Research

  Adrian put up an insightful (as opposed to inciteful) column on Dark Reading, pointing out that that Simple Security Is A Better Bet. Though I quibble a bit with the subhead: “Complex security programs are little better than no security”. Of course any subhead taken out of context creates opportunity for misinterpretation. I would reword to say, “Complex security programs done poorly are little better than no security”. But that’s just me. The fact is that any set of security controls chosen needs to be achievable by the organization. Even if that means attack surface remains unaddressed. What choice do you have? Even if it’s the low bar that most compliance mandates prescribe. Adrian does make that point effectively. …it was going to address most of the issues the company had – it was not even fully aware of the issues it needed to address – and it was within its capability to implement. I hate to do this because sometimes it feels like compliance for the sake of compliance. Obviously that’s suboptimal. Just like anyone else, I like to actually solve the problem, rather than just putting band-aid after band-aid on the wound. But pragmatism needs to win the day. Any organization pushing beyond its capabilities (and budget) will have problems because it won’t be able to execute – even worse, it might get a false sense of security. Photo credit: “failure-to-comply” originally uploaded by Brendan Riley Share:

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, XX1 had her Bat Mitzvah recently. It was great to be surrounded for a weekend by almost all the people we care about. And XX1 really stepped up and made us very proud. There are few things more gratifying than seeing your child excel – especially on a big stage in front of a lot of people. Part of the ceremony is a blessing from the parents. Some parents provide an actual blessing. Others tell entertaining stories about the child. I chose to give her some life perspective by distilling what I have learned over the past four decades down into a fairly simple concept. I understand she probably won’t get it for a while, but I’m okay with that. So here goes: I have no doubt you will move with grace to adulthood. In preparation for that transformation, let me share with you what I’ve discovered over the past 45 years. In fact, I believe it’s the secret to life. The secret to life? Wow. I know, it seems kind of deep. So here goes. The secret to life is to LIVE RIGHT NOW. I know it seems kind of underwhelming, but hear me out. Once I explain it a bit, maybe LIVE RIGHT NOW will make sense. You can choose to live in the future. Chasing dreams and aspirations and goals and life plans. You are so busy striving for what you don’t have, you never get around to appreciating what you do have. You’ll need to trust me on that. That doesn’t mean you can’t think to the future… but think to the future not in fear and worry, but in hope and grace. Realize you make the vision of your life a reality based on how you live right now. You could choose to live in the past. We need to be respectful of history, and learn the lessons of those that came before us. But don’t be limited by the past. Learn from your own experiences, especially the challenging ones – then let them go. You have the power to create your own future. A future where you can achieve whatever you set your mind to and become absolutely anything you choose. Never forget that who you ARE doesn’t depend on who you WERE. You can and should be reinventing yourself as you move through life. Don’t let anything or anyone define you. Let your actions right now, in this moment, represent who you are and who you will become. Steve Jobs said it much more elegantly in his awesome Stanford Commencement address, “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.” Understanding this secret doesn’t make it easy. Being yourself, loving yourself, and surrounding yourself with people who appreciate and love YOU for who YOU ARE is very difficult. You’ll face many challenges, make countless tough decisions and you’ll screw things up. That’s all part of this game we call life. Just be true to yourself and everything will be OK. I promise. Always remember your Mom and I will be there to support you – celebrating your accomplishments and helping you rebound from your setbacks. Most of all know that we love you, unconditionally and without bounds. I wanted to finish the speech with a Seinfeld quote, but “NO SOUP FOR YOU!” didn’t seem to fit. Instead I chose a passage from Seinfeld’s book that my father sent to me many years ago when I lost sight of what was important. “Life is truly a ride. We’re all strapped in and no one can stop it. As you make each passage from youth to adulthood to maturity, sometimes you put your arms up and scream, sometimes you just hang on to that bar in front of you. But the ride is the thing. I think the most you can hope for at the end of life is that your hair’s messed, you’re out of breath, and you didn’t throw up.” Strap in girlfriend, it’s a wild ride. –Mike 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. What CISOs Need to Know about Cloud Computing Adapting Security for Cloud Computing How the Cloud is Different for Security Introduction Defending Against Application Denial of Service Building Protections In Abusing Application Logic Attacking the Application Stack Newly Published Papers Security Awareness Training Evolution Firewall Management Essentials Continuous Security Monitoring API Gateways Threat Intelligence for Ecosystem Risk Management Dealing with Database Denial of Service Identity and Access Management for Cloud Services The 2014 Endpoint Security Buyer’s Guide The CISO’s Guide to Advanced Attackers Incite 4 U Sustainable security change: As we come up to the end of the year, countless folks will fall again into the trap of New Year’s resolutions. Something they are going to change for perhaps a few days in January, then it’s right back to the same old habits. Dave Elfering (whose blog is good – you should read it) talks a bit about Leading vs. Managing in the context of creating change. The process he references (from some work by John Kotter), involves the hard work of lining up support, creating a vision, communicating that vision, empowering action, generating short term wins, and consistency of enforcement to ensure the change sticks. This is hard stuff because everyone is constantly dealing with other shiny objects diverting their attention. Dave’s point is that managers can get things done. But it takes a leader to drive lasting change. I think he’s right. – MR Perverse security

This is part five of a series. You can read part one, part two, part three, or part four; or track the project on GitHub. Real World Examples Cloud computing covers such a wide range of different technologies that there are no shortage of examples to draw from. Here are a few generic examples from real-world deployments. These get slightly technical because we want to highlight practical, tactical techniques to prove we aren’t just making all this up: Embedding and Validating a Security Agent Automatically In a traditional environment we embed security agents by building them into standard images or requiring server administrators to install and register them. Both options are very prone to error and omission, and hard to validate because you often need to rely on manual scanning. Both issues become much easier to manage in cloud computing. To embed the agent: The first option is to build the agent into images. Instead of using generic operating system images you build your own, then require users to only launch approved images. In a private cloud you can enforce this with absolute control of what they run. In public clouds it is a bit tougher to enforce, but you can quickly catch exceptions using our validation process. The second option, and our favorite, is to inject the agent when instances launch. Some operating systems support initialization scripts which are passed to the launching instance by the cloud controller. Depending again on your cloud platform, you can inject these scrips automatically when autoscaling, via a management portal, or manually at other times. The scripts install and configure software in the instance before it is accessible on the network. Either way you need an agent that understands how to work within cloud infrastructure and is capable of self-registering to the management server. The agent pulls system information and cloud metadata, then connects with its management server, which pushes configuration policies back to the agent so it can self-configure. This process is entirely automated the first time the agent runs. Configuration may be based on detected services running on the instance, metadata tags applied to the instance (in the cloud management plane), or other characteristics such as where it is on the network. We provide a detailed technical example of agent injection and self-configuration in our Software Defined Security paper. The process is simple. Build the agent into images or inject it into launching instances, then have it connect to a management server to configure itself. The capabilities of these agents vary widely. Some replicate standard endpoint protection but others handle system configuration, administrative user management, log collection, network security, host hardening, and more. Validating that all your instances are protected can be quite easy, especially if your tool supports API: Obtain a list of all running instances from the cloud controller. This is a simple API call. Obtain a list of all instances with the security agent. This should be an API call to your security management platform, but might require pulling a report if that isn’t supported. Compare the lists. You cannot hide in the cloud, so you know every single instance. Compare active instances against managed instances, and find the exceptions. We also show how to do this in the paper linked above. Controlling SaaS with SAML Pretty much everyone uses some form of Software as a Service, but controlling access and managing users can be a headache. Unless you link up using federated identity, you need to manage user accounts on the SaaS platform manually. Adding, configuring, and removing users on yet another system, and one that is always Internet accessible, is daunting. Federated identity solves this problem: Enable federated identity extensions on your directory server. This is an option for Active Directory and most LDAP servers. Contact your cloud provider to obtain their SAML configuration and management requirements. SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language) is a semi-standard way for a relying party to allow access and activities based on approval from an identity provider. Configure SAML yourself or use a third-party tool compatible with your cloud provider(s) which does this for you. If you use several SaaS providers a tool will save a lot of effort. With SAML users don’t have a username and password with the cloud provider. The only way to log in is to first authenticate to your directory server, which then provides (invisible to the user) a token to allow access to the cloud provider. Users need to be in the office or on a VPN. If you want to enable remote users without VPN you can set up a cloud proxy and issue them a special URL to use instead of the SaaS provider’s standard address. This address redirects to your proxy, which then handles connecting back to your directory server for authentication and authorization. This is something you typically buy rather than build. Why do this? Instead of creating users on the SaaS platform it enables you to use existing user accounts in your directory server and authorize access using standard roles and groups, just like you do for internal servers. You also now get to track logins, disable accounts from a single source (your directory server), and otherwise maintain control. It also means people can’t steal a user’s password and then access Salesforce from anywhere on the Internet Compartmentalizing Cloud Management with IAM One of the largest new risks in cloud computing is Internet-accessible management of your entire infrastructure. Most cloud administrators use cloud APIs and command line interfaces to manage the infrastructure (or PaaS, and even sometimes SaaS). This means access credentials are accessed through environment variables or even the registry. If they use a web interface that opens up browser-based attacks. Either way, without capability compartmentalization an attacker could take complete control over their infrastructure by merely hacking a laptop. With a few API calls or a script they could copy or destroy everything in minutes. All cloud platforms support internal identity and access management to varying degrees –