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Out Sourcing: Security Challenge

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CIOL Bureau
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Customers and outsourcing suppliers who engaged in the outsourcing boom three to five years ago are now facing significant security challenges. Particularly, the last 18 months have seen a shift in the perception of the security issues that face networking infrastructures. For the first time, networking products have made it to the SANS Top 0 vulnerability list, with Cisco's IOS getting specific attention. In the past, there was very little attention paid to the possibility of security vulnerabilities in network infrastructure equipment being exploited. The demonstration given at BlackHat symposium in 005 has also contributed to the new perception of network infrastructure as being subject to security issues previously only dealt with in relation to servers and desktop computing resources. The research firm Gartner recommends that enterprises that run Cisco IOS pay close attention to IOS vulnerabilities, treat them seriously, and follow the guidelines within advisories to upgrade to a newer version of software at the earliest possible opportunity.

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In the event of buffer/heap/stack overflow vulnerability exploitation, Gartner recommends that enterprises take immediate action to shield their network by implementing a layered defense, including network-based intrusion prevention technologies, to block exploits while executing normal test-and-patch deployment processes. The sheer amount of Cisco equipment installed, the many versions of IOS involved, the difficulties of upgrading IOS and the IOS vulnerabilities already out there or yet to be discovered present a major challenge to network administrators and security professionals. This is an aspect that needs to be reflected in outsource contracts, or if handled in-house, the amount of effort required should be recognized and planned for.

Security Shift

All these developments resulted in widespread realization that traditional firewall and antivirus technologies, as covered in original outsourcing contracts, were not able to withstand emerging threats such as self-replicating worms, port 5 (mail), port 80 (Web), PP exploits and spyware, amongst others. And to compound the external threat, internal IT assets that were infected were infecting other internal assets.

A detection and response strategy within the perimeter was now required to supplement the ailing protection strategy. Many enterprises were also not aware that their insurance policies did not provide cover against malicious code attacks. Other companies who tried to buy coverage found there were few policies being written that protected against digital attacks.

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The security industry experienced a very busy year in 2004. There was much piloting and testing of IPS and other appliances to solve specific problems. During this exploratory phase, a key issue for outsourcers and their customers was the question of who was going to take responsibility for paying for the implementation of the technology once they were satisfied with the tests/results.

The biggest error made by organizations and outsourcers was that they thought that deploying this technology would solve their issues. What they did not realize was that they were only solving particular issues, in much the same way as they had done when they invested in firewalls, VPNs and antivirus software. While IPS appliances, application firewalls, host-IPS, desktop firewalls and IDS were being installed, no one considered the fact that security needed to be a holistic process involving people, process and technology.

Outsourcing contracts were modified to include the provision and management of additional security hardware at strategic points within the network. These measures repeated the mistakes of the past. They catered for short-term challenges, but did not make provision

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Outsourcing Security

Outsourcing Security

In response to growing concerns about security and the ever increasing complexity of the management of these newly installed p 

devices, many companies turned to the same companies who managed their existing network infrastructure, or to the emerging band of managed security service providers. This seemed the logical response for any company seeking to offload the complexities of security management and to alleviate the need for highly-priced technical talent.

The problem was that most of the contracts contained clauses in the fine print absolving the service provider of liability and accountability for security incidents. Many such contracts promised little more than notification of events, which could not be confirmed as false positives. This level of service put the onus on the customer to respond to and resolve the incidents reported. In many cases, this caused extreme distress to unprepared clients in their hour of need, especially when these same service providers were able to assist in the incident response for additional hourly fees.

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Outsourcing security has been a hot topic of debate for some time. There is a strong argument for both sides and no sign of consensus on the horizon. The facts are simple, yet overwhelming for many and include the following:

  • Addressing security and IT risk is not optional.
  • Legislation and liability are driving security to the top of CIOs' priority lists.
  • There is a real awareness of the problem in bridging the gap between business people and the technologists.
  • Technology is ever changing; therefore security is a moving target.
  • Good security resources are difficult to find, and costly to hire and retain.
  • Outsourcing security does not transfer accountability or liability to the service provider.

Outsource Security

Regardless of whether organizations choose to outsource or go in-house for security, the challenge lies in getting executive support and alignment between the business units and the security function. At worst, these relationships are adversarial and conflict between groups results in a decrease in productivity. At best, the security officer understands the business and is able to communicate the threats to business operations clearly and show that effective risk management actually enables the business.

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Many enterprises make the mistake of outsourcing their security as part of a generic outsourcing agreement before obtaining this alignment. The outsourcing then leads to a false sense of security or a 'tick in the box'.

Recommendations

Organizations that simply cannot afford the investment in resources need to be sure of the services that they are buying and specifically what exclusions are in their outsource contract. Frequently, outsourcers offer low bids to secure the business and then try to make up for it in change or out-of-scope orders.

It is a fact that organizations will need to continuously adapt their security practices to suit the ever changing environment. Threats, vulnerabilities and mitigation procedures have changed dramatically over the years and organizations must be able to adapt their contract and the underlying security architectures used to keep pace.

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If organizations have questions about the service level commitments or the verbiage in the contract, they should consult a trusted advisor. A technology partner, independent auditor or legal counsel can help them navigate the complexities. For international and multinational organizations, it is important to seek advice on compliance requirements in every individual country in which the organization is conducting business, and to find out how their service provider is addressing those requirements. Once organizations understand what the outsourcer intends to do, they need to figure out how to fill the gaps.

Considerations

Organizations should consider the following points when outsourcing security (either in its entirety or as part of a bigger infrastructure outsource contract):

  • Network access control and other integrity architectures are emerging to take their place in the self-defending network of the future

    Note that compliance is the responsibility of the company, not the outsourcer.
  • How does the service organization's purchase enable them to better manage risk?
  • What are the terms of the agreement? Check SLAs, limitations and exclusions. Organizations need to know exactly what they are getting for their investment.
  • Be prepared to respond when incidents occur-this means that organisations need an incident response plan and someone to deal with the response. The contractor must support post-incident review.
  • Verify that the outsourcer is compliant with all relevant legislation and verify the security procedures and best practices deployed by the service provider.
  • Define security-related roles and responsibilities clearly and completely and specify clear security objectives in the SLA for integrity, confidentiality, availability, accountability and use control.
  • Appoint a security officer, even if it is initially in a secondary role. The security officer should have a direct reporting line to an executive who is empowered to address tough questions and make decisions that impact the risk exposure of the company.
  • Retain the ability to monitor and audit the outsourcer's environment to independently verify fulfillment of all the objectives and expectations.
  • Ensure contract terms are flexible enough to allow for changes in a rapidly changing threat landscape, and to avoid being blocked by the organizational walls that outsourcing erects and the difficulty of anticipating all the contingencies in a contract.
  • Measure contractor performance through security metrics such as number of incidents, time taken to respond to incidents, best practices, benchmarking, etc.
  • Even if an organization is using best practices frameworks such as the ITIL or CoBIT for SLAs, do not rely on these for security - use security specific frameworks such as ISO 17799: 005.
  • Customers need to try and include infrastructure "Security Assurance Level Agreements" with their standard SLAs in outsourcing contracts in the future, and minimize the number of people managing the network components.
  • The outsourcers' goal is to lock down and standardize to gain efficiencies and then sweat the assets. This is diametrically opposed to the adaptive nature required by modern day secure infrastructures.
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Choosing a Partner

As applications such as Telephony, PP and Microsoft Live Messaging rapidly converge onto the network infrastructure, security becomes more complex and important. In addition, the industry is faced with strong convergence of networks, systems and security management as companies like Microsoft and Cisco embed more security functionality into their OSS and networking fabrics.

Network access control and other integrity architectures are emerging to take their place in the self-defending network of the future, which means configuration, identity and asset management are going to play larger roles in future managed, secure infrastructure. Also, infrastructure components themselves are subject to security vulnerabilities. Now the proactive 'Assurance' management of those devices themselves becomes as important as managing standalone firewalls and IDSs. This implies that enhanced configuration, security and patching management are going to play increasingly important roles in infrastructure management.

All this means is that careful deliberation needs to be given to the partners used in outsourcing contracts. Organizations cannot have a situation where multiple parties manage the same devices to achieve their respective goals. This can defeat security objectives because too many people are involved.

Many MSSPs will insist on full device control to provide their services. This scenario was suitable for standalone

Firewalls and IDS/IPSs, but will need consideration when the Firewall/IDS/IPS functionality becomes embedded into standard routers. The question of who will then manage the router bits and who will manage the security bits in that device becomes an issue.

Just as applications are converging onto the network, and security is converging into the network and applications/OS, outsourcing functions will converge. Customers will increasingly seek out systems integrators and outsourcers who have skills in network management, desktop and branch office life-cycle management, systems management and configuration management, in addition to world-class security expertise. This may very well spell the demise of the boutique security shop or niche-managed security services player, over time.

Manish Sethi, head, Security Solutions, Datacraft India