Research

I just read about some Georgia Tech researchers working on remote security techniques that carriers could use to help manage attacks on cell phones. Years ago I used to focus on a similar issue: how mobile malware was something that carriers would eventually be responsible for stopping, and that’s why we wouldn’t really need AV on our phones. That particular prediction was clearly out of date before the threat ever reared its ugly head. These days our phones are connected nearly as much to WiFi, Bluetooth, and other networks as they are to the carrier’s network. Thus it isn’t hard to see malware that checks to see which network interface is active before sending out any bad packets (DDOS is much more effective over WiFi than EDGE/3G anyway). This could circumvent the carrier, leaving malware to propagate over local networks. Then again, perhaps we’ll all have super-high-speed carrier-based networks on some 6G technology before phone malware is prevalent, and we’ll be back on carrier networks again for most of our connectivity. In which case, if it’s AT&T, the network won’t be reliable enough for any malware to spread anyway. Share:

A couple weeks ago, we began an internal discussion about DNS security and X.509 certificates. It dawned on me that those of you who have never worked with certificates may not understand what they are or what they are for. Sure, you can go to the X.509 Wiki, where you get the rules for usage and certificate structure, but that’s a little like trying to figure out football by reading the rule book. If you are asking, “What the heck is it and what is it used for?”, you are not alone. An X.509 certificate is used to make an authoritative statement about something. A real life equivalent would be “Hi, I’m David, and I live at 555 Main Street.” The certificate holder presents it to someone/something in order to prove they are who they say they are, in order to establish trust. X.509 and other certificates are useful because the certificate provides the necessary information to validate the presenter’s claim and the authenticate the certificate itself. Like a driver’s license with a hologram, but much better. The recipient examines the certificate’s contents to decide if the presenter is who they say they are, and them whether to trust them with some privilege. Certificates are used primarily to establish trust on the web, and rely heavily on cryptography to provide the built-in validation. Certificates are always signed with a chain of authority. If the root of the chain is trusted, the user or application can extend that level of trust to some other domain/server/user. If the recipient doesn’t already trust the top signing authority, the certificate is ignored and no trust is established. In a way, an x.509 certificate is a basic embodiment of data centric security, as it contains both information and some rules of use. Most certificates state within themselves what they are used for, and yes, they can be used for purposes other than validating web site identity/ownership, but in practice we don’t see diverse uses of X.509 certificates. You will hear that X.509 is an old format, that it’s not particularly flexible or adaptable. All of which is true and why we don’t see it used very often in different contexts. Considering that X.509 certificates are used primarily for network security, but were designed a decade before most people had even heard of the Internet, they have worked considerably better than we had any right to expect. Share:

How often have you heard the phrase, “Never assume” (insert the cheesy catch phrase that was funny in 6th grade here)? For the record, it’s wrong. When designing our security, disaster recovery, or whatever, the problem isn’t that we make assumptions, it’s that we make the wrong assumptions. To narrow it down even more, the problem is when we make false assumptions, and typically those assumptions skew towards the positive, leaving us unprepared for the negative. Actually, I’ll narrow this down even more… the one assumption to avoid is a single phrase: “That will never happen.” There’s really no way to perform any kind of forward-looking planning without some basis for assumptions. The trick to avoiding problems is that these assumptions should generally skew to the negative, and must always be justified, rather than merely accepted. It’s important not to make all your decisions based on worst cases because that leads to excessive costs. Expose all the the assumptions helps you examine the corresponding risk tolerance. For example, in mountain rescue we engaged in non-stop scenario planning, and had to make certain assumptions. We assumed that a well cared for rope under proper use would only break at its tested breaking strength (minus knots and other calculable factors). We didn’t assume said breaking strength was what was printed on the label by the manufacturer, but was our own internal breaking strength value, determined through testing. We would then build in a minimum of a 3:1 safety factor to account for unexpected dynamic strains/wear/whatever. In the field we were constantly calculating load levels in our heads, and would even occasionally break out a dynamometer to confirm. We also tested every single component in our rescue systems – including the litter we’d stick the patient into, just in case someone had to hang off the end of it. Our team was very heavy with engineers, but that isn’t the case with other rescue teams. Most of them used a 10:1 safety factor, but didn’t perform the same kinds of testing or calculations we did. There’s nothing wrong with that… although it did give our team a little more flexibility. I was recently explaining the assumptions I used to derive our internal corporate security, and realized that I’ve been using a structured assumptions framework that I haven’t ever put in writing (until now). Since all scenario planning is based on assumptions, and the trick is to pick the right assumptions, I formalized my approach in the shower the other night (an image that has likely scarred all of you for life). It consists of four components: Assumption Reasoning: The basis for the assumption. Indicators: Specific cues that indicate whether the assumption is accurate or if there’s a problem in that area. Controls: The security/recovery/safety controls to mitigate the issue. Here’s how I put it in practice when developing our security: Assumption: Securosis in general, and myself specifically, are a visible target. Reasoning: We are extremely visible and vocal in the security community, and as such are not only a target of opportunity. We also have strong relationships within the vulnerability research community, where directed attacks to embarrass individuals are not uncommon. That said, we aren’t at the top of an attacker’s list – there is no financial incentive to attack us, nor does any of our work directly interfere with the income of cybercriminal organizations. While we deal with some non-public information, it isn’t particularly valuable in a financial context. Thus we are a target, but the motivation would be to embarrass us and disrupt our operations, not to generate income. Indicators: A number of our industry friends have been targeted and successfully attacked. Last year one of my private conversations with one such victim was revealed as part of an attack. For this particular assumption, no further indicators are really needed. Controls: This assumption doesn’t drive specific controls, but does reinforce a general need to invest heavily in security to protect against a directed attack by someone willing to take the time to compromise myself or the company. You’ll see how this impacts things with the other assumptions. Assumption: While we are a target, we are not valuable enough to waste a serious zero-day exploit on. Reasoning: A zero-day capable of compromising our infrastructure will be too financially valuable to waste on merely embarrassing a gaggle of analysts. This is true for our internal infrastructure, but not necessarily for our web site. Indicators: If this assumption is wrong, it’s possible one of our outbound filtering layers will register unusual activity, or we will see odd activity from a server. Controls: Outbound filtering is our top control here, and we’ve minimized our external surface area and compartmentalized things internally. The zero-day would probably have to target our individual desktops, or our mail server, since we don’t really have much else. Our web site is on a less common platform, and I’ll talk more about that in a second. There are other possible controls we could put in place (from DLP to HIPS), but unless we have an indication someone would burn a valuable exploit on us, they aren’t worth the cost. Assumption: Our website will be hacked. Reasoning: We do not have the resources to perform full code analysis and lockdown on the third party platform we built our site on. Our site is remotely co-hosted, which also opens up potential points of attack. It is the weakest link in our infrastructure, and the easiest point to attack short of developing some new zero-day against our mail server or desktops. Indicators: Unusual activity within the site, or new administrative user accounts. We periodically review the back-end management infrastructure for indicators of an ongoing compromise, including both the file system and the content management system. For example, if HTML rendering in comments was suddenly turned on, that would be an indicator. Controls: We deliberately chose a service provider and platform with better than average security records, and security controls not usually available for a co-hosted site. We’ve disabled any HTML rendering in comments/forum posts, and promote use of NoScript when visiting our site to reduce user exposure when it’s compromised. On

I have to be honest. I’m getting tired of this whole “security is failing, security professionals suck” meme. If the industry was failing that badly all our bank accounts would be empty, we’d be running on generators, our kids would all be institutionalized due to excessive exposure to porn, email would be dead, and all our Amazon orders would be rerouted to Liberia… but would never show up because of all the falling planes crashing into sinking cargo ships. I’m not going to say we don’t have serious problems! We do, but we are also far from complete failure. Just as any retail supply chain struggles with shrinkage (theft), any organization of sufficient size will struggle with data shrinkage and security penetrations. Are we suffering losses? Hell, yes. Are they bad? Most definitely. But these losses clearly haven’t hit the point where the pain to society has sufficiently exceeded our tolerance. Partially I think this is because the losses are unevenly distributed and hidden within the system, but that’s another post. I don’t know where the line is that will kick the world into action, but suspect it might involve sudden unavailability of Internet porn and LOLCats email. Those of us deeply embedded within the security industry forget that the vast majority of people responsible for IT security across the world aren’t necessarily in dedicated positions within large enterprises. I’d venture a bet that if we add up all the 1-2 person security teams in SMB (many only doing security part-time), and other IT professionals with some security responsibilities, that number would be a pretty significant multiple of all the CISSPs and SANS graduates in the world. It’s ridiculous for us to tell these folks that they are failing. They are slammed with day to day operational tasks, with no real possibility of ever catching up. I heard someone say at Gartner once that if we froze the technology world today, buying no new systems and approving no new projects, it would still take us 5 years to catch up. Security professionals have evolved… they just have far too much to deal with on a daily basis. We also forget that, as with any profession, most of the people in it just want to do their jobs and go home at night, perhaps 10% are really good and always thinking about it, and at least 30% are lazy and suck. I might be too generous with that 30% number. Security, and security professionals, aren’t failing. We lose some battles and win others, and life goes on. At some point the world feels enough pain and we get more resources to respond. Then we reduce that pain to an acceptable level, and we’re forgotten again. That said, I do think life will be more interesting once losses aren’t hidden within the system (and I mean inside all kinds of businesses, not just the financial world). Once we can tie data loss to pain, perhaps priorities will shift. But that’s for another post… On to the Summary: Webcasts, Podcasts, Outside Writing, and Conferences Adrian and Martin on Network Security Podcast 173. Adrian’s Dark Reading post on Database Cell Encryption. Some of Rich’s work is in the brand new Macworld Snow Leopard Superguide. Favorite Securosis Posts Rich: Dave Meier’s post on security and location based services. This challenged my existing beliefs and forced me to separate the issues of security and privacy. Can’t ask for much more out of a post (or an intern). Adrian and Meier: Compliance vs. Security. Mort: Always Assume Other Securosis Posts 2010 Services Update Mobile Phone Worms Don’t Need Carriers Anymore Two Random Security Rules Google Dashboard Comments Layman’s view of X.509 Favorite Outside Posts Rich: Andy the IT Guy on building a program from the ground up. I think I might have to do a full response to this one. Adrian: SDL for Agile Development on the Microsoft Security Development blog. Chris: Paul Vixie on the subversion of DNS. Mort: Practices: Proven vs. Standard? Meier: Unpatched Windows 7 Bug Crashes Windows – Microsoft needs to give up the backwards compatibility and stick a fork in it – it’s done! Top News and Posts WordPress security patches out. HP buys 3Com – does this make them a security vendor now? (On the networking side – they already had application security). Mike Bailey discovers a flaw in Flash same origin policy enforcement. The Dark Side of the Cloud. Shocker: None of 16 AV products tested rated Very Good. Awesome: Hacked Roombas Used to Play Pac-Man. Where do they find the time? Apple Fixes User Account Bug. Marcus Ranum at TED. Martin on the ethics of spilled COFEE. Adam O’Donnell joins Immunet. A Security Catalyst post on what it’s like for new people entering the security profession. Researchers pushing smartphone security to the carrier. Google Latitude Gets Creepy with Location History and Alerts – Goes with Meier’s theme this week. Animated Network Packet Structure Visualization – Not security related exactly, but interesting. Blog Comment of the Week This week’s best comment comes from Mike Rothman in response to Compliance vs. Security: Wow. Hard to know where to start here. There is a lot to like and appreciate about Corman’s positions. Security innovation has clearly suffered because organizations are feeding the compliance beast. Yes, there is some overlap – but it’s more being lucky than good when a compliance mandate actually improves security. The reality is BOTH security and compliance do not add value to an organization. I’ve heard the “enabling” hogwash for years and still don’t believe it. That means organizations will spend the least amount possible to achieve a certain level of “risk” mitigation – whether it’s to address security threats or compliance mandates. That is not going to change. What Josh is really doing is challenging all of us to break out of this death spiral, where we are beholden to the compliance gods and that means we cannot actually protect much of anything. Compliance is and will remain years behind the real threats. Share: