Category: Uncategorized

Problem: Organizational Roadblocks Most organizations view the CISO not as a security and risk manager, but as a manager of security assets, like firewalls, intrusion detection/prevention systems, and incident response capabilities.

According to the 2004 CSO Security Sensor Survey, 38% of respondents place the CISO in the IT chain of command, reporting to the CIO, whose primary responsibility is to maintain the availability of information systems. This placement hinders the CISO’s effectiveness and limits his or her ability to implement change, for a couple of reasons. Security’s message doesn’t reach senior business leadership.

When the CISO reports to the CIO, a primacy is established. Operational responsibilities take priority over strategic planning. Particularly when threats may cause business disruption, tactical issues take precedence over longer-term planning. It is easier to buy and implement firewalls and intrusion detection systems than to develop security policies and implement a sound awareness program.

Without long-term planning, the organization will remain trapped in the patch-and-pray scenario.

“Ideally, the institution should separate the information security program management from the daily security duties required in IT operations. The senior information security officer should be an ‘enterprise’ risk manager rather than a production resource devoted to IT operations. To ensure independence, the information security officer should report directly to the board or senior management rather than through the IT department” (FFIEC Information Technology Examination Handbook).

Firms who take this approach will realize new benefits from their CISOs. IT-independent CISOs can frame security in terms of business issues rather than IT projects.

A traditional security manager’s explanation of the recent ChoicePoint fraud case might sound like this: “The server’s verification and authentication processes for the client Web portal were ineffective, thereby facilitating fraudulent access to sensitive back-end systems and personally identifiable data.” When framed in terms of business issues: “The trust model used by ChoicePoint failed in such a way as to compromise the company’s most vital assets.”

A trust model establishes the standards by which an organization determines who to trust with its assets.

Organizations have several options as to how to reposition the CISO. They can combine information security with physical security and elevate the senior security officer to CSO, reporting directly to the CEO. The CSO Security Sensor Survey indicates that 34% of its respondents have implemented this change, up 15% from the previous year. By combining physical and cyber security under one executive, the organization gains a holistic view of potential threats and the associated vulnerabilities.

Elevating the chief security executive to CRO-chief risk officer-makes sense in medium to small enterprises where key executives often assume multiple roles. The benefit in this approach is that the CRO considers areas of risk beyond those dealt with by a CSO or CISO.

A second compelling reason for many CISOs’ lack of success is their inability to establish a credible economic basis for security investments and to assess information security relative to business initiatives. Much has been said about return on security investment (ROSI) and security metrics. At first glance, metrics seem to be the Yellow Brick Road to the boardroom. However, the CSO Security Sensor Survey reported that 34% of respondents did not use ROSI and had no intention to do so. The problem with ROSI is that its components are too subjective. Right now, there is no standard, statistically valid method of measuring ROSI. Some CISOs are using “homemade” formulas to calculate ROSI, but without sound standards and appropriate rigor, these calculations are not worth the time it takes to create them.

Solution: Use a Standard, Valid, Reliable Metric Be cautious of traditional security metrics, such as “total number of incidents reported.” When you add more firewalls, the number of incidents reported goes up, not down. Associative-Based upon a best practice or security model that enables comparison within the organization, within the industry, or across industries. One way to achieve an associative metric is to use ISO-17799 as the template for your security program. ISO-17799 is a comprehensive set of controls utilizing the best practices in information security.

http://www.securityinfowatch.com/print/Security-Technology-and-Design/Homeland-Security/Repositioning-the-CISO/4789SIW2

As they review their process, further refinements with more specific company data will enable a clear view of the costs to the IT organization.

As they create IT security compliance strategies and identify their potential impact to productivity and tangible costs, new data can be used to provide a calculation of the financial benefits of implementing security that closely reflects actual financial impact.

This enables organizations to create “what if” scenarios and to validate potential compliance strategies by creating a snapshot of the potential benefits associated with each one.

The Compliance IT Security Cost/Benefit Calculator shows the cost savings associated with productivity gains in security management, compliance management, and mitigating security risks with a long term view. “This Compliance IT Security Cost/Benefit Calculator contains tangible and intangible benefits to provide an assessment of the potential return on IT security compliance spending. The results are completely private and organizations can come back to the calculator as often as needed to update and fine-tune their requirements and planning.”

http://www.apani.com/calculator
http://www.ebcvg.com/articles.php?id=809

NetContinuum has created the checklist in order to help IT managers focus and prioritize the needs of IT management by identifying 27 distinct operations, covering both traffic delivery and security inspection including enforcement operations that are potentially applied to every transaction hitting a website.

“The Secure Application Delivery Checklist offers guidance to help them understand all the steps in the HTTP transaction lifecycle required to fully secure and manage application traffic and determine the product that best fits their needs,” Mr. Abrams added.

http://www.ebcvg.com/articles.php?id=808

A zombie is a computer that has been compromised by attackers, typically for the purpose of sending spam e-mail and viruses to literally millions of recipients. Once installed on the victim’s computer, the Trojan allows a remote hacker to take control of the machine and use it for any of a number of nefarious purposes.

In fact, today’s hackers (the “zombie masters”) have become so sophisticated that they have begun creating coordinated networks of zombie computers that can launch a full-scale attack at a moment’s notice. This traffic can include: Spam, Phishing scams, Viruses, Distributed Denial of Service attacks, Redirects to websites containing malicious code.

Zombies can be created in several ways, including via peer-to-peer networks and maliciously encoded websites. However, the most popular method for distributing the Trojans that create zombies is via an e-mail attachment masquerading as an innocent file, such as a digital photo or contest entry form.

The first generation of zombies was made up mostly of corporate-based machines such as Web, e-mail, or DNS servers. Because these machines were on high-speed networks, they provided an ideal platform from which damaging attacks could be launched. Because these machines were on high-speed networks, they provided an ideal platform from which damaging attacks could be launched.

However, corporate systems have become increasingly secure and more tightly monitored, making them less attractive to hackers. Now, the hackers have turned to the next set of victims, vulnerable home computer users. These computers are easy targets, as home users often lack the Internet savvy necessary to adequately protect their machines with firewalls and up-to-date anti-virus protection; many will also willingly open email attachments from unknown senders, enticed by the promise of easy money or cheap prescriptions.

In addition, the widespread availability of always-on, high-speed home connections using cable and DSL has made the home user an obvious target for zombie masters. In fact, this alone is the single largest contributing factor to recent escalations in spam, phishing attacks and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks.

When the attacks involve distribution of viruses via spam techniques, the stakes are raised even higher. The costs of a DDoS attack can be crippling to today’s enterprise, resulting in lost sales during downtime and recovery, and more importantly, loss of trust from partners and customers should the attack become public information.

Taking into consideration that each zombie involved in a recent DDoS attack launched 64 connection attempts per second against the targeted corporation, it’s easy to see how even the most robust systems can wilt under the massive load inflicted upon them.

Some basic tenets of security should be followed at all times, whether you want to protect your enterprise network from spam, viruses and DDoS attacks spewed forth by zombie networks, or protect your home computer from joining the ranks of the undead. The best-of-breed appliances available offer both inbound and outbound protection via an objective, dynamic reputation system, connection management technology and robust anti-virus capabilities.

The best-of-breed appliances available offer both inbound and outbound protection via an objective, dynamic reputation system, connection management technology and robust anti-virus capabilities.

http://www.ebcvg.com/articles.php?id=796

Lawrence Orans, a principal research analyst, and John Pescatore, vice president and research fellow, told attendees at the Gartner IT Security Summit in Washington, D.C., not to fear going ahead with projects that use voice over IP technology, Virtual Private Networks over the Internet and wireless hot spots. The computer-security experts also advised their audience not to waste time or money on products they don’t need to meet federal regulations and protect against malware on mobile devices.

The men debunked five popular security myths:

* Eavesdropping risks makes VOIP telephony too insecure to use. Industry and the media overhype the danger of eavesdropping because it is as easy to eavesdrop on voice packets in a network as on data packets, Orans said. Companies that follow best practices to protect their data should have no trouble protecting their Internet telephony operations”.

* Malware on mobile devices will cause major business disruptions in the near future. The hype about antivirus products to protect cell phones and PDAs has been around since 2001, Pescatore said. But he said he predicted that viruses and other malware used against wireless mobile devices won’t cost more than antivirus protections against them until the end of 2007 at the earliest. More Americans need to use smart phones and PDAs with always-on wireless capability, Pescatore said. Additionally, mobile malware attacks won’t become a real threat until the users of these wireless items commonly send locally executed software”, he said.

* Viruses will not destroy the Internet. Named after Andy Warhol’s “15 minutes of fame” quip, a Warhol worm infects all vulnerable computers on the Internet within 15 minutes, Orans said.

* Compliance with government regulations equals security. The increased federal regulation prompted by Sarbanes-Oxley and similar legislation does not automatically lead to more security.

* Wireless hot spots are unsafe. The threat of “evil twins” setting up rogue access points to fool unsuspecting Internet users into thinking they are on real sites and then divulging confidential information is a red herring.

http://www.fcw.com/article89119-06-07-05-Web

Shredders themselves come in two basic varieties, strip-cut and crosscut.

A strip-cut shredder cuts the paper into strips ranging from a quarter-inch to a half-inch wide. Strip-cut machines are more popular because they are usually less expensive, tend to be quite durable and generally shred faster than crosscut models.

With crosscut shredders, documents are cut in two directions, producing very small particles. Rather than cutting paper into strips, crosscut shredders reduce it to smaller particles—resembling rectangular confetti and measuring approximately one-quarter inch by 1.5 inches—and provide much more security than strip-cut machines. Because the particles are so small, they are self-compacting, reducing overall bulk.

Cody Ford, president and CEO of Houston-based ChurchStreet Technology Inc., had observed the Enron Corp. financial meltdown when he was working at Enron as an IT consultant. ChurchStreet’s proprietary Strip-Shred Reconstruction and Cross-Shred Reconstruction suites enable companies to have their shredded documents reconstructed. With the exception of work done for government intelligence agencies, all client document reconstruction is done on ChurchStreet premises with ChurchStreet’s equipment.

The process basically works this way: Once ChurchStreet technicians receive document shreds from a client, they determine whether the original document can be salvaged. With a crosscut reconstruction, it is much more important that the collection bag be as undisturbed as possible, given the amount of shredded data.

Companies that blindly shredded documents in the past must now take a much more formal—and thoughtful—approach to what they want to shred and how they want to shred it. In 2005, nothing is simple in security, especially shredding a piece of paper.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1830203,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03119TX1K0000594