Network Working Group D. Waltermire, Ed.
Internet-Draft NIST
Intended status: Informational A. Montville
Expires: March 11, 2013 TW
September 7, 2012
Analysis of Security Automation and Continuous Monitoring (SACM) Use
Cases
draft-waltermire-sacm-use-cases-02
Abstract
This document identifies foundational use cases, derived functional
capabilities and requirements, architectural components, and the
supporting standards needed to define an interoperable,
automation\infrastructure required to support timely, accurate and
actionable situational awareness over an organization's IT systems.
Automation tools implementing a continuous monitoring approach will
utilize this infrastructure together with existing and emerging
event, incident and network management standards to provide
visibility into the state of assets, user activities and network
\behavior. Stakeholders will be able to use these tools to aggregate
and analyze relevant security and operational data to understand the
organizations security posture, quantify business risk, and make
informed decisions that support organizational objectives while
protecting critical information. Organizations will be able to use
these tools to augment and automate information sharing activities to
collaborate with partners to identify and mitigate threats. Other
automation tools will be able to integrate with these capabilities to
enforce policies based on human decisions to harden systems, prevent
misuse and reduce the overall attack surface.
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This Internet-Draft will expire on March 11, 2013.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.1. Requirements Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2. Key Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3. Use Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.1. UC1: System State Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.1.1. Goal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.1.2. Main Success Scenario . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.1.3. Extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.2. UC2: Enforcement of Acceptable State . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.2.1. Goal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.2.2. Main Success Scenario . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.2.3. Extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3.3. UC3: Security Control Verification and Monitoring . . . . 10
3.3.1. Goal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3.3.2. Main Success Scenario . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3.3.3. Extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4. Functional Capabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.1. Capabilities Supporting UC1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.1.1. Asset Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.1.2. Data Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.1.2.1. Security Configuration Management . . . . . . . . 12
4.1.2.2. Vulnerability Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.1.3. Assessment Result Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4.1.4. Content Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4.2. Capabilities Supporting UC2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
4.2.1. Assessment Query and Transport . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
4.2.2. Acceptable State Enforcement . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
4.3. Capabilities Supporting UC3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
4.3.1. Tasking and Scheduling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
4.3.2. Data Aggregation and Reporting . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
5. Functional Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
5.1. Asset Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
5.1.1. Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
5.1.2. Characterization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
5.1.2.1. Logical . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
5.1.2.2. Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
5.1.3. Asset Identification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
5.2. Security Configuration Management . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
5.2.1. Configuration Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
5.2.1.1. Non-technical Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
5.2.1.2. Technical Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
5.3. Vulnerability Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
5.3.1. Non-technical Vulnerability Assessment . . . . . . . . 17
5.3.2. Technical Vulnerabiltiy Assessment . . . . . . . . . . 17
5.4. Content Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
5.4.1. Control Frameworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
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5.4.2. Configuration Standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
5.4.3. Scoring Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
5.4.4. Vulnerability Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
5.4.5. Patch Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
5.4.6. Asset Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
5.5. Assessment Result Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
5.5.1. Comparing Actual to Expected State . . . . . . . . . . 17
5.5.2. Scoring Comparison Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
5.5.3. Relating Comparison Results to Requirements . . . . . 17
5.5.4. Relating Requirements to Control Frameworks . . . . . 17
5.6. Tasking and Scheduling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
5.6.1. Selection of Assessment Criteria . . . . . . . . . . . 18
5.6.2. Defining In-scope Assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
5.6.3. Defining Periodic Assessments . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
5.6.4. Defining Assessment Triggers . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
5.7. Data Aggregation and Reporting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
5.7.1. By Asset Characterization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
5.7.2. By Assessment Criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
5.7.3. By Control Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
5.7.4. By Benchmark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
5.7.5. By Ad Hoc/Extended Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
6. Data Exchange Models and Communications Protocols . . . . . . 18
6.1. Data Exchange Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
6.1.1. Control Expression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
6.1.1.1. Technical Control Expression . . . . . . . . . . . 19
6.1.1.2. Non-technical Control Expression . . . . . . . . . 19
6.1.2. Control Frameworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
6.1.2.1. Logical Expression and Syntactic Binding(s) . . . 19
6.1.2.2. Relationships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
6.1.2.3. Substantiation (Control Requirement) . . . . . . . 19
6.1.2.4. Reporting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
6.1.3. Asset Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
6.1.3.1. Asset Identification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
6.1.3.2. Asset Classification (Type) . . . . . . . . . . . 19
6.1.3.3. Asset Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
6.1.3.4. Information Expression (non-identifying) . . . . . 20
6.1.3.5. Reporting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
6.1.4. Benchmark/Checklist Expression . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
6.1.4.1. Logical Expression and Bindings . . . . . . . . . 20
6.1.4.2. Checking Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
6.1.4.3. Results and Scoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
6.1.4.4. Reporting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
6.1.5. Check Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
6.1.5.1. Logical Expression and Syntactic Binding(s) . . . 20
6.1.5.2. Reporting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
6.1.6. Targeting Expression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
6.1.6.1. Information Owner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
6.1.6.2. System Owner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
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6.1.6.3. Assessor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
6.1.6.4. Computing Device . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
6.1.6.5. Targeting Extensibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
6.2. Communication Protocols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
6.2.1. Asset Management Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
7. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
8. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
9. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
10. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
10.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
10.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Appendix A. Additional Stuff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
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1. Introduction
This document addresses foundational use cases in security
automation. These use cases may be considered when establishing a
charter for the Security Automation and Continuous Monitoring (SACM)
working group within the IETF. This working group will address a
many of the standards needed to define an interoperable, automation
infrastructure required to support timely, accurate and actionable
situational awareness over an organization's IT systems. This
document enumerates use cases and breaks down related concepts that
cross many IT security information domains.
Sections Section 2, Section 3, Section 4, and Section 5 of this
document respectively focus on:
Defining the key concepts and terminology used within the document
providing a common frame of reference;
Identifying foundational use cases that represent classes of
stakeholders, goals, and usage scenarios;
A set of derived functional capabilities and associated
requirements that are needed to support the use cases;
A break down of architectural components that address one or more
functional capabilities that can be used in various combinations
to support the use cases
The concepts identified in this document provide a foundation for
creating interoperable automation tools and continuous monitoring
solutions that provide visibility into the state of assets, user
activities, and network behavior. Stakeholders will be able to use
these tools to aggregate and analyze relevant security and
operational data to understand the organizations security posture,
quantify business risk, and make informed decisions that support
organizational objectives while protecting critical information.
Organizations will be able to use these tools to augment and automate
information sharing activities to collaborate with partners to
identify and mitigate threats. Other automation tools will be able
to integrate with these capabilities to enforce policies based on
human decisions to harden systems, prevent misuse and reduce the
overall attack surface.
1.1. 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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2. Key Concepts
The operational methods we use within the bounds of our present
realities are failing us - we are falling behind. We have begun to
recognize that the evolution of threat agents, increasing system
complexity, rapid situational security change, and scarce resources
are detrimental to our success. There have been efforts to remedy
our circumstance, and these efforts are generally known as "Security
Automation."
Security Automation is a general term used to reference standards and
specifications originally created by the National Institute of
Standards and Technology (NIST) and/or the MITRE Corporation.
Security Automation generally includes languages, protocols
(prescribed ways by which specification collections are used),
enumerations, and metrics.
These specifications have provided an opportunity for tool vendors
and enterprises building customized solutions to take the appropriate
steps toward enabling Security Automation by defining common
information expressions. In effect, common expression of information
enables interoperability between tools (whether customized,
commercial, or freely available). Another important capability
common expression provides is the ability to automate portions of
security processes to gain efficiency, react to new threats in a
timely manner, and free up security personnel to work on more
advanced problems within the processes in which they participate.
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+---------------------------------------+ +-------------+
| | | |
| Operational Risk Management | | |
| | | |
+---------------------------------------+ | |
| |
+---------------------------------------+ | |
| | | |
| Information Risk Management | | Policy |
| | | Process |
+---------------------------------------+ | Procedure |
| |
+---------------------------------------+ | |
| | | |
| Control Frameworks | | |
| | | |
+---------------------------------------+ | |
| |
+---------------------------------------+ | |
| | | |
| Controls | | |
| | | |
+---------------------------------------+ +-------------+
Figure 1
The figure above provides some context for our focus area.
Organizations of all sizes will have a more or less formal risk
management program, depending upon their maturity and organization-
specific needs. A small business with only a few employees may not
have a formally recognized risk management program, but they still
lock the doors at night. Typically, financial entities and
governments sit at the other end of the spectrum with often large,
laborious risk frameworks. The point is that all organizations
practice, to some degree, Operational Risk Management. An
Information Risk Management program is most likely a constituent of
Operational Risk Management (another constituent might be Financial
Risk Management). In the Information Risk Management domain, we
often use Control Frameworks to provide guidance for organizations
practicing ORM in an information context, and these Control
Frameworks define a variety of Controls.
From ORM, IRM, Control Frameworks, and the Controls themselves,
organizations derive a set of organization-specific policies,
processes, and procedures. Such policies, processes, and procedures
make use of a library of supporting information commonly stipulated
by the organization (i.e. enterprise acceptable use policies), but
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often prescribed by external entities (i.e. Payment Card Industry
Data Security Standards, Sarbanes-Oxley, or EU Data Privacy
Directive). The focus of this document spans Controls, certain
aspects of policy, process, and procedure, and Control Frameworks.
3. Use Cases
This document addresses three use cases: System State Assessment,
Enforcement of Acceptable State, Security Control Verification and
Monitoring.
3.1. UC1: System State Assessment
3.1.1. Goal
Assess security state of a given system to be in compliance with
enterprise standards and, therefore, ensure alignment with enterprise
policy.
3.1.2. Main Success Scenario
1. Define target system to be assessed
2. Select acceptable state policies to apply to defined target
3. Collect actual state values from target
4. Compare actual state values collected from target with expected
state values as expressed in acceptable state policies
3.1.3. Extensions
None.
3.2. UC2: Enforcement of Acceptable State
3.2.1. Goal
Allow or deny access to a desired resource based on system
characteristics compliance with enterprise policy.
3.2.2. Main Success Scenario
1. An entity (user on a system or the system itself) requests access
to a given resource (i.e. network connection)
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2. Assessment of system state is achieved using Section 3.1
3. Based on assessment results (i.e. compliance level with
enterprise policy)
A. System is allowed access to requested resource, or
B. System is denied access to requested resource
3.2.3. Extensions
None.
3.3. UC3: Security Control Verification and Monitoring
3.3.1. Goal
Continuous assessment of the implementation and effectiveness of
security controls based on machine processable content.
3.3.2. Main Success Scenario
1. Define set of targets to be assessed.
2. Select acceptable state policies to apply to set of targets
3. Define assessment trigger based on either a
A. Time period, or
B. System/enterprise event.
4. Define result reporting/alerting criteria
5. Enable continuous assessment
3.3.3. Extensions
None.
4. Functional Capabilities
In general, the activities of managing assets, configurations, and
vulnerabilities are common between UC1 and UC2. UC1 uses these
activities to either grant or deny an entity access to a requested
resource. UC2 uses these activities in support of compliance
measurement on a periodic basis.
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At the most basic level, an enterprise needing to satisfy UC1 and UC2
will need certain capabilities to be met. Specifically, we are
talking about risk management capabilities. This is the central
problem domain, so it makes sense to be able to convey information
about technical and non-technical controls, benchmarks, control
requirements, control frameworks and other concepts in a common way.
4.1. Capabilities Supporting UC1
As described in Section Section 3.1, the required capabilities need
to support assessing host and/or network state in an automated
manner. This is, essentially, a configuration assessment check
before allowing a full connection to the network.
4.1.1. Asset Management
Effective Asset Management is a critical foundation upon which all
else in risk management is based. There are two important facets to
asset managment: 1) understanding coverage (how many assets are under
control) and, 2) understaning specific asset details. Coverage is
fairly straightforward - assessing 80% of the enterprise is better
than assessing 50% of the enterprise. Getting asset details is
comparatively subtle - if an enterprise does not have a precise
understanding of its assets, then all acquired data and consequent
actions are considered suspect. Assessing assets (managed and
unmanaged) requires that we see and properly characterize our assets
at the outset and over time.
What we need to do initially is discover and characterize our assets,
and then identify them in a common way. Characterization may take
the form of logical characterization or security characterization,
where logical characterization may include business context not
otherwise related to security, but which may be used as information
in support of decision making later in risk management workflows.
The following list details the requisite Asset Management
capabilities (later described in Section 5):
o Discover assets in the enterprise
o Characterize assets according to security and non-security asset
properties
o Identify and describe assets using a common vocabulary between
implementations
o Reconcile asset representations originating from disparate tools
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o Manage asset information throughout the asset's life cycle
4.1.2. Data Collection
Related to managing assets, and central to any automated assessment
solution is the ability to collect data from target hosts (some might
call this "harvesting"). Of particular interest are data
representing the security state of a target, be it a computing
device, network hardware, operating system, or application. The
primary interest of the activities demanding data collection is
centered on object state collection, where objects may be file
attributes, operating system and/or application configuration items,
and network device configuration items among others.
4.1.2.1. Security Configuration Management
There are many valid perspectives to take when considering required
capabilities, but the industry seems to have roughly settled upon the
notion of "Security Configuration Management" (there are variants of
the term). Security Configuration Management (SCM) is a simple way
to reference several supporting capabilities involving technical and
non-technical assessment of systems.
The following capabilities support SCM:
o Target Assessment
* Collect the state of non-technical controls commonly called
administrative controls (i.e. policy, process, procedure)
* Collect the state of technical controls including, but not
necessarily limited to:
+ Target configuration items
+ Target patch level
+ Target object state
4.1.2.2. Vulnerability Management
SCM is only part of the solution, as it deals exclusively with the
configuration of computing devices, including software
vulnerabilities (by testing for patch levels). All vulnerabilities
need to be addressed as part of a comprehensive risk management
program, which is a superset of software vulnerabilities. Thus, the
capability of assessing non-software vulnerabilities applicable to
the in-scope system is required.
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The following capabilities support Vulnerability Management:
1. Assessment
* Non-technical Vulnerability Assessment (i.e. interrogative)
* Technical Vulnerability Assessment
4.1.3. Assessment Result Analysis
At the most basic level, the data collected needs to be analyzed for
compliance to a standard stipulated by the enterprise. Such
standards vary between enterprises, but commonly take a similar form.
The following capabilities support the analysis of assessment
results:
o Comparing actual state to expected state
o Scoring/weighting individual comparison results
o Relating specific comparisons to benchmark-level requirements
o Relating benchmark-level requirements to one or more control
frameworks
4.1.4. Content Management
It should be clear by now that the capabilities required to support
risk management state measurement will yield volumes of content. The
efficacy of risk management state measurement depends directly on the
stability of the driving content, and, subsequently, the ability to
change content according to enterprise needs.
Capabilities supporting Content Management should provide the ability
to create/define or modify content, as well as store and retrieve
said content of at least the following types:
o Configuration Standards
o Scoring Models
o Vulnerability Information
o Patch Information
o Asset Characterization
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Note that the ability to modify content is in direct support of
tailoring content for enterprise-specific needs.
4.2. Capabilities Supporting UC2
UC2 is dependent upon UC1 and, therefore, includes all of the
capabilities described in Section Section 4.1. UC2 describes the
ability to make a resource access decision based on an assessment of
the requesting system (either by the system itself or on behalf of a
user operating that system). There are two chief capabilities
required to meet the needs expressed in Section Section 3.2:
Assessment Query and Transport, and Acceptable State Enforcement.
4.2.1. Assessment Query and Transport
Under certain circumstances, the system requesting access may be
unknown, which can make querying the system problematic (consider a
case where a system is connecting to the network and has no
assessment software installed). Note that The Network Endpoint
Assessment (NEA) protocols (PA-TNC [RFC5792], PB-TNC [RFC5793], PT-
TLS [I-D.ietf-nea-pt-tls], and PT-EAP [I-D.ietf-nea-pt-eap]) may be
used to query and transport the things to be measured.
4.2.2. Acceptable State Enforcement
Once the assessment has been performed a decision to allow or deny
access to the requested resource can be made. Making this decision
is a necessary but insufficient condition for enforcement of
acceptable state, and an implementation must have the ability to
actively allow or deny access to the requested resource. For
example, network enforcement may be implemented with RADIUS [RFC2865]
or DIAMETER [RFC3588].
4.3. Capabilities Supporting UC3
Recall that UC3 is dependent upon UC1 and therefore includes all of
the capabilities described in Section 4.1. The difference in UC3 is
the notion of when to assess rather than what to assess. Therefore,
the capabilities described in this section are relevant only to the
"when" and not to the "what."
4.3.1. Tasking and Scheduling
The ability to task and schedule assessments is requisite for any
effective risk management program. Tasking refers to the ability to
create a set of instructions to be conveyed at a later time via
scheduling. Tasking, therefore, involves selecting a set of
assessment criteria, assigning that set to a group of assets, and
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expressing that information in a manner that can be consumed by a
collection tool. Scheduling comes into play when the enterprise
determines when to perform a specific assessment task (or set of
tasks). Scheduling may be expressed in a way that constrains tasks
to execute only during defined periods, can be ad hoc, or may be
triggered by the analysis of previous assessment results or events
detected in the enterprise.
The following capabilities support Tasking and Scheduling:
o Selection of assessment criteria
o Defining in-scope assets (i.e. targeting)
o Defining periodic assessments for a given set of tasks
o Defining assessment triggers for a given set of tasks
4.3.2. Data Aggregation and Reporting
Assessment results are produced for every asset assessed, and these
results must be reported not only individually, but in the aggregate,
and in accordance with enterprise needs. Enterprises should be able
to aggregate and report on the data their assessments produce in a
number of different ways in order to support different levels of
decision making. At times, security operations personnel may be
interested in understanding where the most critical risks exist in
their enterprise so as to focus their remediation efforts in the most
effective way (in terms of cost and return). At other times, only
aggregated scores will matter, as might be the case when reporting to
an information security manager or other executive-level role.
It is not the position of these capabilities to provide explicit
details about how reports should be formatted for presentation, but
only what information they should contain for a particular purpose.
Furthermore, it is quite easy to imagine the need for a capability
providing extensibility to aggregation and reporting.
Aggregating assessment results by the following capabilities supports
Data Aggregation and Reporting
o By asset characterization
o By assessment criteria
o By control framework
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o By benchmark
o By other attributes/properties of assessment characteristics
o Extensible aggregation and reporting
5. Functional Components
This section describes the functional components alluded to in the
previous section Section 4. In keeping with the organization of the
previous section, the following high-level functional capabilities
are decomposed herein: Asset Management, Security Configuration
Management, Vulnerability Management, Content Management, Assessment
Result Analysis, Tasking and Scheduling, and Data Aggregation and
Reporting.
5.1. Asset Management
As previously mentioned, asset management is a critically important
component of any risk management program. If you stop to consider
the different tools used to support a risk management program (i.e.
IDS/IPS, Firewalls, NAC devices, WAFs, SCM, and so on), they all
need, to some degree, an element of asset management. In this
context, asset management is defined as the maintenance of necessary
and accurate asset characteristics. Management of assets requires
the ability to discover, characterize, and subsequently identify
assets across enterprise tools. The components described herein
support Section 4.1.1
5.1.1. Discovery
5.1.2. Characterization
5.1.2.1. Logical
5.1.2.2. Security
5.1.3. Asset Identification
5.2. Security Configuration Management
The components described herein support Section 4.1.2
5.2.1. Configuration Assessment
5.2.1.1. Non-technical Assessment
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5.2.1.2. Technical Assessment
5.2.1.2.1. Configuration Assessment
5.2.1.2.2. Patch Assessment
5.2.1.2.3. Object State Assessment
5.3. Vulnerability Management
The components described herein support Section 4.1.2
5.3.1. Non-technical Vulnerability Assessment
5.3.2. Technical Vulnerabiltiy Assessment
5.4. Content Management
The components described herein support Section 4.1.4
5.4.1. Control Frameworks
5.4.2. Configuration Standards
5.4.3. Scoring Models
5.4.4. Vulnerability Information
5.4.5. Patch Information
5.4.6. Asset Information
5.5. Assessment Result Analysis
The components described herein support Section 4.1.3
5.5.1. Comparing Actual to Expected State
5.5.2. Scoring Comparison Results
5.5.3. Relating Comparison Results to Requirements
5.5.4. Relating Requirements to Control Frameworks
5.6. Tasking and Scheduling
The components described herein support Section 4.3.1
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5.6.1. Selection of Assessment Criteria
5.6.2. Defining In-scope Assets
5.6.3. Defining Periodic Assessments
5.6.4. Defining Assessment Triggers
5.7. Data Aggregation and Reporting
The components described herein support Section 4.3.2
5.7.1. By Asset Characterization
5.7.2. By Assessment Criteria
5.7.3. By Control Framework
5.7.4. By Benchmark
5.7.5. By Ad Hoc/Extended Properties
6. Data Exchange Models and Communications Protocols
Document where existing work exists, what is currently defined by
SDOs, and any gaps that should be addressed. Point to existing
event, incident and network management standards when available.
Describe emerging efforts that may be used for the creation of new
standards. For gaps provide insight into what would be a good fit
for SACM or another IETF working groups.
This will help us to identify what is needed for SACM to be
successful. This section will help determine which of the
specifications can be normatively referenced and what needs to be
addressed in the IETF. This should help us determine any protocol or
guidance documentation we will need to generate to support the
described use cases.
Things to address:
For IETF related efforts, discuss work in NEA and MILE working
groups. Address SNMP, NetConf and other efforts as needed.
Reference any Security Automation work that is applicable.
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6.1. Data Exchange Models
The functional capabilities described in Section 4 require a
significant number of models to be selected or defined in order to
meet the needs of the three use cases presented in Section 3. A
"model" in this sense is a logical arrangement of information that
may have more than one syntactic binding. For the purpose of this
document, only the logical data model is considered. However, where
appropriate, example data models that may have well-defined syntactic
expressions may be referenced.
6.1.1. Control Expression
For each we need an identification method, a logical expression and
one or more syntactic bindings to that expression. For some, we may
wish to associate a method of risk scoring.
6.1.1.1. Technical Control Expression
6.1.1.2. Non-technical Control Expression
6.1.1.2.1. Configuration Controls
6.1.1.2.2. Patches
6.1.1.2.3. Vulnerabilities
6.1.1.2.4. Object (Non-security) State
6.1.2. Control Frameworks
6.1.2.1. Logical Expression and Syntactic Binding(s)
6.1.2.2. Relationships
6.1.2.3. Substantiation (Control Requirement)
6.1.2.4. Reporting
6.1.3. Asset Expressions
6.1.3.1. Asset Identification
6.1.3.2. Asset Classification (Type)
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6.1.3.3. Asset Attributes
6.1.3.3.1. Criticality
6.1.3.3.2. Classification (security)
6.1.3.3.3. Owner
6.1.3.4. Information Expression (non-identifying)
6.1.3.5. Reporting
6.1.4. Benchmark/Checklist Expression
6.1.4.1. Logical Expression and Bindings
6.1.4.2. Checking Systems
6.1.4.3. Results and Scoring
6.1.4.4. Reporting
6.1.5. Check Language
6.1.5.1. Logical Expression and Syntactic Binding(s)
6.1.5.1.1. Technical
6.1.5.1.2. Non-technical
6.1.5.2. Reporting
6.1.6. Targeting Expression
6.1.6.1. Information Owner
6.1.6.2. System Owner
6.1.6.2.1. Computing Device(s)
6.1.6.2.2. Network(s)
6.1.6.3. Assessor
6.1.6.4. Computing Device
6.1.6.5. Targeting Extensibility
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6.2. Communication Protocols
6.2.1. Asset Management Interface
7. IANA Considerations
This memo includes no request to IANA.
All drafts are required to have an IANA considerations section (see
RFC 5226 [RFC5226] for a guide). If the draft does not require IANA
to do anything, the section contains an explicit statement that this
is the case (as above). If there are no requirements for IANA, the
section will be removed during conversion into an RFC by the RFC
Editor.
8. Security Considerations
All drafts are required to have a security considerations section.
See RFC 3552 [RFC3552] for a guide.
9. Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Kathleen Moriarty and Stephen Hanna
for contributing text to this document. The author would also like
to acknowledge the members of the SACM mailing list for thier keen
and insightful feedback on the concepts and text within this
document.
10. References
10.1. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
10.2. Informative References
[I-D.ietf-nea-pt-eap]
Cam-Winget, N. and P. Sangster, "PT-EAP: Posture Transport
(PT) Protocol For EAP Tunnel Methods",
draft-ietf-nea-pt-eap-02 (work in progress), May 2012.
[I-D.ietf-nea-pt-tls]
Sangster, P., Cam-Winget, N., and J. Salowey, "PT-TLS: A
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TCP-based Posture Transport (PT) Protocol",
draft-ietf-nea-pt-tls-05 (work in progress), May 2012.
[RFC2865] Rigney, C., Willens, S., Rubens, A., and W. Simpson,
"Remote Authentication Dial In User Service (RADIUS)",
RFC 2865, June 2000.
[RFC3552] Rescorla, E. and B. Korver, "Guidelines for Writing RFC
Text on Security Considerations", BCP 72, RFC 3552,
July 2003.
[RFC3588] Calhoun, P., Loughney, J., Guttman, E., Zorn, G., and J.
Arkko, "Diameter Base Protocol", RFC 3588, September 2003.
[RFC5226] Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, "Guidelines for Writing an
IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP 26, RFC 5226,
May 2008.
[RFC5792] Sangster, P. and K. Narayan, "PA-TNC: A Posture Attribute
(PA) Protocol Compatible with Trusted Network Connect
(TNC)", RFC 5792, March 2010.
[RFC5793] Sahita, R., Hanna, S., Hurst, R., and K. Narayan, "PB-TNC:
A Posture Broker (PB) Protocol Compatible with Trusted
Network Connect (TNC)", RFC 5793, March 2010.
Appendix A. Additional Stuff
This becomes an Appendix if needed.
Authors' Addresses
David Waltermire (editor)
National Institute of Standards and Technology
100 Bureau Drive
Gaithersburg, Maryland 20877
USA
Phone:
Email: david.waltermire@nist.gov
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Adam W. Montville
Tripwire, Inc.
101 SW Main Street, Suite 1500
Portland, Oregon 97204
USA
Phone:
Email: amontville@tripwire.com
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