Security Automation and Continuous Monitoring WG D. Waltermire
Internet-Draft NIST
Intended status: Informational A. Montville
Expires: August 15, 2015 CIS
D. Harrington
Effective Software
N. Cam-Winget
Cisco Systems
J. Lu
Oracle Corporation
B. Ford
Lancope
M. Kaeo
Double Shot Security
February 11, 2015
Terminology for Security Assessment
draft-ietf-sacm-terminology-06
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 August 15, 2015.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2015 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Terms and Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
3. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
5. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
6. Change Log . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
6.1. ietf-sacm-terminology-01- to -02- . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
6.2. ietf-sacm-terminology-01- to -02- . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
6.3. ietf-sacm-terminology-02- to -03- . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
6.4. ietf-sacm-terminology-03 to -04- . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
6.5. ietf-sacm-terminology-04 to -05- . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
6.6. ietf-sacm-terminology-05 to -06- . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
7. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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)."
Broker
An entity providing and/or connecting services on the behalf of
other architectural components. Within the SACM Architecture, for
example, a broker may provide authorization services and find,
upon request, entities providing requested services.
Building Block
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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.
Capability
The extent of an architectural component's ability. For example,
a Posture Information Provider may only provide endpoint
management data, and then only a subset of that data.
Client
An architectural component receiving services from another
architectural component.
Collection Task
The process by which posture attributes or values are collected.
Consumer
An architectural component receiving information from another
architectrual component.
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.
Evaluation Task
The process by which posture attributes are evaluated.
Endpoint Target
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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.
Function
A behavioral aspect of a particular architectural component, which
belies that component's purpose. For example, the Management
Plane can provide a brokering function to other SACM architectrual
components.
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.
Management Plane (TBD per list; was "Control Plane")
Architectural component providing common functions to all SACM
participants, including authentication, authorization,
capabilities mappings, and the like.
Posture
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.
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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.
Provider
An architectural component providing information to another
architectrual component.
Proxy
An architectural component providing functions, information, or
services on behalf of another component, which is not directly
participating in the architecture.
Repository
An architectural component intended to store information of a
particular kind. A single repository may provide the functions of
more than one repository type (i.e. configuration baseline
repository, assessment results repository, etc.)
Role
A label representing a collection of functions provided by a
particular architectural component.
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.
Supplicant
The entity seeking to be authenticated by the Management Plane for
the purpose of participating in the SACM architecture.
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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.
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.
6.4. ietf-sacm-terminology-03 to -04-
TODO
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6.5. ietf-sacm-terminology-04 to -05-
TODO
6.6. ietf-sacm-terminology-05 to -06-
Updated author information.
Combined "Pre-defined Terms" with "New Terms and Definitions".
Removed "Requirements language".
Removed unused reference to use case draft; resulted in removal of
normative references.
Removed introductory text from Section 1 indicating that this
document is intended to be temporary.
Added placeholders for missing change log entries.
7. 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
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Adam W. Montville
Center for Internet Security
31 Tech Valley Drive
East Greenbush, New York 12061
USA
Email: adam.w.montville@gmail.com
David Harrington
Effective Software
50 Harding Rd
Portsmouth, NH 03801
USA
Email: ietfdbh@comcast.net
Nancy Cam-Winget
Cisco Systems
3550 Cisco Way
San Jose, CA 95134
US
Email: ncamwing@cisco.com
Jarrett Lu
Oracle Corporation
4180 Network Circle
Santa Clara, California 95054
Email: jarrett.lu@oracle.com
Brian Ford
Lancope
3650 Brookside Parkway, Suite 500
Alpharetta, Georgia 30022
Email: bford@lancope.com
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Merike Kaeo
Double Shot Security
3518 Fremont Avenue North, Suite 363
Seattle, Washington 98103
Email: merike@doubleshotsecurity.com
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