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FireStarter: an Encrypted Value Is *Not* a Token!

Rich July 19, 2010 19 Comments

We’ve been writing a lot on tokenization as we build the content for our next white paper, and in Adrian’s response to the PCI Council’s guidance on tokenization. I want to address something that’s really been ticking me off… In our latest post in the series we described the details of token generation. One of the options, which we had to include since it’s built into many of the products, is encryption of the original value – then using the encrypted value as the token. Here’s the thing: If you encrypt the value, it’s encryption, not tokenization! Encryption obfuscates, but a token removes, the original data. Conceptually the major advantages of tokenization are: The token cannot be reversed back to the original value. The token maintains the same structure and data type as the original value. While format preserving encryption can retain the structure and data type, it’s still reversible back to the original if you have the key and algorithm. Yes, you can add per-organization salt, but this is still encryption. I can see some cases where using a hash might make sense, but only if it’s a format preserving hash. I worry that marketing is deliberately muddling the terms. Opinions? Otherwise, I declare here and now that if you are using an encrypted value and calling it a ‘token’, that is not tokenization. Share:

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Pricing Cyber-Policies

Mike Rothman July 19, 2010 6 Comments

Every time I think I’m making progress on controlling my cynical gene, I see something that sets me back almost to square one. I’ve been in this game for a long time, and although I think subconsciously I know some things are going on, it’s still a bit shocking to see them in print. What set me off this time is Richard Bejtlich’s brief thoughts on the WEIS 2010 (Workshop on the Economics of Information Security) conference. His first thoughts are around a presentation on cyber insurance. The presenter admitted that the industry has no expected loss data and no financial impact data. Really? They actually admitted that. But it gets better. Your next question must be, “So how do they price the policies?” It certainly was mine. Yes! They have an answer for that: Price the policies high and see what happens. WHAT? Does Dr. Evil head their policy pricing committee? I can’t say I’m a big fan of insurance companies, and this is the reason why. They are basically making it up. Pulling the premiums out of their butts. Literally. And they would never err favor of folks buying the policies, so you see high prices. Clearly this is a chicken & egg situation. They don’t have data because no one shares it. So they write some policies to start collecting data, but they price the policies probably too high for most companies to actually buy. So they still have no data. And those looking for insurance don’t really have any options. I guess I need to ask why folks are looking for cyber-insurance anyway? I can see the idea of trying to get someone else to pay for disclosure – those are hard costs. Maybe you can throw clean-up into that, but how could you determine what is clean-up required from a specific attack, and what is just crappy security already in place? It’s not like you are insuring Sam Bradford’s shoulder here, so you aren’t going to get a policy to reimburse for brand damage. Back when I worked for TruSecure, the company had an “insurance” policy guaranteeing something in the event of a breach on a client certified using the company’s Risk Management Methodology. At some point the policy expired, and when trying to renew it, we ran across the same crap. We didn’t know how to model loss data – there was none because the process was perfect. LOL! And they didn’t either. So the quote came back off the charts. Then we had to discontinue the program because we couldn’t underwrite the risk. Seems almost 7 years later, we’re still in the same place. Actually we’re in a worse place because the folks writing these policies are now aggressively working the system to prevent payouts (see Colorado Casualty/University of Utah) when a breach occurs. I guess from my perspective cyber-insurance is a waste of time. But I could be missing something, so I’ll open it up to you folks – you’re collectively a lot smarter than me. Do you buy cyber-insurance? For what? Have you been able to collect on any claims? Is the policy just to make your board happy? To cover your ass and shuffle blame to the insurance company? Do tell. Please! Photo credit: “Dr Evil 700 Billion” originally uploaded by Radio_jct Share:

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