Bored w/ Security warnings? MRIs show our brains shutting down when we see security prompts

Ever find yourself just click click clicking through every message box that pops up? Most people click through a warning (which in the land of Web Browsers usually means STOP DON’T GO THERE!!) in less than 2 seconds. The facts seem to be due to be from habituation – basically, you are used to clicking, and now we have the brain scans to prove it!

What does this mean for you? Well specifically you won’t be able to re-wire your brain, but perhaps you can turn up the settings on your web browser to not allow you to connect to a site that has the issues your web browser is warning against. Simple – let the browser deal with it and take away one nuisance.

From the study:

The MRI images show a “precipitous drop” in visual processing after even one repeated exposure to a standard security warning and a “large overall drop” after 13 of them. Previously, such warning fatigue has been observed only indirectly, such as one study finding that only 14 percent of participants recognized content changes to confirmation dialog boxes or another that recorded users clicking through one-half of all SSL warnings in less than two seconds.

via MRIs show our brains shutting down when we see security prompts | Ars Technica. (photo credit Anderson, et al)

Don’t forget to check out – www.facebook.com/hntbh if you are looking for quick reminders. The book is coming along and chapter releases are (finally) coming in April!

Methodology for the identification of critical connected infrastructure and services — SAAS, shared services..

ENISA released a study with a methodology identifying critical infrastructure in communication networks. While this is important and valuable as a topic, I dove into this study for a particularly selfish reason … I am SEEKING a methodology that we could leverage for identifying critical connected infrastructure (cloud providers, SAAS, shared services internally for large corporations, etc..) for the larger public/private sector.  Here are my highlights – I would value any additional analysis, always:

• Challenge to the organization: “..which are exactly those assets that can be identified as Critical Information Infrastructure and how we can make sure they are secure and resilient?”
• Key success factors:
  • Detailed list of critical services
  • Criticality criteria for internal and external interdependencies
  • Effective collaboration between providers (internal and external)
• Interdependency angles:
  • Interdependencies within a category of service
  • Interdependencies between categories of services
  • Interdependencies among data assets
• Establish baseline security guidelines (due care):
  • Balanced to business risks & needs
  • Established at procurement cycle
  • Regularly verified (at least w/in 3 yr cycle)
• Tagging/Grouping of critical categories of service
  • Allows for clean tracking & regular security verifications
  • Enables troubleshooting
  • Threat determination and incident response
• Methodology next steps:
  • Partner with business and product teams to identify economic entity / market value
  • Identify the dependencies listed about and mark criticality based on entity / market value
  • Develop standards needed by providers
  • Investigate how monitoring to standards can be managed and achieved (in some cases contracts can support you, others will be a monopoly and you’ll need to augment their processes to protect you)
  • Refresh and adjust annually to reflect modifications of business values

I hope this breakout is helpful. The ENISA document has a heavy focused on promoting government / operator ownership, but businesses cannot rely or wait for such action and should move accordingly. The above is heavily modified and original thinking based on my experience with structuring similar business programs. A bit about ENISA’s original intent of the study:

This study aims to tackle the problem of identification of Critical Information Infrastructures in communication networks. The goal is to provide an overview of the current state of play in Europe and depict possible improvements in order to be ready for future threat landscapes and challenges. Publication date: Feb 23, 2015 via Methodologies for the identification of Critical Information Infrastructure assets and services — ENISA.

Best, James

What do major developments in big data, cloud, mobile, and social media mean? A CISO perspective..

Tuesday afternoon the CISO-T18 – Mega-Trends in Information Risk Management for 2013 and Beyond: CISO Views session as presented focused on the results of a survey sponsored by RSA (link below).  It provided a back drop for some good conversation, but more so it gave me a nice environment to elaborate on some personal observations and ideas.  The first tweet I sent, hammered the main slide:

“Major developments with Big Data, Cloud, Mobile, and Social media” – the context and reality here is cavernous.. “

My analysis and near-random break down of this tweet are as follows with quotes pulled from the panel.

First off – be aware that these key phrases / buzz words mean different things to different departments and from each level (strategic executives through tactical teams). Big Data analytics may not be a backend operational pursuit, but a revenue generating front end activity (such as executed by WalMart). These different instantiations are likely happening at different levels with varied visibility across the organization.

“Owning” the IT infrastructure is not a control to prevent the different groups from launching to these other ‘Major developments’.

The cost effectiveness of the platforms designed to serve businesses (i.e., Heroku, Puppet Labs, AWS, etc…) is what is defining the new cost structure. CIO and CISO must

>The cloud is not cheaper if it does have any controls. This creates a risk of the data being lost due to “no controls” – highlighted by Melanie from the panel.  <– I don’t believe this statement is generally true and generally FUD.

Specifically – There is a service level expectation by cloud service providers to compensate for the lack of audit ability those “controls”. There are motions to provide a level of assurance to these cloud providers beyond the ancient method established through ‘right to audit‘.

A method of approaching these challenging trends, specifically Big Data, below as highlighted by one of the CISO (apologies missed his name) w/ my additions:

• Data flow mapping is a key to providing efficient and positive ‘build it’ product development. It helps understand what matters (to support and have it operational), but also see if anything is breaking as a result.
• Breaking = violating a contract, breaking a compliance requirement, or negatively effecting other systems and user requirements.

Getting things Done – the CISO 

Two observations impacting the CISO and information technology organization include:

1. The Board is starting to become aware and seeking to see how information security is woven within ERM
2. Budgets are not getting bigger, and likely shrinking due to expectations of productivity gains / efficiency / cloud / etc…

Rationalization on direction, controls, security responses, must be be fast for making decisions and executing…

Your ability to get things done has little do with YOU doing things, but getting others to do things. Enabling, partnering, and teaming is what makes the business move. CIO and CISO must create positive build-it inertia.

Support and partner with the “middle management” the API of the business if you will.

• We to often focus on “getting to the board” and deploying / securing the “end points” .. Those end points are the USERS and between them and the Board are your API to achieving your personal objectives.

Vendor Management vs procurement of yester-year

Acquiring the technology and services must be done through a renewed and redeveloped vendor management program. The current procurement team’s competencies are inadequate and lacking the toolsets to ensure these providers are meeting the existing threats. To be a risk adaptive organization you must tackle these vendors with renewed. Buying the cheapest parts and service today does not mean what it meant 10 years ago. Today the copied Cisco router alternative that was reverse engineered lacks an impressive amount of problems immediately after acquisition. Buying is easy – it is the operational continuance that is difficult. This is highlighted by the 10,000+ vulnerabilities that exist with networked devices that will never be updated within corporations that must have their risks mitigated, at a very high and constant cost.

Panel referenced the following report:
http://www.emc.com/microsites/rsa/security-for-business-innovation-council.htm

Thank you to the panel for helping create a space to think and seek answers, or at least more questions!

James DeLuccia IV

Information Security executives … is responsibility being abdicated?

Is “it is your decision not ours” statement and philosophy a cop-out within the Information Security sphere?

This is a common refrain and frustration I hear across the world of information security and information technology.  Is this true?  Is it the result of personality types that are attracted to these roles?  Is it operational and reporting structure?

In Audit it is required for independence and given visibility. Does not the business (the CIO) and the subject expertise (CISO) not have that visibility possess a requirement of due care to MAKE it work?

The perfect analogy is the legal department – they NEVER give in and walk away with a mumble, they present their case until all the facts are known and a mutual understanding is reached. Balance happens but it happens with understanding.

This point is so important to me, that it warranted a specific sharing of the thought.  I hope we can reframe our approach, and to follow a presentation off TED – focus on the WHY.  (need to find link…sorry)   These individuals in these roles provide the backbone and customer facing layer of EVERY business.

Thoughts and realizations made from stumbling around our community and today during RSA resulting from the presentations with underlying tones.

Always seek,

James DeLuccia

Passwords are Dead – a collaborative research effort, being presented at RSA 2013 P1

The advent of user created, managed and handled passwords as the sole means of authenticating is coming to an end. The utility of these was defined in an era based on assumptions of brute force capability, system computing power and pro-active security teams.   – After much debate and analysis … there is the thesis

This topic came up for me last year as I was working through some large amorphous business processes. The question of credentials was raised, and we challenged it. This is interesting as we had some pretty serious brains in the room from the house of auditing, security, risk, and business leaders. I am sharing my thoughts here to seek input and additional alternate perspectives – seeking more ‘serious brains’.  

I will update as feedback comes in … this and other posts will serve as workspaces to share the analysis and perspectives to consider.  I am breaking this topic across different posts to allow for edits and pointed (critical perhaps) feedback on a topic basis.  This is LIVE research, so understand impressions today may change tomorrow based on information and insight. Looking forward to collaborating, and with that … lets jump right in!

————————————————————————

Passwords are designed to restrict access by establishing confirmation that the entity accessing the system is in-fact authorized. This is achieved by authenticating that user. Passwords / pass phrases have been the ready steady tool. The challenges to this once golden child cross the entire sphere, and I’ll be seeking your collaboration through the journey up to my RSA presentation in SFO at the end of February 2013!

• False premise one – Passwords are good because they cannot be cracked
• False premise two – Password strength should transcend devices – mobile, tablets (iPad, surface)
• False premise three – Password control objectives are disassociated from the origination and intent

FALSE PREMISE ONE: (Updated Jan.31.2013)

• Passwords are great because they are difficult to break?

The idea here is that users are trained (continuously) to use complex, difficult, long, and unique passwords. The concept was that these attributes made it difficult for a password to be broken.

Lets explore what that meant… When a password was X characters long using Y variety of symbols it would take a computer Z time to break it. Pretty straight forward. (This example drawn is for a password hash that is being brute force attacked offline) This analogy and logic is also true with encryption, but it is based on poor premise:

1. Password cracking CPU cycles for a single machine are far more powerful than yesteryear, AND if we focus ONLY only on computing power, well the use of Cloud Armies to attack represent the new advantage for the cracking team
2. Password cracking by comparison pretty much made the CPU argument (and length of time to hack) moot. There exists databases FULL of every single password hash (for each type of encryption / hash approach) that can be compared against recovered passwords – think 2 excel tables .. search for hash in column A and find real world password in column B.

Interesting selective supporting facts:

• A $3000 computer running appropriate algorithms can make 33 billion password guesses every second with a tool such as whitepixel
• A researcher from Carnegie Mellon developed an algorithm designed for cracking long passwords that are made up of combined set of words in a phrase (a common best practice advice) – “Rao’s algorithm makes guesses by combining words and phrases from password-cracking databases into grammatically correct phrases.” This is research is being presented in San Antonio at the “Conference on Data and Application Security & Privacy” – New Scientist

Humans also pick awful passwords …

• Based on habit
• We trend towards the same passwords
• Based on grammer
• Our punctuation and writing habits also lend towards identification and passwords

To be continued ….. Part 2 and 3 will be shared soon, looking forward to more collaboration!

Keep seeking, everything.

– James DeLuccia IV

@JDELUCCIA