Tag: ISO/IEC 27000

Nobody wants to pay for security, including security companies

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/nobody-wants-pay-security-including-companies-beno%C3%AEt-h-dicaire

In theory, consumers and businesses could punish Symantec for these
oversights by contracting with other security vendors. In practice, there’s
no guarantee that products from other vendors are well-secured, either
— and there is no clearway to determine how secure a given security
product actually is.

Too many firms take an “appliance” or “product” (aka ‘technology”) approach to security. There’s a saying that’s been attributed to many security specialists over the years but is quite true:

If you think technology can solve your security problems,
then you don’t understand the problems and you don’t
understand the technology.

Its still true today. Continue reading Nobody wants to pay for security, including security companies

Confusion over Physical Assets, Information Assets – Part Two

So I need to compile a list of ALL assets, information or otherwise,

NO!
That leads to tables and chairs and powerbars.

OK so you can’t work without those, but that’s not what I meant.

InfoAssetsPhysical assets are only relevant in so far as they part of information processing. You should not start from those, you should start from the information and look at how the business processes make use of it.  Don’t confuse you DR/BC plan with your core ISMS statements.  ISO Standard 22301 addresses that.

This is, ultimately, about the business processes. Continue reading Confusion over Physical Assets, Information Assets – Part Two

Confusion over Physical Assets, Information Assets in ISO-27000

I often explain that Information Security focuses on Information Assets.

Some day, on the corporate balance sheet, there will be an entry
which reads, “Information”; for in most cases the information is
more valuable  than the hardware which processes it.
   — Adm. Grace Murray Hopper, USN Ret.

Some people see this as a binary absolute – they think that there’s no need to asses the risks to the physical assets or that somehow this is automatically considered when assessing the risk to information.

The thing is there are differing types of information and differing types of containers for them. Continue reading Confusion over Physical Assets, Information Assets in ISO-27000

What is the goal behind calculating assets in ISO-27000?

My friend and colleague Gary Hinson said about asset valuation in ISO-27000

So, for instance, it’s hard to say exactly how much the HR database
is worth, but it’s a fair bet that it is less valuable to the
organization than the Sales and Marketing database containing
commercial details on customers and prospects. Therefore, it
probably makes commercial sense to put more effort and resources into
securing the S&M database against disclosure incidents, than for the
HR database.

While Gary is ‘classically’ right, there’s a hidden gotcha in all that.

It is *YOU* that are assigning value, it is the value to YOU.
As Donn Parker points out, this may be quite different from the the value system of the attackers. You don’t know their values, motivations, tools etc etc etc. Continue reading What is the goal behind calculating assets in ISO-27000?

Information Gathering and Risk Assessment

On the ISO2700 forum one user gave a long description of his information gathering process but expressed frustration over what to do with it all all, the assets, the threats and so forth, and trying to make it into a risk assessment.

It was easy for the more experienced of us to see what he was missing.

He was missing something very important — a RISK MODEL
The model determines what you look for and how it is relevant.

Continue reading Information Gathering and Risk Assessment

Help on ISO-27000 SoA

This kind of question keeps coming up, many people are unclear about the Statement of Applicability on ISO-27000.
The  SoA should outline the measures to be taken in order to reduce risks such as those mentioned in Annex A of the standard. These are based on ‘Controls’.

But if you are using closed-source products such as those from Microsoft, are you giving up control?  Things like validation checks and integrity controls are are ‘internal’.

Well, its a bit of a word-play.

  • SoA contains exclusions on controls that are not applicable because the organization doesn’t deal with these problems (ie ecommerce)
  •  SoA contains exclusions on controls that pose a threat (and risks arise) but cannot be helped (ie A.12.2 Correct processing in applications) and no measures can be taken to reduce these risks.

With this, a record must be present in risk assessments, stating that the risk (even if it is above minimum accepted risk level) is accepted

IBM CIO Report: Key Findings

The key to the SOA is SCOPE. Continue reading Help on ISO-27000 SoA

Which Risk Framework to Use: FAIR, FRAP, OCTAVE, SABSA …

What framework would you use to provide for quantitative or qualitative risk analysis at both the micro and macro level?  I’m asking about a true risk assessment framework not merely a checklist.


Yes, this is a bit of a META-Question. But then its Sunday, a day for contemplation.

When does something like these stop being a check-list and become a framework?

COBIT is very clearly a framework, but not for risk analysis and even the section on risk analysis fits in to a business model rather than a technology model.

ISO-27K is arguably more technology (or at least InfoSec) focused that COBIT, but again risk analysis is only part of what its about. ISO-27K calls itself a standard[1] but in reality its a framework.

The message that these two frameworks send about risk analysis is

Context is Everything

(You expected me to say that, didn’t you?)

I’m not sure any RA method works at layer 8 or above. We all know that managers can read our reports and recommendations and ignore them. Or perhaps not read them, since being aware of the risk makes them liable.

Ah. Good point.
On LinkedIn there was a thread asking why banks seem to ignore risk analysis .. presumably because their doing so has brought us to the international financial crisis we’re in (though I don’t think its that simple).

The trouble is that RA is a bit of a ‘hypothetical’ exercise. Continue reading Which Risk Framework to Use: FAIR, FRAP, OCTAVE, SABSA …