Intrusion Detection - The Big Picture – SANS GIAC ©2000, 2001 2 Intrusion Detection Roadmap What are the pieces and how they play together • Honeypots • Firewalls – Proxy, State Aware, F
Trang 2Intrusion Detection - The Big Picture – SANS GIAC ©2000, 2001 2
Intrusion Detection Roadmap
What are the pieces and how they play together
• Honeypots
• Firewalls
– Proxy, State Aware, Filtering Routers
• Risk Assessment and Auditing
– Introduction to Risk Management
– Knowledge-Based Risk Assessment
– Online Auditing Tools
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Trang 3Intrusion Detection - The Big Picture – SANS GIAC ©2000, 2001 3
Seven Most Important Things to
Do if Security Matters
• Write the security policy (with business input)
• Analyze risks, or identify industry practice for due
care; analyze vulnerabilities
• Set up a security infrastructure
• Design controls, write standards for each technology
• Decide what resources are available, prioritize
countermeasures, and implement top priority
countermeasures you can afford
• Conduct periodic reviews and possibly tests
• Implement intrusion detection and incident response
You will notice that I have never read a slide to you in the entire time together, so please bear with
me
• Write the security policy (with business input)
• Analyze risks, or identify industry practice for due care; analyze vulnerabilities
• Set up a security infrastructure
• Design controls, write standards for each technology
• Decide what resources are available, prioritize countermeasures, and implement top
priority countermeasures you can afford
• Conduct periodic reviews and possibly tests
• Implement intrusion detection and incident response
So here on this slide we have another big picture view of information security Students that
complete Information Security KickStart and Security Essentials certification are well on their way
to accomplish each of these This is by no means the only way to approach building a security
capability, but it is a comprehensive high level view
Trang 44
Intrusion Detection - The Big Picture – SANS GIAC ©2000, 2001
Theory of Risk Assessment
It is critical to have an understanding of risk management to properly choose and deploy intrusion
detection and response assets To manage risk, one must be able to assess it In this section of the
course we will cover the basic theory of risk assessment We will also talk about three methods of
risk assessment: qualitative, quantitative, and knowledge-based (also known as best practices).
Trang 5Intrusion Detection - The Big Picture – SANS GIAC ©2000, 2001 5
The Three Risk Choices
• Accept the risk as is
• Mitigate or reduce the risk
• Transfer the risk (insurance model)
Whether or not we explicitly choose, we have exactly three options and we do choose between:
acceptance, mitigation, and transference.
When we accept the risk, this means we make no changes in policy or process This decision means
that we judge the risk of a given threat to be inconsequential in the greater scheme of things
If we feel the threat is significant and could cause harm to our business or enterprise, then we have
the option of taking action to protect operations by reducing the risk A firewall or system patch are
obvious examples of risk mitigation
Transferring the risk is sometimes a workable technique The classic example is to buy insurance
This means that you do not have to fully protect yourself against a catastrophic threat Instead, for a
fee you pass this risk to a risk broker that insures you up to some limit against the threat A real
world example of this is hacker insurance The insurance company still expects you to have a
firewall and patches, but insures should these fail
Trang 6Intrusion Detection - The Big Picture – SANS GIAC ©2000, 2001 6
Risk Management Questions
• What could happen? (what is the threat)
• If it happened, how bad could it be? (impact
of threat)
• How often could it happen? (frequency of
threat - annualized)
• How reliable are the answers to the above
three questions? (recognition of
uncertainty)
In order to decide between the choices (accept, mitigate, or transfer risk) we want to make, we
analyze the risk to better understand it.
What exactly are we afraid of? What is it - can we name it specifically or is it just a vague, uneasy
feeling?
If the threat is successful, how bad will it hurt? What is the probable extent of the damage?
How often is this likely to occur? Is this more like a hundred year flood, or a hot day in Biloxi,
Mississippi? We are more willing to accept the risk of a threat that is not likely to happen often
But, if something can damage us on a daily basis, this is a significant problem
Finally, how do we know? In the cyberworld, how accurate are our risk calculations when new
program or operating system vulnerabilities are discovered weekly?
Trang 7Have you ever wondered why Bond (James Bond) never gets shot, can jump off of an airplane
without a parachute and live, and never loses at cards? It is simple! He read the script! In fact he
may have had a hand in writing it Since they follow the script, the stunts he does are closer to
professional wrestling because he certainly knows he is going to get the bad guy – and the girl
He wouldn’t look half so composed if he was uncertain as to what was going to happen
Uncertainty then, is the heart of risk management.
Trang 8Intrusion Detection - The Big Picture – SANS GIAC ©2000, 2001 8
Risk Requires Uncertainty
If you have reason to believe there is no uncertainty,
there is no risk For example, jumping out of an airplane
two miles up without a parachute isn’t risky; it is suicide
For such an action there is a 1.0 probability you will go
splat when you hit the ground and almost 0.0 probability
you will survive
Probability ranges between 0.0 and 1.0 though people
often express it as a per cent
Jumping out of an airplane with a parachute involves risk If you were to try the James Bond stunt of
jumping out of an airplane without a chute you are committing suicide, but you aren’t doing anything
risky Risk involves uncertainty Let’s tie this back to the information assurance world.
If you run a DNS server that has known vulnerabilities and is neither patched nor shielded by the
perimeter, it is certainly going to be compromised It might not happen in a single day, but it will
happen over the course of a year In the same way that gravity is the compelling reason jumping
from a plane sans chute is near-certain death, the continuous probing and poking of exposed systems
on the Internet is the compelling reason the box will be compromised So what? How bad can a
compromise be? Well, once they compromise the box they have the ability to manipulate your
organization’s trust model If you have valuable assets, that may be what happens Or they may
just create weird system domains and hit systems all over the Internet, giving your organization a bad
name
Trang 9Intrusion Detection - The Big Picture – SANS GIAC ©2000, 2001 9
What is an Unacceptable Risk?
• You can define the threat.
• If it happened, it would be bad (high impact)
• If one shot didn’t kill you, and then it hit you
again and again (frequent threat)
• There is high certainty the threat exists, it is
high impact, and potentially could occur
multiple times.
So, it would seem that running an unpatched, unshielded DNS server is not an acceptable risk To be
an unacceptable risk, it has to be a defined threat They will compromise the DNS server, most
likely via a buffer overflow How bad would it be? If they chose to manipulate the trust model and
had several days to work without being detected - such as over the Christmas holidays - they could
make considerable headway at owning the entire organization’s information assets You might never
get them dislodged What if they chose simply to use your box to attack others?
People are usually forgiving if it only happens once, but there are domains that have been
compromised a number of times These are not usually respected and may even be blocked One of
the classics is the Brazilian Research Network This loose group of addresses has been the source of
hundreds and hundreds of attacks against Internet hosts The price? Besides being a standing joke,
legitimate users continue to find their access blocked
Trang 10Intrusion Detection - The Big Picture – SANS GIAC ©2000, 2001 10
Single Loss Expectancy
(SLE - one shot)
• Asset value x exposure factor =
How much financial loss am I willing to accept in a single event? It all comes down to money in the
end When considering one shot, or Single Loss Expectancy (SLE), we consider the value of the
information resource asset Example: a company’s top salesman accounts for 25% of their $40
million in revenue, or $10 million His client contact list and fee schedule is stored on his laptop and
is not encrypted If it fell into the wrong hands it would be worth at least 10% of its value to the
competition ($1 million) and possibly more if they can finesse the information So we find we can
calculate a minimum approximate SLE, but there is uncertainty as to a maximum value
Another example: an author takes a royalty of $100,000 to write a book He receives partial
payments every 25% of the project What is the SLE if his hard drive crashes at the 70% mark and
the data is not recoverable? 25,000 x 80% or $20,000, unless he has been sending chapters in as they
are done
Trang 11Intrusion Detection - The Big Picture – SANS GIAC ©2000, 2001 11
Annualized Loss Expectancy
(ALE - multi-hits)
• SLE x Annualized rate occurrence = Annual
Loss Expectancy (ALE)
• Annual loss is the frequency threat is
expected to occur
• Example, web surfing on the job
– SLE: 1000 employees, 25% waste an hour per
week surfing, $50/hr x 250 = $12,500 – ALE: they do it every week except when on
vacation: $12,500 x 50 = $62,500
If you are screaming “but what if??”, relax - we understand Again, a main point of the chapter is
uncertainty, this is what drives the “what ifs” The key question, however, is how much continuing
risk am I willing to accept?
Even if you can survive a given event (possibly sadder but wiser) can you survive it six times? This
is the notion of annualized risk It applies well to shoplifting - we expect to lose 9% of revenue
over N occurrences.
The information about expected losses due to cyber attacks is much harder to come up with, as
organizations do not tend to share this type of information so it is only available in the micro-view of
a given organization
Trang 12Intrusion Detection - The Big Picture – SANS GIAC ©2000, 2001 12
When Faced with Unacceptable Risks
• What can be done to
reduce/mitigate the risk?
• How much will it cost to reduce the
risk (usually annualized)?
• Is it cost effective to apply these
risk reduction measures
(cost/benefit analysis)?
The problem is that reducing risk tends to have costs We need to balance the cost of the cure (or
risk reduction) against the benefits The challenge is to determine the cost-effective fixes for the
common attacks
This is a reason the Top Ten vulnerabilities (www.sans.org/topten.htm) is such an important
document This was a consolidated effort by the security community to implement the steps shown
on this slide By going through a consensus process to agree on the known primary vulnerabilities,
we have something to target It simply makes sense to make sure information resources are
protected against these attacks
Then, the community worked to define the threats in tutorial fashion and calculate defenses against
them Much of this work was done as student practicals as part of GIAC certifications At the
conclusion of this world-wide analysis, it was then possible to execute quantitative analysis of the
risk of the Top Ten vulnerabilities with a reasonable degree of certainty
Trang 13Intrusion Detection - The Big Picture – SANS GIAC ©2000, 2001 13
Qualitative - Another Risk Assessment Approach
• Banded values: high, medium, low
• Asset value and safeguard cost can
be tied to monetary value, but not
the rest of the model
• Very commonly used
For most applications the best approach is the financial one, with the exceptions of critical systems
(such as nuclear plant control) and weapon systems However, it does take a lot more effort to
quantify what the value of things are, and so the qualitative approach is far more popular
The single biggest problem with the qualitative approach is in the implementation - people tend to
mark “low risk” even if it is other than that Or they mark “medium” or “high” for their pet peeves
as opposed to actually calculating the risk
Trang 14Intrusion Detection - The Big Picture – SANS GIAC ©2000, 2001 14
Economic vs Qualitative
• Qualitative is easier to calculate, but its
results are more subjective
• Qualitative is much easier to accomplish
• Qualitative succeeds at identifying high
risk areas
• Economic is far more valuable as a
business decision tool
The main point between the two approaches is that qualitative is much easier and when done well,
can certainly identify the areas that need attention
There is still another approach to risk assessment, this is the knowledge-based, or best practices
approach There is much more up-front work required to implement this, but the results are more
accurate and consistent
Trang 15• Knowledge-Based (best practice)
application of risk assessment
• Business case for intrusion
detection - revisited
The steps to create knowledge-based risk assessment tools are fairly straightforward:
• Identify the problem domain (e.g securing Windows NT)
• Identify the primary threats
• Identify potential countermeasures
• Select and test countermeasures
• Develop step by step instructions for implementing and auditing countermeasures
Ideally, each step should be made available for public review
Trang 16Intrusion Detection - The Big Picture – SANS GIAC ©2000, 2001 16
For knowledge-based risk assessment to be effective the developer of the system must have the knowledge
and mindset to think like an attacker!
One of the hardest things to keep in mind in building knowledge-based countermeasures is the threat
step: what are the attackers likely to do, what are their goals? If we do not do this, we tend to have
no focus in deciding what and how to protect our systems
Once we can reduce the uncertainty over what the attacker is going to target, we can focus on
protecting these assets This is done by developing countermeasures or defenses The goal is to
select countermeasures that are effective, reasonable in cost (and free if possible), and measurable
In most cases, we should be able to produce specific checklists When we are able to produce
checklists, we have reached the point where we are able to establish best practice as our security
policy
Trang 17Intrusion Detection - The Big Picture – SANS GIAC ©2000, 2001 17
Knowledge-Based Risk
Assessment
• System administration is a
high-turnover job for large organizations,
which affects continuity
• System administrators tend to be
focused on having the “trains run on
time”
• Security configuration may not be
understood or implemented
If a sufficiently developed checklist exists, this is a major benefit to organizations This can help
protect the organization against a number of problems, including turnover and training
Trang 18Intrusion Detection - The Big Picture – SANS GIAC ©2000, 2001 18
Windows NT Example
• Checklist approach designed for
two persons (check and double
check) to configure an NT to at
least minimal acceptable security
• Draws on SANS’ Securing Windows
NT Step-by-Step
• 80/20 rule applies
When I used to fly helicopters for the US Navy, I was struck by the effectiveness of checklists A
checklist is used to make sure the helicopter is ready to take off and also used before landing One
crew member reads the item, the other verifies it and states that it is correct This is a powerful
technique!
This check and double check technique is crucial for knowledge-based risk assessment One person
who knows security and risk in general and another that knows the specific technology make the
ideal team to work with the system owner to evaluate the system
Let’s look at a specific example of a checklist This is from a document series originally developed
by Stephen Northcutt when he was employed at the Naval Surface Warfare Center These have been
developed for a number of operating systems, but we will examine part of one developed for
Windows NT
Trang 19Intrusion Detection - The Big Picture – SANS GIAC ©2000, 2001 19
NAVAL SURFACE WARFARE CENTER, DAHLGREN DIVISION
IS SECURITY OFFICE, CODE CD2S WINDOWS NT COMPUTER RISK ASSESSMENT
JUNE 7, 1999 PART II (V3.1)
Risk Assessment/Countermeasure Analysis/Security Test and
Evaluation (ST&E) for Microsoft Windows NT Computer Systems.
( ) Check here if this risk assessment is used for a version of Microsoft Windows NT
prior to version 4.0 and in the section entitled "ADDITIONAL COMMENTS AND
EXPLANATIONS", state when (within the next two months) the operating system will be
upgraded to at least version 4.0.
This IS is: (Check only one)
( ) LOCATED AT NSWC DAHLGREN
( ) Complete site description is attached.
Threat and Countermeasure Check List
Mark each as True, False, or NA - not applicable.
For all items not marked as "T", indicate in the section entitled "ADDITIONAL
COMMENTS AND EXPLANATIONS" how the risk is mitigated by other means In
the absence of indications to the contrary, the Information System is operating at an
acceptable risk (accreditable) when all of the leftmost countermeasures are marked
'True'.
The person that knows security and risk in general (often an auditor or security officer) reads the
items to the person more familiar with the specific technology This person checks each item and
fills in the checklist
At the end of each section, the security officer makes the determination as to the overall risk posture
of the system
Trang 20Intrusion Detection - The Big Picture – SANS GIAC ©2000, 2001 20
a Threat/Vulnerability: Unauthorized System Access
Operating Countermeasures:
File System Configuration
( ) System is configured as NTFS file system?
( ) System Administrator has a current Emergency Recovery Disk in a locked
storage area
Accounts
( ) Guest account is not present (or is disabled)
(Check Administrative Tools, User Manager, highlight guest and hit enter)
If Guest access is allowed:
( ) Audit trails for all accesses are enabled In the section
entitled "ADDITIONAL COMMENTS AND EXPLANATIONS", describe
(1) how the audit information is collected,
(2) who reviews the audit logs, and
(3) the frequency of said review
Include the signature(s) of those conducting the review
( ) There are no Anonymous users
( ) All accounts are password protected
One this slide we see additional questions in the checklist
Trang 21Intrusion Detection - The Big Picture – SANS GIAC ©2000, 2001 21
Passwords
( ) NT password policies comply with Best Practices for NT Passwords
( ) User passwords are known only by the user
( ) Users are required to maintain unique passwords for each AIS
( ) Passcrack for Windows NT or other password tester is run at least yearly
( ) Administrator password is protected to the same level as the data
contained on the IS
( ) Password is enabled for screen saver (Control Panel, Desktop)
Access
( ) Automatic logon as Administrator is disabled
( ) RAS is NOT installed
IF RAS IS INSTALLED, describe how it is configured in a secure manner
in the section entitled "ADDITIONAL COMMENTS AND EXPLANATIONS"
( ) There are no modems connected to this Information System
IF THIS BLOCK IS NOT MARKED, describe how it is configured in a secure
manner in the section entitled "ADDITIONAL COMMENTS AND
EXPLANATIONS" Provide the phone number used for modem connection,
any security measures in place (i.e callback, securID) and purpose for connection
( ) Remote Registry access is limited to Administrators
( ) Scheduler service is disabled
( ) If Scheduler service is NOT disabled, access is limited to Administrators
This is by no means the end of the checklist On the online version, you can click on these items for
additional information about how to check
These checklists are available at www.nswc.navy.mil/ISSEC
Trang 22Intrusion Detection - The Big Picture – SANS GIAC ©2000, 2001 22
SANS’ Securing NT SBS
* Action 3.1.1 Disable the display of the last logged on username by setting the
following registry value If the value does not already exist, it must be created With REGEDT32 this
is done with the Edit menu, Add Value Enter the Name "DontDisplayLastUsername” exactly as
shown and then use the String Editor to enter a "1" Also, you can use the C2 Configuration
Manager from the NT Resource kit instead of using REGEDT32.
Hive: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE Key: Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon Name: DontDisplayLastUsername
Type: REG_SZ Value: 1
Note: In some situations it might be preferable to allow the display of the last logged
on user Certain users may not be able to remember their user name, and this would keep the
administrator from having to tell them each time they logged on Another reason to display the last
logged on username is because it will quickly let you know if someone else logged onto the machine
Not displaying the last logged on user name will only keep novice hackers from finding out which
users exist on the machine It is trivial for a determined hacker to get that information Therefore,
many administrators do not bother hiding the last logged on user name.
A similar project - also a community development effort - is the SANS Securing Windows NT Step
by Step booklet This is on its third revision, and the current editors are Jason Fossen and Stephen
Northcutt Both projects are related to one another The main difference is that in the SBS booklet
the detailed information is shown up front, and is in the help files on the NSWC checklist
Trang 23Intrusion Detection - The Big Picture – SANS GIAC ©2000, 2001 23
Windows NT Form Summary
• Benefits
– Reasonably good tool for minimal OS
security – Good form “layout”
• Limits
– Needs a list of applicable patches
– Where to get them
– Tool to determine patch status
The NSWC checklist or the SANS Securing Windows NT Step by Step checklist are not the final
answer Teams are continually re-evaluating these, fixing problems, reacting to new threats
However, these can help an organization or individual get up to speed fast
Trang 24• Business case for intrusion detection
-revisited “How to use Risk
Assessment tools!”
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Trang 25Intrusion Detection - The Big Picture – SANS GIAC ©2000, 2001 25
Intrusion Detection Roadmap
Using What We Have Learned
• Business Case for Intrusion
Detection
– How all these Capabilities Work
Together
• Future Directions
– Intrusion Detection in the Network
– Program-Based Intrusion Detection
In this next-to-last major section, we are going to summarize and use everything we have studied to
date The goal of the business case section is to give you the process and procedure tools to
supplement the technical capabilities you have learned
Trang 26Intrusion Detection - The Big Picture – SANS GIAC ©2000, 2001 26
We already spent $25K on a firewall
and now you tell me we need
Intrusion Detection?
Why you care about being able to present a business case for Intrusion Detection
Imagine you are speaking to your boss and you are telling her the organization needs an intrusion
detection system What if she replies loudly as shown on the slide How do you answer? Does this
mean the manager doesn’t understand?
There are a couple things to consider We have been talking about “the big picture” Management
wants to know the big picture – and rightfully so There is more than just the initial outlay for the
hardware and software There is maintenance, training, and the employees’ time Management
knows the purchase is just the tip of the iceberg
Their job is to manage risk - all kinds of risk, not just cyber intrusions When you tell your
management you need an IDS, they are wondering if they really need it They are wondering if they
have been remiss and the organization has been at risk all this time Why didn’t someone tell them
before this? They are also wondering, what else? If they buy the IDS this month, what will they get
hit with next month? Management does not like to be nickeled and dimed
Trang 27Intrusion Detection - The Big Picture – SANS GIAC ©2000, 2001 27
Business Case for Intrusion
Detection
• In order to present the business case we
need to convey the “Big Picture”
• We are now familiar with these core
technologies and how they play together:
– Host- and Network-Based Intrusion Detection
– Vulnerability Scanners and Honeypots
– Firewalls
In a sense, this is the section that everything points to Intrusion detection is expensive; it has a cost
It is wise to consider the cost and the benefits before embarking on this journey You have spent the
day learning about the big picture The real question is, can you explain it to your management?
Can you show them how the technologies we have talked about play together?
Trang 28Intrusion Detection - The Big Picture – SANS GIAC ©2000, 2001 28
Business Case For Intrusion
Detection (2)
• We have been introduced to a
basic risk assessment process; can
we apply this process to the
business case for intrusion
detection?
– If there is a ‘big picture’ can we apply
what we have learned to our real world environment?
The real test of this course’s value is whether you can apply what you have learned here in your
organization Every situation is different; a financial institution has different priorities than a
military organization, for example As we work though this next section, think about your
organization and whether these concepts apply If you have ideas that would help me balance or
improve this, please send me e-mail at stephen@sans.org
Trang 29Intrusion Detection - The Big Picture – SANS GIAC ©2000, 2001 29
Business Case - Applications
• Organization has no intrusion detection
and you are presenting the case for
standing up a capability
• Organization has rudimentary capability
and you want to upgrade
• Organization has central monitoring and
you are presenting the case for a
departmental capability
These are the primary situations that this section of the course has been tailored to meet Often, to
satisfy these conditions you will need a business case for the expenses and investment
Trang 30Intrusion Detection - The Big Picture – SANS GIAC ©2000, 2001 30
Business Case - Application
• Many managers are uncomfortable when
confronted with actual data about attacks
and vulnerabilities.
• You can often use any existing source of
data (firewall logs, system logs) to
leverage additional intrusion detection
financing by showing them a “smoking
gun”.
Since management is responsible for risk, if you can show them the organization was in a measurable
degree of risk they will be uncomfortable with that information The more specific and clear that
information is, the more they squirm
The idea is to take an inventory of the data sources that you have available and see if these already
show a problem
Trang 31Intrusion Detection - The Big Picture – SANS GIAC ©2000, 2001 31
RA/Getting Started
• Threat assessment and analysis
• Asset identification and valuation
• Vulnerability analysis
• Risk evaluation
• Interim report
This is not unlike the steps we go through to develop a knowledge-based risk assessment As
always, we want to identify the threats that are arrayed against our organization We compare the
effectiveness of the threat against the value of the assets it can affect We do research to find out the
known vulnerabilities and then evaluate the risk to determine whether we have a significant problem
or not This is the basis for an interim report to management
Trang 32Intrusion Detection - The Big Picture – SANS GIAC ©2000, 2001 32
PIndications and Warning
P Host Late Detection
P Host Very Late Negation
The Big Picture
P= Probability of
When considering the future, we consider the entire model
The cyberscape shown on the slide above is a tool that can be used to simplify information warfare
scenarios The key point for our purposes is to help us consider the entire world our systems exist in
Generally, unless we are playing at the information warfare level, the detection system outside the
firewall is as far out into the battle space as we are able to go
This model is called a Measure of Effectiveness, or MOE The idea is to compute the probability
of any given countermeasure being able to mitigate a given threat Again, probabilities are values
between 0 and 1, though most people express these are percents
Trang 33Intrusion Detection - The Big Picture – SANS GIAC ©2000, 2001 33
Threat Assessment - Step 1
• Are you connected to the Internet
(that you know of)? - if so:
– Do you have a firewall? - if not:
• Get one immediately
• Get a different job
People connected to the internet without a firewall
that think nothing bad has happened are sadly
mistaken.
Let’s illustrate this with a simple example We do some research and determine there are a number
of threats if our systems are exposed directly to the Internet We quickly calculate the value of our
information resource assets We do research and find there are countermeasures available, one
common one is a firewall available in price ranging from free for a Linux firewall to over $100K for
high end solutions So we issue a report to management advising them of the risk and potential loss
and also that there potential countermeasures, with a recommendation that the organization invest the
time to further evaluate the solutions
Trang 34Intrusion Detection - The Big Picture – SANS GIAC ©2000, 2001 34
Threat Assessment and Analysis
• Bad things happen to nice people; our
goal is to identify the types of threats.
– R/A purists would say we need a dictionary
of all possible threats – We will focus on fairly general threats and
choose to be as complete and specific as possible with our vulnerabilities.
• Look for evidence that these threats are
actually in use
If everything is threat-driven, how do we find the threats? Successful information security
professionals need to spend some of their time thinking about how to attack Then it becomes a lot
easier to enumerate the threats they might have to deal with I once reviewed the information system
security architecture plan for a major weapon system It was a huge document, probably cost more
to develop than I make in a decade and it listed two threats: viruses and denial of service - yikes!
There are dictionaries of threats They are often built into commercial risk assessment tools This
approach can bury the real problems in the noise The best way to focus on the real threat is to focus
on the threat vectors
Trang 35Intrusion Detection - The Big Picture – SANS GIAC ©2000, 2001 35
Threat Vectors
• Outsider attack from network
• Outsider attack from telephone
• Insider attack from local network
• Insider attack from local system
• Attack from malicious code
This slide shows our old friends - how will they get to us? The threat vector approach is taken from
the Center for Disease Control methodology What are some of the sources of attacks? If we can
identify the avenues the attack might come from, we can defend against it As we consider the
information resources that can be threatened by these vectors we are able to focus on the problem
This is also a valuable way to target effective countermeasures
Trang 36Intrusion Detection - The Big Picture – SANS GIAC ©2000, 2001 36
Outsider Attack - Internet
• Newspaper, web articles on attacks at
other places, if it happens to them…
• Hacking web sites: www.antionline.com
• Firewall/Intrusion Detection logs are an
excellent source for specific threats
• System audit trail logs are as well
• Demo an intrusion detection system
OK, so where can we get threats? Start by using the world wide web to visit www.antionline.com or
www.sabotage.org Try a few word searches for “hacker” and “exploit”
But the real eye-opener may be to actually run an intrusion detection system on your DMZ for a few
days This can allow you to catalog the actual threats directed against your site One of the
interesting things I have never been able to figure out is why some sites don’t ever seem to get
attacked, others are constantly under fire
Can’t talk an IDS vendor into a demo? Dig in to those firewall logs! Firewalls are still the number
one intrusion sensor in use
Trang 37Intrusion Detection - The Big Picture – SANS GIAC ©2000, 2001 37
How to manage your boss
(Demo an intrusion detection system)
There is no money in the budget for an IDS!
Fine, they are willing to come out here and loan us a demo for a week for free,
OK?
Free? Sure
One thing though, boss, if it does detect an attack I won’t be responsible for
knowing we are under attack and not detecting them If it finds something, we
need to come up with the funds to pay them and keep the durned thing
Umm, yeah, we’ll work something out.
Most IDS systems will let you try a loaner or download a demo copy This is a great idea, it lets you
determine if you like the system and the way things are on the Internet If it doesn’t detect anything
on your DMZ during the evaluation phase, it is not the product you are looking for
If it does detect attacks, this goes back the “smoking gun” phenomenon If you can show
management understandable metrics that they are under attack and that the firewall is not guaranteed
to stop all possible attacks (often because of the permissive firewall rules that have been added at
management’s direction for business needs), then they will likely support additional
countermeasures