Rational Survivability

Interop has has been great thus far.  One of the most visible themes of this year’s show is (not suprisingly) the hyped emergence of 10Gb/s Ethernet.  10G isn’t new, but the market is now ripe with products supporting it: routers, switches, servers and, of course, security kit.

With this uptick in connectivity as well as the corresponding float in compute power thanks to Mr. Moore AND some nifty evolution of very fast, low latency, reasonably accurate deep packet inspection (including behavioral technology,) the marketing wars have begun on who has the biggest, baddest toys on the block.

Whenever this discussion arises, without question the notion of "carrier class" gets bandied about in order to essentially qualify a product as being able to withstand enormous amounts of traffic load without imposing latency. 

One of the most compelling reasons for these big pieces of iron (which are ultimately a means to an end to run software, afterall) is the service provider/carrier/mobile operator market which certainly has its fair share of challenges in terms of not only scale and performance but also security.

I blogged a couple of weeks ago regarding the resurgence of what can be described as "clean pipes" wherein a service provider applies some technology that gets rid of the big lumps upstream of the customer premises in order to deliver more sanitary network transport.

What’s interesting about clean pipes is that much of what security providers talk about today is only actually a small amount of what is actually needed.  Security providers, most notably IPS vendors, anchor the entire strategy of clean pipes around "threat protection" that appears somewhat one dimensional.

This normally means getting rid of what is generically referred to today as "malware," arresting worm propagation and quashing DoS/DDoS attacks.  It doesn’t speak at all to the need for things that aren’t purely "security" in nature such as parental controls (URL filtering,) anti-spam, P2P, etc.  It appears that in the strictest definition, these aren’t threats?

So, this week we’ve seen the following announcements:

• ISS announces their new appliance that offers 6Gb/s of IPS
• McAfee announces thei new appliance that offers 10Gb/s of IPS

The trumpets sounded and the heavens parted as these products were announced touting threat protection via IPS at levels supposedly never approached before.  More appliances.  Lots of interfaces.  Big numbers.  Yet to be seen in action.  Also, to be clear a 2U rackmount appliance that is not DC powered and non-NEBS certified isn’t normally called "Carrier-Class."

I find these announcements interesting because even with our existing products (which run ISS and Sourcefire’s IDS/IPS software, by the way) we can deliver 8Gb/s of firewall and IPS today and have been able to for some time.

Lisa Vaas over @ eWeek just covered
the ISS and McAfee announcements and she was nice enough to talk about
our products and positioning.  One super-critical difference is that along with high throughput and low latency you get to actually CHOOSE which IPS you want to run — ISS, Sourcefire and shortly Check Point’s IPS-1.

You can then combine that with firewall, AV, AS, URL filtering, web app. and database firewalls and XML security gateways in the same chassis to name a few other functions — all best of breed from top-tier players — and this is what we call Enterprise and Provider-Class UTM folks.

Holistically approaching threat management across the entire spectrum is really important along with the speeds and feeds and we’ve all seen what happens when more and more functionality is added to the feature stack — you turn a feature on and you pay for it performance-wise somewhere else.  It’s robbing Peter to pay Paul.  The processing requirements necessary at 10G line rates to do IPS is different when you add AV to the mix.

The next steps will be interesting and we’ll have to see how the switch and overlay vendors rev up to make their move to have the biggest on the block.  Hey, what ever did happen to that 3Com M160?

Then there’s that little company called Cisco…

{Ed: Oops.  I made a boo-boo and talked about some stuff I shouldn’t have.  You didn’t notice, did you?  Ah, the perils of the intersection of Corporate Blvd. and Personal Way!  Lesson learned. 😉 }

I was reading Joseph Tardo’s (Nevis Networks) new Illuminations blog and found the topic of his latest post ""Built-in, Overlay or Something More Radical?" regarding the possible future of network security quite interesting.

Joseph (may I call you Joseph?) recaps the topic of a research draft from Stanford funded by the "Stanford Clean Slate Design for the Internet" project that discusses an approach to network security called SANE.   The notion of SANE (AKA Ethane) is a policy-driven security services layer that utilizes intelligent centrally-located services to replace many of the underlying functions provided by routers, switches and security products today:

Ethane is a new architecture for enterprise networks which provides a powerful yet simple management model and strong security guarantees.  Ethane allows network managers to define a single, network-wide, fine-grain policy, and then enforces it at every switch.  Ethane policy is defined over human-friendly names (such as "bob, "payroll-server", or "http-proxy) and  dictates who can talk to who and in which manner.  For example, a policy rule may specify that all guest users who have not authenticated can only use HTTP and that all of their traffic must traverse a local web proxy.

Ethane has a number of salient properties difficult to achieve
with network technologies today.  First, the global security policy is enforced at each switch in a manner that is resistant to poofing.  Second, all packets on an Ethane network can be
attributed back to the sending host and the physical location in
which the packet entered the network.  In fact, packets collected
in the past can also be attributed to the sending host at the time the packets were sent — a feature that can be used to aid in
auditing and forensics.  Finally, all the functionality within
Ethane is provided by very simple hardware switches.
      

The trick behind the Ethane design is that all complex
functionality, including routing, naming, policy declaration and
security checks are performed by a central controller (rather than
in the switches as is done today).  Each flow on the network must
first get permission from the controller which verifies that the
communicate is permissible by the network policy.  If the controller allows a flow, it computes a route for the flow to
take, and adds an entry for that flow in each of the switches
along the path.
      

With all complex function subsumed by the controller, switches in
Ethane are reduced to managed flow tables whose entries can only be populated by the controller (which it does after each succesful permission check).  This allows a very simple design for Ethane
      switches using only SRAM (no power-hungry TCAMS) and a little bit
of logic.
   

I like many of the concepts here, but I’m really wrestling with the scaling concerns that arise when I forecast the literal bottlenecking of admission/access control proposed therein.

Furthermore, and more importantly, while SANE speaks to being able to define who "Bob"  is and what infrastructure makes up the "payroll server,"  this solution seems to provide no way of enforcing policy based on content in context of the data flowing across it.  Integrating access control with the pseudonymity offered by integrating identity management into policy enforcement is only half the battle.

The security solutions of the future must evolve to divine and control not only vectors of transport but also the content and relative access that the content itself defines dynamically.

I’m going to suggest that by bastardizing one of the Jericho Forum’s commandments for my own selfish use, the network/security layer of the future must ultimately respect and effect disposition of content based upon the following rule (independent of the network/host):

Access to data should be controlled by security attributes of the data itself.

• Attributes can be held within the data (DRM/Metadata) or could be a separate system.
• Access / security could be implemented by encryption.
• Some data may have “public, non-confidential” attributes.
• Access and access rights have a temporal component. 

 

Deviating somewhat from Jericho’s actual meaning, I am intimating that somehow, somewhere, data must be classified and self-describe the policies that govern how it is published and consumed and ultimately this security metadata can then be used by the central policy enforcement mechanisms to describe who is allowed to access the data, from where, and where it is allowed to go.

…Back to he topic at hand, SANE:

As Joseph alluded, SANE would require replacing (or not using much of the functionality of) currently-deployed routers, switches and security kit.  I’ll let your imagination address the obvious challenges with this design.

Without delving deeply, I’ll use Joseph’s categorization of “interesting-but-impractical”

/Hoff

Jeff Bardin over on the CSO blog pitched an interesting stake in the ground when he posited "Connectivity As A Utility: Where are My Clean Pipes?"

Specifically, Jeff expects that his (corporate?) Internet service functions in the same manner as his telephone service via something similar to a "do not call list."  Basically, he opts out by placing himself on the no-call list and telemarketers cease to call. Others might liken it to turning on a tap and getting clean, potable water; you pay for a utility and expect it to be usable.  All of it.

Many telecommunications providers want to charge you for having
clean pipes, deploying a suite of DDoS services that you have to buy to
enhance your security posture.   Protection of last mile bandwidth is
very key to network availability as well as confidentiality and
integrity. If I am subscribing for a full T1, shouldn’t I get the full
T1 as part of the price and not just a segment of the T1? Why do I have
to pay for the spam, probes, scans, and malicious activity that my
telecommunications service provider should prevent at 3 miles out
versus my having to subscribe to another service to attain clean pipes
at my doorstep?

I think that most people would agree with the concept of clean pipes in principle.  I can’t think of any other utility where the service levels delivered are taken with such a lackadaisical best effort approach and where the consumer can almost always expect that some amount (if not the majority) of the utility is unusable. 

Over the last year, I’ve met with many of the largest ISP’s, MSSP’s, TelCo’s and Mobile Operators on the planet and all are in some phase of deploying some sort of clean pipes variant.  Gartner even predicts a large amount of security to move "into the cloud."

In terms of adoption, EMEA is leaps and bounds ahead of the US and APAC in these sorts of services and will continue to be.  The relative oligopolies associated with smaller nation states allows for much more agile and flexible service definition and roll-outs — no less complex, mind you.  It’s incredible to see just how disparate and divergent the gap is between what consumers (SME/SMB/Mobile as well as large enterprise) are offered in EMEA as opposed to the good-ol’ U S of A.

However, the stark reality is that the implementation of clean pipes by your service provider(s) comes down to a balance of two issues: efficacy and economics, with each varying dramatically with the market being served; the large enterprise’s expectations and requirements look very, very different from the SME/SMB.

Let’s take a look at both of these elements.

ECONOMICS

If you ask most service providers about so-called clean pipes up to a year ago, you could expect to get an answer that was based upon a "selfish" initiative aimed at stopping wasteful bandwidth usage upstream in the service provider’s network, not really protecting the consumer. 

The main focus here is really on DDoS and viri/worm propagation.  Today, the closest you’ll come to "clean pipes" is usually some combination of the following services deployed both (still) at the customer premises as well as somewhere upstream:

• DoS/DDoS
• Anti-Virus
• Anti-Spam
• URL Filtering/Parental Controls
• Managed Firewall/IDS/IPS

What is interesting about these services is that they basically define the same functions you can now get in those small little UTM boxes that consolidate security functionality at the "perimeter."  The capital cost of these devices and the operational levies associated with their upkeep are pretty close in the SME/SMB and when you balance what you get in "good enough" services for this market as well as the overall availability of these "in the cloud" offerings, UTM makes more sense for many in the near term.

For the large enterprise, the story is different.  Outsourcing some level of security to an MSSP (or perhaps even the entire operation) or moving some amount upstream is a matter of core competence and leveraging the focus of having internal teams focus on the things that matter most while the low hanging fruit can be filtered out and monitored by someone else.  I describe that as filtering out the lumps.  Some enormous companies have outsourced not only their security functions but their entire IT operations and data center assets in this manner.  It’s not pretty, but it works.

I’m not sure they are any more secure than they were before, however.  The risk simply was transferred whilst the tolerance/appetite for it didn’t change at all.  Puzzling.

Is it really wrong to think that companies (you’ll notice I said companies, not "people" in the general sense) should pay for clean pipes?  I don’t think it is.  The reality is that for non-commercial subscribers such as home users, broadband or mobile users, some amount of bandwidth hygiene should be free — the potable water approach.

I think, however, that should a company which expects elevated service levels and commensurate guarantees of such, want more secure connectivity, they can expect to ante up.  Why?  Because the investment required to deliver this sort of service costs a LOT of money — both to spin up and to instantiate over time.  You’re going to have to pay for that somewhere.

I very much like Jeff’s statistics:

We stop on average for our organization nearly 600
million malicious emails per year at our doorstep averaging 2.8
gigabytes of garbage per day. You add it up and we are looking at
nearly a terabyte of malicious email we have to stop. Now add in probes
and scans against HTTP and HTTPS sites and the number continues to
skyrocket.

Again, even though Jeff’s organization isn’t small by any means, the stuff he’s complaining about here is really the low-hanging fruit.  It doesn’t bear a dent against the targeted, malicious and financially-impacting security threats that really demands a level of service no service provider will be able to deliver without a huge cost premium.

I won’t bore you with the details, but the level of high-availability,
resilience, performance, manageability, and provisioning required to
deliver even this sort of service is enormous.  Most vendors simply can’t do
it and most service providers are slow to invest in proprietary
solutions that won’t scale economically with the operational models in
place.

Interestingly, vendors such as McAfee even as recently as 2005 announced with much fanfare that they were going to deliver technology, services and a united consortium of participating service providers with the following lofty clean pipe goals (besides selling more product, that is):

The initiative is one
part of a major product and services push from McAfee, which is
developing its next generation of carrier-grade security appliances and
ramping up its enterprise security offerings with NAC and secure
content management product releases planned for the first half of next
year, said Vatsal Sonecha, vice president of market development and
strategic alliances at McAfee, in Santa Clara, Calif.

Clean Pipes will be a major expansion of McAfee’s managed
services offerings. The company will sell managed intrusion prevention;
secure content management; vulnerability management; malware
protection, including anti-virus, anti-spam and anti-spyware services;
and mobile device security, Sonecha said.

McAfee is working with Cable
and Wireless PLC, British Telecommunications PLC (British Telecom),
Telefónica SA and China Network Communications (China Netcom) to tailor
its offerings through an invitation-only group it calls the Clean Pipes
Consortium.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1855188,00.asp

Look at all those services!  What have they delivered as a service in the cloud or clean pipes?  Nada. 

The chassis-based products which were to deliver these services never materialized and neither did the services.  Why?  Because it’s really damned hard to do correctly.  Just ask Inkra, Nexi, CoSine, etc.  Or you can ask me.  The difference is, we’re still in business and they’re not.  It’s interesting to note that every one of those "consortium members" with the exception of Cable and Wireless are Crossbeam customers.  Go figure.

EFFICACY

Once the provider starts filtering at the ingress/egress, one must trust that the things being filtered won’t have an impact on performance — or confidentiality, integrity and availability.  Truth be told, as simple as it seems, it’s not just about raw bandwidth.  Service levels must be maintained and the moment something that is expected doesn’t make its way down the pipe, someone will be screaming bloody murder for "slightly clean" pipes.

Ask me how I know.  I’ve lived through inconsistent application of policies, non-logged protocol filtering, dropped traffic and asymmetric issues introduced by on-prem and in-the-cloud MSSP offerings.  Once the filtering moves past your prem. as a customer, your visibility does too.  Those fancy dashboards don’t do a damned bit of good, either.  Ever consider the forensic impact?

Today, if you asked a service provider what constitutes their approach to clean pipes, most will refer you back to the same list I referenced above:

• DoS/DDoS
• Anti-Virus
• Anti-Spam
• URL Filtering/Parental Controls
• Managed Firewall/IDS/IPS

The problem is that most of these solutions are disparate point products run by different business units at different parts of the network.  Most are still aimed at the perimeter service — it’s just that the perimeter has moved outward a notch in the belt.

Look, for the SME/SMB (or mobile user,) "good enough" is, for the most part, good
enough.  Having an upstream provider filter out a bunch of spam and
viri is a good thing and most firewall rules in place in the SME/SMB
block everything but a few inbound ports to DMZ hosts (if there are
any) and allow everything from the inside to go out.  Not very
complicated and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see how, from the
perspective of what is at risk, that this service doesn’t pay off
handsomely.

From the large enterprise I’d say that if you are going to expect that operational service levels will be met, think again.  What happens when you introduce web services, SOA and heavy XML onto externally-exposed network stubs.  What happens when Web2/3/4.x technologies demand more and more security layers deployed alongside the mechanics and messaging of the service?

You can expect issues and the lack of transparency will be an issue on all but the most simple of issues.

Think your third party due diligence requirements are heady now?  Wait until this little transference of risk gets analyzed when something bad happens — and it will.  Oh how quickly the pendulum will swing back to managing this stuff in-house again.

This model doesn’t scale and it doesn’t address the underlying deficiencies in the most critical elements of the chain: applications, databases and end-point threats such as co-opted clients as unwilling botnet participants.

But to Jeff’s point, if he didn’t have to spend money on the small stuff above, he could probably spend it elsewhere where he needs it most.

I think services in the cloud/clean pipes makes a lot of sense.  I’d sure as hell like to invest less in commoditizing functions at the perimeter and on my desktop.  I’m just not sure we’re going to get there anytime soon.

/Hoff

*Image Credit: CleanPipes

Read more…

Bloody Hell!

The article below is dated today, but perhaps this was just the TechTarget AutoBlogCronPoster gone awry from 2004? 

Besides the fact that this revelation garners another vote for the RationalSecurity "Captain Obvious" (see right) award, the simple fact that XML gateways as a stand-alone market are being highlighted here is laughable — especially since the article clearly shows the XML Security Gateways are being consolidated and bundled with application delivery controllers and WAF solutions by vendors such as IBM and Cisco.

XML is, and will be everywhere.  SOA/Web Services is only one element in a greater ecosystem impacted by XML.

Of course the functionality provided by XML security gateways are critical to the secure deployment of SOA environments; they should be considered table stakes, just like secure coding…but of course we know how consistently-applied compensating controls are painted onto network and application architectures. 

The dirty little secret is that while they are very useful and ultimately an excellent tool in the arsenal, these solutions are disruptive, difficult to configure and maintain, performance pigs and add complexity to an already complex model.  In many cases, asking a security team to manage this sort of problem introduces more operational risk than it mitigates. 

Can you imagine security, network and developers actually having to talk to one another?!  *gasp*

Here is the link to the entire story.  I’ve snipped pieces out for relevant mockery.

ORLANDO, Fla. — Enterprises are moving forward with service
oriented architecture (SOA) projects to reduce complexity and increase
flexibility between systems and applications, but some security pros
fear they’re being left behind and must scramble to learn new ways to
protect those systems from Web-based attacks.

<snip>

"Most network firewalls aren’t designed to handle the latest
Web services standards, resulting in new avenues of attack for digital
miscreants, said Tim Bond, a senior security engineer at webMethods
Inc. In his presentation at the Infosec World Conference and Expo, Bond
said a growing number of vendors are selling XML security gateways,
appliances that can be plugged into a network and act as an
intermediary, decrypting and encrypting Web services data to determine
the authenticity and lock out attackers.

"It’s not just passing a message through, it’s actually taking
action," Bond said. "It needs to be customized for each deployment, but
it can be very effective in protecting from many attacks."

Bond said that most SOA layouts further expose applications by
placing them just behind an outer layer of defense, rather than placing
them within the inner walls of a company’s security defenses along with
other critical applications and systems. Those applications are
vulnerable, because they’re being exposed to partners, customer
relationship management and supply chain management systems. Attackers
can scan Web services description language (WSDL) — the XML language
used in Web service calls — to find out where vulnerabilities lie,
Bond said.

<snip>

A whole market has grown around protecting WSDL, Bond said.
Canada-based Layer 7 Technologies Inc. and UK-based Vordel are
producing gateway appliances to protect XML and SOAP language in Web
service calls. Reactivity, which was recently acquired by Cisco Systems
Inc. and DataPower, now a division of IBM, also address Web services
security.

Transaction values will be much higher and traditional SSL,
security communications protocol for point-to-point communications,
won’t be enough to protect transactions, Bond said.

<snip>

In addition to SQL-injection attacks, XML is potentially
vulnerable to schema poisoning — a method of attack in which the XML
schema can be manipulated to alter processing information. A
sophisticated attacker can also conduct an XML routing detour,
redirecting sensitive data within the XML path, Bond said.

Security becomes complicated with distributed systems in an
SOA environment, said Dindo Roberts, an application security manager at
New York City-based MetLife Inc. Web services with active interfaces
allow the usage of applications that were previously restricted to
using conventional custom authentication. Security pros need new
methods, such as an XML security gateway to protect those applications,
Roberts said.

<snip>

I got an email reminder from my buddy Grant Bourzikas today pointing me to another virtualized security solution for servers from Reflex Security called Reflex VSA.  VSA stands for Virtual Security Appliance and the premise appears to be that you deploy this software within each guest VM and it provides what looks a lot like host-based intrusion prevention functionality per VM.

The functionality is defined thusly:

Reflex VSA solves the problem that traditional network security such as
IPS and firewall appliances currently can not solve: detecting and preventing attacks within a virtual server. Because Reflex VSA runs as virtualized
application inside the virtualized environment, it can detect and mitigate
        threats between virtual hosts and networks.

Reflex VSA Features:
        • Access firewall for permission enforcement for intra-host and external network
           communication
        • Intrusion Prevention with inline blocking and filtering for virtualized networks
        • Anomaly, signature, and rate-based threat detection capability
       
        • Network Discovery to discover and map all virtual machines and applications
        • Reflex Command Center, providing a centralized configuration and management
           console, comprehensive reporting tools, and real-time event aggregation and
           correlation   

It does not appear to wrap around or plug-in to the HyperVisor natively, so I’m a little confused as to the difference between deploying VSA and whatever HIPS/NIPS agent a customer might already have deployed on "physical" server instantiations.

Blue Lane’s product addresses this at the HyperVisor layer and it would be interesting to me to have the pundits/experts argue the pros/cons of each approach. {Ed. This is incorrect.  Blue Lane’s product runs as a VM/virtual appliance also.  With the exposure via API of the hypervisor/virtual switches, products like Blue Lane and Reflex would take advantage to be more flexible, effective and higher performing.}

I’m surprised most of the other "security configuration management" folks haven’t already re-branded their agents as being "Virtualization Compliant" to attack this nascent marketspace. < :rolleyes here: >

It’s good to see that folks are at least owning up to the fact that intra-VM communications via virtual switches are going to drive a spin on risk models, detection and mitigation tools and techniques.  This is what I was getting at in this blog entry here.

I would enjoy speaking to someone from Reflex to understand their positioning and differentiation better, but isn’t this just HIPS per VM?  How’s that different than firewall, AV, etc. per VM?

/Hoff

Greg Ness from Blue Lane and I have known each other for a while now, and ever since I purchased Blue Lane’s first release of products a few years ago (when I was on the "other" side as a *gasp* customer) I have admired and have taken some blog-derived punishment for my position on Blue Lane’s technology.

I have zero interest in Blue Lane other than the fact that I dig their technology and products and think it solves some serious business problems elegantly and efficiently with a security efficacy that is worth its weight in gold.

Vulnerability shielding (or patch emulation…) is a provocative subject and I’ve gone ’round and ’round with many a fine folk online wherein the debate normally dissolves into the intricacies of IPS vs. vulnerability shielding versus the fact that the solutions solve a business problem in a unique way that works and is cost effective.

That’s what a security product SHOULD do.  Yet I digress.

So, back to Greg @ Blue Lane…he let me know a few weeks ago about Blue Lane’s VirtualShield offering for  VMWare environments.  VirtualShield is the first commercial product that I know of that specifically tackles problems that everyone knows exists in VM environments but have, until now, sat around twirling thumbs at.

In fact, I alluded to some of these issues in this blog entry regarding the perceived "dangers" of virtualization a few weeks ago.

In short, VirtualShield is designed to protect guest VM’s running under a VMWare ESX environment in the following manner (and I quote):

• Protects virtualized servers regardless of physical location or patch-level;
  
• Provides up-to-date protection with no configuration changes and no agent installation on each virtual machine;
  
• Eliminates remote threats without blocking legitimate application requests or requiring server reboots; and
  
• Delivers appropriate protection for specific applications without requiring any manual tuning.

VS basically sits on top of the HyperVisor and performs a similar set of functionality as the PatchPoint solution does for non-VM systems.

Specifically, VirtualShield discovers the virtual servers running on a server and profiles the VM’s, the application(s), ports and protocols utilized to build and provision the specific OS and application protections (vulnerability shielding) required to protect the VM.

I think the next section is really the key element of VirtualShield:

As traffic flows through VirtualShield inside the
hypervisor, individual sessions are decoded and monitored for
vulnerable conditions. When necessary, VirtualShield can replicate the
function of a software security patch by applying a corrective action
directly within the network stream, protecting the downstream virtual
server.

As new security patches are released by software
application vendors, VirtualShield automatically downloads the
appropriate inline patches from Blue Lane. Updates may be applied
dynamically without requiring any reboots or reconfigurations of the
virtual servers, the hypervisor, or VirtualShield.

While one might suggest that vulnerability shielding is not new and in some cases certain functionality can be parlayed by firewalls, IPS, AV, etc., I maintain that the manner and model in which Blue Lane elegantly executes this compensating control is unique and effective.

If you’re running a virtualized server environment under VMWare’s ESX architecture, check out VirtualShield…right after you listen to the virtualization podcast with yours truly from RSA.

/Hoff

Over the last couple of months, the topic of virtualization and security (or lack thereof) continues to surface as one of the more intriguing topics of relevance in both the enterprise and service provider environments and those who cover them.  From bloggers to analysts to vendors, virtualization is a greenfield for security opportunity and a minefield for the risk models used to describe it.

There are many excellent arguments being discussed which highlight in an ad hoc manner the most serious risks posed by virtualization, and I find many of them accurate, compelling, frightening and relevant.  However, I find that overall, to gauge in relative terms the impact  that these new combinations of attack surfaces, vectors and actors pose, the risk model(s) are immature and incomplete. 

Most of the arguments are currently based on hyperbole and anecdotal references to attacks that could happen.  It reminds me much of the ballyhooed security risks currently held up for scrutiny for mobile handsets.  We know bad things could happen, but for the most part, we’re not being proactive about solving some of the issues before they see the light of day.

The panel I was on at the RSA show highlighted this very problem.  We had folks from VMWare and
RedHat in the audience who assured us that we were just being Chicken Little’s and that the risk is
both quantifiable and manageable today.  We also had other indications that customers felt that while the benefits for virtualization from a cost perspective were huge, the perceived downside from the unknown risks (mostly theoretical) were making them very uncomfortable.

Out of the 150+ folks in the room, approximately 20 had virtualized systems in production roles.  About 25% of them had collapsed multiple tiers of an n-tier application stack (including SOA environments) onto a single host VM.  NONE of them had yet had these systems audited by any third party or regulatory agency.

Rot Roh.

The interesting thing to me was the dichotomy regarding the top-down versus bottom-up approach to
describing the problem.  There was lots of discussion regarding hypervisor (in)security and privilege
escalation and the like, but I thought it interesting that most people were not thinking about the impact on the network and how security would have to change to accommodate it from a bottoms-up (infrastructure and architecture) approach.

The notions of guest VM hopping and malware detection in hypervisors/VM’s are reasonably well discussed (yet not resolved) so I thought I would approach it it from the perspective of what role, if any, the traditional  network infrastructure plays in this.

Thomas Ptacek was right when he said "…I also think modern enterprises are so far from having reasonable access control between the VLANs they already use without virtualization that it’s not a “next 18 month” priority to install them." And I agree with him there.  So, I posit that if one accepts this as true then what to do about the following:

If now we see the consolidation of multiple OS and applications on a single VM host in which the bulk of traffic and data interchange is between the VM’s themselves and utilize the virtual switching fabrics in the VM Host and never hit the actual physical network infrastructure, where, exactly, does this leave the self-defending "network" without VM-level security functionality at the "micro perimeters" of the VM’s?

I recall a question I asked at a recent Goldman Sachs security conference where I asked Jayshree Ullal from Cisco who was presenting Cisco’s strategy regarding virtualized security about how their approach to securing the network was impacted by virtualization in the situation I describe above. 

You could hear cricket’s chirp in the answer.

Talk amongst yourselves….

P.S. More excellent discussions from Matasano (Ptacek) here and Rothman’s bloggy.  I also recommend Greg Ness’ commentary on virtualization and security @ the HyperVisor here.

Alan and I normally are close enough on our positions that I don’t feel it necessary to argue with him.

I certainly don’t feel compelled to come to the defense of a competitor that Alan’s unloading on, but I’m really confused about his interpretation of what TippingPoint’s Chief Architect, Brian Smith, is communicating and where Alan suggests that he and StillSecure’s position lays.

To re-cap, Brian Smith was quoted in an SC Magazine Article as describing his views on how security ought to be positioned in the network thusly:

"Brian Smith, the chief architect of 3Com and a
founder of TippingPoint, says his first-ever RSA keynote will focus on
integrating solutions such as network access control, intrusion
prevention and behavioral anomaly detection to create an intelligent
network.

"I can do all of these sorts of synergies and when you trace it
out, what ends up happening is you’re able to debug network problems
that you were never able to do before, get an unprecedented level of
security, and also lower the total cost of ownership," Smith says.
"They have to talk to each other. If we can pull all of these solutions
together, I think that’s going to be the trend over the next five to 10
years. It’s a natural evolution in the technology cycle."

Smith says he also plans to emphasize the benefits of the
bump-in-the-wire network approach to deploying security solutions.
Rather than embedding solutions into switchers and routers, Smith plans
to suggest overlaying solutions to allow for a more converged, cheaper
way to add intelligence to the network."

Amen to that.  But lest you think I am intimating that we should all just toss appliances willy-nilly across the network (in fact, that’s the opposite of what I think,) please read on…

Apparently it was the third (boldfaced) paragraph that got Alan’s goat and provoked him into a state of up-chuckedness.  Specifically, it seems that it is repugnant to Alan that someone who works for a "switch" company could suggest that overlaying security can be facilitated as a "bump-in-the wire."  I guess that depends upon your interpretation of "bump-in-the-wire." 

I’m guessing that Alan thinks that means individual appliances being inserted between network segments with one "goesinta" and one "goesouta" cable and yet I can’t figure out why  "…virtualizing some of this stuff and putting it on blades and so forth" has to be within the router or switch and not on an extensible services platform?

I have a feeling I’m going to hear the typical "not everyone can afford big iron" as a response…but if you can generalize to prove a point, I can become surgical and suggest that it’s not fair to treat the Global 2000, Carriers, Service Providers and Mobile Operators as an exception rather than the rule when it comes to describing security trends and markets, either.

Summarily, it appears that the "convergence" of networking and security in Alan’s eyes means that security functionality MUST be integrated into routers and switches in order to be successful and that adding security functionality on top of or in conjunction with the network is a lousy idea.

Strange comments from a guy whose company takes generic PC appliances  with security software on them and deploys them as bumps in the wire by sprinkling them across the network — usually at the cursed perimeter and not at the core.  Confused?  So am I.

Alan goes on:

Most of the guys who do the bump in the wire are trying like hell to
move up the stack and the network to get away from the edge to the
core.  You may be able to do IPS as a bump in the wire at the core if
you have the horsepower, but you are going to be forced to the edge for
other security stuff if you insist on bump in the wire.  Single point
of failure, scalability and cost are just working against you.
Eventually you have to turn to the switch. I just don’t get where he is
coming from here.

So you’re saying that your business model is already dead, Alan?

The final piece of irony is this:

Has selling big-ass, honking ASIC boxes to do IPS for so long totally
blinded them to virtualizing some of this stuff and putting it on
blades and so forth inside the switch and network.

Um, no. Again, not like I feel any inclination to defend Tippingpoint, but it’s apparent that Alan is not aware of TippingPoint’s M60 which is a huge multi-gigabit LAN switching platform (10-14 slots) with integrated IPS (and other functionality) that can either replace a typical switch or connect to existing switch fabrics to form an overlay security service.  It’s about a year overdue from the last announcement, but the M60 is an impressive piece of iron:

Each blade in the M60 acts as a stand-alone IPS device, similar to
TippingPoint’s T-series appliances, in which network connectivity and
IPS packet processing are done on the hardware. (The exception is with
10G interfaces; the M60 uses 3Com’s 8800 dual-port 10G blades, which
connect to TippingPoint IPS blades through the switch’s backplane.)

The blades run 3Com’s TippingPoint IPS device operating system and use the vendor’s Digital Vaccine updating service, letting  the device identify the latest threat signatures and vulnerabilities.

This was one of the results of the Huawei joint venture with 3Com.  I believe that THIS is really what Brian Smith is talking about, not device sprinkling appliances.  It’s  a switch.  It’s an IPS.  That’s bad, how?

What has me confused is that if Alan is so against hanging security services/functions OFF a switch, why did StillSecure do the deal with Extreme Networks in which the concept is to hang an appliance (the Sentriant AG) off the switch as an appliance instead of "inside" it like he suggests is the only way to effectively demonstrate the convergence of networking and security?

So, I totally get Brian Smith’s comments (despite the fact that he’s a competitor AND works for a switch vendor — who, by the way, also OEM’d Crossbeam’s X-Series Security Services Switches prior to their Tippingpoint acquisition!)

The model is valid.  Overlaying security as an intelligent service layer on top of the network is a great approach.  Ask me how I know. 😉

Chris

I smell blood.  This will be a very fun next couple of months.  Why?

In case you haven’t heard, Richard Stiennon has announced that after his provoking and inciteful rant (sorry, Mike) against Check Point, Ken Xie from Fortinet wooed him back to the darkside and he’s going to join them as their newly-titled Chief Marketing Officer.  Timing is everything, eh?

The esteemed Mr. Stiennon is a really smart guy and I am honestly looking forward to seeing how and what he does @ Fortinet.  It will be thought-provoking for sure.

So much for the niceties…Richard’s railed on me previously about how big honkin’ UTM boxes aren’t the answer to security but I reckon that’s going to change — or spin — now that he works for a vendor that sells (amongst mostly SMB/SME solutions) big honkin’ UTM boxes.

We really had a good time going at each other in regards to NAC and his Secure Network Fabric (SNF) positioning and it lead to a podcast debate on Martin McKeay’s blog, also.  I am eager to see how, or if, Fortinet’s strategy changes once Richard gets his hands on the positioning and messaging.

Fortinet really doesn’t compete in the "…high-end enterprise, carrier and managed service provider" space, but their ATCA-based chassis products are certainly positioned to play there.  He’s got his work cut out for him. 

I forecast that Fortinet’s high-end ATCA-based product line will be the soapbox from atop which Richard continues to evangelize his SNF strategy — but instead of "embedding" security in the switching fabric, it will be overlaid with big honkin’ UTM boxes, despite his prior arguments to the contrary.  I further prognosticate that we’ll see PR regarding relationships with switch vendors like what Shimmy @ StillSecure did with Extreme…

Either way, it’s going to be entertaining.

Congrats on the job, Richard.  At least I don’t have to listen to your "…I’d rather debate with independent analysts" comments anymore. 😉  Looking forward to our continued interaction.

Chris

Congratulations to Wayne, Marty and Team @ Sourcefire as they filed their S-1 to go public. 

Sourcefire is one of Crossbeam’s top ISV partners, so it’s great to see them do well in reaching both profitabilty and leading a security IPO.  God knows we need it in this drought.

Mike Rothman did a nice job of extracting the S-1 particulars:

They hope to raise $75M or so and released the following data:

* Total revenue in 2005: $32.9 million
    * 2005 loss of $8.1 million
    * Current cash of about $25 million
    * Existing shareholders have put about $56 million into the
      company
    * Revenue ramp starting in 2002: $1.9MM, $9.4MM, $16.6MM,
      $32.9MM
    * Services currently running about 36% of total revenues
    * Last 4 quarters have been: $11.6MM, $8.5MM, $9.5MM,
      $10.8MM

    * Profitable and cash flow positive for Q3 2006
    * Over 80% of revenue from the US
    * Marty Roesch owns about 9% of the company
    * Sierra Ventures is the biggest venture investor with a 28.8% position

As Mike said, this puts SF in a very interesting place; they can either go out or set themselves up to be taken out before they finalize the deal.   Watch the sharks start to circle once again!

Interesting also that the BT/Counterpane deal also surfaced.  Makes sense given IBM/ISS.   I give HP odds of buying Verisign’s MSSP division next… 😉

It’s about time we had a security IPO — it’ll set the stage for ’07.