From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Information security, sometimes shortened to
InfoSec,
is the practice of preventing unauthorized access, use, disclosure,
disruption, modification, inspection, recording or destruction of
information. It is a general term that can be used regardless of the form the data may take (e.g., electronic, physical).
[1]
Information security's primary focus is the balanced protection of the
confidentiality, integrity and availability of data (also known as the
CIA triad) while maintaining a focus on efficient policy implementation,
all without hampering organization productivity.
[2]
This is largely achieved through a multi-step risk management process
that identifies assets, threat sources, vulnerabilities, potential
impacts, and possible controls, followed by assessment of the
effectiveness of the risk management plan.
To standardize this discipline, academics and professionals
collaborate and seek to set basic guidance, policies, and industry
standards on
password,
antivirus software,
firewall,
encryption software, legal liability and user/administrator training standards.
[3]
This standardization may be further driven by a wide variety of laws
and regulations that affect how data is accessed, processed, stored, and
transferred. However, the implementation of any standards and guidance
within an entity may have limited effect if a culture of
continual improvement isn't adopted.
[4]
Overview
At
the core of information security is information assurance, the act of
maintaining the confidentiality, integrity and availability (CIA) of
information, ensuring that
information is not compromised in any way when critical issues arise.
[5]
These issues include but are not limited to natural disasters,
computer/server malfunction and physical theft. While paper-based
business operations are still prevalent,
[6] requiring their own set of information security practices, enterprise digital initiatives are increasingly being emphasized,
[7][8]
with information assurance now typically being dealt with by
information technology (IT) security specialists. These specialists
apply information security to technology (most often some form of
computer system). It is worthwhile to note that a
computer does not necessarily mean a home desktop. A computer is any device with a
processor
and some memory. Such devices can range from non-networked standalone
devices as simple as calculators, to networked mobile computing devices
such as smartphones and tablet computers. IT security specialists are
almost always found in any major enterprise/establishment due to the
nature and value of the data within larger businesses. They are
responsible for keeping all of the
technology
within the company secure from malicious cyber attacks that often
attempt to acquire critical private information or gain control of the
internal systems.
The field of information security has grown and evolved significantly
in recent years. It offers many areas for specialization, including
securing networks and allied
infrastructure, securing
applications and
databases,
security testing, information systems
auditing,
business continuity planning, electronic record discovery, and
digital forensics. Information security professionals are very stable in their employment. As of 2013
more than 80 percent of professionals had no change in employer or
employment over a period of a year, and the number of professionals is
projected to continuously grow more than 11 percent annually from 2014
to 2019.
[9]
Threats
Information
security threats come in many different forms. Some of the most common
threats today are software attacks, theft of intellectual property,
identity theft, theft of equipment or information, sabotage, and
information extortion. Most people have experienced software attacks of
some sort.
Viruses,
[10] worms,
phishing attacks, and
Trojan horses are a few common examples of software attacks. The
theft of intellectual property has also been an extensive issue for many businesses in the IT field.
Identity theft
is the attempt to act as someone else usually to obtain that person's
personal information or to take advantage of their access to vital
information. Theft of equipment or information is becoming more
prevalent today due to the fact that most devices today are mobile,
[11] are prone to theft and have also become far more desirable as the amount of data capacity increases.
Sabotage usually consists of the destruction of an organization′s
website
in an attempt to cause loss of confidence on the part of its customers.
Information extortion consists of theft of a company′s property or
information as an attempt to receive a payment in exchange for returning
the information or property back to its owner, as with
ransomware.
There are many ways to help protect yourself from some of these attacks
but one of the most functional precautions is user carefulness.
Governments,
military,
corporations,
financial institutions,
hospitals and private
businesses
amass a great deal of confidential information about their employees,
customers, products, research and financial status. Should confidential
information about a business' customers or finances or new product line
fall into the hands of a competitor or a
black hat hacker,
a business and its customers could suffer widespread, irreparable
financial loss, as well as damage to the company's reputation. From a
business perspective, information security must be balanced against
cost; the
Gordon-Loeb Model provides a mathematical economic approach for addressing this concern.
[12]
For the individual, information security has a significant effect on
privacy, which is viewed very differently in various
cultures.
Responses to threats
Possible responses to a security threat or
risk are:
[13]
- reduce/mitigate – implement safeguards and countermeasures to eliminate vulnerabilities or block threats
- assign/transfer – place the cost of the threat onto another entity or organization such as purchasing insurance or outsourcing
- accept – evaluate if the cost of the countermeasure outweighs the possible cost of loss due to the threat
History
Since
the early days of communication, diplomats and military commanders
understood that it was necessary to provide some mechanism to protect
the confidentiality of correspondence and to have some means of
detecting
tampering.
Julius Caesar is credited with the invention of the
Caesar cipher
c. 50 B.C., which was created in order to prevent his secret messages
from being read should a message fall into the wrong hands; however, for
the most part protection was achieved through the application of
procedural handling controls.
[14][15]
Sensitive information was marked up to indicate that it should be
protected and transported by trusted persons, guarded and stored in a
secure environment or strong box. As postal services expanded,
governments created official organizations to intercept, decipher, read
and reseal letters (e.g., the U.K.'s Secret Office, founded in 1653
[16]).
In the mid-nineteenth century more complex
classification systems
were developed to allow governments to manage their information
according to the degree of sensitivity. For example, the British
Government codified this, to some extent, with the publication of the
Official Secrets Act in 1889.
[17] By the time of the
First World War,
multi-tier classification systems were used to communicate information
to and from various fronts, which encouraged greater use of code making
and breaking sections in diplomatic and military headquarters. Encoding
became more sophisticated between the wars as machines were employed to
scramble and unscramble information. The volume of information shared by
the Allied countries during the
Second World War
necessitated formal alignment of classification systems and procedural
controls. An arcane range of markings evolved to indicate who could
handle documents (usually officers rather than men) and where they
should be stored as increasingly complex safes and storage facilities
were developed. The
Enigma Machine, which was employed by the Germans to encrypt the data of warfare and was successfully decrypted by
Alan Turing, can be regarded as a striking example of creating and using secured information.
[18]
Procedures evolved to ensure documents were destroyed properly, and it
was the failure to follow these procedures which led to some of the
greatest intelligence coups of the war (e.g., the capture of
U-570[18]).
The end of the twentieth century and the early years of the twenty-first century saw rapid advancements in
telecommunications, computing
hardware and
software, and data
encryption. The availability of smaller, more powerful and less expensive computing equipment made
electronic data processing within the reach of
small business and the home user. These computers quickly became interconnected through the
internet.
The rapid growth and widespread use of electronic data processing and
electronic business conducted through the internet, along with numerous occurrences of international
terrorism, fueled the need for better methods of protecting the computers and the information they store, process and transmit.
[19] The academic disciplines of
computer security and
information assurance
emerged along with numerous professional organizations, all sharing the
common goals of ensuring the security and reliability of information
systems.
Definitions
Information Security Attributes: or qualities, i.e.,
Confidentiality,
Integrity and
Availability (CIA).
Information Systems
are composed in three main portions, hardware, software and
communications with the purpose to help identify and apply information
security industry standards, as mechanisms of protection and prevention,
at three levels or layers:
physical,
personal and organizational. Essentially, procedures or policies are
implemented to tell administrators, users and operators how to use
products to ensure information security within the organizations.
[20]
Various definitions of information security are suggested below, summarized from different sources:
- "Preservation of confidentiality, integrity and availability of
information. Note: In addition, other properties, such as authenticity,
accountability, non-repudiation and reliability can also be involved."
(ISO/IEC 27000:2009)[21]
- "The protection of information and information systems from
unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification, or
destruction in order to provide confidentiality, integrity, and
availability." (CNSS, 2010)[22]
- "Ensures that only authorized users (confidentiality) have access to
accurate and complete information (integrity) when required
(availability)." (ISACA, 2008)[23]
- "Information Security is the process of protecting the intellectual property of an organisation." (Pipkin, 2000)[24]
- "...information security is a risk management discipline, whose job
is to manage the cost of information risk to the business." (McDermott
and Geer, 2001)[25]
- "A well-informed sense of assurance that information risks and controls are in balance." (Anderson, J., 2003)[26]
- "Information security is the protection of information and minimizes
the risk of exposing information to unauthorized parties." (Venter and
Eloff, 2003)[27]
- "Information Security is a multidisciplinary area of study and
professional activity which is concerned with the development and
implementation of security mechanisms of all available types (technical,
organizational, human-oriented and legal) in order to keep information
in all its locations (within and outside the organization's perimeter)
and, consequently, information systems, where information is created,
processed, stored, transmitted and destroyed, free from threats.Threats
to information and information systems may be categorized and a
corresponding security goal may be defined for each category of threats.
A set of security goals, identified as a result of a threat analysis,
should be revised periodically to ensure its adequacy and conformance
with the evolving environment. The currently relevant set of security
goals may include: confidentiality, integrity, availability, privacy,
authenticity & trustworthiness, non-repudiation, accountability and
auditability." (Cherdantseva and Hilton, 2013)[20]
Basic principles
Key concepts
The CIA triad of confidentiality, integrity, and availability is at the heart of information security.
[28]
(The members of the classic InfoSec triad—confidentiality, integrity
and availability—are interchangeably referred to in the literature as
security attributes, properties, security goals, fundamental aspects,
information criteria, critical information characteristics and basic
building blocks.) However, debate continues about whether or not this
CIA triad is sufficient to address rapidly changing technology and
business requirements, with recommendations to consider expanding on the
intersections between availability and confidentiality, as well as the
relationship between security and privacy.
[5] Other principles such as "accountability" have sometimes been proposed; it has been pointed out that issues such as
non-repudiation do not fit well within the three core concepts.
[29]
In 1992 and revised in 2002, the
OECD's
Guidelines for the Security of Information Systems and Networks[30] proposed the nine generally accepted principles:
awareness,
responsibility, response, ethics, democracy, risk assessment, security
design and implementation, security management, and reassessment.
Building upon those, in 2004 the
NIST's
Engineering Principles for Information Technology Security[29] proposed 33 principles. From each of these derived guidelines and practices.
In 1998,
Donn Parker proposed an alternative model for the classic CIA triad that he called the
six atomic elements of information. The elements are
confidentiality,
possession,
integrity,
authenticity,
availability, and
utility. The merits of the
Parkerian Hexad are a subject of debate amongst security professionals.
[31]
In 2011,
The Open Group published the information security management standard
O-ISM3.
[32] This standard proposed an
operational definition of the key concepts of security, with elements called "security objectives", related to
access control (9),
availability (3),
data quality (1),
compliance and technical (4). In 2009,
DoD Software Protection Initiative released the
Three Tenets of Cybersecurity which are System Susceptibility, Access to the Flaw, and Capability to Exploit the Flaw.
[33][34][35] Neither of these models are widely adopted.
Confidentiality
In
information security, confidentiality "is the property, that
information is not made available or disclosed to unauthorized
individuals, entities, or processes."
[36]
While similar to "privacy," the two words aren't interchangeable.
Rather, confidentially is a component of privacy that implements to
protect our data from unauthorized viewers. Examples of confidentiality
of electronic data being compromised include laptop theft, password
theft, or sensitive emails being sent to the incorrect individuals.
[2]
Integrity
In information security,
data integrity means maintaining and assuring the accuracy and completeness of data over its entire lifecycle.
[37] This means that data cannot be modified in an unauthorized or undetected manner. This is not the same thing as
referential integrity in
databases, although it can be viewed as a special case of consistency as understood in the classic
ACID model of
transaction processing. Information security systems typically provide message integrity in addition to data confidentiality.
Availability
For any information system to serve its purpose, the information must be
available when it is needed. This means the computing systems used to store and process the information, the
security controls used to protect it, and the communication channels used to access it must be functioning correctly.
High availability
systems aim to remain available at all times, preventing service
disruptions due to power outages, hardware failures, and system
upgrades. Ensuring availability also involves preventing
denial-of-service attacks, such as a flood of incoming messages to the target system, essentially forcing it to shut down.
[38]
In the realm of information security, availability can often be
viewed as one of the most important parts of a successful information
security program. Ultimately end-users need to be able to perform job
functions; by ensuring availability an organization is able to perform
to the standards that an organizations stake-holders expect. This can
involve topics such as proxy configurations, outside web access, ability
to access shared drives and the ability to send emails. Executives
oftentimes do not understand the technical side of information security
and look at availability as an easy fix, but this often requires
collaboration from many different organizational teams, such as network
operations, development operations, incident response and policy/change
management. A successful information security team involves many
different key roles to mesh and align for the CIA triad to be provided
effectively.
Non-repudiation
In law,
non-repudiation
implies one's intention to fulfill their obligations to a contract. It
also implies that one party of a transaction cannot deny having received
a transaction, nor can the other party deny having sent a transaction.
[39]
It is important to note that while technology such as cryptographic
systems can assist in non-repudiation efforts, the concept is at its
core a legal concept transcending the realm of technology. It is not,
for instance, sufficient to show that the message matches a digital
signature signed with the sender's private key, and thus only the sender
could have sent the message, and nobody else could have altered it in
transit (
data integrity).
The alleged sender could in return demonstrate that the digital
signature algorithm is vulnerable or flawed, or allege or prove that his
signing key has been compromised. The fault for these violations may or
may not lie with the sender, and such assertions may or may not relieve
the sender of liability, but the assertion would invalidate the claim
that the signature necessarily proves authenticity and integrity. As
such, the sender may repudiate the message (because authenticity and
integrity are pre-requisites for non-repudiation).
Risk management
The
Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) Review Manual 2006 provides the following definition of risk management: "Risk management is the process of identifying
vulnerabilities and
threats to the information resources used by an organization in achieving business objectives, and deciding what
countermeasures, if any, to take in reducing risk to an acceptable level, based on the value of the information resource to the organization."
[40]
There are two things in this definition that may need some clarification. First, the
process of risk management is an ongoing, iterative
process. It must be repeated indefinitely. The business environment is constantly changing and new
threats and
vulnerabilities emerge every day. Second, the choice of
countermeasures (
controls)
used to manage risks must strike a balance between productivity, cost,
effectiveness of the countermeasure, and the value of the informational
asset being protected.
Risk analysis and risk evaluation processes have their limitations
since, when security incidents occur, they emerge in a context, and
their rarity and uniqueness give rise to unpredictable threats. The
analysis of these phenomena, which are characterized by breakdowns,
surprises and side-effects, requires a theoretical approach that is able
to examine and interpret subjectively the detail of each incident.
[41]
Risk is the likelihood that something bad will happen that causes
harm to an informational asset (or the loss of the asset). A
vulnerability is a weakness that could be used to endanger or cause harm
to an informational asset. A threat is anything (man-made or
act of nature) that has the potential to cause harm.
The likelihood that a threat will use a vulnerability to cause harm
creates a risk. When a threat does use a vulnerability to inflict harm,
it has an impact. In the context of information security, the impact is a
loss of availability, integrity, and confidentiality, and possibly
other losses (lost income, loss of life, loss of real property).
[42]
It should be pointed out that it is not possible to identify all risks,
nor is it possible to eliminate all risk. The remaining risk is called
"residual risk."
A
risk assessment
is carried out by a team of people who have knowledge of specific areas
of the business. Membership of the team may vary over time as different
parts of the business are assessed. The assessment may use a subjective
qualitative analysis based on informed opinion, or where reliable
dollar figures and historical information is available, the analysis may
use
quantitative analysis.
Research has shown that the most vulnerable point in most information
systems is the human user, operator, designer, or other human.
[43] The
ISO/IEC 27002:2005 Code of practice for
information security management recommends the following be examined during a risk assessment:
- security policy,
- organization of information security,
- asset management,
- human resources security,
- physical and environmental security,
- communications and operations management,
- access control,
- information systems acquisition, development and maintenance,
- information security incident management,
- business continuity management, and
- regulatory compliance.
In broad terms, the risk management process consists of:
[44][45]
- Identification of assets and estimating their value. Include:
people, buildings, hardware, software, data (electronic, print, other),
supplies.
- Conduct a threat assessment. Include: Acts of nature, acts of war, accidents, malicious acts originating from inside or outside the organization.
- Conduct a vulnerability assessment,
and for each vulnerability, calculate the probability that it will be
exploited. Evaluate policies, procedures, standards, training, physical security, quality control, technical security.
- Calculate the impact that each threat would have on each asset. Use qualitative analysis or quantitative analysis.
- Identify, select and implement appropriate controls. Provide a
proportional response. Consider productivity, cost effectiveness, and
value of the asset.
- Evaluate the effectiveness of the control measures. Ensure the
controls provide the required cost effective protection without
discernible loss of productivity.
For any given risk, management can choose to accept the risk based
upon the relative low value of the asset, the relative low frequency of
occurrence, and the relative low impact on the business. Or, leadership
may choose to mitigate the risk by selecting and implementing
appropriate control measures to reduce the risk. In some cases, the risk
can be transferred to another business by buying insurance or
outsourcing to another business.
[46] The reality of some risks may be disputed. In such cases leadership may choose to deny the risk.
Security controls
Selecting and implementing proper security controls will initially
help an organization bring down risk to acceptable levels. Control
selection should follow and should be based on the risk assessment. Controls can vary in nature, but fundamentally they are ways of
protecting the confidentiality, integrity or availability of
information.
ISO/IEC 27001
has defined controls in different areas. Organizations can implement
additional controls according to requirement of the organization.
[47] ISO/IEC 27002 offers a guideline for organizational information security standards.
Administrative
Administrative
controls consist of approved written policies, procedures, standards
and guidelines. Administrative controls form the framework for running
the business and managing people. They inform people on how the business
is to be run and how day-to-day operations are to be conducted. Laws
and regulations created by government bodies are also a type of
administrative control because they inform the business. Some industry
sectors have policies, procedures, standards and guidelines that must be
followed – the
Payment Card Industry Data Sec[1]urity Standard (PCI DSS) required by
Visa and
MasterCard is such an example. Other examples of administrative controls include the corporate security policy,
password policy, hiring policies, and disciplinary policies.
Administrative controls form the basis for the selection and
implementation of logical and physical controls. Logical and physical
controls are manifestations of administrative controls, which are of
paramount importance.
Logical
Logical
controls (also called technical controls) use software and data to
monitor and control access to information and computing systems.
Passwords, network and host-based firewalls, network
intrusion detection systems,
access control lists, and data encryption are examples of logical controls.
An important logical control that is frequently overlooked is the
principle of least privilege, which requires that an individual, program
or system process not be granted any more access privileges than are
necessary to perform the task.
[48]
A blatant example of the failure to adhere to the principle of least
privilege is logging into Windows as user Administrator to read email
and surf the web. Violations of this principle can also occur when an
individual collects additional access privileges over time. This happens
when employees' job duties change, employees are promoted to a new
position, or employees are transferred to another department. The access
privileges required by their new duties are frequently added onto their
already existing access privileges, which may no longer be necessary or
appropriate.
Physical
Physical
controls monitor and control the environment of the work place and
computing facilities. They also monitor and control access to and from
such facilities and include doors, locks, heating and air conditioning,
smoke and fire alarms, fire suppression systems, cameras, barricades,
fencing, security guards, cable locks, etc. Separating the network and
workplace into functional areas are also physical controls.
An important physical control that is frequently overlooked is
separation of duties, which ensures that an individual can not complete a
critical task by himself. For example, an employee who submits a
request for reimbursement should not also be able to authorize payment
or print the check. An applications programmer should not also be the
server administrator or the
database administrator; these roles and responsibilities must be separated from one another.
[49]
Defense in depth
Information security must protect information throughout its
lifespan, from the initial creation of the information on through to the
final disposal of the information. The information must be protected
while in motion and while at rest. During its lifetime, information may
pass through many different information processing systems and through
many different parts of information processing systems. There are many
different ways the information and information systems can be
threatened. To fully protect the information during its lifetime, each
component of the information processing system must have its own
protection mechanisms. The building up, layering on and overlapping of
security measures is called "defense in depth." In contrast to a metal
chain, which is famously only as strong as its weakest link, the defense
in depth strategy aims at a structure where, should one defensive
measure fail, other measures will continue to provide protection.
[50]
Recall the earlier discussion about administrative controls, logical
controls, and physical controls. The three types of controls can be used
to form the basis upon which to build a defense in depth strategy. With
this approach, defense in depth can be conceptualized as three distinct
layers or planes laid one on top of the other. Additional insight into
defense in depth can be gained by thinking of it as forming the layers
of an onion, with data at the core of the onion, people the next outer
layer of the onion, and
network security, host-based security and
application security
forming the outermost layers of the onion. Both perspectives are
equally valid, and each provides valuable insight into the
implementation of a good defense in depth strategy.
Security classification for information
An
important aspect of information security and risk management is
recognizing the value of information and defining appropriate procedures
and protection requirements for the information. Not all information is
equal and so not all information requires the same degree of
protection. This requires information to be assigned a
security classification.
The first step in information classification is to identify a member of
senior management as the owner of the particular information to be
classified. Next, develop a classification policy. The policy should
describe the different classification labels, define the criteria for
information to be assigned a particular label, and list the required
security controls for each classification.
[51]
Some factors that influence which classification information should
be assigned include how much value that information has to the
organization, how old the information is and whether or not the
information has become obsolete. Laws and other regulatory requirements
are also important considerations when classifying information. The
Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA) and its
Business Model for Information Security
also serves as a tool for security professionals to examine security
from a systems perspective, creating an environment where security can
be managed holistically, allowing actual risks to be addressed.
[52]
The type of information security classification labels selected and
used will depend on the nature of the organization, with examples being:
[51]
- In the business sector, labels such as: Public, Sensitive, Private, Confidential.
- In the government sector, labels such as: Unclassified, Unofficial,
Protected, Confidential, Secret, Top Secret and their non-English
equivalents.
- In cross-sectoral formations, the Traffic Light Protocol, which consists of: White, Green, Amber, and Red.
All employees in the organization, as well as business partners, must
be trained on the classification schema and understand the required
security controls and handling procedures for each classification. The
classification of a particular information asset that has been assigned
should be reviewed periodically to ensure the classification is still
appropriate for the information and to ensure the security controls
required by the classification are in place and are followed in their
right procedures.
Access control
Access
to protected information must be restricted to people who are
authorized to access the information. The computer programs, and in many
cases the computers that process the information, must also be
authorized. This requires that mechanisms be in place to control the
access to protected information. The sophistication of the access
control mechanisms should be in parity with the value of the information
being protected; the more sensitive or valuable the information the
stronger the control mechanisms need to be. The foundation on which
access control mechanisms are built start with identification and
authentication.
Access control is generally considered in three steps: identification,
authentication, and
authorization.
[2]
Identification
Identification is an assertion of who someone is or what something is. If a person makes the statement "Hello, my name is
John Doe"
they are making a claim of who they are. However, their claim may or
may not be true. Before John Doe can be granted access to protected
information it will be necessary to verify that the person claiming to
be John Doe really is John Doe. Typically the claim is in the form of a
username. By entering that username you are claiming "I am the person
the username belongs to".
Authentication
Authentication is the act of verifying a claim of identity. When John Doe goes into a bank to make a withdrawal, he tells the
bank teller he is John Doe, a claim of identity. The bank teller asks to see a photo ID, so he hands the teller his
driver's license.
The bank teller checks the license to make sure it has John Doe printed
on it and compares the photograph on the license against the person
claiming to be John Doe. If the photo and name match the person, then
the teller has authenticated that John Doe is who he claimed to be.
Similarly, by entering the correct password, the user is providing
evidence that he/she is the person the username belongs to.
There are three different types of information that can be used for authentication:
Strong authentication requires providing more than one type of authentication information (two-factor authentication). The
username
is the most common form of identification on computer systems today and
the password is the most common form of authentication. Usernames and
passwords have served their purpose, but they are increasingly
inadequate.
[53] Usernames and passwords are slowly being replaced or supplemented with more sophisticated authentication mechanisms such as
Time-based One-time Password algorithms.
Authorization
After
a person, program or computer has successfully been identified and
authenticated then it must be determined what informational resources
they are permitted to access and what actions they will be allowed to
perform (run, view, create, delete, or change). This is called
authorization. Authorization to access information and other computing services begins
with administrative policies and procedures. The policies prescribe
what information and computing services can be accessed, by whom, and
under what conditions. The access control mechanisms are then configured
to enforce these policies. Different computing systems are equipped
with different kinds of access control mechanisms. Some may even offer a
choice of different access control mechanisms. The access control
mechanism a system offers will be based upon one of three approaches to
access control, or it may be derived from a combination of the three
approaches.
[2]
The non-discretionary approach consolidates all access control under a
centralized administration. The access to information and other
resources is usually based on the individuals function (role) in the
organization or the tasks the individual must perform. The discretionary
approach gives the creator or owner of the information resource the
ability to control access to those resources. In the mandatory access
control approach, access is granted or denied basing upon the security
classification assigned to the information resource.
Examples of common access control mechanisms in use today include
role-based access control, available in many advanced database management systems; simple
file permissions provided in the UNIX and Windows operating systems;
Group Policy Objects provided in Windows network systems; and
Kerberos,
RADIUS,
TACACS, and the simple access lists used in many
firewalls and
routers.
To be effective, policies and other security controls must be
enforceable and upheld. Effective policies ensure that people are held
accountable for their actions. The
U.S. Treasury's
guidelines for systems processing sensitive or proprietary information,
for example, states that all failed and successful authentication and
access attempts must be logged, and all access to information must leave
some type of
audit trail.
[54]
Also, the need-to-know principle needs to be in effect when talking
about access control. This principle gives access rights to a person to
perform their job functions. This principle is used in the government
when dealing with difference clearances. Even though two employees in
different departments have a
top-secret clearance,
they must have a need-to-know in order for information to be exchanged.
Within the need-to-know principle, network administrators grant the
employee the least amount of privileges to prevent employees from
accessing more than what they are supposed to. Need-to-know helps to
enforce the confidentiality-integrity-availability triad. Need-to-know
directly impacts the confidential area of the triad.
Cryptography
Information security uses
cryptography
to transform usable information into a form that renders it unusable by
anyone other than an authorized user; this process is called
encryption.
Information that has been encrypted (rendered unusable) can be
transformed back into its original usable form by an authorized user who
possesses the
cryptographic key,
through the process of decryption. Cryptography is used in information
security to protect information from unauthorized or accidental
disclosure while the
information is in transit (either electronically or physically) and while information is in storage.
[2]
Cryptography provides information security with other useful
applications as well, including improved authentication methods, message
digests, digital signatures,
non-repudiation, and encrypted network communications. Older, less secure applications such as
Telnet and
File Transfer Protocol (FTP) are slowly being replaced with more secure applications such as
Secure Shell (SSH) that use encrypted network communications. Wireless communications can be encrypted using protocols such as
WPA/WPA2 or the older (and less secure)
WEP. Wired communications (such as
ITU‑T G.hn) are secured using
AES for encryption and
X.1035 for authentication and key exchange. Software applications such as
GnuPG or
PGP can be used to encrypt data files and email.
Cryptography can introduce security problems when it is not
implemented correctly. Cryptographic solutions need to be implemented
using industry-accepted solutions that have undergone rigorous peer
review by independent experts in cryptography. The
length and strength of the encryption key is also an important consideration. A key that is
weak
or too short will produce weak encryption. The keys used for encryption
and decryption must be protected with the same degree of rigor as any
other confidential information. They must be protected from unauthorized
disclosure and destruction and they must be available when needed.
Public key infrastructure (PKI) solutions address many of the problems that surround
key management.
[2]
Process
The terms "reasonable and prudent person," "
due care"
and "due diligence" have been used in the fields of finance,
securities, and law for many years. In recent years these terms have
found their way into the fields of computing and information security.
[45] U.S.
Federal Sentencing Guidelines
now make it possible to hold corporate officers liable for failing to
exercise due care and due diligence in the management of their
information systems.
[55]
In the business world, stockholders, customers, business partners and
governments have the expectation that corporate officers will run the
business in accordance with accepted business practices and in
compliance with laws and other regulatory requirements. This is often
described as the "reasonable and prudent person" rule. A prudent person
takes due care to ensure that everything necessary is done to operate
the business by sound business principles and in a legal ethical manner. A prudent person is also diligent (mindful, attentive, and ongoing) in
their due care of the business.
In the field of information security, Harris
[56] offers the following definitions of due care and due diligence:
"Due care are steps that are taken to show that a company has
taken responsibility for the activities that take place within the
corporation and has taken the necessary steps to help protect the
company, its resources, and employees." And, [Due diligence are the] "continual activities that make sure the protection mechanisms are continually maintained and operational."
Attention should be made to two important points in these
definitions. First, in due care, steps are taken to show; this means
that the steps can be verified, measured, or even produce tangible
artifacts. Second, in due diligence, there are continual activities;
this means that people are actually doing things to monitor and maintain
the protection mechanisms, and these activities are ongoing.
Security governance
The
Software Engineering Institute at
Carnegie Mellon University, in a publication titled
Governing for Enterprise Security (GES) Implementation Guide, defines characteristics of effective security governance. These include:
[57]
- An enterprise-wide issue
- Leaders are accountable
- Viewed as a business requirement
- Risk-based
- Roles, responsibilities, and segregation of duties defined
- Addressed and enforced in policy
- Adequate resources committed
- Staff aware and trained
- A development life cycle requirement
- Planned, managed, measurable, and measured
- Reviewed and audited
Incident response plans
An incident response plan that addresses how discovered breaches in security is also vital. It should include:
- Selection of team members
- Definition of roles, responsibilities and lines of authority
- Definition of a security incident
- Definition of a reportable incident
- Training
- Detection
- Classification
- Escalation
- Containment
- Eradication
- Documentation
Change management
Change management is a formal process for directing and controlling
alterations to the information processing environment. This includes
alterations to desktop computers, the network, servers and software. The
objectives of change management are to reduce the risks posed by
changes to the information processing environment and improve the
stability and reliability of the processing environment as changes are
made. It is not the objective of change management to prevent or hinder
necessary changes from being implemented.
[58]
Any change to the information processing environment introduces an
element of risk. Even apparently simple changes can have unexpected
effects. One of management's many responsibilities is the management of
risk. Change management is a tool for managing the risks introduced by
changes to the information processing environment. Part of the change
management process ensures that changes are not implemented at
inopportune times when they may disrupt critical business processes or
interfere with other changes being implemented.
Not every change needs to be managed. Some kinds of changes are a
part of the everyday routine of information processing and adhere to a
predefined procedure, which reduces the overall level of risk to the
processing environment. Creating a new user account or deploying a new
desktop computer are examples of changes that do not generally require
change management. However, relocating user file shares, or upgrading
the Email server pose a much higher level of risk to the processing
environment and are not a normal everyday activity. The critical first
steps in change management are (a) defining change (and communicating
that definition) and (b) defining the scope of the change system.
Change management is usually overseen by a change review board
composed of representatives from key business areas, security,
networking, systems administrators, database administration, application
developers, desktop support and the help desk. The tasks of the change
review board can be facilitated with the use of automated work flow
application. The responsibility of the change review board is to ensure
the organization's documented change management procedures are followed.
The change management process is as follows
[59]
- Request: Anyone can request a change. The person making the
change request may or may not be the same person that performs the
analysis or implements the change. When a request for change is
received, it may undergo a preliminary review to determine if the
requested change is compatible with the organizations business model and practices, and to determine the amount of resources needed to implement the change.
- Approve: Management runs the business and controls the
allocation of resources therefore, management must approve requests for
changes and assign a priority for every change. Management might choose
to reject a change request if the change is not compatible with the
business model, industry standards or best practices. Management might
also choose to reject a change request if the change requires more
resources than can be allocated for the change.
- Plan: Planning a change involves discovering the scope and
impact of the proposed change; analyzing the complexity of the change;
allocation of resources and, developing, testing and documenting both
implementation and back-out plans. Need to define the criteria on which a
decision to back out will be made.
- Test: Every change must be tested in a safe test environment,
which closely reflects the actual production environment, before the
change is applied to the production environment. The backout plan must
also be tested.
- Schedule: Part of the change review board's responsibility is
to assist in the scheduling of changes by reviewing the proposed
implementation date for potential conflicts with other scheduled changes
or critical business activities.
- Communicate: Once a change has been scheduled it must be
communicated. The communication is to give others the opportunity to
remind the change review board about other changes or critical business
activities that might have been overlooked when scheduling the change.
The communication also serves to make the help desk and users aware that
a change is about to occur. Another responsibility of the change review
board is to ensure that scheduled changes have been properly
communicated to those who will be affected by the change or otherwise
have an interest in the change.
- Implement: At the appointed date and time, the changes must
be implemented. Part of the planning process was to develop an
implementation plan, testing plan and, a back out plan. If the
implementation of the change should fail or, the post implementation
testing fails or, other "drop dead" criteria have been met, the back out
plan should be implemented.
- Document: All changes must be documented. The documentation
includes the initial request for change, its approval, the priority
assigned to it, the implementation, testing and back out plans, the
results of the change review board critique, the date/time the change
was implemented, who implemented it, and whether the change was
implemented successfully, failed or postponed.
- Post-change review: The change review board should hold a
post-implementation review of changes. It is particularly important to
review failed and backed out changes. The review board should try to
understand the problems that were encountered, and look for areas for
improvement.
Change management procedures that are simple to follow and easy to
use can greatly reduce the overall risks created when changes are made
to the information processing environment. Good change management
procedures improve the overall quality and success of changes as they
are implemented. This is accomplished through planning, peer review,
documentation and communication.
ISO/IEC 20000, The Visible OPS Handbook: Implementing ITIL in 4 Practical and Auditable Steps
[60] (Full book summary),
[61] and
Information Technology Infrastructure Library all provide valuable guidance on implementing an efficient and effective change management program information security.
Business continuity
Business continuity management (
BCM)
concerns arrangements aiming to protect an organization's critical
business functions from interruption due to incidents, or at least
minimize the effects. BCM is essential to any organization to keep
technology and business in line with current threats to the continuation
of business as usual. The BCM should be included in an organizations
risk analysis
plan to ensure that all of the necessary business functions have what
they need to keep going in the event of any type of threat to any
business function.
[62]
It encompasses:
- Analysis of requirements, e.g., identifying critical business
functions, dependencies and potential failure points, potential threats
and hence incidents or risks of concern to the organization;
- Specification, e.g., maximum tolerable outage periods; recovery point objectives (maximum acceptable periods of data loss);
- Architecture and design, e.g., an appropriate combination of
approaches including resilience (e.g. engineering IT systems and
processes for high availability, avoiding or preventing situations that
might interrupt the business), incident and emergency management (e.g.,
evacuating premises, calling the emergency services, triage/situation
assessment and invoking recovery plans), recovery (e.g., rebuilding) and
contingency management (generic capabilities to deal positively with
whatever occurs using whatever resources are available);
- Implementation, e.g., configuring and scheduling backups, data
transfers, etc., duplicating and strengthening critical elements;
contracting with service and equipment suppliers;
- Testing, e.g., business continuity exercises of various types, costs and assurance levels;
- Management, e.g., defining strategies, setting objectives and goals;
planning and directing the work; allocating funds, people and other
resources; prioritization relative to other activities; team building,
leadership, control, motivation and coordination with other business
functions and activities (e.g., IT, facilities, human resources, risk
management, information risk and security, operations); monitoring the
situation, checking and updating the arrangements when things change;
maturing the approach through continuous improvement, learning and
appropriate investment;
- Assurance, e.g., testing against specified requirements; measuring,
analyzing and reporting key parameters; conducting additional tests,
reviews and audits for greater confidence that the arrangements will go
to plan if invoked.
Whereas BCM takes a broad approach to minimizing disaster-related
risks by reducing both the probability and the severity of incidents, a
disaster recovery plan
(DRP) focuses specifically on resuming business operations as quickly
as possible after a disaster. A disaster recovery plan, invoked soon
after a disaster occurs, lays out the steps necessary to recover
critical
information and communications technology
(ICT) infrastructure. Disaster recovery planning includes establishing a
planning group, performing risk assessment, establishing priorities,
developing recovery strategies, preparing inventories and documentation
of the plan, developing verification criteria and procedure, and lastly
implementing the plan.
[63]
Laws and regulations
Privacy International 2007 privacy ranking
green: Protections and safeguards
red: Endemic surveillance societies
Below is a partial listing of governmental laws and regulations in
various parts of the world that have, had, or will have, a significant
effect on data processing and information security. Important industry
sector regulations have also been included when they have a significant
impact on information security.
- The U.K. Data Protection Act 1998
makes new provisions for the regulation of the processing of
information relating to individuals, including the obtaining, holding,
use or disclosure of such information. The European Union Data
Protection Directive (EUDPD) requires that all E.U. members adopt
national regulations to standardize the protection of data privacy for citizens throughout the E.U.[64]
- The Computer Misuse Act 1990 is an Act of the U.K. Parliament
making computer crime (e.g., hacking) a criminal offense. The act has
become a model upon which several other countries, including Canada and the Republic of Ireland, have drawn inspiration from when subsequently drafting their own information security laws.[65]
- The E.U.'s Data Retention Directive
(annulled) required internet service providers and phone companies to
keep data on every electronic message sent and phone call made for
between six months and two years.[66]
- The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) (20 U.S.C. § 1232
g; 34 CFR Part 99) is a U.S. Federal law that protects the privacy of
student education records. The law applies to all schools that receive
funds under an applicable program of the U.S. Department of Education.
Generally, schools must have written permission from the parent or
eligible student in order to release any information from a student's
education record.[67]
- The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council’s (FFIEC)
security guidelines for auditors specifies requirements for online
banking security.[68]
- The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
(HIPAA) of 1996 requires the adoption of national standards for
electronic health care transactions and national identifiers for
providers, health insurance plans, and employers. Additionally, it
requires health care providers, insurance providers and employers to
safeguard the security and privacy of health data.[69]
- The Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act
of 1999 (GLBA), also known as the Financial Services Modernization Act
of 1999, protects the privacy and security of private financial
information that financial institutions collect, hold, and process.[70]
- Section 404 of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX)
requires publicly traded companies to assess the effectiveness of their
internal controls for financial reporting in annual reports they submit
at the end of each fiscal year. Chief information officers are
responsible for the security, accuracy and the reliability of the
systems that manage and report the financial data. The act also requires
publicly traded companies to engage with independent auditors who must
attest to, and report on, the validity of their assessments.[71]
- The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS)
establishes comprehensive requirements for enhancing payment account
data security. It was developed by the founding payment brands of the
PCI Security Standards Council — including American Express, Discover Financial Services, JCB, MasterCard Worldwide and Visa International — to help facilitate the broad adoption of consistent data security
measures on a global basis. The PCI DSS is a multifaceted security
standard that includes requirements for security management, policies,
procedures, network architecture, software design and other critical protective measures.[72]
- State security breach notification laws
(California and many others) require businesses, nonprofits, and state
institutions to notify consumers when unencrypted "personal information"
may have been compromised, lost, or stolen.[73]
- The Personal Information Protection and Electronics Document Act (PIPEDA)
of Canada supports and promotes electronic commerce by protecting
personal information that is collected, used or disclosed in certain
circumstances, by providing for the use of electronic means to
communicate or record information or transactions and by amending the Canada Evidence Act, the Statutory Instruments Act and the Statute Revision Act.[74]
- Greece's Hellenic Authority for Communication Security and Privacy
(ADAE) (Law 165/2011) establishes and describes the minimum information
security controls that should be deployed by every company which
provides electronic communication networks and/or services in Greece in
order to protect customers' confidentiality. These include both
managerial and technical controls (e.g., log records should be stored
for two years).[75]
- Greece's Hellenic Authority for Communication Security and Privacy
(ADAE) (Law 205/2013) concentrates around the protection of the
integrity and availability of the services and data offered by Greek
telecommunication companies. The law forces these and other related
companies to build, deploy and test appropriate business continuity
plans and redundant infrastructures.[76]
Information security culture
Employee
behavior can have a big impact on information security in
organizations. Cultural concepts can help different segments of the
organization work effectively or work against effectiveness towards
information security within an organization. "Exploring the Relationship
between Organizational Culture and Information Security Culture"
provides the following definition of information security culture: "ISC
is the totality of patterns of behavior in an organization that
contribute to the protection of information of all kinds."
[77]
Andersson and Reimers (2014) found that employees often do not see
themselves as part of the organization Information Security "effort" and
often take actions that ignore organizational information security best
interests.
[78] Research shows information security culture needs to be improved continuously. In
Information Security Culture from Analysis to Change,
authors commented, "It's a never ending process, a cycle of evaluation
and change or maintenance." To manage the information security culture,
five steps should be taken: pre-evaluation, strategic planning,
operative planning, implementation, and post-evaluation.
[4]
- Pre-Evaluation: to identify the awareness of information security within employees and to analysis current security policy
- Strategic Planning: to come up a better awareness-program, we need
to set clear targets. Clustering people is helpful to achieve it
- Operative Planning: create a good security culture based on internal
communication, management buy-in, security awareness and training
programs
- Implementation: should feature commitment of management,
communication with organizational members, courses for all
organizational members, and commitment of the employees[4]
- Post-evaluation: to better gauge the effectiveness of the prior steps and build on continuous improvement
Sources of standards
The
International Organization for Standardization
(ISO) is a consortium of national standards institutes from 157
countries, coordinated through a secretariat in Geneva, Switzerland. ISO
is the world's largest developer of standards. ISO 15443: "Information
technology – Security techniques – A framework for IT security
assurance",
ISO/IEC 27002: "Information technology – Security techniques – Code of practice for information security management",
ISO-20000: "Information technology – Service management", and
ISO/IEC 27001:
"Information technology – Security techniques – Information security
management systems – Requirements" are of particular interest to
information security professionals.
The US
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is a non-regulatory federal agency within the
U.S. Department of Commerce.
The NIST Computer Security Division develops standards, metrics, tests
and validation programs as well as publishes standards and guidelines to
increase secure IT planning, implementation, management and operation.
NIST is also the custodian of the U.S.
Federal Information Processing Standard publications (FIPS).
The Internet Society
is a professional membership society with more than 100 organizations
and over 20,000 individual members in over 180 countries. It provides
leadership in addressing issues that confront the future of the internet
and is the organizational home for the groups responsible for internet
infrastructure standards, including the
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the
Internet Architecture Board
(IAB). The ISOC hosts the Requests for Comments (RFCs) which includes
the Official Internet Protocol Standards and the RFC-2196
Site Security Handbook.
The
Information Security Forum
is a global nonprofit organization of several hundred leading
organizations in financial services, manufacturing, telecommunications,
consumer goods, government, and other areas. It undertakes research into
information security practices and offers advice in its biannual
Standard of Good Practice and more detailed advisories for members.
The
Institute of Information Security Professionals
(IISP) is an independent, non-profit body governed by its members, with
the principal objective of advancing the professionalism of information
security practitioners and thereby the professionalism of the industry
as a whole. The institute developed the IISP Skills Framework. This
framework describes the range of competencies expected of information
security and information assurance professionals in the effective
performance of their roles. It was developed through collaboration
between both private and public sector organizations and world-renowned
academics and security leaders.
[79]
The German
Federal Office for Information Security (in German
Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik (BSI))
BSI-Standards 100-1 to 100-4 are a set of recommendations including
"methods, processes, procedures, approaches and measures relating to
information security".
[80] The BSI-Standard 100-2
IT-Grundschutz Methodology
describes how information security management can be implemented and
operated. The standard includes a very specific guide, the
IT Baseline Protection Catalogs (also known as IT-Grundschutz Catalogs). Before 2005, the catalogs were formerly known as "
IT Baseline Protection
Manual". The Catalogs are a collection of documents useful for
detecting and combating security-relevant weak points in the IT
environment (IT cluster). The collection encompasses as of September
2013 over 4,400 pages with the introduction and catalogs. The
IT-Grundschutz approach is aligned with to the ISO/IEC 2700x family.
The
European Telecommunications Standards Institute standardized a catalog of
information security indicators, headed by the Industrial Specification Group (ISG) ISI.
