Filtering based on source/destination e-mail address
Filtering attachments
Anti-Spam
Spam
Spam is the abuse of electronic messaging systems to indiscriminately send unsolicited bulk messages.
Types
Email
also known as junk e-mail,
nearly identical messages sent to numerous recipients by e-mail.
Instant Messenger
Blog Comment
Forum Posting
Wiki defacement
Mobile Phone (TXT / SMS)
Delivery
Open Relays
Open Proxies
Zombies
Phishing
criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information
Derived from "Fishing for Information"
Keyword Based
Looking for words like "Vigra"
Not Very Effective, i.e. v1gr4 by-passes the above example
Statistical Analysis
Checking if the same message was sent to many people
News letters create false alarms
DNSBLs
DNS Black Lists
Lists of know Spammer IP Addresses
Can get out of date quickly
Enforcing Standards
Many SPAM applications are not RFC Compliant
Legitimate gateways should be!
Grey Listing
Temporarily Rejecting incoming Messages
Legitimate messages will re-try!
Reverse DNS Checks
Looking for PTR Records
Proper Mail servers will have Proper DNS configurations.
Whitelists
Filtering on IP... i.e. allowed SMTP gateways (not good for internet)
Filtering on Domain Name
Filtering on Email Address
Cisco's IRON Port
URL Filtering
Filtering Based on a websites URI
Allowing or blocking website addresses like www.yahoo.com
Allowing or blocking portions of website addresses like allowing bbc.co.uk.weather but denying bbc.co.uk/radio1
Requires URL categorisation
Large Database required
Impossible to categorise EVERY URL
How do you handle "unknown" allow or block?
Websense
Surfcontroll
Bluecoat
Anti-Virus
used to identify and remove computer viruses, as well as many other types of harmful computer software
Collective name for unwanted software = MALWARE
Virus
Worms
Trojans
Spyware
Methods
Signature
most common method that antivirus software uses to identify malware
Can ONLY detect known malware
Easily by-passed with minor changes
Heuristics
a heuristic, is an algorithm that ignores whether the solution to a problem can be proven to be correct,
typically used when there is no known method to find an optimal solution
file analysis
antivirus software will analyze the instructions of a program
Based on the instructions, the software can determine whether or not the program is malicious
file emulation
target file is run in a virtual system environment,
The antivirus software would then log what actions the file takes in the virtual environment.
If the actions are found to be damaging, the file will be marked a virus.
Suspicious behavior monitoring
monitors the behavior of all programs
If one program tries to write data to an executable program, for example, the antivirus
software can flag this suspicious behavior, alert a user, and ask what to do.
Protection Against Zero-Day
it can also sound a large number of false positives
users may become desensitized to the warnings and click "ACCEPT" on a virus
content is blocked or allowed based on analysis of its content
As apposed to filtering on Network Layer Attributes like IP or Port
Firewalls Allow or block HTTP, Content filters allow or block HTTP Content, i.e. images
Proxy Authentication
IOS Authentication Proxy
used to authenticate inbound or outbound users
User or Session Authentication in Checkpoint
ASA Cut-Through Proxy
Inline Authentication on HTTP Proxy Servers!
Supported Servers
TACACS
ACS for Win
ACS for Unix
TACACS+ Free
RADIUS
ACS for Win
ACS for Unix
Lucent
Public Key Infrastructure (PKI)
Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) offers a scalable method to secure networks, reduce management overhead,
and simplify the deployment of network infrastructures by enabling Cisco IOS Security features ,
including Cisco IOS IPsec, Secure Shell (SSH), Secure Socket Layer (SSL) , and Cisco IOS Firewall .
Public Key
public key may be widely distributed
Published via Key Servers
Private Key
private key is kept secret
In PKI Cryptography
Data is Encrypted with the RECIPIENTS public key
RECIPIENT decrypts using their private kay
With PKI Signatures
Data is Encrypted with the SENDERS Private key
RECIPENT decryptes using SENDERS public Key
Certificate Authority
CA
Trusted 3rd Party which Signs users public key
CRL
Certificate Revocation List
A list of Certificate Serial Numbers the CA deem to be invalid
Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP)
Digital Cerificate
A Public Key signed by a CA
Event Correlation
Event Correlation is a technique for making sense of a large number of events and pinpointing the few events that are really important
Security Information Management System (SIMS)
OpenSIMS
OSSIM
Cisco Secure MARS
Event Management
Filtering
discarding events that are deemed to be irrelevant
Highlighting events with great significance
Aggregation
Event De-duplication
merging duplicates of the same event
Masking
ignoring events pertaining to systems that are downstream of a failed system
Root Cause Analysis
last and most complex step of Event Correlation
analyzing dependencies between events
detect whether some events can be explained by others
Intrusion-prevention system - Wikipedia
Host-based vs. network
HIPS can handle encrypted and unencrypted traffic equally,
because it can analyze the data after it has been decrypted on the host
NIPS does not use processor and memory on computer hosts but uses its own CPU and memory
NIPS is a single point of failure
NIPS can detect events scattered over the network
Network Intrusion Prevention Systems
A network-based IPS is one where the IPS application/hardware and any actions taken to prevent an
intrusion on a specific network host(s) is done from a host with another IP address on the network
Cisco IPS Sensors
4200 Series
ASA AIP-SSM
6500 IDSM2
IOS IPS
IPS AIM for ISR
Content Based
inspects the content of network packets for unique sequences
Also Called SIGNATURE based
Protocol Analysis
natively decode application-layer network protocols, like HTTP or FTP
analysis engine can evaluate different parts of the protocol for anomalous behavior or exploits
Some products rely on simple pattern recognition techniques to look for known attack patterns
Rate-based
primarily intended to prevent Denial of Service and Distributed Denial of Service attacks
work by monitoring and learning normal network behaviors, alerting on statistical changes
Attacks are detected when thresholds are exceeded
Unusual but legitimate network traffic patterns may create false alarms
slashdot effect
Digg!
Host Intrusion Prevention Systems
Cisco Security Agent
OSSEC
A host-based IPS (HIPS) is one where the intrusion-prevention application
is resident on that specific IP address, usually on a single computer.
Technologies can be Same as Network Based
Signature
heuristic
System Resource Usage can effect performance
Attack Types
Atomic
Single Packet does damage
Malformed packet attacks
Compound
Type of attack signature that occurs across multiple packets on the context of a session
referred to as composite in the Network Security Database [NSDB]
DoS
Denial of Service
dDoS - Distributed Denial of Service
Consuming resources to effect/squeeze-out legitimate traffic
Attack Response Actions
Alarm (Send Syslog)
False
False Positive - Normal Traffic triggers Alarm
False Negative - Attack fails to Trigger Alarm
True
True Positive - Attack Triggers Alarm
True Negative - Normal Traffic does not Trigger Alarms
Reset (Send TCP Reset)
Drop (Drop packet inline)
Deny Attacker Inline (Drop all packets from SRC IP)
Deny Flow Inline (Drop all packets associate with a TCP Flow)
Deployment
Inline
Traffic flows through IPS
Risk of Bottle Neck
Promiscuous
Copies of traffic is sent to IPS
Risk of "missing" an attack
Adaptive Threat Defense (ATD)
Threat Defense Solution and Managed Services
Cisco Threat Control
Cisco Self-Defending Network
Umbrella name for Advanced Security Products
IPS
Guard Detector / Protector
CSA
SSL VPN
ASA / PIX
MARS
NAC
Network Admission Control (NAC)
Network Access Control
an approach to computer network security that attempts to unify endpoint security technology
Goals
Mitigation of zero-day attacks
Policy enforcement
Identity and access management
access to the network based on identity or security posture
Guest Access
Quarantine & Remediation
Quarantine users / machines which fail HSP
Remediate / Fix Issues
HSP = Host Security Policy
NAC Appliance
Enforcement by Dedicated Appliance
Enforcement by NAC Appliance Modules
Policy Controlled by Dedicated management platform