Your Directory Has Been Breached – landing page
This is a landing page for a project Bob Bobel and I have been working on recently. Today (May 30th, 2012), I am presenting the first draft of the slides which will be posted shortly. A white paper is due out shortly. All information will be posted on this page, so it will be revised in the coming weeks.
(2012-05-30 - 13:00 ET)
First up, here is Bob's initial post on the topic:
http://www.bobbobel.com/active-directory-was-compromised-now-what/
(2012-05-30 - 16:15 ET)
Here is the slide deck just presented at the Department of Energy NLIT Conference (National Laboratories IT Summit):
http://www.federalcto.com/quest/breached-directory.pptx
(2012-06-05 - 18:00 ET)
Here is the first (rough) draft of the document to correspond with the slides. Yes, whole sections are missing, and will be filled in during the coming weeks. Stayed tuned.
http://www.federalcto.com/quest/breached-directory.docx
Think there’s no cold war?
You think the cold war is over? You think things have settled? Have a read of this article - Full on hacking and cyber warfare is going on as we calmly surf the web. Have a read of this Business Week article: China-Based Hacking of 760 Companies Shows Cyber Cold War
US Government Smartcards; CAC, PIV and PIV-I
Recently, I had the pleasure of trying to get some government certified smart cards for some of the technical people at Quest, and I can't believe how much of a headache and hassle it was. I actually don't work for Quest Software, but a subsidiary (Quest Software Public Sector) which is focused on the public sector space. And while most Quest employees don't have a need for government-issued or government approved smart cards, our company does. And while I knew that non-government employees can get a relatively new (a little over a year old) flavor of the PIV card called PIV-I, I was amazed at how difficult the process was to navigate. Thankfully, we have some pretty good and persistent purchasing folks, but the process is still pretty arduous for an organization that has been working with the government for years.
I won't get into all the details, but if you're interested, feel free to contact me offline.
In any case, I find myself constantly having to explain what the different is between a smart card, a CAC, a PIV card, and now a PIV-I card. A smart card is pretty straight forward - it's a generic term, and all the other cards fall into this category. You can find a lot more details on them here at Wikipedia. In any case, the thing that makes a smart card a CAC (which means Common Access Card, so please don't say, "CAC Card" as it is redundant) is that it is used by the US DoD (Department of Defense). If you want to do any work on government systems in the military, you will most likely need one of these.
Like their military counterparts, employees within civilian agencies also need smart cards. Of course, they opted for a similar, but not the same, standard. That standard is a PIV card (Personal Identification Verification). The cards are slightly different from CACs, and have varying information printed on them, depending on the issuing agency. Plus, they use a different set of CA (Certificate Authority) servers than the ones that CACs use, as the DoD have their own servers.
Finally, and this is the confusing thing, there are PIV-I cards. PIV-I stands for PIV-Interoperable. There are some great docs about PIV and PIV-I at www.idmanagment.gov which is a site run by GSA but I'll save you the trouble of wadding through a lot of documentation. The PIV-I FAQ here states:
2.2 What is the difference between a PIV-I Card and a PIV Card?
The term “PIV Card” may only be used to describe an identity card that is fully conformant with Federal PIV standards (i.e., FIPS 201 and related documentation). Only a Federal entity is capable of fully meeting these standards and issuing a PIV Card. A PIV-I Card meets the PIV technical specifications of NIST SP 800-73 and is issued in a manner that may be trusted by Federal Government Relying Parties, but does not meet all of the requirements of FIPS 201.
What does this mean? A Federal entity (aka employee) uses a PIV card, and a trusted, non-government entity has to use a PIV-I card.
So there you go. In summary:
- CAC is for Department of Defense users
- PIV is for civilian users working for the Federal government
- PIV-I is for non-Federal entities that need to access government systems
VDI – nothing like watching the lightbulb go on!
I was a conference for a Federal agency this week, and had a fantastic experience with a (prospective) customer. We were talking about this and that, but the conversation worked it's way around to mobile computing. And while agencies are announcing "mobile initiatives" left and right, the reality is that everyone is still really concerned about what BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) means.
My friend, Joe Baguley, has been going on about "the consumerisation of IT" for a while (and he's English, so it's an "s" and not a "z" in consumerisation) as have others, but the Feds work differently. It's not purely about savings, and things are a bit more measured. And that's one of the reasons that the Blackberry continues to hold on, and the iPad has made no movement yet. When the OS cannot be locked down through a central server, and policies cannot be set on applications and data, the device has a slim chance of making it in the Federal space.
But Quest have an interesting solution to the problem; one that took 5 minutes to demonstrate, and turn on the lightbulb for a senior-level manager at this agency. It was vWorkspace. He had his iPad with him (running a beta of iOS 5, in fact - good to know it looks like it works there, too!), and we started talking about how he can control data and access. Thankfully, I had a demo account on a set of servers that a colleague had up and running (Rob Mallicoat - many thanks!), and he had a network connection on the iPad. Within 5 minutes, I was able to download the vWorkspace iPad app, configure the settings, and voila! I was showing him Visio running on an iPad in no time.
And the thing is, I tell people about it time and again, but until you actually see it working, you don't realize how cool it is. Even the sales guy in the booth lit up when he saw how easy it was, and what it did. That got this manager interested, and proved one of the core problems with VDI; users need to touch it and see it for themselves. It's not enough to give them docs and white papers, and even web demos don't cut it.
But that's not enough; what's unique is how Quest does it. We don't care if you have some apps and desktops on VMware, and others on Hyper-V. You could even be running Terminal Services! We combine all of that, and give you a single interface. As a user, you don't know (and shouldn't care) how an app or a desktop is delivered. We even have a slick, "local VDI" option, thanks to MokaFive.
That's what got the manager really excited - he realized he didn't have to be tied to a single VDI option or vendor, and he can even provide multiple environments all through 1 app, delivered to his users' desktops. Plus, add the fact that it can all be remote means he could even give out iPads, but keep all the data in his data centers.
So if you have an iPad or Android device, ping a Quest person, and see if they can get you access to a demo system. Or ping me if you're with a Federal agency. Because this is something you simply need to try, and not just watch or read about.
Federal CloudCamp in DC
Ken Cline and I just finished up a presentation at FOSE for the Federal CloudCamp. The slides we used can be found here: http://www.federalcto.com/20110720-CloudCamp.pptx . I'm really pleased with how things have turned out so far. It's not exactly the CloudCamp I was expecting when I initially contacted Dave Nielsen to do one, but I definitely think it's definitely helped the Federal community, as well as advanced the notion of Cloud Computing within the Federal government.
If you attended, thank you for taking the time.
If you didn't attend, please consider going to the next one. You can find more info out about CloudCamp at http://www.cloudcamp.org and you can definitely contact me as well, as I'm sure to attend, if not present.
Wait! I thought the Feds only cared about smartcards . . .
Monday, I posted how Quest's tokens allow for users to program their own seeds. Which then prompted questions (internally) of, "Why do you even care? I thought you focused on the Federal space, and the Feds only cared about PAP, or CIV cards?"
Well, yes. For the most part, the US Federal government does focus on CAC (Common Access Card - used by the DOD), and PIV (Personal Identification Verification - mostly used by the civilian agencies) cards. And you'll also hear about PIV-I (PIV Interoperable) being involved. In the case of CAC and PIV, a user has to file an application, and some Federal agency would need to sponsor the individual to obtain such a card. This usually includes a background check, or some sort of formal review, before the card is issued. PIV-I tried to lower this barrier, by allowing non-Federal organizations (think government contractors, state governments, first responders, etc) to issue interoperable smartcards that are trusted by Federal systems.
However, PIV-I has a lower "assurance level," and often involves the same (or similar) sort of background check, just by a different organization. Assurance Levels are set by NIST and can be found detailed in their Special Publication (SP) 800-63. You'll see there are 4 assurance levels, and PIV-I only gets to level 2 (really, it gets to level 3, but with a less stringent background check, it can only be considered level 2.5 at best). CAC & PIV strive for level 4, if not level 3.
Ok. So we've established that smartcards are the main vehicle for 2-factor authentication in the Federal government, but I still haven't explained why tokens (RSA and other ones) crop up. And this is because a token is also an acceptable form of 2-factor authentication (read SP 800-63. and you'll see them mentioned as 'one-time passwords'). The "identity proofing" is still required, but tokens are actually a lot more flexible for several reasons.
1. Tokens can be assigned to any user (part 1). In the case of smartcards, they are usually assigned to people, while tokens can be shared. In fact, with our tokens, users can share tokens, but continue to use their distinct credentials (username and password) with the token. Which means that multiple admins can share a token to access a common system, but you can determine which admin logged in to do something with the particular token. This lets you continue to have 2 factor authentication, but also a "check-in/check-out" system for the particular token, allow more controls over the physical token (perhaps locked away in a safe or vault).
1a. Tokens can be assigned to any user (part 2). This is really a corrollary to 1, which is that the token can be assigned to service, or privileged accounts. Putting in the same sharing (check-in/check-out) model for a token, plus tie the password to a password vault product, and you have some pretty solid security around your privileged accounts such as oracle, root, Administrator, and other 'non-named' accounts.
2. Tokens are independent of environment. With smartcards, you have to have a reader attached to the user's console. No reader, or a malfunctioning reader, makes authentication a bit more difficult (read not possible). There are also situations where PKI simply isn't used. Older applications or platforms that do not make use of certificates cannot be changed quickly or easily. With a token, along with a username and password/PIN, you can continue to get 2FA, even in a scenario where a reader isn't available or not practical, or the app is expecting only a username and password. There is still some amount of work to be done, but it's often easier than tying an app into an entire PKI infrastructure.
2a. Tokens are independent of environment. There are some cases where the app or platform is capable of using PKI, but it is sitting in a location/area/network that simply cannot reach the PKI infrastructure to which the certificate on the smartcard is tied to. Not every system is actually on the internet (unbelievable, I know), which means tokens can provide access without requiring a centrally managed CA (certificate authority) to be present.
3. Tokens can be assigned much quicker and easier. And this is really the crux of why tokens come into play in the Federal space. Smartcards require a centrally issued certificate to be put onto the card. In some cases, there is no time for the requests to make their way through the system to get a certificate, publish it to a CA (certificate authority) and card, and get the card to the user. In other cases, the user simply will not get through a background check (or unwilling to get one), but has to be given access to certain systems. Yes, there are times when the Federal government has to deal with "questionable people" but they might as well make sure it's the right person, so 2-factor is still needed.
3a. Tokens can be revoked much quicker and easier. Because the token is usually some bit of plastic, it's easier to revoke and know that it won't be used in other ways. Most smartcards take a while to issue because they are also printed as a security badge. Meaning that even if the certificate on the card is revoked, the card may still be usable to get physical access to a building or location. However, it's unlikely that an agency will let you in because you have a black piece of plastic on your keychain.
So, with those all those reasons, tokens are not going away. Smartcards will continue to dominate, but there will continue to be a need for 2-factor authentication (2FA) using one-time passwords (OTP) in the Federal space.
The RSA Breach saga continues . . .
I've discussed the RSA breach before, but had a very interesting conversation last week with a customer that was in a dilemma as to what to do. RSA have said they would replace some of the tokens, depending on the situation (protecting Intellectual Property, Consumer-Oriented products, etc) and this customer was pretty certain they were to get new tokens from RSA, but didn't know if they wanted them. Nor do they want any other "standard" token that other vendors could provide, because that new vendor could be breached as well.
What this client really wanted was a token where he could program his own seed into it. I mentioned that our software tokens actually allow for this out of the box, and when you "program" a new soft token, the seed is automatically generated. Which means that Quest never knows what the seed record is for any software token that we provide. For an example of this, you can actually see a recording of it here where the seed is generated, and then here where the seed is put into our Desktop token (there is no audio on either recording).
However, this wasn't as interesting to him as programmable hardware tokens. He had concerns about keys getting compromised while being transferred to the end user, and wanted to send a pre-programmed hardware device. At first, I didn't think we had anything like that in our arsenal, however, it turns out that one of our latest token models (The Yubikey token) as well as some of other ones already allow for user programmability! In fact, if you look at the link for the Yubikey token, and then scroll down, you'll see that some are programmable. It took our Defender Product Manager (Stu Harrison, who blogs on and off here) to point this out to me, even though I should have remembered this from earlier on.
Obviously, each token does come with a default seed that Quest will know about, but if there was concern about a vendor having the "keys to the kingdom," a programmable token puts the onus back on the organization, and keeps Quest out of the limelight. I don't want to discount the fact that this will take more manpower, but if you don't want your vendors to have your seed records, reprogramming the tokens is the only secure way of doing it. It only makes sense, and as a security professional, you should never rely on RSA, Quest or any organization if you can minimize the number of people that have access to the token seed records.
Technology on the battlefield and “The Golden Hour”
Government Computing News has just published an article on smartphones on the battefield, and within the Defense sector specifically. That article can be read here: http://gcn.com/Articles/2011/05/03/Cyber-defense-handheld-encryption.aspx . It's a very good article, and one that highlights the challenges with using commercial products in a military or intelligence setting, where the stakes are much higher in some cases.
But it reminded me of a presentation I saw late last year about "The Golden Hour" from Air Commodore Tony Boyle (UK Defence Operations Board) and the use of technology to help get medical attention to wounded combatants much faster. The Golden Hour is a medical term originally coined by the military to describe that window of opportunity (usually 60 minutes) to save a life after severe trauma occurs. And while there is controversy (see the wikipedia article on this here) about it's validity, there is absolutely no doubt that getting a wounded solider proper medical care faster raises the survival odds.
The overall presentation was titled "Future Networks - Enabling Defence Interoperability and Interconnectivity" and he also got into the military doing more with COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) systems, as well as looking at private industry for 'best practices' and practical savings. What follow's is my Quest colleague's (Ian Davidson) write-up of the presentation.
He gave some insights into how technology is actually used in theatre – some of which may seem obvious but nonetheless was very interesting.
One “vignette” was regarding an incident with Viking Patrol in Lashkar Gah :
When the IED went off, a 9 line text message was automatically sent to multiple places with differing results :
- One text message went to a Hermes ISTAR which automatically deployed it to the location of the explosion to monitor the area immediately
- Another text message went to a 904 squadron to deploy a Harrier which arrived in the area within 6 minutes.
- Another went to the Casualty Ops – the result of which was that 9 doctors/surgeons were lined up waiting when the casualties arrived – and had been automatically notified of blood type/ full history/allergies etc.
This combination of events lead to the casualties being dealt with by medics– well within “The Golden Hour” – the period of 60 minutes after sever trauma in which casualties are most likely to survive . In fact they were on the operating tables within 15 minutes of the device going off.
The whole point of this story was to illustrate how the military on joint operations depend on sharing information collaboratively in order to ensure the success of any given military operation – no pun intended.
“No secrets” between different military “departments” and deployments mean that soldiers survive based on a POST and subscribe method.
Each operating division posts information that is likely to be identified as a serious threat or something requiring immediate attention, and others can subscribe to that information.
He then went on to discuss the different business models that have come around over the last 10 years and how increasingly open systems via the internet allow for people to become enabled to share information sensibly – using an analogy about Amazon re: systems training. i.e. “No one goes to school to learn how to order books from Amazon”.
He also discussed ideas around redefining what needs to be secret and what doesn’t – stating that (as an example) in the case of military personnel ordering clothing provisions – there is no real need for it to be “so “ secure and locked down internally.
Why not use M & S for shirts for example – the worst thing that can happen is that M & S get hacked by another foreign country and he potentially gets the wrong shirt size delivered !
(For the non-UK based folks, M & S is Marks & Spence, a UK department store similar to Nordstrom).
Overall, it was a great presentation, making the case for using technology to it's fullest extent, and making sure people are comfortable with whatever model you set up.
Amazon in the Federal space? Absolutely!
I work for Quest Software, and focus on making sure that we are helping our Federal customers. So when one of our account managers asked me to me with Amazon, I was a little skeptical. Amazon? Really? I mean, I know the Feds have the "Cloud-First" initiative, and there are some things here and there, but can we really work with Amazon? What can we do with an organization that doesn't do anything with most of the platforms we support?
There's no Oracle, no Microsoft, PeopleSoft, SAP and so on. They don't even offer email that we can migrate to or from.
Well, it was an hour and a half well spent, and I am absolutely jazzed about some of the things we discussed. It turns out they are very, very serious about Security (with a capital S). In the Fed space, that is the number one objection to anything Cloud related. But they not only went through some of the certs and reviews they'd had (even a SAS 70 audit, which I think pretty highly of, having been involved in one years back) but their overall architecture and philosophy. They are keenly aware of the federal requirements that are out there, and have made a substantial commitment to making sure that their federal customers are able to use their solutions
Yes, they had an outage last week, but if you have concerns about these things, you should talk to Amazon about what can be done to prevent it. The outage was Amazon's fault, but there's also options (that obviously cost) which could be implemented to avoid such a thing happening. You can find a lot more info on the outage here.
In any case, it turns out they have a lot of options, including all the way down to a VPN secured environment, if that is your requirement. And because everything is web-based, and often accessible via web services, I think there are a few solutions that Quest have that could be used with Amazon's platforms. The conversation ranged from monitoring, to management and provisioning of resources, as well as integration with internal systems, and potentially even things like SSO and access controls. Lou J (the Quest Account Manager) even learned about Cloudbursting.
I hope to explore those options in the coming months, especially with some specific Federal customers in mind.