People – the last line of defence in cybersecurity? Cristian-Mihai Amarandei, B.Eng. (Hons), PhD cristian.amarandei@tuiasi.ro
People – the fjrst line of defence in cybersecurity? Cristian-Mihai Amarandei, B.Eng. (Hons), PhD cristian.amarandei@tuiasi.ro
Motivation to break into systems ● Industrial espionage ● Financial gain ● Revenge ( disgruntled actual/former employees) ● Status ● ...
Threats to Network Security ● Hackers ● Disgruntled employees ● Organizations: suported by some governements as spying technique, organized crime, terorrists ● Virues, trojan program, malware ... ● Social engineering: - the people factor ● ...
Verizon 2016 Data Breach Investigations Report
What can we secure? ● The network ● Block potential attackers and known means of attack ● secure connectivity with trusted users ● Activities that require secure connectivity ● Remote access to the internal network ● Access to applications and services (e-mail, web …)
Social Engineering: the people factor ● Attackers can try to gain access through users ● Employees can be tricked to provide data access to resources ● Protect the end-user ● Organizations need a security policy and rigorous training program
how ? ● Security Policies / Usage guidelines ● Purchase of specialized equipment and software ● Educate the end-user !!
Spam detected in e-mails 40000 35000 30000 25000 20000 Mail Virus Spam 15000 10000 5000 0 01/10/17 02/10/17 03/10/17 04/10/17 05/10/17 06/10/17 07/10/17 08/10/17 09/10/17 10/10/17 11/10/17 12/10/17 13/10/17 14/10/17 15/10/17 16/10/17 17/10/17 18/10/17 19/10/17 20/10/17 21/10/17 22/10/17 23/10/17 24/10/17 25/10/17 26/10/17 27/10/17 28/10/17 29/10/17 30/10/17 31/10/17
Some more details …. 100 90 80 70 60 50 Virus% Spam% 40 30 20 10 0 01/10/17 02/10/17 03/10/17 04/10/17 05/10/17 06/10/17 07/10/17 08/10/17 09/10/17 10/10/17 11/10/17 12/10/17 13/10/17 14/10/17 15/10/17 16/10/17 17/10/17 18/10/17 19/10/17 20/10/17 21/10/17 22/10/17 23/10/17 24/10/17 25/10/17 26/10/17 27/10/17 28/10/17 29/10/17 30/10/17 31/10/17 ● Total number of messages – 624,022 ● Detected spam 452,163 – 72,5%
after spam detection and delivery of messages .. ● How many of the messages detected as spam contained possible attack vectors? ● How many of the messages that passed the detection system had potential attack vectors? − Where and from what devices have messages been read? − What did the user do?
Security policy ● Is necessary if ● employees work with confjdential information ● data loss could result in severe financial loss ● organization has trade secrets ● the internet is used daily ● organization is subject to regulation for information security and privacy ( GDPR !)
Security Policy ● Gives users guidelines on how to handle sensitive information ● Gives IT stafg instructions on what defensive systems to confjgure ● Reduces the risk of legal liability ● A good security policy is comprehensive and also fmexible ● Is a group of documents instead of a single document
Security policy ● too complex – no one will follow ● fails if afgects productivity ● should state clearly what can and cannot be done in the organization network or on equipment and property ● must include generalized clauses ● people need to know why the security policy is importat ● and specifjc consequences for violating the policy !!
Security policy ● must involve representatives of all departments ● needs support from the highest level of the company management ● employees must sign a document acknowledging the policy and agreement to abide by it ● updated with current technologies and consistent with applicable laws
How do we know if the policies are well done? ● International standards and guidelines are available ● ISO/IEC 27002:2013 ● Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) - https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org ● National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework - https://www.nist.gov/cyberframework ● IASME - https://www.iasme.co.uk/
What about the end-user? ● All employees / users must be educated about security dangers and security policies ● rigorous training program !! ● Employees are most likely to detect security breaches ● or then cay cause one ( accidentally !?) ● they can observe suspicious activities ● Enforcing the security policy !!
People – the first or the last line of defence?
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