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Read the "Design Case " sections on each chapter of the book to complete the assignment.

Information Security and IT Risk Management Manish Agrawal, Ph.D. Associate Professor Information Systems and Decision Sciences University of South Florida

Alex Campoe, CISSP Director, Information Security University of South Florida

Eric Pierce Associate Director, Information Security University of South Florida

Vice President and Executive Publisher Don Fowley Executive Editor Beth Lang Golub Editorial Assistant Jayne Ziemba Photo Editor Ericka Millbrand Associate Production Manager Joyce Poh Cover Designer Kenji Ngieng

This book was set by MPS Limited.

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iii

Table of Contents

List of Figures xi Preface xvii

Chapter 1 — Introduction 1

Overview ................................................................................................................ 1

Professional utility of information security knowledge ......................................... 1

Brief history ............................................................................................................ 5

Defi nition of information security ........................................................................ 11

Summary .............................................................................................................. 14

Example case – Wikileaks, Cablegate, and free reign over classifi ed networks ........................................................................................... 14

Chapter review questions...................................................................................... 15

Example case questions ........................................................................................ 16

Hands-on activity – Software Inspector, Steganography...................................... 16

Critical thinking exercise: identifying CIA area(s) affected by sample real-life hacking incidents.................................................................... 21

Design case ........................................................................................................... 21

Chapter 2 — System Administration (Part 1) 26

Overview .............................................................................................................. 26

Introduction .......................................................................................................... 26

What is system administration? ............................................................................ 27

System administration and information security .................................................. 28

Common system administration tasks .................................................................. 29

System administration utilities ............................................................................. 33

Summary .............................................................................................................. 37

Example case – T. J. Maxx ................................................................................... 37

Chapter review questions...................................................................................... 39

iv Table of Contents

Example case questions ........................................................................................ 40

Hands-on Activity – Linux system installation .................................................... 40

Critical thinking exercise – Google executives sentenced to prison over video ............................................................................................. 48

Design case ........................................................................................................... 49

Chapter 3 — System Administration (Part 2) 51

Overview .............................................................................................................. 51

Operating system structure ................................................................................... 51

The command-line interface ................................................................................. 53

Files and directories .............................................................................................. 53

Moving around the fi lesystem – pwd, cd ............................................................. 54

Listing fi les and directories .................................................................................. 55

Shell expansions ................................................................................................... 56

File management .................................................................................................. 57

Viewing fi les ......................................................................................................... 59

Searching for fi les ................................................................................................. 60

Access control and user management .................................................................. 61

Access control lists ............................................................................................... 64

File ownership ...................................................................................................... 65

Editing fi les ........................................................................................................... 66

Software installation and updates ......................................................................... 67

Account management ........................................................................................... 72

Command-line user administration ...................................................................... 75

Example case – Northwest Florida State College ................................................ 77

Summary .............................................................................................................. 78

Chapter review questions...................................................................................... 78

Example case questions ........................................................................................ 79

Hands-on activity – basic Linux system administration ....................................... 79

Critical thinking exercise – offensive cyber effects operations (OCEO) .......................................................................................... 80

Design Case .......................................................................................................... 80

Table of Contents v

Chapter 4 — The Basic Information Security Model 82

Overview .............................................................................................................. 82

Introduction .......................................................................................................... 82

Components of the basic information security model .......................................... 82

Common vulnerabilities, threats, and controls ..................................................... 90

Example case – ILOVEYOU virus ....................................................................... 99

Summary ............................................................................................................ 100

Chapter review questions.................................................................................... 100

Example case questions ...................................................................................... 101

Hands-on activity – web server security ............................................................ 101

Critical thinking exercise – the internet, “American values,” and security ........ 102

Design case ......................................................................................................... 103

Chapter 5 — Asset Identifi cation and Characterization 104

Overview ............................................................................................................ 104

Assets overview .................................................................................................. 104

Determining assets that are important to the organization ................................. 105

Asset types .......................................................................................................... 109

Asset characterization ......................................................................................... 114

IT asset life cycle and asset identifi cation .......................................................... 119

System profi ling ................................................................................................. 124

Asset ownership and operational responsibilities ............................................... 127

Example case – Stuxnet ...................................................................................... 130

Summary ............................................................................................................ 130

Chapter review questions.................................................................................... 131

Example case questions ...................................................................................... 131

Hands-on activity – course asset identifi cation .................................................. 132

Critical thinking exercise – uses of a hacked PC ............................................... 132

Design case ......................................................................................................... 133

Chapter 6 — Threats and Vulnerabilities 135

Overview ............................................................................................................ 135

Introduction ........................................................................................................ 135

vi Table of Contents

Threat models ..................................................................................................... 136

Threat agent ........................................................................................................ 137

Threat action ....................................................................................................... 149

Vulnerabilities..................................................................................................... 162

Example case – Gozi .......................................................................................... 167

Summary ............................................................................................................ 168

Chapter review questions.................................................................................... 168

Example case questions ...................................................................................... 168

Hands-on activity – Vulnerability scanning ....................................................... 169

Critical thinking exercise – Iraq cyberwar plans in 2003 ................................... 174

Design case ......................................................................................................... 174

Chapter 7 — Encryption Controls 176

Overview ............................................................................................................ 176

Introduction ........................................................................................................ 176

Encryption basics ............................................................................................... 177

Encryption types overview ................................................................................. 181

Encryption types details ..................................................................................... 187

Encryption in use ................................................................................................ 194

Example case – Nation technologies .................................................................. 197

Summary ............................................................................................................ 198

Chapter review questions.................................................................................... 198

Example case questions ...................................................................................... 199

Hands-on activity – encryption .......................................................................... 199

Critical thinking exercise – encryption keys embed business models ............................................................................................. 205

Design case ......................................................................................................... 206

Chapter 8 — Identity and Access Management 207

Overview ............................................................................................................ 207

Identity management .......................................................................................... 207

Access management ........................................................................................... 212

Authentication .................................................................................................... 213

Table of Contents vii

Single sign-on ..................................................................................................... 221

Federation ........................................................................................................... 228

Example case – Markus Hess ............................................................................. 237

Summary ............................................................................................................ 239

Chapter review questions.................................................................................... 239

Example case questions ...................................................................................... 240

Hands-on activity – identity match and merge ................................................... 240

Critical thinking exercise – feudalism the security solution for the internet? ............................................................................................. 244

Design case ......................................................................................................... 245

Chapter 9 — Hardware and Software Controls 247

Overview ............................................................................................................ 247

Password management ....................................................................................... 247

Access control .................................................................................................... 251

Firewalls ............................................................................................................. 252

Intrusion detection/prevention systems .............................................................. 256

Patch management for operating systems and applications ............................... 261

End-point protection ........................................................................................... 264

Example case – AirTight networks ..................................................................... 266

Chapter review questions.................................................................................... 270

Example case questions ...................................................................................... 270

Hands-on activity – host-based IDS (OSSEC) ................................................... 271

Critical thinking exercise – extra-human security controls ................................ 275

Design case ......................................................................................................... 275

Chapter 10 — Shell Scripting 277

Overview ............................................................................................................ 277

Introduction ........................................................................................................ 277

Output redirection ............................................................................................... 279

Text manipulation ............................................................................................... 280

Variables ............................................................................................................. 283

Conditionals ........................................................................................................ 287

viii Table of Contents

User input ........................................................................................................... 290

Loops .................................................................................................................. 292

Putting it all together .......................................................................................... 299

Example case – Max Butler ................................................................................ 301

Summary ............................................................................................................ 302

Chapter review questions.................................................................................... 303

Example case questions ...................................................................................... 303

Hands-on activity – basic scripting .................................................................... 303

Critical thinking exercise – script security ......................................................... 304

Design case ......................................................................................................... 305

Chapter 11 — Incident Handling 306

Introduction ........................................................................................................ 306

Incidents overview .............................................................................................. 306

Incident handling ................................................................................................ 307

The disaster ......................................................................................................... 327

Example case – on-campus piracy ..................................................................... 328

Summary ............................................................................................................ 330

Chapter review questions.................................................................................... 330

Example case questions ...................................................................................... 331

Hands-on activity – incident timeline using OSSEC ......................................... 331

Critical thinking exercise – destruction at the EDA ........................................... 331

Design case ......................................................................................................... 332

Chapter 12 — Incident Analysis 333

Introduction ........................................................................................................ 333

Log analysis ........................................................................................................ 333

Event criticality .................................................................................................. 337

General log confi guration and maintenance ....................................................... 345

Live incident response ........................................................................................ 347

Timelines ............................................................................................................ 350

Other forensics topics ......................................................................................... 352

Example case – backup server compromise ....................................................... 353

Table of Contents ix

Chapter review questions.................................................................................... 355

Example case questions ...................................................................................... 356

Hands-on activity – server log analysis .............................................................. 356

Critical thinking exercise – destruction at the EDA ........................................... 358

Design case ......................................................................................................... 358

Chapter 13 — Policies, Standards, and Guidelines 360

Introduction ........................................................................................................ 360

Guiding principles .............................................................................................. 360

Writing a policy .................................................................................................. 367

Impact assessment and vetting ........................................................................... 371

Policy review ...................................................................................................... 373

Compliance ......................................................................................................... 374

Key policy issues ................................................................................................ 377

Example case – HB Gary ................................................................................... 378

Summary ............................................................................................................ 379

Reference ............................................................................................................ 379

Chapter review questions.................................................................................... 379

Example case questions ...................................................................................... 380

Hands-on activity – create an AUP ..................................................................... 380

Critical thinking exercise – Aaron Swartz .......................................................... 380

Design case ......................................................................................................... 381

Chapter 14 — IT Risk Analysis and Risk Management 382

Overview ............................................................................................................ 382

Introduction ........................................................................................................ 382

Risk management as a component of organizational management .................................................................................................. 383

Risk-management framework ............................................................................ 384

The NIST 800-39 framework ............................................................................. 385

Risk assessment .................................................................................................. 387

Other risk-management frameworks .................................................................. 389

IT general controls for Sarbanes–Oxley compliance ......................................... 391

x Table of Contents

Compliance versus risk management ................................................................. 398

Selling security ................................................................................................... 399

Example case – online marketplace purchases ................................................... 399

Summary ............................................................................................................ 400

Chapter review questions.................................................................................... 400

Hands-on activity – risk assessment using lsof ................................................. 401

Critical thinking exercise – risk estimation biases ............................................. 403

Design case ......................................................................................................... 403

Appendix A — Password List for the Linux Virtual Machine 404 Glossary 405 Index 413

xi

List of Figures

Figure 1.1: Classifi cation of information security analysts 2

Figure 1.2: Time-consuming activities for information security professionals 4

Figure 1.3: Training needs identifi ed by information security professionals 4

Figure 1.4: ILOVEYOU virus 7

Figure 1.5: T.J. Maxx 8

Figure 1.6: Defaced Georgian foreign ministry website 9

Figure 1.7: Google-China offi ces 10

Figure 1.8: Online Software Inspector 17

Figure 1.9: PC audit report 18

Figure 1.10: Contents of Downloads folder for Steganography exercise 19

Figure 1.11: Commands to hide text fi les at the end of image fi les 19

Figure 1.12: Manipulated images among original images 20

Figure 1.13: Opening image fi les in Notepad 20

Figure 1.14: Secret message hidden at the end of the image fi le 21

Figure 1.15: Sunshine State University funding sources 23

Figure 1.16: Extract from the organization structure of Sunshine State University 24

Figure 2.1: Paul Ceglia 32

Figure 2.2: Windows desktop usage—April 2013 33

Figure 2.3: System Center Operation Manager 34

Figure 2.4: Unix family tree 36

Figure 2.5: Albert Gonzalez, at the time of his indictment in August 2009 38

Figure 2.6: T J Maxx sales (2005–2010) 39

Figure 2.7: Virtual machine structure 41

Figure 2.8: VirtualBox download page 41

Figure 2.9: VirtualBox installer welcome screen 42

Figure 2.10: Default install Location 42

Figure 2.11: VirtualBox install confi rmation 43

Figure 2.12: VirtualBox manager 43

Figure 2.13: Default setting for OS import 44

Figure 2.14: Virtual machine in Virtual machine manager 45

Figure 2.15: CPU error 45

xii List of Figures

Figure 2.16: Enabling PAE 46

Figure 2.17: Attach the VM to NAT 46

Figure 2.18: CentOS VM login screen 47

Figure 2.19: CentOS Linux desktop 47

Figure 2.20: Sunshine State University email infrastructure 50

Figure 3.1: Operating system structure 51

Figure 3.2: Reaching the command prompt window 53

Figure 3.3: Unix fi le hierarchy 54

Figure 3.4: vimtutor interface 67

Figure 3.5: Reaching users and groups manager 73

Figure 3.6: Adding users 74

Figure 3.7: Group manager 74

Figure 4.1: The basic information security model 83

Figure 4.2: Example CVE listing at the time of reporting 85

Figure 4.3: NVD entry for the CVE listing 86

Figure 4.4: ATLAS web interface 88

Figure 4.5: Phishing example 95

Figure 4.6: Adobe Flash zero-day exploit launched on February 28, 2011 96

Figure 4.7: Exploit usage 98

Figure 4.8: Using a browser on the VM 102

Figure 5.1: J-20 fi ghter 108

Figure 5.2: The elements of asset characterization 118

Figure 5.3: Generic IT asset life cycle 119

Figure 5.4: Student Information System 125

Figure 5.5: Uses of a hacked PC 133

Figure 6.1: Threat model 136

Figure 6.2: Threat agents over time by percent of breaches 137

Figure 6.3: External agents 137

Figure 6.4A: Chinese J-20 jet 138

Figure 6.4B: Lockheed F-22 jet 138

Figure 6.5: Internal agents 144

Figure 6.6: Partners 146

Figure 6.7: Edward Snowden 147

Figure 6.8: Datagram ISP goes down with Hurricane Sandy 149

Figure 6.9: Melissa error message 150

Figure 6.10: High level XSS attack 155

List of Figures xiii

Figure 6.11: Bonzi buddy 158

Figure 6.12: Top vendor vulnerability breakdown 163

Figure 6.13: Firefox certifi cate exception 171

Figure 6.14: GSA main screen 171

Figure 6.15: New Task confi guration 172

Figure 6.16: Starting a new scan 172

Figure 6.17: Viewing scan details 173

Figure 6.18: Report page 173

Figure 7.1: Encryption and decryption in context 177

Figure 7.2: Reference to Caesar cipher 178

Figure 7.3: Secret key cryptography overview 182

Figure 7.4: Public-key cryptography overview for data transmission 183

Figure 7.5: Using public-key encryption for digital signatures 184

Figure 7.6: Checksums example 186

Figure 7.7: Generic form of block encryption 188

Figure 7.8: Electronic code book 189

Figure 7.9: Cipher block chaining 190

Figure 7.10: Hash functions 194

Figure 7.11: Public-key certifi cation process 195

Figure 7.12: CAs in browser 196

Figure 7.13: Untrusted certifi cate 197

Figure 7.14: GPG passphrase dialog 202

Figure 8.1: Identity and access management 208

Figure 8.2: Match/Merge fl owchart 211

Figure 8.3: Smart card in a USB card reader 215

Figure 8.4: Hardware token 216

Figure 8.5: Fingerprint with minutia highlighted 219

Figure 8.6: Iris scanning in the Dubai Airport 220

Figure 8.7: Kerberos ticket exchange 224

Figure 8.8: Token-based authentication 226

Figure 8.9: Central authentication service 227

Figure 8.10: Discovery service for the InCommon federation 229

Figure 8.11: SSO with a SAML federation 230

Figure 8.12: OpenID 233

Figure 8.13: OpenID 2.0 provider selection screen 234

Figure 8.14: http://trendsmap.com 235

Figure 8.15: OAuth token passing 236

http://trendsmap.com
xiv List of Figures

Figure 8.16: Application UserId and ProviderUserId 237

Figure 8.17: Intruder’s attack path to military establishments 238

Figure 8.18: Confi guration QR code 243

Figure 8.19: Google Authenticator (iOS) 244

Figure 9.1: Access matrix example 252

Figure 9.2: Typical fi rewall 253

Figure 9.3: Perimeter fi rewalls and demilitarized zones 255

Figure 9.4: Windows fi rewall blocking http 257

Figure 9.5: Windows fi rewall allowing http 258

Figure 9.6: Typical competitor console, circa 2003 267

Figure 9.7: AirTight console, circa 2005 268

Figure 9.8: /var/ossec/etc/ossec.conf (after change) 273

Figure 9.9: OSSEC-WebUI 274

Figure 9.10: Superb Fairy-Wrens, 40% success rate with security controls 275

Figure 11.1: IRT interactions 311

Figure 11.2: IRT communications 313

Figure 11.3: DollSays 314

Figure 11.4: Website defacement example 318

Figure 11.5: PII search 319

Figure 11.6: OSSEC, a popular fi le integrity tool 320

Figure 11.7: Typical logs consolidated 321

Figure 11.8: Log analysis 322

Figure 11.9: End point protection example 323

Figure 11.10: Containment, eradication, and recovery timeline 325

Figure 12.1: Event Viewer Screen on Windows 8 334

Figure 12.2: Summary of Administrative Events pane 335

Figure 12.3: Recently viewed nodes 335

Figure 12.4: Log Summary pane 335

Figure 12.5: - Informational event screenshot 336

Figure 12.6: Windows Administrative Events view 337

Figure 12.7: syslog fi le evidence 339

Figure 12.8: auth.log fi le 340

Figure 12.9: Sample run of last 342

Figure 12.10: Output of w command 343

Figure 12.11: Security Log snapshot 346

Figure 12.12: Log consolidation 347

Figure 12.13: Output of system info program 348

Figure 12.14: The sfc command 349

Figure 12.15: Windows MAC timestamps 351

Figure 12.16: File Explorer with timestamps 351

Figure 12.17: Sample timeline 352

Figure 12.18: Information Security and IT Risk Management is not affi liated with or otherwise sponsored by Dropbox, Inc. 353

Figure 13.1: Policy, standard, and guideline 364

Figure 13.2: Compliance 374

Figure 14.1: NIST 800-39 risk-management framework 386

Figure 14.2: Threat model 388

Figure 14.3: Risk assessment model 389

Figure 14.4: Sarbanes–Oxley auditing guidelines workfl ow for impact on IT 397

List of Figures xv

xvii

Preface

Unlike the problem facing the Superb Fairy-Wren (front cover), most information security problems we humans face are not matters of life and death (for more on the Wren’s problem, please see the critical thinking question in chapter 9). However, they are vexing, expensive and frequent enough to make information security a contemporary profession and the topic of infor- mation security a worthwhile subject to study.

This book is designed to serve as the textbook for a one-semester course devoted to infor- mation security. It is focused on helping students acquired the skills sought in the professional workforce.

We start by introducing the professional environment of information security. After the student is convinced of the merits of the subject, the book introduces the basic model of infor- mation security consisting of assets, vulnerabilities, threats and controls. The rest of the course is devoted to characterizing assets, vulnerabilities and threats and responding to them using security controls. The book ends by integrating all these topics within the general umbrella of organizational risk management. At the end of the course, students should have an awareness of how information security concerns have evolved in our society and how they can use contem- porary frameworks to respond to these concerns in a professional environment.

The book comes with a full set of end-of-chapter exercises. There are fi ve kinds of exer- cises at the end of every chapter:

1. Traditional end-of-chapter questions are designed to improve student understanding and recall of common topics in information security.

2. An example case at the end of each chapter allows students to apply the knowledge in the chapter to business contexts.

3. There is a threaded design case running through all the chapters in the book. In this case, students play the role of the Chief Information Security offi cer of a typical state univer- sity and are confronted with situations related to the topics discussed in the chapter. They are required to analyze and evaluate the situation in light of the knowledge in the chapter to create a solution that addresses the present problem.

4. A critical thinking exercise introduces students to analogous situations and relate the ideas from the chapter to these situations. The problem confronting the Superb Fairy- Wren falls in this category.

5. Finally, each chapter has a detailed hands-on activity using a customized distribution of the CentOS Linux OS to be installed as a virtual machine using VirtualBox. We take great pride in this aspect of the book. We have carefully selected exercises that will help students become familiar not only with rudimentary information security tasks, but also with Linux systems administration. Eric in particular, has spent countless hours testing,

xviii Preface

curating and maintaining the distribution. You may download the distribution from the textbook’s companion website.

While the book is self-suffi cient without the hands-on activity, this content is in direct response to employer demands and we do hope you will give your students the advantage of this aspect of the text. Chapters 2 and 3 introduce the basic setup and usage of the virtual machine. The instructions are detailed enough for students to be able to complete the exercises on their own.

When using the book, class time may be used in various ways. A traditional lecture for- mat will work very well. Instructors interested in using class-time for more interactive activities will fi nd that the end-of-chapter activities are a very useful way to use class time.

The author team integrates the different perspectives necessary to teach information secu- rity to an aspiring professional. Manish Agrawal is an MIS faculty member who designed this course and has taught it to MIS and Accounting students at the University of South Florida for over 5 years now. Alex Campoe is the Director of Information Security at the University of South Florida where he is at the frontline of the university’s information security activities including incident response, policy development and compliance. Eric Pierce is responsible for identity management at the university. Many of the topics covered in the book are informed by their knowledge of the most important day-to-day activities that fall under the information security umbrella.

The Superb Fairy-Wren, though not strictly facing an information security problem, hap- pens to use a solution that adopts many of the information security controls discussed in the text. The context also includes all the components of our basic information security model – assets in the form of the life of offspring, vulnerabilities in the form of delayed hatching, threats in the form of parasitic birds and controls including passwords. We think it succinctly describes the text.

We are eager to hear any comments you may have about the book – suggestions for improvement, errors and omissions, bugs in the virtual machine, and any other issues you may encounter. We will do our best to respond directly to you with corrections, and also address them as errata to be published on the textbook companion site. We obviously would also like to hear complementary things if the book helped improve your understanding of the subject, improved your teaching, helped you land a job, or helped you on the job. Those comments can give us indications on how to strengthen future editions of the book. Comments may be sent to the fi rst author at magrawal@usf.edu.

mailto:magrawal@usf.edu
1

CHAPTER 12

Overview This chapter motivates the topic of information security and lays out the structure for the rest of the text. At the outset, we describe why information security is a useful area of study with the hope of getting you excited in the topic. We then provide a brief history of the subject, highlight- ing important developments that have led to the current state of the industry. Finally, we outline the procedures adopted by the industry to maintain information security. These procedures will be examined in detail in the rest of the book. At the end of this chapter, you should know:

• Why information security is an important topic for everyone today • The important developments that led to the current state of the information security

industry • Key terms used in information security • Broad outlines of the procedures used in the industry to maintain information

security

Professional utility of information security knowledge If you are reading this book as part of a college course, it is probably offered by a profes- sional school – business, information, or engineering for example. These schools are expected to graduate students who can hit the ground running when they join the work force. Naturally, we expect that the question foremost on the minds of students in these college is – where are the jobs? What is the professional relevance of this subject? What is the demand for professionals in this subject? What drives organizations to hire graduates with skills in this subject? When hired, what are graduates in this subject typically expected to do? What competencies will help graduates meet or exceed these expectations of employers? Before you decide to spend any more time with this book or the subject of information security, we would like to take this topic head-on and address these issues.

Demand estimates

The standard source for employment estimates is the Bureau of Labor Statistics 1 (BLS), a government agency that gathers employment statistics from extensive surveys of employers. BLS has created a taxonomy called the “standard occupational classifi cation (SOC)” for all the major occupational categories. Information security analysts are given the SOC identifi er 15-1122 (Figure 1.1 ). They fall under the major group of “Computer and mathematical occupa- tions (15-0000).” Statistics for information security analysts is aggregated along with those for

Introduction CHAPTER 1

1 http://www.bls.gov/

http://www.bls.gov/
2 CHAPTER 1 Introduction

web developers and computer network architects and may be obtained from the BLS website. 2 The total employment for this group in May 2010 was estimated to be 243,330, with a mean annual wage of $79,370.

Other sources for obtaining estimates of the demand for information security profession- als are the professional certifi cate action organizations involved in the industry. One of the lead- ing organizations is (ISC). 2 Based on a survey of over 10,000 information security professionals around the globe, this organization estimated that there were approximately 2.28 million infor- mation security professionals worldwide in 2010, of who over 900,000 were in the Americas. This number was also estimated to be growing at over 13%. 3 The average annual compensation was estimated at over $78,000. The wide difference in estimated employment between the two surveys could be attributed to a difference in the characteristics of the organizations sampled by the two surveys. It may however be noted that both surveys are quite consistent in their esti- mates of average annual compensation.

Demand drivers

A number of factors are driving the demand for information security professionals. Primary among these is the increasing criticality of information to individuals and organizations and the resulting increase in the amounts of information gathered by organizations and stored in com- puter systems for easy retrieval. Possession of a username and password combination could be more useful to a thief today than possession of a $100 bill. A successful attack at a bank or other commercial establishment could yield hundreds of thousands of vetted username and password combinations. The most motivated attackers are therefore increasingly targeting information stores rather than physical stores.

2 http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151179.htm 3 https://www.isc2.org/uploadedFiles/Landing_Pages/NO_form/2011GISWS.pdf

F IGURE 1 .1 Classifi cation of information security analysts

All occupations

11-0000 Management occupations

...

15-0000 Computer and mathematical

occupations

15-1110 Computer and information

research scientists

15-1120 Computer and information

analysts

15-1121 Computer

systems analysts

15-1122 Information

security analysts 15-1130 Software developers and programmers

...

...

55-0000 Military specific

occupations

http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151179.htm
https://www.isc2.org/uploadedFiles/Landing_Pages/NO_form/2011GISWS.pdf
Professional utility of information security knowledge 3

Even as information is becoming more valuable, unwittingly, users are also making it easier for attackers to obtain this valuable information. For example, most users use a small set of usernames and passwords wherever usernames and passwords are required. They also often prefer that their devices remember these usernames and passwords to save typing effort at websites. Now consider what happens if an attacker is able to lay their hands on a laptop, tablet, or other mobile device belonging to a user in possession of sensitive information. The attacker could easily get access to hundreds of thousands of records with minimal effort. With millions of knowledge workers leaving their workplaces with billions of mobile devices every day, organizations are compelled to act proactively to ensure that they do not appear on the front pages of newspapers and TV channels for losing customer information or other sensitive data.

The value of information described above is just one of the demand drivers for informa- tion security professionals. Other factors include dealing with application vulnerabilities, the constant stream of viruses and worms reaching organizations, regulations, customer expecta- tions of privacy, and disgruntled employees.

The demand drivers for information security professionals have also been changing very rapidly. For example, until as recently as 2008, mobile devices such as smart phones and tab- lets were not common in companies. Having a company-issued phone was a matter of pride for executives. Then by 2010, most employees preferred to use their personal smart phones and tablets to do company work rather than the company-issued phones that did not have web browsers and other desirable features. Information security professionals had to scramble to deal with the far-reaching implications of this change. Whereas earlier they could issue phones such as Blackberries and impose the desired security policies on these devices, the security poli- cies on personal devices were controlled by the users, not by the companies they worked for. As a result, information security professionals reported in 2010 that dealing with mobile device security was one of their top concerns. These concerns, and hence the demand for information security professionals, are only likely to increase in the near future, securing the professional prospects for information security professionals.

Professional activities

What do information security professionals do? The BLS website describes the role of informa- tion security analysts as:

Plan, implement, upgrade, or monitor security measures for the protection of computer networks and information. May ensure appropriate security controls are in place that will safeguard digital fi les and vital electronic infrastructure. May respond to computer security breaches and viruses .

Illustrative examples: Computer Security Specialist, Network Security Analyst, Internet Security Specialist

This is a fairly technical set of activities. However, a lot of the work done by information security professionals is non-technical in nature. Figure 1.2 shows the distribution of the top four most time-consuming activities reported by respondents to the (ISC) 2 survey. 4 It is seen that regulatory issues, policy development, and managerial issues constitute the bulk of information security work.

4 https://www.isc2.org/uploadedFiles/Landing_Pages/NO_form/2011GISWS.pdf

https://www.isc2.org/uploadedFiles/Landing_Pages/NO_form/2011GISWS.pdf
4 CHAPTER 1 Introduction

Desired competencies

The primary responsibilities of information security professionals are to anticipate information- related problems and to minimize their impact. Responses to the ISC 2 survey highlighted the eight areas with the greatest need for training, as shown in Figure 1.3 . These are very good indi- cators of the competencies expected of information security professionals. It can be seen that successful information security professionals are expected to have expertise in systems analy- sis and design to identify possible vulnerabilities entering homegrown applications, system administration skills to examine systems and identify traces left behind by hackers (forensics), and risk management. In addition, the business continuity and disaster recovery expectations require that information security professionals also have a very good understanding of the busi- ness as well as the IT infrastructure to be able to identify the most mission-critical applications in the organization so that these can be quickly brought up online in the event of a natural or man-made disaster.

F IGURE 1 .2 Time-consuming activities for information security professionals

39%

45%

46%

49%

Developing internal security policies, standards and procedures

Meeting regulatory compliance

Internal/political issues

Researching new technologies

F IGURE 1 .3 Training needs identifi ed by information security professionals

Planning for business continuity and disaster recovery

Security management practices

Access control

Security architecture

End-user awareness

Forensics

Secure SDLC

Risk management

Brief history 5

The intent of this section was to satisfy you that information security is a viable profes- sion. Hopefully, it has also conveyed that information security is a very exciting profession. Further, since information security lapses attract a lot of public scrutiny, the activities of infor- mation security professionals are of great interest to top management of organizations, probably more so than those of many other parts of an organization ’s IT infrastructure. In fact, according to the ISC 2 survey, the information security group reports to executive management, i.e., the CEO, CIO, or equivalent, in almost 25% of the organizations.

Brief history From this point on, we assume that you are interested in learning about information security from a professional perspective. That is, you are interested in learning about the subject for use in your career. Almost everything we do today regarding information security is the result of famous lapses that have occurred over the years and the responses by industry to these experi- ences. Many of these incidents are now part of the professional folklore. It is useful for you to know about these incidents in order to better appreciate regulatory requirements, the concerns of managers as well as to build your vocabulary in the profession. The list below is not intended to be comprehensive; 5 it only captures the major incidents that led to regulatory or industry actions or serve as a barometer for information security concerns at the time.

1981 – Development of the core Internet technologies (TCP and IP): The core technolo- gies of the Internet were fi nalized in 1981. There was no mention of security in these technolo- gies, indicating that at that time the technology world was not concerned about information security. Since TCP and IP were available for free, they became the preferred networking tech- nology for UNIX systems, widely used at universities and various intensive organizations such as hospitals and banks.