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The State of Web Application and Data Security—Mid 2009

By Rich

One of the more difficult aspects of the analyst gig is sorting through all the information you get, and isolating out any inherent biases. The kinds of inquiries we get from clients can all too easily skew our perceptions of the industry, since people tend to come to us for specific reasons, and those reasons don't necessarily represent the mean of the industry. Aside from all the vendor updates (and customer references), our end user conversations usually involve helping someone with a specific problem -- ranging from vendor selection, to basic technology education, to strategy development/problem solving. People call us when they need help, not when things are running well, so it's all too easy to assume a particular technology is being used more widely than it really is, or a problem is bigger or smaller than it really is, because everyone calling us is asking about it. Countering this takes a lot of outreach to find out what people are really doing even when they aren't calling us.

Over the past few weeks I've had a series of opportunities to work with end users outside the context of normal inbound inquiries, and it's been fairly enlightening. These included direct client calls, executive roundtables such as one I participated in recently with IANS (with a mix from Fortune 50 to mid-size enterprises), and some outreach on our part. They reinforced some of what we've been thinking, while breaking other assumptions. I thought it would be good to compile these together into a "state of the industry" summary. Since I spend most of my time focused on web application and data security, I'll only cover those areas:

When it comes to web application and data security, if there isn't a compliance requirement, there isn't budget -- Nearly all of the security professionals we've spoken with recognize the importance of web application and data security, but they consistently tell us that unless there is a compliance requirement it's very difficult for them to get budget. That's not to say it's impossible, but non-compliance projects (however important) are way down the priority list in most organizations. In a room of a dozen high-level security managers of (mostly) large enterprises, they all reinforced that compliance drove nearly all of their new projects, and there was little support for non-compliance-related web application or data security initiatives. I doubt this surprises any of you.

"Compliance" may mean more than compliance -- Activities that are positioned as helping with compliance, even if they aren't a direct requirement, are more likely to gain funding. This is especially true for projects that could reduce compliance costs. They will have a longer approval cycle, often 9 months or so, compared to the 3-6 months for directly-required compliance activities. Initiatives directly tied to limiting potential data breach notifications are the most cited driver. Two technology examples are full disk encryption and portable device control.

PCI is the single biggest compliance driver for web application and data security -- I may not be thrilled with PCI, but it's driving more web application and data security improvements than anything else.

The term Data Loss Prevention has lost meaning -- I discussed this in a post last week. Even those who have gone through a DLP tool selection process often use the term to encompass more than the narrow definition we prefer.

It's easier to get resources to do some things manually than to buy a tool -- Although tools would be much more efficient and effective for some projects, in terms of costs and results, manual projects using existing resources are easier to get approval for. As one manager put it, "I already have the bodies, and I won't get any more money for new tools." The most common example cited was content discovery (we'll talk more about this a few points down).

Most people use DLP for network (primarily email) monitoring, not content discovery or endpoint protection -- Even though we tend to think discovery offers equal or greater value, most organizations with DLP use it for network monitoring.

Interest in content discovery, especially DLP-based, is high, but resources are hard to get for discovery projects -- Most security managers I talk with are very interested in content discovery, but they are less educated on the options and don't have the resources. They tell me that finding the data is the easy part -- getting resources to do anything about it is the limiting factor.

The Web Application Firewall (WAF) market and Security Source Code Tools markets are nearly equal in size, with more clients on WAFs, and more money spent on source code tools per client -- While it's hard to fully quantify, we think the source code tools cost more per implementation, but WAFs are in slightly wider use.

WAFs are a quicker hit for PCI compliance -- Most organizations deploying WAFs do so for PCI compliance, and they're seen as a quicker fix than secure source code projects.

Most WAF deployments are out of band, and false positives are a major problem for default deployments -- Customers are installing WAFs for compliance, but are generally unable to deploy them inline (initially) due to the tuning requirements.

Full drive encryption is mature, and well deployed in the early mainstream -- Full drive encryption, while not perfect, is deployable in even large enterprises. It's now considered a level-setting best practice in financial services, and usage is growing in healthcare and insurance. Other asset recovery options, such as remote data destruction and phone home applications, are now seen as little more than snake oil. As one CISO told us, "I don't care about the laptop, we just encrypt it and don't worry about it when it goes missing".

File and folder encryption is not in wide use -- Very few organizations are performing any wide scale file/folder encryption, outside of some targeted encryption of PII for compliance requirements.

Database encryption is hard, and not widely used -- Most organizations are dissatisfied with database encryption options, and do not deploy it widely. Within a large organization there is likely some DB encryption, with preference given to file/folder/media protection over column level encryption, but most organizations prefer to avoid it. Performance and key management are cited as the primary obstacles, even when using native tools. Current versions of database encryption (primarily native encryption) do perform better than older versions, but key management is still unsatisfactory. Large encryption projects, when initiated, take an average of 12-18 months.

Large enterprises prefer application-level encryption of credit card numbers, and tokenization -- When it comes to credit card numbers, security managers prefer to encrypt it at the application level, or consolidate numbers into a central source, using representative "tokens" throughout the rest of the application stack. These projects take a minimum of 12-18 months, similar to database encryption projects (the two are often tied together, with encryption used in the source database).

Email encryption and DRM tend to be workgroup-specific deployments -- Email encryption and DRM use is scattered throughout the industry, but is still generally limited to workgroup-level projects due to the complexity of management, or lack of demand/compliance from users.

Database Activity Monitoring usage continues to grow slowly, mostly for compliance, but not quickly enough to save lagging vendors -- Many DAM deployments are still tied to SOX auditing, and it's not as widely used for other data security initiatives. Performance is reasonable when you can use endpoint agents, which some DBAs still resist. Network monitoring is not seen as effective, but may still be used when local monitoring isn't an option. Network requirements, depending on the tool, may also inhibit deployments.

My main takeaway is that security managers know what they need to do to protect information assets, but they lack the time, resources, and management support for many initiatives. There is also broad dissatisfaction with security tools and vendors in general, in large part due to poor expectation setting during the sales process, and deliberately confusing marketing. It's not that the tools don't work, but that they're never quite as easy as promised.

It's an interesting dilemma, since there is clear and broad recognition that data security (and by extension, web application security) is likely our most pressing overall issue in terms of security, but due to a variety of factors (many of which we covered in our Business Justification for Data Security paper), the resources just aren't there to really tackle it head-on.

–Rich

Is the Term “DLP” Finally Meaningless?

By Rich

As most of you know, I've been covering DLP for entirely too long. It's a major area of our research, with an entire section of our site dedicated to it.

To be honest, I never really liked the term "Data Loss Prevention". When this category first appeared, I used the term Content Monitoring and Filtering. The vendors didn't like it, but since I wrote (with a colleague) the Gartner Magic Quadrant, they sort of rolled with it. The vendors preferred DLP since it sounded better for marketing purposes (I have to admit, it's sexier than CMF). Once market momentum took over and end users started using DLP more than CMF, I rolled with it and followed the group consensus.

I never liked Data Loss Prevention since, in my mind, it could mean pretty much anything that "prevents data loss". Which is, for the most part, any security tool on the market. My choice was to either jump on the DLP bandwagon, or stick to my guns and use CMF, even though no one would know what I was talking about. Thus I transitioned over, started using DLP, and focused my efforts on providing clear definitions and advice related to the technology.

Over the past 2 weeks I've come to realize that DLP, as a term for a specific category of technology, is pretty much dead. I've been invited to multiple DLP conferences/speaking opportunities, none of which are focused on what I'd consider DLP tools. I've been asked to help work on DLP training materials that don't even have a chapter on DLP tools. I've had multiple end-user conversations on DLP... almost always referring to a different technology.

The DLP vendors did such a good job of coming up with a sexy name for their technology that the rest of the world decided to use it... even when they had nothing to do with DLP. Thus, any vendor reading this can consider this post my official recommendation that you drop the term DLP, and move to Content Monitoring and Protection (CMP -- a term Chris Hoff first suggested that I've glommed onto). Or just make something else up.

I'll continue using DLP on this site, but the non-DLP vendors have won and the term is completely diluted and no longer refers to a specific technology. Thus I'll stop being incredibly anal about it, and you might see me associated with "DLP" when it has nothing to do with pure-play DLP as I've historically defined it.

That said, when I'm writing about it I still intend to use the term DLP in my personal writing in accordance with my very specific definition (below), and will start using 'CMP' more heavily.

Data Loss Prevention/Content Monitoring and Protection is:

Products that, based on central policies, identify, monitor, and protect data at rest, in motion, and in use through deep content analysis.

For the record, I get all uppity about mangled definitions because all too often they're used to create market confusion, and reduce value to users. People end up buying things that don't do what they expected.

–Rich

Security Inevitabilities

By Rich

Despite my intensive research into cryonics, I have to accept that someday I will die. Permanently. I don't know when, where, or how, but someday I will cease to exist. Heck, even if I do manage to freeze myself (did you know one of the biggest cryonincs companies is only 20 minutes from my house?), get resurrected into a cloned 20-year-old version of myself, and eventually upload my consciousness into a supercomputer (so I can play Skynet, since I don't really like most people) I have to accept that someday Mother Entropy will bitch slap me with the end of the universe.

There are many inevitabilities in life, and it's often far easier to recognize these end results than the exact path that leads us to them. Denial is often closely tied to the obscurity of these journeys; when you can't see how to get from point A to point B (or from Alice to Bob, for you security geeks), it's all too easy to pretend that Bob Can't Ever Happen. Thus we find ourselves debating the minutiae, since the result is too far off to comprehend.

(Note that I'd like credit for not going deep into an analogy about Bob and Alice inevitably making Charlie after a few too many mojitos).

Security includes no shortage of inevitabilities. Below are just a few that have been circling my brain lately, in no particular order. It's not a comprehensive list, just a few things that come to mind (and please add your own in the comments). I may not know when they'll happen, or how, but they will happen:

• Everyone will use some form of NAC on their networks.
• Despite PCI, we will move off credit card numbers to a more secure transaction system. It may not be chip and PIN, but it definitely won't be magnetic strips.
• Everyone will use some form of DLP, we'll call it CMP, and it will only include tools with real content analysis.
• Log management and SIEM will converge into single products. Completely.
• UTM will rule the day on the perimeter, and we won't buy separate boxes for every function anymore.
• Virtualization and information-centric security will totally fuck up network security, especially internally.
• Any critical SCADA network will be pulled off the Internet.
• Database encryption will be performed inside the database with native functionality, with keys managed externally.
• The WAF vs. secure development debate will end as everyone buys/implements both.
• We'll stop pretending web application and database security are different problems.
• We will encrypt all laptops. It will be built into the hardware.
• Signature AV will die. Mostly.
• Chris Hoff will break the cloud.

–Rich

Analysis Of The Microsoft/RSA Data Loss Prevention Partnership

By Rich

By the time I post this you won't be able to find a tech news site that isn't covering this one. I know, since my name was on the list of analysts the press could contact and I spent a few hours talking to everyone covering the story yesterday. Rather than just reciting the press release, I'd like to add some analysis, put things into context, and speculate wildly. For the record, this is a big deal in the long term, and will likely benefit all of the major DLP vendors, even though there's nothing earth shattering in the short term.

As you read this, Microsoft and RSA are announcing a partnership for Data Loss Prevention. Here are the nitty gritty details, not all of which will be apparent from the press release:

• This month, the RSA DLP product (Tablus for you old folks) will be able to assign Microsoft RMS (what Microsoft calls DRM) rights to stored data based on content discovery. The way this works is that the RMS administrator will define a data protection template (what rights are assigned to what users). The RSA DLP administrator then creates a content detection policy, which can then apply the RMS rights automatically based on the content of files. The RSA DLP solution will then scan file repositories (including endpoints) and apply the RMS rights/controls to protect the content.
• Microsoft has licensed the RSA DLP technology to embed into various Microsoft products. They aren't offering much detail at this time, nor any timelines, but we do know a few specifics. Microsoft will slowly begin adding the RSA DLP content analysis engine to various products. The non-NDA slides hint at everything from SQL Server, Exchange, and Sharepoint, to Windows and Office. Microsoft will also include basic DLP management into their other management tools.
• Policies will work across both Microsoft and RSA in the future as the products evolve. Microsoft will be limiting itself to their environment, with RSA as the upgrade path for fuller DLP coverage.

And that's it for now. RSA DLP 6.5 will link into RMS, with Microsoft licensing the technology for future use in their products. Now for the analysis:

• This is an extremely significant development in the long term future of DLP. Actually, it's a nail in the coffin of the term "DLP" and moves us clearly and directly to what we call "CMP"- Content Monitoring and Protection. It moves us closer and closer to the DLP engine being available everywhere (and somewhat commoditized), and the real value in being in the central policy management, analysis, workflow, and incident management system. DLP/CMP vendors don't go away- but their focus changes as the agent technology is built more broadly into the IT infrastructure (this definitely won't be limited to just Microsoft).
• It's not very exciting in the short term. RSA isn't the first to plug DLP into RMS (Workshare does it, but they aren't nearly as big in the DLP market). RSA is only enabling this for content discovery (data at rest) and rights won't be applied immediately as files are created/saved. It's really the next stages of this that are interesting.
• This is good for all the major DLP vendors, although a bit better for RSA. It's big validation for the DLP/CMP market, and since Microsoft is licensing the technology to embed, it's reasonable to assume that down the road it may be accessible to other DLP vendors (be aware- that's major speculation on my part).
• This partnership also highlights the tight relationship between DLP/CMP and identity management. Most of the DLP vendors plug into Microsoft Active Directory to determine users/groups/roles for the application of content protection policies. One of the biggest obstacles to a successful DLP deployment can be a poor directory infrastructure. If you don't know what users have what roles, it's awfully hard to create content-based policies that are enforced based on users and roles.
• We don't know how much cash is involved, but financially this is likely good for RSA (the licensing part). I don't expect it to overly impact sales in the short term, and the other major DLP vendors shouldn't be too worried for now. DLP deals will still be competitive based on the capabilities of current products, more than what's coming in an indeterminate future.

Now just imagine a world where you run a query on a SQL database, and any sensitive results are appropriately protected as you place them into an Excel spreadsheet. You then drop that spreadsheet into a Powerpoint presentation and email it to the sales team. It's still quietly protected, and when one sales guy tries to email it to his Gmail account, it's blocked. When he transfers it to a USB device, it's encrypted using a company key so he can't put it on his home computer. If he accidentally sends it to someone in the call center, they can't read it. In the final PDF, he can't cut out the table and put it in another document. That's where we are headed- DLP/CMP is enmeshed into the background, protecting content through it's lifecycle based on central policies and content and context awareness.

In summary, it's great in the long term, good but not exciting in the short term, and beneficial to the entire DLP market, with a slight edge for RSA. There are a ton of open questions and issues, and we'll be watching and analyzing this one for a while.

As always, feel free to email me if you have any questions.

–Rich

Best Practices for Endpoint DLP: Part 3

By Rich

In our last post we discussed the core functions of an endpoint DLP tool. Today we're going to talk more about agent deployment, management, policy creation, enforcement workflow, and overall integration.

Agent Management

Agent management consists of two main functions- deployment and maintenance. On the deployment side, most tools today are designed to work with whatever workstation management tools your organization already uses. As with other software tools, you create a deployment package and then distribute it along with any other software updates. If you don't already have a software deployment tool, you'll want to look for an endpoint DLP tool that includes basic deployment capabilities. Since all endpoint DLP tools include central policy management, deployment is fairly straightforward. There's little need to customize packages based on user, group, or other variables beyond the location of the central management server.

The rest of the agent's lifecycle, aside from major updates, is controlled through the central management server. Agents should communicate regularly with the central server to receive policy updates and report incidents/activity. When the central management server is accessible, this should happen in near real time. When the endpoint is off the enterprise network (without VPN/remote access), the DLP tool will store violations locally in a secure repository that's encrypted and inaccessible to the user. The tool will then connect with the management server next time it's accessible, receiving policy updates and reporting activity. The management server should produce aging reports to help you identify endpoints which are out of date and need to be refreshed. Under some circumstances, the endpoint may be able to communicate remote violations through encrypted email or another secure mechanism from outside the corporate firewall.

Aside from content policy updates and activity reporting, there are a few other features that need central management. For content discovery, you'll need to control scanning schedule/frequency, and control bandwidth and performance (e.g., capping CPU usage). For real time monitoring and enforcement you'll also want performance controls, including limits on how much space is used to store policies and the local cache of incident information.

Once you set your base configuration, you shouldn't need to do much endpoint management directly. Things like enforcement actions are handled implicitly as part of policy, thus integrated into the main DLP policy interface.

Policy Creation and Workflow

Policy creation for endpoints should be fully integrated into your central DLP policy framework for consistent enforcement across data in motion, at rest, and in use. Policies are thus content focused, rather than location focused- another advantage of full suites over individual point products. In the policy management interface you first define the content to protect, then pick channels and enforcement actions (all, of course, tied to users/groups and context). For example, you might want to create a policy to protect customer account numbers. You'd start by creating a database fingerprinting policy pulling names and account numbers from the customer database; this is the content definition phase. Assuming you want the policy to apply equally to all employees, you then define network protective actions- e.g., blocking unencrypted emails with account numbers, blocking http and ftp traffic, and alerting on other channels where blocking isn't possible. For content discovery, quarantine any files with more than one account number that are not on a registered server. Then, for endpoints, restrict account numbers from unencrypted files, portable storage, or network communications when the user is off the corporate network, switching to a rules-based (regular expression) policy when access to the policy server isn't available.

In some cases you might need to design these as separate but related policies- for example, the database fingerprinting policy applies when the endpoint is on the network, and a simplified rules-based policy when the endpoint is remote.

Incident management should also be fully integrated into the overall DLP incident handling queue. Incidents appear in a single interface, and can be routed to handlers based on policy violated, user, severity, channel, or other criteria. Remember that DLP is focused on solving the business problem of protecting your information, and thus tends to require a dedicated workflow.

For endpoint DLP you'll need some additional information beyond network or non-endpoint discovery policies. Since some violations will occur when the system is off the network and unable to communicate with the central management server, "delayed notification" violations need to be appropriately stamped and prioritized in the management interface. You'd hate to miss the loss of your entire customer database because it showed up as a week-old incident when the sales laptop finally reconnected.

Otherwise, workflow is fully integrated into your main DLP solution, and any endpoint-specific actions are handled through the same mechanisms as discovery or network activity.

Integration

If you're running an endpoint only solution, an integrated user interface obviously isn't an issue. For full suite solutions, as we just discussed, policy creation, management, and incident workflow should be completely integrated with network and discovery policies.

Other endpoint management is typically a separate tab in the main interface, alongside management areas for discovery/storage management and network integration/management. While you want an integrated management interface, you don't want it so integrated that it becomes confusing or unwieldy to use.

In most DLP tools, content discovery is managed separately to define repositories and manage scanning schedules and performance. Endpoint DLP discovery should be included here, and allow you to specify device and user groups instead of having to manage endpoints individually.

That's about it for the technology side; in our next posts we'll look at best practices for deployment and management, and present a few generic use cases.

I realize I'm pretty biased towards full-suite solutions, and this is your chance to call me on it. If you disagree, please let me know in the comments...

–Rich

Best Practices For Endpoint DLP: Part 2

By Rich

In Part 1 I talked about the definition of endpoint DLP, the business drivers, and how it integrates with full-suite solutions. Today (and over the next few days) we're going to start digging into the technology itself.

Base Agent Functions

There is massive variation in the capabilities of different endpoint agents. Even for a single given function, there can be a dozen different approaches, all with varying degrees of success. Also, not all agents contain all features; in fact, most agents lack one or more major areas of functionality.

Agents include four generic layers/features:

1. Content Discovery: Scanning of stored content for policy violations.
2. File System Protection: Monitoring and enforcement of file operations as they occur (as opposed to discovery, which is scanning of content already written to media). Most often, this is used to prevent content from being written to portable media/USB. It's also where tools hook in for automatic encryption or application of DRM rights.
3. Network Protection: Monitoring and enforcement of network operations. Provides protection similar to gateway DLP when a system is off the corporate network. Since most systems treat printing and faxing as a form of network traffic, this is where most print/fax protection can be enforced (the rest comes from special print/fax hooks).
4. GUI/Kernel Protection: A more generic category to cover data in use scenarios, such as cut/paste, application restrictions, and print screen.

Between these four categories we cover most of the day to day operations a user might perform that places content at risk. It hits our primary drivers from the last post- protecting data from portable storage, protecting systems off the corporate network, and supporting discovery on the endpoint. Most of the tools on the market start with file and (then) networking features before moving on to some of the more complex GUI/kernel functions.

Agent Content Awareness

Even if you have an endpoint with a quad-core processor and 8 GB of RAM, the odds are you don't want to devote all of that horsepower to enforcing DLP.

Content analysis may be resource intensive, depending on the types of policies you are trying to enforce. Also, different agents have different enforcement capabilities which may or may not match up to their gateway counterparts. At a minimum, most endpoint tools support rules/regular expressions, some degree of partial document matching, and a whole lot of contextual analysis. Others support their entire repertoire of content analysis techniques, but you will likely have to tune policies to run on a more resource constrained endpoint.

Some tools rely on the central management server for aspects of content analysis, to offload agent overhead. Rather than performing all analysis locally, they will ship content back to the server, then act on any results. This obviously isn't ideal, since those policies can't be enforced when the endpoint is off the enterprise network, and it will suck up a fair bit of bandwidth. But it does allow enforcement of policies that are otherwise totally unrealistic on an endpoint, such as database fingerprinting of a large enterprise DB.

One emerging option is policies that adapt based on endpoint location. For example, when you're on the enterprise network most policies are enforced at the gateway. Once you access the Internet outside the corporate walls, a different set of policies is enforced. For example, you might use database fingerprinting (exact database matching) of the customer DB at the gateway when the laptop is in the office or on a (non split tunneled) VPN, but drop to a rule/regex for Social Security Numbers (or account numbers) for mobile workers. Sure, you'll get more false positives, but you're still able to protect your sensitive information while meeting performance requirements.

Next up: more on the technology, followed by best practices for deployment and implementation.

–Rich

Best Practices For Endpoint DLP: Part 1

By Rich

As the first analyst to ever cover Data Loss Prevention, I've had a bit of a tumultuous relationship with endpoint DLP. Early on I tended to exclude endpoint only solutions because they were more limited in functionality, and couldn't help at all with protecting data loss from unmanaged systems. But even then I always said that, eventually, endpoint DLP would be a critical component of any DLP solution. When we're looking at a problem like data loss, no individual point solution will give us everything we need.

Over the next few posts we're going to dig into endpoint DLP. I'll start by discussing how I define it, and why I don't generally recommend stand-alone endpoint DLP. I'll talk about key features to look for, then focus on best practices for implementation.

It won't come as any surprise that these posts are building up into another one of my whitepapers. This is about as transparent a research process as I can think of. And speaking of transparency, like most of my other papers this one is sponsored, but the content is completely objective (sponsors can suggest a topic, if it's objective, but they don't have input on the content).

Definition

As always, we need to start with our definition for DLP/CMP:

"Products that, based on central policies, identify, monitor, and protect data at rest, in motion, and in use through deep content analysis".

Endpoint DLP helps manage all three parts of this problem. The first is protecting data at rest when it's on the endpoint; or what we call content discovery (and I wrote up in great detail). Our primary goal is keeping track of sensitive data as it proliferates out to laptops, desktops, and even portable media. The second part, and the most difficult problem in DLP, is protecting data in use. This is a catch all term we use to describe DLP monitoring and protection of content as it's used on a desktop- cut and paste, moving data in and out of applications, and even tying in with encryption and enterprise Document Rights Management (DRM). Finally, endpoint DLP provides data in motion protection for systems outside the purview of network DLP- such as a laptop out in the field.

Endpoint DLP is a little difficult to discuss since it's one of the fastest changing areas in a rapidly evolving space. I don't believe any single product has every little piece of functionality I'm going to talk about, so (at least where functionality is concerned) this series will lay out all the recommended options which you can then prioritize to meet your own needs.

Endpoint DLP Drivers

In the beginning of the DLP market we nearly always recommended organizations start with network DLP. A network tool allows you to protect both managed and unmanaged systems (like contractor laptops), and is typically easier to deploy in an enterprise (since you don't have to muck with every desktop and server). It also has advantages in terms of the number and types of content protection policies you can deploy, how it integrates with email for workflow, and the scope of channels covered. During the DLP market's the first few years, it was hard to even find a content-aware endpoint agent.

But customer demand for endpoint DLP quickly grew thanks to two major needs- content discovery on the endpoint, and the ability to prevent loss through USB storage devices. We continue to see basic USB blocking tools with absolutely no content awareness brand themselves as DLP. The first batches of endpoint DLP tools focused on exactly these problems- discovery and content-aware portable media/USB device control.

The next major driver for endpoint DLP is supporting network policies when a system is outside the corporate gateway. We all live in an increasingly mobile workforce where we need to support consistent policies no matter where someone is physically located, nor how they connect to the Internet.

Finally, we see some demand for deeper integration of DLP with how a user interacts with their system. In part, this is to support more intensive policies to reduce malicious loss of data. You might, for example, disallow certain content from moving into certain applications, like encryption. Some of these same kinds of hooks are used to limit cut/paste, print screen, and fax, or to enable more advanced security like automatic encryption or application of DRM rights.

The Full Suite Advantage

As we've already hinted, there are some limitations to endpoint only DLP solutions. The first is that they only protect managed systems where you can deploy an agent. If you're worried about contractors on your network or you want protection in case someone tries to use a server to send data outside the walls, you're out of luck. Also, because some content analysis policies are processor and memory intensive, it is problematic to get them running on resource-constrained endpoints. Finally, there are many discovery situations where you don't want to deploy a local endpoint agent for your content analysis- e.g. when performing discovery on a major SAN.

Thus my bias towards full-suite solutions. Network DLP reduces losses on the enterprise network from both managed and unmanaged systems, and servers and workstations. Content discovery finds and protects stored data throughout the enterprise, while endpoint DLP protects systems that leave the network, and reduces risks across vectors that circumvent the network. It's the combination of all these layers that provides the best overall risk reduction. All of this is managed through a single policy, workflow, and administration server; rather than forcing you to create different policies; for different channels and products, with different capabilities, workflow, and management.

In our next post we'll discuss the technology and major features to look for, followed by posts on best practices for implementation.

–Rich

Information-Centric Security Tip: Know Your Users and Infrastructure

By Rich

I was on a client reference today learning about someone's DLP deployment, and it highlighted one of the biggest issues we often face when moving to an information-centric model. No, it's not a failure of content analysis techniques, data classification, or over-hyped tools, it's that we often don't even know who owns what, who's supposed to have access to what, or our own infrastructure.

I often start my data security/information-centric rants by mentioning you need to have good identity management in place, but I don't normally spend a whole lot of time talking about the details.

The truth is, this comes up all the time when I'm talking with end users who are implementing this stuff. Oftenthey don't have a good directory infrastructure, or one that reflects the org chart, and thus they can't do everything they want with their DLP, DAM, or other tools. Sometimes they don't even know where all their assets/servers are, or how to access them for scanning.

Thus the tip- if you have a good directory infrastructure that accurately reflects your organizational structure, you'll be in much better shape for any of these projects. Many of these tools can directly integrate with AD/LDAP, allowing you to build role-based policies.

You can't inform someone's manager they're sending customer lists home or running weird DB queries if you don't know who they work for.

–Rich

Best Practices For DLP Content Discovery: Part 3

By Rich

In Part 3 of our series we finished our review of the technical architecture and selection; now we're going to delve into best practices for deployment. We will focus on setting expectations, prioritization, and defining your internal processes. The main obstacle to successful deployments isn't a technology weakness, but rather the failure of the enterprise to understand what to protect, decide how to protect it, and recognize what's reasonable in a real-world environment.

Setting Expectations

The single most important factor for any successful DLP deployment -- content discovery or otherwise -- is properly setting expectations at the start of the project. DLP tools are powerful, but far from a magic bullet or black box that makes all data completely secure. When setting expectations you need to pull key stakeholders together in a single room and define what's achievable with your solution. All discussion at this point assumes you've already selected a tool. Some of these practices deliberately overlap steps during the selection process since at this point you'll have a much clearer understanding of the capabilities of your chosen tool.

In this phase, you discuss and define the following:

1. What kinds of content you can protect, based on the content analysis capabilities of your tool.
2. Expected accuracy rates for those different kinds of content; for example, you'll have a much higher false positive rate with statistical/conceptual techniques than partial document or database matching.
3. Protection options: Can you encrypt? Move files? Change access controls?
4. Performance, based on scanning techniques.
5. How much of the infrastructure you'd like to cover (which servers, endpoints, and other storage repositories).
6. Scanning frequency (days? hours? near continuous?).
7. Reporting and workflow capabilities.

It's extremely important to start defining a phased implementation. It's completely unrealistic to expect to monitor every nook and cranny of your infrastructure with your initial rollout. Nearly every organization finds they are more successful with a controlled, staged rollout that slowly expands breadth of infrastructure coverage and types of content to protect.

Prioritization

If you haven't already prioritized your information during the selection process, you need to pull all major stakeholders together (business units, legal, compliance, security, IT, HR, etc.) and determine which kinds of information are more important, and which to protect first. I recommend you first rank major information types (e.g., customer PII, employee PII, engineering plans, corporate financials), then re-order them based on priority for monitoring/protecting within your DLP content discovery tool.

In an ideal world your prioritization should directly align with the order of protection, but while some data might be more important to the organization (engineering plans) other data may need to be protected first due to exposure or regulatory requirements (PII). You'll also need to tweak the order based on the capabilities of your tool.

After your prioritize information types to protect, run through and determine approximate timelines for deploying content policies for each type. Be realistic, and understand that you'll need to both tune new policies and leave time for the organizational to become comfortable with any required business changes.

We'll look further at how to roll out policies and what to expect in terms of deployment times later in this series.

Define Process

DLP tools are, by their very nature, intrusive. Not in terms of breaking things, but intrusive in terms of the depth and breadth of what they find. Organizations are strongly advised to define their business processes for dealing with DLP policy creation and violations before turning on the tools. Here's a sample of a process for defining new policies:

1. Business unit requests policy from DLP team to protect content type.
2. DLP team meets with business unit to determine goals and protection requirements.
3. DLP team engages with legal/compliance to determine any legal or contractual requirements or limitations.
4. DLP team defines draft policy.
5. Draft policy tested in monitoring (alert only) mode without full workflow and tuned to acceptable accuracy.
6. DLP team defines workflow for selected policy.
7. DLP team reviews final policy and workflow with business unit to confirm needs have been met.
8. Appropriate business units notified of new policy and any required changes in business processes.
9. Policy deployed in production environment in monitoring mode, but will full workflow enabled.
10. Protection certified as stable.
11. Protection/enforcement actions enabled.

And here's one for policy violations:

1. Violation detected; appears in incident handling queue.
2. Incident handler confirms incident and severity.
3. If action required, incident handler escalates and opens investigation.
4. Business unit contact for triggered policy notified.
5. Incident evaluated.
6. Protective actions taken.
7. If file moved/protected, notify user and drop placeholder file with contact information.
8. Notify employee manager and HR if corrective actions required.
9. Perform required employee education.
10. Close incident.

These are, of course, just rough samples in text form, but they should give you a good idea of where to start.

–Rich