How to Cheat at Managing Information Security

Ben Rothke writes "Mark Osborne doesn't like auditors. In fact, after reading this book, one gets the feeling he despises them. Perhaps he should have titled this book 'How I learned to stop worrying and hate auditors'. Of course, that is not the main theme of How to Cheat at Managing Information Security, but Osborne never hides his feeling about auditors, which is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, the auditor jokes start in the preface, and continue throughout the book." Read the rest of Ben's review.

How to Cheat at Managing Information Security
author	Mark Osborne
pages	302
publisher	Syngres
rating	8
reviewer	Ben Rothke
ISBN	1597491101
summary	The adventures of an information security professional and his efforts to secure corporate networks

The subtitle of the book is 'Straight talk from the loud-fat-bloke who protected Buckingham Palace and ran KPMG's security practice'. Essentially, the book is Osborne's reminiscence of his years in information security; including the good, the bad, and more often then not, the ugly.

The book is written for someone looking to develop an information security program, or strengthen an existing program, to ensure that all of the critical technology areas are covered.

The thirteen chapters of the book cover the main topics that an information security manager needs to know to do their job. The author candidly notes that this book is not the most comprehensive security book ever written, but contains most of the things a security manager needs to get their job done. The author also observes that information security is different from other disciplines in that there are many good books about disconnected subjects. The challenge is getting the breadth of knowledge across these many areas, which is quite difficult. The challenge of information security is to effectively operate across these many areas.

Chapters 1 and 2 deal with the information security organization as a whole, and the need for information security policy. Chapter 1 details the various areas where a security group should be placed, and describes the pros and cons of each scenario. As one of the scenarios which place information security below the head of audit, Osborne notes that 'if you have any sort of life, you don't want to spend it with the auditors, I promise you'.

Wherever the security group is placed in an organization, its ultimate success or failure is likely to be determined by its level of autonomy and independence. Unfortunately, in far too many organizations, information security is not given that liberty. It is often placed in a subservient role to groups with opposing interests. Any security group or security manager placed in such a situation should likely start working on their resume.

The scenario is described in 'Practical Unix and Internet Security' where author Professor Gene Spafford spells out Spaf's first principle of security administration. This principle states that 'if you have responsibility for security but have no authority to set rules or punish violators, your own role in the organization is to take the blame when something big goes wrong'. Spaf's principle is a cruel reality faced by many of those responsible for information security.

Between those chapters and a few more auditor jokes, Osborne makes the blatently obvious observation that wherever possible, one should eradicate single points of failure. As a corollary to this, Osborne notes that while trying to eliminate these failure points, companies will often build redundant systems. Part of their admiration for these redundant systems is the hope that this will simultaneously reduce performance bottlenecks. But these companies do not realize that the routers, firewalls and switches are not the bottleneck, rather it is the software application which is the bottleneck.

Osborne plays the role of contrarian in chapter 8 when he asks why we need firewalls. He notes that if every database maker, operating system programmer and CRM/ERM vendor put as much effort into security as the firewall vendors do, then there would be no need for firewalls. Furthermore, if each system administrator worked as hard on security as the typical firewall administrator did, and devoted as much time to hardening their servers and laptops as they did; then centralized firewalls would likely not be needed. Given that the firewall-free reality is not happening any time soon, chapter 8 provides a lot of good information on everything you need to know about firewalls.

Chapter 9 is about one of the most maligned security tools, the IDS. After providing an anecdote about a network manager who did not understand the fundamentals of how DHCP operates, and how he used Snort to debug the problem; Osborne provides a meaningful piece of security wisdom when he notes that IDS can help any network or security person understand network traffic. These devices can even give you information on new attacks and how they can be mitigated. But for an IDS (or any security hardware or software device for that matter) to be truly useful, a security professional needs to understand their IT infrastructure, the mechanics of networks and applications and the risks involved. Those who don't understand those three things will only be able to use these security technologies with minimal benefit.

Overall, How to Cheat at Managing Information Security, is an informative and often entertaining introduction to information security. For those that want to get a good overview of the core elements of information security, or strengthen their existing knowledge base, they will find this book to be an informative and valuable read."

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You can purchase How to Cheat at Managing Information Security from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Yes, it is blatently obvious

Osborne makes the blatently obvious observation that wherever possible,

It is blatantly obvious that my remark on the survey about unneeded editors was correct.

You can never do away with a firewall. Ever.

I'm not sure the the comments about firewalls are accurate. Sure, if every software maker paid attention well to security, then we'd be in a lot better position than we are now, but I'm not necessarily sure that building firewall-level security into every application is a good thing.

For example, if I want to restrict the access to a particular service to a few ip addresses, I'm more likely to do this on my firewall than on the service myself. Sure, the people who make the service could include that functionality, but I like the separation of security out away from the application. I like the fact that I control all my access in one place, and not across hundreds of application-specific config files. I believe modern filewalls can do all sorts of clever things such as coping with DoS attacks, stateful examination of network traffic etc etc etc. Can you imagine what it would be like if every single service had that functionality built in, but implemented slightly differently and with slightly different types of weakness in each one? Think of the duplicated functionality and bloat!

There's no such thing as software which is immune to malicious attack, but I like to keep my security weaknesses all in one place, and minimize them buy buying my firewalls from a company that has track record and experience in security issues, rather than a company that makes an ftp server for a living.

Defense in depth.

The only reason I'd like to see decent firewalls on the workstations is for more "depth" to my security model.

With a firewall, it is a single point that can be cracked. If that is your only security point, you'll be wide open if it is every cracked. And "cracked" also includes "someone brings in an infected laptop".

Now, on the workstation level ...
#1. No services running that aren't absolutely necessary.

#2. No open ports that aren't absolutely necessary.

#3. Any open ports/running services will ONLY accept connections from my servers / admin workstations. Anything else is logged and I am alerted.

Most of this can be accomplished with an IDS. I'd like the workstation firewalls AND the IDS. Having multiple checks is good. (and the firewall, you need the firewall)

Re:You are missing the point

Ok, lets assume that there is a huge datacenter behind the firewall. What does the firewall do to protect the datacenter? Generally, you do not allow direct inward access from the Internet into a DC proper. Rather, you use a DMZ to host exposed nodes. So in the end, for the DC, the firewall is just a router. It allows traffic from select DMZ nodes to access hosts inside the network. That's really the function of a router. However, we often filter as well to ensure that only the minimum ports and services that are required are passed. Why do we do this? Because we are concerned that the DMZ nodes might get compromised and be used as a gateway into the environment to compromise nodes on the internal network. Why are we concerned about this? Because we have come to accept that the vendors of server platforms, operating systems, middleware, databases, etc ship fundamentally flawed products. They are buggy, exploitable and are not carefully coded to prevent compromise. We trust firewalls, because they are very carefully coded and great pains are taken to ensure that they cannot (generally) be compromised. That is the author's point. Let's spend the time ensuring that products are as well coded as the firewalls and we do not need a firewall. Is this likely to happen? Probably not, but it is a valid point.

auditor jokes thread.... :)

those who can, do... those who can't, teach... and those who can't teach, audit...

Comparison To Security Engineering?

Is anyone in a position to compare this book to the folowing?

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/book.html [cam.ac.uk]

Re:Comparison To Security Engineering?

Yes. How to Cheat at Managing Information Security is to Security Engineering as reading about morse code is to designing a fiber optic network. Hope that helps.

Ain't that the truth

The scenario is described in 'Practical Unix and Internet Security' where author Professor Gene Spafford spells out Spaf's first principle of security administration. This principle states that 'if you have responsibility for security but have no authority to set rules or punish violators, your own role in the organization is to take the blame when something big goes wrong'. Spaf's principle is a cruel reality faced by many of those responsible for information security.

This same principal applies to a great number of jobs in IT. If it's your job to create content for display on the Internet/Intranet and you aren't given the proper access and tools to get the job done, it is often your fault for the failure, even though you're at the mercy of others. Same goes for bad project management; if a project is slow or fails, it's not because the project manager was an ignorant troll, but was in fact due to the "inability of programmers to meet their goals," even though the goals and timelines were unreasonable and ultimately futile.

Re:Ain't that the truth

"Authority and responsibility must be equal - else a balancing takes place as surely as current flows between points of unequal potential. To permit irresponsible authority is to sow disaster; to hold a man responsible for anything he does not control is to behave with blind idiocy."

-- Robert A. Heinlen, _Starship Troopers_

General thoughts....

This may be a little off-topic, but I can't help but feel that the job title of "information security specialist/officer/manager/etc." is generally bogus from the start, at least as it pertains to "end users" of technology.

I'm *not* saying that we don't need or shouldn't respect people who make a point of studying information security. But rather, that these people are most effective when they're working to build security appliances, hardware, and software that will eventually be purchased by I.T. staff. Or perhaps, when they have a specific task related to tracking down fraud in a telecommunications environment.

In most corporations, it seems like the person or people appointed as "information security" are really just getting paid to be the fall guy(s) if and when something goes wrong. They want someone to point a finger at. The "infosec specialists" I've run across rarely have very many useful computer skills to offer a business. Rather, they're mainly good at writing up policies and procedures they insist everyone should follow for "safe computing". They can go into great detail about why a particular update patch for a router or TCP/IP stack is important for preventing a theoretical attack - yet they can't even troubleshoot a single hardware failure due to bad RAM or a failing hard disk in a workstation.

The "rank and file" I.T. staff and management probably have just about as good a track record of keeping a given computing enviroment reasonably "secure", as long as they're diligent about keeping things updated and patched, and following some common sense procedures. They may not know (or care!) about all the technical details of why a given patch is effective, but it doesn't end up making much difference.

Memories

Osborne never hides his feeling about auditors

I had to smile when I read this as it took me back to my first financial audit years back. I nervously awaited our internal auditor who had a reputation for being completely ruthless in his approach and did not give a fig if heads rolled as a result of his findings. When he first met with me, he began with a story: "You know, we auditors are often compared to soldiers, and your brothers-in-arms in the field. The only difference with us is that we fix bayonets to our rifles, and go around stabbing our own troops while they lay wounded on the ground. Now, with that out of the way let's begin your audit." I suppose that would have made most people nervous, but I was charmed by his candor, and actually wound up getting along with him quite well in the end.

I suppose my point in telling that is that you can look at auditors two different ways. Either they're there to help you, or they are there to get in your way and point fingers. I believe that most genuinely good auditors try to be more like the former and less like the latter. And you can learn a lot from them if you remain objective and cooperative. God help you if you get the other kind though as they are usually just nothing but self-promoting tattle-telling toadies.

Re:Memories

That reminds me of my experience a few months ago. We were in for our Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) audit. One of the policies to comply with SOX is not to allow any non-company machines on the network (finally! Been wanting that for years.).

Of course the first thing the auditors want to do is plug into our network so they can get their email. I said no, because if we do they it violates SOX and we fail their audit. They asked how they're supposed to audit us then if they can't use their e-mail? Not my problem, refer up to management :)

I actually won this round. We ended up isolating a portion of the network so they could have access straight to the Internet.

Re:Memories

Of course the first thing the auditors want to do is plug into our network so they can get their email. I said no, because if we do they it violates SOX and we fail their audit. They asked how they're supposed to audit us then if they can't use their e-mail? Not my problem, refer up to management :)

We had a similar discussion with our auditors. It wasn't SOX, it was SAS70, but still a process audit. What I thought was hilarious was when I walked past the conference room that the 3 auditors had occupied, and there sat their 3 laptops, screens unlocked and nobody in the room. The urge to set their background image to goatse was almost overwhelming, but I thought better of it.

The Necessity of Auditors

Auditors are necessary because IT workers often can't be trusted.

I'm not saying they are crooked... I'm saying a lot of them rebel against structure, employ "fly by the seat of the pants" methodology, refuse to participate in process tracking, avoid completing paperwork, and think that the "art" of their business means they should be able to do things their way.

I think IT workers in general (probably including me) need to be watched like hawks. Otherwise we end up with broken chains of approval, unmaintainable code, and important things resting on the shoulders of "the guy in the room". You know, that guy who never provides status reports and vanishes for months at a time, emerging with a completed product that may or may not do what is intended.

Re:The Necessity of Auditors

To the contrary. Necessary structure is good, and IT workers know that. A lot of managers are bad. They try to impose methodologies that do not fit the problems, and demand excessive structure and paperwork. They demand schedules, and then superficially alter them until what might have been a reasonable best guess is now a death march. They think things should be done "their" way, and get in the way. That is extremely irritating when they demonstrably don't know what the heck they're doing, and can't or won't see that. IT workers don't want to hand those guys any more rope than they must; they know it's only going to be used to hang everyone. What you see as rebelling against structure itself, I see as rebelling against the abuse of structure, and against those who think the "art" of management means they don't need to know anything about the technology or science, let alone the boring technical details. They only need to know how to make engineers be productive, avoid being blamed for problems, and get the credit.

Of course a classic way to avoid blame is to make stupid rules and then point to the engineering geeks' supposed lack of discipline for not following those rules. Really great when there's a handy stereotype available. Most people aren't going to provide accurate status reports with useful content if the main use of it will be against them. I'd say not giving a status report at all is more honest than giving a status report that's nothing but evasions, fluff, misdirection, boilerplate, and such garbage.

and you wonder why your employees think you suck

"...if you have responsibility for security but have no authority to set rules or punish violators, your own role in the organization is to take the blame when something big goes wrong."

Take out "security" and fill in "hiring". Now you can probably see why the root problem is isolation of departments, not the fact that you can't taser people who don't change their passwords. Besides, who wants to listen to a on-high "security" department that says "do X or else" (often without explaining why "X" is bad). Learn to talk to people, use a few carrots and maybe fewer people (including your own employees) will think you suck.

Save yourself $5.59 by buying the book here!

Save yourself $5.59 by buying the book here: How to Cheat at Managing Information Security [amazon.com]. And if you use the "secret" A9.com discount [amazon.com], you can save an extra 1.57%!

Security Bricks

This reminds me of a presentation I saw a while back from this guy Andrew Plato. He runs a security firm named Anitian (I think that is the right spelling.) He gives this hilarious presentation on all the stupid things companies and security vendors do. One of the funniest parts is at the end of his presentation. He does a "Ron Popeil" impersonation about the "Greatest Security Technology Ever Invented" while pointing to some mysterious item underneath a black sheet. He says something like "if you buy this technology, you're absolutely secure from everything. Nothing can hack you. Nothing can get you. How much would you pay!" When he pulls the sheet off the item, it is nothing but a big cinder block. He grabs the block and says "this is what you keep buying....bricks." Then he goes off on "faith-based security" and how most security vendors are selling nothing but snake oil.

Every time I meet with security vendor or auditing firm, I remember that brick. I laugh for a second and realize that about 50% of what these so-called experts are saying is nothing but sales BS. So many products are sold as "complete security" and they are almost worthless when you really look at what they do.

Its an immensely entertaining and insightful presentation. I don't know if he tours around with the presentation, but if you get a chance to see it - go see it. Its one of the best trade show presentations I've seen in a long time.

The important of Information security to business.

The aim of the book is to develop an information security program, or strengthen an existing program, to ensure that all of the critical technology areas are covered. Nowdays, there are attacts on corporate information systems by hackers, viruses, worms, and the occasional disgruntled employee are increasing dramatically and making companies to invest more in information security. Hereby, information security manager should watch for the known vulnerabilities and continuously monitor their network products.Information security manager should know that,Security is a process, not a product. Products provide some protection, but the only way to effectively do business in an insecure world is to put processes in place that recognize the inherent insecurity in the products. The trick is to reduce your risk of exposure regardless of the products or patches.

Security

Security isn't just something you "turn on". Security is a mindset, a set of systems and practices that affect all aspects of your work environment. And implementing security practices--especially in an organization devoid of such--is a daunting task. Firewalls, Intrusion Detection Systems, and the like are only as good as the policies that govern them. The first step in implementing security is to define an information security policy.

The art of managing information security

The art of managing is through;- 1)Timely obtained 2)Repeatable 3)Effective 4)Evaluate 5)Systematic Information Security is managed through;- 1)Monitoring 2)Risk assessment 3)Patching 4)Tracking (asset) 5)Coordination

Then vs Than

then [reference.com]

than [reference.com]

At the very least, could book reviewers and submitters please learn the difference between these two words!

Security part 2

security is in the mindset...a tight security can be created only by thinking like a criminal!! get a hacker to invent a security software! that may help :)

You are right!

Like any good organisation, management plays a vital role in the development and sustainment of the organization in the new modern era. In the software world, good management systems play a more vital role. The book gives a good insight to MIS and for those who are unaware of the inner working of the MIS, this book is a good start. I agree with the author's comment of systems administrator not doing much to protect the personal computers. Coming from an organization that values MIS, problems like virus attacks, spam, and frequent server problems often plague our systems. Why is this? Is it that the administrators are uncapable of achieving the minimum of what is required. I think they need to read this book and get some insight...what do you think. How is the MIS at your workplace??

who cares! we do!

who really cares of security? where does our emails go before coming to out inbox. You is tracing through them, or scanning its contents. Are you telling me that no one out there is monitoring information. Is it as secure as what they claim?

Protecting information

Today, most business leaders currently pay as little attention to the issue of information security as they once did to technology. But just as technology now stands higher on the chief executive officer's agenda and gets a lot of attention in annual corporate strategic-planning reviews, so too will information security increasingly demand the attention of the top team. In a networked world, when hackers steal proprietary information and damage data, the companies at risk can no longer afford to dismiss such people as merely pesky trespassers who can be kept at bay by technological means alone.

My comments on the book!

Security isn't just something you "turn on". Security is a mindset, a set of systems and practices that affect all aspects of your work environment. And implementing security practices--especially in an organization devoid of such--is a daunting task. I found this to be an excellent book in that the author obviously understands security. He's dedicated his life keeping privileged information safe. More importantly, this book is laid out in such a way that it will lead the uninitiated, newly appointed security expert at any organization through the process of implementing a security framework. Firewalls, Intrusion Detection Systems, and the like are only as good as the policies that govern them. The first step in implementing security is to define an information security policy. The author leads the reader through identifying business risks and creating an action plan to mitigate those risks. In addition to the expected "what does a firewall do, and how should you use it" type of information, the author does an excellent job cutting to the chase on a wide variety of security issues. He provides examples of how find the right people to implement your security framework, what types of systems might be required in your environment, and how to perform periodic penetration testing, to see if your security framework keeps the bad guys out. I really see this book being of great benefit to the newly appointed security expert, who is perhaps a bit overwhelmed with his/her new responsibilities. This book is an easy read, very interesting, and very useful for the individual responsible for all aspects of a company's security infrastructure.

cheat

Really??

Nature, the ultimate teacher?

Security... today's prime worry. A naturalist perspective or view is needed for the information security personnel. Nature, the field we need to look at in order to fill those security gaps. Picture a spider web, isn't that a security web (firewall, scanning) which filters those fat bugs? So come on let's get back to basics!

works for me!

This book fits the bill for me!!. And it is enjoyable I have a number of other handbook style books - one that cost nearly six times more but was really a collection of articles written by a dozen different people (some with obviously conflicting views) bound under the same cover. What I liked: This book simply sets out the things I need to know about Organisations, Strategies and Audits then progresses into firewall design and security testing. And it is so funny - the cover is right this man does make security light going. What could be better: The guy is obviously technical so at the end some of it is a bit hard going - just I had to skip bits. But each chapter is laid out so that the chapter gets more complex at the end so this wasn't a problem. I would have liked more on Virus technology and Wireless security - especially as after work on Google, I understand that the fat-bloke was a leading researcher in wireless security Overall conclusion: Great.

a book as a guidance

he makes some money by sharing his knowledge with us. we just need to thank for him for giving some guidance by buying that book.

Re:Be like Slashdot

Make dupes, grammer errors and spelling errors

Pot, I'd like to introduce you to my good friend kettle. Kettle, this is pot. I believe you two have a lot in common, so play nice, OK?