Sovereign EDR/XDR Testing Methodology & MITRE ATT&CK Evaluation Specification

1. Executive Summary & Empirical Benchmark Scorecard

Cyber defense software for mission-critical enclaves and Defense Industrial Base (DIB) assets cannot be validated via marketing promises or synthetic mock objects. Aetherion Cyber Systems, Corp. operates under a strict Zero-Mask State Architecture: every metric, detection assertion, and latency profile must be empirically reproducible with non-destructive automated test runners.

Architectural Dimension	Target Requirement	Measured Empirical Benchmark	Verification Status
Mean Time to Correlate (MTTC)	< 24.0 ms	14.2 ms (Burst Saturation)	PASS (+40.8% Margin)
Peak Telemetry Burst Throughput	≥ 1,000,000 EPS	1,248,500 EPS	PASS (Zero Packet Drop)
Sigma Mean Time to Detect (MTTD)	< 1,000 µs (1.0 ms)	153.7 µs (50 Sigma Rules)	PASS (6.5x Headroom)
WFP Host Isolation Drop Latency	< 10.0 ms	8.4 ms (Kernel Sublayer)	PASS (Loopback Preserved)
OCSF v1.1.0 Schema Parity	100.0% Parity	100.0% (Classes 1001, 4001, 1007, 3001)	PASS (Zero Data Loss)
Autonomous L1 Ticket Deflection	Target: Autonomous Deflection / < 5.0s	Deterministic Runbooks / 3.8s MTTR	PASS (13-Pillar Taxonomy)

2. End-to-End Sovereign Telemetry & Detection Flow

flowchart TD A["Disparate Sensor Telemetry\n(Syslog RFC 5424, Zscaler, Automox, OS)"] --> B["KAIROS Circular Ring Buffer\n(Zero-Alloc Slot Capacity: 100k)"] B --> C["OCSF v1.1.0 Ingestion Parser\n(Lossless Schema Normalization)"] C --> D["Phalanx Sigma Rule Evaluation\n(50 Compiled Rules in Parallel)"] D --> E{"TCS Threat Scoring\n(0 - 100%)"} E -- "TCS >= 85% Critical" --> F["Windows Filtering Platform (WFP)\nHost Isolation < 10ms"] E -- "TCS < 85% Warning" --> G["C.I.T.A.D.E.L. Live SOC Stream\nAuthenticated SSE < 800µs"] F --> H["Preserve Sovereign Loopback &\nTPM-Sealed TLS Telemetry Tunnel"]

3. Automated Atomic Red Team Gauntlet (MITRE ATT&CK Matrix)

The automated test runner (edr_atomic_gauntlet.py) executes simulated, non-destructive attack patterns directly against the normalized event pipeline. Each technique triggers exact Sigma rules, measures microsecond execution times, and seals an immutable receipt.

T1059.001 · EXECUTION PHALANX-RULE-001

PowerShell Base64 Payload Execution

Evaluates obfuscated base64 encoded command arguments (-enc, -encodedcommand) passed to powershell.exe.

Mean MTTD: 128.4 µs TCS Score: 85.0%

T1082 · DISCOVERY PHALANX-RULE-021

System Information Discovery

Detects execution of hardware and network discovery binaries (systeminfo.exe, msinfo32.exe, dxdiag.exe).

Mean MTTD: 116.6 µs TCS Score: 30.0%

T1562.001 · DEFENSE EVASION PHALANX-RULE-015

Disable Defender Real-Time Protection

Detects registry writes targeting DisableRealtimeMonitoring or Defender policy suppression.

Mean MTTD: 68.4 µs TCS Score: 95.0%

T1003.001 · CREDENTIAL ACCESS PHALANX-RULE-008

LSASS Memory Dump via comsvcs / Procdump

Identifies process creation invoking comsvcs.dll, MiniDump or procdump targeting lsass.exe memory.

Mean MTTD: 83.1 µs TCS Score: 95.0%

T1053.005 · PERSISTENCE & PRIVILEGE ESCALATION PHALANX-RULE-033

Scheduled Task Creation with Suspicious Payload

Detects schtasks.exe /create creating persistent persistence tasks referencing temporary, appdata, or user-writable executable paths.

Mean MTTD: 75.8 µs TCS Score: 70.0%

4. Threat Confidence Scoring (TCS) & WFP Quarantine

✦ Mathematical TCS Scoring Model

Threat severity is not a binary switch. Phalanx calculates a continuous confidence score (0.0% to 100.0%) integrating five orthogonal telemetry factors:

TCS = min(100.0, BaseRule + PrivFactor + Lineage + ObfEntropy + NetAnomaly)

Base Rule Weight: Critical (85), High (65), Medium (45), Low (25).
Privilege Factor: +10.0 for SYSTEM, +5.0 for High Integrity.
Process Lineage Anomaly: +15.0 for Office/Web parents spawning shells.
Entropy Heuristics: +10.0 to +15.0 for Base64 / Caret obfuscation.

✦ Kernel WFP Isolation & Channel Preservation

Upon critical threat detection, Phalanx invokes the Windows Filtering Platform kernel sublayer at priority 0xFFFF:

Kernel Packet Drop: 8.4 ms · Loopback & TLS Exempted

Total Network Quarantine: Drops all untrusted inbound/outbound IPv4/IPv6 packets.
Loopback Preservation: 127.0.0.1 / ::1 stays open for local sensor IPC.
Sovereign Tunnel: Encrypted TPM 2.0-sealed TLS tunnel to Azure GCC High remains open for remote SOC remediation.

5. Self-Attestation & Federal Framework Alignment

✦ Explicit NIST SP 800-218 Section 4.2 Self-Attestation Notice

Aetherion Cyber Systems, Corp. self-attests that the software engineering, build environments, distroless packaging, and automated test runners documented herein strictly comply with the NIST SP 800-218 Secure Software Development Framework (SSDF) v1.2 Level 3 tasks:

PW.1.1 & PW.1.2: Code Integrity Automated AST syntax gates, pre-commit hygiene hooks, and zero static mock fallback enforcement.

PS.1.1 & PS.3.1: SBOM Provenance CycloneDX 1.6 signed SBOMs and SLSA Level 3 build attestations generated per release.

RV.1.1 & RV.1.2: Vulnerability Review Continuous automated Atomic Red Team simulation and sub-millisecond MTTD benchmarking.

PO.1.3: Hardware Root of Trust TPM 2.0 PCR sealing across [0, 2, 4, 11] and VBS/VirtualLock memory zeroization.

Disclaimer: Self-attestation is conducted in accordance with federal requirements. Formal third-party accreditation (FedRAMP High / DoD IL5 ATO) occurs in direct partnership with sponsoring enterprise and government agency customers.