IT Security Analytics

The scope of IT security analytics is broad. Threat intelligence if provided in advance will help to prevent any security incidents from occurring. Though complete mitigation of the risks is an impossible task and hence incidents are inevitable which are mostly associated with breach of data. Initially it was believed that IT security analytics was a requisite before, during and after the incident. In the past there were different products in each area, but the boundaries between them are blurring.

Blacklists and Whitelists

Threat intelligence is the lifeblood of the IT security industry. Common spam emails, malware signatures and fake URLs are included in the blacklists whereas all the applications that the users use for their legitimate purpose are included in the whitelists. IT security suppliers have access to resources at some level. However it is known that intelligence gathered before is never going to stop the unwanted security breaches from occurrence.

What can be done when an event has occurred or data have been breached? In such cases the need is to understand the extent of damage. Applying IT forensic methods like reports for internal investigation or communicating with crime investigators. Examples of such incidents include discovery of unknown malware or disgruntled employees in the company.

Guidance released a new version of Encase product called Encase analytics. These analytics collects clues to what has happened on the servers, storage systems and end user devices. Encase analytics is a network based tool where huge volume of data is involved. Encase analytics needs kernel level access across multiple operating systems to inspect registries, system data, memory, hidden data, and so on.

Network and security appliance log files are also of use. Guidance makes use of SIEM (security information and event management) tools. The benefits include ready customised reports for certain regulatory regimes like PCIDSS, the UK Data Protection Act and the mooted EU Data Protection Law. Access Data's Cyber Intelligence and Response Technology (CIRT) provides host and network forensics as well as the trickier-to-address volatile memory, processing data collected from all these areas to provide a comprehensive insight into incidents.

New Capabilities:

These new capabilities include improved malware analysis, more automated responses and real time alerts. This is all well beyond historical forensics, moving Access Data from after, to, during, and even some before capability. Access Data relies on SIEM suppliers for some of its intelligence., In the past, SIEM has also typically been an after technology. Most SIEM suppliers come from a log management background, which is the collection and storage of data from network and security system log files for later analysis.

To use intelligence from a range of sources in real time in order to identify and mitigate threats as they occur is the crux of IT security. Plenty of measures like running suspicious files in sandboxes, allowing only known good files to run, blocking access to dangerous areas of the web or judicious checking of content in use can be taken.

These are all products that help towards broader aspiration of real-time mitigation. Supplementing these with analytics across a wide range of sources during an attack provides more extensive protection. 

Some of the examples include:

• Identifying unusual traffic between servers, which can be a characteristic of undetected malware searching data stores 
• Matching data egress from a device with access records from a suspicious IP address, user or location 
• Preventing non-compliant movement of data that can be done by an ignorant employee 
• Linking IT security events with physical security systems 
• Detecting unusual access routes

The good news is more and more are making use of their ability to process and analyse large volumes of data in real time to better protect IT systems. But the bad news is that there is no silver bullet and never will be. A range of security technologies will be required to provide state-of-the-art defences and there will be no standing still. Those who would steal your data are moving the goalposts all the time and they will be doing that before, during and after their attacks.

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Secure Your Web Application Like Your Own House

An easy way to view web application security is by picturing your own house. It has a front door, a back door, windows, a number of rooms, a roof, boundary fences and different access routes. Only the terminology is different.

The Front Door. 
The front door of any web application is the login page and, not surprisingly, it is the primary point of attack. A login page will consist of edit boxes to type a user name and password and a button to send these for the server to authenticate your access to the rest of the web application. Some login pages may provide a captcha to make sure you are a human being and not a mock-up of the same form on a different server. The mock-up form will cycle through variations of user names and passwords until it gains access to the application. This is known as cross-site forgery and is akin to a burglar forging the keys to your house.

Captchas are jumbled images of scrambled letters and numbers which make it impossible for an automated script to read. Unfortunately, as the scripts become cleverer at reading these images, the captcha images need to become more complex and harder for humans to read. This causes frustration for the end-user as they have repeated failed attempts at gaining access to their account because the captcha was unreadable. The solution to this has been to replace the captcha with a secure token. The secure token is generated my joining the user name, password and any other user information available with a uniquely generated key. This concatenation is then encrypted and stored as a hidden field in the form, thus making it impossible for any mock-up form to make a successful login attempt.

The Windows and Back Door. 
What are the windows of a web application? I don't mean the operating system on the server. I'm talking about potential areas of each page which could be broken to make a forced entry. These areas are edit boxes and text areas which allow a user to type information. An attacker will use edit boxes and text areas to enter commands which the database understands. If the software is not written securely then it is very easy to interrupt the database when it is saving the data, so that it will execute the commands supplied by the attacker. Typical attacks could result in the database being destroyed, data being stolen or user information being compromised. This type of attack is known as SQL injection.

Boundary Fences. 
The boundary fences of a web page are any links, editable areas and the main URL address. The URL of the page itself and links embedded in the page can be copied and modified from another site so that commands can be executed by the server. Javascript code can be inserted into editable areas to force data to be submitted to a rogue site or to gain control of the user's web browser. Database commands can also be inserted into the main URL address. These attacks are known as cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks because they are scripts which direct the user to an attacker's own web site. XSS attacks could be used to steal a user's authenticated session identifier and use it to increase the level of access of another account they have already created.

To prevent cross-site scripting, the software must scan all editable areas for code and also include a secure token in each URL and link. Just as holes and gaps in fences should be closed. All secure pages should check for the existence of an authenticated user.

Impersonation. 
We have all experienced bogus house callers who claim to be the gas man or the water company saying they need to gain access to your house to turn off your supply. Web site attackers may contact you or any other users of your site by email, social network or telephone and trick you into revealing your login details. Reasons they may give could be that your web site has already been hacked and they can fix it if you provide them with access. The only prevention is to constantly remind your users that they should not reveal their username and password to anyone and that you as the site owner will never ask them to reveal their password. You should provide links to allow your users to reset forgotten passwords by sending them an email link with an encrypted token to guarantee its source.

Brute force entry. 
The simplest and quickest method of entry for any burglar to break into a house is to use a crowbar to prise open a door, or smash a window with a brick. 
The hi-tech version of this method is the Denial of Service attack (DoS). A DoS attack involves repeatedly targeting a web page until the web server runs out of memory and shuts itself down.

As the number of burglars diminish, the number of hackers is increasing. A burglar may have only been after financial gain, where as a hacker's motivation could be political, financial or just malicious damage. A house without any protection may never get burgled, but it is a certainty that an unsecure web site will eventually be attacked.

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