SPTechCon Boston 2013 - Introduction to Security in Microsoft Sharepoint 2013 - Antonio Maio

Introduction to Security in
Microsoft SharePoint 2013
Email: Antonio.maio@titus.com
Blog: www.trustsharepoint.com
Slide share: http://www.slideshare.net/AntonioMaio2
Twitter: @AntonioMaio2
Antonio Maio
Senior Product Manager, TITUS
Microsoft SharePoint Server MVP

2
Goal
Inform and Educate on Key SharePoint Security Features
 We know its critical in government and military deployments
 We know its critical consideration in business
 Security is still often its an after thought for many deployments
 Requires good planning
 Requires good awareness of the capabilities available
 Requires knowledge of what SharePoint cannot do

3
Agenda
 What Drives our Security Needs in SharePoint?
 Deployment Planning & Least Privileged Accounts
 Authentication
 Permissions or Authorization
 Governance and Awareness
 Web Application Policies & Anonymous Access
 Other Security Features

Why SharePoint?
 Content repository and document
management
 Extranet portals, External Portal/Site
(partner and client access)
 Information Lifecycle Management (ILM)
& workflows
 Records management
4

What Drives our Information Security Needs?
Information Security comes down to 2 or 3 drivers:
 Protecting Your Investments
(intellectual property, digital assets, competitive advantage…)
 Reducing Your Liability
(avoid compliance violations, fines/sanctions, reputation issues…)
 Public Safety or Mission Success
(protect classified information, mission plans, reputation issues…)
 Public Health
(health records, health insurance, insurance fraud/theft…)
5

What Drives our Information Security Needs?
How does this affect us as SharePoint people?
 How We Deploy SharePoint
 Control Access
 Assign Roles & Establish Repeatable/Predictable Process
 Regulatory Compliance Standards
 Auditing & Reporting Obligations
6

Deployment Planning & Least Privileged
Accounts
SharePoint is a web application built on top of SQL Server
 Best practice: to use specific user accounts for specific purposes
with least privileges
Benefits: Separation of Concerns
 Multiple points of redundancy
 Targeted auditing of account usage
 Minimize the risk of compromised accounts
Review SharePoint deployment guide before you install

3 Deployment Accounts (minimum)
1. SQL Server Service Account
 Assign to MSSQLSERVER and SQLSERVERAGENT services when you install SQL Server
(ex: domainSQL_service)
 No special domain permissions - given required rights in SQL Server during SQL setup
2. Setup User Account
 Used to install SharePoint, run Product Config Wizard, install patches/updates
 login with this account when running setup (ex: domainsp_setup_user)
 Must be local admin on each server in SharePoint farm (except SQL Server if different box)
 Before starting SharePoint setup, assign the securityadmin and dbcreator roles in SQL
3. SharePoint Farm Account
 Used to run the SharePoint farm; not just for database access (ex. domainsp_farm_user)
 After Product Config Wizard is run, prompted to provide the Database Access Account –
misnamed in UI, this is really the all powerful farm account
 Given ownership of Config database - also configures several SharePoint services
including the timer service to use Farm account as its identity
Should all be AD domain accounts (user accounts)
Do not use personal admin account, especially for Setup User Account
Configure central email account for all managed accounts

Authentication
Determine that users are who they say they are (login)
 Configured on each web app
 Multiple authentication methods per web app
SharePoint 2010 Options
 Classic Mode Authentication (Integrated Auth, NTLM, Kerberos)
 Claims Based Authentication
 Forms Based Authentication available- done through Claims Based Auth.
UI configuration options only available in UI upon web app creation
To convert non-claims based web app to claims will require PowerShell
SharePoint 2013 Options
 Claims Based Authentication - default
 Classic Mode Configuration UI has been removed
(Only configurable through PowerShell)

Permissions
Allow you to secure any information object or container
 Determine who gets access to what information objects and what type of
access
 Apply to items, folders, lists, libraries, sites, site collection…
 Do not apply to individual column field values (not a securable object)
Assigning Permissions Includes
 The user or group we are enabling with access
 The information object in question
 The permission level we are granting as part of that access
Examples
 Finance AD Group has Full Control on Library
 ProjectX-Contractor SP Group has Read access on site
 Antonio.Maio AD user has Contribute access on Document

Users Interacting with Permissions
11

12

13

14

Inherited Permissions
 Hierarchical permission model
 Permissions are inherited from
level above
 Can break inheritance and
apply unique permissions
 Manual process
 Permissive Model
SharePoint Farm
Web Application
Site Collection Site Collection
Site Site
Library List
Document
Web Application
Item
Site
Document
Document
Item
Demo Members SharePoint Group Edit
Demo Owners SharePoint Group Full Control
Demo Visitors SharePoint Group Read
Finance Team Domain Group Edit
Senior Mgmt Domain Group Full Control
Research Team Domain Group Full Control
Research Team Domain Group Full Control
Antonio.Maio Domain User Full Control

Permissions and Security Scopes
 Every time permission inheritance is
broken a new security scope is
created
 Security Scope is made of up
principles:
 Domain users/groups
 SharePoint users/groups
 Claims
 Be aware of “Limited Access”
 Limitations
 Security Scopes
(50,000 per list)
 Size of Security Scope
(5,000 per scope)
 Resources
 Microsoft SharePoint Boundaries
and Limits:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/cc262787.aspx

Fine Grained Permissions
Trend: sensitive content sitting beside non-sensitive content
Leads to customers exploring fine grained permissions
Confidential
Public
Internal
Recommendation
 Use metadata to identify which data
to protect
 User attributes (claims) to determine
who should have access
 Implemented automated solution to
manage fine-grained permissions

Governance Challenges
 Operational Management
 Change Management
 User training
 Auditing and Monitoring
 Document handling culture
 Compliance
Make End-Users
Responsible & Accountable
for Sensitive Information

Ignorance… It‟s Problematic

Responsibility vs Ignorance
 How do you consistently enforce a culture of
security awareness?
 Workers upload, send, copy, print, etc. content
 Employees are typically not aware of sensitive information or how
to handle it
 Consider applying standardized security labels –
headers, footers and watermarks
 Compliance laws dictate need for headers/footers
and watermarks.
 SharePoint‟s limited labeling capabilities are deprecated in
SharePoint 2013!

Raise Awareness
Automatically apply standardized security labels to MS Office and PDFs
Headers
Footers
Watermarks

Promote Accountability
Date & Time
Stamp
Date & Time
Stamp
Current User‟s
Name
Mark downloaded SharePoint documents with identifying information

Web Application Policies
User Permissions
 Permissions available within permission levels at site collection level
Permission Policies
 Define groups of permissions (similar to permission levels)
 Control if site collection admins have full control on any object in site col.
 Only place with a “Deny” capability (default: deny write, deny all)
User Policies
 Assign permission policies to users and groups for the entire web app
 Ex. Deny group from deleting items within an entire web app – applicable to
public facing web app
Blocked File Types
 Prevent specific files types from being added to libraries within web app

Anonymous Access
Turn on or off for web application – only making available for
sites
 Central Admin> Manage Web Apps> Authentication Providers
 Edit an Authentication Provider
 Check on „Enable Anonymous Access‟ for that provider
 Select “Anonymous Policy” for the web app
 Select zone and policy for anonymous access

 Site Owners must explicitly enable on each site (this is a good thing)
 Site Settings> Site Permissions
Anonymous Access

Other Security Features
 Information Rights Management
 Event Auditing
 Privileged Users

Questions?
Thank you!
Email: Antonio.maio@titus.com
Blog: www.trustsharepoint.com
Slide share: http://www.slideshare.net/AntonioMaio2
Twitter: @AntonioMaio2
Antonio Maio
Senior Product Manager, TITUS
Microsoft SharePoint Server MVP

Risk: Inadvertent exposure of internal data on a public web site
 All form pages and _vti_bin web services are accessible - PUBLICLY
 Modify the URL of a public facing SharePoint site:
http://www.mypublicsite.com/SitePages/Home.aspx to
http://www.mypublicsite.com/_layouts/viewlsts.aspx
 View All Site Content page is now exposed, typically in SharePoint
branding, with all site content visible
 Desired behavior: User is presented with a login page, or an HTTP error
 Accessible pages
/_layouts/adminrecyclebin.aspx /_layouts/policy.axpx /_layouts/recyclebin.aspx
/_layouts/bpcf.aspx /_layouts/policyconfig.asp /_layouts/wrkmng.aspx
/_layouts/create.aspx /_layouts/policycts.aspx /_layouts/vsubwebs.aspx
/_layouts/listfeed.aspx /_layouts/policylist.aspx /_layouts/pagesettings.aspx
/_layouts/managefeatures.aspx /_layouts/mcontent.aspx /_layouts/settings.aspx
/_layouts/mngsiteadmin.aspx /_layouts/sitemanager.aspx /_layouts/newsbweb.aspx
/_layouts/mngsubwebs.aspx /_layouts/stor_man.aspx /_layouts/userdisp.aspx
Anonymous Access and Exposure Risk

Anonymous Access and Public Facing Sites
Remove View Application Pages permission & Use Remote Interfaces
permission from Limited Access permission level
 Limited Access is what‟s used for anonymous users
 Prevents anonymous users from accessing form pages
To Do This… Turn on the “Lockdown” Feature
 Remove all anonymous access from the site
 Open command prompt and go to the folder C:Program FilesCommon FilesMicrosoft SharedWeb Server
Extensions14BIN
 Check whether the feature is enabled or not (If ViewFormPagesLockDown is listed, it's enabled):
get-spfeature -site http://url
 If not listed then we must enable it using:
stsadm -o activatefeature -url -filename ViewFormPagesLockDownfeature.xml
 To disable it:
stsadm -o deactivatefeature -url -filename ViewFormPagesLockDownfeature.xml
 Reset anonymous access on the site
Will result in users getting an Authentication Page when accessing these forms pages
Available in MOSS2007, SharePoint 2010 and SharePoint 2013
On by default for Publishing Portal Site Template – for other site templates must turn it on
manually

To prevent access to _layouts pages and web services we must also
modify web.config to include:
<location path="_layouts/error.aspx">
<system.web>
<authorization>
<allow users="?" />
</authorization>
</system.web>
</location>
<location path="_layouts/accessdenied.aspx">
<system.web>
<authorization>
<allow users="?" />
</authorization>
</system.web>
</location>
<add path="configuration">
<location path="_layouts">
<system.web>
<authorization>
<deny users="?" />
</authorization>
</system.web>
</location>
<location path="_vti_bin">
<system.web>
<authorization>
<deny users="?" />
</authorization>
</system.web>
</location>
<location path="_layouts/login.aspx">
<system.web>
<authorization>
<allow users="?" />
</authorization>
</system.web>
</location>
Anonymous Access and Public Facing Sites

SPTechCon Boston 2013 - Introduction to Security in Microsoft Sharepoint 2013 - Antonio Maio

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