Security Automation and Continuous Monitoring WG D. Waltermire
Internet-Draft NIST
Intended status: Informational A. Montville
Expires: November 27, 2014 CIS
D. Harrington
Effective Software
N. Cam-Winget
Cisco Systems
May 26, 2014
Terminology for Security Assessment
draft-ietf-sacm-terminology-04
Abstract
This memo documents terminology used in the documents produced by
SACM (Security Automation and Continuous Monitoring).
Status of This Memo
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provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
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This Internet-Draft will expire on November 27, 2014.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Terms and Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2.1. Pre-defined Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2.2. New Terms and Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.3. Requirements Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
5. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
6. Change Log . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
6.1. ietf-sacm-terminology-01- to -02- . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
6.2. ietf-sacm-terminology-01- to -02- . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
6.3. ietf-sacm-terminology-02- to -03- . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
7. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
7.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
7.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1. Introduction
Our goal with this document is to improve our agreement on the
terminology used in documents produced by the IETF Working Group for
Security Automation and Continuous Monitoring. Agreeing on
terminology should help reach consensus on which problems we're
trying to solve, and propose solutions and decide which ones to use.
This document is expected to be a temporary work product, and will
probably be incorporated into the architecture or other document.
2. Terms and Definitions
This section describes terms that have been defined by other RFC's
and defines new ones. The predefined terms will reference the RFC
and where appropriate will be annotated with the specific context by
which the term is used in SACM.
2.1. Pre-defined Terms
Assessment
Defined in [RFC5209] as "the process of collecting posture for a
set of capabilities on the endpoint (e.g., host-based firewall)
such that the appropriate validators may evaluate the posture
against compliance policy."
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Within this document the use of the term is expanded to support
other uses of collected posture (e.g. reporting, network
enforcement, vulnerability detection, license management). The
phrase "set of capabilities on the endpoint" includes: hardware
and software installed on the endpoint."
Asset
Defined in [RFC4949] as "a system resource that is (a) required to
be protected by an information system's security policy, (b)
intended to be protected by a countermeasure, or (c) required for
a system's mission.
Attribute
Defined in [RFC5209] as "data element including any requisite
meta-data describing an observed, expected, or the operational
status of an endpoint feature (e.g., anti-virus software is
currently in use)."
Endpoint
Defined in [RFC5209] as "any computing device that can be
connected to a network. Such devices normally are associated with
a particular link layer address before joining the network and
potentially an IP address once on the network. This includes:
laptops, desktops, servers, cell phones, or any device that may
have an IP address."
To further clarify the [RFC5209] definition, an endpoint is any
physical or virtual device that may have a network address. Note
that, network infrastructure devices (e.g. switches, routers,
firewalls), which fit the definition, are also considered to be
endpoints within this document.
Based on the previous definition of an asset, an endpoint is a
type of asset.
Information Model
An information model is an abstract representation of data, their
properties, relationships between data and the operations that can
be performed on the data. While there is some overlap with a data
model, [RFC3444] distinguished an information model as being
protocol and implementation neutral whereas a data model would
provide such details.
Posture
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Defined in [RFC5209] as "configuration and/or status of hardware
or software on an endpoint as it pertains to an organization's
security policy."
This term is used within the scope of this document to represent
the state information that is collected from an endpoint (e.g.
software/hardware inventory, configuration settings). The state
information may constitute one to many Posture Attributes.
Posture Attributes
Defined in [RFC5209] as "attributes describing the configuration
or status (posture) of a feature of the endpoint. A Posture
Attribute represents a single property of an observed state. For
example, a Posture Attribute might describe the version of the
operating system installed on the system."
Within this document this term represents a specific assertion
about endpoint state (e.g. configuration setting, installed
software, hardware). The phrase "features of the endpoint" refers
to installed software or software components.
System Resource
Defined in [RFC4949] as "data contained in an information system;
or a service provided by a system; or a system capacity, such as
processing power or communication bandwidth; or an item of system
equipment (i.e., hardware, firmware, software, or documentation);
or a facility that houses system operations and equipment.
2.2. New Terms and Definitions
This section defines terms that are not explictly defined in the
IETF.
Asset characterization
Asset characterization is the process of defining attributes that
describe properties of an identified asset.
Asset Management
The process by which assets are provisioned, updated, maintained
and deprecated.
Asset Targeting
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Asset targeting is the use of asset identification and
categorization information to drive human-directed, automated
decision making for data collection and analysis in support of
endpoint posture assessment.
Building Block
For SACM, a building block is a unit of functionality that may
apply to more than one use case and can be supported by different
components of an architectural model.
Collection Task
The process by which posture attributes or values are collected.
Evaluation Task
The process by which posture attributes are evaluated.
Endpoint Target
The endpoint of interest.
Endpoint Discovery
The process by which an endpoint can be identified.
Evaluation Result
The resulting value from having evaluated a set of posture
attributes.
Expected Endpoint State
The required state of an endpoint that is to be compared against.
Security Automation
The process of which security alerts can be automated through the
use of different tools to monitor, evaluate and analyze endpoint
and network traffic for the purposes of detecting
misconfigurations, misbehaviors or threats.
2.3. Requirements Language
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC2119].
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3. IANA Considerations
This memo includes no request to IANA.
4. Security Considerations
This memo documents terminology for security automation. While it is
about security, it does not affect security.
5. Acknowledgements
6. Change Log
6.1. ietf-sacm-terminology-01- to -02-
Added simple list of terms extracted from UC draft -05. It is
expected that comments will be received on this list of terms as to
whether they should be kept in this document. Those that are kept
will be appropriately defined or cited.
6.2. ietf-sacm-terminology-01- to -02-
Added Vulnerability, Vulnerability Management, xposure,
Misconfiguration, and Software flaw.
6.3. ietf-sacm-terminology-02- to -03-
Removed Section 2.1. Cleaned up some editing nits; broke terms into
2 sections (predefined and newly defined terms). Added some of the
relevant terms per the proposed list discussed in the IETF 89
meeting.
7. References
7.1. Normative References
[I-D.ietf-sacm-use-cases]
Waltermire, D. and D. Harrington, "Endpoint Security
Posture Assessment - Enterprise Use Cases", draft-ietf-
sacm-use-cases-06 (work in progress), March 2014.
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
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7.2. Informative References
[RFC3444] Pras, A. and J. Schoenwaelder, "On the Difference between
Information Models and Data Models", RFC 3444, January
2003.
[RFC4949] Shirey, R., "Internet Security Glossary, Version 2", RFC
4949, August 2007.
[RFC5209] Sangster, P., Khosravi, H., Mani, M., Narayan, K., and J.
Tardo, "Network Endpoint Assessment (NEA): Overview and
Requirements", RFC 5209, June 2008.
Authors' Addresses
David Waltermire
National Institute of Standards and Technology
100 Bureau Drive
Gaithersburg, Maryland 20877
USA
Email: david.waltermire@nist.gov
Adam W. Montville
Center for Internet Security
31 Tech Valley Drive
East Greenbush, New York 12061
USA
Email: adam.montville@cisecurity.org
David Harrington
Effective Software
50 Harding Rd
Portsmouth, NH 03801
USA
Email: ietfdbh@comcast.net
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Nancy Cam-Winget
Cisco Systems
3550 Cisco Way
San Jose, CA 95134
US
Email: ncamwing@cisco.com
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