RSA 2014 – 2 themes from Tuesday

A fresh post in a long while ..

So, after writing for clients and my research being all consuming this past year I am re-focusing time in my day to share observations and thoughts. Why? Quite simply I learn more when I write; share, and get feedback then living in an echo chamber. How will this benefit the world/you.. simple, you will share in the knowledge I gain from sweat and toil and learn through the same iteration cycle as I. I also will begin focusing my posts on my dedicated portal for such topics and (attempt) to limit my writings here to on-topic. I hope you will continue to join me on the new(er) site and the other media platforms.

Also, I am trying to aim for a high iteration format instead of the long form of old. Meaning, shorter (I hope) posts that are succinct on ideas without the typical pre/post writings that are common in most write-ups. My ask, please share, challenge, and seek to understand my perspective – as I will do for you.

Onward then …

Today is RSA day and 2 themes that are evident and of most importance based on several large client discussions; analyst discussions; and a few researchers I had the privilelege of speaking with today:

1. Communicating the WHY is of paramount importance today (WHY are we spending security budgets on X assets? WHY are our practices for managing enablement between development, operations, and security out of sync? Etc..)
2. Passive Resistance (my phrase, but after a day of hearing about NSA, RSA, Crypto architects disowning responsibility for operational deployment, and “enable” privacy, security this is where I landed) is the idea of persons and organizations being asked to respond to these threats in a manner that impings their capabilities. There are many problems with this stated position, but I shall leave that for another day and your own pondering

Businesses must address #1 and be extremely cautious with #2, and #2 will be a heavy discussion during my RSA session on Thursday for all that are present. If you are unable to attend, I will as usual post my work and research in note form online. Looking forward to learning and expanding my thinking with you.

Best,

 

James

 

Posted with Blogsy

My RSA 2013 Conference Session details

I am looking forward to seeing the world in San Francisco for the RSA Conference this year!  It is always such a rich experience speaking with everyone throughout the week.  I have the privilege of speaking during one of the sessions, and invite all to stop by before and after for greater dialogue.

I am open to all suggestions on new research and new ideas in the ongoing adventure of developing information technology organizations balancing security and compliance.  A good deal of interest in managing the complexities of the abstraction of services and challenging the assumptions of our time.

You can reach me @jdeluccia during the event.

Here is the link to my RSA Conference details.

Always seeking,

James DeLuccia IV

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!

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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