COE 456 Secure Network Systems
Lecture 2: Risk Management (Part I): Identifying and Assessing Risk Feb 01, 2010
Introduction
Information security departments are created primarily to manage IT risk Managing risk is one of the key responsibilities of every manager within the organization In any well-developed risk management program, two formal processes are at work:
Risk identification and assessment Risk control
Knowing Our Environment
Identify, Examine and Understand
information and how it is processed, stored, and transmitted
Initiate an in-depth risk management program Risk management is a process
means - safeguards and controls that are devised and implemented are not installand-forget devices
Knowing the Enemy
Identify, examine, and understand
the threats to fully identify those threats that pose risks to the organization and the security of its information assets of assessing the risks to an organizations information and determining how those risks can be controlled or mitigated
Managers must be prepared
Risk management is the process
Risk Management
The process concerned with identification, measurement, control and minimization of security risks in information systems to a level commensurate with the value of the assets protected
Identify Identify the the Risk RiskAreas Areas
Risk Management Cycle Implement Risk
Implement Risk Management Management Actions Actions
Re-evaluate Re-evaluate the theRisks Risks
Assess Assessthe the Risks Risks
Risk Assessment Risk Control (Mitigation)
Develop DevelopRisk Risk Management Management Plan Plan
Accountability for Risk Management
All communities of interest must work together:
Evaluating risk controls Determining which control options are costeffective Acquiring or installing appropriate controls Overseeing processes to ensure that controls remain effective Identifying risks Assessing risks Summarizing findings
Risk Identification
Risk identification
begins with the process of selfexamination identify the organizations information assets, classify them into useful groups, and prioritize them by their overall importance
Managers
Risk Identification Process
Creating an Inventory of Information Assets
Identify information assets, including
people, procedures, data and information, software, hardware, and networking elements
Should be done without prejudging value of each asset
Values will be assigned later in the process
Organizational Assets
Identifying Hardware, Software, and Network Assets
Inventory process requires a certain amount of planning Determine which attributes of each of these information assets should be tracked
Will depend on the needs of the organization and its risk management efforts
Attributes for Assets
Potential attributes:
Name IP address MAC address Asset type Manufacturer name Manufacturers model or part number
Software version, update revision,
Physical location Logical location Controlling entity
Identifying People, Procedures, and Data Assets
Whose Responsibility ?
managers who possess the necessary knowledge, experience, and judgment use reliable data-handling process
Recording
Suggested Attributes
People
Procedures
Position name/number/ID Supervisor name/number/ID Security clearance level Special skills
Description Intended purpose Software/hardware/ networking elements to which it is tied Location where it is stored for reference Location where it is stored for update purposes
Suggested Attributes
Data
Classification Owner/creator/manager Size of data structure Data structure used Online or offline Location Backup procedures
Classifying and Categorizing Assets
After initial inventory is assembled
Determine whether its asset categories are meaningful Inventory should also reflect sensitivity and security priority assigned to each asset A classification scheme categorizes these information assets based on their sensitivity and security needs
Classifying and Categorizing Assets (Continued)
Categories
designates level of protection needed for a particular information asset
Classification categories must be comprehensive and mutually exclusive Some asset types, such as personnel,
may require an alternative classification scheme that would identify the clearance needed to use the asset type
Assessing Values for Information Assets
Assign a relative value
to ensure that the most valuable information assets are given the highest priority, for example:
Which is the most critical to the success of the organization? Which generates the most revenue? Which generates the highest profitability? Which is the most expensive to replace? Which is the most expensive to protect? Whose loss or compromise would be the most embarrassing or cause the greatest liability?
Final step in the RI process is to list the assets in order of importance
Can use a weighted factor analysis
Sample Asset Classification Worksheet
Data Classification Model
Data owners must classify information assets for which they are responsible and review the classifications periodically Example:
Public For official use only Sensitive Classified
Data Classification Model
U.S. military classification scheme
more complex categorization system than the schemes of most corporations
Uses a five-level classification scheme as defined in Executive Order 12958:
Unclassified Data Sensitive But Unclassified (SBU) Data Confidential Data Secret Data Top Secret Data
Security Clearances
Personnel Security Clearance Structure:
Complement to data classification scheme Each user of information asset is assigned an authorization level that indicates level of information classification he or she can access
Most organizations have developed a set of roles and corresponding security clearances
Individuals are assigned into groups that correlate with classifications of the information assets they need for their work
Security Clearances (Continued)
Need-to-know principle:
Regardless of ones security clearance, an individual is not allowed to view data simply because it falls within that individuals level of clearance Before he or she is allowed access to a specific set of data, that person must also need-to-know the data as well
Management of Classified Information Assets
Managing an information asset includes
considering the storage, distribution, portability, and destruction of that information asset
Information asset that has a classification designation other than unclassified or public:
Must be clearly marked as such Must be available only to authorized individuals
Management of Classified Information Assets
Clean Desk policy
To maintain confidentiality of classified documents, managers can implement a clean desk policy When copies of classified information are no longer valuable or too many copies exist, care should be taken to destroy them properly to discourage dumpster diving
Destruction of sensitive material
Threat Identification
Any organization typically faces a wide variety of threats If you assume that every threat can and will attack every information asset, then the project scope becomes too complex Manage each step in the threat identification and vulnerability identification processes separately
to make the process less unwieldy
Coordinate the process at the end
Identify And Prioritize Threats and Threat Agents
Each threat presents a unique challenge
Must be handled with specific controls that directly address particular threat and threat agents attack strategy each threat must be examined to determine its potential to affect targeted information asset
Threat assessment
Vulnerability Assessment
Steps revisited
State: Information assets of the organization identified and some threat assessment criteria documented Action: Begin to review every information asset for each threat
Create list of vulnerabilities that remain potential risks to organization
Vulnerabilities
specific avenues that threat agents can exploit to attack an information asset a list of assets and their vulnerabilities has been developed
At the end of the risk identification process,
Introduction to Risk Assessment
The goal at this point is to create a method to evaluate relative risk of each listed vulnerability
Risk Identification Estimate Factors
Risk is The likelihood of the occurrence of a vulnerability Multiplied by The value of the information asset Minus The percentage of risk mitigated by current controls Plus The uncertainty of current knowledge of the
Likelihood
Likelihood
estimation of the probability that a threat will succeed in achieving an undesirable event the overall rating - often a numerical value on a defined scale (such as 0.1 1.0) - of the probability that a specific vulnerability will be exploited
Using the information documented during the risk identification process
assign weighted scores based on the value of each information asset, i.e. 1-100, lowmed-high, etc
Assessing Potential Loss
To be effective, the likelihood values must be assigned by asking:
Which threats present a danger to this organizations assets in the given environment? Which threats represent the most danger to the organizations information? How much would it cost to recover from a successful attack? Which threats would require the greatest expenditure to prevent? Which of the aforementioned questions is the most important to the protection of information from threats within this organization?
Mitigated Risk / Uncertainty
If it is partially controlled,
Estimate what percentage of the vulnerability has been controlled an estimate made by the manager using judgment and experience It is not possible to know everything about every vulnerability The degree to which a current control can reduce risk is also subject to estimation error
Uncertainty
Risk Determination Example
Asset A has a value of 50 and is the No. 1 vulnerability
likelihood of 1.0 with no current controls assumptions and data are 90% accurate
Asset B has a value of 100 and has two vulnerabilities
Vulnerability #2
likelihood of 0.5 with a current control that addresses 50% of its risk likelihood of 0.1 with no current controls
Vulnerability # 3
assumptions and data are 80% accurate
Risk Determination Example
Resulting ranked list of risk ratings for the three vulnerabilities is as follows:
Asset A: Vulnerability 1 rated as 55 =
(50 1.0) 0% + 10% (100 0.5) 50% + 20% (100 0.1) 0 % + 20%
Asset B: Vulnerability 2 rated as 35 =
Asset B: Vulnerability 3 rated as 12 =
Identify Possible Controls
For each threat and its associated vulnerabilities that have residual risk, create a preliminary list of control ideas Three general categories of controls exist:
Policies Programs Technical controls
Access Controls
Access controls specifically
address admission of a user into a trusted area of the organization information systems, physically restricted areas such as computer rooms, and even the organization in its entirety a combination of policies, programs, and technologies
These areas can include
Access controls usually consist of
Types of Access Controls
Mandatory Access Controls (MACs):
Required Structured and coordinated with a data classification scheme When implemented, users and data owners have limited control over their access to information resources Use data classification scheme that rates each collection of information
Types of Access Controls (Continued)
Access Control Matrix Access Control List
the column of attributes associated with a particular object is called an access control list (ACL) The row of attributes associated with a particular subject
Capabilities
Types of Access Controls (Continued)
Nondiscretionary controls are determined by a central authority in the organization
Can be based on rolescalled role-based controlsor on a specified set of tasks called task-based controls Task-based controls can, in turn, be based on lists maintained on subjects or objects Role-based controls are tied to the role that a particular user performs in an organization, whereas task-based controls are tied to a particular assignment or responsibility
Types of Access Controls (Continued)
Discretionary Access Controls (DACs) are
implemented at the discretion or option of the data user
The ability to share resources in a peerto-peer configuration allows
users to control and possibly provide access to information or resources at their disposal general, unrestricted access, or specific individuals or sets of individuals to access these resources
The users can allow
Documenting the Results of Risk Assessment
The goal of the risk management process:
Identify information assets and their vulnerabilities Rank them according to the need for protection wealth of factual information about the assets and the threats they face information about the controls that are already in place
In preparing this list, collect
The final summarized document is the
Documenting the Results of Risk Assessment (Continued)
What are the deliverables from this stage of the risk management project? The risk identification process should designate
what function the reports serve, who is responsible for preparing them, and who reviews them
Risk Identification and Assessment Deliverables
