Research

Testing tags Share:

Yes, people, the disclosure debate is still alive and kicking. But now it is basically a pissing match between two of the largest tech companies. With Google setting rigid deadlines, and Microsoft stuck on their rigid schedule, who will win? Grab the popcorn as we talk about egos, internal inconsistencies, and why putting the user first is so damn hard. Watch or listen below: Share:

Rich here, First a quick note. I will be giving a webcast on managing SaaS security later this month. I am about to start writing more on the Cloud Security Gateway market and new techniques for dealing with SaaS. I planned to write something irreverent in this week’s Summary (like my favorite films), but it has been an odd week in the security world. I expect the consequences to play out over the next decade. I should probably write this up as a dedicated post, but my thoughts are shifting around so much that I am not sure my ideas are ready to stand on their own. Before I go into this, please keep in mind that the security ‘world’ is a collection of different groups. Tribes might be a better word. But across all subgroups we tend to be skeptical and critical. That is quite healthy, considering what we do, but can easily turn negative and self-defeating. This is especially true when we engage with society at large. We are, on the whole, the pain-in-the-ass cousin who shows up at the holidays and delights in challenging and debating the rest of the family long past the point where anyone else cares. Yeah, we get it, you caught me in a logical fallacy because I like my new TV but bitched at you for not recycling your beer cans. You win. Now pass the stuffing and STFU. Also factor in our inherent bias against anyone who does things others don’t understand. (Hat tip to Rob Graham for first introducing me to this concept). We have a long lineage that looks something like heretic > witch > egghead > nerd > geek > hacker. No, not everyone reading this is a hacker, but society at large cannot really differentiate between specific levels of technical wizardry. This is especially true for those of you who play with offensive security, no matter how positive your contributions. Back to the main story, which is shorter than all this preamble. This week the White House proposed some updates to our computer security laws. Some good, some bad. The Twitter security echo chamber exploded a bit, with much hand-wringing over how this could lead to bad legal consequences – not only for anyone working legitimately in offensive security; it could also create all sorts of additional legal complexities with chilling effects. There are actually a bunch of proposals circulating, which would affect not only cybersecurity but general Internet usage. From the UK wanting to ban encryption, to mandating DNSSEC, to the FBI wanting to ban effective encryption, to… well, everyone wanting to ban encryption, file sharing, and… stuff. Many in the security world seem to feel we should have some say over these laws and policies. But we have mostly seen vendors lobby to have their products mandated (and then shrug when people using them get hacked), professional groups pushing to have their training or certifications mandated, and the occasional researcher treated like a dancing monkey for the cameras. And political leaders probably don’t see much distinction between any of these and the big Internet protests that their Hollywood funders all tell them are just criminals who want to watch movies free. We have mostly done this to ourselves. We are fiercely independent, so it isn’t like we speak with a single voice. We can’t even decide what constitutes a “security professional”. Then we keep shooting ourselves in the foot by demanding evidence from law enforcement and intelligence agencies on things like the Sony hack. And, er, telling the FBI they are wrong rarely works out well. I am not telling anyone not to do or say what they want. Just keep in mind how the world views you (as witches), and how much technology just scares people, no matter how much they love their iPhones. And if you want to affect politics you need to play politics. Twitter ain’t gonna cut it. Seriously, no one likes that smarty-pants cousin (or in-law, in my case). And if any lobbyists are reading this, please fix the Kinderegg ban first, then get started on defending encryption. On to the Summary: Webcasts, Podcasts, Outside Writing, and Conferences As I mentioned, I am presenting on managing SaaS security on the 29th. Favorite Securosis Posts Mike Rothman: Your Risk Isn’t My Risk. It is always important to consider likelihood when looking at new attacks. Rich puts the latest in context. Rich: Incite 1/14/2015: Facing the Fear. Because that was my only other choice. I mean, it’s still a good post, but it isn’t like I had an option. Other Securosis Posts And now you see why I had to pick Mike’s post. Favorite Outside Posts Adrian Lane: The importance of deleting old stuff. Honestly, it’s not as valuable as you think, and it is likely to cause harm in the long run. Mike Rothman: The Stunning Scale of AWS. I remember Rich mentioning some of these stats after he got back from the AWS conference in 2013. It is shocking to see this documented, and to understand that when trying to really scale something… commercial products just won’t cut it. Really interesting. Rich: Encryption is Not the Enemy. Dennis lays it out nicely, not that I expect the latest round of crypto wars to end any time soon. Research Reports and Presentations Securing Enterprise Applications. Secure Agile Development. Trends in Data Centric Security White Paper. Leveraging Threat Intelligence in Incident Response/Management. Pragmatic WAF Management: Giving Web Apps a Fighting Chance. The Security Pro’s Guide to Cloud File Storage and Collaboration. The 2015 Endpoint and Mobile Security Buyer’s Guide. Analysis of the 2014 Open Source Development and Application Security Survey. Defending Against Network-based Distributed Denial of Service Attacks. Reducing Attack Surface with Application Control. Top News and Posts Obama’s War on Hackers. Money quote: “This War on Hackers is likely to be no more effective than the War on Drugs”. Gitrob Combs Github Repositories for Secret Company Data. Looks super useful. President

Some folks just naturally push outside their comfort zones as a matter of course. I am one of them. Others only do things that are comfortable, which is fine if it works for them. I believe that while you are basically born with a certain risk tolerance, you can be taught to get comfortable with pushing past your comfort zone. For example, kids who are generally shy will remain more comfortable holding up the wall at a social event, but can learn to approach people and get into the mix. It’s tough at first but you figure it out. There is always resistance the first few times you push a child beyond what they are comfortable with, and force them to try something they don’t think they can do. But I believe it needs to happen. It comes back to my general philosophy that limitations exist only in our minds, and you can move past those limitations once you learn to face your fear. The twins’ elementary school does a drama production every year. XX1 was involved when she was that age, and XX2 was one of the featured performers last year. We knew that she’d be right there auditioning for the big role, and she’d likely get one of them (as she did). But with the Boy we weren’t sure. He did the hip hop performance class at camp so he’ll perform, but that’s a bit different than standing up and performing in front of your friends and classmates. Though last year he did comment on how many of his friends were in the show, and he liked that. We were pleased when he said he wanted to try out. The Boss helped him put together both a monologue and a song to sing for the audition. He knew all the words, but when it came time to practice he froze up. He didn’t want to do it. He wanted to quit. That was no bueno in my book. He needed to try. If he didn’t get a part, so be it. But he wasn’t going to back out because he was scared. He needed to push through that fear. It’s okay to not get the outcome you hope for, but not to quit. So we pushed him. There were lots of tears. And we pushed some more. A bit of feet stomping at that point. So we pushed again. He finally agreed to practice for us and then to audition after we wore him out. Sure, that was a little heavy-handed, but I’m okay with it because we decided he needed to at least try. The end result? Yes, he got a part. I’m not sure how much he likes the process of getting ready for the show. We’ll see once he gets up on stage and performs for everyone whether it’s something he will want to do again. But whether he does it again doesn’t matter. He can always say he tried, even when he didn’t want to. That he didn’t let fear stop him from doing something. And that’s the most important lesson of all. –Mike Photo credit: “Faces of fear!” originally uploaded by John Seb Barber The fine folks at the RSA Conference posted the talk Jennifer Minella and I did on mindfulness at the 2014 conference. You can check it out on YouTube. Take an hour and check it out. Your emails, alerts and Twitter timeline will be there when you get back. Securosis Firestarter Have you checked out our new video podcast? Rich, Adrian, and Mike get into a Google Hangout and.. hang out. We talk a bit about security as well. We try to keep these to 15 minutes or less, and usually fail. December 18 – Predicting the Past November 25 – Numbness October 27 – It’s All in the Cloud October 6 – Hulk Bash September 16 – Apple Pay August 18 – You Can’t Handle the Gartner July 22 – Hacker Summer Camp July 14 – China and Career Advancement June 30 – G Who Shall Not Be Named June 17 – Apple and Privacy May 19 – Wanted Posters and SleepyCon 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, with our content in all its unabridged glory. And you can get all our research papers too. Security Best Practices for Amazon Web Services Third Party Tools Built-in Features Introduction Network Security Gateway Evolution Introduction Monitoring the Hybrid Cloud: Evolving to the CloudSOC Migration Planning Technical Considerations Solution Architectures Emerging SOC Use Cases Introduction Security and Privacy on the Encrypted Network Selection Criteria and Deployment Use Cases The Future is Encrypted Newly Published Papers Securing Enterprise Applications Secure Agile Development Trends in Data Centric Security Leveraging Threat Intelligence in Incident Response/Management The Security Pro’s Guide to Cloud File Storage and Collaboration The 2015 Endpoint and Mobile Security Buyer’s Guide Open Source Development and Application Security Analysis Advanced Endpoint and Server Protection The Future of Security Incite 4 U Full discraposure: Google discovers a bug in a Microsoft product. Google has a strict 90-day policy to disclose, no matter what. Microsoft says, “Hey, we have a fix ready to go on Patch Tuesday, can we get a few extra days?” but Google releases anyway. I’m sorry, but who does that help? Space Rogue summed it up best; he has a long history in the disclosure debate. In his words, “The entire process has gotten out of hand. The number one goal here should be getting stuff fixed because getting stuff fixed helps protect the user, it helps defeat the bad guys and it helps make the world a better place.” Another great quote is: “And so the disclosure debate continues unabated for over a hundred years. With two of the giants in our industry acting like spoiled children we as security professionals must take the reigns

Last Friday I wrote an article on the Thunderstrike proof of concept attack against Macs. I won’t spend any more time analyzing it but I think it’s valuable as an example of risk assessment. The short version is… it’s a creative attack that, if you have physical access to a Mac, could allow you to completely compromise it by merely connecting external hardware and triggering a reboot. The attack is against the firmware, and even removing the Mac’s hard drive leaves it infected. The Thunderstrike proof-of-concept takes advantage of this trust to replace the contents of the Mac’s boot ROM with the attacker’s own code, effectively embedding it into the Mac’s hardware and making it impossible to remove using standard techniques. The attack works because Apple relies on software checks to confirm the firmware is valid, and Hudson developed techniques to circumvent those checks (and even replace the encryption key). Apple is taking this seriously; it is already fixed on new hardware (Retina iMacs and new Mac Minis), and a further fix for older hardware is coming soon according to my sources (sooner than you probably think). But that is only a partial fix because an attacker can still downgrade the firmware and then execute the attack, although that doubles the time requirement. In my article I made clear that very few people need to worry about this now: While all Macs are technically vulnerable to the Thunderstrike attack, few TidBITS readers face any immediate risk. The attack is highly targeted – someone needs both physical access to your Mac and time to reboot it and reinstall the firmware. On top of that, it isn’t like everyone is walking around with maliciously modified Thunderbolt dongles. So why write it up? Why talk about an attack that has to be designed for the specific hardware version you are using, requires physical control of your device, and can’t realistically spread on any wide basis? Because I’m at risk, as are many readers here at Securosis. For the TidBITS crowd I mostly wanted to assuage concerns and compensate for the usual spate of over-hyped stories. For Securosis? Some of you need to worry. I have direct reports of executives and security pros being compromised when their hardware leaves their control; typically when traveling internationally, usually to one of a few countries. (Make that mostly one country). BTW, I don’t have any reports of these attacks on Macs, and I am very interested if you have a confirmed report, even if you can’t provide details. Starting in about 2008 I started paying a lot more attention to physical control over my computers and mobile devices under certain circumstances (I am not counting hacker conferences – I have always kept hard control at those). The reports coming in from clients indicated that customs and hotel rooms were not safe places to lose physical control. I even stopped traveling to China with devices I was worried about, which did inhibit my ability to get work done while there. Thunderstrike itself isn’t a big deal. It’s super interesting, but damn low on the risk list. Mostly. As a proof of concept it is incredibly educational, and some of you, especially readers of this site, need to pay attention to these kinds of attacks (for yourselves or your organizations). That’s why I like this story as a good example of understanding risk. For one publication, TidBITS, I wrote it up to debunk fear. For another, here, I am writing it up as a warning of real risk, if you fall into the right bucket. [Ed: The presentation is also remarkably readable – much easier to understand than I expected for something this complicated. –cp] Share:

Rich here. Something went wonky so most of the Summary didn’t load properly on Friday. So I am reposting with the lost content… The Securosis blog has been around since 2006, with pretty much constant posts over that entire time (multiple posts a week, with a few exceptions). That is a lot of words, a large percentage of which came through my keyboard. We have always used the Summary (and when Mike joined, the Incite) to add some color to our security coverage, and give glimpses into our personal lives, or random thoughts that don’t really fit in a security-oriented blog post. I will expand on that in some posts this year, starting today with a post on my favorite films of 2014. Yep, you heard me, and you can skip to the Summary itself below if you just want the top links and news of the week. Favorite Films of 2014 These aren’t necessarily the best movies of the year – not even close – but the ones I most enjoyed. My wife and I are huge film buffs, but since having (3 young) kids we dropped from seeing movies near weekly, to monthly if we are lucky. This changed our tastes because due to constant exhaustion we are more likely to pick something light and fun than arty and independent (we still watch those, usually over 2 nights, at home). Top Films I Saw in a Theater Guardians of the Galaxy: Flat out, the most fun I had in a theater all year. I saw it twice, then bought the Blu-Ray (3D with digital copy) for home. Some consider comic book films the death of ‘serious’ movies, but as we transition deeper into the digital age spectacles like this will sustain movie theaters and allow more serious films to still show in the smaller rooms at the back of the megaplex. Captain America: The Winter Soldier: Almost my #1 pick because this one elevated the ‘classic’ comic-book genre film. Its comments on society were heavy-handed but the timing was perfect – especially if you know what’s coming in the Civil War storyline. But what really hooked me were the effects and character of Cap himself. His movements, style, and pure kinesis made even the Avengers action scenes look pedestrian. Gravity: I love space. I went to Space Camp three times as a kid (and considering our limited household income, that was more than a big deal). The science may have been way off in parts, but the immersive 3D IMAX experience was incredible. And the tension? Oh, the tension! It makes me almost want to cry that I missed seeing Interstellar on an IMAX screen. Favorite Film Most of You Skipped Edge of Tomorrow: This did poorly in the theaters, and we only watched it on an iPad at 35,000 feet ourselves, but I immediately bought the book on my Kindle when we landed. If you have ever ground out a level in a video game this is the movie for you. If you want to see Tom Cruise die, a lot, this is the movie for you. If you want to see the best time-travel film since Looper… you know the rest. And definitely read the book. The One We Loved Until Our iTunes Rental Expired The Grand Budapest Hotel: I have the Blu-Ray from Netflix sitting here so we can watch the last 20 minutes. But unless they completely suck this was Wes Anderson at his best. Amazing style, characters with panache, and his usual visual splendor. The One I Enjoyed, but Really Didn’t Get As Much As Anyone Else Snowpiercer: I get it, Bong Joon-Ho is awesome and Tilda Swinton just nailed it, but I still don’t understand why this made so many Top 10 lists. It was good, but not that good. My Favorites with the Kids Our girls are finally old enough to sit through and enjoy a movie with, and this was an awesome year to bond in a theater (or with a rental). The Lego Movie: I really really really wish we had seb this in the theater, instead of on video, but we all loved it. Our dining room table has been covered in Legos for months, and I don’t expect that to change anytime soon. The message hit the perfect tone of “be creative, but sometimes you still need to listen to your damn parents so you don’t die a tragic death!” Maybe I’m projecting, a little. How to Train Your Dragon 2: Oh, wow. Even on a smaller 3D TV at home this is still amazing (we did see it in a theater first). It goes where few kids films have the balls for any more, putting you on an emotional roller coaster with plenty of spectacle. I really love this series, and will be sad when it ends with the next one. Big Hero 6: Another one full of emotion, evoking classic Disney themes in a fully modern, comic-book tale. It could have gone horribly wrong and is far from perfect, but the kids loved it, we enjoyed it, and the visual design is truly special. I wouldn’t place this up there with The Incredibles, but it really shines is creating bonds between the audience and the main characters. Favorite Comedy Neighbors: I enjoyed 22 Jump Street, but Neighbors had a few scenes that floored me. Let’s be honest – I am at a stage of life where I can appreciate a hangover + full boobs joke more than when I was 20 or 30. The One I Will Only See in Private Boyhood: I have kids. I’m going to cry. Screw you if you think I’m doing that in a theater. The Best Movie to See While Hopped up on Painkillers after… Guy Surgery G.I. Joe: Retaliation: Not much else to say. I dare you to refute. There are a lot of other films I enjoyed, especially Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, but these

Early December is a big deal in our house. It’s Nutcracker time, with both girls working all fall to get ready for their dance company’s annual production of the Xmas classic. They do 5 performances over a weekend, and neither girl wants it to end. We have to manage the letdown once that weekend is over. It has been really awesome to see all of the dancers grow up, via the Nutcracker. They start as little munchies playing party boys and girls in the first scene, and those who stick with it become Dew Drop or possibly even the Sugarplum Fairy. The big part for XX1’s group this year was Party Clara. It’s on Pointe and it’s a big and featured role in Act 1. She has been dreaming about this part for the past 4 years, and when we heard she got it for one of the performances this year, we knew it was going to be a special Nutcracker. She also got a featured Rag Doll part for another performance and was on stage 4-5 times during the show. XX2 wasn’t left out, and she got a number of featured parts as well. I used to dread that weekend but the girls didn’t really do much, so I could get away with going to one performance and being done with it. Now I attend 3 out of the 5 performances, and would go to all 5 if the girls had sufficient parts. I’m pretty sure the Boy wouldn’t be happy going to 5 performances, but he’ll get over it. I even skipped a home Falcons game to see the Sunday afternoon performance (I did!). One of the things I am working on is to pause during the big stuff and just enjoy it. You could call it smelling the flowers or something like that. For me it’s about savoring the moment. To see XX1 with a grin ear to ear performing as Party Clara was overwhelming for me. She was so poised, so in command, so happy. It was incredible. During those 3-4 minutes the world fell away. There was only my girl on stage. That’s it. Some folks watch their kids perform through a camera viewfinder. Or a cellphone screen while taking video. Not me. I want to experience it directly through my own eyes. To immerse myself in the show. I want to imprint it in my memory. Yes, we’ll buy the DVD of the performance, but that’s for the folks who weren’t there. I don’t need it. I was fully in that moment, and I can go back any time I want. And I do. –Mike Photo credit: “P1-VS-P2” originally uploaded by MoreInterpretations The fine folks at the RSA Conference posted the talk Jennifer Minella and I did on mindfulness at the 2014 conference. You can check it out on YouTube. Take an hour and check it out. Your emails, alerts and Twitter timeline will be there when you get back. Securosis Firestarter Have you checked out our new video podcast? Rich, Adrian, and Mike get into a Google Hangout and.. hang out. We talk a bit about security as well. We try to keep these to 15 minutes or less, and usually fail. December 18 – Predicting the Past November 25 – Numbness October 27 – It’s All in the Cloud October 6 – Hulk Bash September 16 – Apple Pay August 18 – You Can’t Handle the Gartner July 22 – Hacker Summer Camp July 14 – China and Career Advancement June 30 – G Who Shall Not Be Named June 17 – Apple and Privacy May 19 – Wanted Posters and SleepyCon 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, with our content in all its unabridged glory. And you can get all our research papers too. Security Best Practices for Amazon Web Services Third Party Tools Built-in Features Introduction Network Security Gateway Evolution Introduction Monitoring the Hybrid Cloud: Evolving to the CloudSOC Migration Planning Technical Considerations Solution Architectures Emerging SOC Use Cases Introduction Security and Privacy on the Encrypted Network Selection Criteria and Deployment Use Cases The Future is Encrypted Newly Published Papers Securing Enterprise Applications Secure Agile Development Trends in Data Centric Security Leveraging Threat Intelligence in Incident Response/Management The Security Pro’s Guide to Cloud File Storage and Collaboration The 2015 Endpoint and Mobile Security Buyer’s Guide Open Source Development and Application Security Analysis Advanced Endpoint and Server Protection The Future of Security Incite 4 U Security deadly sin: offensive envy: I dug up Richard Bejtlich’s awesome post from right before New Year, where he dismantles a list from Microsoft’s John Lambert and calls him out for minimizing the potential of defensive security. It is true that hacking stuff is sexy, and the chicks & dudes dig it. But still, the fact that many defenders work off checklists doesn’t mean all do. Because the defenders seem to come up on the losing end of some breach every day doesn’t mean their efforts are pointless. It means it’s a hard job, pure and simple. And glorifying the adversary only provides a defeatist attitude before you even start playing. Which I guess is the adversary’s plan… – MR No hands: I just love it when someone comes up with an entire class of security vulnerability – and if it might affect an Apple product guess what’s in the headlines? Like the general GSM wireless issue that was hyped as “iPhones Vulnerable” (every GSM phone was vulnerable). That hype sometimes does the issue a disservice, as highlighted in this piece at the Huffington Post on Jan Krissler recreating thumbprints from normal photographs at the Chaos Computer Club. It’s a fascinating and brilliant idea as we progress towards ubiquitous high-definition cameras throughout the world. Not merely for hacking phones, but for all the CSI-spinoff episodes it will inspire. Practically speaking,

Rich here, Holy crap, what a year! I have been in the security business for a while now. I wouldn’t say I am necessarily jaded, but… yeah. Wow. First, the news. This was the year of Target and Sony. Symantec finally breaking up. All sorts of wacky M&A. The year family members checked in for the first time in decades, after reading my quotes in articles with “celebrity nudes” in the headlines. Apple getting into payments. My guidance counselor totally left that out when we discussed infosec as a career option. Not that infosec was a career option in the late 80’s, but I digress. As I have often said, life doesn’t demarcate itself cleanly into 365 day cycles. There is no “year of X” because time is a continuum, and events have tendrils which extend long before and after any arbitrary block of time. That said, we will sure as hell remember 2014 as a year of breaches. Just like 2007/2008, for those who remember those ancient days. It was also a most excellent year for general security nonsense. Then there was the business side. 2014 was an epic year for Securosis on every possible level. And thanks to the IRS and our fiscal year being the calendar year, we really do get to attribute it to 2014. We cranked out a bunch of papers (mostly Mike) and engaged in some insanely fun projects (mostly me). A year or so ago I wasn’t sure there was enough of a market for me to focus so much of my research on cloud and DevOps. Now I wonder if there’s enough of me to support all the work. We were so busy we didn’t even get around to announcing a new research product: Securosis Project Accelerators. Focused workshops for end users and (for now) SaaS providers tied to specific project initiatives (like our Cloud Security for SaaS Providers package). On the upside, we sold a bunch of them anyway. The main thing that suffered was this blog. We mostly kept up with our scheduled posts and open research, but did drop a lot of the random posts and commentary because we were all so busy. I wish I could say that’s going to change, but the truth is 2015 looks to be even busier. Personally this has been my favorite work year yet, due to the amount of primary research I have been able to focus on (including getting back to programming), working more with end-user organizations on projects, and even getting to advise some brand-name cloud providers on technical aspects of their security. I am not sure whether I mentioned it on the site, but my wife stopped working after RSA due to an acute onset of “too many children”. We decided it was no longer worthwhile for both of us to work full time. And changes in the healthcare system meant we were no longer so reliant on her employee benefits. That reduced a lot of home scheduling stress, but also meant I was short on excuses to stay off airplanes. I was definitely away from home a lot more than I liked, but when I am home, I get to be far more engaged than a lot of parents. On the non-work front it was also an awesome year. We are done with babies (but not diapers), which means we are slowly clawing back some semblance of a life outside being parents. Our older two started in public school, which is like some kind of fantasy after years of paying a prison company to keep our children mostly alive and intact (daycare… shudder). We spent a month in Boulder, a week in Amsterdam, and a weekend in Legoland. I am running as fast as I was in my 20’s, over longer distances, and I am almost not embarrassed on the bike. (Remember, triathlon is latin for “sucks at three sports”). So on the overall good/bad scale I would mark 2014 as “awesome”. Mostly because I don’t work for a retailer or a film studio. And, without going into details, 2015 has some serious potential for epic. As I like to do every year before we close down for the holidays, I would really like to thank all of you for supporting us. Seriously, we are 3 guys and a half-dozen friends with a blog, some papers, and a propensity to sit in front of webcams with our clothes on. Not that many people get to make a living like this, and we can only pull it off due to the tremendous support you have all given us for over 7 years. I may not be religious but I sure am thankful. On to the Summary (our last this year): Webcasts, Podcasts, Outside Writing, and Conferences Rich quoted in the Guardian on the Sony breach Favorite Securosis Posts Mike Rothman: Firestarter: Predicting the Past. I can only hope you had half as much fun watching as we had recording the year-end FS. That’s right vendors – think twice before making those predictions. Even if you’re our friends, we will still call you out! Rich: Ditto. Natch. Other Securosis Posts Security Best Practices for Amazon Web Services: Third Party Tools. Security Best Practices for Amazon Web Services: Built-In Features. Security and Privacy on the Encrypted Network: Selection Criteria and Deployment. Firestarter: Predicting the Past. Summary: Nantucket. Favorite Outside Posts Adrian Lane: Analyzing Ponemon Cost of Data Breach. Jay Jacobs does an excellent job analyzing Ponemon’s breach cost calculation model. And I even learned a new word: heteroskedasticity. Mike Rothman: Analyzing Ponemon Cost of Data Breach. Don’t screw with Jay Jacobs on data stuff. Just don’t do it. This is a gem: “And in this analysis I will not only show that the approach used by Ponemon is not just overly simple, but also misleading and even may be harmful to organizations using the Ponemon research in their risk analyses.” Damn. Jay wins. Rich: I suppose I should choose something else.

Our Use Cases post ran through setting policies for decryption, and specific use cases driving decryption of network traffic. We also brought up human resources and compliance considerations when building policies. But that doesn’t address the technical nuances of actually figuring out where to decrypt, or how to select and deploy the technology, so here we go. First let’s talk a bit about whether you need a standalone device. Standalone or Integrated? Many network and security devices can terminate and decrypt network sessions – including firewalls, IPS, load balancers, UTM, and web & email security gateways. Obviously using an existing device is simpler, often the path of least resistance for decryption and inspection. You don’t have to add other boxes or risk messing up your network addressing scheme, and you can enforce policies right at the point of decryption/inspection. A security device can decrypt traffic, inspect it, apply policy, and re-encrypt – all within a single product. For environments with minimal network volumes and simple policies, integrated devices work well. But those who need to decrypt substantial network traffic tend to quickly crush the performance of existing security devices if they try to decrypt on existing devices. As we mentioned in our last post, onboard decryption may reduce performance of security devices by 33% to 80%. If you have plenty of performance headroom on your security devices that’s OK. If you don’t you need to look at another device to offload decryption load, in order to let your security devices do what they do best: inspect traffic, apply policies, and monitor or capture traffic. If you deploy complicated policies, such as multiple policy triggers across the entire network stream rather than limiting yourself to port 443 (HTTPS), an integrated device’s relatively simple decryption policies may be insufficient. Additionally, if you need to send decrypted traffic to multiple places, such as a SIEM or network packet capture device, an integrated solution may not be a good fit. We have nothing against the integrated option, but pragmatism and drives us toward the right tool for the job. If onboard decryption can meet your performance and policy requirements, do it. But if not you likely need a standalone decryption device. Selection Criteria Once you have decided to use a dedicated decryption device, what should you look for? Here are a few things to think about: Performance: Much of the value of dedicated hardware is its ability scale up with traffic volume. Make sure any device or devices you buy can scale to your current and future volumes. Don’t paint yourself into a corner by buying equipment that will need to be replaced when traffic volume grows. All Port Support: One of the easiest evasion techniques for attackers is to simply change the port number of their outbound traffic, sending encrypted traffic where it is not expected or monitored. Inspection devices cannot afford to trust port numbers – you need deep packet inspection looking at payloads to detect evasion. Accuracy: Decryption strategy is highly policy dependent, so success requires accurate categorization of traffic. Related to looking at the full traffic stream, you need to ensure your devices accurately find encrypted traffic and categorize it effectively. Policy actions: Once you have a policy hit, make sure your device supports a variety of different actions. You should be able to decrypt, not decrypt, drop the session, or reject the session (with a website failure code). You also want the ability to list sources or destinations as always decrypt (blacklist) or never decrypt (whitelist), by group or user. Website category/reputation support: A big chunk of our use case post talked about setting policies; they may include websites, IP addresses, and applications. Given how quickly website reputation and categories change (minutes – if not seconds), it is important to have a dynamic source of current information to base policies on. That usually means some kind of cloud-based website categorization service for whitelisting, along with dynamic reputation scoring for websites and applications. Multiple device support: Given the varied decryption use cases, these devices should be flexible in how they forward traffic, and to how many devices. For example you might want to send traffic to both an IPS for active control, and also a packet capture device for monitoring and forensics. It is also important for decryption devices to interoperates natively with security devices, so that (for instance) an IPS which detects decrypted attack traffic can drop that session without human intervention. Security: This is a security device, so you will want to ensure that decryption/resigning keys and data on the device are protected. You also want the ability to reject/drop sessions if their security is insufficient. For example a weak encryption cipher could data at risk; it might be forbidden to transmit encrypted data which cannot be decrypted by the security device, to prevent unknown data from leaving your environment. Transparency: It is also important to ensure decryption doesn’t impact application behavior or user interaction. End users should not need to concern themselves with security inspection. Further, the decryption device shouldn’t alter packet headers in any way, as that might impair other security devices’ inspection. Basically, nobody should know the device is there. Deployment flexibility: Decryption needs to be inserted into the flow of traffic, so you want a device that supports multiple deployment models, discussed below. For devices with multiple ports, you should have flexibility in assigning them to specific devices. You should also be able to apply policies both actively and passively. Deployment Decryption device deployment should be as non-disruptive as possible. You don’t want to mess around with IP addressing schemes, force every user to see a security warning every time they make an SSL connection, or have the device manipulate IP address headers and screw up your ability to monitor and analyze traffic. You want transparency, as mentioned above. Also make sure you are seeing all relevant traffic. Don’t make assumptions about what is relevant and what isn’t. Attackers frequently hide encrypted traffic on

This is our third post on AWS security best practices, to be compiled into a short paper. See also our first post, on defending the management plane and our second post, on using built-in AWS tools. Finish with Additional Security Tools AWS provides an excellent security foundation but most deployments require a common set of additional tools: Amazon’s monitoring tools (CloudTrail, CloudWatch, and Config) offer incomplete coverage, and no correlation or analysis. Integrate their feeds into existing log management, SIEM, monitoring, and alerting tools that natively support and correlate AWS logs and feeds, so they can fill gaps by tracking activity AWS currently misses. Use a host configuration management tool designed to work in the cloud to automatically configure and update instances. Embed agents into approved AMIs or bootstrap through installation scripts. Insert baseline security policies so all instances meet security configuration requirements. This is also a good way to insert security agents. Enhance host security in key areas using tools and packages designed to work in highly dynamic cloud deployments: Agents should be lightweight, communicate with the AWS metadata service for important information, and configure themselves on installation. Host Integrity Monitoring can detect unauthorized changes to instances. Logging and alerting collect local audit activity and alerts on policy violations. Host firewalls fill gaps left by security group limitations, such as rule set sizes. Some tools can additionally secure administrator access to hosts without relying solely on ssh keys. For web applications use a cloud-based Web Application Firewall. Some services also provide DDoS protection. Although AWS can support high levels of traffic, DDoS protection stops traffic before it hits your instances… and your AWS bill. Choose security assessments and scanning tools that tie into AWS APIs and comply with Amazon’s scanning requirements. Look for tools that not only scan instances, but can assess the AWS environment. Where to Go from Here These fundamentals are just the surface of what is possible with cloud security. Explore advanced techniques like Software Defined Security, DevOps integration, and secure cloud architectures. Share: