Risk Management Identifying and Assessing Risk EECS 711

Risk Management Identifying and Assessing Risk EECS 711 Philip Mein "Prakash" Pallavur Sankaranaraynan Annette Tetmeyer 1

Outline • • • Introduction Risk Management Risk Identification Risk Assessment Documenting the Results of Risk Assessment 2

In the News • “Imprudent curiosity” and ample warning? "Every single time they access a computer there's a reminder that comes up that says: The information you are about to access has Privacy Act restrictions on it and you are acknowledging that you have a need to know in order to do your job to access this file; and that if you are accessing it in an unauthorized manner, then there are potential penalties. " http: //www. cnn. com/2008/POLITICS/03/21/passport. breach/index. html 3

Introduction • Information security departments are created primarily to manage IT risk • Risk management program has two formal processes – Risk identification and assessment – Risk control 4

Knowing Ourselves • Identify, Examine and Understand – information at rest, in motion, and in use (stored, transmitted, and processed) • Initiate an in-depth risk management program • Risk management is a process – It is the safeguards and controls that are devised and implemented (due diligence is required) 5

Knowing the Enemy • Identify, examine, and understand – the threats • Managers must be prepared – to fully identify those threats that pose risks to the organization and the security of its information assets • Risk management is the process – of assessing the risks to an organization’s information and determining how those risks can be controlled or mitigated 6

Risk Management • The process concerned with identification, measurement, control and minimization of security risks in information systems to a level commensurate with the value of the assets protected (NIST) Identify the Risk Areas Re-evaluate the Risks Risk Management Cycle Implement Risk Management Actions 7 Assess the Risks Risk Assessment Develop Risk Management Plan Risk Control (Mitigation)

Accountability for Risk Management • All three communities of interest bear responsibility (IT, Info. Sec, Management & Users) – Evaluating risk controls – Determining which control options are costeffective – Acquiring or installing appropriate controls – Overseeing processes to ensure that controls remain effective – Identifying risks – Assessing risks – Summarizing findings 8

Risk Identification Process 9

Risk Identification • Risk identification – begins with the process of self-examination • Managers – identify the organization’s information assets, – classify them into useful groups, and – prioritize them by their overall importance 10

Creating an Inventory of Information Assets • Identify information assets – people, procedures, data and information, software, hardware, and networking elements – values will be assigned later in the process 11

Organizational Assets 12

Identifying Hardware, Software, and Network Assets • Many organizations use purchased asset inventory systems • Determine which attributes of each of these information assets should be tracked – Will depend on the needs of the organization and – its risk management efforts 13

Attributes for Assets • Potential attributes: – – – Name IP address MAC address Asset type Manufacturer name Manufacturer’s model or part number • Software version, update revision, – Physical location – Logical location – Controlling entity 14

Commercial Products • • Altiris Novell Zenworks Microsoft SMS CA Asset Management 15

Identifying People, Procedures, and Data Assets • Whose Responsibility ? – managers who possess the necessary knowledge, experience, and judgment • Recording – use reliable data-handling process 16

People, Procedures, and Data Assets Suggested Attributes • People – Position name/number/ID – Supervisor name/number/ID – Security clearance level – Special skills 17 Procedures Description Intended purpose Software/hardware/ networking elements to which it is tied Location where it is stored for reference Location where it is stored for update purposes

People, Procedures, and Data Assets Suggested Attributes • Data – Classification – Owner/creator/manager – Size of data structure – Data structure used – Online or offline – Location – Backup procedures 18

Classifying and Categorizing Assets • Determine whether its asset categories are meaningful – After initial inventory is assembled • Inventory should also reflect sensitivity and security priority assigned to each asset • A classification scheme categorizes these information assets based on their sensitivity and security needs – One exmple: confidential, internal, and public 19

Classifying and Categorizing Assets (Continued) • Categories – designates level of protection needed for a particular information asset • Classification categories must be comprehensive and mutually exclusive • Personnel may require alternative classification – identifies the clearance needed to use the asset type – Need-to-know, right-to-update 20

Assessing Values for Information Assets • Assign a relative value – to ensure that the most valuable information assets are given the highest priority, for example: • • • Which is the most critical to the success of the organization? Which generates the most revenue? Which generates the highest profitability? Which is the most expensive to replace? Which is the most expensive to protect? Whose loss or compromise would be the most embarrassing or cause the greatest liability? • Final step in the Risk Identification process is to list the assets in order of importance – Can use a weighted factor analysis worksheet 21

Weighted Factor Analysis Worksheet Risk Management for IT Systems (NIST SP 800 -30) 22

Data Classification Model • Data owners must classify information assets for which they are responsible and review the classifications periodically • Example: – Public – For official use only – Sensitive – Classified 23

Data Classification Model • US Military uses a five-level classification scheme as defined in Executive Order 12958: – Unclassified Data – Sensitive But Unclassified (SBU) Data – Confidential Data – Secret Data – Top Secret Data 24

Security Clearances • Personnel Security Clearance Structure: – Complement to data classification scheme – Each user of information asset is assigned an authorization level that indicates level of information classification he or she can access • Most organizations have developed a set of roles and corresponding security clearances – Individuals are assigned into groups that correlate with classifications of the information assets they need for their work 25

Management of Classified Information Assets • Managing an information asset includes – the storage, distribution, portability, and destruction of that information asset • Information asset that has a classification designation other than unclassified or public: – Must be clearly marked as such – Must be available only to authorized individuals 26

Management of Classified Information Assets • Clean Desk policy – To maintain confidentiality of classified documents, managers can implement a clean desk policy • Destruction of sensitive material – When copies of classified information are no longer valuable or too many copies exist, care should be taken to destroy them properly to discourage dumpster diving 27

Threat Identification • Assess potential weaknesses in information assets • Requires experience and good judgment • Cannot assume that each and every threat will lead to an attack • Need to prioritize and identify threats and threat agents 28

Threat Identification 29

Threat Assessment • Which threats present a danger to this organization’s information assets in its current environment? – Eliminate any threats that do not impact your organization. – Provide specific examples for the threats those that do impact 30

Threat Identification • Which threats represent the gravest danger to the organization’s information assets? – Consider probability of threat, amount of damage, or frequency that an attack can occur – Based on existing level of preparedness and used for improving information security strategy 31

Threat Identification Top three threats identified by top computing executives: • Deliberate software attacks • Technical software failures or errors • Acts of human error or failure • Do you agree? Threats to Information Security: Survey of Industry 32

Threat Identification Top four types of attack or misuse: • Virus • Laptop/mobile theft • Insider abuse of Net access • Unauthorized access to information • Any thoughts? CSI/FBI Survey Results for Types of Attack or Misuse (1999 -2006) 2007 updates availables 33

Frequency of Attacks Ask the following questions: • How much would it cost to recover from a successful attack? – Can rank potential costs (1 -5) or assign raw values – Want rough assessments, not full blown analysis • Which threats would require the greatest expenditure to prevent? 34

Frequency of Attacks • Detected attacks have been decreasing* • Some organizations also do not know if they have been attacked or not *CSI Survey 2007 (http: //gocsi. com ) 35

Vulnerability Assessment • Create asset-threat pairs. • Use the table of threats to analyze and list possible vulnerabilities for each specific asset. • Process can be somewhat subjective and based on experience/knowledge. • Use teams with diverse backgrounds (specialists, management, technically proficient users) to conduct assessment. 36

Threat Vulnerability Asset Worksheet (TVA) • TVA => Prioritized list of assets and their vulnerabilities + Threats prioritized by weights • X-axis => Prioritized set of assets with most valuable asset listed on the extreme left • Y-axis => Prioritized set of threats with most important or dangerous threat listed at the top • A grid that provides a convenient method of examining the exposure of assets • Provides a simplistic vulnerability assesment • Created in “triples” 37 EECS 711 Spring 2008 Chapter 7

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Risk Assessment Process • Many believe the most difficult aspect of risk assessment is uncovering the large number of systems and their configuration vulnerabilities that put a system at risk • In reality the challenge is deciding organization wide the value of information and intellectual property • Without this knowledge and the systems that ensure this information flows it is impossible to make a decision on how much can reasonably spent in protecting this information 39 EECS 711 Spring 2008 Chapter 7

Risk Assessment Process (contd) • In assessing risk one must know what needs to be protected and how much the information is worth • Challenges: – What system needs protection? – Which vulnerabilities pose the greates threat? 40 EECS 711 Spring 2008 Chapter 7

Risk Assessment • Process of assessing relative risk for each vulnerability • Assigns a risk rating or score to each vulnerability • No meaning in absolute terms but helps gauge relative risk associated with each vulnerable information asset • Model to evaluate risk for each info asset 41 EECS 711 Spring 2008 Chapter 7

Risk Assessment (contd) Risk Rating = Likelihood of occurrence of a vulnerability x Value of information asset - % of risk mitigated by current controls + Uncertainty of current knowledge of the vulnerability 42 EECS 711 Spring 2008 Chapter 7

Risk Assessment (contd) • Likelihood of vulnerability – Probability that a specific vulnerability will be exploited – NIST 800 -30 recommends values between 0. 1(low) and 1. 0(high) – Cannot be 0, because vulnerabilities with a likelihood of 0 should have been removed from the asset vulnerability list – External references for many asset/vulnerability combinations already exist and should be used whenever possible 43 EECS 711 Spring 2008 Chapter 7

Risk Assessment (contd) • Potential loss – Done by weighted scores based on the value of information asset – NIST 800 -30 assigns weights in broad categories 100(high value) 1(low value) 50(medium value) – Other scales use 1 to 10 or assigned values of 1(low), 3(medium) and 5(high) 44 EECS 711 Spring 2008 Chapter 7

Risk Assessment (contd) • Percentage of risk mitigated by current controls – If vulnerability is fully managed by an existing control, it can set aside – If vulnerability is partially controlled, estimate what % of vulnerability has been controlled 45 EECS 711 Spring 2008 Chapter 7

Risk Assessment (contd) • Uncertainty – It is not possible to know everything about an vulnerability – How likely is an attack against a vulnerability – How great of an impact would a successful attack have on an organization – It is an estimate made by the manager using good judgment and experience 46 EECS 711 Spring 2008 Chapter 7

Risk Assessment (contd) • Identify possible controls – For each threat and its associated vulnerabilities that have residual risk create a list of control ideas – List begins with identifying existing controls, this is to identifying areas of residual risk that may or may not need to be reduced – Residual risk is risk that remains even after existing control has been applied 47 EECS 711 Spring 2008 Chapter 7

Controls • Three categories of controls exist: – Policies – Programs (like education, training and awareness) – Technical controls (security technologies) 48 EECS 711 Spring 2008 Chapter 7

Access Controls • Addresses the admission of users into a trusted area of an organization • Each category of access control regulates access to a particular type or collection of information • Types of access controls: – Mandatory Access Control (MAC) – Non-discretionary Control – Discretionary Control (DAC) 49 EECS 711 Spring 2008 Chapter 7

Access Controls MAC • Required and Structured • Coordinated with data classification scheme • When implemented users and data owners have limited control over their access to information access • Rates information and each user to a specific level of information • Rating is called sensitivity level and a variation of this is called Lattice Based Access Control • In lattice based access controls users are assigned a matrix of authorizations for particular areas of access • Structure contains subjects and objects and boundaries associated with each subject/object pair is clearly demarked • Column attributes associated with objects are called ACL’s • Row attributes associated with subjects are called Capability Tables 50 EECS 711 Spring 2008 Chapter 7

Access Controls • Non Discretionary Controls – Determined by central authority – Can be based on roles a user plays in an organization called roles based access control – Can be based on set of tasks tied to a certain assignment or responsibility called task based access control – It makes it easier to maintain control and restrictions if individuals performing the task or role changes frequently 51 EECS 711 Spring 2008 Chapter 7

Access Controls • Discretionary Access Control (DAC) – Implemented at the discretion or option of the users – Ability to share resources in a peer to peer configuration – Allows users to control and possibly provide access to information or resources at their disposal 52 EECS 711 Spring 2008 Chapter 7

Documenting Results of Risk Assessment • Ranked vulnerability risk worksheet – Asset: List of each vulnerable asset – Asset Impact: Shows results for the asset from the weighted factor analysis (1 -100) – Vulnerability: List each uncontrolled vulnerability for that asset – Vulnerability Likelihood: Likelihood of the realization of the vulnerability by threat agent as indicated in the vulnerability analysis step (0. 1 -1. 0) – Risk Rating Factor: Calculated by multiplying the asset impact and a vulnerability’s likelihood 53 EECS 711 Spring 2008 Chapter 7

Documenting Results of Risk Assessment • Risk identification and assessment deliverables – Information asset classification worksheet (information assets and impact on or value to organization) – Weighted criteria analysis worksheet (assigns a ranked value or impact weight to each asset) – TVA worksheet – Ranked vulnerability risk worksheet (assigns a risk rating ranked value to each uncontrolled asset vulnerability pair) 54 EECS 711 Spring 2008 Chapter 7

Conclusion • Risk management examines and documents an organizations information assets to classify, prioritize and assess risk that needs to be controlled • The presence of uncontrolled vulnerabilities in high ranking assets are the 1 st priority of new controls as part of risk management Spring 2008 55 EECS 711 Spring 2008 Chapter 7 55

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