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00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 RFC 7632
Security Automation and Continuous Monitoring WG D. Waltermire
Internet-Draft NIST
Intended status: Informational D. Harrington
Expires: April 17, 2014 Effective Software
October 14, 2013
Endpoint Security Posture Assessment - Enterprise Use Cases
draft-ietf-sacm-use-cases-02
Abstract
This memo documents a sampling of use cases for securely aggregating
configuration and operational data and assessing that data to
determine an organization's security posture. From these operational
use cases, we can derive common functional capabilities and
requirements to guide development of vendor-neutral, interoperable
standards for aggregating and assessing data relevant to security
posture.
Status of This Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-
Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
This Internet-Draft will expire on April 17, 2014.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2013 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
(http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
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include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Endpoint Posture Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.1. Definition and Publication of Automatable Configuration
Guides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.2. Automated Checklist Verification . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.3. Organizational Software Policy Compliance . . . . . . . . 6
2.4. Detection of Posture Deviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.5. Search for Signs of Infection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.6. Remediation and Mitigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.7. Endpoint Information Analysis and Reporting . . . . . . . 7
2.8. Others... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
5. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
6. Change Log . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
6.1. -00- to -01- . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
6.2. -00- to -01- . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
6.3. draft-waltermire-sacm-use-cases-05 to draft-ietf-sacm-
use-cases-00 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
6.4. -04- to -05- . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
7. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
7.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
7.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1. Introduction
Our goal with this document is to improve our agreement on which
problems we're trying to solve. We need to start with short, simple
problem statements and discuss those by email and in person. Once we
agree on which problems we're trying to solve, we can move on to
propose various solutions and decide which ones to use.
This document describes example use cases for endpoint posture
assessment for enterprises. It provides a sampling of use cases for
securely aggregating configuration and operational data and assessing
that data to determine the security posture of individual endpoints,
and, in the aggregate, the security posture of an enterprise.
These use cases cross many IT security information domains. From
these operational use cases, we can derive common concepts, common
information expressions, functional capabilities and requirements to
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guide development of vendor-neutral, interoperable standards for
aggregating and assessing data relevant to security posture.
Using this standard data, tools can analyze the state of endpoints,
user activities and behaviour, and assess the security posture of an
organization. Common expression of information should enable
interoperability between tools (whether customized, commercial, or
freely available), and the ability to automate portions of security
processes to gain efficiency, react to new threats in a timely
manner, and free up security personnel to work on more advanced
problems.
The goal is to enable organizations to make informed decisions that
support organizational objectives, to enforce policies for hardening
systems, to prevent network misuse, to quantify business risk, and to
collaborate with partners to identify and mitigate threats.
It is expected that use cases for enterprises and for service
providers will largely overlap, but there are additional
complications for service providers, especially in handling
information that crosses administrative domains.
The output of endpoint posture assessment is expected to feed into
additional processes, such as policy-based enforcement of acceptable
state, verification and monitoring of security controls, and
compliance to regulatory requirements.
2. Endpoint Posture Assessment
Endpoint posture assessment involves orchestrating and performing
data collection and analysis pertaining to the posture of a given
endpoint. Typically, endpoint posture information is gathered and
then published to appropriate data repositories to make collected
information available for further analysis supporting organizational
security processes.
Endpoint posture assessment typically includes:
o Collecting the posture of a given endpoint;
o Making that posture available to the enterprise for further
analysis and action; and
o Performing analysis to assess that the endpoint's posture is in
compliance with enterprise standards and policy.
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As part of these activities it is often necessary to identify and
acquire any supporting content that is needed to drive data
collection and analysis.
The following is a typical workflow scenario for assessing endpoint
posture:
1. Define a target endpoint to be assessed
2. Select policies applicable to the target, and identify what
posture attributes need to be collected for assessment.
3. Verify the identity of the target being assessed
4. Collect posture attributes from the target
5. Communicate target identity and collected attributes to external
system for evaluation
6. Evaluator compares collected posture attributes from the target
with expected values as expressed in policies
The following subsections detail specific use cases for data
collection, analysis, and related operations pertaining to the
publication and use of supporting content.
2.1. Definition and Publication of Automatable Configuration Guides
A network device vendor manufactures a number of enterprise grade
routers and other network devices. They also develop and maintain an
operating system for these devices that enables end-user
organizations to configure a number of security and operational
settings for these devices. As part of their customer support
activities, they publish a number of secure configuration guides that
provide minimum security guidelines for configuring their devices.
Each guide they produce applies to a specific model of device and
version of the operating system and provides a number of specialized
configurations depending on the devices intended function and what
add-on hardware modules and software licenses are installed on the
device. To enable their customers to assess the security posture of
their devices to ensure that all appropriate minimal security
settings are enabled, they publish an automatable configuration
checklist using a popular data format that defines what settings to
check using a network management protocol and appropriate values for
each setting. They publish these guides to a public content
repository that customers can query to retrieve applicable guides for
their deployed enterprise network infrastructure endpoints.
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Guides could also come from sources other than a device vendor, such
as industry groups or regulatory authorities, or enterprises could
develop their own checklists.
QUESTION: This use case applies equally to vendors representing other
endpoint types. Should this be generalized to capture this notion?
QUESTION: Is providing traceability to functional capabilities
useful? If so, we need to replicate this for the other use cases.
2.2. Automated Checklist Verification
A financial services company operates a heterogeneous IT environment.
In support of their risk management program, they utilize vendor
provided automatable security configuration checklists for each
operating system and application used within their IT environment.
Multiple checklists are used from different vendors to insure
adequate coverage of all IT assets.
To identify what checklists are needed, they use automation to gather
an inventory of the software versions utilized by all IT assets in
the enterprise. This data gathering will involve querying existing
data stores of previously collected endpoint software inventory
posture data and actively collecting data from reachable endpoints as
needed utilizing network and systems management protocols.
Previously collected data may be provided by periodic data
collection, network connection-driven data collection, or ongoing
event-driven monitoring of endpoint posture changes.
Using the gathered software inventory data and associated asset
management data indicating the organizational defined functions of
each endpoint, they locate and query each vendors content repository
for the appropriate checklists. These checklists are cached locally
to reduce the need to download the checklist multiple times.
Driven by the setting data provided in the checklist, a combination
of existing configuration data stores and data collection methods are
used to gather the appropriate posture information from each
endpoint. Specific data is gathered based on the defined enterprise
function and software inventory of each endpoint. The data
collection paths used to collect software inventory posture will be
used again for this purpose. Once the data is gathered, the actual
state is evaluated against the expected state criteria in each
applicable checklist. Deficiencies are identified and reported to
the appropriate endpoint operators for remedy.
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Checklists could also come from sources other than the application or
OS vendor, such as industry groups or regulatory authorities, or
enterprises could develop their own checklists.
2.3. Organizational Software Policy Compliance
Example Corporation, in support of compliance requirements, has
identified a number of secure baselines for different endpoint types
that exist across their enterprise IT environment. Determining which
baseline applies to a given endpoint is based on the organizationally
defined function of the device.
Each baseline, defined using an automatable standardized data format,
identifies the expected hardware, software and patch inventory, and
software configuration item values for each endpoint type. As part
of their compliance activities, they require that all endpoints
connecting to their network meet the appropriate baselines. Each
endpoint is checked to make sure it complies with the appropriate
baseline whenever it connects to the network and at least once a day
thereafter. These daily compliance checks assess the posture of each
endpoint and report on its compliance with the appropriate baseline.
[TODO: Need to speak to how the baselines are identified for a given
endpoint connecting to the network.]
2.4. Detection of Posture Deviations
Example corporation has established secure configuration baselines
for each different type of endpoint within their enterprise
including: network infrastructure, mobile, client, and server
computing platforms. These baselines define an approved list of
hardware, software (i.e., operating system, applications, and
patches), and associated required configurations. When an endpoint
connects to the network, the appropriate baseline configuration is
communicated to the endpoint based on its location in the network,
the expected function of the device, and other asset management data.
It is checked for compliance with the baseline indicating any
deviations to the device's operators. Once the baseline has been
established, the endpoint is monitored for any change events
pertaining to the baseline on an ongoing basis. When a change occurs
to posture defined in the baseline, updated posture information is
exchanged allowing operators to be notified and/or automated action
to be taken.
2.5. Search for Signs of Infection
TODO
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2.6. Remediation and Mitigation
TODO
2.7. Endpoint Information Analysis and Reporting
TODO
2.8. Others...
Additional use cases will be identified as we work through other
domains.
3. IANA Considerations
This memo includes no request to IANA.
4. Security Considerations
This memo documents, for Informational purposes, use cases for
security automation. While it is about security, it does not affect
security.
5. Acknowledgements
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and/or the
MITRE Corporation have developed specifications under the general
term "Security Automation" including languages, protocols,
enumerations, and metrics.
The authors would like to recognize and thank Adam Montville for his
work on early edits of this draft. Additionally, the authors would
like to thank Kathleen Moriarty and Stephen Hanna for contributing
text to this document. The authors would also like to acknowledge
the members of the SACM mailing list for their keen and insightful
feedback on the concepts and text within this document.
6. Change Log
6.1. -00- to -01-
Changed title
removed section 4, expecting it will be moved into the requirements
document.
removed the list of proposed caabilities from section 3.1
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Added empty sections for Search for Signs of Infection, Remediation
and Mitigation, and Endpoint Information Analysis and Reporting.
Removed Requirements Language section and rfc2119 reference.
Removed unused references (which ended up being all references).
6.2. -00- to -01-
o Work on this revision has been focused on document content
relating primarily to use of asset management data and functions.
o Made significant updates to section 3 including:
* Reworked introductory text.
* Replaced the single example with multiple use cases that focus
on more discrete uses of asset management data to support
hardware and software inventory, and configuration management
use cases.
* For one of the use cases, added mapping to functional
capabilities used. If popular, this will be added to the other
use cases as well.
* Additional use cases will be added in the next revision
capturing additional discussion from the list.
o Made significant updates to section 4 including:
* Renamed the section heading from "Use Cases" to "Functional
Capabilities" since use cases are covered in section 3. This
section now extrapolates specific functions that are needed to
support the use cases.
* Started work to flatten the section, moving select subsections
up from under asset management.
* Removed the subsections for: Asset Discovery, Endpoint
Components and Asset Composition, Asset Resources, and Asset
Life Cycle.
* Renamed the subsection "Asset Representation Reconciliation" to
"Deconfliction of Asset Identities".
* Expanded the subsections for: Asset Identification, Asset
Characterization, and Deconfliction of Asset Identities.
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* Added a new subsection for Asset Targeting.
* Moved remaining sections to "Other Unedited Content" for future
updating.
6.3. draft-waltermire-sacm-use-cases-05 to draft-ietf-sacm-use-cases-00
o Transitioned from individual I/D to WG I/D based on WG consensus
call.
o Fixed a number of spelling errors. Thank you Erik!
o Added keywords to the front matter.
o Removed the terminology section from the draft. Terms have been
moved to: draft-dbh-sacm-terminology-00
o Removed requirements to be moved into a new I/D.
o Extracted the functionality from the examples and made the
examples less prominent.
o Renamed "Functional Capabilities and Requirements" section to "Use
Cases".
* Reorganized the "Asset Management" sub-section. Added new text
throughout.
+ Renamed a few sub-section headings.
+ Added text to the "Asset Characterization" sub-section.
o Renamed "Security Configuration Management" to "Endpoint
Configuration Management". Not sure if the "security" distinction
is important.
* Added new sections, partially integrated existing content.
* Additional text is needed in all of the sub-sections.
o Changed "Security Change Management" to "Endpoint Posture Change
Management". Added new skeletal outline sections for future
updates.
6.4. -04- to -05-
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o Are we including user activities and behavior in the scope of this
work? That seems to be layer 8 stuff, appropriate to an IDS/IPS
application, not Internet stuff.
o I removed the references to what the WG will do because this
belongs in the charter, not the (potentially long-lived) use cases
document. I removed mention of charter objectives because the
charter may go through multiple iterations over time; there is a
website for hosting the charter; this document is not the correct
place for that discussion.
o I moved the discussion of NIST specifications to the
acknowledgements section.
o Removed the portion of the introduction that describes the
chapters; we have a table of concepts, and the existing text
seemed redundant.
o Removed marketing claims, to focus on technical concepts and
technical analysis, that would enable subsequent engineering
effort.
o Removed (commented out in XML) UC2 and UC3, and eliminated some
text that referred to these use cases.
o Modified IANA and Security Consideration sections.
o Moved Terms to the front, so we can use them in the subsequent
text.
o Removed the "Key Concepts" section, since the concepts of ORM and
IRM were not otherwise mentioned in the document. This would seem
more appropriate to the arch doc rather than use cases.
o Removed role=editor from David Waltermire's info, since there are
three editors on the document. The editor is most important when
one person writes the document that represents the work of
multiple people. When there are three editors, this role marking
isn't necessary.
o Modified text to describe that this was specific to enterprises,
and that it was expected to overlap with service provider use
cases, and described the context of this scoped work within a
larger context of policy enforcement, and verification.
o The document had asset management, but the charter mentioned
asset, change, configuration, and vulnerability management, so I
added sections for each of those categories.
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o Added text to Introduction explaining goal of the document.
o Added sections on various example use cases for asset management,
config management, change management, and vulnerability
management.
7. References
7.1. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
7.2. Informative References
[RFC2865] Rigney, C., Willens, S., Rubens, A., and W. Simpson,
"Remote Authentication Dial In User Service (RADIUS)", RFC
2865, June 2000.
Authors' Addresses
David Waltermire
National Institute of Standards and Technology
100 Bureau Drive
Gaithersburg, Maryland 20877
USA
Email: david.waltermire@nist.gov
David Harrington
Effective Software
50 Harding Rd
Portsmouth, NH 03801
USA
Email: ietfdbh@comcast.net
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