Internet Engineering Task Force Nevil Brownlee
INTERNET-DRAFT John White
The University of Auckland
September 1995
Framework for Security Incident Response
<draft-ietf-grip-framework-irt-00.txt>
Status of this Memo
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Abstract
This document provides guidelines for Internet Security Incident
Response Teams (IRTs), and recommends a "template" through which every
IRT should describe itself and its functions. It was produced by the
GRIP Working Group of the IETF.
Contents
1 Introduction 2
1.1 Template Repository . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2 Description Template: Security Incident Response Team 3
3 Purpose of the Template 5
3.1 Other Related Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
INTERNET-DRAFT Framework for Security Incident Response Sep 1995
4 Definitions 6
4.1 Constituency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.2 Partner Teams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.3 Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.4 Incident . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.5 Security Incident Response Team . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.6 Vendor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.7 Vulnerability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
5 The Security Incident Response Team Template 8
5.1 Template Updates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
5.1.1 Date of last update . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
5.1.2 Distribution List for Template Updates . . . . . . . . . . 9
5.2 Charter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
5.2.1 Mission Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
5.2.2 Constituency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
5.2.3 Sponsoring organization / affiliation . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.2.4 Authority . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.3 Policies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.3.1 Types of incidents and level of support . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.3.2 Co-operation and interaction with other organizations . . . 10
5.3.3 Reporting and Disclosure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
5.3.4 Communication and authentication . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
5.4 Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
5.5 Disclaimers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
6 Appendix: Note on procedure definitions 13
7 Security Considerations 14
8 Author's Addresses 14
1 Introduction
The Working Group group was formed to provide guidelines and
recommendations to facilitate the consistent handling of security
incidents in the Internet community.
Security incidents and potential threats of them usually extend beyond
institutional or local community boundaries. "Consistent handling"
implies that any group calling itself an Incident Response Team (IRT)
must react to security incidents or to threats of them in ways which the
general Internet community agrees to be in its general interest.
The "Framework for Security Incident Response" is seen as resting on the
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work of individual IRTs and the cooperation between them.
This document therefore recommends a "template" through which every IRT
should describe itself and its functions. It further recommends that
templates should be accessible among teams, to make possible a fully
effective cooperative response framework for incidents or threats across
the entire domain affected by them.
1.1 Template Repository
If templates are to be accessible between IRTs, a central repository
will be needed for them. The GRIP Working Group believe that some of
the existing Internet archive areas could be used for this purpose.
Each team should be responsible for ensuring that its own template is
available to at least its constituency and its co-operating partner
teams. Digital signatures should be used to protect the completed
templates against modifications. The keeper of each template repository
will be responsibly for verifying the identity of each IRT loding a
template in the repository.
--- (Future drafts will present more specific recommendations
concerning the sharing of Template information) ---
The Template is summarized in the section immediately below, and the
remainder of the document describes its components.
2 Description Template: Security Incident Response Team
Contact Information
-------------------
* name of the team
* address
* telephone
* telefax
* other telecommunication like STU-III
* electronic mail
* encryption methods for communication: PGP, PEM, MOSS, ..
* actual list of members on demand (optional)
Template Updates
----------------
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* Date of last update
* Distribution of template updates
Charter
-------
* mission statement
* constituency
* sponsor / affiliation
* authority
Policies
--------
* types of incidents
* level of support
* disclosure
- of compromised site's information
- the compromise of IRT site to constituency
* cooperation & interaction with
- incident response teams
- vendors
- investigative agencies
- involved sites
- press
* communication & authentication
* point of customer contacts
* incident reporting requirements
Services
--------
* incident response
- verification
- understanding
- coping
- notification
* proactive activities
Incident Reporting Forms
------------------------
Disclaimers
-----------
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3 Purpose of the Template
The Template which this document proposes is expected to be used by a
response team to describe what it does, and in the process create
criteria against which its performance can be measured. The Template
does not attempt to specify a "correct" way for the team to operate, but
does recommend on specific policies and functions seen as necessary for
such a team to play a consistent role in the overall security framework.
It also comments on additional roles a team might include in the ambit
of its operations.
The primary purposes of the Template are:
- to help IRTs improve the way they operate;
- to improve interactions between different IRTs, and between IRTs
and other organizations such as vendors and law-enforcement
agencies;
- to note necessary interactions with their constituencies in setting
expectations and defining policies;
- to help new groups understand what it takes to "be" an IRT.
A Template might appear to provide a marketing tool for comparing
different teams, but this kind of marketing use (or abuse) is strongly
discouraged by the GRIP Working Group.
3.1 Other Related Material
This 'Framework for Response Teams' document is the first produced by
the GRIP Working Group. A second document will set out guide-lines for
technology vendors to help them handle security incidents. The
definition of terms given in the next section applies to both documents.
Another relevant IETF document is RFC 1244, the Site Security Handbook,
produced by (and being updated by) the Site Security Handbook Working
Group (SSH). Site requirements and recommendations are covered by the
Handbook, while response team expectations and procedures are addressed
by the GRIP documents.
Other documents of interest for the discussion of incident response
teams and their tasks are available by anonymous FTP. A collection can
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be found on:
* ftp://ftp.nic.surfnet.nl/surfnet/net-security/
cert-nl/docs/reports/R-92-01
Some especially interesting documents are:
* CERT-NL Framework
ftp://ftp.cert.dfn.de/pub/csir/docs/cert-nl.opframe.txt
* FIRST potential members
ftp://ftp.first.org/pub/first/newmemlt.txt
ftp://ftp.first.org/pub/first/profile.txt
ftp://ftp.first.org/pub/first/op`frame.txt
* Bibliography
http://www.cert.dfn.de/eng/team/kpk/certbib.html
4 Definitions
This section defines terms used in describing security incidents and
response teams. For the purpose of the GRIP documents only a limited
list is really needed. This should help maintain focus on the purpose
of the documents, and prevent a duplication of other definitions or -
even worse - a proliferation of competing definitions.
4.1 Constituency
Implicit in the purpose of a Security Incident Response Team is the
existence of a constituency. This is the group of users, sites,
networks or organizations served by the team.
4.2 Partner Teams
Implicit in the purpose of the Template proposed here is the existence
of Partner Teams which are its primary audience, and which share in the
responsibility for addressing security incidents or threats common to
their separate constituencies.
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4.3 Security
After considerable discussion, the Working Group decided not to attempt
a definition of "security", but instead to rely on intuition, or on
definitions in other documents such as the Site Security Handbook.
4.4 Incident
For the purpose of this document:
'A computer security incident is any event which compromises
some aspect of computer or network security.'
The definition of an incident may vary between organizations, but at
least the following categories are generally applicable:
* loss of confidentiality,
* compromise of integrity,
* denial of service,
* misuse,
* damage.
These are very general categories. For instance the forging of an
electronic mail message and a successful password attack are two
examples of 'compromise of integrity.'
Within the definition of an incident the word 'compromised' is used.
Sometimes an administrator may only 'suspect' an incident. During the
handling of a call it must be established whether or not an incident
really occurred.
4.5 Security Incident Response Team
Based on two of the definitions given above:
'A Security Incident Response Team is a group authorized to deal
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with security incidents that occur within its defined constituency.'
It should provide a channel for receiving reports about suspected
incidents and for disseminating incident-related information to its
constituency and to other related parties; it should also provide
assistance to members of its constituency in handling these incidents.
4.6 Vendor
A 'vendor' is any entity that produces networking or computing
technology, and is responsible for the technical content of that
technology. Examples of 'technology' include hardware (routers,
switches, etc), and software (operating systems, mail forwarding
systems, etc).
Note that the supplier of a technology is not necessarily the 'vendor'
of that technology. As an example, an Internet Services Provider (ISP)
might supply routers to each of its customers, but the 'vendor' is the
manufacturer, being the entity responsible for the technical content of
the router, rather than the ISP.
4.7 Vulnerability
A 'vulnerability' is a characteristic of a piece of technology which can
be exploited to perpetrate a security incident. For example, if a
program allowed ordinary users to execute operating system commands in
privileged mode, this "feature" would be a vulnerability.
5 The Security Incident Response Team Template
This material which follows is addressed to those responsible for
Security Incident Response Teams.
5.1 Template Updates
Details of an IRT change with time, so the template must indicate when
it was last changed, who will be informed of future changes, and (by
implication) who will not. Without this, it is inevitable that
misunderstandings and misconceptions will arise over time.
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5.1.1 Date of last update
This should be sufficient to allow anyone interested to evaluate the
currency of the template.
5.1.2 Distribution of Template Updates
Persons on this list are notified automatically whenever the template is
changed. The list might normally cover the constituency and immediate
Partner IRTs. Readers not on the list can then recognise that they
should check the central repository (above) for possible updates.
Digital signatures should be used for update messages sent by an IRT to
those on its distribution list.
5.2 Charter
Every IRT must have a charter which specifying what it is to do, and the
authority under which it will do it. The charter should include at
least the following:
* mission statement
* constituency
* sponsor / affiliation
* authority
5.2.1 Mission Statement
The mission statement should focus on the team's core activities,
already stated in the definition of an IRT. In order to be considered a
Security Incident Response Team, the team MUST provide incident
response, by definition.
The goals and purposes of a team are especially important, and require
clear, succinct definition.
5.2.2 Constituency
An IRT's constituency (as defined above) can be determined in many ways.
For example it could be a company's employees or its paid subscribers,
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or it could be defined in terms of a technological focus, such as the
users of a particular operating system.
The definition of constituency should create a perimeter around the
group to whom the team will provide service. The policy section (below)
should explain how requests from outside the perimeter will be handled.
Constituencies might overlap, as when an ISP supports an IRT, but
delivers services to customer sites which also have IRTs. The Authority
section (below) should make such relationships clear.
People within the constituency have to learn that there is an IRT for
their purposes; the building of a trusted relationship with the
constituency is an on-going process which never ends.
5.2.3 Sponsoring organization / affiliation
The sponsoring organization, which authorises the actions of the IRT,
should be given next. Defining the affiliation amounts to stating:
"Who is your God?".
5.2.4 Authority
IRTs may not have authority to intervene in the operation of all the
systems within their perimeter. They should identify the scope of their
control as distinct from the perimeter of their constituency; if other
IRTs operate hierachically within their perimeter, these should be
identified.
--- (Responsibility should be covered here) ---
5.3 Policies
5.3.1 Types of incidents and level of support
The types of incident which the team is authorised to address and the
level of support the team will contribute in assisting with each type of
incident should be summarized here in list form. The Services section
(later) provides opportunity for more detailed definition.
The team should state whether it will act on information it receives
about vulnerabilities which create opportunities for future incidents.
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A commitment to act on such information on behalf of its constituency is
regarded as an optional pro-active service policy rather than a core
service requirement for an IRT.
5.3.2 Co-operation and interaction with other organizations
This section should make explicit the related groups with which the IRT
interacts:
* incident response teams
* vendors
* law-enforcement agencies
* press
5.3.3 Reporting and Disclosure
The default status of any and all security-related information which a
team receives can only be 'confidential,' but rigid adherence to this
makes the team a 'black hole.' Its template should define what
information it will report or disclose, to whom, and when.
Different teams are likely to be subject to different legal restraints
requiring or limiting disclosure, especially if they work in different
jurisdictions. Each team's template should specify any such restraints,
both to clarify users' expectations and to inform other teams.
Conflicts of interest, particularly in commercial matters, may also
restrain disclosure by a team; the present Draft does not recommend on
how such conflicts should be addressed.
An explicit policy concerning disclosure to the Press can be helpful,
particularly in clarifying the expectations of an IRT's constituency.
'Disclosure' includes:
- reporting incidents within the constituency to other teams;
- handling incidents occurring within the constituency, but reported
from outside it.
- reporting observations from within the constituency indicating
suspected or confirmed incidents outside it;
- acting on reports of incidents occurring outside the constituency;
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- passing information about vulnerabilities to vendors, to Partner
IRTs or directly to affected sites lying within or outside the
constituency;
- feed-back to parties reporting incidents or vulnerabilities;
- the provision of contact information relating to members of the
constituency, members of other constituencies, other IRTs or law-
enforcement agencies.
The reporting and disclosure policy should make clear who will be the
recipients of an IRT's reports in each circumstance. It should also
note whether the team will expect to deal through another IRT or
directly with a member of another constituency over matters directly
involving that member.
A team will normally collect statistics. If they are distributed, the
template's reporting and disclosure policy should say so, and should
list the recipients.
5.3.4 Communication and authentication
Methods of secure and verifiable communication should be established.
This is necessary for communication between IRTs and between an IRT and
its constituents. The template should include public keys or pointers
to them, including key fingerprints, together with guidelines on how to
use this information to check authenticity.
At the moment it is recommended that every IRT have, as a minimum, a PGP
key available, since PGP is available world-wide. Teams may also make
other mechanisms available, for example PEM.
For comunication via telephone or facsimile an IRT may keep secret
authentication data for parties with whom they may deal, such as an
agreed password or phrase.
5.4 Services
Services should be defined in two sections, as listed below.
* direct incident response
+ verification of incident
+ technical assistance analysis to understand compromise
+ notification of other involved parties
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+ eradication
+ recovery
* optional
+ information provision
- vunerablility archive
- patches and resolutions
+ tools
+ education
+ audit and consulting
+ product evaluation
5.5 Incident reporting Forms
Samples of reporting forms used by the IRT (or pointers to them) should
be included at this point in a template.
5.6 Disclaimers
Although the template does not constitute a contract, liability might
conceivably result from its descriptions of services and purposes. The
inclusion of a disclaimer at the end of the template is recommended.
It should be noted that some forms of reporting or disclosure relating
to specific incidents or vulnerabilities can imply liability, and IRTs
should consider the inclusion of disclaimers in such material.
In situations where the original version of a template must be
translated into another language, the translation should carry a
disclaimer and a pointer to the original. For example:
Although we tried to carefully translate our German template
into English, we can not be certain that both documents express
the same thoughts in the same level of detail and correctness.
In all cases, where there is a difference between both
versions, the German version is the binding version for our
operation.
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6 Appendix: Note on procedure definitions
Policies and statements of services in the template have to be
implemented as procedures, but descriptions of those procedures should
not be included in the template.
The following notes are intended to assist those seeking to form or to
improve their IRTs.
* External
+ identify other response teams
+ define supported clients:
- by domain, through registration system, other means
+ establish secure communication practices
- use of network, cell-phones, etc
+ define information that a client site must/should provide
- use of reporting forms
* Internal
+ secure the team's infrastructure
+ protect information servers
+ protect sensitive data
+ define expiry of sensitive data
+ define disposal practice for sensitive data
+ establish methods for gathering and keeping statistics
+ establish 'knowledge base' of lessons learned from past incidents
+ create practical implementations of disclosure policies
+ document explicit practices for disclosure to the Press
The Site Security Handbook is a first resource to consult in securing a
team's infrastructure. IRT-specific security measures may evolve later.
7 Security Considerations
This document discusses the operation of Security Incident Response
Teams, and is therefore not directly concerned with the security of
protocols or network systems themselves.
Nonetheless, it is vital that IRTs establish secure communication
channels with other teams, and with members of their constituency. They
must also secure their own systems and infrastructure.
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8 Author's Addresses
Nevil Brownlee
The University of Auckland
Phone: +64 9 373 7599 x8941
E-mail: n.brownlee@auckland.ac.nz
John White
The University of Auckland
Phone: +64 9 373 7599 x8946
E-mail: j.white@auckland.ac.nz
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