW browsers.  The Hummers will take data from data gathering tools which are separate from the Hummer.  The Hummer will then act on the messages it receives based on how the user has configured the Hummer.  It can log the messages to its own log file, it can pass the messages to other Hummers running on other hosts, or it can alert the user's console to notify the user of some danger condition.

 Our vision is to enhance the HummingBird Program's data sharing capabilities in order to further the program as an invaluable security analysis tool.