Chapter 1 Information Security Management

1. Chapter 1 Information Security Management COMP4690, HKBU

2. Objective • Concept of Information Security Management • Information Classification Process • Security Policy Implementation • The roles and responsibilities of Security Administration • Risk Management Assessment • Security Awareness Training COMP4690, HKBU

3. Introduction • Information Security is to protect an organizations’ valuable resources. • It ensures that all resources are protected, and available to an organization, at all times, when needed. This leads to information classification, and security policy. • However, security issues cannot be eliminated completely. This leads to the Risk management. COMP4690, HKBU

4. Purposes of Information Security Management • Three basic requirements • Availability • Assure that a computer system is accessible by authorized users whenever needed. • Integrity • To protect the system information from intentional or accidental unauthorized changes. • Confidentiality • Assure that unauthorized people cannot access the protected information. COMP4690, HKBU

5. Other Concepts in Security Management • Identification • The means in which users claim their identities to a system. Used for access control. • Authentication • The testing or reconciliation of evidence of a user’s identity. • Accountability • Audit trails and logs. • Authorization • The rights and permissions granted to an individual. • Privacy • The level of confidentiality and privacy protection. COMP4690, HKBU

6. Information Classification • Why do we need information classification? • Not all data has the same value to an organization. • Should focus the protection and control on the information that need it the most. • Can be used to comply with privacy laws, or to enable regulatory compliance. COMP4690, HKBU

7. Classification Terms • In governmental data classification • Unclassified: can be released to public • Sensitive but unclassified: minor secret, no serious damage if disclosed • Confidential: unauthorized disclosure could cause some damage • Secret: unauthorized disclosure could cause serious damage • Top secret: unauthorized disclosure could cause exceptionally grave damage to national security COMP4690, HKBU

8. Classification Terms • In private sector • Public: similar to unclassified • Sensitive: requires a high level of classification than normal data • Private: intended for company use only, such as salary levels • Confidential: very sensitive data, unauthorized disclosure could seriously and negatively impact a company COMP4690, HKBU

9. Classification Procedures • The following steps are listed in priority order • Identify the administrator/custodian • Specify the criteria of how the information will be classified and labeled • Classify the data by its owner, who is subject to review by a supervisor • Specify and document any exceptions to the classification policy • Specify the controls that will be applied to each classification level • Specify the termination procedures for declassifying the information or for transferring custody of the information to another entity • Create an enterprise awareness program about the classification controls COMP4690, HKBU

10. Information Classification Roles • Owner • Information owner may be an executive or manager of an organization. He is responsible for the asset of information that must be protected. He makes the original determination to decide what level of classification the information requires. He delegates the responsibility of data protection duties to the custodian. • Custodian • Information custodian is delegated the responsibility of protecting the information by its owner. This role is commonly executed by IT systems personnel. • User • End user can be anyone (operator, employee, or external party) that routinely uses the information as part of their job. COMP4690, HKBU

11. Policies, Standards, Guidelines, Procedures • Security policies are the basis for a sound security implementation. • Questions: • What are policies, standards, guidelines, and procedures? • Why do we use policies, standards, guidelines, and procedures? • What are the common policy types? COMP4690, HKBU

12. Polices • Polices are considered the first and highest level of documentation, from which the lower level elements of standards, procedures, and guidelines flow. • Usually are general statements. COMP4690, HKBU

13. Polices hierarchy COMP4690, HKBU

14. Policies • Senior Management Statement of Policy • The first policy of any policy creation process • A general, high-level statement which contains • An acknowledgement of the importance of the computing resources to the business model • A statement of support for information security throughout the enterprise • A commitment to authorize and manage the definition of the lower level standards, procedures, and guidelines COMP4690, HKBU

15. Standards, Guidelines, Procedures • These are the three elements of policy implementation, which contain the actual details of the policy. • They should be separate documents from the general policies. • Standards: specify the use of specific technologies in a uniform way. It is compulsory. • Guidelines: similar to standards, but more flexible, not compulsory, just recommendations. • Procedures: embody the detailed steps that are followed to perform a specific task. The lowest level in the policy chain. COMP4690, HKBU

16. Roles and Responsibilities COMP4690, HKBU

17. Risk Analysis and Assessment • Risk Management • Identifying, analyzing and assessing, mitigating, or transferring risk • Core problems: • What could happen (threat event) ? • If it happened, how bad could it be (threat impact) ? • How often could it happen (threat frequency, annualized) ? • How certain are the answers to the first three questions (recognition of uncertainty) ? COMP4690, HKBU

18. Cont. • Risk Analysis • The process of analyzing a target environment and the relationships of its risk-related attributes. It should identify threat vulnerabilities, associate these vulnerabilities with affected assets, identify the potential for and nature of an undesirable result, and identify and evaluate risk-reducing countermeasures. • Risk Assessment • The assignment of value to assets, threat frequency, consequence, and other elements of chance. It is used to characterize both the process and the result of analyzing and assessing risk. COMP4690, HKBU

19. Cont. • After risk analysis and assessment, three more questions: • What can be done (risk mitigation) ? • How much will it cost (annualized) ? • Is it cost-effective (cost/benefit analysis) ? • It’s essential that the process of analyzing and assessing risk is well understood by all parties and executed on a timely basis. COMP4690, HKBU

20. Terms and definitions • Single Loss Expectancy or Exposure (SLE) • The monetary loss for each occurrence of a threatened event • SLE = Asset Value x Exposure Factor • Exposure Factor (EF) • Represent a measure of the magnitude of loss or impact on the value of an asset. Expressed as a percent, ranging from 0 to100%, of asset value loss arising from a threat event. • A threat event could be a tornado, theft, or computer virus infection. COMP4690, HKBU

21. Cont. • Annualized Rate of Occurrence (ARO) • The frequency with which a threat is expected to occur. E.g., a threat occurring 50 times in a given year has an ARO of 50, and a threat occurring 1 time in 10 years has an ARO of 0.1. • Annualized Loss Expectancy (ALE) • ALE = SLE x ARO COMP4690, HKBU

22. Example COMP4690, HKBU

23. Central Tasks • Establish Information Risk Management (IRM) Policy • Establish and Fund an IRM Team • Establish IRM Methodology and Tools • Identify and Measure Risk • Project Sizing COMP4690, HKBU

24. Risk analysis process • Asset valuation process • Determine the value of an asset • Quantitative risk analysis • Assign independently objective numeric values to the components of the risk assessment and to the assessment of potential losses • Qualitative risk analysis • Address intangible values of data loss • Safeguard selection • Cost/benefit analysis • Value of safeguard = (ALE before) – (ALE after) – annual safeguard cost COMP4690, HKBU

25. Security Awareness and Training • People are often the weakest link in a security chain. • Employees must be aware of the need to secure information and to protect the information assets of an enterprise. • Operators need training in the skills to fulfill their job functions securely. COMP4690, HKBU

26. Chapter 2 Business Continuity Planning and Disaster Recovery Planning COMP4690, HKBU

27. Overview • Business Continuity Planning (BCP) • Make the plans and create the framework to ensure that the business can continue in an emergency. It includes: • Scope and plan initiation • Business impact analysis (BIA) • Business continuity plan development • Disaster Recovery Planning (DRP) • Recover from an emergency with the minimum of impact to the organization. It includes: • Disaster recovery planning processes • Testing the disaster recovery plan • Disaster recovery procedures COMP4690, HKBU

28. Business Continuity Planning • Objectives • To prevent interruptions to normal business activity • To protect critical business processes from natural or man-made failures or disasters • To minimize the effect of disturbances and to allow for resumption of business processes • To reduce the risk of financial loss and enhance a company’s ability to recover from a disruptive event promptly • To minimize the cost associated with the disruptive event and mitigate the risk associated with it COMP4690, HKBU

29. Disruptive Events • Natural events: • Fires, explosions, hazardous material spills of environmental toxins • Earthquakes, storms, floods, and fires due to acts of nature • Power outages or other utility failures • Man-made events: • Bombings, sabotages, or other intentional attacks • Strikes and job actions • Employee or operator unavailability due to emergency evacuation or other issues • Communications infrastructure failures COMP4690, HKBU

30. BCP (I) • Scope and Plan Initiation • The first step to create a BCP • Create the scope for the plan, and the other elements needed to define the parameters of the plan • Examine the company’s operations and support services • Scope activities: • Create a detailed account of the work required • List the resources to be used • Define the management practices to be employed COMP4690, HKBU

31. BCP (I): roles and responsibilities COMP4690, HKBU

32. BCP (II) • Business Impact Analysis (BIA) • To create a document to be used to help understand what impact a disruptive event would have on the business • Three primary goals • Criticality prioritization: time-critical business process vs. Non-time-critical business process • Downtime estimation: what is the longest period of time a critical process can remain interrupted before the company can never recover – maximum tolerable downtime (MTD) • Resource requirements: the most time-sensitive processes may need the most resource allocation COMP4690, HKBU

33. BCP (II): BIA Steps • Gathering assessment materials • Which business units are critical to continuing an acceptable level of operations • Organizational chart, functional interrelationships of the organization • Performing vulnerability assessment • Quantitative: financial assessment • Incurring financial losses from loss of revenue, capital expenditure, or personal liability resolution • Additional operational expenses incurred due to the disruptive event • Incurring financial losses from violation of contract agreements, violation of regulatory or compliance requirements • Qualitative: operational assessment • Loss of competitive advantage or market share • Loss of public confidence or credibility, or public embarrassment • Define the Critical support areas that must be present to sustain continuity of the business processes • Telecommunications, data communications, information technology areas • Physical infrastructure or plant facilities, transportation services • Accounting, payroll, transaction processing, customer service, purchasing COMP4690, HKBU

34. BCP (II): BIA Steps • Analyzing the information • Documenting required processes, identifying interdependencies, and determining what an acceptable interruption period would be • To describe what support the defined critical areas will require to preserve the revenue stream and maintain pre-defined processes • Documentation and recommendation • Full documentation of all the processes, procedures, analysis, and results, and the presentation of recommendations to the appropriate senior management. • Contain the gathered material, list the identified critical support areas, summarize the quantitative and qualitative impact statements, and provide the recommended recovery priorities generated from the analysis COMP4690, HKBU

35. BCP (III) • Business Continuity Plan Development • Use the information collected in BIA to create the recovery strategy plan to support the critical business functions. • Defining the continuity strategy, should include the following elements: • Computing: to preserve the elements of hardware, software, communication lines, applications, and data • Facilities: to address to use of the main buildings or campus and any remote facilities • People: operators, management, and technical support personnel will have defined roles in implementing the continuity strategy • Supplies and equipment: paper, forms, or specialized security equipment must be defined • Documenting the continuity strategy COMP4690, HKBU

36. BCP (IV) • Plan Approval and Implementation • Senior management approval • Create an awareness of the pan enterprise-wide • Specific training may be required for certain personnel to carry out their tasks • Maintenance of the plan • Use job descriptions that centralize responsibility for updates • Create audit procedures that can report regularly on the state of the plan • Ensure multiple versions of the plan do not exist COMP4690, HKBU

37. Disaster Recovery Planning • Objective • To provide an organized way to make decisions if a disruptive event occurs • To reduce confusion and enhance the ability of the organization to deal with the crisis • To protect an organization from major computer services failure • To minimize the risk to the organization from delays in providing services • To guarantee the reliability of standby systems through testing and simulation • To minimize the decision-making required by personnel during a disaster COMP4690, HKBU

38. I. DRP Process • This phase involves the development and creation of the recovery plans. • Define the steps we will need to perform to protect the business in the event of an actual disaster. • Two steps: • Data processing continuity planning • Planning for the disaster and creating the plans to cope with it • Data recovery plan maintenance • Keeping the plans up-to-date and relevant COMP4690, HKBU

39. Processing Backup Services • Processing backup services are very important to the disaster recovery plan • Most common alternate processing types • Mutual aid agreements • Subscription services • Multiple centers • Service bureaus • Other data center backup alternatives COMP4690, HKBU

40. Mutual aid agreements • An arrangement with another company that may have similar computing needs. • Both parties agree to support each other in the case of a disruptive event. Assume each organization’s operations area will have the capacity to support the other’s in time of need. • Advantages: • Allow an organization to obtain a disaster processing site at very little or no cost. • Disadvantages: • Difficult to have extra unused capacity to enable full operational processing during the event. • What happens if both organizations are affected by a large disaster? • Should be considered only if there is a perfect partner, and there is no other alternative to disaster recovery. COMP4690, HKBU

41. Subscription services • Rely on third-party, commercial services • Three basic forms of subscription services • Hot site • Fully configured computer facility with electrical power and HVAC (heating, ventilation, air conditioning), and functioning servers and workstations. • 24/7 availability, exclusivity of use, immediately available after the disruptive event occurs • The most expensive one, intensive administrative overhead • Cold site • A room with electrical power and HVAC, communications links may be ready or not. • It is ready for equipment to be brought in during an emergency, but no computer hardware resides at the site. • Warm site • A cross between hot site and cold site. Computer facilities are ready with electrical power and HVAC. But the applications may not be installed or configured. Without full complement of workstations. • Takes some time and effort to start production processing at the new site. COMP4690, HKBU

42. Multiple centers • The processing is spread over several operations centers • Could be owned and managed by the same organization or used in conjunction with some sort of reciprocal agreement. • Has the same disadvantage as for mutual aid. COMP4690, HKBU

43. Service Bureaus • Contract with a service bureau to fully provide all alternate backup processing services • Quick response and availability, possible testing • Disadvantages: • Expense • Resource contention during a large emergency COMP4690, HKBU

44. Transaction Redundancy Implementations • Electronic vaulting • The transfer of backup data to an off-site location • Remote journaling • The parallel processing of transactions to an alternate site. A communications line is used to transmit live data as it occurs. • Database shadowing • To create event more redundancy by duplicating the database sets to multiple servers. COMP4690, HKBU

45. Disaster Recovery Plan Maintenance • Disaster recovery plans often get out of date. • Like BCP maintenance • To build maintenance procedures into the organization • To create audit procedures that can report regularly on the state of the plan COMP4690, HKBU

46. II. Testing the DRP • Regular disaster recovery drills and tests are a cornerstone of any disaster recovery plan. • Reasons for testing • Verify the accuracy of the recovery procedures and identify deficiencies • Prepare and train the personnel to execute their emergency duties • Verify the processing capability of the alternate backup site COMP4690, HKBU

47. Five Test Types • Checklist • Distribute copies of the plan to each business unit for review, to ensure the plan addresses all procedures and critical areas of the organization. This is a preliminary step to a real test. • Structured walk-through • Business unit management representatives meet to walk through the plan. To ensure that the plan accurately reflects the organization’ ability to recover successfully. • Simulation • All the operational and support personnel expected to perform during an actual emergency meet in a practice session. To test the ability of the personnel to respond to a simulated disaster. • Parallel • A full test of the recovery plan, utilizing all personnel. Critical systems are run at an alternate site. • Full-interruption • A disaster is replicated even to the point of ceasing normal production operations. The plan is totally implemented as if it were a real disaster. COMP4690, HKBU

48. III. Disaster recovery procedures • This part details • what roles various personnel will take on • what tasks must be implemented to recover and salvage the site • how the company interfaces with external groups • financial considerations. COMP4690, HKBU

49. Primary element • The recovery team • To implement the recovery procedures at the declaration of the disaster. To get the pre-defined critical business functions operating at the alternate backup processing site. • The salvage team • To return the primary site to normal processing environmental conditions. To identify sources of expertise, equipment, and supplies that can make the return to the site possible. • The normal operations resume • To return production processing from alternate site to the primary site with the minimum of disruption and risk • Other recovery issues • Interfacing with external groups; employee relations; fraud and crime; financial disbursement; media relations COMP4690, HKBU