BYOD: Bring Your Own Diskettes

One of the latest nightmares of Infosec practitioners, BYOD (Bring Your Own Device/Disaster/Doom/Death... your choice), is not that new after all.

For me, it all started in about 1992, the first job of my career, software engineer in a very small video game company.
We were less than 10 people working there, none of us permanent employee. Even the CEO was working part-time while pursuing his studies.
So all the scarce budget we had was spent in hardware and software licenses for our development work.

And some floppy disks for backups, but not enough. Most of millennial people don't remember this kind of storage media, and how the could be short-lived.

So my colleagues and myself were bringing our personal floppy disks to backup our daily work/code/images/soundtracks.

I remember one day, when at last we had corporate floppy disks owned by the company, and even some Syquest cartridges (Wow! 40 MEGA Bytes of storage, beware not to let it fall on the ground, it's rather fragile!), most of my colleagues still used their own floppy disks.
I told them they were taking an unnecessary risk: if their corporate machine's hard drive failed, and they needed the floppy backup and it also failed, so all their files belonging to the company were lost, who would be responsible?
There were also some data leak issue: were they certain the floppies they kept at home were safe, there? Did they bring with them when leaving for a weekend or holidays? Even in this pre-internet & mobile era, "data at rest" was already a fiction.

Sure, those old floppy disks or Syquest cartridges or even hard drives were passive storage, compared to nowadays mobile devices (even USB things), and the mix between personal and professional use was far less a problem: floppies were cheap, so having some for pro stuff and some for perso stuff was not a big deal.

But the responsibilities were already a serious issue.

Mobile Device Management systems, multi-user (or at least multi-profile) mobile OSs or other tools would be of help.
And of course policies: simple, clear, enforceable and yielding users engagement.

It's rather disturbing to see our so modern high tech industry is still stuck with those issues of another century.

NSA & Snowden & The Rest Of The World: My Opinion

Happy New Year to all!

I didn't post anything on this blog for a long time. After much reflection, I think it's time for me to comment about the great Infosec event of 2013: the NSA/Snowden scandal.

I didn't post nor comment on this case yet. Not for lack of interest, but many people more skilled and informed than me commented on these revelations. Moreover I found it better to wait for the dust to settle. But it won't settle anytime soon it seems.

So, several months after the maelstrom began, I have some remarks I hope useful:

1 - The NSA, like many intelligence agencies, in the US or elsewhere, is spying massively. Isn't it their job?
  The main problem, here, is that they're doing whatever they can to escape democratic control, to the point the US Congress had to be briefed by external experts like Bruce Schneier.
  As Bruce wrote in his excellent essays (read them all!): the solution is political, not technical.

2 - The NSA has weakened security products and technologies to implement backdoors enabling them to spy on their targets.
  I'll be moderate on this one: THIS IS A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY. No less.
  Weakening internet security will have, and maybe already had, terrific consequences. Who's a terrorist on this case?
  A backdoor is open for everyone who will spend the needed time to access it, for good or ill.

3 - Speaking of terrorism, according to what I know, no terrorist attacks were prevented by the NSA's mass surveillance. The collected data helped investigations after some successful attacks, such as the Boston Marathon bombing. But the cost of the data collection & storage is clearly prohibitive. Bulk-Collection is not efficient
  During FIC 2014, French military/intelligence representatives declared: "if you have nothing to hide, you don't need to fear our agencies' surveillance".
  This is unacceptable for several reasons:
  - The NSA was proven to escape Congress and democratic controls, our French equivalent, the DGSE is strongly suspected to do the same. How this kind of agencies can give any guaranty the information they collect will be used lawfully?
  - Internal unauthorized access is always a risk: some NSA personnel used collected information for personal goals (spying on their wives/husbands).
  - As every information security professional knows well: such a data store cannot be absolutely protected against external unauthorized access either.
  - The USA and France are democracies, so controls and reforms will be enforced now that we know, right? Alas, a democracy is always at risk. The French IIIrd Republic surveillance data were much useful to the Nazi political polices and to the Vichy dictatorship, between 1940 and 1944. No one would have expected such a situation before 1940.

4 - Whistleblowers
  Edward Snowden and Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning are considered heroes by some, traitors by others. I don't know. I only know the NSA behaved illegally.
  In both cases, they were rather low-level operators, a sub-contractor and a private soldier. If I were in charge of information security & security policy in either of their former organizations, I would have resigned immediately after knowing about their leaks.
  In the business world, there are legal mechanisms and contractual requirements obliging companies to enable whistleblowing and handle it properly. I don't know if such a system would work for intelligence agencies.
  But one thing is certain: to prevent leaks, don't have secrets, or as few as possible; and respect the law.

5 - The rest of the world is upset by what the NSA did and probably still does.
  Governments, even allied of the USA, were spied on. But I guess they do the same in return.
  Less friendly countries such as China and the Soviet... er... Russia, well... Didn't they know already? These two countries are the only ones whose intelligence agencies' budgets are comparable to the USA's.
  The golden rule in state to state spying is: do it, but don't get caught. I know it's sounding cynical, but less than a French officer at FIC 2014, who declared he thinks Snowden is a traitor to his country, but regrets there's no Chinese Snowden yet ;)
  But now that there are proofs of what the NSA did, other states will feel entitled to break the internet into useless isolated pieces. That would be another crime against humanity, and the NSA would have a part of responsibility in that.

6 - As an information security professional, I think the NSA scandal had at least one positive effect: bringing Infosec issues under mass media scrutiny; good point for public awareness.
  The news don't lack of high profile security breaches, but a spy story is clearly a better seller.
  Now, states secrets and spying are not the main interest of security professionals. We have much to do to protect our employers/clients/users against common criminals and thieves.
  More revelations will come from this NSA case, but I hope it will not disturb the Infosec field in 2014 as much as it did in 2013.
  One thing must be absolutely avoided: leave the Infosec and the fight against cybercrime become a domain exclusively reserved to the military & intelligence agencies. It's not their job, cyber war/spying is. Coordination between military and civilian is good, not subordination. I guess the Gendarmes & fellows I met at the Botconf 2013 will agree :)


Now, back to work. I've some ISO 9000/27000 stuff to do ;)


DISCLAIMER: Though I inserted many links to his articles in this post, I'm not related in any way to Mr Bruce Schneier. As a still newbie information security practitioner, I have of course a great admiration for him and for his work. Same for Mr Brian Krebs, though you can feel free to make a donation to his excellent blog ;)

Weapons Control, or not ?

Long time I didn't post anything on this blog, sorry, I was working on my CISSP exam, successfully passed, now waiting for recommendations and experience validation :)

For some years in the USA, the question of weapons control hits the news, more after every tragedy, for obvious reasons.
Many weapons like automatic rifles which are rather freely available in the USA are tightly controlled in most European countries.

Nevertheless, in some european big cities suburbs, this kind of weapons became easily available and affordable for gangs, after the war in former Yugoslavia and the fall of eatern Europe's communist regimes.
This was and still is a challenge for law enforcing forces and security companies (banks/ATMs, cash transport, jewel shops, etc.).

I'm not an expert in weapons, I won't try to argue for one side or the other.

My point here, is we seem to have a similar situation in our not so virtual world: iOS vs Android.

iOS is like an European country, with a tight policy preventing even legitimate and anti-malware software editors to have access to the low-level OS to build efficient protection software.

Android is more like the USA: the OS is more accessible, making life easier for malware creators AS WELL AS for anti-malware and protection software writers.

My 2 cents:

- The "fortress" of iOS will be breached, with devastating effects. Just an hint which is #1 here: Top 10 most Worrying Things We Saw at Black-Hat
  0-days on iOS are among the most expensive on the black market, which is a kind of limited and temporary protection: only state agencies/spies can afford them. For how long ?

- The "arms race" logic which will prevail on Android will hit more the security news in months and years to come.
  This will be an iterative process: more threats, counter-weighted by more protection techniques, and so on.

As a strong supporter of Agile methods and their iterative processes, you'll guess which side I'm on ;)
At least on the long term.

I don't say I have the same opinion about firearms control, but it's not the subject of this blog, and opinions can change.

The Roman Limes: Data Loss Prevention

One more lesson from History: Limes/Adrian's Wall.

Like the Maginot Line or the Chinese Wall, the fortified frontier built by the Romans never prevented barbarians intrusions.
But it had another more important mission: preventing or at least hindering their return with their spoil.

During several centuries before the Germanic tribes invaded and toppled the Roman Empire, small bands of them attacked the Roman fortified frontier.
It was rather easy for them to penetrate the Empire, as they chose the exact place of their attack after long observation of the defense weaknesses, and always by surprise.
Once in Roman territory, they wandered at will, as there were few if any in depth defenses.
But they were followed and tracked by their victims or some Roman scouts. So their way back to the frontier and to their own territory was guessed, reinforcement brought to the place, and it was far more difficult for the Germanic warriors to pass the Limes back.
The legend of the Rhine Gold comes from this, they say: so much of this stolen gold and goods was drought in the frontier river, it seemed the gods had cast a curse on it.

Nowadays, in Information Security, it is well known a perimeter defense like the Roman (fire)wall is not sufficient.
Most of Defense in depth techniques are also in a difficult straight.
Recent Advanced Persistent Threats proved Data Loss Prevention is not efficient or even not implemented at all.

Maybe we should overturn our priorities, just like the Romans did (and it worked well for three or four centuries):
- Monitor and log and focus our SIEMs on what happens INSIDE our infrastructure.
- Focus on what tries to GET OUT instead of on what tries to GET IN.
- Implement this monitoring and alert everywhere in the infrastructure: servers, network devices, desktops/laptops and mobile devices.
- Surely many more to do, educating users not the least...

Let's face it: I was probably an insider threat as well as most of us, even if we never noticed it. It's so easy to introduce a malware inside our perimeter by simply browsing a compromised web site or app store.

Comments and critics welcome! :)

My Answer to: Everything Wrong With The Hobbit in 4 Minutes Or Less

My Answer to: Everything Wrong With The Hobbit in 4 Minutes Or Less

Well... A bit out of topic on a blog supposed to be about InfoSec, even though we have an excellent example of one time (a year) two factor authentication in this book & movie ;)

Everything Wrong With The Hobbit An Unexpected Journey In 4 Minutes...

Badly stored bread, burning candles, etc. Hey, this a fantasy movie, inspired by one the best fantasy book in history. What did you expect ? This is a magick world. I won't argue with every one of your mean points.

Elvish blades don't shine a blue light, except Sting ? Peter Jackson explained it well in The Lord Of The Rings comments: with all these shining elvish blades, the movies would have looked too much like Star Wars.

As for the Eagles, you should read the books, friend. The answer is in the Silmarillion (and the Lost/Unfinished Tales). It was kind of a hell of a headache for JRR Tolkien to prevent the Eagles to spoil his plots. So Manwë decided to send His Eagles to help a bit the people of Middle-earth, but not too much, as the main tasks remain their to accomplish.

And you missed one AWFULL mistake : when Thorin stands up to fight Azog, at the end of the movie, he has his legendary oakenshield which was never seen before, upgraded with some metal blades. How did he got it ? Sure it's not a pine branch, sure we didn't see him carrying it before, sure he couldn't keep it during the battle with the goblins, he was lucky enough to keep his elvish blade, Orcrist.

So yes, Peter Jackson made many mistakes in his movies. As a fan of JRR Tolkien, reading at least The Silmarillion, the Hobbit, The Lord Of The Rings once a year (twice in fact, in French and in English) and his other "unfinished" books, of course I don't agree with all what Peter Jackson did in his movies. But I forgive him, he had to bend things a bit to give a good show, and in the end, he remained fairly true to the books. His movies' success led many to know and read JRR Tolkien's books, and that what's important in the end.

Finding ways to evangelize Tolkien's writings is a bit like evangelizing Information Security. Not an easy task.

Jargon, Communication, and Respect.

« Qui se sait profond tend vers la clarté;
qui veut le paraître vers l'obscurité ;
car la foule tient pour profond tout ce dont elle ne peut voir le fond. »

“Whoever knows he is deep, strives for clarity;
whoever would like to appear deep to the crowd, strives for obscurity.
For the crowd considers anything deep if only it cannot see to the bottom:
the crowd is so timid and afraid of going into the water.”

Friedrich Nietzsche

One trending topic in InfoSec these days is our jargon usage and more generaly our ability (or lack of) to communicate properly with our stakeholders.

Sure, jargon and acronyms are a necessity in every tech/scientific field. As a vernacular language of the specialists.
But we must never forget: we don't work for ourselves, we are at the service of stakeholders, most of them non-specialists.

Here are some links related to this, in English and French:

RSAC2013 and InfoSec communication (English)
A real life example of what can go wrong (English)
Information Classification in simple words (French)
Excellent InfoSec Terminology Definitions (French)

IT specialists in general have this problem of having a hard time to communicate with non specialists.
It's even more true for InfoSec specialists, even when communicating with other IT fellows.

Certification bodies tell us we must adhere to important values: honesty, respect, responsibility, diligence, etc.
I think Respect is a key: proper communication avoiding obscure jargon is a way to respect others, and they will respect us in return, and more importantly listen to all the fear-mongering, boring and hindering/blocking advices and recommandations we give them ;)
Without this, InfoSec is doomed to fail.

I worked for some years for an antivirus company. This industry is crouded, many competitors. But one thing I marked: key people of these companies often work together and have good relations, doing presentations in common at InfoSec conferences, referencing each other's work in articles, forums, blogs or in social media.
I remember internal orders we had when one competitor had some source code leaked on the Internet: don't try to get it, if media contact you about this, don't answer and worst of all, don't despise. Direct them to our official PR service.

In a word most of them respect each other even if they work for competing companies. Nobody boasts to "go thermonuclear" against another.
This is a good sign, and seems to be mostly true in the InfoSec community in general, not only in the antivirus industry.

Of course, there are strong-minded people in this field, it may even be a requirement to be a good InfoSec specialist ;)
And there are some polemic topics, offensive security currently the main one. All businesses have their darker side.

I'm kind of a newbie in InfoSec, and I may be a bit naive about this. But I hope Respect is and will remain a key value in this field. I deem it's a necessity.

Famous scientifics, such as Louis de Broglie consider one of their main missions is to popularize their arcane field, as a service to the society and humanity as a whole.
We must follow this track.

Walls and Fortresses: Some History Lessons

Chinese Wall, Limes, Hadrian's Wall, Maginot Line, Siegfried Line, Atlantic Wall, Berlin Wall... And every impregnable fortresses... All have failed.

The so-called "security perimeter" doesn't exist anymore; did it even exist once ?

Cloud infrastructures BYOD APTs (Spear) Phishing etc. or just the human factor ?

Defense-in-depth is an old and well known moto in InfoSec, but many people seem to just stop at the perimeter defense.

Sure, having a so-called "perimeter" to defend is reassuring, putting all efforts defending it ensures that we are safe inside it; good rest while not on the front line.

I don't mean firewalls, antiviruses, anti-spam and other protections, etc. don't avail, they have their use. But don't count on them to provide a complete security. They never have, they never will.

History is repeating itself, over and over. One of the well known and most documented failed perimeter defenses wa the Maginot Line during the Battle of France in May-June 1940.

The French military command, being one war late as often, thought building a fortified line would prevent German invasion. The problem was this impregnable line was too short and didn't cover the Ardennes area, deemed to be impossible to bypass by tanks and mobile units.

Though the "Blitzkrieg" concept existed only on paper at the time, a German general fully used it: Erwin Rommel.

The divisions Rommel commanded were called the "Ghost Divisions" because they moved so quickly even the German high command didn't know their whereabouts, not speaking of the Allies. This led to the Allied armies being encircled in Dunkirk.

After the Dunkirk evacuation, the German army turned south to invade France, took Paris, and seemed about to invade the whole country. At this time, the remaining French army changed its strategy and implemented hedgehog tactics of defence in depth. This was rather effective, considering the state of the French army in June 1940, which had no reserves anymore and so was doomed.

Four years later, when the Allies liberated Western Europe, the Siegfried Line facing the Maginot Line, didn't avail much more against General Patton's tanks.

Lessons to remind:
- The perimeter doesn't provide a complete security. It can even provide a false feeling of security, which is worse than all.
- Changes in the technology, whereas tanks/aircrafts or mobile devices(BYOD or not)/cloud infra can even render the notion of perimeter mostly obsolete.
- In-depth defenses can be more important than perimeter ones.
- Expect the unexpected.
- Dynamism always beat staticness, in the end.
- Oh, and always keep an eye on your logs, the Allies defeat would have been prevented if the air forces observation reports had been heeded at the very start of the German offensive.