22 Oct How active is each threat agent? How might a successful attack serve a particular threat agents goal? Answer the question with a short paragraph, with a minimum of 300 words. ? APA formatt
How active is each threat agent? How might a successful attack serve a particular threat agent’s goal?
Answer the question with a short paragraph, with a minimum of 300 words. APA formatting
A minimum of two references are required. One reference for the book is acceptable but multiple references are allowed. There should be multiple citations within the body of the post. Note that an in-text citation includes author’s name, and year of publication.
University of the Cumberlands School of Computer & Information Sciences
ISOL-536 – Security Architecture & Design
Chapter 1: Introduction
Welcome
Chapter 1: Introduction
1.1 Breach! Fix It!
1.2 Information Security, as Applied to Systems
1.3 Applying Security to Any System
Chapter 1: Introduction
1.1 Breach! Fix It!
Advances in information security have been repeatedly driven by spectacular attacks and by the evolutionary advances of the attackers.
The password file for millions of customers was stolen through the front end of a web site pulling in 90% of a multi-billion dollar revenue stream.
The chance of an attempted attack of one kind or another is certain. The probability of a web attack is 100%; systems are being attacked and will be attacked regularly and continually.
Indeed, system complexity leads to increasing the difficulty of defense and, inversely, decreasing the difficulty of successful exploitation. The number of flows between systems can turn into what architects call, “spaghetti,” a seeming lack of order and regularity in the design.
Chapter 1: Introduction – Cont.
If a breach or significant compromise and loss creates an opportunity, then that opportunity quite often is to build a security architecture practice. A major part or focus of that maturing security architecture practice will be the assessment of systems for the purpose of assuring that when deployed, the assessed systems contain appropriate security qualities and controls.
Sensitive data will be protected in storage, transmission, and processing.
Sensitive access will be controlled (need-to-know, authentication, and authorization).
Defenses will be appropriately redundant and layered to account for failure.
There will be no single point of failure in the controls.
Systems are maintained in such a way that they remain available for use.
Activity will be monitored for attack patterns and failures.
Chapter 1: Introduction – Cont.
1.2 Information Security, as Applied to Systems
Security architecture applies the principles of security to system architectures.
Without security architecture, the intrusion system (IDS) might be distinct and independent from the firewalls (perimeter). Firewalls and IDS would then be unconnected and independent from anti-virus and anti-malware on the endpoint systems and entirely independent of server protections.
The security architect first uncovers the intentions and security needs of the organization: open and trusting or tightly controlled, the data sensitivities, and so forth.
Chapter 1: Introduction – Cont.
When standards do not match what can actually be achieved, the standards become empty ideals. In such a case, engineers’ confidence will be shaken; system project teams are quite likely to ignore standards, or make up their own. Security personnel will lose considerable influence. Therefore, as we shall see, it’s important that standards match capabilities closely, even when the capabilities are limited. In this way, all participants in the system security process will have more confidence in analysis and requirements.
Chapter 1: Introduction – Cont.
Decision makers need to understand precisely what protections can be put into place and have a good understanding of any residual, unprotected risks that remain.
A suite of controls implemented for a system becomes that system’s defense. If well designed, these become a “defense-in-depth,” a set of overlapping and somewhat redundant controls. Because, of course, things fail. One security “principle” is that no single control can be counted upon to be inviolable. Everything may fail. Single points of failure are potentially vulnerable.
Chapter 1: Introduction – Cont.
The Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) provides a distillation of several of the most well known sets of computer security principles:
Apply defense-in-depth (complete mediation).
Use a positive security model (fail-safe defaults, minimize attack surface).
Fail securely.
Run with least privilege.
Avoid security by obscurity (open design).
Keep security simple (verifiable, economy of mechanism).
Detect intrusions (compromise recording).
Don’t trust infrastructure.
Establish secure defaults.
Chapter 1: Introduction – Cont.
1.3 Applying Security to Any System
A typical progression of security maturity is to start by building one-off security
features into systems during system implementation. During the early periods, there
may be only one critical system that has any security requirements! It will be easier
and cheaper to simply build the required security services as a part of the system as
it’s being implemented. As time goes on, perhaps as business expands into new
territories or different products, there will be a need for common architectures, if for
no other reason than maintainability and shared cost. It is typically at this point that a
security infrastructure comes into being that supports at least some of the common
security needs for many systems to consume. It is characteristically a virtue to keep
complexity to a minimum and to reap scales of economy.
Chapter 1: Introduction – Cont.
Almost every type and size of a system will have some security needs. Although it may be argued that a throw-away utility, written to solve a singular problem, might not have any security needs, if that utility finds a useful place beyond its original problem scope, the utility is likely to develop security needs at some point.
Complex business systems typically have security requirements up front. In addition, either the implementing organization or the users of the system or both will have security expectations of the system. But complexity is not the determiner of security.
Thus, the answer as to whether a system requires an ARA and threat model is tied
to the answers to a number of key questions:
What is the expected deployment model?
What will be the distribution?
What language and execution environment will run the code?
Chapter 1: Introduction – Cont.
Size, business criticality, expenses, and complexity, among others, are dimensions that may have a bearing, but are not solely deterministic. I have seen many Enterprise IT efforts fail, simply because there was an attempt to reduce this early decision to a two-dimensional space, yes/no questions. These simplifications invariably attempted to achieve efficiencies at scale. Unfortunately, in practice today, the decision to analyze the architecture of a system for security is a complex, multivariate problem.
The answer to “Systems? Which systems?” cannot be overly simplified. Depending upon use cases and intentions, analyzing almost any system may produce significant security return on time invested. And, concomitantly, in a world of limited resources, some systems and, certainly, certain types of system changes may be passed without review. The organization may be willing to accept a certain amount of unknown risk as a result of not conducting a review.
Chapter 1: Summary
Information assurance is achieved when information and information systems are
protected against attacks through the application of security services such as availability, integrity, authentication, confidentiality, and nonrepudiation. The application of these services should be based on the protect, detect, and react paradigm.
This means that in addition to incorporating protection mechanisms, organizations need to expect attacks and include attack detection tools and procedures that allow them to react to and recover from these unexpected attacks.
Chapter 1
END
University of the Cumberlands School of Computer & Information Sciences
ISOL-536 – Security Architecture & Design
Chapter 2: The Art of Security Assessment
Chapter 2: The Art of Security Assessment
2.1 Why Art and Not Engineering?
2.2 Introducing “The Process”
2.3 Necessary Ingredients
2.4 The Threat Landscape
2.4.1 Who Are These Attackers? Why Do They Want to Attack My System?
2.5 How Much Risk to Tolerate?
2.6 Getting Started
2.1 Why Art and Not Engineering?
The branch of science and technology concerned with the design, building, and use of
engines, machines, and structures.
Definition of “engineering”:
In contrast, a security architect must use her or his understanding of the
currently active threat agents in order to apply these appropriately to a
particular system. Whether a particular threat agent will aim at a
particular system is as much a matter of understanding, knowledge, and
experience as it is cold hard fact. Applying threat agents and their
capabilities to any particular system is an essential activity within the art
of threat modeling. Hence, a security assessment of an architecture is
an act of craft.
2.2 Introducing “The Process”
Because we security architects have methodologies, or I should
say, I have a map in my mind while I assess, I can allow myself to
run down threads into details without losing the whole of both
the architecture and the methodology.
Practitioners will express these steps in different ways, and there
are certainly many different means to express the process, all of
them valid.
This series of steps assumes that the analyst has sufficient
understanding of system architecture and security architecture
going into the analysis.
2.2 Introducing “The Process” – Cont.
As you read the following list, please remember that there are
significant prerequisite understandings and knowledge domains that
contribute to a successful ARA.
Collect the set of credible attack surfaces.
Enumerate threats for this type of system and its intended deployment
Consider threats’ usual attack methods.
Consider threats’ usual goals.
Risk assess each attack surface. Risk rating will help to prioritize attack.
surfaces and remediation.
Factor in each existing security control (mitigations).
Intersect threat’s attack methods against the inputs and connections.
These are the set of attack surfaces.
Enumerate inputs and connections
2.2 Introducing “The Process” – Cont.
An analysis must first uncover all the credible attack vectors of the
system. This simple statement hides significant detail. At this point in
this work, it may be sufficient to outline the following mnemonic,
“ATASM.” Figure 2.1 graphically shows an ATASM flow:
Figure 2.1 Architecture, threats, attack surfaces, and mitigations.
2.2 Introducing “The Process” – Cont.
These four steps are sketched in the Picture 2.1 – If we break these down into their constituent parts, we might have a list something like the following, more detailed list:
Diagram (and understand) the logical architecture of the system.
List all the possible threat agents for this type of system.
List the goals of each of these threat agents.
List the typical attack methods of the threat agents.
List the technical objectives of threat agents applying their attack methods.
Decompose (factor) the architecture to a level that exposes every possible attack
surface.
Apply attack methods for expected goals to the attack surfaces.
2.3 Necessary Ingredients
Just as a good cook pulls out all the ingredients from the cupboards and arranges them for ready access, so the experienced assessor has at her fingertips information that must feed into the assessment.
Figure 2.2 Knowledge sets that feed a security analysis.
Figure 2.3 Strategy knowledge, structure information, and system specifi cs.
2.3 Necessary Ingredients – Cont.
Figure 2.3 places each contributing knowledge domain within the area for which it is most useful. If it helps you to remember, these are the “3 S’s.” Strategy, infrastructure and security structures, and specifications about the system help determine what is important: “Strategy, Structures, Specification.”
Figure 2.3 Strategy knowledge, structure information, and system specifics.
2.4 The Threat Landscape
Differing groups target and attack different types of systems in different ways for different reasons. Each unique type of attacker is called a “threat agent.” The threat agent is simply an individual, organization, or group that is capable and motivated to promulgate an attack of one sort or another.
Threat agents are not created equal.
They have different goals.
They have different methods.
They have different capabilities and access.
They have different risk profiles and will go to quite different lengths to be successful.
2.4 The Threat Landscape – Cont.
There are three key attributes of human attackers, as follows:
Intelligence
Adaptivity
Creativity
This means that whatever security is put into place can and will be probed, tested, and reverse engineered.
2.4.1 Who Are These Attackers? Why Do They Want to Attack My System?
Cyber crime can be an organized criminal’s “dream come true.” Attacks can be largely anonymous. Plenty of attack scenarios are invisible to the target until after success: Bank accounts can be drained in seconds. There’s typically no need for heavy handed thuggery, no guns, no physical interaction whatsoever. These activities can be conducted with far less risk than physical violence. “Clean crime?”
2.4.1 Who Are These Attackers? Why Do They Want to Attack My System? – Cont.
There are documented cases of criminals carefully targeting a particular organization. But even in this case, the attacks have gone after the weak links of the system, such as poorly constructed user passwords and unpatched systems with well-known vulnerabilities, rather than highly sophisticated attack scenarios making use of unknown vulnerabilities.
Further, there’s little incentive to carefully map out a particular person’s digital life. That’s too much trouble when there are so many (unfortunately) who don’t patch their systems and who use the same, easily guessed password for many systems. It’s a simple matter of time and effort. When not successful,
move on to the next mark.
2.4.1 Who Are These Attackers? Why Do They Want to Attack My System? – Cont.
Sometimes a single set of data is targeted, and sometimes the attacks seem to be after whatever may be available. Multiple diversionary attacks may be exercised to hide the data theft. Note the level of sophistication here:
Carefully planned and coordinated
Highly secretive
Combination of techniques (sometimes highly sophisticated)
2.4.1 Who Are These Attackers? Why Do They Want to Attack My System? – Cont.
Figure 2.4 attempts to provide a visual mapping of the relationships between various attributes that we might associate with threat agents. This figure includes inanimate threats, with which we are not concerned here. Attributes include capabilities, activity level, risk tolerance, strength of the motivation, and reward goals.
Next slide – Figure 2.4 Threat agent attribute relationships.
Chapter 2: Summary
Information assurance is achieved when information and information systems are
protected against attacks through the application of security services such as availability, integrity, authentication, confidentiality, and nonrepudiation. The application of these services should be based on the protect, detect, and react paradigm.
This means that in addition to incorporating protection mechanisms, organizations need to expect attacks and include attack detection tools and procedures that allow them to react to and recover from these unexpected attacks.
Chapter 2: Summary
END
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