World Password Day and Teen Power

   Thurs May 4, 2017 is World Password Day!  I know that's coming up fast, but don't worry, you still

have time to plan your celebration.  No, that's not the day when you share your password with the world.  Nor is it about changing your bank password from 123456 to 1234567.

   I've written about this in the past.  World Password Day is a day to learn and it's yet another opportunity to take a look at what is protecting your personal information, your financial information, your medical information as well as your internet presence and reputation.  Most passwords provide a thin veil of protection

   On World Password Day, we should at the 4 main problems we can very easily fix:

1. People choose weak or easily guessable passwords - the simple fix is to choose better passwords!  As I've said many times in the past, when it comes to passwords, size matters!  Make 'em long.  But even if you choose a good password...
2. Passwords get reused among sites - this is a major problem because the attackers will try stolen passwords at other sites.  And it works.  So choose a unique password for every site on which you have an account.  But...
3. We can't remember all our passwords - so, as we've discussed in the past, use a password vault.  The vault is a program that will help you choose great passwords, recall those passwords and protect them.  But sometimes that's not enough because...
4. Even well-chosen passwords can be guessed or hacked - so for extra protection use two-factor authentication (also called multi-factor authentication).  Typically this means using an app on your smartphone as part of the login process.  That means, to break into your account, an attacker would need both your (long, strong) password AND your smartphone.  That's hard for the attacker to do.  And using multi-factor is easy!    Setting up 2-factor authentication is easier than ever before and is in use on many mainstream sites including Google, Facebook and Twitter.  Here's some info on sites offering 2-factor authentication.

   The WPD website has some high level guidance on each of these as well as those great Betty White videos!

   And if those all aren't enough reasons to move to 2-factor authentication, now... that pinnacle of journalism... Teen Vogue, has put out a really good article on the subject!  You can read it here.

   In addition to really good coverage of 2-factor methods and websites, the article also goes into more advanced topics like the use of a physical fob called a Yubikey.

   What is really significant is that this article is directed at a population who both grew up with technology and is used to sharing everything. The key message is that there are good reasons for protecting your information and reputation, even if you don't yet have financial assets or a job.

   So, are you ready to take the World Password Day challenge?  Start slowly.  Get a password vault and start with your most important sites: banks, insurance, investment and social media.  Change the passwords to unique long strong ones.

How To Get Someone’s Password

   No matter what else is going on, it seems that I keep circling back to the subject of passwords.  I’ve covered this topic many times, including here, here and here.  But it’s a new year and a new week and passwords are in the news again

   I’ve jokingly said for many years that the easiest way to get someone’s password is to just ask them!  What I mean by that is that many people will inadvertently give up their userid and password via a Social Engineering attack.

   Wikipedia defines Social Engineering as the "psychological manipulation of people into performing actions or divulging confidential information. A type of confidence trick for the purpose of information gathering, fraud, or system access, it differs from a traditional "con" in that it is often one of many steps in a more complex fraud scheme."

   An attacker can send a phishing email that either directly, or via a link to an online form, asks for a password.  They can call the victim on the phone, or call a help desk impersonating the victim.

   Or, they can just walk up to someone on the street and ask!...

   And this is certainly not the first time something like this has been tried.

   There you have it!  So protect your passwords… use a password vault; use different passwords for different systems; use strong passwords; watch out for phishing emails and calls, and; don’t give your password to someone else!

 

   For extra fun, try one of these phishing quizzes.  See if you can identify the imposters!  And reread this post on phishing.

The Secret Life of Passwords

   I've written about passwords plenty of times in the past.  Passwords are one of the main security touch-points for people, and it's often not a pleasant experience.

   As we've discussed, it's hard for people to pick good passwords and remember them.  So users need "tricks" to help the memory.  One way I've told people to construct a password is to base the password on an embarrassing moment in your life - that way you won't forget the password and you also won't tell it to anyone else.

   Apparently people have been using that, and similar, methods.  NY Times reporter Ian Urbana wrote a great piece on this called "The Secret Life of Passwords".  He asked people to tell him their passwords - yes, you shouldn't do that - but also the story behind the passwords.  There are some very interesting stories.  People seem to memorialize a part of their life in their passwords!  You can read the full story here.  Leo Laporte did a great interview with Ian in the Triangulation podcast.  You can hear that here.

   I'd like to focus to two aspects of this story that jumped out at me.

   First is the story of Cantor Fitzgerald.  They are a large financial firm who were headquartered at the World Trade Center in 2001.  When the terrorist attacks hit the towers, Cantor Fitzgerald over two-thirds of their employees were killed.  That was tragic.

Dropbox Wasn't Hacked... This Time!

   I'm sure that many of you have read the news about an apparent attack, and subsequent account breach at Dropbox this past week.  There have been conflicting reports flying around, but Dropbox's own blog points out what appears to be the truth... Dropbox wasn't hacked.


   The story is that apparently the attackers got user IDs and passwords from attacks on other applications.  They then tried these same credentials on a number of internet sites, including Dropbox.  You can read the Dropbox blog post here.

  This is a typical attack scenario, as I've discussed before.  Among the value of stealing a password file from a site or organization is that people unfortunately reuse their IDs and passwords on other sites.  This is because it's difficult to remember all those passwords!  I won't go into that issue because I've covered it plenty of times in the past.

   In this case, like many others, the attackers simply try the IDs and passwords on other sites.  It's almost guaranteed that they will get some logins that work.  That is apparently what happened here.

   So... Dropbox wasn't hacked... this time!  Of course, there have been a number of successful breaches of Dropbox in the past!

   More on that in a moment, but I want to make a quick editorial comment on the use of the term "hacked".

(SuperValu) Wrote Me A Letter

   I'm hearing the Joe Cocker version of Box Tops song! (though I always picture John Belushi doing this!)

   I don't want my summer to end, but October is coming soon and, in the US, October is National Cyber Security Month.  This will be the first post of a series on Identity Theft that will carry us into October.

   First of all, the term Identity Theft is a misnomer.  According to Findlaw:

 Theft is often defined as the unauthorized taking of property from another with the intent to permanently deprive them of it. Within this definition lie two key elements:
1) a taking of someone else's property; and
2) the requisite intent to deprive the victim of the property permanently.
The taking element in a theft typically requires seizing possession of property that belongs to another, and may also involve removing or attempting to remove the property. However, it is the element of intent where most of the complex legal challenges typically arise in theft-related cases.

   But, with Identity Theft, your identity is not actually stolen, because you still have use of it.  A more accurate term is Identity Fraud.  Someone is using your identity, without permission, to execute fraudulent transactions or commit other crimes.  And, in many cases it's just aspects of identifying or financial information that is being used fraudulently, like your credit card.

Beach to Breach - It's not just for work data!

   I heard a great term recently... Beach to Breach.  SC Magazine did an article about a Sourcfire study on employees bringing their portable devices on vacation.  They found that 77% of employees bring their devices with them on vacation to keep in touch with work and that 97% of the use is email.

   Hopefully you can see some of the security problems right away... the devices have a good chance of getting lost or stolen when one is out of their "element"; plenty of opportunities to connect to unknown networks; potential to use hotel printers; possible "incentive" to bypass controls to see that one "important" message, and of course; sand in our devices!

   Organizations certainly should be concerned about the potential for breach of data or loss of equipment.  But what about the rest of us?  Should we take extra precautions with our personal devices and information when out of town?... Definitely!

CISOs are from Mars, CIOs are from Venus

   I recently had the opportunity to speak at the Argyle CIO Leadership Forum in Chicago.  I sat on a couple of panels and had some fun delivering a talk called "CISOs are from Mars, CIOs are from Venus" (slideshare).
   There was a clear theme of cloud, mobile and BYOD.  There were both CIOs and CISOs in attendance so there were different perspectives on these challenges.  That certainly tied into my closing keynote.

   After the conference I was interviewed by the conference organizer.  The interview will be posted on the conference website, but here is a copy:

The Best (First Good) Password Policy Ever!

In the past I've discussed a number of aspects of the password dilemma.  Among the key issues are

• good passwords are hard to remember, and;
• passwords you can remember are easy for attackers to guess.

   But, maybe one of the key issues is that password policies are universally so bad that consumers can't do the right thing because they can't figure out what that is!  We've been living with that old dogma of.... say it with me...

• 8 characters;
• upper/lower case;
• numbers;
• special characters.

   That's been around since the 60's.  Perhaps it worked in a world when people had only one password, when systems weren't all networked together, and attacking systems wasn't the lucrative business it is now.

No, You Can't Have Local Admin!

   If you have responsibility for security and/or access management for an organization, then there is a "simple" request that you have received, and will always receive... Users request local admin access to systems.

   Most of you know what I mean.  I'm referring to the local administrator or root account on a system.  When a person has local admin, they can access any part of the system, change or disable settings (including deactivating anti-malware or other security software), and, perhaps most importantly, install and run any software.  This last item is probably the primary reason people request this level of access.

   We're talking about Minimum Necessary... the idea that everyone should have exactly the level of access needed to do their job, and no more.  In most, if not all, organizations, far more people have local admin than really need it.

   Security vendor Avecto recently released a new study showing that over 90% of the most serious vulnerabilities in Microsoft software products in 2013 could have been mitigated by simply removing administrator rights.  Put another way, this means that only your systems administrators were vulnerable to all of the most critical Microsoft software vulnerabilities!  And these are the people who have the most access on your systems!  Here are a two good articles on the subject and here is a link to the full report.

   Let's break this down...

Bad Policies = Bad Passwords

   It seems that passwords are in the news again.  In the past I've discussed a number of aspects of the password dilemma.  Among the key issues are:

• good passwords are hard to remember, and;
• passwords you can remember are easy for attackers to guess.

   Adding to this mess is that many organizations do a poor job of protecting their storage of your password.  And now we have some new information...

Many organizations allow you to pick poor passwords on their websites by enforcing few or weak password construction requirements.

   We call these password policies, and these specify things like: how long the password can be; the minimum length it must be; what kinds of characters can or must be used; if the password needs to change, and; if there are some passwords that can't be chosen.

Are You a "Target"?

   By now, most of you have probably heard about the Target credit card information breach.  This is very big here in Minneapolis, home of Target.  All the details aren't out yet but it appears that credit card information for brick-and-mortar stores between Friday Nov. 27 ("Black Friday") and Sunday Dec. 15.  Here are some articles covering the story.  Here's Target's response and an FAQ.

   I'd like to talk a bit about next steps.  If you've been the victim of a data breach... what next?

   First... for consumers.  Target is a retail company and the direct victims of the breach are those of us who shopped at a Target store during the dates in question.  Consumers have two concerns here: credit card fraud and identity fraud. (I don't like the term "identity theft" even though it is commonly used.  No one can steal your identity... you still have it.  They can improperly discover, and misuse, the details... a.k.a. fraud.)

Rhymes with Assword

   Here we go again with more password-related problems.  You can't make this stuff up.  Well, you can but the truth is stranger.

   By now, most people have heard about the Adobe website breach.  I won't go into too many details but you can read Adobe's summary here, and here is a detailed review by Sophos.

   And, after I wrote this post I see that the This Week In Tech (TWIT) show on the great Twit TV network did a show of the same name (go to 1:56:20 in the show). Great minds think alike!  If you read the Sophos report you will see that someone used the phrase "rhymes with assword" as their password hint.

   There are a few key points to review:

• A new record!  This breach has now set the new record for largest number of compromised accounts, 152,000,000, beating previous noteworthy large breaches including those from Sony, TJX and Heartland.

Beyond the Checklist - Compliance v. Security

   SC Magazine put out a good article last week entitled Beyond the Checkbox: PCI DSS.  The article cover new revisions in the Payment Card Industry (PCI) security standard (Data Security Standard DSS).

   The point of the article is something I've been saying for years... That we can simply treat security regulatory standards as checklists.  It's not about just meeting the minimum requirements.  It's about integrating the standards into your security program.

   Now, I'm not completely dismissing checklists.  In fact, I think they have some great places within your program.  For example: server build checklists; server hardening checklists, and; an SDLC checklist.  I'm a big fan of the CIS checklists for hardened configurations.  I also like a standardized secure engineering process (or SDLC) with specific steps.

   As I've discussed here in the past, one size does not fit all.  While we can all share our processes, it's critical to tailor any process or checklist to your environment.

   But here's my main point... Compliance does not equal Security!

Twitter 1-and-a-half Factor Authentication

   As you may have read, and hopefully enabled, Twitter added a 2-factor authentication capability last week.

   If you haven't yet turned this on, here's how.  Log in to Twitter; select Settings; select Mobile; add and activate your phone.  Here are the detailed instructions for adding your phone number. To enable 2-factor authentication, select Account, then check the box labeled: Account security Require a verification code when I sign in.

   Here's the good news... as I've discussed in the past, I am a fan of using some kind of 2-factor auth for website authentication.  I also like the use of a smartphone for delivering that one-time-use PIN or code.  While we still have a digital divide in the US, most people do have a cell phone, and most of those have a smartphone.

   But there are some issues.

So Long and Thanks for All the Passwords!

   If you've been following any online news lately you read about the recent Living Social breach.  They reported "unauthorized access" of their systems resulting in a download of customer data including name, email address and encrypted passwords.

   We have heard of many similar instances over the past few years.  I've written about this in previous posts and will be giving a talk at Secure360 in St. Paul, MN in a couple of weeks talking about authentication and passwords.

   In their defense, Living Social did do a couple of things well.  First of all, fortunately, they did store only encrypted passwords.  Unfortunately many organizations don't.  Unfortunately they used an older, weaker encryption algorithm.  And, of course, unfortunately they got breached and had the file downloaded.

Stuff I Say - Do What Makes Sense

   Today I'm continuing a set of posts I started last year.  These ideas are covered in a fun talk entitled #*%! My CISO Says, covering a range of security governance and management topics.  Slides are on my slideshare page.  The first two posts are here and here.

   The idea of doing what makes sense is central to my thinking (about many things).  In security, many people base their strategies and tactics on what they read or what others are doing.  But you can't provide useful information security based on what you read in a book.  One size does not fit all.

   When we don't do what makes sense, we end up with ineffective controls (like this ineffective control from one of my favorite security pictures).



   What works in one organization does not necessarily work in another.  This can be true for a variety of reasons including differing regulatory environments, organizational culture and kinds of assets/information.  This is why I've never liked the phrase, or idea of, "best practices".  I prefer "good practices" (more on that some other time...).

   It's easy to say we want to do what makes sense.  But how do we put that into practice in our organizations?

   Here are 2 considerations:

Risk Management approach.  Rather than using strategies and practices from a book, we need to understand a number of things about our organization including:

• what "stuff" do we have?
• what stuff do we need to protect?
• what threats do we know of?
• to what threats are we vulnerable?
• what is the potential impact if these threats manifest?

   Asking these, and subsequent, questions can help lead to a better understanding of the environment

   Then... Seek out and destroy policies/practices that do not add value!  Consider:

• ineffective controls - find them and get rid of them!  And, if you do remove a control, make sure that you let the users know!
• annoyances that effect people's perception of security - convenience v. security is always a trade-off, but your controls must take into account people's work practices
• what makes work harder - security and IT must support the business.  If complying with controls negatively impacts the business you may find your program overruled.
• overly strict practices can cause people to try to circumvent controls to get things done.

   This doesn't mean that the security organization allows a free-for-all.  My point is that by considering how users need to use the systems, examining alternatives, and working with your business partners, you can come up with a set of controls that protect systems and data, meet regulatory requirements AND allow people to get their work done.

   Can you think of ineffective or unnecessary controls in place at your organization?  How have you partnered with business users to come up with controls that meet all needs?

So What's the Authentication Answer? - 3 Factors of Fail (part 7 - last!)

   We've been discussing the authentication problem for the better part of two months, and now it's time to wrap things up.  If you've gotten to this post through a link but haven't read the rest of the series, it starts with part 1 here.

   Each of the 3 factors of authentication have serious issues when used individually.  The challenge is that we need to log a person into a system or application in a way that reasonably assures the person is who they say they are and has rights to the system.  And, perhaps most importantly, any method we use has to work well for people!

   So, how do we find a solution?

   The key is to think about the user and the use.

Multi-Factor Fail - 3 Factors of Fail (part 6)

from: brainyquote.com

   In December I was at the NG Security Conference in Austin, TX.  We had a fantastic discussion with a group of key security leaders focusing on this "quote" and how it applies to information security.  I say "quote" because there is some question as to who said this or if anyone actually did!

   As I've been saying throughout this series of posts, it seems that this statement is exactly what we are doing in the world of authentication!  None of the typical factors of authentication have really solved our authentication and access problems, yet we continue to use the same mechanisms over again.

The 4th Factor? - 3 Factors of Fail (part 5)

   Welcome to the next installment of my ramblings on authentication, 3 Factors of Fail.  So far we have discussed the classic 3 factors of authentication in parts 1, 2, 3 and 4.

   In recent years some additional authentication assurance methods have been grouped to form what some call the 4th factor of authentication.  This is also called risk-based, location-based or adaptive authentication.  It could also be called "somewhere you are" or "something you are doing".

   The basis of this method is in establishing a rich profile of the user.  This can include:

• the machine used for access;
• software used;
• time or day of accesses;
• IP address(es) used;
• what country the connection comes from, or;
• what actions the user attempts.

Something You Lost - 3 Factors of Fail (part 3)

   As you can tell if you read my last post, I have some pretty strong opinions about the failure of passwords as an authentication mechanism.

   To review, the 3 factors of authentication are referred to as: something you know, something you have and something you are.  Today, in part 3 of this series, we'll talk about the failure of the second factor of authentication, "something you have".  Here are links to parts 1 and 2 of the series.

   While not the oldest form of authentication, this factor of authentication has been around for a long time.  Think about a key, or perhaps some kind of scroll with the symbol from a leader, or even the sword in the stone!  A driver's license, ID card, credit card or passport is also something you have.  These are all things someone can have and can be used identify them or grant access.

   Today, the term "2-factor authentication" can the use of any two different factors of authentication.  But most commonly it refers to the combination of password or PIN that you know, with a single use 6-digit number from some kind of token.

   Here are the three most common single use string/token delivery methods: