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The Association between Capacity Management, Cybersecurity, and

Insider Threat

Chris Greco, PMP, PMI-ACP, CISSP, ITIL (Foundation)

Assumptions • Every computer has at least one

user • Every user accesses the

computer through a series of access controls

• Every access control has at least one method of authentication (two preferred)

• Every one of these authentication methods have an effect on capacity

• Every capacity change incorporates a set of risks

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Background of Speaker

• Over 35 years of project management experience combined with 15 years of IT experience

• Speaker at CMG on a variety of topics • In 2006, presented the topic of capacity and

security • In that presentation, showed that capacity will

grow exponentially in the next 10 years due to security concerns

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Stunning Statistics

• 2010: 60% of respondents to survey stated they would take anything from their prior employer, including information

• 2012: Former NSA contractor takes information from computers (insider threat)

• 2013: Hacking continues, and in some cases, originates within companies (insider threats)

• 2016: Insider Threats presents a very real and present danger to companies and governments

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How Does This Relate to Capacity?

• Let’s do the logic • There are approximately 7 billion people in

the world • If half own and use a computer (3.5 billion)

then they have at least one password • The password may contain upwards of 15

characters • If each character of that password is a byte,

then you have 53 Gigabytes of information

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That’s Not Bad At All

• Nope, not bad, then you start to add it all up • You have a “forgotten password” feature where

you store 3 questions and answers for each user • The questions are standard (but still need to be

stored) and the answers vary • If the answers have an average of 10 characters

(which in my opinion is underestimated) then you have about 105 Gigabytes of information

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But It is Not Over Yet!

• If the entity employs multi-factor authentication, then it becomes even more complicated

• You have to store phone numbers of the users, and issue random numbers for verifications

• To store phone numbers will be to increase your data storage by at least 10 bytes, which would be an additional 35 Gigabytes

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The Sum And The Consequences

• 53 + 105 + 35 = 173 Gigabytes • And that is for only one password for one

application (or one application access) • The reason for this introduction is to say that

there is a rise in the authentication requirement

• As a user, your responsibility is to ensure your passwords are strong

• The infrastructure manager has to do the rest

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The Growth of Authentication

• In the beginning, the password was the only authentication needed for access

• Then multi-factor authentication required more – Something you know – password – Something you have – cellphone (or a “fob”) – Something you are – biometrics

• This has required more capacity to store all this data

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Authentication And The Numbers

• Assumptions – Your company has 1000 employees – Each of these employees have strong passwords

(i.e. 10 characters, different character sets) – Your company has also incorporated biometrics

(“something you are”) which is one fingerprint • The password will be approximately 21

kilobytes, and the fingerprint will be approximately 1 megabyte

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What Is the Problem?

• So far, given the previous slide, everything is not bad at all

• However, there are some other issues you need to consider – The storage of past passwords (don’t want users

using the same password for everything – The storage of USERIDs (at least 7 characters) – The storage of more than one fingerprint (increase

by approximately 1 MB each time)

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Access By Application

• Of course most of us have access to applications or single sign on (SSO), so the storage is not a problem (right?)

• The baseline storage still has to occur, as well as the possibility of placing certain folders under access

• Every folder or document that has access must also have an access control

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Simulated Access Control

• The following diagram shows a simulated access to one document by a set of users

• This is just a simulation, but one can imagine the amount of storage that would be required to keep the passwords or other access current

• You may have an Access Control List (ACL) but that means you have to store at least the following: – Name (or employee number or other ID) – USERID – PASSWORD – Other access controls including versions of the documents

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Access Chart for Single Document

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A Quick Review

• Your storage has to accommodate for the following security protections – Something you know (passwords, passcodes, userid) – Something you have (fobs, cellphone numbers,

random number generator) – Something you are (biometrics including fingerprints,

iris scans, facial recognition) • All of this just to ensure authorized access • This does nothing to prevent insider threat if not

done in combination with other measusres

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Insider Threat

• Insider Threat is nothing new • Disgruntled employees have existed as long as

there are companies • In the past, they sometimes took office supplies,

or other things of value • Now, they could take something of great value –

information! • How do you stop this insidious practice? • You will NEVER stop Insider Threat (in my

opinion) but you can try to prevent and detect it

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Capacity Management and Insider Threat

• Storage of user identifying information – Every user takes up space in the storage formula – The amount of information will vary

• What we need to discuss is how to detect and/or prevent insider threat

• What are the various forms of data you store in order to implement an insider threat detection/prevention?

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Logic Behind Detecting Insider Threat

• Let’s assume again that you have 1000 employees

• Each of these employees has access to 1000 documents in various folders on the servers

• You, as the computer security manager, have a “feeling” that there is information being pilfered from the system

• In order to confirm that feeling with data you have to monitor activity on those servers

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What Should We Consider?

• If we wanted to employ an “insider threat” detection (or outside threat for that matter) we would want to consider the following: – Number of machines (one machine per person) – Number of servers – Number of firewalls (inside and outside DMZ)

• You would also have to consider how many months (or years) you would want to keep the data

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Just One Example

• http://www.buzzcircuit.com/tag/siem-storage-calculator/ is just one site for measuring the amount of storage necessary

• Using this site and inserting the number 10 for all the hardware choices, along with 6 months for storage requirements

• The amount of storage you would need would be approximately 3 Terabytes of raw data and 5 Terabytes of application storage

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Changing the Attributes

• If you increase the number of servers from 10 to 50, you increase the storage requirement by 2 Terabytes

• If you use the average medium sized company of 200 employees, you increase the number of computers to 200 with 10 servers (1 per 20 computers)

• This would mean that you would have to START with several Terabytes of storage just to retain it for 6 months!

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Knowing the Terms

• A term with which you may be familiar is Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) storage.

• This is an application that gathers information and detects outliers for further analysis

• Although it has been in use for years, many companies are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on obtaining and maintaining these applications

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Sample of Storage Requirements (For Different # of Servers)

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

6 MonthsRetention (1 of

Everything)

1 Year Retention(1 of Everything)

6 MonthsRetention (1+ FW,

R, SW, DB, Etc)

1 Year Retention(1+ FW, R, SW, DB,

Etc)

6 MonthsRetention (10 of

Everything)

1 Year Retention(10 of Everything)

Tera

byte

s 2520151051

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An Example

• Let’s say that In 2012-2013 there was an individual that was in a sensitive position

• Let’s hypothesize the individual was part of the Federal Government and had access to very critical information

• Finally, let’s hypothetically conclude that the individual is now living in a foreign country after stealing sensitive national security information

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Questions to Consider

• What if the individual was slowly gaining access to information that was “derivative” to his duties?

• What if the individual had flash drives and DVDs on his desk?

• What if the individual was asking questions of users on gaining access to other type of information?

• Finally, what if there were people who saw this signs and did nothing?

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Could The Insider Threat Have Been Detected By SIEM?

• Could a SIEM have detected this intruder? – Access to information might have been outliers only if

he did not access them daily – The SIEM will not “observe” the person’s behavior

beyond their computer access and log entries

• People did question the insider threat, but if they are able to “tell a good story” they get a pass

• It takes people to report questionable behavior in order to place confirmation on the monitoring

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Another Example

• Let’s say data showed that an individual was using different Social Security Numbers to open businesses (same name, different numbers)

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Why Are We Using Machines to Monitor Humans?

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Employees As Risks (Pessimistic)

• At the beginning of this presentation, we stated that there might be 60% of employees willing to take something from their employer

• If you have 1000 employees, that would mean (nominally) that you have 600 of those employees that would be willing to steal something from the company

• However, there is an upside to this argument

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Using Employees as Security Monitors (Optimistic)

• If you have 20 employees you have 40 eyes and 40 ears that can help keep your company secure.

• There is nothing more powerful than peer pressure

• As a college instructor, placing the class on alert helped to eliminate cheating, because they knew the expectations, so they would keep everyone on their best behavior

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Some Ways to Deploy the Employees

• Limit Access • Educate employees about security • Create a culture of security

https://hbr.org/2015/09/cybersecuritys-human-factor-lessons-from-the-pentagon)

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Value Added Security

• There is nothing like having the employee take an active role in security

• Rather than trying to avoid or shortcut security, they will use “their” rules more seriously

• Employee generated access rosters will establish the employee as the on in charge of that aspect of security

• It also makes them accountable, which will provide them with a stake in that part of the mission

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Are Employees Reliable?

• Making someone accountable gives them a sense of purpose

• According to studies, purpose is something we all desire and are motivated to achieve (Elie Wiesel Nobel Prize winning book - Night)

• If they see and do nothing, they are not being accountable, and fail to do their purpose

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A Hybrid Approach

• Use a SIEM and make that part of the security infrastructure, but do not rely on it as the sole detection method

• Use an employee education to keep employees aware of the various security concerns

• Have an employee security network that helps their peers maintain security

• Create a culture of security through constant visibility and example; use existing tools creatively (i.e. NIMDA back in early 2000s)

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Does Constant Exposure Help?

• (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Rescorla)

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What Does This Do To Capacity?

• Employee involvement can save Terabytes of storage

• In current economy, storage has to be protected, so the more the storage, the more the protection

• By keeping the security internal and observable, the capacity can be used for other things besides storing monitoring data (performance monitor!)

• The savings can be passed on to the employee as an incentive

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One Last Thing

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Summary

• Security is something that will never go away • Employers will constantly try to ensure that

employees are security conscious – Through access control – Through education methods

• Applications can monitor the employee and their access and . . .

• The employees can “police” themselves and take charge of their environment

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References Common Sense Guide to Prevention and Detection of Insider Threats (CERT), 2005 Insider Threat White Paper, June 2013 http://www.afcea.org/committees/cyber/documents/AFCEAInsiderThreatWhitepaperJune2013Final.pdf http://informationsecurity.report/Resources/Whitepapers/6ea70c75-4977-4d0e-89eb-e0c844a1f9a4_The%20Insider%20Threat%20From%20Risk%20to%20Detection.pdf (Other references are links that are in the presentation) 39

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