Research

Our previous post discussed the first step in the development process: getting access to the API gateway through access provisioning. Now that you have access it’s time to discuss how the gateway supports your code development and deployment processes. An API gateway must accomplish two primary functions: help developers build, test, and deploy applications; and help companies control use of their API. They are part development environment and part operational security tool. API Catalog The APIs catalog is basically a menu of APIs, services, and support services that provide developers front-end integration to access back-office applications, external APIs (for mashups), data and related services, along with all the supporting tools to build and deploy applications. Catalogs typically include APIs, documentation, coding help, build tools, configuration requirements, testing tools, guidance, and sample code for each supported function. They offer other relevant details such as network controls, access controls, integration options, orchestration, brokering and messaging options – all bundled into a management interface for selecting and configuring the services you want. Developer time is expensive so anything that streamlines this process is a win. Security controls such as identity protocols are notoriously difficult to fully grasp and implement. If your security architects want developers to “do it right”, this is the place to invest time to show them how. Traditionally security tools are bolted onto – or in front of – applications, generating howls of displeasure from developers who don’t want the added complexity nor performance impact. With third-party APIs things are different, as security is part of the core value. API gateways offer features than enable network, interface, and data security as part of the core feature set. For example it is faster and easier to enable built-in SAML or OAuth identity services than to build them from scratch – or worse to build a password management system. Even better, the features are available at design time, before you assemble the application, so they can be bundled into the development process. Reference implementations are extremely helpful. For example, consider OAuth: if you look at 10 different companies’ OAuth implementations you will probably find a dozen different implementations. Don’t assume developers will just figure it all out – connect the dots. To have a chance at a secure deployment developers need concrete guidance for security services – especially for things as abstract as identity protocols. Reference implementations show end-to-end examples of the identity protocol in practice. For a developer trying to “do it right” this is like finding diamonds in the backyard. The reference implementation is even more effective if it is backed up by testing tools that can verify developer implementations. Access management is a principal feature of API gateways. The gateway helps you enforce access controls, building in authentication and authorization services into the API set. Gateways typically rely on token-based security services, and support one or more token services such as SAML and OAuth. All API gateways offer authentication support, and most integrate with other identity sources to support federation. Gateways provide basic role-based authorization support, sometimes with fine-grained authorization to constrain data access by user identity or endpoint device. Beyond identity protocols, some gateways offer services to defend against attacks such as replay attacks and other forms of session hijacking. API gateways provide dynamic filtering of requests, allowing policy-based routing and response to API calls. Developers get tools to parse incoming calls, filter or transform messages, and then route to appropriate services. This facilitates modification of application function, debugging of application functions, and application of different security or compliance controls in response to user requests. Filters also provide a mechanism for sending requests to different locations, workflow modification, or even sending requests to different applications. This flexibility is a powerful security capability, particularly for analysis of and protection against suspect clients – access to services and data can be dynamically adjusted. API gateway providers offer a range of pre-deployment tools to validate applications prior to deployment. Sandbox testing and runtime simulators both validate correct API usage, and can also verify that the application developer properly handles input variables and simulated attacks. Some test harnesses are provided with gateways and others are custom implementations by API service owners. Pre-deployment validation is good a way to ensure all third-party developers meet a minimum security standard, and no single user becomes the proverbial weak link. If possible, tests should be executed as part of the normal integration process, (i.e., Jenkins) so implementation quality can be continually tested. Deployment Support The API catalog provides options for how to build security into your application, but API gateways also offer deployment support. When you are push APIs that connect the world to internal systems you need to account for a myriad of different threats at multiple network, protocol, application, and data layers. Denial of service, parser attacks, code injection, replay attacks, HTTP protocol abuse, network sniffing, and denial of service attacks are all things to consider. API gateways can optionally provide privacy and security for network sessions through SSL. Most also offer network firewall capabilities such as IP whitelisting, blacklisting, and signature-based detection. While network security is a must have for many, it’s not really their core value to security. The key security features are overall security of the API and message-level filtering. API gateways provide capabilities to detect code injection, cross-site scripting, and various encoding attacks; most also offer off-the-shelf filters for input validation and sanitization. Logging, Monitoring, and Reporting As an application platform API gateways capture activity and generate audit logs. Sitting between developer applications and the API, they are perfectly positioned to capture API usage – useful for throttling, billing, and metering API access, as well as security. Log files are essential for security, operations, and compliance, so these teams all rely upon gateway audit trails. Most API gateways provide flexible configuration of which audit events are collected, record format, and record destination. Audit capabilities are mostly designed for the gateway owner rather than developers. But the audit trail captures sessions of all

Apple posted a page with some short details on the new business features of iOS 7. These security enhancements actually change the game for iOS security and BYOD: Data protection is now enabled by default for all applications. That means apps’ data stores are encrypted with the user passcode. For strongish passphrases (greater than 8 characters is a decent start) this is very strong security and definitely up to enterprise standards if you are on newer hardware (iPhone 4S or later, for sure). You no longer need to build this into your custom enterprise apps (or app wrappers) unless you don’t enforce passcode requirements. Share sheets provide the ability to open files in different applications. A new feature allows you, through MDM I assume, to manage what apps email attachments can open in. This is huge because you get far greater control of the flow on the device. Email is already encrypted with data protection and managed through ActiveSync and/or MDM; now that we can restrict which apps files can open in, we have a complete, secure, and managed data flow path. Per-app VPNs allow you to require an enterprise app, even one you didn’t build yourself, to use a specific VPN to connect without piping all the user’s network traffic through you. To be honest, this is a core feature of most custom (including wrapped) apps, but allowing you to set it based on policy instead of embedding into apps may be useful in a variety of scenarios. In summary, some key aspects of iOS we had to work around with custom apps can now be managed on a system-wide level with policies. The extra security on Mail may obviate the need for some organizations to use container apps because it is manageable and encrypted, and data export can be controlled. Now it all comes down to how well it works in practice. A couple other security bits are worth mentioning: It looks like SSO is an on-device option to pass credentials between apps. We need a lot more detail on this one but I suspect it is meant to tie a string of corporate apps together without requiring users to log in every time. So probably not some sort of traditional SAML support, which is what I first thought. Better MDM policies and easier enrollment, designed to work better with your existing MDM tools once they support the features. There are probably more but this is all that’s public now. The tighter control over data flow on the device (from email) is unexpected and should be well received. As a reminder, here is my paper on data security options in iOS 6. Share:

Ericka Chickowski posted an interview with the creators of the open source library AntiSQLi at Dark Reading. She is discussing a very interesting development tool, but the value proposition gets somewhat lost in the creators’ poor terminology. First some background: there is no such thing as an ‘unparameterized’ database query. Every SQL query has at least 2 parameters: The contents of the SELECT and WHERE clauses. Without parameters in those two clauses the query fails in the parser and generates an error. No parameters, no query. So SQLi is not really a problem of ‘unparameterized’ queries – it is a problem of unvalidated input values to parameters. SQLi is where we shove bad data into parameters – not a lack of parameters! The AntiSQLi library is simple and clever: it works like an app-side stored procedure. And like a stored procedure it forces datas type on its input values. It essentially handles the casting operation to force type and length. AntiSQLi weeds out variables that don’t match the prescribed data type, and extra long variables in some cases. Obviously it cannot catch everything but it does filter out many common and crude SQLi attacks. A better term would have been “un-cast query parameters”. Regardless of the terminology, though, I am happy to see innovation in this area. For years I have been recommending that developers build this functionality into their own reusable security libraries, but AntiSQLi is a quick and easy way to get started, and a nice tool to have in your toolbox. Share:

June is a special time for us. School is over and we take a couple weeks to chill before the kids head off to camp. Then we head up to the Delaware beach where the Boss and I met many moons ago, and then put the kids on the bus to sleepaway camp. This year they are all going for 6 1/2 weeks. Yes, it’s good to be our kids. We spend the rest of the summer living vicariously through the pictures we see on the camp’s website. The title of today’s Incite has a double meaning. Firstly, camp does rule. Just seeing the kids renew friendships with their camp buddies at the bus stop and how happy they are to be going back to their summer home. If it wasn’t for all these damn responsibilities I would be the first one on the bus. And what’s not to love about camp? They offer pretty much every activity you can imagine, and the kids get to be pseudo-independent. They learn critical life lessons that are invaluable when they leave the nest. All without their parents scrutinizing their every move. Camp rules! But there are also rules that need to be followed. Like being kind to their bunkmates. Being respectful to their counselors and the camp administrators. Their camp actually has a list of behavioral expectations we read with the kids, which they must sign. Finally, they need to practice decent hygiene because we aren’t there to make sure it happens. For the girls it’s not a problem. 3 years ago, when XX1 came back from camp, she was hyper-aware of whether she had food on her face after a meal and whether her hair looked good. Evidently there was an expectation in her bunk about hygiene that worked out great. XX2 has always been a little fashionista and takes time (too much if you ask me) for her appearance, so we know she’ll brush her hair and keep clean. We look forward to seeing what new look XX2’s going with in the pictures we see every couple of days. The Boy is a different story. At home he needs to be constantly reminded to put deodorant on, and last summer he didn’t even know we packed a brush for his hair. Seriously. He offered a new definition for ‘mophead’ after a month away. Being proactive, I figured it would be best if I laid out the camp rules very specifically for the Boy. So in the first letter I sent him I reminded him of what’s important: Here is my only advice: Just have fun. And more fun. And then have some additional fun after that. That’s your only responsibility for the next 6 1/2 weeks. And you should probably change your underwear every couple of days. Also try not to wear your Maryland LAX shorts every day. Every other day is OK… The Boss thought it was pretty funny until she realized I was being serious. Boys will be boys – even 44-year-old boys… –Mike Photo credit: “Outhouse Rules” originally uploaded by Live Life Happy Heavy Research We are back at work on a variety of blog series, so here is a list of the research currently underway. Remember you can get our Heavy Feed via RSS, where you can get all our content in its unabridged glory. And you can get all our research papers too. API Gateways Access Provisioning Security Enabling Innovation Security Analytics with Big Data Deployment Issues Integration New Events and New Approaches Use Cases Introduction Network-based Malware Detection 2.0 Deployment Considerations The Network’s Place in the Malware Lifecycle Scaling NBMD Evolving NBMD Advanced Attackers Take No Prisoners Newly Published Papers Email-based Threat Intelligence: To Catch a Phish Network-based Threat Intelligence: Searching for the Smoking Gun Understanding and Selecting a Key Management Solution Building an Early Warning System Implementing and Managing Patch and Configuration Management Incite 4 U You, yes you. You are a security jerk. @ternus had a great post abut being an Infosec Jerk, which really hits on core issue hindering organizations’ willingness to take security seriously. It comes down to an incentive problem, as most behaviors do. @ternus sums it up perfectly: “Never attribute to incompetence that which can be explained by differing incentive structures.” Developers and ops folks typically have little incentive to address security issues. But they do have incentive to ship code or deploy servers and apps. We security folks don’t add much to the top line so we need to meet them more than halfway, and the post offers some great tips on how to do that. Also read The Phoenix Project to get a feel for how to make a process work with security built in. Or you can continue to be a jerk. How’s that working out so far? – MR False confidence: No, it’s not surprising that most companies don’t use big data for security analytics, per the findings of a recent McAfee study. Most security teams don’t know what big data is yet, much less use it for advanced threat and event analysis. But the best part of the study was the confidence of the respondents – over 70% were confident they could identify insider threats and external attacks. Which is ironic as that is the percentage of breaches detected by people outside their organization. Maybe it’s not their security products that give them confidence, but the quality of their customers or law enforcement who notify them of breaches. But seriously, if we agree that big data can advances security the reason most customers can’t harness that value is that they are waiting for their vendors to deliver, but the vendors are not quite there yet. – AL You break it, you own it: Although it is very far from perfect, one of the more effective security controls in the Apple universe is the application vetting process. Instead of running an open marketplace, Apple reviews all iOS and Mac apps that come into their stores. They definitely don’t catch everything, but it is impossible to argue that this process hasn’t reduced the spread of malware – the number