Tag Archives: General InfoSec

Ask The Experts: Online Banking

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This time we asked the experts one of the most common questions we get when we are out speaking at consumer events:

Q: Hey Security Experts, do you do your banking online? If so, what do you do to make it safe for your family? If not, why not?

John Davis explained:

I’ve been banking online for many years now and have always loved the convenience and ability it gives you to monitor your accounts anywhere and any time. There are a few simple things I do to keep myself secure. I do all the usual stuff like keeping a well configured fire wall and anti-virus software package always running. I also ensure that my wireless network is as secure as possible. I make sure the signal is tuned so as to not leak much from the house, I use a long and strong password and ensure I’m using the strongest encryption protocol available. I also monitor my accounts often and take advantage of my banks free identity theft service. One final tip; instead of using your actual name as your login, why not use something different that is hard to guess and doesn’t reveal anything about your identity? It always pays to make it as tough on the cyber-criminals as possible!

Phil Grimes chimed in with:

I do almost all my banking online. This, however, can be a scary task to undertake and should always be done with caution on the forefront! In order to bank safely on line, the first thing I do is to have one machine that was built in my house for strictly that purpose. My wife doesn’t play facebook games on it. My kids don’t even touch it or know it exists. This machine comes online only to get updated and to handle the “sensitive” family business functions like bill payment or banking.  The next thing I’ve done to protect this surface was to use a strong password. I used a password generator and created a super long password with every combination of alpha, numeric, and special characters included to reduce the risk of a successful brute force attack. This password is set to expire every 30 days and I change it religiously! Then finally, using Firefox, I install the NoScript plugin to help defend against client side attacks.

Adam Hostetler added:

Yes, I do my banking online. I also pay all of my bills online and shop online. I think the biggest thing that you can do for safety is just to be aware of things like phishing emails, and other methods that fraudsters use to try to compromise your credentials. I also always use dual factor authentication when possible, or out of band authentication, most banks and credit unions support one of these methods these days. Checking all of my accounts for suspicious activity is also a regular occurrence. 

There are also the malware threats. These are mostly mitigated by having up to date software (all software, not just the OS), up to date anti-virus software, and treating social networking sites like a dark alley. Be wary of clicking on any links on social networks, especially ones that are apps that claim they will do something fun for you. Social networks are probably the largest growing vector of malware currently, and a lot of times people install it willingly!

If you’re really paranoid, just have a dedicated PC or virtual machine for online banking.

Got a question for the Experts? Send it to us in the comments, or drop us a line on Twitter (@microsolved or @lbhuston). Thanks for reading! 

Ask The Experts: Favorite Tools

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This question came in via Twitter:
“Hey Security Experts, what are your favorite 3 information security tools?” –@614techteam

John Davis responds:

I’m in the risk management area of information security; I don’t know enough about technical information security tools to give an informed opinion about them. However, my favorite information security ‘tool’ is the Consensus Audit Group’s Twenty Critical Security Controls for Effective Cyber Defense (which is very similar to MicroSolved’s own 80/20 Rule of Information Security). The ‘CAG’ as I call it gives me as a risk manager clearer, more proactive, and detailed information security guidance than any of the other standards such as the ISO or NIST. If you’re not familiar with it, you can find it on the SANS website. I highly recommend it, even (and especially) to technical IT personnel. It’s not terribly long and you’ll be surprised how much you get out of it.

Adam Hostetler adds:

I’ll do some that aren’t focused on “hacking”

OSSEC – Monitor all the logs. Use it as a SIEM, or use it as an IPS (or
any other number of ways). Easy to write rules for, very scalable and
it’s free.
Truecrypt – Encrypt your entire hard drive, partition, or just make an
encrypted “container” to hold files. Again, it’s free, but don’t be
afraid to donate.
OCLhashcat-plus – Chews through password hashes, cracking with GPU
accelerated speed. Dictionary based attacks, and also has a powerful
rule set to go after non-dictionary based passwords.

And Phil Grimes wrote:

NMap is probably one of my favorite tools of all time. It’s veristile and very good at what it does. Using some of the available scripts have also proven to be more than useful in the field.

NetCat – This tool is extremely well rounded. Some of my favorite features include tunneling mode which allows also special tunneling such as UDP to TCP, with the possibility of specifying all network parameters (source port/interface, listening port/interface, and the remote host allowed to connect to the tunnel. While NMap is my go to port scanner, there is built-in port-scanning capabilities, with randomizer, and dvanced usage options, such as buffered send-mode (one line every N seconds), and hexdump (to stderr or to a specified file) of trasmitted and received data. 

Wireshark – Sharking the wires is one of my favorite things to do. It allows you to examine data from a live network or from a capture file on disk. You can interactively browse the capture data, delving down into just the level of packet detail you need.

What’s your favorite tool? Let us know in the comments or via Twitter (@lbhuston). Thanks for reading! 

The Media Makes PCI Compliance “Best Defense”?

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I have seen a lot of hype in my day, but this one is pretty much — not funny. Below is a link to a mainstream media trade magazine for the hospitality industry in which the claim that PCI compliance is the “best defense” hotels and the like can have against attackers and data theft.

Link: http://is.gd/cgoTz

Now, I agree that hospitality folks should be PCI complaint, since they meet the requirements by taking credit cards, but setting PCI DSS as the goal is horrible enough. Making PCI out to be the “best defense” is pretty ridiculous.

PCI DSS and other standards are called security BASELINES for a reason. That is, they are the base of a good security program. They are the MINIMUM set of practices deemed to be acceptable to protect information. However, there is, in most all cases, a severe gap between the minimum requirements for protecting data and what I would quantify as the “best defense”. There are so many gaps between PCI DSS as a baseline and “best defense” that it would take pages and pages to enumerate. As an initial stab, just consider these items from our 80/20 approach to infosec left out of PCI: Formalized risk assessment (unless you count the SAQ or the work of the QSA), data flow modeling for data other than credit card information, threat modeling, egress controls, awareness, incident response team formation and even skills gap/training for your security team.

My main problem with PCI is not the DSS itself, but how it is quickly becoming the goal for organizations instead of the starting line. When you set minimums and enforce them with a hammer, they quickly come to be viewed as the be-all, end-all of the process and the point at which the pain goes away so you can focus on other things. This is a very dangerous position, indeed. Partial security is very costly and, at least in my opinion, doing the minimum is pretty far away from being the “best defense”.

Broken Window Economics and Being “Type B”

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I am actually quite glad that this article was written. I agree with its premise and I am very glad that MicroSolved is a “type B” security vendor. I am OK with that. It fits my world view. I am OK with not being a member of the “PCI in crowd” or doing infosec “just like all of the other vendors.” In fact, I STRIVE for MSI to do it differently. I PUSH my organization to serve our clients at a higher level. I STRAIN to help them achieve leverage. I think being “type B” makes MicroSolved INVALUABLE as a security partner.

That, in my book, is worth far more than being popular, one of the crowd or getting industry trophies and certificates. Those things might be nice for some, but helping OUR CLIENTS serve their customers in a safer way is just more our focus at MSI.

Three Examples of Thinking Differently About InfoSec

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Today, I am putting my money where my mouth is. I have been talking about thinking differently about infosec as being a powerful tool in the future for several months now, but here are three concrete examples of how security folks need to think differently than they do today. (Note that some of you may have already begun to embrace these ideas – if so, awesome, you are ahead of the curve!)

#1 – Think like attackers AND defenders – We as infosec folks often get so caught up in our statements of ethics, credos and agreements about behavior that we get trapped inside them and become blind to the methods and ways of attackers. Many security folks I meet have taken such steps to distance themselves from attackers and they often show utter disdain for attackers, tools and techniques that they are essentially blind to the way attackers think. This is a dangerous paradox. If you don’t understand your opposition, you have no way of being effective in measuring your defensive capabilities. If you can’t think like an attacker, maneuver like an attacker and understand that they are not bound by the rules that you attempt to impose on them – then you will likely have little success in defending your organization against them. To better defend our assets, we have to be able and willing to understand our enemies. We have to have a realistic knowledge and capability to replicate, at the very least, their basic tools, techniques and attitudes. Otherwise, we are simply guessing at their next move. Essentially without insight and understanding, we are playing the “security lottery” in hopes of hitting the big defensive jackpot!

#2 – Deeper defenses are better defenses – We must extend defense in depth beyond an organizational approach to a data-centric approach. The closer to the data the controls are implemented, the more likely they are to be able to add security to the core critical data. (Of course, normal rationality applies here. The controls have to be rational, effective and properly implemented and managed – as always!) This is why security mechanisms like enclaving, data classification and eventually tagging are the future of enterprise security. If we start to think about our security postures, deployments and architectures with these ideas in mind today, we will be able to leverage them in their present state and eventually gain the maximum from them when they are fully ready for integration.

#3 – Think risk, not compliance – I am going to continue to talk about this, no matter how much heat I get from the “compliance guru set”. Striving for compliance with various regulations or standards is striving for the minimum. Guidance, regulations and law are meant to be the MINIMUM BASELINE for the work we need to do to separate liability from negligence.  Compliance is a milestone, not a goal. Effective understanding and management of risk is the goal. Don’t be deceived by the “compliance guru set’s” argument that meeting baselines if effective risk management. It is NOT. Regulatory compliance, ISO/PCI compliance pays little attention to and has little management for attacker techniques like vulnerability chaining, management/analysis of cascading failures or zero-day/black swan (Thanks, Alex!) evolutionary capabilities. This step requires upper management education and awareness as well, since those that control the budgets must come to see compliance as a mile marker and not the end of the race ribbon!

I hope this helps folks understand more about what I am saying when I assert than in 2008, we have to think differently if we want infosec to improve. Of course, thought has to precede action, but action is also required if we are going to change things. What is clear, from the problems of 2007 and further back, is that what we are doing now is NOT WORKING. It should be very clear to all infosec practitioners that we are losing the race between us at attackers!