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New Report on Police Digital Forensics Techniques

According to a new CSIS report, “going dark” is not the most pressing problem facing law enforcement in the age of digital data:

Over the past year, we conducted a series of interviews with federal, state, and local law enforcement officials, attorneys, service providers, and civil society groups. We also commissioned a survey of law enforcement officers from across the country to better understand the full range of difficulties they are facing in accessing and using digital evidence in their cases. Survey results indicate that accessing data from service providers — much of which is not encrypted — is the biggest problem that law enforcement currently faces in leveraging digital evidence.

This is a problem that has not received adequate attention or resources to date. An array of federal and state training centers, crime labs, and other efforts have arisen to help fill the gaps, but they are able to fill only a fraction of the need. And there is no central entity responsible for monitoring these efforts, taking stock of the demand, and providing the assistance needed. The key federal entity with an explicit mission to assist state and local law enforcement with their digital evidence needs — the National Domestic Communications Assistance Center (NDCAC)has a budget of $11.4 million, spread among several different programs designed to distribute knowledge about service providers’ policies and products, develop and share technical tools, and train law enforcement on new services and technologies, among other initiatives.

From a news article:

In addition to bemoaning the lack of guidance and help from tech companies — a quarter of survey respondents said their top issue was convincing companies to hand over suspects’ data — law enforcement officials also reported receiving barely any digital evidence training. Local police said they’d received only 10 hours of training in the past 12 months; state police received 13 and federal officials received 16. A plurality of respondents said they only received annual training. Only 16 percent said their organizations scheduled training sessions at least twice per year.

This is a point that Susan Landau has repeatedly made, and also one I make in my new book. The FBI needs technical expertise, not backdoors.

Here’s the report.

infossl July 27, 2018 backdoors, fbi, forensics, lawenforcement, police, reports, Security technology Read more >

Department of Commerce Report on the Botnet Threat

Last month, the US Department of Commerce released a report on the threat of botnets and what to do about it. I note that it explicitly said that the IoT makes the threat worse, and that the solutions are largely economic.

The Departments determined that the opportunities and challenges in working toward dramatically reducing threats from automated, distributed attacks can be summarized in six principal themes.

Automated, distributed attacks are a global problem. The majority of the compromised devices in recent noteworthy botnets have been geographically located outside the United States. To increase the resilience of the Internet and communications ecosystem against these threats, many of which originate outside the United States, we must continue to work closely with international partners.

Effective tools exist, but are not widely used. While there remains room for improvement, the tools, processes, and practices required to significantly enhance the resilience of the Internet and communications ecosystem are widely available, and are routinely applied in selected market sectors. However, they are not part of common practices for product development and deployment in many other sectors for a variety of reasons, including (but not limited to) lack of awareness, cost avoidance, insufficient technical expertise, and lack of market incentives

Products should be secured during all stages of the lifecycle. Devices that are vulnerable at time of deployment, lack facilities to patch vulnerabilities after discovery, or remain in service after vendor support ends make assembling automated, distributed threats far too easy.

Awareness and education are needed. Home users and some enterprise customers are often unaware of the role their devices could play in a botnet attack and may not fully understand the merits of available technical controls. Product developers, manufacturers, and infrastructure operators often lack the knowledge and skills necessary to deploy tools, processes, and practices that would make the ecosystem more resilient.

Market incentives should be more effectively aligned. Market incentives do not currently appear to align with the goal of “dramatically reducing threats perpetrated by automated and distributed attacks.” Product developers, manufacturers, and vendors are motivated to minimize cost and time to market, rather than to build in security or offer efficient security updates. Market incentives must be realigned to promote a better balance between security and convenience when developing products.

Automated, distributed attacks are an ecosystem-wide challenge. No single stakeholder community can address the problem in isolation.

[…]

The Departments identified five complementary and mutually supportive goals that, if realized, would dramatically reduce the threat of automated, distributed attacks and improve the resilience and redundancy of the ecosystem. A list of suggested actions for key stakeholders reinforces each goal. The goals are:

Goal 1: Identify a clear pathway toward an adaptable, sustainable, and secure technology marketplace.

Goal 2: Promote innovation in the infrastructure for dynamic adaptation to evolving threats.

Goal 3: Promote innovation at the edge of the network to prevent, detect, and mitigate automated, distributed attacks.

Goal 4: Promote and support coalitions between the security, infrastructure, and operational technology communities domestically and around the world

Goal 5: Increase awareness and education across the ecosystem.

infossl July 11, 2018 botnets, economicsofsecurity, internetofthings, reports, Security technology Read more >

Healthcare Industry Cybersecurity Report

New US government report: “Report on Improving Cybersecurity in the Health Care Industry.” It’s pretty scathing, but nothing in it will surprise regular readers of this blog.

It’s worth reading the executive summary, and then skimming the recommendations. Recommendations are in six areas.

The Task Force identified six high-level imperatives by which to organize its recommendations and action items. The imperatives are:

Define and streamline leadership, governance, and expectations for health care industry cybersecurity.

Increase the security and resilience of medical devices and health IT.

Develop the health care workforce capacity necessary to prioritize and ensure cybersecurity awareness and technical capabilities.

Increase health care industry readiness through improved cybersecurity awareness and education.

Identify mechanisms to protect research and development efforts and intellectual property from attacks or exposure.

Improve information sharing of industry threats, weaknesses, and mitigations.

News article.

Slashdot thread.

infossl June 12, 2017 cybersecurity, medicine, reports, Security technology Read more >

Survey Data on Americans and Cybersecurity

Pew Research just published their latest research data on Americans and their views on cybersecurity:

This survey finds that a majority of Americans have directly experienced some form of data theft or fraud, that a sizeable share of the public thinks that their personal data have become less secure in recent years, and that many lack confidence in various institutions to keep their personal data safe from misuse. In addition, many Americans are failing to follow digital security best practices in their own personal lives, and a substantial majority expects that major cyberattacks will be a fact of life in the future.

Here’s the full report.

infossl February 14, 2017 cyberattack, cybersecurity, fraud, reports, Security technology, trust Read more >

CSIS's Cybersecurity Agenda

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) published “From Awareness to Action: A Cybersecurity Agenda for the 45th President” (press release here). There’s a lot I agree with — and some things I don’t — but these paragraphs struck me as particularly insightful:

The Obama administration made significant progress but suffered from two conceptual problems in its cybersecurity efforts. The first was a belief that the private sector would spontaneously generate the solutions needed for cybersecurity and minimize the need for government action. The obvious counter to this is that our problems haven’t been solved. There is no technological solution to the problem of cybersecurity, at least any time soon, so turning to technologists was unproductive. The larger national debate over the role of government made it difficult to balance public and private-sector responsibility and created a sense of hesitancy, even timidity, in executive branch actions.

The second was a misunderstanding of how the federal government works. All White Houses tend to float above the bureaucracy, but this one compounded the problem with its desire to bring high-profile business executives into government. These efforts ran counter to what is needed to manage a complex bureaucracy where greatly differing rules, relationships, and procedures determine the success of any initiative. Unlike the private sector, government decisionmaking is more collective, shaped by external pressures both bureaucratic and political, and rife with assorted strictures on resources and personnel.

infossl February 10, 2017 cybersecurity, nationalsecuritypolicy, reports, Security technology Read more >

New White House Privacy Report

Two days ago, the White House released a report on privacy: “Privacy in our Digital Lives: Protecting Individuals and Promoting Innovation.” The report summarizes things the administration has done, and lists future challenges:

Areas for Further Attention

Technology will pose new consumer privacy and security challenges.

Emerging technology may simultaneously create new challenges and opportunities for law enforcement and national security.

The digital economy is making privacy a global value.

Consumers’ voices are being heard — and must continue to be heard — in the regulatory process.

The Federal Government benefits from hiring more privacy professionals.

Transparency is vital for earning and retaining public trust.

Privacy is a bipartisan issue.

I especially like the framing of privacy as a right. From President Obama’s introduction:

Privacy is more than just, as Justice Brandeis famously proclaimed, the “right to be let alone.” It is the right to have our most personal information be kept safe by others we trust. It is the right to communicate freely and to do so without fear. It is the right to associate freely with others, regardless of the medium. In an age where so many of our thoughts, words, and movements are digitally recorded, privacy cannot simply be an abstract concept in our lives; privacy must be an embedded value.

The conclusion:

For the past 240 years, the core of our democracy — the values that have helped propel the United States of America — have remained largely the same. We are still a people founded on the beliefs of equality and economic prosperity for all. The fierce independence that encouraged us to break from an oppressive king is the same independence found in young women and men across the country who strive to make their own path in this world and create a life unique unto to themselves. So long as that independence is encouraged, so long as it is fostered by the ability to transcend past data points and by the ability to speak and create free from intrusion, the United States will continue to lead the world. Privacy is necessary to our economy, free expression, and the digital free flow of data because it is fundamental to ourselves.

Privacy, as a right that has been enjoyed by past generations, must be protected in our digital ecosystem so that future generations are given the same freedoms to engage, explore, and create the future we all seek.

I know; rhetoric is easy, policy is hard. But we can’t change policy without a changed rhetoric.

EDITED TO ADD: The document was originally on the whitehouse.gov website, but was deleted in the Trump transition.

infossl January 20, 2017 nationalsecuritypolicy, privacy, reports, Security technology Read more >

Photocopier Security

A modern photocopier is basically a computer with a scanner and printer attached. This computer has a hard drive, and scans of images are regularly stored on that drive. This means that when a photocopier is thrown away, that hard drive is filled with pages that the machine copied over its lifetime. As you might expect, some of those pages will contain sensitive information.

This 2011 report was written by the Inspector General of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). It found that the organization did nothing to safeguard its photocopiers.

Our audit found that opportunities exist to strengthen controls to ensure photocopier hard drives are protected from potential exposure. Specifically, we found the following weaknesses.

NARA lacks appropriate controls to ensure all photocopiers across the agency are accounted for and that any hard drives residing on these machines are tracked and properly sanitized or destroyed prior to disposal.

There are no policies documenting security measures to be taken for photocopiers utilized for general use nor are there procedures to ensure photocopier hard drives are sanitized or destroyed prior to disposal or at the end of the lease term.

Photocopier lease agreements and contracts do not include a “keep disk”1 or similar clause as required by NARA’s IT Security Methodology for Media Protection Policy version 5.1.

I don’t mean to single this organization out. Pretty much no one thinks about this security threat.

infossl January 2, 2017 datadestruction, reports, Security technology, securitypolicies, threatmodels Read more >