What do we have in the world of risk management in the IT and security world today, a bit of a mess. Risk management has been a nebulous, pathless utopia that has been just out of our reach because we are randomly wandering around in pseudoscience and non-sensible numbering systems.
Risk management in the financial sector is more defined and stable because it is based in numbers and statistics that have a more direct correlation to the components it is describing. In the information security world we have silly things like the Annualized Loss Expectancy (ALE) formula that has variables that are subjectively populated along with other just as ineffective formulas that provide false senses of securities.
Many organizations, corporations and security consultants are comfortable with common balanced scoreboard values, associating color codes to risk values, and/or using arbitrary risk rating systems. Now these can be useful components in risk assessments and potentially useful tools for risk management – but not how they are usually used today. The crux of the questions you should be asking your employees or consultants who hand you a stack of paper covered with pretty graphs, pie charts, and risk ratings used to explain the risk your organization faces is ‘Where’s the beef?’ What is this information based on? Where did these numbers come from? Why does this server or business process fall within the red risk quadrant and the others in the yellow? But here is another important key – will you know if they have to dance to answer these questions? If your consultant starts throwing out acronyms, formulas, and technical mumbo-jumbo will you just figure that he knows what he is talking about since you don’t understand him? This is what most commonly happens. If someone really understands risk management, she can break it down and explain it properly to the necessary audience without going over their heads. Risk management is complicated, but if you are paying someone to perform it for you, you need to know what you are paying for and more importantly the REAL risks your company faces.
One large corporation called me in as a consultant to help them with a wide range of security issues. They had had one of the top four consulting agencies in there carrying out a risk assessment so that the risks could be prioritized and the customer knew what risks had to be mitigated immediately versus ones that could be tackled over time. The consulting company left my customer with a stack of papers that had colorful spreadsheets, pie charts, graphs, and high-level boilerplate explanations of the identified vulnerabilities. To the executives this was very impressive and they had a false sense of security that their real company risks had been identified and now they just had to be dealt with. The top risk that was called out by the large consulting firm was ‘Mainframe Access’. This is a very vague term and basically useless. I knew my customer had retail stores throughout the United States and Canada and that credit card numbers and social security numbers were flying around their network in cleartext. The mainframe did not hold this type of data or data that was more sensitive in nature. So this top risk in the paperwork I was holding seemed suspicious to me. I wanted to see what supported this finding. I looked at the mathematical formulas used in the Excel spreadsheet that the risk report findings were based upon and I saw that one variable was not included in their simplistic formula. Someone had fat fingered the formula in the consulting company’s boilerplate template. The stack of reports I was looking at was based upon an incorrect formula. Each risk and its associated ranking was based on this formula. So out of curiosity I corrected the formula and found that now the risk of ‘Mainframe Access’ had moved from number one to number five. This means that the company thought a majority of their upfront resources needed to be allocated towards addressing their mainframe access controls. They had already had meetings, assigned resources, and started focusing more on their old and hardly used mainframe and not on all of the insecure PCs that were holding and processing social security numbers and financial information. But hey, the paperwork had pretty pie charts and the consultants were all in nice shiny suits!
What about those automated products that take input information, do all of the risk analysis and computation in the background, and kick out paperwork that dissects your organizational risks with instructions on how you should go about fixing them? I will return to what your core questions should be, which is ‘what are these results based on’? With risk management products all of their computational secret sauce is baked in and works behind the scenes, which means that it is harder for you to view and evaluate. This means that you need to know enough to ask the right questions before purchasing the product and putting stock into its output. Just to drive the point home, I will provide another scary story.
I was invited to sit a four day class on a risk management product that is commonly used in financial institutions and the government sector. The class was for analysts who configure and use the tool to carry out information security risk assessments. We were able to get under the hood and look at many of the formulas that were being used. The formulas were solid and worthy for their application, but the real problem came from the potential input values. Every formula is just an instruction set with some empty variables. The variables are filled with the necessary input and then the computation is carried out on those inputs and a result is provided. But true with almost every equation is ‘garbage in garbage out’. The result of the equation has a direct relationship with the inputs. The inputs for this product, and many risk management products, are extremely subjective thus the results range from analyst to analyst. Many people in the class were very mystified by the mathematics that was used within the product and felt that because they did not understand it – the product had to be doing things correctly.
If you are not careful, the largest risk your company could face is the risk assessment methodology being used. The best case scenario from this would be that a risk assessment was a waste of time and money. The worst case scenario is that your organization is missing some of the largest REAL risks it is being faced with.
Since the term ‘risk management’ is nebulous and not a defined and scientific discipline within the information security realm, anyone and everyone is putting up their shingle pontificating their skills in this field. Make sure to work with true experts not only in the information security field, but those who also specialize in understanding and mitigating risks to meet your organization’s risk appetite.
Source: Risk Management Guide by Shon Harris
Review Vulnerability Management at www.LogicalSecurity.com
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Stay tuned for Part II…
A one-way hash is a function that takes a variable-length string and a message and produces a fixed-length value called a hash value. For example, if Kevin wants to send a message to Maureen and he wants to ensure the message does not get altered in an unauthorized fashion while it is being transmitted, he would calculate a hash value for the message and append it to the message itself. When Maureen receives the message, she performs the same hashing function Kevin used and then compare her result with the hash value sent with the message. If the two values are the same, Maureen can be sure the message was not altered during transmission. If the two values are different, Maureen knows the message was altered, either intentionally or unintentionally, and she discards the message.
The hashing algorithm is not a secret—it is publicly known. The secrecy of the oneway hashing function is its “one-wayness.” The function is run in only one direction, not the other direction. This is different from the one-way function used in public key cryptography, in which security is provided based on the fact that, without knowing a trapdoor, it is very hard to perform the one-way function backward on a message and come up with readable plaintext. However, one-way hash functions are never used in reverse; they create a hash value and call it a day. The receiver does not attempt to reverse the process at the other end, but instead runs the same hashing function one way
and compares the two results.
The hashing one-way function takes place without the use of any keys. This means, for example, that if Cheryl writes a message, calculates a message digest, appends the digest to the message, and sends it on to Scott, Bruce can intercept this message, alter Cheryl’s message, recalculate another message digest, append it to the message, and
send it on to Scott. When Scott receives it, he verifies the message digest, but never knows the message was actually altered by Bruce. Scott thinks the message came straight from Cheryl and it was never modified, because the two message digest values are the same. If Cheryl wanted more protection than this, she would need to use message authentication code (MAC).
A MAC function is an authentication scheme derived by applying a secret key to a message in some form. This does not mean the symmetric key is used to encrypt the message, though. You should be aware of two basic types of MACs: a hash MAC (HMAC) and a CBC-MAC.
Source: CISSP All-In-One Study Guide by Shon Harris
Review full Cryptography Chapter at www.LogicalSecurity.com
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Shon Harris and Pearson Education developing cutting-edge training tools
Security expert Harris joins leading publisher for Information Security product series
San Antonio, March 30, 2010 – Shon Harris, founder and president of Logical Security, has signed a deal with publishing house Pearson to create a comprehensive set of training materials for CISSP, SSCP, CEH and Security+ certification studies.
“Pearson is excited to be working with such a great talent and expert author like Shon Harris,” said a Pearson spokesperson. “Her knowledge is top notch and we are excited to be collaborating with her on this and future projects.”
These new training tools – Video Courses, Video Mentors and Cert Flash Cards — approach the rigorous certification exams in a way that addresses a variety of learning styles. The video courses capture Harris’s well-known and effective training style, honed in ten years of security certification training and consulting with Logical Security.
“I am very excited to partner with Pearson to produce the best study materials for IT-security certification preparation on the market today,” said Shon Harris. “This partnership will produce materials that people can use to actually LEARN and IMPLEMENT the security information.”
“Studying for security certification exams CORRECTLY can be one of the best investments you will ever make in your career,” said Harris.
About Shon Harris and Logical Security:
Shon Harris is a former member of the Air Force Information Warfare unit. She is a consultant and has written or contributed to ten information security books. Harris founded Logical Security in 2003, and as president has guided the company to become a leader in certification education and security consulting. Logical Security’s training programs include on-site and online classes, self-study and computer-based materials for students and companies studying to pass certification exams, perform security audits on current infrastructure and comply with a variety of security regulations. The company’s areas of expertise are varied, with specialties in CISSP certification, Microsoft exams, .Net development, career refreshers for security pros, and other IT certifications. Logical Security is headquartered in San Antonio, Texas.
MEDIA CONTACT
Mark Bedell
Logical Security
Phone: 888-373-5116 x103
509-468-2188
Security expert Harris joins leading publisher for Information Security product series
San Antonio, March 30, 2010 – Shon Harris, founder and president of Logical Security, has signed a deal with publishing house Pearson to create a comprehensive set of training materials for CISSP, SSCP, CEH and Security+ certification studies.
“Pearson is excited to be working with such a great talent and expert author like Shon Harris,” said a Pearson spokesperson. “Her knowledge is top notch and we are excited to be collaborating with her on this and future projects.”
These new training tools – Video Courses, Video Mentors and Cert Flash Cards — approach the rigorous certification exams in a way that addresses a variety of learning styles. The video courses capture Harris’s well-known and effective training style, honed in ten years of security certification training and consulting with Logical Security.
“I am very excited to partner with Pearson to produce the best study materials for IT-security certification preparation on the market today,” said Shon Harris. “This partnership will produce materials that people can use to actually LEARN and IMPLEMENT the security information.”
“Studying for security certification exams CORRECTLY can be one of the best investments you will ever make in your career,” said Harris.
About Shon Harris and Logical Security:
Shon Harris is a former member of the Air Force Information Warfare unit. She is a consultant and has written or contributed to ten information security books. Harris founded Logical Security in 2003, and as president has guided the company to become a leader in certification education and security consulting. Logical Security’s training programs include on-site and online classes, self-study and computer-based materials for students and companies studying to pass certification exams, perform security audits on current infrastructure and comply with a variety of security regulations. The company’s areas of expertise are varied, with specialties in CISSP certification, Microsoft exams, .Net development, career refreshers for security pros, and other IT certifications. Logical Security is headquartered in San Antonio, Texas.
MEDIA CONTACT
Mark Bedell
Logical Security
Phone: 888-373-5116 x103
509-468-2188
markbedell@logicalsecurity.com
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5th edition adds interactive practice questions and expanded exam coverage
Shon Harris announces the newest edition of her preeminent guide to information security certification. For nearly ten years, the CISSP All-in-One Exam Guide has helped information security pros tackle the rigorous CISSP exam and gain CISSP certification. In the fifth edition, Harris adds expanded coverage of all ten exam areas, with the same easy-to-read and practical style that have made her previous guides famous.
“I appreciate the plain, clear, as simple as possible way the information is presented. It would be easy to make these concepts sound hard.” says Stephen Northcutt, president of the SANS Technology Institute, of the fourth edition. “Shon does not do that. She tells the story of security as well as anyone ever has.” He adds that the book is also “perfect for the CXO who wants to understand what security is and what they need to know about it.”
The guide “is an engaging, informative and complete resource,” says Treece Efird, a senior network engineer at Communications Products, on the fourth edition.
CISSP certification requires a breadth of knowledge across information security topic areas – also called the CBK, or Common Body of Knowledge — which include cryptography, telecommunications and network security, business continuity and disaster recovery planning, applications security and legal, regulations, compliance and investigation, among others. Harris’s approach to each complex category includes, in the guide and included CD-ROM:
- Simulated exam questions
- Learning objectives at the start of each chapter
- Practice questions
- Real-world situations
- Video training
The CISSP All-in-One Exam Guide, Fifth Edition is available now at www.logicalsecurity.com/store or Amazon.com. Published by McGraw-Hill Osborne Media. ISBN: 978-0071602174.
About Shon Harris and Logical Security:
Shon Harris, CISSP, MCSE, is a former member of the Air Force Information Warfare unit. She is a consultant and has written or contributed to ten information security books. Harris founded Logical Security in 2003 and as president has guided the company to become a leader in certification education and security consulting. Logical Security’s training programs include on-site and online classes, self-study and computer-based materials for students and companies studying to pass certification exams, perform security audits on current infrastructure and comply with a variety of security regulations.
Now Available at CISSP All-in-One Exam Guide, Fifth Edition
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Security expert and teacher wants “pay it forward” movement for fellow veterans
Author, consultant, security expert and Air Force veteran Shon Harris has announced that she will offer free technology training to military members and veterans who cannot afford the cost of classes at Harris’s company, Logical Security. The broad roster of classes includes the well-known CISSP certification training, along with a variety of other IT certifications and career refresher courses.
“No one gets rich serving our country, sadly,” says Harris. “Many military people are always going through economically hard times.” Harris offers seats in her open classes for anyone who has served or is serving in Iraq or Afghanistan who can’t afford the training.
“It does not matter if I believe in our current wars or not,” says Harris. “I do believe in the people who are doing this work and fighting in these wars.” Harris notes that along with her own service in the Air Force, her father retired from the Army after several tours to Vietnam, her husband will soon retire from the Air Force after duty in Iraq, and her grandfather served the U.S. as part of the Air Corps in World War II. “My frustration and concern is that these wars have basically dropped off the map in our media coverage,” says Harris, “and the soldiers may have fallen out of our country’s consciousness.”
“I have worked hard and am finally in a position in my life to give back,” says Harris. “Let’s see if we can start a ‘pay it forward’ movement for our military.”
To contact Logical Security and sign up for classes, please contact Mark Bedell at markbedell@logicalsecurity.com. Visit Technology certification training to military service for for a full listing of available classes.
About Shon Harris and Logical Security:
Shon Harris, CISSP, MCSE, is a former member of the Air Force Information Warfare unit. She is a consultant and has written or contributed to ten information security books. Harris founded Logical Security in 2003 and as president has guided the company to become a leader in certification education and security consulting. Logical Security’s training programs include on-site and online classes, self-study and computer-based materials for students and companies studying to pass certification exams, perform security audits on current infrastructure and comply with a variety of security regulations. The company’s areas of expertise are broad, with specialties in CISSP certification, Microsoft exams, .Net development, career refreshers for security pros, and other IT certifications. Logical Security is headquartered in San Antonio, Texas.
Follow us on twitter: logicalsecurity
by Dave Odom. CISSP
The Wireless Security Landscape
In the span of a year the wireless networking landscape has had radical movement towards providing not only the traditional benefits of wireless networking (mobility, scalibility, and cost effectiveness), but most importantly security. Security in 802.11, seen by industry as the wireless networking solution of choice, has been viewed as somewhat of an oxymoron. Vulnerable wireless networks are often the ‘Achilles Heel’ of network infrastructures and used by attackers to facilitate further access to the otherwise protected enterprise LAN. Numerous articles have littered technical publications, general public newspapers, and TV news broadcasts of how insecure wireless networks have resulted in legal cases from ‘wardriving’ to illegal financial record access and credit card fraud. This is a major reason preventing 802.11 wireless networking solutions from being adopted by corporations and businesses that demand confidentiality and integrity in support of sensitve internal and E-business communications.
Enter 802.11i, the much anticipated upgrade to 802.11 security ratified in June of 2004 by the IEEE standards committee. 802.11i is the ‘last mile’ to providing strong authentication and privacy mechanisms for a protocol standard desperately in need of a security facelift. Combined with a solid backing from vendors, who have begun certification and availability of products, it appears the waters are safe for implementing wireless networking across the enterprise. Let’s examine the history surrounding the need for 802.11i, its security features, and challenges to full adoption as a viable and secure wireless networking solution.
Security and 802.11
The original 802.11 standard was not designed to provide strong authentication and encyption mechanisms. The primary security features of 802.11 were incorporated at the data link layer and rely on the Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) protocl. The 802.11 WEP standard offers 64-bit (128-bit in vendor implementations) encryption using the RC4 cryptographic (stream cipher) algorithm. The WEP encyrption key is comprised of a 40-bit shared key and a 24-bit initialization vector (IV) that is used to provide limited authentication and privacy through the use of a single shared key that is distributed to end user wireless systems.
Unfortunately, the WEP protocol implemented the RC4 encryption algorithm in a flawed manner and neglected to include a key management protocol. The use of static, reusable shared secret keys and IVs being transmitted in clear text led to several public exploits being developed to break wireless transmissions encrypted with WEP.
An improvement to 802.11 security standards was in order, based on WEP’s lack of viable authentication mechanism and weakness of its encryption scheme. Orignially, improvements to the authentication issue came with 802.1x (an authentication standard for both wired and wireless networks) that made use of an Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) method that allows you to choose from a variety of authentication mechanisms including: EAP-MD5, LEAP, PEAP, EAP-TLS and EAP-TTLS that are traditionally implemented through an authentication server (e.g. RADIUS).
In October of 2002, the Wi-Fi Alliance announced that it would develop a new interim security specification that could be incorporated into certified Wi-Fi compliant devices called Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA). WPA, which relied upon an interim version of 802.11i does not rely on the use of fixed WEP keys, but uses a new protocol known as Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP) that initiates a key rotation every 10,000 bytes of data. TKIP, which provides the improved confidentiality and integrated mechanisms, increases the standard size of the WEP key fro 40 to 128-bits and does not use a single static key, but instead uses keys that are dynamically generated and distributed by an authentication server. WPA still makes use of the RC4 encryption cipher but allows for the use of existing technology such as IEEE 802.1x, EAP, and RADIUS authentication methods. These solutions, however; only provided the “band-aid” to problems with 802.11 security and required in many cases adding increased complexity to the wired and wireless infrastructure.
802.11i and WPA2
Released in June 2004, 802.11i was designed by the IEEE to provide the final security solution set to the WLAN, as well as provide improved network access management features. 802.11i replaces the notoriously insecure WEP with the option of two robust encryption protocols in TKIP and the Counter Mode with Cipher Block Chaining Message Authentication Code Protocol (CCMP). CCMP improves WEP by introducing a new government approved (FIPS 140-2) encryption standard known as the Advanced Encryption Algorithm (AES). AES is a symmetric (i.e. same key is used for both encryption and decryption) block cipher where there are multiple encryption phases that data undergoes. The standard for AES is 128-bit encryption, but it supports key lengths up to 256-bits.
802.11i relies on the 802.1x authentication scheme for providing strong two-way/mutual authentication between a client and authentication server, authenticating the identity of the user not just the device. This was a radical improvement to the inherent flaw in 802.11 which provided only one-way authentication and contained no provisions for a per-packet validation scheme to identify the packet source, leaving authentication process susceptible man-in-the-middle attacks.
In order to maintain a standard for interoperability in products that implemented the features of 802.11i, the Wi-Fi Alliance (as with WPA) established a certification program for equipment and software known as WPA2. The features of IEEE 802.11i are specified in WPA2, but WPA2 defines for industry the set of mandatory features that will be included in WPA2 certified devices. A list of WPA2 certified devices can be found on the WiFi Alliance website. Vendors currently offering WPA2 compliant products include: Atheros, Broadcom, Cisco, Conexant, D-Link, IBM, Intel, Netgear and Proxim.
Challenges to 802.11i Adoption
Although 802.11i provides the long awaited security consumers have demanded, there are still various challenges to its implementation. Issues regarding client mobility are seen as performance suffers during the 802.11i authentication process when users roam between WLAN cells and attempt to exchange their security credentials during reassociation. This process can drastically affect time-sensitive voice and video applications that may be critical for the end user to maintain. Interoperability among vendors, in spite of the WiFi Alliance WPA2 certification, standard may hamper widespread deployments. This is primarily due to the fact that the WiFi Alliance is only testing for interoperability with the AES encrption standard. Testing interoperability for the various vendor implementations of authentication mechanisms is yet to be incorporated. This could force organizations to adopt single source vendors for their WLAN equipment procurements, limiting their choice of options and wireless vendor feature sets. Furthermore, the enhanced elements of 802.11i (AES) requires existing consumers to upgrade their WLAN infrastructure hardware, which for many large organizations is not cost effective.
Summary
While 802.11i is not necessarily the “silver bullet” to WLAN security, it does provide a robust level of protection in comparison with its predecessor. Organizations requiring that level of privacy and authentication should weigh the associated risk of not adopting the technology against the challenges and cost of migration. Many federal departments and agencies will be forced to implement 802.11i (or a similar technology offering compatible security) throughout their WLAN enterprises based on regulatory compliance with federal guidelines for the security of information systems (e.g. FISMA, SARBOX, and HIPAA). Security professionals should continue to view wireless networking solutions and its associated security standards as a technology in its infancy stages as there will undoubtedly be modifications and enhancements to the existing standards as their use and requirements evolve.
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