Research

You may not know it, but lots of folks you know are zombies. It seems that life has beaten them down, and miraculously two weeks later they don’t say ‘hi’ – they just give you a blank stare and grin as the spittle drips out of the corners of their mouths. Yup, a sure sign they’ve been to see Dr. Feelgood, who heard for an hour how hard their lives are, and as opposed to helping to deal with the pain, they got their friends Prozac, Lexapro, and Zoloft numb it. These billion dollar drugs build on the premise that life is hard, so it’s a good idea to take away the ability to feel because it hurts too much. Basically we, as a society, are increasingly becoming comfortably numb. I’m not one to be (too) judgmental about the personal decisions that some folks make, but this one gets in my craw. My brother once said to me “Life is Pain,” and there is some truth to that statement. Clearly life is hard right now for lots of folks and I feel for them. But our society values quick fixes over addressing the fundamental causes of issues. Just look at your job. If someone came forward with a widget that would get you compliant, you’d buy it. Maybe you already have. And then you realize: there are no short cuts. You’ve got to do the work. Seems to me we don’t do the work anymore. Now, to be clear, some folks are ill and they need anti-depressants. I’ve got no issue with that – in fact I’m thankful that these folks have some options to lead normal lives and not hurt themselves and/or others. It’s the soccer mom (or dad) who is overwhelmed with having to get the kid’s homework done and getting them to baseball practice. That doesn’t make sense to me. I know it’s easier to take a pill than to deal with the problem, but that doesn’t make the problem go away. I guess that’s easy for me to say because thankfully I don’t suffer from depression. Yet, to come clean I spent most of my 20’s medicating in my own way. I got hammered every weekend and sometimes during the week. If I had invested in the market half of what I spent on booze, I wouldn’t be worrying about the mortgage. But I guess that I worry at all about anything is a good sign. Looking back, I was trying to be someone different – the “party guy,” who can drink beer funnels until he pukes and then drink some more. I was good at that. Then I realized how unfulfilling that lifestyle was for me, especially when the doctor informed me I had the liver of a 50 year old. Which is not real good when you are 30. Ten years later, I actually enjoy the ups and downs. OK, I like the ups more than the downs, but I understand that without feeling bad, I can’t appreciate when things are good. I’m getting to the point where I’m choosing what to get pissed off about. And I do still get pissed. But it’s not about everything and I get past my anger a lot faster. Basically, I’m learning how to let it go. If I can’t control it and I didn’t screw it up, there isn’t much I can do – so being pissed off about it isn’t helping anyone. By the way, that doesn’t mean I’m a puritan. I still tip back a few per week and kick out the jams a few times a year. The funnel is still my friend. The difference is I’m not running away from anything. I’m not trying to be someone else. I’m getting into the moment and having fun. There is a big difference. – Mike Photo credit: “Comfortably Numb” originally uploaded by Olivander Incite 4 U One of the advantages of working on a team is that we cover for each other and we are building a strong bench. This week contributor David Mortman put together a couple of pieces. Mort went and got a day job, so he’s been less visible on Securosis, but given his in-depth knowledge of all things (including bread making), we’ll take what we can get. I also want to highlight a post by our “intern” Dave Meier on Misconceptions of a DMZ, in which he dismantles a thought balloon put out there regarding virtualized web browser farms. Meier lives in the trenches every day, so he brings a real practitioner’s perspective to his work for Securosis. It’s About the Boss, Not the Org Chart – My buddy Shack goes on a little rampage here listing the reasons why security shouldn’t report to IT. I’m the first to think in terms of absolutes (the only gray in my life is my hair), but Dave is wrong here. I’m not willing to make a blanket statement about where security should report because it’s more about being empowered than it is about the org chart. If the CIO gets it and can persuade the right folks to do the right thing and support the mission, then it’s all good. If that can happen in the office of the CFO or even CEO, that’s fine too. Dave brings up some interesting points, but unless you have support from the boss, none of it means a damn thing. – MR Rock Stars Are a Liability – It looks like Forrester Research now requires all analysts to shut down their personal blogs, and only blog on the Forrester platform. I started Securosis (the blog) back when I was still working at Gartner, and took advantage of the grey area until they adopted an official policy banning any coverage of IT in personal blogs. That wasn’t why I left the company, but I fully admit that the reception I received while blogging gave me the confidence to jump out there on my own. In a big analyst firm the corporate brand is more

It seems I’ve been preoccupied lately with telling all of you about the things you shouldn’t do anymore. Between blowing away firewall rules and killing security technologies, I guess I’ve become that guy. Now get off my lawn! But why stop now – I’m on a roll. This week, let’s take on another common practice that ends up being an extraordinarily bad idea – running user devices with administrator access. Let’s slay that sacred cow. Once again, most of you security folks with any kind of kung fu are already here. You’d certainly not let an unsophisticated user run with admin rights, right? They might do something like install software or even click on a bad link and get pwned. Yeah, it’s been known to happen. Thus the time has come for the rest of the great unwashed to get with the program. Your standard build (you have a standard build, right? If not, we’ll talk about that next week in the Endpoint Fundamentals Series) should dictate user devices run as standard users. Take that and put it in your peace pipe. Impact Who cares? Why are we worried about whether a user runs as a standard or admin user? To state the obvious: admin rights on endpoint devices represent the keys to the kingdom. These rights allow users to install software, mess with the registry under Windows, change all sorts of config files, and generally do whatever they want on the device. Which wouldn’t be that bad if we only had to worry about legitimate users. Today’s malware doesn’t require user interaction to do its damage, especially on devices running with local admin access. All the user needs to do is click the wrong link and it’s game over – malware installed and defenses rendered useless, all without the user’s knowledge. Except when they are offered a great deal on “security software,” get a zillion pop-ups, or notice their machine grinding to a halt. To be clear, users can still get infected when running in standard mode, but the attack typically ends at logout. Without access to the registry (on Windows) and other key configuration files, malware generally expires when the user’s session ends. Downside As with most of the tips I’ve provided over the past few weeks, user grumpiness may result once they start running in standard mode. They won’t be able to install new software and some of their existing applications may break. So use this technique with care. That means you should actually test whether every application runs in standard user mode before you pull the trigger. Business critical applications probably need to be left alone, as offensive as that is. Most applications should run fine, making this decision a non-issue, but use your judgement on allowing certain users to keep admin rights (especially folks who can vote you off the island) to run a specific application. Yet I recommend you stamp your feet hard and fast if an application doesn’t play nicely in standard mode. Yell at your vendors or internal developers to jump back into the time machine and catch up with the present day. It’s ridiculous that in 2010 an end-user facing application would require admin rights. You also have the “no soup for you” card, which is basically the tough crap response when someone gripes about needing admin rights. Yes, you need to have a lot of internal mojo to pull that off, but that’s what we are all trying to build, right? Being able to do the right security thing and make it stick is the hallmark of an effective CISO. Discuss So there you have it. This is a FireStarter, so fire away, sports fans. Why won’t this work in your environment? What creative, I mean ‘legitimate’, excuses are you going to come up with now to avoid doing proper security hygiene on the endpoints? This isn’t that hard, and it’s time. So get it done, or tell me why you can’t… Share:

Update – Based on feedback, I failed to distinguish that I’m referring to normal users running as admin. Sysadmins and domain admins definitely shouldn’t be running with their admin privileges except for when they need them. As you can read in the comments, that’s a huge risk. When I was reviewing Mike’s FireStarter on yanking admin rights from users, it got me thinking on whether admin rights really matter at all. Yes, I realize this is a staple of security dogma, but I think the value of admin rights is completely overblown due to two reasons: There are plenty of bad things an attacker can do in userland without needing admin rights. You can still install malware and access everything the user can. Lack of admin privileges is little more than a speed bump (if even that) for many kinds of memory corruption attacks. Certain buffer overflows and other attacks that directly manipulate memory can get around rights restrictions and run as root, admin, or worse. For example, if you exploit a kernel flaw with a buffer overflow (including flaws in device drivers) you are running in Ring 0 and fully trusted, no matter what privilege level the user was running as. If you read through the vulnerability updates on various platforms (Mac, PC, whatever), there are always a bunch of attacks that still work without admin rights. I’m also completely ignoring privilege escalation attacks, but we all know they tend to get patched at a slower pace than remote exploitation vulnerabilities. This isn’t to say that removal of admin rights is completely useless – it’s very useful to keep users from mucking up your desktop images – but from a defensive standpoint, I don’t think restricting user rights is nearly as effective as is often claimed. My advice? Do not rely on standard user mode as a security defense. It’s useful for locking down users, but has only limited effectiveness for stopping attacks. When you evaluate pulling admin rights, don’t think it will suddenly eliminate the need for other standard endpoint security controls. Share:

During Black Hat last week, David Litchfield disclosed that he had discovered an 0-day in Oracle 11G which allowed him to acquire administrative level credentials. Until today, I was unaware that the attack details were made available as well, meaning anyone can bounce the exploit off your database server to see if it is vulnerable. From the NetworkWorld article, the vulnerability is … … the way Java has been implemented in Oracle 11g Release 2, there’s an overly permissive default grant that makes it possible for a low privileged user to grant himself arbitrary permissions. In a demo of Oracle 11g Enterprise Edition, he showed how to execute commands that led to the user granting himself system privileges to have “complete control over the database.” Litchfield also showed how it’s possible to bypass Oracle Label Security used for managing mandatory access to information at different security levels. As this issue allows for arbitrary escalation of privileges in the database, it’s pretty much a complete compromise. At least Oracle 11G R2 is affected, and I have heard but not confirmed that 10G R2 is as well. This is serious and you will need to take action ASAP, especially for installations that support web applications. And if your web applications are leveraging Oracle’s Java implementation, you may want to take the servers offline until you have implemented the workaround. From what I understand, this is an issue with the Public user having access to the Java services packaged with Oracle. I am guessing that the appropriate workaround is to revoke the Public user permissions granted during the installation process, or lock that account out altogether. There is no patch available at this time, but that should serve as a temporary workaround. Actually, it should be a permanent workaround – after all, you didn’t really leave the ‘Public’ user account enabled on your production server, did you? I have been saying for several years that there is no such thing as public access to your database. Ever! You may have public content, but the public user should not just have its password changed, but should be fully locked out. Use a custom account with specific grant statements. Public execute permission to anything is ill advised, but in some cases can be done safely. Running default ‘Public’ permissions is flat-out irresponsible. You will want to review all other user accounts that have access to Java and ensure that no other accounts have public access – or access provided by default credentials – until a patch is available. Update A couple database assessment vendors were kind enough to contact me with more details on the hack, confirming what I had heard. Application Security Inc. has published more specific information on this attack and on workarounds. They are recommending removing the execute permissions as a satisfactory work-around. That is the most up-to-date information I can find. Share:

My mentors in engineering management used to define their job as managing people, process, and technology. Those three realms, and how they interact, are a handy way to conceptualize organizational management responsibilities. We use process to frame how we want people to behave – trying to promote productivity, foster inter-group cooperation, and minimize mistakes. The people are the important part of the equation, and the process is there to help make them better as a group. How you set up process directly impacts productivity, arranges priority, and creates or reduces friction. Subtle adjustments to process are needed to account for individuals, group dynamics, and project specifics. I got to thinking about this when reading Microsoft’s Simple Implementation of SDL. I commented on some of the things I liked about the process, specifically the beginning steps of (paraphrased): Educate your team on the ground rules. Figure out what you are trying to secure. Commit to gate insecure code. Figure out what’s busted. Sounds simple, and conceptually it is, but in practice this is really hard. The technical analysis of the code is difficult, but implementing the process is a serious challenge. Getting people to change their behavior is hard enough, but with diverging company goals in the mix, it’s nearly impossible. Adding the SDL elements to your development cycle is going to cause some growing pains and probably take years. Even if you agree with all the elements, there are several practical considerations that must be addressed before you adopt the SDL – so you need more than the development team to embrace it. The Definition of Insanity I heard Marcus Ranum give a keynote last year at Source Boston on the Anatomy of The Security Disaster, and one of his basic points was that merely identifying a bad idea rarely adjusts behavior, and when it does it’s generally only because failure is imminent. When initial failure conditions are noticed, as much effort is spent on finger-pointing and “Slaughter of the Innocents” as on learning and adjusting from mistakes. With fundamental process re-engineering, even with a simplified SDL, progress is impossible without wider buy-in and a coordinated effort to adapt the SDL to local circumstances.To hammer this point home, let’s steal a page from Mike Rothman’s pragmatic series, and imagine a quick conversation: CEO to shareholders: “Subsequent to the web site breach we are reacting with any and all efforts to ensure the safety of our customers and continue trouble-free 24×7 operation. We are committed to security … we have hired one of the great young minds in computer security: a talented individual who knows all about web applications and exploits. He’s really good and makes a fine addition to the team! We hired him shortly after he hacked our site.” Project Manager to programmers: “OK guys, let’s all pull together. The clean-up required after the web site hack has set us back a bit, but I know that if we all focus on the job at hand we can get back on track. The site’s back up and most of you have access to source code control again, and our new security expert is on board! We freeze code two weeks from now, so let’s focus on the goal and … Did you see that? The team was screwed before they started. Management’s covered as someone is now responsible for security. And project management and engineering leadership must get back on track, so they begin doing exactly what they did before, but will push for project completion harder than ever. Process adjustments? Education? Testing? Nope. The existing software process is an unending cycle. That unsecured merry-go-round is not going to stop so you can fix it before moving on. As we like to say in software development: we are swapping engines on a running car. Success is optional (and miraculous, when it happens). Break the Process to Fix It The Simplified SDL is great, provided you can actually follow the steps. While I have not employed this particular secure development process yet, I have created similar ones in the past. As a practical matter, to make changes of this scope, I have always had to do one of three things: Recreate the code from scratch under the new process. Old process habits die hard, and the code evaluation sometimes makes it clear a that a retrofit would require more work than a complete rewrite. This makes other executives very nervous, but has been the most efficient path from practical experience. You may not have this option. Branch off the code, with the sub-branch in maintenance while the primary branch lives on under the new process. I halted new feature development until the team had a chance to complete the first review and education steps. Much more work and more programming time (meaning more programmers committed), but better continuity of product availability, and less executive angst. Moved responsibility of the code to an entirely new team trained on security and adhering to the new process. There is a learning curve for engineers to become familiar with the old code, but weaknesses found during review tend to be glaring, and no one’s ego get hurts when you rip the expletive out of it. Also, the new engineers have no investment in the old code, so can be more objective about it. If you don’t break out of the old process and behaviors, you will generally end up with a mixed bag of … stuff. Skills Section As in the first post, I assume the goal of the simplified version of the process is to make this effort more accessible and understandable for programmers. Unfortunately, it’s much tougher than that. As an example, when you interview engineering candidates and discuss their roles, their skill level is immediately obvious. The more seasoned and advanced engineers and managers talk about big picture design and architecture, they talk about tools and process, and they discuss the tradeoffs of their choices. Most newbies are not even aware

I tend to be master of the obvious. Part of that is overcoming my own lack of cranial horsepower (especially when I hang out with serious security rock stars), but another part is the reality that we need someone to remind us of the things we should be doing. Work gets busy, shiny objects beckon, and the simple blocking and tackling falls by the wayside. And it’s the simple stuff that kills us, as evidenced once again by the latest data breach study from TrustWave. Over the past couple months, we’ve written a bunch of times about the need to move to the latest versions of the key software we run. Like browsers and Adobe stuff. Just to refresh your memory: Microsoft IE Issues Reported: Adrian covered the Heise 0-day attack on IE6 and IE7 back in November. Low Hanging Fruit: Endpoint Security: I wrote about the need to keep software updated and patched. Security Strategies for Long Term, Targeted Threats: Rich responded to the APT hysteria with some actionable advice about dealing with the threats, which included moving off IE6. Of course, the news item that got me thinking about reiterating such an obvious concept was that Google is pulling support for IE6 for all their products this year. Google Docs and Google sites loses IE6 support on March 1. Not that you should be making decisions based on what Google is or is not supporting, but if ever there was a good backwards looking indicator, it’s this. So now is the time. To be clear, this isn’t news. The echo chamber will beat me like a dog because who the hell is still using IE6? Especially after our Aurora Borealis escapade. Right, plenty of folks, which brings me back to being master of the obvious. We all know we need to kill IE6, but it’s probably still somewhere in the dark bowels of your organization. You must find it, and you must kill it. Not in the Excuses Business Given that there has been some consistent feedback every time we say to do anything, that it’s too hard, or someone will be upset, or an important application will break, it’s time to man (or woman) up. No more excuses on this one. Running IE6 is just unacceptable at this point. If your application requires IE6, then fix it. If your machines are too frackin’ old to run IE7 or IE8 with decent performance, then get new machines. If you only get to see those remote users once a year to update their machines, bring them in to refresh now. Seriously, it’s clear that IE6 is a lost cause. Google has given up on it, and they won’t be the last. You can be proactive in how you manage your environment, or you can wait until you get pwned. But if you need the catalyst of a breach to get something simple like this done in your environment, then there’s something fundamentally wrong with your security program. But that’s another story for another day. Comment from Rich: As someone who still develops web sites from time to time, it kills me every time I need to add IE6 compatibility code. It’s actually pretty hard to make anything modern work with IE6, and it significantly adds to development costs on more-complex sites. So my vote is also to kill it! Share:

The NSA is going to work with Google to help analyze the recent Chinese (probably) hack. Richard Bejtlich predicted this, and I consider it a very positive development. It’s a recognition that our IT infrastructure is a critical national asset, and that the government can play a role in helping respond to incidents and improve security. That’s how it should be – we don’t expect private businesses to defend themselves from amphibious landings (at least in our territory), and the government has political, technical, and legal resources simply not available to the private sector. Despite some of the more creative TV and film portrayals, the NSA isn’t out to implant microchips in your neck and follow you with black helicopters. They are a signals intelligence collection agency, and we pay them to spy on as much international communication as possible to further our national interests. Think that’s evil? Go join Starfleet – it’s the world we live in. Even though there was some abuse during the Bush years, most of that was either ordered by the President, or non-malicious (yes, I’m sure there was some real abuse, but I bet that was pretty uncommon). I’ve met NSA staff and sometimes worked with plenty of three-letter agency types over the years, and they’re just ordinary folk like the rest of us. I hope we’ll see more of this kind of cooperation. Now the one concern is for you foreigners – the role of the NSA is to spy on you, and Google will have to be careful to avoid potentially uncomfortable questions from foreign businesses and governments. But I suspect they’ll be able to manage the scope and keep things under control. The NSA probably pwned them years ago anyway. Good stuff, and I hope we see more direct government involvement… although we really need a separate agency to handle these due to the conflicting missions of the NSA. Note: for those of you that follow these things, there is clear political maneuvering by the NSA here. They want to own cybersecurity, even though it conflicts with their intel mission. I’d prefer to see another agency hold the defensive reins, but until then I’m happy for any .gov cooperation. Share:

I think I need to stop feeling guilty for trying to run a business. Yesterday we announced that we’re trying to put together a list of end users we can run the occasional short survey past. I actually felt guilty that we will derive some business benefit from it, even though we give away a ton of research and advice for free, and the goal of the surveys isn’t to support marketing, but primary research. I’ve been doing this job too long when I don’t even trust myself anymore, and rip apart my own posts to figure out what the angle is. Jeez – it isn’t like I felt guilty about getting paid to work on an ambulance. It is weird to try to build a business where you maintain objectivity while trying to give as much away for free as possible. I think we’re doing a good job of managing vendor sponsorship, thanks to our Totally Transparent Research process, which allows us to release most white papers for free, without any signup or paywall. We’ve had to turn down a fair few projects to stick with our process, but there are plenty of vendors happy to support good research they can use to help sell their products, without having to bias or control the content. We’re walking a strange line between the traditional analyst model, media sponsorship, research department, and… well, whatever else it is we’re doing. Especially once we finish up and release our paid products. Anyway, I should probably get over it and stop over-thinking things. That’s what Rothman keeps telling me, not that I trust him either. Back to that user panel – we’d like to run the occasional (1-2 times per quarter) short (less than 10 minutes) survey to help feed our research, and as part of supporting the OWASP survey program. We will release all the results for free, and we won’t be selling this list or anything. If you are interested, please email us at survey@securosis.com. End users only (for now) please – we do plan on expanding to vendors later. If you are at a vendor and are responsible for internal security, that’s also good. All results will be kept absolutely anonymous. We’re trying to give back and give away as much as we can, and I have decided I don’t need to feel guilty for asking for a little of your time in exchange. On to the Summary: Webcasts, Podcasts, Outside Writing, and Conferences Adrian’s Dark Reading post on Dealing with Weak Passwords. Rich’s TidBITS article on iPads for the enterprise Rich’s Endpoint DLP article took the cover of Information Security magazine Rich quoted by cnet on the Mac vs. PC security debate At TidBITS, Pepper points out that the dead are staging a comeback in the ebook market. Zombie Authors Threaten Fiction Ebook Market, from the Grave! – Brains, anyone? Favorite Securosis Posts Rich: Adrian’s post on Agile and SDL. Funny timing on this one, with Microsoft starting to release some new information on it. Adrian: Mike’s Monitor Everything. I disagree with some of it, but there is so much good information that it’s my fave this week. David Mortman: Analysis of Trustwave’s 2010 Breach Report More yummy yummy data Mike: What do DLP and condoms have in common? Any time you can mention condoms on a corporate blog, it’s a win. ‘nuf said. Meier: Comments on Microsoft Simplified SDL I was hoping Adrian would do a rundown when I saw this earlier and I enjoyed how he broke it out. Other Securosis Posts The NSA Isn’t Evil (Even Working with Google) Database Security Fundamentals: Access & Authorization Need Brains. User Brains Incite 2/2/2010: The Life of the Party You Have to Buy Data Security Tools Pragmatic Data Security: Discover The Network Forensics (Full Packet Capture) Revival Tour Network Security Fundamentals: Default Deny (UPDATED) Favorite Outside Posts Rich: Jeremiah’s great post on why we need to break the web to secure it. This is one of the biggest problems we face on the web – the refusal to make important changes which would enable us to move forward, for fear of breaking older content. Not that we should break things willy-nilly, but many of the bits we are talking about breaking are easy to work around in terms of still providing users the same browsing experience. It’s the ad networks that are the big problem. Adrian: Krebs on ATM Skimmers, part 1 and 2, as very practical security tips. Mike: Kudos to Will Gragido, who makes a play for the fundamental building block of pragmatic philosophy – Accountability the non-Negotiable Asset. Keep in mind that accountability cuts both ways: you need to be accountable for meeting deliverables and managing expectations, and folks in your organization need to be accountable for not doing stupid things. David Mortman: Excerpts from Randy George’s “Dark Side of DLP” “It’s not just enough to recognize badness; someone has to be able to classify badness, with authority.” Says so much about security and not just DLP. Chris: Twitter: real but malicious BitTorrent trackers harvesting accounts. Who knew Twitter had real security staff? Meier: How secure are you? Access was easy at 9 out of 10 buildings. It’s easy for staff writers at the Orlando Sentinel – it’s easy for anyone. Project Quant Posts Project Quant: DatabaseSecurity – WAF Project Quant: Database Security – Encryption Project Quant: Project Comments Project Quant: Database Security – Protect through Monitoring Project Quant: Database Security – Audit Project Quant: Database Security – Monitoring Project Quant: Database Security – Open Question to Database Security Community Project Quant: Database Security – Shield Top News and Posts House passes cybersecurity bill. This hit right as we were going to press, so we’ll provide analysis later. PGP Acquires TC TrustCenter & Chosen Security. If a PKI falls in the woods, does anyone hear it? David Litchfield hangs up the gloves. David is an exceptional researcher who was a powerful counterbalance to Oracle marketing. Sad to

I spent the last couple hours pouring over the Simplified Implementation of the Microsoft SDL. I started taking notes and making comments, and realized that I have so much to say on the topic it won’t fit in a single post. I have been yanking stuff out of this one and trying to just cover the highlights, but I will have a couple follow-ups as well. But before I jump into the details and point out what I consider are a few weaknesses, let me just say that this is a good outline. In fact, I will go so far as to say that if you perform each of these steps (even half-assed), your applications will more secure. Much more secure, because the average software development shop is not performing these functions. There is a lot to like here but full adoption will be difficult, due to the normal resistance to change of any software development organization. Before I come across as too negative, let’s take a quick look at the outline and what’s good about it. For the sake of argument, let’s agree that the complexity of MS’s full program is the motivation for this simplified implementation of SDL. Lightweight, agile, simple, and modular are common themes for every development tool, platform, and process that enjoys mainstream success. Security should be no different, and let’s say this process variant meets our criteria. Microsoft’s Simplified Implementation of Secure Development Lifecycle (SDL) is a set of companion steps to augment software development processes. From Microsoft’s published notes on the subject, it appears they picked the two most effective security tasks from each phase of software development. The steps are clear, and their recommendations align closely with the web application security research we performed last year. What I like about it: Phased Approach: Their phases map well to most development processes. Using Microsoft’s recommendations, I can improve every step of the development process, and focus each person’s training on the issues they need to account for. Appropriate Guidelines: Microsoft’s recommendations on tools and testing are sound and appropriate for each phase. Education: The single biggest obstacle for most development teams is ignorance of how threats are exploited, and what they are doing wrong. Starting with education covers the biggest problem first. Leaders and Auditors: Appointing someone as ‘Champion’ or leader tasks someone with the responsibility to improve security, and having an auditor should ensure that the steps are being followed effectively. Process Updates and Root Cause Analysis: This is a learning effort. No offense intended, but the first cycle through the process is going to be as awkward as a first date. Odds are you will modify, improve, and streamline everything the second time through. Here’s what needs some work: Institutional Knowledge: In the implementation phase, how do you define what an unsafe function is? Microsoft knows because they have been tracking and classifying attacks on their applications for a long time. They have deep intelligence on the subject. They understand the specifics and the threat classes. You? You have the OWASP top ten threats, but probably less understanding of your code. Maybe you have someone on your team with great training or practical experience. But this process will work better for Microsoft because they understand what sucks about their code and how attackers operate. Your first code analysis will be a mixed bag. Some companies have great engineers who find enough to keep your entire development organization busy for ten years. Others find very little and are dependent on tools to tell them what to fix. Your effectiveness will come with experience and a few lumps on your forehead. Style: When do you document safe vs. unsafe style? Following the point above, your code development team, as part of their education, should have a security style guide. It’s not just what you get taught in the classroom, but proper use of the specific tools and platforms you rely on. New developers come on board all the time, and you need to document so they can learn the specifics of your environment and style. Metrics: What are the metrics to determine accountability and effectiveness? The Simplified Implementation mentions metrics as a way to guide process compliance and retrospective metrics to help gauge what is effective. Metrics are also the way to decide what a risky interface or unsafe function actually is. But the outline only pays lip service to this requirement. Agile: The people who most need this are web developers using Agile methods, and this process does not necessarily map to those methods. I mentioned this earlier. And the parts I could take or leave: Tools: Is the latest tool always the best tool? To simplify their process, Microsoft introduced a couple security oversimplifications that might help or hurt. New versions of linkers & compilers have bugs as well. Threat Surface: Statistically speaking, if you have twice as many objects and twice as many interfaces, you will generally make more mistakes and have errors. I get the theory. In practice, or at least from my experience, threat surface is an overrated concept. I find that the issue is test coverage of the new APIs and functions, which is why you prioritize tests and manual inspection for new code as opposed to older code. Prioritization: Microsoft has a bigger budget than you do. You will need to prioritize what you do, which tools to buy first, and how to roll out tools in production. Some analysis is required on what training and products will be most effective. All in all, a good general guide to improving development process security, and they have reduced the content to a manageable length. This provides a useful structure, but there are some issues regarding how to apply this type of framework to real world programming environments, which I’ll touch on tomorrow. Share:

Trustwave just released their latest breach (and penetration testing) report, and it’s chock full of metrics goodness. Like the Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, it’s a summary of information based on their responses to real breaches, with a second section on results from their penetration tests. The breach section is the best part, and I already wrote about one lesson in a quick post on DLP. Here are a few more nuggets that stood out: It took an average of 156 days to detect a breach, and only 9% of victims detected the breach on their own – the rest were discovered by outside groups, including law enforcement and a credit card companies. Chip and PIN was called out for being more resilient against certain kinds of attacks, based on global analysis of breaches. Too bad we won’t get it here in the US anytime soon. One of the biggest sources of breaches was remote access applications for point of sale systems. Usually these are in place for third party support/management, and configured poorly. Memory parsing (scanning memory to pull sensitive information as it’s written to RAM) was a very common attack technique. I find this interesting, since certain versions of memory parsing attacks have virtualization implications… and thus cloud implications. This is something to keep an eye on, and an area I’m researching more. As I mentioned in the post 5 minutes ago, encryption was only used once for exfiltration. Now some suggestions to the SpiderLabs guys: I realize it isn’t politically popular, but it would totally rock if you, Verizon, and other response teams started using a standard base of metrics. You can always add your own stuff on top, but that would really help us perform external analysis across a wider base of data points. If you’re interested, we’d totally be up for playing neutral third party and coordinating and publishing a recommended metrics base. The pen testing section would be a lot more interesting if you released the metrics, as opposed to a “top 10” list of issues found. We don’t know if number 1 was 10x more common than issue 10, or 100x more common. It’s great that we now have another data source, and I consider all these reports mandatory reading, and far more interesting than surveys. Share: