Skyscraper of cards


Having put it off for far too long, I'm belatedly trying to catch up with some standards work in the area of Root of Trust, which for me meant starting with the basics, studying simple introductory articles about RoT.

As far as I can tell so far, RoT is a concept -  the logical basis, the foundation on which secure IT systems are built.

'Secure IT systems' covers a huge range. At the high end are those used for national security and defence purposes, plus safety- and business-critical systems facing enormous risks (substantial threats and impacts). At the low end are systems where the threats are mostly accidental and the impacts negligible - perhaps mildly annoying. Not being able to tell precisely how many steps you've taken today, or being unable to read this blog, is hardly going to stop the Earth spinning on its axis. In fact' mildly' may be overstating it.

'Systems' may be servers, desktops, portables and wearables, plus IoT things and all manner of embedded devices - such as the computers in any modern car or plane controlling the engine, fuel, comms, passenger entertainment, navigation and more, or the smart controller for a pacemaker

Trust me, you don't want your emotionally disturbed ex-partner gaining anonymous remote control of your brakes, altimeter or pacemaker.

In  terms of the layers, we the people using IT are tottering precariously on the top of a house of cards. We interact with application software, interacting with the operating system and, via drivers and microcode, the underlying hardware. A 'secure system' is a load of software running on a bunch of hardware, where the software has been designed to distrust the users and administrators, other software and the hardware, all the way down to, typically, a Hardware Security Module, Trusted Platform Module or similar dedicated security device, subsystem or chip. Ironically in relation to RoT, distrust is the default, particularly for the lower layers unless/until they have been authenticated - but there's the rub: towards the bottom of the stack, how can low-level software be sure it is interacting with and authenticating the anticipated security hardware if all it can do is send and receive signals or messages? Likewise, how can the module be sure it is interacting with the appropriate low-level software? What prevents a naughty bit of software acting as a middleman between the two, faking the expected commands and manipulating the responses in order to subvert the authentication controls? What prevents a nerdy hacker connecting logic and scope probes to the module's ports in order to monitor and maybe inject signals - or just noise to see how well the system copes? How about a well-appointed team of crooks faking a bank ATM's crypto-module, or a cluster of spooks figuring out the nuclear missile abort codes?

Physically securing the hardware is a start, such that if someone tries to - say - open ('decapsulate') the TPM chip to analyse the silicon wafer under an electron microscope in the hope of finding some secret key coded within, the chip somehow destroys itself in the process - perhaps also the warhead for good measure. 

Other hardware/electronic controls can make it virtually impossible for hardware hackers to mount side-channel attacks, painstakingly monitoring and manipulating the module's power supply and ambient temperature in an attempt to reveal its inner secrets.

Cryptography is the primary control, coupled with appropriate use of authentication and encryption processes in both hardware and software (e.g.'microcode' physically built-in to the TPM chip's crypto-processor), plus other inscrutable controls (e.g. rate-limiting brute force attacks and, ultimately again, sacrificing itself, taking its secrets with it).

Developing, producing and testing secure systems is tough, even with access to low-level debugging mechanisms such as JTAG ports and insider-knowledge about the design. There must be a temptation to install hard-coded backdoors (cheat codes), despite the possibility of 'some idiot' further down the line failing to disable them before products start shipping. There is surely a fascination with attempting to locate and open the backdoors without tripping the tripwires that spring open the trapdoors to oblivion.

OK, so now imagine all of that in relation to cloud computing, where 'the system' is not just a physical computer but a fairly loose and dynamic assembly of virtual systems running on servers who-knows-where under the control of who-know-who sharing the global Internet who-knows-how. 

Having added several extra floors to our house of cards, what could possibly go wrong? 

That's what ISO/IEC 27070:2021 addresses. 

At least, I think so. My head hurts. I may be coming down with vertigo.

Popular posts from this blog

Pragmatic ISMS implementation guide (FREE!)

Image
Early this morning ( very  early!) I remotely attended an ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27/WG 1 editing meeting in London discussing the planned revision of ISO/IEC 27003:2017 . Overall, the meeting was very productive in that we got through a  long  list of expert comments on the preliminary draft standard, debated the objectives of the project and the standard and reached consensus on most points. In summary: 27003 is to be revised to align with the current 2022 releases of ISO/IEC 27001 , 27002 and 27005 : These changes are  mostly  minor aside from the new section 6.3 on ISMS changes.
Read more

Two dozen information risks that ISO forgot

Image
Selecting the wrong controls - controls that are inappropriate, ineffective, too costly, impracticable, fragile, unnecessary, counterproductive or whatever, often as a result of blind faith in fads and fashions of the day and FOMO e.g. MFA, AI, cyber Failing to select the right controls - controls that are ideal for the particular situation, both now and in perpetuity, for whatever reason - mostly ignorance and prejudice Selecting and implementing controls at the wrong time or in the wrong way (where 'wrong' includes ineffective, inappropriate, sub-optimal e.g. bolting on controls rather than designing and building them in) Inept and inaccurate identification, analysis and quantification of risk, including reliance on p oor quality (incomplete, inaccurate, out of date, misleading, unreliable ...) information about actual risks, particularly subtle and emerging risks plus those involving deliberate concealment and misdirection e.g. fraud, misinformation, disinformation, propagan
Read more

Philosophical phriday - compliance risk

Image
According to a vendor's promotional video interview I saw recently, the 'cybersecurity compliance burden' has allegedly become so significant that [customer] organisations are eagerly buying [their] software tools and services to help them manage and fulfil their obligations. The vendor's argument goes that, instead of accumulating a ragtag bunch of policies and other controls relating to user Identification and Authentication (I&A), for instance, it makes sense to:  Identify all the cybersecurity-related laws, regulations and standards that apply to the organisation; Examine them for any security control requirements relating to, say, I&A; Rationalise the I&A controls down to the smallest set that satisfies all the requirements - the lowest common denominator; Design, implement, use, manage and maintain those I&A controls; Have the I&A controls checked or audited to gain assurance that the compliance requirements are met.  OK so far? Sounds reasonab
Read more

ISMS internal audit priorities

Image
A thread on the ISO27k Forum sparked my imagination over coffee this morning. Hope had previously asked for assistance with an ISO/IEC 27001:2022 audit plan.  Bhushan offered a lengthy and generally sound response explaining how to use a spreadsheet with tabs to plan and record the audit work performed on 100% of the main body clauses and 50% of the 93 Annex A controls, day-by-day. That's OK ... except it wasn't entirely clear that he was interpreting and elaborating on the standard's actual requirements. ISO/IEC 27001 does not explicitly require, for example, that (as Bhushan stated) "ALL the management system clauses from 4 to 10 AND their sub-clauses need to be listed and audited" in an ISMS internal audit, although evidently he interprets it in that way. In clause 9.2.1, the standard states a requirement for internal audits to provide information on whether the ISMS conforms to the organization’s own requirements for the ISMS plus the requirements of the stan
Read more

Reading between the lines of ISO27001 [L O N G]

Image
ISO/IEC 27001 is a succinct, formally-worded standard for two key reasons: It is deliberately generic, being applicable to all manner of organisations regardless of difference in location/s, size, industry, maturity, structure, information risk and security status ... and so on. In effect, it specifies the lowest common denominator - the things that ALL organisations should be doing to manage their information security controls, as a minimum. The hurdle is set low enough that every organisation ought to find value in designing, implementing and operating an I nformation S ecurity M anagement S ystem as laid out in the standard. It is a certifiable standard, explicitly specifying the characteristics that every certified organisation's ISMS is expected to have. Again, it is a minimal specification with no concept of typical, average or maximum security: that is entirely down to the organisations themselves to determine, following the information risk management processes minimally de
Read more

Passionate dispassion

Image
Someone who is actively involved in, or is managing, an activity is patently not independent of it. They may well make a conscious, rational and determined effort to be objective, dispassionately reviewing evidence etc ., but their subconscious/emotional biases/prejudices and beliefs/value-systems will inevitably influence what they do. With the best will in the world, they will struggle to challenge and assess their past decisions and activities, especially if they were "certain" or "determined" or genuinely believed they were "doing the right thing". Furthermore, it is very hard for anyone to review the things they did not do, decisions they did not make or options they did not even consider. Mostly, they remain out of sight or out of the question.
Read more

45 ISO Management Systems Standards

Image
The ISO website  currently lists 45 published M anagement S ystems S tandards: 1. ISO 7101:2023 Healthcare organization management — Management systems for quality in healthcare organizations — Requirements 2. ISO 9001:2015 Quality management systems — Requirements 3. ISO 10012:2003 Measurement management systems — Requirements for measurement processes and measuring equipment 4. ISO 13485:2016 Medical devices — Quality management systems — Requirements for regulatory purposes 5. ISO 14001:2015 Environmental management systems — Requirements with guidance for use 6. ISO 14298:2021 Graphic technology — Management of security printing processes
Read more

Philosophical phriday - a noncompliance ramble

Image
In a previous philosophical phriday post , I moaned about vendors of security compliance support/management tools and services over-promising and under-delivering - an admittedly biased, even cynical opinion piece about the compliance imperative . A recent article in Corporate Compliance Insights notes that "CISOs are not just defenders against cyber threats but also champions of compliance and operational resilience". Hmmm, are CISOs 'compliance champs', really? Today, I'm discussing alternatives to being compliance-driven. How else can organisations drive their information risk, security and related concerns in a positive direction?
Read more

Adaptive SME security Crowdstrike special

Image
As if on cue, along comes a golden opportunity to consider what the Adaptive SME security  approach has to say regarding the Crowdstrike incident: That's not 20/20 hindsight but foresight: I've picked out the most relevant rows from the security controls table published in the guide 24 hours before the incident.  Although Crowdstrike primarily supplies much larger enterprises than SMEs, the incident could equally have afflicted other security software, or indeed operating systems such as Windows and assorted cloud apps commonly used by SMEs. Regardless of the details, it is a wake-up call, an opportunity to consider and respond to the information risks ... and to adapt , accordingly.
Read more