Security

How to Suck at Information Security

Original document at http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=5644. The following list presents common information security mistakes and misconceptions, so you can avoid making them.

Security Policy and Compliance

  • Ignore regulatory compliance requirements.
  • Assume the users will read the security policy because you've asked them to.
  • Use security templates without customizing them.
  • Jump into a full-blown adoption of frameworks such as ISO 27001/27002 before you're ready.
  • Create security policies you cannot enforce.
  • Enforce policies that are not properly approved.
  • Blindly follow compliance requirements without creating overall security architecture.
  • Create a security policy just to mark a checkbox.
  • Pay someone to write your security policy without any knowledge of your business or processes.
  • Translate policies in a multi-language environment without consistent meaning across the languages.
  • Make sure none of the employees finds the policies.
  • Assume that if the policies worked for you last year, they'll be valid for the next year.
  • Assume that being compliant means you're secure.
  • Assume that policies don't apply to executives.
  • Hide from the auditors.

Security Tools

  • Deploy a security product out of the box without tuning it.
  • Tune the IDS to be too noisy, or too quiet.
  • Buy security products without considering the maintenance and implementation costs.
  • Rely on anti-virus and firewall products without having additional controls.
  • Run regular vulnerability scans, but don’t follow through on the results.
  • Let your anti-virus, IDS, and other security tools run on “auto-pilot.”
  • Employ multiple security technologies without understanding how each of them contributes.
  • Focus on widgets, while omitting to consider the importance of maintaining accountability.
  • Buy expensive product when a simple and cheap fix may address 80% of the problem.

Risk Management

  • Attempt to apply the same security rigor to all IT assets, regardless of their risk profiles.
  • Make someone responsible for managing risk, but don't give the person any power to make decisions.
  • Ignore the big picture while focusing on quantitative risk analysis.
  • Assume you don't have to worry about security, because your company is too small or insignificant.
  • Assume you're secure because you haven’t been compromised recently.
  • Be paranoid without considering the value of the asset or its exposure factor.
  • Classify all data assets as “top secret.”

Security Practices

  • Don't review system, application, and security logs.
  • Expect end-users to forgo convenience in place of security.
  • Lock down the infrastructure so tightly, that getting work done becomes very difficult.
  • Say “no” whenever asked to approve a request.
  • Impose security requirements without providing the necessary tools and training.
  • Focus on preventative mechanisms while ignoring detective controls.
  • Have no DMZ for Internet-accessible servers.
  • Assume your patch management process is working, without checking on it.
  • Delete logs because they get too big to read.
  • Expect SSL to address all security problems with your web application.
  • Ban the use of external USB drives while not restricting outbound access to the Internet.
  • Act superior to your counterparts on the network, system admin, and development teams.
  • Stop learning about technologies and attacks.
  • Adopt hot new IT or security technologies before they have had a chance to mature.
  • Hire somebody just because he or she has a lot of certifications.
  • Don't apprise your manager of the security problems your efforts have avoided.
  • Don't cross-train the IT and security staff.

Password Management

  • Require your users to change passwords too frequently.
  • Expect your users to remember passwords without writing them down.
  • Impose overly-onerous password selection requirements.
  • Use the same password on systems that differ in risk exposure or data criticality.
  • Impose password requirements without considering the ease with which a password could be reset.

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security.txt · Last modified: 2014/01/10 12:13 by zagi
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