Jun 22 2010

Symantec: SMBs Change Security Approach with Growing Threats

Category: BCP,Malware — DISC @ 1:50 am
Image representing Symantec as depicted in Cru...
Image via CrunchBase

By: Brian Prince

A survey of small to midsize businesses from 28 different countries by Symantec found that companies are focusing more on information protection and backup and recovery. Driving these changes is a fear of losing data.

Today’s small to midsize businesses (SMBs) are facing a growing threat from cyber-attacks, and are changing their behavior to keep up.

In a May poll of 2,152 executives and IT decision makers at companies with between 10 and 499 employees, Symantec found SMBs are now spending two-thirds of their time dealing with things related to information protection, such as computer security, backup and archival tasks, and disaster preparedness. Eighty-seven percent said they have a disaster preparedness plan, but just 23 percent rate it as “pretty good” or “excellent.”

Driving the push for these plans, as well as the interest in backup and recovery, is the fear of losing data. Some 42 percent reported having lost confidential or proprietary information in the past, and all of those reported experiencing revenue loss or increased costs as a result. Almost two-thirds of the respondents said they lost devices such as smartphones, laptops or iPads in the past 12 months, and all the participants reported having devices that lacked password protection and could not be remotely wiped if lost or stolen.

In the past, SMBs would settle for having antivirus technology, said Bernard Laroche, senior director of product marketing at Symantec. Now, however, they are starting to realize the threat landscape is changing, he said.

“If you look at endpoint usage … in most SMBs that’s the only place where the information resides because people were not backing up … so if somebody would lose a laptop at the airport or somebody steals the laptop in the back of car or something, then your information is obviously at risk and that can bring a lot of financial impact to small business,” he said.

The survey also found SMBs are spending an average of about $51,000 on information protection. The financial damage for those who suffer cyber-attacks can be significant. Cyber-attacks cost an average of $188,242 annually, according to the survey. Seventy-three percent said they were victims of cyber-attacks in the past year, and 30 percent of those attacks were deemed “somewhat/extremely successful.” All of the attack victims suffered losses, such as downtime, theft of customer or employee information, or credit card data, Symantec reported.

“The concept of, ‘I’ve got an antivirus solution, I’m fully protected,’ I think those days are gone,” Laroche said.

Detail information on Symantec SMBs Suites:

Symantec Endpoint Protection Small Business Edition 12.0

Symantec Protection Suite Small Business Edition 3.0

Tags: Backup, Business, Computer security, Credit card, Emergency Management, Small business, SMB, SMB suites, Symantec, Warfare and Conflict

Jun 14 2010

Fallout from a PCI breach for merchants and consumers

Category: pci dss — DISC @ 6:22 pm


There is a big misconception out there that PCI DSS compliance does not apply to us, because we are relatively a small company


The fact is PCI DSS must be met by all organizations that transmit, process or store payment card data. Also business owner want to know what is ROI on PCI compliance. It is the total cost of ownership which ensures that you keep earning big money. DISC

Thanks to federal law and standard practice by the financial industry, the maximum cash liability of a consumer whose cardholder data is stolen is only $50; the remaining losses are paid by the card companies. If the weak security controls allows a criminal to access other accounts or steal a consumer’s identity, financial fallout could be severe for that individual. Resolving just one incident of a stolen identity may take months if not years of effort.

Merchants face their own form of fallout. When a breach occurs, there are investigation and containment of the breach costs for the incident, remediation expenses, and attorney and legal fees. But this is just for starters. Strategic and long-term fallout for all Merchants may include but not limited to the followings:

• _ Loss of customer confidence.
• _ Lost sales and revenue.
• _ Lower use of online stores due to fear of breaches.
• _ Brand degradation or drop in public stock value.
• _ Employee turnover.
• _ Fines and penalties for non-compliance with PCI and
other regulations.
• _ Higher costs for PCI assessments when merchants with a
breach must subsequently comply with the penalty of
more stringent requirements.
• _ Termination of the ability to accept payment cards.
• _ Fraud losses.
• _ Cost of reissuing new payment cards.
• _ Dispute resolution costs.
• _ Cost of legal settlements or judgments.

The potential fallout for larger merchants can be huge, Smaller merchants, however, may have significant trouble weathering a cardholder data breach. Think about your company’s cash flow and whether it could cover potential damage from a breach. The risk of going out of business perhaps should be a motivation enough to follow PCI and protect the credit and debit card data.

How to Detect Debit Card Fraud

Tags: pci assessment, pci compliance, pci compliance books, pci consultant, pci dss

Jun 08 2010

U.S cybersecurity policies update

Category: Information Warfare,Security Risk Assessment — DISC @ 12:47 am

Breakdown of political party representation in...
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By Greg Masters

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a defense bill that contains an amendment aimed at regulating the information security responsibilities and practices of federal agencies.

The amendment, sponsored by Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., and Rep. Diane Watson, D-Calif., updates the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) and establishes a National Office for Cyberspace in the Executive Office of the President.

The amendment was attached to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011, which passed the House Friday by a 229-186 vote.

“The passage of this amendment comes after a great deal of work to raise awareness about the cybervulnerabilities that exist throughout our federal government,” Langevin, co-chair of the House Cybersecurity Caucus, said in a news release. “These provisions will establish strong, centralized oversight to protect our nation’s critical information infrastructure and update our comprehensive policy for operating in cyberspace.”

The measure integrates a number of policy recommendations made by the Obama administration’s 60-day Cyberspace Policy Review, the CSIS Commission on Cybersecurity for the 44th Presidency and the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), which has offered suggestions for remedying security vulnerabilities across federal agencies.

The amendment establishes the National Office for Cyberspace (NOC) within the Executive Office of the President.

A director, appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, would be charged with coordinating and overseeing the security of agency information systems and infrastructure. In addition, a CTO would be hired.

Also, a Federal Cybersecurity Practice Board within the NOC would be charged with overseeing the implementation of NIST-approved standards and guidelines, in addition to defining policies that agencies must adhere to in order to comply with FISMA requirements.

Further, agencies would be required to undertake automated and continuous monitoring of their systems to ensure compliance and to identify potential risks to assets. An annual independent audit of information security programs to determine their overall effectiveness and compliance with FISMA requirements would also be required.

The amendment also calls for developing policies to be used in the purchasing of technology products and services.

A version of the bill currently making its way through the Senate does not contain the Watson-Langevin amendment, but it could be altered before it is voted on by the upper chamber. Adjustments between the two versions of the bill could be made in conference before it is presented for President Obama’s signature. The Senate version passed the Armed Services Committee

The amendment combines two previous bills: Watson’s Federal Information Security Amendments Act and Langevin’s Executive Cyberspace Authorities Act.

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Tags: Diane Watson, Federal government of the United States, Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002, FISMA, Information Security, Security, Senate, United States

Jun 01 2010

The Smart Grid needs to get smart about security

Category: Information Security,Information Warfare — DISC @ 6:17 pm
A terminus of the Nelson River HVDC system, no...

Image via Wikipedia

by Larry Karisny
While following the Connectivity Show in Santa Clara California, I thought I should follow-up on the at Greentech Media’s annual Smart Grid conference in Palm Springs last week. I wanted to focus this article on Smart Grid security so I thought I should find some clear explanation of where we are now and then add my thoughts on where we need to be in smart grid security. To get an indication of where we are I couldn’t pass up this simultaneously humorous and cautionary anecdote opening panel discussion from Smart Grid security guru, Massoud Amin of University of Minnesota, drawn from his most recent whitepaper:

Now with all due respect to the power companies, why should they even know how to spell IP? Their history in communications was to build stand alone power facilities and substations connected with point to point microwave communication links (many times upgraded to their own dark fiber point to points). With this kind of money and private network capabilities, why would you ever worry about security? You lived on your own island with your own power and communications grid and every thing was just fine. Then came the smart grid. By definition, the smart grid requires a two-way digital technology to control appliances at consumers’ homes to save energy, reduce cost and increase reliability and transparency. A big change for power companies and admittedly a whole new learning curve with many power companies like PG&E setting up their own test labs begin learning this who knew an complex smart grid system (See: Inside PGE’s Smart Grid Lab Chris Knudsen, director of the technology innovation center at PG&E, shows us what they’re tinkering with).

It didn’t take long for problem to occur. Again, you need to understand that even smart meters were just dusted off 20 year old designs that were lying around waiting for someone to push the power companies into the 21 century. These designs were never meant to securely send a store data real time. It wasn’t long before serious security issues were found and were reported by respected security form like InGuardian and IOactive. And we are not talking about someone hacking you PC. When it comes to the power grid, the costs of remote hack attacks are potentially more dramatic. “The cost factor here is what’s turned on its head. We lose control of our grid, that’s far worse than a botnet taking over my home PC,” said Matthew Carpenter, senior security analyst of InGuardian, speaking at a panel at the RSA Security Conference in San Francisco . So now with little knowledge of the Internet and security the power companies have billions of dollars of grant in hand with one big problem. The grants mandate an iron clad security platform.

To add to the smart grid security problems some people think the power grid is the main target in the new battle in cyber wars.

Richard Clarke, the former anti-terrorism czar, has now turned his attention to a new national security threat, putting an attack of the power grid on the front lines. In a recent NewsWeek article Clarke was quoted as saying, “I think the average American would understand it if they suddenly had no electricity.

The U.S. government, [National Security Administration], and military have tried to access the power grid’s control systems from the public Internet. They’ve been able to do it every time they have tried. They have even tried to issue commands to see if they could get generators to explode. That’s the famous Aurora experiment in Idaho. Well, it worked. And we know there are other real cases, like the power grid taken out in Brazil as part of a blackmail scheme. So the government knows it can be done, the government admits it can be done, the government intends to do it to other countries. Even the Chinese military has talked publicly about how they would attack the U.S. power grid in a war and cause cascading failures.”

So what can we do to secure the grid now while upgrading it to smart grid capabilities?

Ed Smith, CEO of WirelessWall has one word, “Attack.” Having a military background he understands that you begin an attack by crippling an enemy’s communication and critical infrastructure. His civilian background has a long history of Situational Crisis Management, using Rapid Response Teams to facilitate the successful conclusion to crisis situations. Armed with security that exceeds the DoD 8100.2 (DoD Directive on wireless security) and FIPS 140-2 End-to-End Security that was developed for the U.S. Navy to provide secure, mobile shipboard networks, Smith knows he has an immediately implementable data security solution that is simply not being recognized.

“People in the civilian sector are not upgrading their security for business reasons, basically to save money, not for security reasons. That can be tolerated if you are protecting data that involves a loss of money, but it is inexcusable when the lack of protection of data involves the loss of life. Let there be no doubt that an attack on critical infrastructure is an act of war and it is absolutely appropriate to use an available military solution to protect civilian lives.”

“We can’t afford not to put good enough security in our power grids. My company has offered our platform of higher security to VISA and others in the financial industry and made it clear that the retail industry POS terminals Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) has already been hacked, but nothing will be changed unless there are more attacks that cause greater losses. The PCI DSS standard will have to be raised, and ultimately will, but the Smart Power Grid protection has to be implemented now.”

“If you are a Smart Grid Integrator offering a solution, someone that has been breached, or better yet, don’t want to be breached, you have to be proactive. Where are the power companies? What are they waiting for? PG&E, Duke Power, Florida Power and Light, Progress Energy, Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD), we are right here in Silicon Valley California, WirelessWall can even be installed remotely and proven in a matter of hours so there is really no excuse for not putting this in their labs and testing it. After about 10 years of real-life military testing and the only wireless protection allowed by the DoE to secure nuclear sensors for the last 6 years, there is not a lab test that can come close to disputing the protection capabilities of WirelessWall. It is a time and situation proven solution and our Rapid Response Team approach is designed to install protection immediately”.

Like the old David and Goliath story, the power companies need to start embracing smaller company expertise and leverage their learning curve. Like the security story of WirelessWall, the expertise of how to build these wireless network platforms resides in the companies that have had their products tested in real world municipal, public safety and military environments. Companies like Tropos Networks, Trillium (SkyPilot), Mesh Dynamics, Strix Systems and Proxim, just to name of few, they were the trail blazers that learned along the way and can now bringing tested wireless network expertise to the smart grid. With secure wireless solutions out there, power companies need to leverage the expertise of these wireless pioneers that have been there, done that and are ready to support a secure a wireless smart grid network with their tested solutions.

SP AusNet selects GE for world’s first 4G communications smart grid solution, delivering revolutionary security and reliability benefits.(CONTRACTS): An article from: Home Networks

Energy Savings Tips

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Tags: Business, Electrical grid, Federal government of the United States, Sacramento Municipal Utility District, San Francisco, Security, Smart Grid, United States

May 25 2010

Tips for building security organization

Category: Security organization — DISC @ 5:54 pm

Image representing Forrester Research as depic...
Image via CrunchBase

By: Brian Prince

Businesses have increased expectations on the security team in recent years, sometimes producing a disconnect between what is expected and what the security team can deliver. In a new report, Forrester Research lays out some advice for building an effective security organization.

As IT security has become a bigger part of business discussions, security teams have increasingly shifted their focus from operations to strategic business objectives.

For businesses building their security groups, there needs to be a balance between fulfilling operational and strategic goals, and a new report from Forrester Research offers advice on how businesses can find it.

“In a few cases we found that the strategic aspect of security was so important or was so highlighted in terms of the CISO [chief information security officer] role that the CISO was sometimes moved outside the IT organization, [and] sometimes wasn’t as connected with the operation [of] the IT…[but] much more connected with the business side and the strategy side,” explained Forrester analyst Khalid Kark. “What that does is basically creates an ivory tower for the chief security officers, and then they are not able to operate.”

To avoid that, there are several steps Forrester recommends organizations take. Here are a few of them.

— New Roles: To make your security practice more strategic, add these three positions: a business liaison to advocate for the business unit within the security team and communicate the security perspective to business; the third-party security coordinator to address outsourcing, assessments and cloud computing; and a security engineer focused on working with the enterprise architecture team to build security into the architecture and integrate specific infrastructure security components into the architecture.

— Understand IT security vs. information risk: “Many security organizations fail to get management attention because they’re always focused on the IT security activities, which the business doesn’t understand,” according to the report. “On the other hand, the business understands risk well, and if you articulate those same problems in the risk context, the business is much more likely to react and respond to them.”

— Develop a cross-functional security council: “Focus on ‘who’ not ‘how.’ Forrester has long professed the benefits of a security council, but one thing that is absolutely essential for the success of this council is its composition,” the report continues. “The trick is not to aim for the highest ranking businessperson but the one most interested in security and risk issues who has a reasonable level of visibility in the business. When you have a passionate team working on the security issues, the ‘how’ will be easy to determine.”

— Equip the business to perform risk assessments: “To meet the security and risk obligations effectively, you have to delegate, and risk assessments are ideal for this,” Forrester said. “Provide the checklists and basic training to the business to perform the basic risk assessment tasks so that it takes the pressure off your resources. Make it easy and seamless for the business to incorporate these into its existing processes.”

Complicating things is today’s economic environment in which businesses may be forced to reshuffle or even cut their security personnel. When that happens, organizations may have to refocus their attention from strategic projects and get back to basics, the report noted.

“As security organizations get leaner, delegation, formalized and documented processes, and good monitoring and metrics become key,” said Forrester analyst Rachel Dines, who worked on the report with Kark. “Security organizations don’t need to have direct ownership of all security-related processes, but they do need to monitor and control them.”

How to create a security culture in your organization: a recent study reveals the importance of assessment, incident response procedures, and social engineering … article from: Information Management Journal

Tags: Business, Chief Information Security Officer, Cloud computing, Consultants, Forrester Research, General and Freelance, Information Security, Security

May 18 2010

Taking Credit Card Security Seriously

Category: pci dss — DISC @ 1:33 pm

NEW YORK - MAY 20: In this photo illustration...
Image by Getty Images via Daylife

PCI DSS v1.2: A Practical Guide to Implementation

By David F. Carr @ Forbes

The easiest way for small businesses to address the information security requirements imposed by credit card companies is the wrong way. I’m talking about lying and praying.

In 2004 the major credit card companies got together to define a common Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS, often referred to as just PCI). They are gradually ratcheting up the pressure on merchants of all sizes to comply. Large companies, and some smaller ones that process a large volume of transactions (particularly if they’re doing it on the Web), are required to have an independent review of their processes and systems by a security professional credentialed as a qualified security assessor (QSA). Most small businesses can instead complete a self-assessment questionnaire, where they essentially grade themselves. That’s where the lying comes in. It’s not so hard to check off all the right answers (“Sure, I review my e-commerce server logs on a daily basis.”) without actually making them true.

If you’re lying, you had better also be praying. If caught, you could be fined for non-compliance, to the tune of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars–enough to put many a small organization out of business. Expect even harsher treatment if someone hacks your systems and downloads card data you claimed you weren’t even storing.

Most of the requirements are basic security, like making sure there is a firewall between your Internet connection and any system that stores credit card numbers. Factory default passwords on your network equipment must be changed, so that no one can log on as user “admin,” password “admin.” And so on. More specifically, you’re responsible for protecting card holder data, and there’s some data you’re never supposed to store–like the full contents of a card’s magnetic strip.

Many small businesses are still under the impression that the rules don’t apply to them because they’re too small, or because they don’t conduct e-commerce. Actually, the rules apply to any business–and even any nonprofit–that takes credit card payments. You can look for ways to lighten the compliance burden, but you can’t get yourself off the hook entirely. Even if no one has yet compelled you to complete a questionnaire or conduct an automated scan of your networks, you’re still supposed to be locking down your systems.

Some businesses complain this all sounds too complicated and expensive. But they are missing the point, says Anton Chuvakin, author of PCI Compliance: Understand and Implement Effective PCI Data Security Standard Compliance. The PCI rules really represent the minimum security standards businesses must meet to be fair to their customers, who, after all, are trusting the merchant every time they hand over a credit card number. In the wake of a card security breach, a larger business might suffer from the fines, damages and adverse publicity resulting from a card security breach. By contrast, “a small business is more likely to be GONE,” Chuvakin said. “Businesses that endanger their customers really do deserve to die.”

If your organization is not equipped to handle credit card data securely, maybe you should not be handling it at all. Look for ways to shift as much of the burden as possible onto a service provider that specializes in secure payment processing. Services such as PayPal and Authorize.net let you forward customers to their websites for payment processing; credit card numbers never pass through your hands at all

Small businesses such as restaurants that use an older generation of countertop credit card terminals may be breaking the rules inadvertently because the device stores magnetic stripe data or otherwise violates the PCI requirements. So consider upgrading to a payment device that is certified PCI compliant. Basic terminals capable of encrypting Personal Identification Number (PIN) codes and protecting other sensitive information are available for as little as $100 and might even be offered free by merchant account services trying to win your business. The PCI Security Standards Council publishes a list of approved devices. Just remember that using a compliant device is only one element of making your business compliant.

Even if you’re not storing anything explicitly prohibited, you may be storing more credit card data than you need to. Small merchants typically store a day’s worth of credit card numbers on a card swipe terminal, then process all the transactions in a batch at the end of the day. Bigger retailers may record the card numbers in a centralized database so they can track all a customer’s purchases, and so they can retrieve the number if they need to issue a refund. But do you need to retain those numbers at all?

Possible Solutions
Perhaps not. Martin McKeay, a QSA and author of the Network Security Blog, recommends looking at new strategies for using end-to-end encryption and “tokenization.”

For example, payment processor First Data ( FDC – news – people ) and security software firm RSA Security have developed a product called TransArmor that allows merchants to get authorization for a credit card number and then immediately dispose of the card number, replacing it with a token. The token is another number that acts as a stand-in for the credit card number itself. First Data keeps track of which tokens correspond with which credit card numbers. So if you’re executing previously authorized transactions at the end of the day, you send First Data a batch of tokens, and it relays the card numbers on to the bank. But if the tokens are stolen, by themselves they are worthless to anyone else.

“With this, the only time you need the true credit card number is when you do the authorization,” says Craig Tieken, First Data vice president of merchant product management. “The merchant, in our opinion, no longer needs the card number.” TransArmor is still in beta testing, scheduled for release in the summer of 2010.

PCI DSS v1.2: A Practical Guide to Implementation

Tags: Business, Credit card, First Data, Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, PayPal, Personal identification number, Qualified Security Assessor, Tokenization

May 11 2010

OCR draft guidelines for security risk analysis

Category: hipaa,Security Risk Assessment — DISC @ 12:42 am

US Department of Health & Human Services
Image by veeliam via Flickr

The Health & Human Services Department published draft guidance to help healthcare providers and payers figure out what is expected of them in doing a risk analysis of their protected patient health information.

The security rule of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) requires that providers, payment plans and their business associates perform a risk assessment, but does not prescribe a method for doing so, according to draft guidance from HHS’ Office of Civil Rights (OCR). The HITECH Act directed that OCR oversee health information privacy.

Risk analysis is a technique used to identify and assess threats and vulnerabilities that may hamper the success of achieving bsuiness goals. In risk analysis determines if the security controls are appropriate compare to the risk presented by the impact of threats and vulnerabilities.

The guidance is not intended to provide a one-size-fits-all blueprint for compliance with the risk analysis requirement. Rather, it clarifies the expectations of the Department for organizations working to meet these requirements. An organization should determine the most appropriate way to achieve compliance, taking into account the characteristics of the organization and its environment.

Some of the content contained in this guidance is based on recommendations of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), OCR said

OCR guidance document explains several elements a risk analysis must incorporate, regardless of the method employed. So basically the auditor will be looking for all the elements required by the guidelines during an audit.

OCR dratf guigelines details

Information Security Risk Analysis, Tom Peltier

Tags: Business, Civil and political rights, Health care, health insurance, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Optical character recognition, Security

May 04 2010

IT risk assessment frameworks: real-world experience

Category: Risk Assessment — DISC @ 5:17 pm

By Bob Violino, CSO

Assessing and managing risk is a high priority for many organizations, and given the turbulent state of information security vulnerabilities and the need to be compliant with so many regulations, it’s a huge challenge.

Several formal IT risk-assessment frameworks have emerged over the years to help guide security and risk executives through the process. These include:

Operationally Critical Threat, Asset and Vulnerability Evaluation (OCTAVE)

Factor Analysis of Information Risk (FAIR)

the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Risk Management Framework (RMF)

Threat Agent Risk Assessment (TARA), a recent creation

OCTAVE
OCTAVE (Operationally Critical Threat, Asset and Vulnerability Evaluation), developed at the CERT Coordination Center at Carnegie Mellon University, is a suite of tools, techniques and methods for risk-based infosec strategic assessment and planning.

OCTAVE defines assets as including people, hardware, software, information and systems. There are three models, including the original, which CERT says forms the basis for the OCTAVE body of knowledge and is aimed at organizations with 300 or more employees; OCTAVE-S, similar to the original but aimed at companies with limited security and risk-management resources; and OCTAVE-Allegro, a streamlined approach to information security assessment and assurance.

The framework is founded on the OCTAVE criteria—a standardized approach to a risk-driven and practice-based information security evaluation. These criteria establish the fundamental principles and attributes of risk management.

Also see How SCAP Brought Sanity to Vulnerability Management

The OCTAVE methods have several key characteristics. One is that they’re self-directed: Small teams of personnel across business units and IT work together to address the security needs of the organization. Another is that they’re designed to be flexible. Each method can be customized to address an organization’s particular risk environment, security needs and level of skill. A third is that OCTAVE aims to move organizations toward an operational risk-based view of security and addresses technology in a business context.

Among the strengths of OCTAVE is that it’s thorough and well documented, says Brooke Paul, managing director at Capital Informatics and former CSO at American Financial Group. “The people who put it together are very knowledgeable,” says Paul, who has evaluated the framework for clients. “It’s been around a while and is very well-defined and freely available.”

Because the methodology is self-directed and easily modified, it can be used as the foundation risk-assessment component or process for other risk methodologies, says Ron Woerner, security systems analyst at HDR, an architectural and engineering firm. Woerner says he’s used a hybrid of OCTAVE, FAIR and other methodologies.

“The original OCTAVE method uses a small analysis team encompassing members of IT and the business. This promotes collaboration on any found risks and provides business leaders [with] visibility into those risks,” Woerner says. “To be successful, the risk assessment-and-management process must have collaboration.”

In addition, OCTAVE “looks at all aspects of information security risk from physical, technical and people viewpoints,” Woerner says. “If you take the time to learn the process, it can help you and your organization to better understand its assets, threats, vulnerabilities and risks. You can then make better decisions on how to handle those risks.”

Experts say one of the drawbacks of OCTAVE is its complexity. “When it shipped, we spent hours trying to understand what it was that this package was going to do for us,” says Adam Rice, global CSO and vice president of managed security services at Tata Communications, a provider of communications services.

“There was a lot of time taken up just trying to understand what the approach was, because it wasn’t very clear to me,” Rice says. “Anything that takes a lot of time detracts from its use.”

Paul adds that a downside to OCTAVE is that it doesn’t allow organizations to mathematically model risk. “It’s a qualitative methodology, like most others available today,” he says.

Next at page 2:FAIR, Page 3:NIST RMF and Page 4: TARA methodology
1 2 3 4 »

Information Security Risk Analysis, Tom Peltier

Tags: FAIR, NIST RMF, OCTAVE, Risk Assessment, TARA