In what will most likely be my last posting for 2008, here is a bit of advice for all.
I read somewhere that news is never really all that useful. Its interesting. But its not useful. The stuff that you need to know about to go about your daily life is not going to make news.
To get some more perspective on this, I highly recommend that you visit The Onion online newspaper and browse a bit especially at the "Area" reports. (It is humour and is intended for 18+)
One of the interesting news stories of 2008 that I can think of the Dan Kamisky DNS issue that made headlines for all sorts of reasons. DLP made headlines. TJX made headlines.
What is more interesting is what didn't.
Here are some bits of news that you won't see:
"Company patches all servers"
"Awareness given at Company. Stronger passwords result"
"Good user management led to less options for Hackers"
"Antivirus updated led to viruses being blocked"
What did made the headlines today (thanks to Amrit and Dominic for alerting me to this... everyone will be talking about it soon) is the attack on MD5 certificates that makes trusting Web Certificates less of a good idea. The information is here, but this is a big deal so expect this to make the news.
The thing is, that this yields big rewards for the hackers but is also a lot of work. Social engineering methods such as bogus email, phishing, fake antivirus etc are so much easier to do and have big enough rewards as it is. So too do worms and the like that attack old vulnerabilities that should already be patched.
My though for the year is thus:
Hackers are mostly successful by exploiting the boring holes and really do not have to work hard at all. By using tools that are already available such as Firewalls, IPS, Antivirus and doing the boring bits such as choosing strong passwords, updating patches, updating antivirus patterns and being aware at what mails we should not open - we win 90% of the battle already.
I think next year will be very very interesting for us. I hope everyone reading this has a great 2009!
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, etc
In typical Security Thoughts style, here is an Information Security story that relates to the holidays.
It seems that, in Germany, a company sent a Stollen, which is a traditional German Christmas cake to a newspaper via a courier company. Two subcontractors decided that they wanted the cake so they took it and replaced it with another parcel.
This parcel just happened to be confidential data with banking transaction details and it managed to find its way to the newspaper in place of the cake. Obviously, the newspaper was happy with their Christmas present and printed the story. The bank was not so happy.
I think that the theme for 2009 will be "Third Party Security" but in the mean time I wish you all a pleasant holiday and please be responsible if you decide to have a drink or two.
It seems that, in Germany, a company sent a Stollen, which is a traditional German Christmas cake to a newspaper via a courier company. Two subcontractors decided that they wanted the cake so they took it and replaced it with another parcel.
This parcel just happened to be confidential data with banking transaction details and it managed to find its way to the newspaper in place of the cake. Obviously, the newspaper was happy with their Christmas present and printed the story. The bank was not so happy.
I think that the theme for 2009 will be "Third Party Security" but in the mean time I wish you all a pleasant holiday and please be responsible if you decide to have a drink or two.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Egg on face
In the interests of showing the world that I am not perfect, I just had to Blog about this incident.
I sent an email with an attachment out to the wrong person. Its the classic case autocomplete messing up - typing some letters and recognising the person's first name. Click send and then realise your mistake when the wrong Jason (it wasn't Jason in this case...) sends back an email asking "huh?!"
Its one type of "oops" that DLP is supposed to prevent.
The interesting part of it all was that the email went out (of all the people in the world) to the sales rep I've been dealing with who has been trying to sell me DLP...
I guess this just makes it more difficult to say "no".
I sent an email with an attachment out to the wrong person. Its the classic case autocomplete messing up - typing some letters and recognising the person's first name. Click send and then realise your mistake when the wrong Jason (it wasn't Jason in this case...) sends back an email asking "huh?!"
Its one type of "oops" that DLP is supposed to prevent.
The interesting part of it all was that the email went out (of all the people in the world) to the sales rep I've been dealing with who has been trying to sell me DLP...
I guess this just makes it more difficult to say "no".
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Automatic Networks (Part 1)
If you are like me and like to know how the future of IT will impact Information Security then one Blog that you have to read is Rational Survivability by Chris Hoff.
He has a rather "interesting" writing style but his content is amazing. He is a strong voice of reason in how Virtualization, Cloud Computing, etc etc which are all the new buzz words can seriously impact Information Security unless controls are built in.
His latest post is about a new concept where latency of network flows are measured. If a Service is suffering from latency then the Virtual Machine that the Service runs on is moved closer to the User of the Service. Latency is gone. It is an interesting concept and obviously has Security implications which Chris goes into.
I pretty much agree with most of the post but I would like to introduce a new angle on it:
In my last post I introduced a concept that I gave a lot of names. The one I liked the most is Context Sensitive Information Protection (CSIP). I didn't invent the idea but I think I outline it quite nicely in that post. Basically the concept is that everything on the network is aware of what Information is being accessed and acts accordingly. Add this to the concept in Chris's post and your solution becomes secure again.
I think I need to come up with an example. Watch this space.
He has a rather "interesting" writing style but his content is amazing. He is a strong voice of reason in how Virtualization, Cloud Computing, etc etc which are all the new buzz words can seriously impact Information Security unless controls are built in.
His latest post is about a new concept where latency of network flows are measured. If a Service is suffering from latency then the Virtual Machine that the Service runs on is moved closer to the User of the Service. Latency is gone. It is an interesting concept and obviously has Security implications which Chris goes into.
I pretty much agree with most of the post but I would like to introduce a new angle on it:
In my last post I introduced a concept that I gave a lot of names. The one I liked the most is Context Sensitive Information Protection (CSIP). I didn't invent the idea but I think I outline it quite nicely in that post. Basically the concept is that everything on the network is aware of what Information is being accessed and acts accordingly. Add this to the concept in Chris's post and your solution becomes secure again.
I think I need to come up with an example. Watch this space.
Friday, December 12, 2008
The future of DLP (DLP is dead, long live DLP)
DLP is made up of two main parts - the "knowing" part and the "watching/blocking" part.
The "knowing" part is built up over time and is generally an understanding of what a piece of information is. Generally, the systems look at a document and label it but it is becoming apparent that the meta-information is also very important. Who is sending it, where is it going, why would someone be using documents at midnight, etc etc.
In an earlier post of of mine I wrote that what we now know as Information-centric Security (and I fully support this) will develop into what I called "Process-centric Security". I think I'm going to trademark BCS (also Business-process protection (BPP) and Business Process Security (BPS) and Context Sensitive Information Protection (CSIP)). This the ability for some system (lets call it DLP) to know what is happening to a document and why.
DLP as we know it today then takes this information and implements some action - block, report, log, etc based on whether the action is allowed to perform the action or not.
Recent developments in the DLP world (See Dominic's comment and Securosis comment) have changed this for the better. Now, DLP does the first bit ("knowing") and passes on the second bit ("blocking") to another tool - a DRM tool. The blocking bit can be done by all sorts of systems and this is where it gets interesting - set up the switch to block, the firewall to block, the mail server to block (and send a "sorry but..." mail), the IPS to block, the PC to block, the application to block, etc etc.. essentially everything can be set to block access to some sort of functionality for documents based on what the DLP Server tells them to do.
Further, all these systems can be set to inform the DLP System what is happening too.
Your network and everything on it becomes aware of how the business works and helps it along, preventing what shouldn't be happening.
The box that makes the ultimate decisions and keeps the database of "good" processes (call this the DLP brain) will not go away. The part of the DLP that enforces and monitors will become part of the network infrastructure and will become a feature of everything from switches to software applications.
DLP as we know it today as a product and fully enclosed system will die off and DLP as a ubiquitous system with tentacles into everything will be born.
The "knowing" part is built up over time and is generally an understanding of what a piece of information is. Generally, the systems look at a document and label it but it is becoming apparent that the meta-information is also very important. Who is sending it, where is it going, why would someone be using documents at midnight, etc etc.
In an earlier post of of mine I wrote that what we now know as Information-centric Security (and I fully support this) will develop into what I called "Process-centric Security". I think I'm going to trademark BCS (also Business-process protection (BPP) and Business Process Security (BPS) and Context Sensitive Information Protection (CSIP)). This the ability for some system (lets call it DLP) to know what is happening to a document and why.
DLP as we know it today then takes this information and implements some action - block, report, log, etc based on whether the action is allowed to perform the action or not.
Recent developments in the DLP world (See Dominic's comment and Securosis comment) have changed this for the better. Now, DLP does the first bit ("knowing") and passes on the second bit ("blocking") to another tool - a DRM tool. The blocking bit can be done by all sorts of systems and this is where it gets interesting - set up the switch to block, the firewall to block, the mail server to block (and send a "sorry but..." mail), the IPS to block, the PC to block, the application to block, etc etc.. essentially everything can be set to block access to some sort of functionality for documents based on what the DLP Server tells them to do.
Further, all these systems can be set to inform the DLP System what is happening too.
Your network and everything on it becomes aware of how the business works and helps it along, preventing what shouldn't be happening.
The box that makes the ultimate decisions and keeps the database of "good" processes (call this the DLP brain) will not go away. The part of the DLP that enforces and monitors will become part of the network infrastructure and will become a feature of everything from switches to software applications.
DLP as we know it today as a product and fully enclosed system will die off and DLP as a ubiquitous system with tentacles into everything will be born.
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Hopefully these will bring in some money to make my online life a little cheaper. I hope noone feels offended and I'd love to have no advertising but it seems that I need to sell out to The Man.
My Blog runs on Blogspot which is a free service but I am currently paying for my homepage and assorted other internet services.
These come to about R200 ($20) a month and I figured that I'd use my blog to generate some of that.
So, I have added an advert at the bottom of this Blog. I hope it is out of the way enough that it doesn't distract from the Blog message. I may add an advert along the side of the Blog too.
Hopefully these will bring in some money to make my online life a little cheaper. I hope noone feels offended and I'd love to have no advertising but it seems that I need to sell out to The Man.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
DLP is dead. (Not yet, but soon)
Ever since Richard Stiennon came out with his "IDS is dead", he started a trend which even he subscribes to by declairing any big technology to be dead. I really believe though that Information Security products go through a cycle.
I was explaining this cycle to Dominic White a couple of weeks back and we were rudely interrupted by the meeting that we were in fact attending. Had I managed to finish then maybe he would be able to answer the question he asks on his blog. (This is also assuming that he agrees with me, which is not a foregone conclusion.)
The first part to any Information Technology solution is to slide the technology in making the least amount of pain for users and fixing the maximum amount of problem.
Example - Firewalls back in the old days were open by default and as problems were detected, the Admin would close ports and fix routes until the problems were gone. I call this Generation 1. This worked fine until the admin was too much and firewalls started being configured closed by default and opened as needed (Generation 2). I think that the third generation of this is "closed by default, opened for business reasons". We may think we are there but we are not really.
If you use a tool like websense or surfcontrol to control web browsing then you'll be at Generation 1 for browsing. Antivirus is Generation 1. Email is Generation 1.
I believe that we will see a jump to Generation 3 for all of these tools but the uptake will be very slow.
Generation 3 is where every action that someone takes has a strict business reason. A user sends an order to a supplier. The email system knows who the user is and whether they should be ordering something or not. Based on that - the email goes through.
Does this sound like some sort of workflow application? Bingo!
Now, consider DLP and DRM...
DLP is Generation 1 - allow everything and block bad things from happening. DRM is there too - let your staff decide what restrictions to put? Doesn't work. Put them together and you get closer to Generation 2 (assuming that you are prety tough with your DLP rules - otherwise - why waste your time?). Generation 3 is where things get interesting - Dave in finance creates a document and lables it "financial results". Workflows are built up automatically around the document and are enforced as such:
The file server is configured to allow only Finance people to access document. Auditors can open the document but make no changes. The firewall will not allow the document out of the organisation, mail server will not allow the document sent out. The antivirus (horrible word - very Generation 1.. lets use "application handler" for Gen 2+) will only allow certain programs like excel to access the document. Anything else is blocked and an alert is fired up.
At a certain date the document is "allowed" to be sent to the communications department who can't make any changes.
You may have a DLP box watching what is happening. You'll certainly have a box with policies and workflows on it (I have a feeling Microsoft want to control this) but everything from smartphones, routers, switches, mail servers, PCs, programs, databases will be "process-aware".
DLP will become part of the "defense in depth" solution but everything will have content protection built in. Welcome to the future.
I was explaining this cycle to Dominic White a couple of weeks back and we were rudely interrupted by the meeting that we were in fact attending. Had I managed to finish then maybe he would be able to answer the question he asks on his blog. (This is also assuming that he agrees with me, which is not a foregone conclusion.)
The first part to any Information Technology solution is to slide the technology in making the least amount of pain for users and fixing the maximum amount of problem.
Example - Firewalls back in the old days were open by default and as problems were detected, the Admin would close ports and fix routes until the problems were gone. I call this Generation 1. This worked fine until the admin was too much and firewalls started being configured closed by default and opened as needed (Generation 2). I think that the third generation of this is "closed by default, opened for business reasons". We may think we are there but we are not really.
If you use a tool like websense or surfcontrol to control web browsing then you'll be at Generation 1 for browsing. Antivirus is Generation 1. Email is Generation 1.
I believe that we will see a jump to Generation 3 for all of these tools but the uptake will be very slow.
Generation 3 is where every action that someone takes has a strict business reason. A user sends an order to a supplier. The email system knows who the user is and whether they should be ordering something or not. Based on that - the email goes through.
Does this sound like some sort of workflow application? Bingo!
Now, consider DLP and DRM...
DLP is Generation 1 - allow everything and block bad things from happening. DRM is there too - let your staff decide what restrictions to put? Doesn't work. Put them together and you get closer to Generation 2 (assuming that you are prety tough with your DLP rules - otherwise - why waste your time?). Generation 3 is where things get interesting - Dave in finance creates a document and lables it "financial results". Workflows are built up automatically around the document and are enforced as such:
The file server is configured to allow only Finance people to access document. Auditors can open the document but make no changes. The firewall will not allow the document out of the organisation, mail server will not allow the document sent out. The antivirus (horrible word - very Generation 1.. lets use "application handler" for Gen 2+) will only allow certain programs like excel to access the document. Anything else is blocked and an alert is fired up.
At a certain date the document is "allowed" to be sent to the communications department who can't make any changes.
You may have a DLP box watching what is happening. You'll certainly have a box with policies and workflows on it (I have a feeling Microsoft want to control this) but everything from smartphones, routers, switches, mail servers, PCs, programs, databases will be "process-aware".
DLP will become part of the "defense in depth" solution but everything will have content protection built in. Welcome to the future.
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