implementing-diamond-model-analysis

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name: implementing-diamond-model-analysis description: The Diamond Model of Intrusion Analysis provides a structured framework for analyzing cyber intrusions by examining four core features: Adversary, Capability, Infrastructure, and Victim. This skill co domain: cybersecurity subdomain: threat-intelligence tags: [threat-intelligence, cti, ioc, mitre-attack, stix, diamond-model, intrusion-analysis] version: "1.0" author: mahipal license: Apache-2.0

Implementing Diamond Model Analysis

Overview

The Diamond Model of Intrusion Analysis provides a structured framework for analyzing cyber intrusions by examining four core features: Adversary, Capability, Infrastructure, and Victim. This skill covers implementing the Diamond Model programmatically to classify and correlate intrusion events, build activity threads linking related events, create activity-attack graphs, and generate pivot-ready intelligence from intrusion data.

Prerequisites

• Python 3.9+ with networkx, stix2, graphviz libraries
• Understanding of the Diamond Model core and meta-features
• Access to threat intelligence data (MISP/OpenCTI events)
• Familiarity with MITRE ATT&CK for capability mapping

Key Concepts

Diamond Model Core Features

• Adversary: The threat actor or operator conducting the intrusion
• Capability: The tools, techniques, and malware used (maps to ATT&CK)
• Infrastructure: C2 servers, domains, email addresses, hosting providers
• Victim: Target organization, system, person, or data asset

Meta-Features

• Timestamp: When the event occurred
• Phase: Kill chain stage (recon, delivery, exploitation, etc.)
• Result: Success, failure, or unknown
• Direction: Adversary-to-infrastructure, infrastructure-to-victim, etc.
• Methodology: Social engineering, technical exploit, insider threat
• Resources: Financial, human, technical resources required

Activity Threads and Groups

• Activity Thread: Sequence of Diamond events from a single adversary operation
• Activity Group: Cluster of threads attributed to the same adversary

Practical Steps

Step 1: Define Diamond Event Data Structure

from dataclasses import dataclass, field
from datetime import datetime
from typing import Optional
import json
import uuid

@dataclass
class DiamondEvent:
    adversary: str = ""
    capability: str = ""
    infrastructure: str = ""
    victim: str = ""
    timestamp: str = ""
    phase: str = ""
    result: str = ""
    direction: str = ""
    methodology: str = ""
    confidence: int = 0
    notes: str = ""
    event_id: str = field(default_factory=lambda: str(uuid.uuid4())[:8])
    mitre_techniques: list = field(default_factory=list)
    iocs: list = field(default_factory=list)

    def to_dict(self):
        return {
            "event_id": self.event_id,
            "adversary": self.adversary,
            : .capability,
            : .infrastructure,
            : .victim,
            : .timestamp,
            : .phase,
            : .result,
            : .direction,
            : .methodology,
            : .confidence,
            : .mitre_techniques,
            : .iocs,
            : .notes,
        }

Step 2: Build Activity Thread from Events

import networkx as nx

class DiamondAnalysis:
    def __init__(self):
        self.events = []
        self.graph = nx.DiGraph()

    def add_event(self, event: DiamondEvent):
        self.events.append(event)
        self.graph.add_node(event.event_id, **event.to_dict())

    def build_activity_thread(self):
        """Link events chronologically into activity threads."""
        sorted_events = sorted(self.events, key=lambda e: e.timestamp)
        for i in range(len(sorted_events) - 1):
            self.graph.add_edge(
                sorted_events[i].event_id,
                sorted_events[i + 1].event_id,
                relationship="followed_by",
            )

    def find_pivots(self):
        """Find pivot points where events share infrastructure or capabilities."""
        pivots = {"infrastructure": {}, "capability": {}, "adversary": {}}

        for event in self.events:
            if event.infrastructure:
                pivots["infrastructure"].setdefault(event.infrastructure, []).append(event.event_id)
            if event.capability:
                pivots[].setdefault(event.capability, []).append(event.event_id)
             event.adversary:
                pivots[].setdefault(event.adversary, []).append(event.event_id)

         {
            k: {pk: pv  pk, pv  v.items()  (pv) > }
             k, v  pivots.items()
        }

     ():
         {
            : (.events),
            : ((e.adversary  e  .events  e.adversary)),
            : ((e.victim  e  .events  e.victim)),
            : ((e.infrastructure  e  .events  e.infrastructure)),
            : .find_pivots(),
            : [e.to_dict()  e  .events],
        }

Validation Criteria

• Diamond events capture all four core features with meta-features
• Activity threads link related events chronologically
• Pivot analysis identifies shared infrastructure and capabilities across events
• Graph visualization renders the activity-attack graph correctly
• Events map to MITRE ATT&CK techniques for capability classification

References

• Diamond Model Paper
• MITRE ATT&CK
• STIX 2.1 Campaign Object