Rational Survivability

So, after the obligatory dispatch of gloom and doom as described in my
2008 (in)Security Predictions, I’m actually going to highlight some of
the more useful things in the realm of Information Security that I
think are emerging as we round the corner toward next year.

They’re not really so much predictions as rather some things to watch.

Unlike folks who can only seem to talk about desperation, futility
and manifest destiny or (worse yet) "anti-pundit pundits" who try to
suggest that predictions and forecasting are useless (usually because
they suck at it,) I gladly offer a practical roundup of impending
development, innovation and some incremental evolution for your
enjoyment. 

You know, good news.

As Mogull mentioned,
I don’t require a Cray XMP48, chicken bones & voodoo or a
prehensile tail to make my picks.  Rather I grab a nice cold glass of
Vitamin G (Guiness) and sit down and think for a minute or two,
dwelling on my super l33t powers of common sense and pragmatism with just a
pinch of futurist wit.

Many of these items have been underway for some time, but 2008 will
be a banner year for these topics as well as the previously-described
"opportunities for improvement…"

That said, let’s roll with some of the goodness we can look forward to in the coming year.  This is not an exhaustive list by any means, but some examples I thought were important and interesting:

1. More robust virtualization security toolsets with more native hypervisor/vmm accessibility
   Though
   it didn’t start with the notion of security baked in, virtualization
   for all of its rush-to-production bravado will actually yield some
   interesting security solutions that help tackle some very serious
   challenges.  As the hypervisors become thinner, we’re going to see the
   management and security toolsets gain increased access to the guts of
   the sausage machine in order to effect security appropriately and this
   will be the year we see the virtual switch open up to third parties and
   more robust APIs for security visibility and disposition appear.
    
2. The focus on information centric security survivability graduates from v1.0 to v1.1
   Trying
   to secure the network and the endpoint is like herding cats and folks
   are tired of dumping precious effort on deploying kitty litter around
   the Enterprise to soak up the stinky spots.  Rather, we’re going to see
   folks really start to pay attention to information classification,
   extensible and portable policy definition, cradle-to-grave lifecycle
   management, and invest in technology to help get them there.

   Interestingly
   the current maturity of features/functions such as NAC and DLP have
   actually helped us get closer to managing our information and
   information-related risks.  The next generation of these offerings in
   combination with many of the other elements I describe herein and their
   consolidation into the larger landscape of management suites will
   actually start to deliver on the promise of focusing on what matters —
   the information.
    

3. Robust Role-based policy, Identity and access management coupled with entitlement, geo-location and federation…oh and infrastructure, too!
   We’re
   getting closer to being able to affect policy not only based upon just
   source/destination IP address, switch and router topology and the odd entry in active directory on
   a per-application basis, but rather holistically based upon robust
   lifecycle-focused role-based policy engines that allow us to tie in all of the major
   enterprise components that sit along the information supply-chain.

   Who, what, where, when, how and ultimately why will be the decision
   points considered with the next generation of solutions in this space.
   Combine the advancements here with item #2 above, and someone might
   actually start smiling.

   If you need any evidence of the convergence/collision of the application-oriented with the network-oriented approach and a healthy overlay of user entitlement provisioning, just look at the about-face Cisco just made regarding TrustSec.  Of course, we all know that it’s not a *real* security concern/market until Cisco announces they’ve created the solution for it 😉
    

4. Next Generation Networks gain visibility as they redefine the compute model of today
   Just
   as there exists a Moore’s curve for computing, there exists an
   overlapping version for networking, it just moves slower given the
   footprint.  We’re seeing the slope of this curve starting to trend up
   this coming year, and it’s much more than bigger pipes, although that
   doesn’t hurt either…

   These next generation networks will
   really start to emerge visibly in the next year as the existing
   networking models start to stretch the capabilities and capacities of
   existing architecture and new paradigms drive requirements that dictate
   a much more modular, scalable, resilient, high-performance, secure and
   open transport upon which to build distributed service layers.

   How
   networks and service layers are designed, composed, provisioned,
   deployed and managed — and how that intersects with virtualization and
   grid/utility computing — will start to really sink home the message
   that "in the cloud" computing has arrived.  Expect service providers
   and very large enterprises to adapt these new computing climates first
   with a trickle-down to smaller business via SaaS and hosted service
   operators to follow.

   BT’s 21CN
   (21st Century Network) is a fantastic example of what we can expect
   from NGN as the demand for higher speed, more secure, more resilient and more extensible interconnectivity really
   takes off.
    

5. Grid and distributed utility computing models will start to creep into security
   A
   really interesting by-product of the "cloud compute" model is that as
   data, storage, networking, processing, etc. get distributed, so shall
   security.  In the grid model, one doesn’t care where the actions take
   place so long as service levels are met and the experiential and
   business requirements are delivered.  Security should be thought of in
   exactly the same way. 

   The notion that you can point to a
   physical box and say it performs function ‘X’ is so last Tuesday.
   Virtualization already tells us this.  So, imagine if your security
   processing isn’t performed by a monolithic appliance but instead is
   contributed to in a self-organizing fashion wherein the entire
   ecosystem (network, hosts, platforms, etc.) all contribute in the
   identification of threats and vulnerabilities as well as function to
   contain, quarantine and remediate policy exceptions.

   Sort of sounds like that "self-defending network" schpiel, but not focused on the network and with common telemetry and distributed processing of the problem.

   Check out Red Lambda’s cGrid technology for an interesting view of this model.
    

6. Precision versus accuracy will start to legitimize prevention as
   the technology starts to allow us the confidence to start turning the
   corner beyond detection
   In a sad commentary on the last few
   years of the security technology grind, we’ve seen the prognostication
   that intrusion detection is dead and the deadpan urging of the security
   vendor cesspool convincing us that we must deploy intrusion prevention
   in its stead. 
      
   Since there really aren’t many pure-play intrusion detection systems
   left anyway, the reality is that most folks who have purchased IPSs
   seldom put them in in-line mode and when they do, they seldom turn on
   the "prevention" policies and instead just have them detect attacks,
   blink a bit and get on with it.

   Why?  Mostly because while the
   threats have evolved the technology implemented to mitigate them hasn’t
   — we’re either stuck with giant port/protocol colanders or
   signature-driven IPSs that are nothing more than IDSs with the ability
   to send RST packets.

   So the "new" generation of technology has
   arrived and may offer some hope of bridging that gap.  This is due to
   not only really good COTS hardware but also really good network
   processors and better software written (or re-written) to take
   advantage of both.  Performance, efficacy and efficiency have begun to
   give us greater visibility as we get away from making decisions based
   on ports/protocols (feel free to debate proxies vs. ACLs vs. stateful
   inspection…) and move to identifying application usage and getting us
   close to being able to make "real time" decisions on content in context
   by examining the payload and data.  See #2 above.

   The
   precision versus accuracy discussion is focused around being able to
   really start trusting in the ability for prevention technology to
   detect, defend and deter against "bad things" with a fidelity and
   resolution that has very low false positive rates.

   We’re getting closer with the arrival of technology such as Palo Alto Network’s solutions
   — you can call them whatever you like, but enforcing both detection
   and prevention using easy-to-define policies based on application (and
   telling the difference between any number of apps all using port
   80/443) is a step in the right direction.
    

7. The consumerization of IT will cause security and IT as we know it to die radically change
   I know it’s heretical but 2008 is going to really push the limits of
   the existing IT and security architectures to their breaking points, which is
   going to mean that instead of saying "no," we’re going to have to focus
   on how to say "yes, but with this incremental risk" and find solutions for an every increasingly mobile and consumerist enterprise. 

   We’ve talked about this before, and most security folks curl up into a fetal position when you start mentioning the adoption by the enterprise of social
   neworking, powerful smartphones, collaboration tools, etc.  The fact is that the favorable economics, agility , flexibility and efficiencies gained with the adoption of consumerization of IT outweigh the downsides in the long run.  Let’s not forget the new generation of workers entering the workforce. 

   So, since information is going to be leaking from our Enterprises like a sieve on all manners of devices and by all manner of methods, it’s going to force our hands and cause us to focus on being information centric and stop worrying about the "perimeter problem," stop focusing on the network and the host, and start dealing with managing the truly important assets while allowing our employees to do their jobs in the most effective, collaborative and efficient methods possible.

   This disruption will be a good thing, I promise.  If you don’t believe me, ask BP — one of the largest enterprises on the planet.  Since 2006 they’ve put some amazing initiatives into play:

   …like this little gem:

   Oil giant BP is pioneering a "digital consumer" initiative
   that will give some employees an allowance to buy their own IT
   equipment and take care of their own support needs.

   The
   project, which is still at the pilot stage, gives select BP staff an
   annual allowance — believed to be around $1,000 — to buy their own
   computing equipment and use their own expertise and the manufacturer’s
   warranty and support instead of using BP’s IT support team.

   Access
   to the scheme is tightly controlled and those employees taking part
   must demonstrate a certain level of IT proficiency through a computer
   driving licence-style certification, as well as signing a diligent use
   agreement.

   …combined with this:

   Rather
   than rely on a strong network perimeter to secure its systems, BP has
   decided that these laptops have to be capable of coping with the worst
   that malicious hackers can throw at it, without relying on a network
   firewall.

   Ken Douglas, technology director of BP, told the UK
   Technology Innovation & Growth Forum in London on Monday that
   18,000 of BP’s 85,000 laptops now connect straight to the internet even
   when they’re in the office.

8. Desktop Operating Systems become even more resilient
   The first steps taken by Microsoft and Apple in Vista and OS X (Leopard) as examples have begun to
   chip away at plugging up some of the security holes that
   have plagued them due to the architectural "feature" that providing an open execution runtime model delivers.  Honestly, nothing short of a do-over will ultimately mitigate this problem, so instead of suggesting that incremental improvement is worthless, we should recognize that our dark overlords are trying to makethings better.

   Elements in Vista such as ASLR, NX, and UAC combined with integrated firewalling, anti-spyware/anti-phishing, disk encryption, integrated rights management, protected mode IE mode, etc. are all good steps in a "more right" direction than previous offerings.  They’re in response to lessons learned.

   On the Mac, we also see ASLR, sandboxing, input management, better firewalling, better disk encryption, which are also notable improvements.  Yes, we’ve got a long way to go, but this means that OS vendors are paying more attention which will lead to more stable and secure platforms upon which developers can write more secure code.

   It will be interesting to see how the intersection of these "more secure" OS’s factor with virtualization security discussed in #1 above.

   Vista SP1 is due to ship in 2008 and will include APIs through which third-party security products can work with kernel patch protection on Vista
   x64, more secure BitLocker drive encryption and a better Elliptical Curve Cryptography PRNG (pseudo-random number generator.)  Follow-on releases to Leopard will likely feature security enhancements to those delivered this year.
    

9. Compliance stops being a dirty word  & Risk Management moves beyond buzzword
   Today
   we typically see the role of information security described as blocking and tackling; focused on managing threats and
   vulnerabilities balanced against the need to be "compliant" to some
   arbitrary set of internal and external policies.  In many people’s
   assessment then, compliance equals security.  This is an inaccurate and
   unfortunate misunderstanding.

   In 2008, we’ll see many of the functions of security — administrative, policy and operational — become much more visible and transparent to the business and we’ll see a renewed effort placed on compliance within the scope of managing risk because the former is actually a by-product of a well-executed risk management strategy.

   We have compliance as an industry today because we manage technology threats and vulnerabilities and don’t manage risk.  Compliance is actually nothing more than a way of forcing transparency and plugging a gap between the two.  For most, it’s the best they’ve got.

   What’s traditionally preventing the transition from threat/vulnerability management to risk management is the principal focus on technology with a lack of a good risk assessment framework and thus a lack of understanding of business impact.

   The availability of mature risk assessment frameworks (OCTAVE, FAIR, etc.) combined with the maturity of IT and governance frameworks (CoBIT, ITIL) and the readiness of the business and IT/Security cultures to accept risk management as a language and actionset with which they need to be conversant will yield huge benefits this year.

   Couple that with solutions like Skybox and you’ve got the makings of a strategic risk management strategy that can bring the security more closely aligned to the business.
    

10. Rich Mogull will, indeed, move in with his mom and start speaking Klingon
    ’nuff said.

So, there we have it.  A little bit of sunshine in your otherwise gloomy day.

/Hoff

Yup.  Security predictions are like elbows.  Most everyone’s got at least two, they’re usually ignored unless rubbed the wrong way but when used appropriately, can be devastating in a cage match…

So, in the spirit of, well, keeping up with the Jones’, I happily present you with Hoff’s 2008 Information (in)Security Predictions.  Most of them are feature attacks/attack vectors.  A couple are ooh-aah trends.  Most of them are sadly predictable.  I’ve tried to be more specific than "cybercrime will increase."

I’m really loathe do these, but being a futurist, the only comfort I can take is that nobody can tell me that I’m wrong today 😉

…and in the words of Carnac the Magnificent, "May the winds of the Sahara blow a desert scorpion up your turban…"

1. Nasty Virtualization Hypervisor Compromise
   As the Hypervisor gets thinner, more of the guts will need to be exposed via API or shed to management and functionality-extending toolsets, expanding the attack surface with new vulnerabilities.  To wit, a Hypervisor-compromising malware will make it’s first in-the-wild appearance to not only produce an exploit, but obfuscate itself thanks to the magic of virtualization in the underlying chipsets.  Hang on to yer britches, the security vendor product marketing SpecOps Generals are going to scramble the fighters with a shock and awe campaign of epic "I told you so" & "AV isn’t dead, it’s just virtualized" proportions…Security "strategery" at it’s finest.

2. Major Privacy Breach of a Social Networking Site
   With the broadening reach of application extensibility and Web2.0 functionality, we’ll see a major privacy breach via social network sites such as MySpace, LinkedIn or Facebook via the usual suspects (CSRF, XSS, etc.) and via host-based Malware that 0wns unsuspecting Millenials and utilizes the interconnectivity offered to turn these services into a "social botnet" platform with a wrath the likes of which only the ungoldly lovechild of Storm, Melissa, and Slammer could bring…

3. Integrity Hack of a Major SaaS Vendor
   Expect a serious bit of sliminess to occur with real financial impact to occur from a SaaS vendor’s offering.  With professional cybercrime on the rise, the criminals will go not only where the money is, but also after the data that describes where that money is.  Since much of the security of the SaaS model counts on the integrity and not just the availability of the hosted service, a targeted attack which holds hostage the (non-portable) data and threatens its integrity could have devastating effects on the companies who rely on it.  SalesForce, anyone?
    
4. Targeted eBanking Compromise with substantial financial losses
   Get ready for a nasty eBanking focused compromise that starts to unravel the consumer confidence in this convenient utility; not directly because of identity abuse (note I didn’t say identity theft) but because of the business model impact it will bring to the banks.   These types of direct attacks (beyond phishing) will start to push the limits of acceptable loss for the financial institutions and their insurers and will start to move the accountability/responsibility more heavily down to the eBanker.  A tiered service level will surface with greater functionality/higher transaction limits being offered with a trade-off of higher security/less convenience.  Same goes for credit/debit cards…priceless!
5. A Major state-sponsored espionage and cyberAttack w/disruption of U.S. government function
   We saw some of the more noisy examples of low-level crack attacks via our Chinese friends recently, but given the proliferation of botnets, the inexcusably poor levels of security in government systems and network security, we’ll see a targeted attack against something significant.  It’ll be big.  It’ll be public.  It’ll bring new legislation…Isn’t there some little election happening soon?  This brings us to…
6. Be-Afraid-A of a SCADA compromise…the lunatics are running the asylum!
   Remember that leaked DHS "turn your generator into a roman candle" video that circulated a couple of months ago?  Get ready to see the real thing on prime time news at 11.  We’ve got decades of legacy controls just waiting for the wrong guy to flip the right switch.  We just saw an "insider" of a major water utility do naughty things, imagine if someone really motivated popped some goofy pills and started playing Tetris with the power grid…imagine what all those little SCADA doodads are hooked to…
    
7. A Major Global Service/Logistics/Transportation/Shipping/Supply-Chain Company will be compromised via targeted attack
   A service we take for granted like UPS, FedEx, or DHL will have their core supply chain/logistics systems interrupted causing the fragile underbelly of our global economic interconnectedness to show itself, warts and all.  Prepare for huge chargebacks on next day delivery when all those mofo’s don’t get their self-propelled, remote-controlled flying UFO’s delivered from Amazon.com.

8. Mobile network attacks targeting mobile broadband
   So, you don’t use WiFi because it’s insecure, eh?  Instead, you fire up that Verizon EVDO card plugged into your laptop or tether to your mobile phone instead because it’s "secure."  Well, that’s going to be a problem next year.  Expect to see compromise of the RF you hold so dear as we all scramble to find that next piece of spectrum that has yet to be 0wn3d…Google’s 700Mhz spectrum, you say? Oh, wait…WiMax will save us all…
    
9. My .txt file just 0wn3d me!  Is nothing sacred!?  Common file formats and protocols to cause continued unnatural acts
   PDF’s, Quicktime, .PPT, .DOC, .XLS.  If you can’t trust the sanctity of the file formats and protocols from Adobe, Apple and Microsoft, who can you trust!?  Expect to see more and more abuse of generic underlying software plumbing providing the conduit for exploit.  Vulnerabilities that aren’t fixed properly combined with a dependence on OS security functionality that’s only half baked is going to mean that the "Burros Gone Wild" video you’re watching on YouTube is going to make you itchy in more ways than one…

---

10. Converged SensorNets
    In places like the UK, we’ve seen the massive deployment of CCTV monitoring of the populous.  In places like South Central L.A., we have ballistic geo-location and detection systems to track gunshots.  We’ve got GPS in phones.  In airports we have sniffers, RFID passport processing, biometrics and "Total Recall" nudie scanners.  The PoPo have license plate recognition.  Vegas has facial recognition systems.  Our borders have motion, heat and remote sensing pods.  start knitting this all together and you have massive SensorNets — all networked — and able to track you to military precision.  Pair that with GoogleMaps/Streets and I’ll be able to tell what color underwear you had on at the Checkout counter of your local Qwik-E-Mart when you bought that mocha slurpaccino last Tuesday…please don’t ask me how I know.

11. Information Centric Security Phase One
    It should come as no surprise that focusing our efforts on the host and the network has led to the spectacular septic tank of security we have today.  We need to focus on content in context and set policies across platform and transport to dictate who, how, when, where, and why the creation, modification, consumption and destruction of data should occur.  In this first generation of DLP/CMF solutions (which are being integrated into the larger base of "Information" centric "assurance" solutions,) we’ve taken the first step along this journey.  What we’ll begin to see in 2008 is the information equivalent of the Mission Impossible self-destructing recording…only with a little more intelligence and less smoke.  Here come the DRM haters…
     
12. The Attempted Coup to Return to Centralized Computing with the Paradox of Distributed Data
    Despite the fact that data is being distributed to the far reaches of the Universe, the wonders of economics combined with the utility of some well-timed technology is seeing IT & Security (encouraged by the bean counters) attempting to reel the genie back in the bottle and re-centralize the computing (desktop, server, application and storage) experience back into big boxes tucked safely away in some data center somewhere.  Funny thing is, with utility/grid computing and SaaS, the data center is but an abstraction, too.  Virtualization companies will become our dark overlords as they will control the very fabric of our digital lives…2008 is when we’ll really start to use the web as the platform for the delivery of all applications, served through streamed desktops on thinner and thinner clients.

So, that’s all I could come up with.  I don’t really have a formulaic empirical model like Stiennon.  I just have a Guiness and start complaining.  This is what I came up with.

In more ways than one, I hope I’m terribly wrong on most of these.

/Hoff

[Edit: Please see my follow-on post titled "And Now Some Useful 2008 Information Survivability Predictions" which speak to some interesting less gloomy things I predict to happen in 2008]