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Security Fact & Fiction: Three Lessons from the Headlines

Security Fact & Fiction: Three Lessons from the Headlines

Real-word breaches are often caused by simple lapses of judgment.

Hollywood movies and some of the media representations of data breaches are sensationalized and over-complicated compared to reality.

Duo Security

May 13, 2015
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  1. Security Fact & Fiction
    Three Lessons from the Headlines

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  3. (that one’s real)

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  5. Real-word breaches are often
    caused by simple lapses of
    judgment.
    Hollywood movies and some of the
    media representations of data
    breaches are sensationalized and
    over-complicated compared to
    reality.
    source: Verizon DBIR 2015
    verizonenterprise.com/DBIR/2015/

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  6. Security Facts
    ❏ The cost of a data breach is on the rise
    ❏ average cost increased 8.3% from $5.4 MM in 2013 to $5.85
    MM in 2014
    ❏ average cost per record increased 6.9% from $188 in 2013
    to $201 in 2014
    ❏ the most costly breaches are malicious & criminal attacks
    ❏ Will your organization be breached?
    ❏ “The results show that a probability of a material data
    breach [over the next 2 years] involving a minimum of
    10,000 records is more than 22 percent”*
    * source: IBM/Ponemon “Cost of Data Breach Study”, 2014: http://ibm.co/1Df4urk
    based on survey of 314 global organizations that experienced data breach

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  7. Factors Affecting the Cost of Breaches
    Factor Effect on Price/Record
    Strong Security Posture -$14.14
    Incident Response Plan -$12.77
    CISO Appointment -$6.59
    Business Continuity Management -$8.98
    Lost/Stolen Devices +$16.10
    3rd Party Involvement +$14.80
    Quick Notification +$10.45
    Consultant Engagement +$2.10
    source:
    IBM/Ponemon,
    2014
    US Avg.
    Cost/Record: $201

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  8. Security Fiction
    ❏ Purchasing data breach insurance policies indicates an
    organization is slacking on security
    ❏ more likely to have other proactive measures in place
    ❏ Password policies and user education can save us
    ❏ most security advice targeting users has a poor
    cost/benefit tradeoff (MS, 2009 http://bit.ly/1lwMErH)
    ❏ The threats you care about are Advanced Persistent Threat
    0dayz
    ❏ most breaches actually use very simple methods,
    exploiting oversights and poor security policy, even from
    sophisticated attackers
    ❏ PCI/HIPAA/whatever compliant means secure
    ❏ nope! these don’t encompass everything

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  9. The Present State of Security
    ❏ The answer to most security questions is “it’s complicated”
    but that doesn’t mean there’s no hope
    “You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end -- which you can
    never afford to lose -- with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of
    your current reality, whatever they may be”
    -- Admiral James Stockdale, US Navy
    “I’m here to tell you that your cyber systems continue to function and serve
    you not due to the expertise of your security staff but solely due to the sufferance
    of your opponents”
    -- Brian Snow, NSA Information Assurance Head, 2012
    “Lulzsec hacks embarrassed the security community by showing we were outclassed
    as defenders. NSA leaks show we were outclassed as attackers too”
    -- Haroon Meer, 2015

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  10. The Security Blanket
    ❏ Preparedness can reduce the cost of data breaches, while
    other factors can increase the cost
    ❏ Many expensive breaches are preventable in a cost-effective
    way in retrospect
    ❏ There are many commonalities in how attacks begin…
    ❏ poor passwords
    ❏ malware
    ❏ phishing
    ❏ application misconfiguration/bugs
    ❏ lost/stolen devices

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  11. our management
    statement:
    why the information
    security policy
    exists

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  12. ❏ Ownership
    which team/people are responsible for which systems?
    ❏ Employee responsibilities
    e.g. honoring PII policy & access restrictions.
    ❏ Device use policy
    BYOD is huge.
    ❏ Risk assessment policy
    evaluate org for risk on an ongoing basis
    ❏ Employee off-boarding policy
    prevent biz critical material from leaving
    ❏ Operations management policy
    backups? monitoring? segregation?
    ❏ Compliance & Auditing policy
    to ensure you remain compliant with regulations
    Contents of Security Policy
    ❏ Access control policy
    specify how your org controls sensitive access
    ❏ Incident management policy
    incident management policy decreases cost of breach
    ❏ Physical security policy
    who controls the literal keys? how is access given/revoked?
    ❏ Business continuity & disaster recovery
    if operations can’t continue at current office, then what?
    ❏ Data confidentiality policy
    procedures & requirements for dealing w/ sensitive data
    ❏ Software change management policy
    how do you keep track and control of important updates?

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  13. Target in the Crosshairs
    ❏ 95% of security incidents involve credential theft
    ❏ Target’s HVAC vendor’s credentials to vendor project system
    were compromised
    ❏ It’s hard to control your employees, let alone a vendor’s…
    ❏ but mitigation should always be in mind
    ❏ the vendor project system and payments systems weren’t
    segregated
    ❏ no two-factor authentication
    ❏ 70 million customer records stolen
    ❏ 40 million credit/debit cards
    ❏ up to $1 billion in damages

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  14. How it happened
    1. “Citadel” malware email, spearphishing to HVAC vendor
    2. Vendor application vulnerability
    3. Active Directory target enumeration
    4. Steal admin hash from memory
    5. Create new admin user
    6. Bypass Target’s firewalls and access restrictions
    run code remotely with PSExec & remote desktop
    Microsoft Orchestrator access allowed them to ensure persistence
    7. this gave them access to PII, but no credit cards as those were never stored,
    as per PCI-DSS
    8. attackers deployed custom ‘Kaptoxa’ malware on PoS terminals using domain
    admin credentials
    9. used internal AD-linked FTP server to aggregate data before sending it out

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  15. How it COULD have happened
    1. “Citadel” malware email, spearphishing to HVAC vendor
    2. Vendor application vulnerability was caught internally first
    3. Active Directory target enumeration was detected as anomalous, stopped, and
    the incidence response policy defined what to do next
    4. There was no domain admin password to be stolen on the vendor system
    5. Creation of new domain admin user triggered an alert to the responsible team
    6. Bypass of Target’s firewalls and access restrictions was impossible due to
    extensive internal/external risk assessment and threat modeling
    7. attackers couldn’t access to PII because it was encrypted and the keys were on
    uncompromised, segregated application servers
    8. attackers couldn’t deploy custom malware on PoS terminals because terminals
    whitelisted processes and attackers had no access to config management
    9. couldn’t use internal AD-linked FTP server to aggregate data because it
    whitelisted hosts

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  16. Security Facts
    RISK ASSESSMENT FTW: Third-party access needs to be controlled and
    understood. Threat model, assess, and mitigate risk.
    SEGREGATION CAN BE HARD: there’s evidence Target made some effort to segregate
    their systems, using firewalls and restricting access
    from certain hosts. However, this can sometimes be
    bypassed by proxying through other hosts.
    Fully-segregated networks, or ones with strongly defined
    access control barriers are ideal. One Active Directory
    to Rule Them All introduces risk.
    MONITORING IS CRUCIAL: Target could have noticed the attackers at several
    points during their setup and reconnaissance if
    monitoring alerted them.

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  18. Security Fiction
    PCI-DSS compliance should keep data secure
    PCI-DSS requires two-factor authentication for external logins to networks falling
    under the scope of PCI-DSS. Target likely assumed the vendor management system was
    properly segregated with firewalls and access controls. PCI-DSS also doesn’t
    require network segregation, and only recommends it.
    Custom malware is a big threat
    While custom malware was used, its scope was limited: scraping POS terminal memory
    for credit cards and exfiltrating. It didn’t use any undisclosed software
    vulnerabilities or do anything particularly sophisticated. The best thing to do is
    keep it from appearing on systems in the first place.

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  19. JPMorgan: Financial Cost of Neglect
    ❏ 7 million businesses, 76 million consumers
    affected
    ❏ existing $250 million/year security budget
    ❏ suspected entry point:
    ❏ employee laptop compromised with malware
    ❏ corporate marathon site bug
    ❏ US gov’t & JPMC initially pointed fingers
    at Russia…
    ❏ until October, when the FBI said they were no
    longer a suspect
    ❏ One server which missed being upgraded
    with two-factor authentication provided a
    foothold
    ❏ ultimately, 90+ servers were compromised

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  20. Security Fact
    ❏ Negligence is costly
    ❏ security policy means nothing if
    it isn’t constantly evaluated
    and adhered to
    ❏ security is active, not set-and-
    forget, not an add-on
    ❏ Expense-in-depth
    doesn’t mean defense-
    in-depth
    ❏ JPMC had 1000+ security
    personnel & a massive security
    spend, but one oversight allowed
    a massive breach

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  21. Security Fiction
    ❏ You’ll be taken down by an advanced adversary
    with never-before-seen techniques
    ❏ it’s more likely you’ll be taken down by your own oversight
    ❏ advanced adversaries are more persistent but adhere to the same rules as
    everyone else

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  22. Anthem: healthy access control
    ❏ 80 million records stolen from large health
    insurance provider
    ❏ database containing records was unencrypted…
    ❏ but encryption isn’t a panacea: it can be done poorly, keys can be
    stolen, and the data needs to be unencrypted at some point
    ❏ there’s no indication Anthem used any two-
    factor authentication whatsoever
    ❏ credentials from between 1-5 users were enough to access all subscriber
    data
    ❏ does any user need unfettered access to all data?

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  23. Security Fact
    ❏ Access controls are critical
    ❏ nobody needs access to all data on a regular basis.
    ❏ records being accessed should be restricted as much as possible
    (principle of least privilege/default deny).
    ❏ Encryption is valuable, but not foolproof
    ❏ 64% of healthcare record leaks were attributed to employee endpoint
    compromise (US Dept. Health & Human Services, 2014)
    ❏ what risks do mostly insecure endpoints bring organizations?
    ❏ can employee credentials get attackers access to data retrieval
    applications?
    is uncharacteristic usage flagged?

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  24. Security Fiction
    ❏ HIPAA keeps health care information safe
    ❏ HIPAA does not require encryption
    ❏ HIPAA does not require two-factor
    “Implement two-factor authentication for granting remote access to
    systems that contain EPHI. This process requires factors beyond general
    usernames and passwords to gain access to systems (e.g., requiring users
    to answer a security question such as “Favorite Pet’s Name”)”
    ❏ HIPAA’s access control requirement:
    Implement procedures to verify that a person or entity seeking access to
    electronic protected health information is the one claimed. - 164.312(d)
    Technical Safeguards of the Security Standards for the Protection of
    ePHI, HHS.gov

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  25. Security Fact and Fiction
    FACT: many hacks are facilitated by oversight of service operators
    this is somewhat comforting: it means it can be addressed
    FICTION: today’s APTs require expensive threat intelligence feeds to understand
    FACT: ongoing internal and external risk assessment can uncover problems
    FICTION: “security” is a one-time expense
    FACT: your organization needs to own and understand its security program

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  26. Security Fact and Fiction
    FICTION: spending a lot of money on security means you’re doing it right
    FACT: an information security policy is a good step to address your security
    reality
    FICTION: there’s a magic box you can plug in to your network to secure it all
    FACT: it’s possible to make hacking your organization very difficult
    FICTION: you can be completely hack-proof

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