Dr. Philip Cao (aka #DrPC), EDBA, MSCS, ZTX-I, CCISO, CISM, CMSC, CCSP, CCSK, CASP, GICSP, PCSPI is a Strategist, Advisor, Educator, Contributor and Motivator. He’s also a Cyber | Zero Trust Strategist & Evangelist and Chief Trust Officer. He has 24 years’ experience in IT/Cybersecurity industry in various sectors & positions.
For a long time, organizations and individuals have relied on third-party services relating to data, information systems, and infrastructure, and many lessons have been learned in the process.
Cloud computing has established itself as a potentially valuable addition to the portfolio of third-party services. But cloud computing can introduce several issues for data owners, particularly when the data is considered sensitive in terms of confidentiality, access rights and privileges.
While the benefits of cloud computing are easy to understand (e.g., lower cost, flexibility, transfer of accountabilities for operational activities), it is prudent to remember the old adage, “If it looks too good to be true, it probably is,” and devote time to a detailed assessment of the issues described in our recent Journalarticle.
Cloud-related issues raised in conference discussions and various publications focus on concerns such as:
Data ownership and what the service provider is or is not allowed to do with this data
The use of encryption and management of the encryption keys and digital certificates
Identity and access management
Compliance with data protection legislation, particularly about the location of the data
Compliance with privacy protection legislation
Terms of contract, including the right to audit the service provider
Confidentiality and nondisclosures by the service provider
Access rights to data by the personnel of the service providers and its suppliers or service providers
Guarantees that in the case of termination of a contract there will be no copies of data left with the service provider
Other issues that could effect cloud computing are:
The impact on the data owners if the service provider goes out of business or is the target for an acquisition by a third party
The feasibility of terminating a contract and migrating the data (and related services) to another service provider
The real issue may be one of timing—the cloud is likely to be part of the service portfolio offered by third parties for many years to come. Optimists and risk takers will no doubt gain the benefits of cloud computing sooner and gain valuable experience in doing so. Those whose risk appetite is limited and deal with custom, critical applications may choose to wait until the issues discussed in ourJournal article have been addressed and resolved appropriately.
The Cybersecurity Canon is official, and you can now see our website here. We modeled it after the Baseball or Rock & Roll Hall-of-Fame, except for cybersecurity books. We formed a committee to get the process up and running and since my company — Palo Alto Networks– decided to sponsor the initiative, we’re now live with an official web presence.
We have 20 books on the initial candidate list but we are soliciting help from the cybersecurity community to increase the number to be much more than that. The committee will select inductees to the Cybersecurity Canon each, and we are now seeking books to put on that candidate list.
In order to do that, we need passionate readers like yourself to write book reviews for the website. The Cybersecurity Canon is an exciting idea. If you are a lover of great cybersecurity books – fiction, nonfiction, fanciful, technical — I hope you will support our cause. If you have a book that you absolutely love — and everybody that I talk to about this subject does — then please write a book review and get it nominated for the candidate list. The Cybersecurity Canon is a real thing for our community. We have designed it so that you can directly participate in the process. Please do so!
Introduction
I have been in the cybersecurity business for a long time and have consumed my fair share of books on the subject. In my basement, I have an entire library of titles that I know you would recognize as being famous at one time or the other in the past 25 years. A while back, I was perusing my collection and feeling superior to no one in particular because I had read these tomes when I suddenly realized that, although I remembered the gist of most of the titles, I did not remember a lot of the details. Frankly, I was a little embarrassed. I used to think that I was well read. The fact that I could not remember the details was a little disheartening and an indicator of how old I was. Right there in the basement, I decided to do something about it.
The Story
I gave myself the task of re-reading some of the more interesting books with the intent to take notes on the details so I could remember them in the future. Those notes eventually turned into book reviews that I published for my customers when I worked at iDefense. When I left iDefense, the new GM, Jason Greenwood, gave me permission to re-publish those reviews on my own personal blog site (Terebrate) as a service to the cybersecurity community. When I joined Palo Alto Networks, I re-published that collection on the Palo Alto Networks public-facing research blog in order to service a wider audience and start to build some community around the idea of a Canon.
After a couple of years of doing those reviews, I had a collection of about 20 that I thought represented the cybersecurity community. The reviews explained how these books told our cybersecurity history, explained our culture or represented the current and best thinking on a myriad of topics like cyber crime, cyber warfare, cyber hactivism, cyber espionage and privacy in a digital age.
I began to get the idea that this collection, and probably about a 100 more books that I had not reviewed or identified yet, made up a set of cybersecurity books that everybody in our community should have read at some point during their careers. Our community really needs a Cybersecurity Canon.
From The Free Dictionary, a canon “is a group of literary works [that the community generally] accepts as representing a field.” I presented this idea at the annual RSA Conference in San Francisco this year (2014) and it was well received — so much so that Palo Alto Networks decided to sponsor the concept. We decided to build the official Cybersecurity Canon
Not Just Technical Books
As I came up with my initial list, I considered the kinds of books that should be included in the Canon. I originally thought that it would be a collection of technical books. However, I soon discovered that although authors have published many fine books in this area, the technology evolves so rapidly that most of these books are now dated.
The idea of a Cybersecurity Canon, however, is to collect a set of books whose content is everlasting. Books that were very good upon initial publication but are no longer relevant today don’t meet the criteria to be included in the Cybersecurity Canon in most cases. There are technical books on my original list of 20 for sure, but they did not dominate the list like I had expected. So I turned my attention more broadly to non-fiction books; books where the authors detailed an important part of our culture or history or were able to capture the essence of a particular topic.
Finally, I considered novels. I know; that sounds strange that fiction might be included in a canon about a highly technical field. But it occurred to me that the target audience for the Cybersecurity Canon is not just a bunch of grizzled security veteranslike me. We might want to catch the attention of young people who have not decided yet if they want to join our community. If we can get them excited about the topic within a fictional setting, as long as the cyber is accurate and the details are enough to open some interesting discussions about the cyber landscape, then fiction should be eligible to be considered.
At the Palo Alto Networks Ignite 2014, our annual customer event, I selected Parmy Olson’s We Are Anonymous as the first book to induct into the Cybersecurity Canon. I delivered the same talk that I gave at the RSA Conference to the Ignite crowd, but this time we brought Parmy onto the stage at the end for a Q&A session. Afterward, Parmy stuck around and talked to the crowd and signed her book for all comers. We had a blast. All of a sudden, the Cybersecurity Canon had become a real thing.
The Tech
Right after Ignite, I formed a committee of prominent cybersecurity experts (including Parmy) and the team began building the infrastructure and mechanics to annually select one or more books from my initial list of 20, and other books that we have not yet identified or reviewed, into the official Cybersecurity Canon. I am happy to say that we launched the official website just a few weeks ago. Go take a look.
What does this mean to you? Well, we need your help. While the committee will select new inductees from the Candidate list every year, what I need from you is help building the candidate list. I expect the canon to grow over the years to include over 100 titles, which means the candidate list should be at least twice that size.
So here’s the ask: We need you to nominate books for the candidate list, but in order to nominate a book for the candidate list, you must submit a book review. This may seem onerous to you at first but bear with me. A review accomplishes two things: First, the book review will get posted immediately, once approved, and we won’t have to wait for a committee member to read the book and write a review. (A system like that would take months and create a bottleneck). Second, and maybe more importantly, you have to feel strong enough about your nomination to put some skin in the game. If you feel passionately about putting your book on the candidate list, you should at least have enough passion to spend a few hours and tell us why. So please, submit as many nominations as you wish, but first write a book review for each. The requirements for the book reviews are listed on the Cybersecurity Canon website.
We are accepting nominations for the Cybersecurity Canon Candidate list through the end of November 2014. Between December 2014 and February 2015, the committee will finalize the list of books on the candidate list. In February 2015, we will open the candidate list to the community for voting. The committee will consider the will of the cybersecurity community in deciding which books to include into the Canon in 2015. If all goes well, we will announce the winners at Ignite 2015 – taking place March 30-April 1 in Las Vegas – and we expect to have the winning authors on-hand to sign books. How great is that?
Conclusion
The Cybersecurity Canon is an exciting idea. If you are a lover a great cybersecurity books, I hope you will support our cause. If you have a book that you absolutely love, then please write a book review for it and get it nominated for the candidate list. The Cybersecurity Canon is a real thing for our community and we have designed it so that you can directly participate in the process. Please do so.
Once in a while, you come across a story that grabs your attention and makes you wonder how it would apply to your own situation. Last year, one such story was the film ‘Her.’ It portrayed an everyday person falling in love with an everyday technology called OS1 and its voice Samantha. The analogy? We meet customers every day who tell us that they’ve fallen in love with our platform. So in honor of our customers, meet PAN-OS…
Unit 42 examines an information stealer campaign that leveraged a VBA macro script and focuses on its progression, from delivery to Command and Control (C2), and its attribution to a malicious actor for context on objectives and motivation.
Because many businesses are aggressively pursuing Internet of Things (IoT) initiatives with the goal of creating revenue-generating opportunities, Isabelle Dumont touches on the importance of protecting critical infrastructure, properly securing all devices that are connected to the Internet, and how best to approach security of IoT.
Check out Rick Howard’s interview with ISMG’s Tom Field on “How to Put Survey Results to Work,” where he talks candidly about his gut reaction to the recent Advanced Persistent Threats Survey results, the latest APT tactics and solutions, and how organizations should approach 2015 security investments.
We’re on the road with VMware and VMUG in the U.S. and Canada to discuss how you can strengthen your data center security without compromising application performance. Find an event near you to learn best practices for implementing advanced security services in a SDDC, to hear customer insights for deploying VMware NSX with micro-segmentation, and to get hands-on experience test-driving an integrated VMware-Palo Alto Networks solution.
PAN-DB is our URL and IP database, designed to fulfill an enterprise’s web security needs. PAN-DB is tightly integrated into PAN-OS, providing you Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) protection with high-performance beyond traditional URL filtering. Here are a few web security tips from Tsugunori Sugawara on how PAN-DB works.
Read about how RWE selected Palo Alto Networks to guard high-stakes financial and energy data from endpoint exploits in this month’s Customer Spotlight.
We’re on the road across North and South America with Citrix and CA for the next few weeks, talking about how enterprises can streamline virtualized data centers, radically simplify network services for delivering critical applications and reduce complexity and cost – all without sacrificing performance and security. Join us at an event near you.
Here are upcoming events around the world that you should know about:
To celebrate the 11th annual National Cyber Security Awareness Month (NCSAM), (ISC)² has released its fifth and final set of tips by its Application Security Advisory Council: tips for more secure software.
“Make sure your business functionality maps to a security plan (i.e., security is built-in, not bolted-on).
Design your software with the future in mind, not just of the now (i.e., it is adaptable to talent-, technological- and threat- changes).
Don’t develop your software if your modus operandi is, ‘You start coding, I will go find out what they want.’ This is not agile programming.” -Mano Paul, CISSP, CSSLP, GWAPT, GSSP-.Net, MCAD, MCSD, CompTIA Network+, ECSA, Founder & CEO, SecuRisk Solutions and Express Certifications; Founder, HackFormers
“Always question what data you should trust. Where does your application really start and end?
Study your configurations to ensure you’re not leaving your software open to being hacked.
Understand the protections that are naturally within your platform, and USE them.” -Glenn Leifheit, CISSP, CSSLP, Principal Security Architect, Microsoft
“Look into the CSSLP! Secure software involves more than just writing code. Test, Test, and Test your code some more!
Think ‘Dysfunctionally’. ‘Dysfunctional Testing’ involves not just testing your software for how it should work, yet also how it should not work. Test abuse cases.
If you don’t test your software for security vulnerabilities, others will on your behalf in the field. Vulnerability test your product before it is released.
Fuzz, fuzz, and fuzz test your protocols some more.
DevOps is an important component of helping to make secure software.
Everyone has a role in helping make software secure. Secure software requires executive support, program management, product management, marketing, incident response teams, testers, developers, and release teams. We must work together to make secure software.” -Tony Vargas, CISSP-ISSAP, CSSLP, Security+, Co-Founder, Chairman & President, (ISC)2 Sacramento Chapter; Chair, (ISC)2 Application Security Advisory Council
“If you’re developing software, the OWASP Cheat Sheets [authored in part by ASAC member Tom Brennan] should be helpful: https://www.owasp.org/index.php/OWASP_Cheat_Sheet_Series” -Tom Brennan, CISSP, Global Vice Chairman, OWASP Foundation; Founder, proactiveRISK and CyberTOOLBELT
It’s a full-blown crisis when a dozen major financial services firms admit to having their networks probed by the same attackers as those behind the JPMorgan Chase breach.
The one thing the seemingly never-ending string of security breaches highlights is the fact that the current online trust model as we know it is broken. The security compromises at JPMorgan Chase, Home Depot, Dairy Queen, and elsewhere are proof that it is time for industry stakeholders to go back to the drawing board. Clearly, the old model of throwing resources at perimeter defenses, sticking in a few intrusion and anomaly detection tools, patching, and praying is not working.
It’s bad enough when major retailers like Home Depot get compromised. It’s much worse when JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s largest bank, says intruders were able to break into its systems and steal data on a staggering 83 million consumer and commercial accounts. Having served as the Chief Information Security Officer at Fifth Third Bank and Bank One, respectively in Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio, I can speak from personal experience. It’s a full-blown crisis when more than a dozen major financial services companies admit to having their networks being probed for weaknesses by the same attackers as those behind the Chase breach. This reflects the increasing technical sophistication and the audacity of those behind these attacks.
It’s not just banking and the retail industry that are vulnerable. Other sectors, some of them in critical infrastructure industries such as electric sector companies, are also dangerously exposed to similar threats from motivated, highly skilled adversaries. If the recently disclosed breaches are any indication, many of them are likely already compromised and don’t know it.
While it’s easy to blame the victims for their predicament, the problems go much deeper. It is hard to believe that an organization like JPMorgan Chase simply allowed intruders to waltz into its systems and walk away with all those credentials. According to Jamie Dimon, the company’s chief executive officer, JPMorgan Chase spends $250 million annually on computer security. Over the next five years, the bank plans on doubling that amount to minimize the risk of same thing happening again.
A lucky break for hackers?
That intruders were able to break through even the defenses that this kind of money can buy only proves the old adage: The bad guys only need to get lucky once. As Dimon noted in remarks at a financial service event in Washington recently, defending enterprises is also about internal protection, vendor protection, and about securing against everything that touches the enterprise network. “There will be a lot of battles,” he said. “Unfortunately some will be lost.”
Retailers, for instance, are frequent targets because magnetic stripe credit and debit cards used in the US are so easy to compromise. Migrating the payment system to smartcards based on the Europay MasterCard Visa (EMV) standard will make it much harder for criminals to clone and use stolen card data, thereby making it more difficult for hackers to take advantage of retailers.
Breaches like the one at Dairy Queen spotlight the need for all enterprises to pay attention to third-party service providers and the entire supply chain. Dairy Queen says attackers used login credentials belonging to a third-party vendor to access its networks and steal cardholder data belonging to customers across 400 store locations. DQ is not the first company to be victimized by a lapse at a third-party, and it won’t be the last.
At the end of the day, despite the wealth of technologies in a computer network, someone is still going to find a way to get in if they are determined and patient enough. The focus has to be not only on detection, response, and mitigation, but also on prevention. It needs to about reducing the overall risk profile.
It takes a village
Security vendors, hardware manufacturers, and cloud service providers need to be willing to work together to address the vulnerabilities that allow breaches to happen so often. Threat information sharing is a vital component of this partnership. One of the reasons perpetrators of the JPMorgan attack probed other financial services companies was because they figured their best chance of getting in would be before the banks started alerting each other about unusual activity. Better information sharing among enterprises, vendors, and other stakeholders should help deter such behavior.
Similarly, technologies such as one-time-use credit card numbers that change randomly with each transaction could make it more difficult for criminals to steal from retailers. Even simple measures like giving consumers the ability to specify spending limits over a particular time period could reduce fraudulent use of stolen cards.
There are no silver bullets, but if protection could extend across the entire supply chain, enterprises and the consumers they serve would be better protected. For instance, make it easier for enterprises to discover and secure applications based on employee use and business criticality. Tools such as strong encryption, key management, tokenization, and data loss prevention can help companies protect data in the cloud more efficiently.
Getting security right in this environment of non-stop breaches presents a huge opportunity for cloud and security providers to innovate. Addressing security comprehensively across private sector companies can create an environment that is resilient and transparent, and will allow us to prosper over the long term.
Bob West has more than a decade in security leadership roles with financial and professional services organizations where he oversaw security strategy and audit-and-compliance across global teams. He has held Chief Information Security Officer roles at Fifth Third Bank and Bank One, led Ernst & Young’s security practice, and was a Senior Systems Officer with Citicorp. He most recently served as founder and CEO of Echelon One, a fast-growing risk consulting firm. Bob has served on the advisory boards of Securent (acquired by Cisco) and TriCipher (acquired by VMWare), and as a member of RSA Security’s Customer Advisory Council and the ISS Customer Advisory Council. He was also a member of the IT Sector Coordinating Council and of the International Cybercrime Subcommittee.
![(Source: Joe Mabel [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons)](https://i0.wp.com/img.deusm.com/darkreading/2014/10/1317043/Top_of_JPMorgan_Chase_Tower.jpg?w=525)
