Tag Archives: Awareness

Aaron Bedra on Building Security Culture

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Our good friend, Aaron Bedra, posted a fantastic piece at the Braintree Blog this morning about building a security culture. I thought the piece was so well done that I wanted to share it with you.

Click here to go to the post.

The best part of the article, for me, was the content about finding creative ways to say yes. IMHO, all too often, infosec folks get caught up in saying no. We are the nay sayers, the paranoid brethren and the net cops. But, it doesn’t have to be that way. It might take a little (or even a LOT) of extra work, but in many cases ~ a yes is possible ~ IF you can work on it and negotiate to a win/win point with the stakeholders.

Take a few minutes and think about that. Think about how you might be able to get creative with controls, dig deeper into detection, build better isolation for risky processes or even make entirely new architectures to contain risk ~ even as you enable business in new ways.

In the future, this had better be the way we think about working with and protecting businesses. If not, we could find ourselves on the sideline, well outside of the mainstream (if you aren’t there already in some orgs). 

Great work Aaron and thanks for the insights.

Threat Data Sharing in ICS/SCADA Needs Improvement

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I had an interesting discussion on Twitter with a good friend earlier this week. The discussion was centered around information sharing in ICS/SCADA environments – particularly around the sharing of threat/attack pattern/vulnerability data. 

It seems to us that this sharing of information – some might call it “intelligence”, needs to improve. My friend argues that regulation from the feds and local governments have effectively made utilities and asset owners so focused on compliance, that they can’t spare the resources to share security information. Further, my friend claims that sharing information is seen as dangerous to the utility, as if the regulators ever found out that information was shared that wasn’t properly reported “up the chain”, that it could be used against the utility to indicate “negligence” or the like. I can see some of this, and I remember back to my DOE days when I heard some folks talk along the same lines back when we showed up to audit their environments, help them with incidents or otherwise contribute to their information security improvement.

When I asked on open Twitter with the #ICS/#SCADA hashtags about what hampered utilities from sharing information, the kind Twitter folks who replied talked about primarily three big issues: the lack of a common language for expressing security information (we have some common languages for this (mitre’s work, VERIS, etc.)), legal/regulatory concerns (as above) and the perceived lack of mitigations available (I wonder if this is apathy, despair or a combination of both?). 

I would like to get some wider feedback on these issues. If you don’t mind, please let me know either in comments, via private email or via Twitter (@lbhuston) what you believe the roadblocks are to information sharing in the ICS/SCADA community.

Personally, I see this as an area where a growth of “community” itself can help. Maybe if we can build stronger social ties amongst utilities, encourage friendship and sharing at a social level, empower ourselves with new mechanisms to openly share data (perhaps anonymously) and create an air of trust and equity, we can solve this problem ourselves. I know the government and industry has funded ISACs and other organizations, but it seems to me that we need something else – something more easily participatory, more social. It has to be easier and safer to share information between us than it is today. Maybe, if we made such a thing, we could all share more openly. That’s just my initial 2 cents. Please, share yours.

Thanks for reading, and until next time, stay safe out there!  

Ask The Experts: Important SCADA Security Tips

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This time the question comes from an online forum where we were approached about the MSI Expert’s Opinions on an interesting topic. Without further ado, here it is:

Question: In your opinion, what is the single most important question that security teams should be discussing with SCADA asset owners?

Adam Hostetler (@adamhos) replies:

Do your SCADA managers and IT have a culture of security? It’s still found that many SCADA industries still have a weak culture. This needs to be changed through ongoing education and training (like the DHS training). This will help engineers and IT develop and deploy stronger network architectures and technologies to combat increasing SCADA risks in the future.

John Davis also weighed in: 

I would say the most important question to discuss with SCADA asset owners is this: do you have short term, mid term and long term plans in place for integrating cyber-security and high technology equipment into your industrial control systems? Industrial concerns and utilities have been computerizing and networking their SCADA systems for years now. This has allowed them to save money, time and manpower and has increased their situational awareness and control flexibility. However, industrial control systems are usually not very robust and also very ‘dumb’. They often don’t have the bandwidth or processing power built into them for mechanisms like anti-virus software, IPS and event logging to work, and these systems are usually made to last for decades. This makes most industrial control systems extremely vulnerable to cyber-attack. And with these systems, availability is key. They need to work correctly and without interruption or the consequences vary from loss of revenue to personal injury or death. So, it behooves those in charge of these systems to ensure that they are adequately protected from cyber-attack now and in the future. They are going to have to start by employing alternate security measures, such as monitoring, to secure systems in the short term. Concerns should then work closely with their SCADA equipment manufacturers, IT specialists, sister concerns and information security professionals to develop mid term and long term plans for smoothly and securely transitioning their industrial control systems into the cyber-world. Failure to do this planning will mean a chaotic future for manufacturers and utilities and higher costs and inconveniences for us all.

What do you think? Let us know on Twitter (@microsolved) or drop us a line in the comments below.

2 Ways to Get the Most Out of Security Awareness Training

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A good security training and awareness program is one of, if not the most important part of any effective information security program. After all, people are the ones that cause security problems in the first place and, ultimately, people are the ones that have to deal with them. Not to mention the fact that people are twice as likely to detect security problems and breaches as any automated system. Doesn’t it make sense that you should do everything in your power to ensure that all of your people are behind you in your security efforts? That they are provided with the knowledge and the tools they need to understand information security and what their responsibilities are towards it? That they are aware of how devastating an information security incident can be to the company, and consequently, how devastating it can be to them personally? Well, you’re not going to get that from having them read the policy book as new hires and then hold a two hour class six or twelve months later!

And that is traditionally how information security is dealt with in most companies. All enthusiasm for the process is absent, too. They don’t want to do this training! It costs them time and money! The only reason most companies provide any security training outside of the very basics is because of their need to comply with some regulation or another. So what you end up with is a whole group of undertrained and unenthusiastic employees. And these employees become, in turn, the very kind of security liabilities that you are trying to avoid in the first place! So why not turn them into security assets instead? You have to provide them with some security training anyway, so why not give it that extra little “oomph” you need to make it worth your while to do?

How do you go about that you may ask? Here are some tips:

    1. Make sure that they understand what an information security incident or anomaly looks like. Make sure that they know all about social engineering techniques and how Malware is spread. Give them some tips on how to recognize bogus websites, phishing emails and bogus phone calls. Let them know some of the things they can expect to see if there is a virus present on their machines. And don’t use just one format to provide them with this information. Use every method you can think of! There are many formats for security and awareness training to choose from. Group assemblies with speakers and PowerPoint presentations, lunch and learns, training days, self directed web based learning, directed webinars, security documents, email reminders, posters and pamphlets, podcasts, departmental meetings, discussion groups and many more. And make sure that management personnel, especially top management personnel, make it clear how important this task is and how much it means to them and the company. Without this support, your efforts will go nowhere.

    2. Give your people incentives that make them want to participate in the information security program. One method is to simply ask for their help. Make sure your employees understand how important the participation of each and every one of them is to the effort. People often respond very favorably to such requests. Whereas if they are simply told that they must do it, they are much more likely to be unconcerned and uncooperative. Another way is to provide them with rewards for active participation in the program. Put the names of employees who have reported security issues in a hat and have a monthly drawing for a prize or a day off. Give these people a free lunch. Give them the best parking spot in the lot for a month. I’m sure you can think of a dozen other ways to reward your employees for participating in the program. Or simply post the picture of the employee on a bulletin board or internal web page or recognize their accomplishments at group meetings. Everybody really likes to be recognized for doing a good job!

The whole idea is to turn your personnel into “net cops”. If you can do that, you can turn your own people into the best IDS system there is, and for a lot less money than you would spend on machines or hosted services…or for cleaning up a security incident!