Information System Security Engineering and Management

1
Information System Security Engineering and
Management

• Dr. William Hery
• whery_at_poly.edu
• hery_at_nac.net
• CS 996
• Spring 2005

2
Outline of Presentation

• Course Motivation
• Approach to Learning, Grading in This Course
• Main Course Topics
• Highlights of course topics to show linkage
• Term Project Structure

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Initial Course Motivation

• For SFS students fill in gaps in National
  Security Telecommunications and Information
  Systems Security Committee (NSTISSC)
  certification for NSA
• NSTISSI 4011 National Training Standards for
  INFOSEC Professionals (http//www.nstissc.gov/html
  /library.html)
• Most technical topics are covered in other
  courses
• Missing NSTISSI technical tidbits inserted as
  needed
• The missing topics are all related to
  management, policy and systems engineering.
• The course will be a survey of information system
  security engineering and management topics over a
  system life cycle
• Although a government motivation in selecting
  the topics, all are broadly applicable to
  developing and managing commercial systems
  securely

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Course Focus

• Broad management perspective applicable to
  DoD/NSA, civilian government agencies, corporate
  world think like a manager
• If you are a manager
• If you have to deal with a manager
• System, not detail, focus
• Not about security products (crypto, fiewall,
  etc.), but how to use them in a system
• Many topics are subjective, not objective
• There may be no right way or right answer
• Many topics should be courses in themselves
• This course will teach you what to think about,
  not how to do everything!
• Secondary goal Gain experience in teamwork,
  government project organization, presentations
  and report writing.

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Course Organization

• Weekly graded homework
• Each student will present a one hour lecture on a
  topic--and assign reading and homework for it
• Reading assignments and class discussion
• Active participation in discussion part of grade!
• Student team projects (more later)

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Grading

• Homework
• Due before the next class after assignment
• Each graded on a 100 point scale
• 10 points per week (or fraction thereof) deducted
  for any homework submitted after the due date
• Ten highest individual HW grades averaged to get
  overall HW grade
• Lecture Graded on the basis of discovering and
  understanding material, and organization of
  presentation.
• Team Project Grades based on
• Depth of understanding of security both the
  technical issues and the application of systems
  engineering and management processes
• Organization of final presentation and report
• All members of a team get the same grade
• Overall grade 40 homework, 40 project, 20
  lecture

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References

• Primary text Ronald Krutz and Russell Vines, The
  CISM Prep Guide, Wiley, 2003, ISBN 0-471-45598-9
• Supplementary material from
• Ross Anderson, Security Engineering, Wiley, 2001,
  ISBN 0-471-38922-6
• Tipton and Krause, Information Security
  Management Handbook, 4th Edition, Auerbach, ISBN
  0-8493-1518-2 (Copy in ISIS Lab)
• Various web sites, etc.

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Key Points About Security For a Manager

• Information Security is a key part of the life
  cycle processes for any system
• System conception and design
• System development
• Operation of deployed systems
• System decommission
• It is critical to include security considerations
  from the beginning of system conception and
  design
• Use of security technology (firewalls, crypto,
  IDS, patching), etc. is only part of security
  security is based on people, processes, and
  technology
• Actively managing the security process is a key
  part of achieving security
• People (developers, users, hackers) are
  (sometimes without actively knowing it) are part
  of the security process

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Key Points (Part II)

• Security is a wide array of options, not a yes/no
  choice
• No security is probably not enough
• Near perfect security is difficult, expensive,
  hard to use, and takes a long time to do. It is
  probably too much
• The key is to find the sweet spot of enough
  security for your particular system. This is a
  key management decision.
• Many topics are subjective, not objective
• There may be no right way or right answer

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Extremes of Security
A system in a locked room, with 2 foot thick
concrete and metal walls (Faraday cage), no
windows, battery operated (no power lines, a
secure operating system, strongly encrypted data,
armed guards, and only one person allowed in
provides very strong security (e. g., most secure
NSA systemmaybe)
A system in an open area, which allows anyone to
use it and allows anything to come in or go out
over multiple networks provides virtually no
security (e. g., Internet Café)
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Costs of Security
Security
Development cost
Development time
Equipment cost
Maintenance cost
Usability?
Functionality?
Performance?
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Finding the Sweet Spot

• The sweet spot depends on what you need to
  protect, and what environment you are operating
  in
• The key to finding the sweet spot is to
  understand the security requirements
• Requirements may be hard to pin down
• Different aspects of a system may have very
  different security requirements
• The sweet spot is getting the right level of
  security for each aspect
• Two common errors in finding the sweet spot
• Uniformly low security because management does
  not understand the risk.
• Uniformly, strong, and expensive approach to
  security everywhere, when less (e. g., no crypto)
  is enough in most places, with something stronger
  in selected places (e. g., protecting passwords
  or crypto keys)

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What is Information Security?

• A set of properties of the information system,
  not a technology
• These properties are provided with both of
  processes and technologies
• The properties CIA
• Confidentiality only permitted entities are
  allowed to see the information
• Integrity only permitted entities are allowed to
  modify the information (this includes creation
  and deletion)
• Integrity preservation you know it cant be
  changed
• Integrity violation detection you cant trust
  and must go to a backup or alternate source
• Availability the information is available when
  needed

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Related security concepts

• Identification a means of saying who/what an
  entity is
• Authentication a means to verify that an entity
  is who it claims to be for decisions in support
  of confidentiality and integrity
• Access Control a means to enforce which entities
  have access to information to support
  confidentiality and integrity
• Authorization a combination of authentication
  (who) and access control
• Non-repudiation integrity of the pair
  (information, creator of information)
• Privacy confidentiality of personal information
• Anonymity confidentiality of identity
• Recovery restoration of a system to a correct
  state after a security incident.

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Methods to Provide Security Properties
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DoD terminology

• Communications Security (COMSEC)
• Security of information (voice, data) while in
  transit. Includes switched circuits, radio links,
  microwave, satellite, packet nets, Asynchronous
  Transfer Mode (ATM), Synchronous Optical Networks
  (SONET), Packet over fiber, free space optics,
  etc.
• Computer Security (COMPUSEC)
• Security of information while stored or being
  processed on a computer
• Information Security (INFOSEC)
• COMPUSEC COMSEC
• Transmission Security (TRANSEC)
• Security of Transmission media
• Operations Security (OPSEC)
• Operational processes for protecting potentially
  sensitive unclassified material (people and
  technology)
• Automated Information Systems (AIS)
• Computers networks linking computers

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Security vs. Reliability

• Security attacks, software flaws, and hardware
  failure can all lead to violations of CIA
• For some events, it may be hard to determine
  which class of flaws is the cause.
• Some protection and recovery mechanisms are the
  same for both security attacks and hardware or
  software failures

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Security vs Reliability Differences

• Hardware failures
• No malicious cause
• Usually affects A, sometimes I or C
• Typically independent events
• Testing is often a reliable way to find hardware
  failures on deployed systems
• Stochastic and temporal (e. g., mean time between
  failure, MTBF) failure models are useful metrics
• Availability is also a standard term in
  reliability
• Software failure
• No malicious attack design or coding error
• Can affect A, sometimes I or C
• Often correlated events from same flaw as similar
  state conditions arise in different
  instantiations
• Stochastic models of limited value

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Security vs Reliability Differences (continued)

• Security breach
• Malicious attack
• Serious attacks often attempt to hide event
• Can affect A, I or C
• In most cases, the most serious impacts are
  attacks on I or C
• Many attacks are highly correlated worldwide, but
  some are very targeted and correlations may be
  hard to find

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Survivable Systems

• Systems that provide both reliability and
  security are called survivable (or dependable)
• Reliability and security requirements are often
  similar in nature (particularly availability),
  and it makes sense to combine the requirements
  analysis for both
• Designing secure systems and reliable systems
  both depend on understanding what is at risk if
  there is a failure (security compromise or system
  failure), what the threats are (hackers, failure
  modes), and managing that risk
• It is sometimes hard to distinguish between a
  reliability failure and a security breach (e. g.,
  the 2003 northeast blackout).
• Recovery from a failure and a security breach are
  sometimes similar, and it makes sense to combine
  the recovery plans.
• Security is considered by some to be a subset of
  reliability, with security breaches just another
  form of failure
• But the malicious, planned, correlated, and
  hidden aspects of security breaches requires a
  very different protection approach to most
  aspects of reliability

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Where are security flaws?

• In system design
• Not planning for security (many things today)
• Designing security incorrectly (WiFi original
  encryption standard)
• In system implementation
• Ambiguous/incomplete design document
• Implementation errors (buffer overflows, etc.)
• In system use
• Configuration--often weakest security out of the
  box
• Failure to keep up with updates/patches
• Physical security
• Ill advised user actions
• Poor passwords/passwords written down
• Victims of social engineering
• Management needs to keep all of this in mind when
  designing, implementing and deploying systems

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Management Security Concerns

• Classified information at DoD/NSA/other govt
  agencies
• National security, loss of life, sources and
  methods, political, career impacts of security
  breech
• Unclassified government information
• Political, financial, legal, career impacts of
  security breech
• Corporate
• Financial, intellectual property, legal,
  corporate image, career impacts of security
  breech
• Almost no managers neat technology

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Sources of Security Requirements

• Risk analysis (national security, lives,
  property, money)
• Legal (e. g., HIPAA, Sarbannes_Oxely, privacy
  laws)
• Higher level government/corporate policies
• Corporate/agency/personal image
• Others derived from the above
• Requirements may change due to costs, changing
  threat environment, etc.
• Requirements may not be known or understood at
  the start of a project

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Steps to Include Security in the System Life Cycle

• Risk analysis (for the most fundamental security
  requirements)
• Complete security requirements analysis
• Security is a non-functional requirement, as is
  reliability
• High level security policy (technology,
  management processes, personnel policies)
• Overall system engineering
• Includes security design and development
• Lower level security requirements and policies
  developed
• Security should be an integral element from the
  start
• Security management of deployed system
• Incident Response
• Business Continuity Planning
• Decommissioning of systems and components

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Risk Analysis

• What is at risk (national security, lives,
  property, money)?
• Some risk models are based on values
• Where does the threat come from?
• Motivation (national security, money, fame,
• Capabilities (intellect, equipment, money)
• What vulnerabilities can be exploited
• Technical
• Process
• People
• Risk management
• Eliminate/reduce risk (e. g., put in crypto,
  firewall)
• Accept risk (with recovery process)
• Transfer risk (e. g., to an insurance company)

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Security Policy

• Essentially a statement of security requirements
• Every security policy statement should have a
  corresponding enforcement mechanism
• Policies are at multiple levels
• High level policies flow down to multiple lower
  level policies
• High level e. g., company proprietary
  information shall be protected from release to
  unauthorized personnel
• Mid level e. g., there shall be no externally
  initiated ftp sessions
• Low level e. g., a firewall rule blocking
  incoming traffic on ports 20 (ftp data), 21 (ftp
  control), and 69 (tftp)
• The firewall is the enforcement mechanism
• Policies also define management processes (e. g.,
  incident response actions) and personnel rules
  (e. g., dont write down passwords)

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Security system engineering

• Part of overall systems engineering process
• Iterates requirements, design, review through
  multiple levels of detail
• Includes design and development
• Lower level security policies developed
• Security should be an integral element from the
  start

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Student talks

• Presentations will focus on management and
  processes, not technical details (you know them
  already)
• Presenter will be given basic references and
  other reference pointers, and is encouraged to
  search for more material
• Presenter to assign background reading the week
  before the talk
• Review presentation with me for guidance as you
  develop it
• Prepare for 45 minutes of presentation
  material, but use one hour with discussion
• Active participation of audience is encouraged
• Presenter to assign homework on topic

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Course Schedule (tentative)

• 1/26 Overview (Hery)
• 2/2 Risk Analysis (Hery)
• 2/9 Secure Systems Engineering (Hery)
• 2/16 ISO 17799 (taken)
• SSE/CMM (secure syst. eng. maturity model)
• 2/23 Policy (2 hours???--Hery)
• Legal and other requirements
• 3/2 Security Management and administration of
  Deployed Systems (2 hours)
• 3/9 Incident Response
• Business Continuity Planning (merge w/ above?)

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Course Schedule (tentative) continued

• 3/16 Assessment/Assurance (Hery)
• Architecture of Classified Systems (Hery)
• 3/30 Security Engineering for Software
• TRANSEC/EMSEC/Tempest (EE background)
• 4/6 Physical Security/tamper resistance
• Information System Security Officer
• 4/13 Government Key Management Policy
• Security Audit (tentatively taken)
• 4/20 Certification and Accreditation
• Ethical issues in system design/management??

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Student Team Project

• Teams of 3 students
• Pick a system (discuss choice with me)
• Want simple functionality, security issues, whole
  system (e. g., client and server side)
• Submit a 1-2 page proposal to management (Dr.
  Hery)
• Assess risks, threats, vulnerabilities
• Develop a security policy
• Do a high level system security design
• Present a preliminary design review (PDR) to
  management (include risk analysis, policies,
  system architecture)
• Iterate on risk assessment, policy, design
• Present a final critical design review (CDR) to
  management and the class
• Write a final report to management on above