CYBERCRIME & VULNERABILITY ISSUES: WHAT EMERGENCY MANAGERS NEED TO KNOW Jim Duncan, Security Engineer Juniper Networks, Secure Development Lifecycle Initiative Tuesday, North Carolina Emergency Management Association Fall Conference

2 Copyright © 2014 Juniper Networks, Inc. BRIEF BIOGRAPHY Subject-Matter Expert on software vulnerabilities Currently working on prevention of flaws (Juniper SDL program) Previously, product-security and cyber-security incident responder  Juniper, BB&T, Cisco, Penn State University, Old Dominion University  TRANSITS Instructor – helping National CSIRTs in emerging economies  Participant in multiple IRT and cybercrime-fighting forums (FIRST, ICASI)  Critical Infrastructure Protection evangelist (NIAC VDF, CVSS, ISACs)  Ideal candidate for the exit row! (Also soccer referee, parliamentarian, piano technician, pistolsmith, etc., can’t keep a job!)

3 Copyright © 2014 Juniper Networks, Inc. WHY AM I HERE TODAY? Cybercrime and vulnerabilities are here to stay  You know that already; this will not be yet another trend report Technology Complexity – the Internet of Things – growing without bound  Implications for interactions with other disciplines both exciting and scary  Security, if any, is frequently low priority, or omitted from consideration entirely  Definitely no security in Version 0.1, which is what is deployed to first responders!  Technology is just a tool, you should not need to be an expert in it  How many of you are well-versed in internal combustion? My goal is impart observations, rules, etc., for thinking about cyber systems and understanding the larger threats and countermeasures

4 Copyright © 2014 Juniper Networks, Inc. PROBLEMS

5 Copyright © 2014 Juniper Networks, Inc. NATURE OF CYBERCRIME “Cybercriminals are business people, too.”  Amazing parallels to counterfeiting of old: front office, back office, etc.  Well-financed, distributed, smart, not greedy (mostly)  Misalignment of cultural expectations is a complicating factor  Definitions of “crimes” vary from place to place, hard to get support sometimes  Resourceful: example of CAPTCHA workaround  Well-researched: example of bank phishing aimed at small church officials  Follow the money and/or spirit: motivations explain a lot  All of the above apply to nation-state and populist activities, too

6 Copyright © 2014 Juniper Networks, Inc. CONFIDENTIALITY/PRIVACY/REPUTATIONAL THREATS SWATting and EAS hijacks; not much help here except the obvious D0Xing of staff and officials – Internet-based embarrassment is deadly  Teach staff how to protect themselves online if you expect them to protect other people’s stuff online.  Consider reputation-monitoring services Monitor and prevent exfiltration of data in your stewardship  Don’t assume data was erased – it can never be completely erased  Use full-disk encryption and test it  Consider reputation-monitoring services for this as well

7 Copyright © 2014 Juniper Networks, Inc. TELECOMMUNICATIONS THREATS DoS can’t be prevented, but often it can be managed  Various services for ensuring against DoS or mitigating once underway  Work with your ISP (maybe more than one ISP)  Make sure you have experts involved Telephony DoS is old, but new again  Multiple efforts in multiple countries to improve technological response  “Honeypots” deployed to look for TDoS, do-not-call violations, other errors  VoIP is exciting, isn’t it? Yeehaw!  Fundamental flaw: circuit-switched v. packet-switched security models

8 Copyright © 2014 Juniper Networks, Inc. TRANSPORTATION THREATS GPS spoofing and jamming  Documented that thieves are using spoofing to hide stolen vehicles  Florida(?) motorist operated a cellphone jammer from his car during his daily commutes to force other motorists to put down their cellphones  Easy to imagine similar stunts to fraudulently redirect consumers away from competitors’ gas pumps or (pick a retail industry) How do you know your GPS is receiving correct data? Anyone? Highway sign hijacks are clever, but what if they are subtle?  Instead of “zombie” alerts, consider believable “Detour via…” instructions

9 Copyright © 2014 Juniper Networks, Inc. ENVIRONMENTAL THREATS EMP and solar flares  Really naïve in this area, despite decades of study  Recent work very revealing and alarming, but seems to be ignored Structural HVAC, building & power controls, SCADA systems  Never underestimate the potential for someone to inadvertently connect these systems to something they shouldn’t be connected to  And never underestimate the ability of criminals to find them (e.g., Target)  What do you do when your EOC gets too hot? Too cold? Too wet? Dry?  Example of first World Trade Center attack in the early 1990s

10 Copyright © 2014 Juniper Networks, Inc. CASE STUDY NOT YET PUBLISHED Analysis of pre-hospital information system used by EMTs  It was in another state, not North Carolina. Relax! Resume breathing… Criminals’ delight:  No AUP, no password policies  Ruggedized laptop running unpatched XP, plans to upgrade to Win7  No full-disk encryption  Brand-name software vendor truly did not keep PII on device, but…  Helpful cache was uncovered, unencrypted, with PII for 13,500 patients! THIS HAPPENED IN 2014!!! This is all too believable, unfortunately

11 Copyright © 2014 Juniper Networks, Inc. SOLUTIONS

12 Copyright © 2014 Juniper Networks, Inc. OCCAM’S RAZOR, HANLON’S RAZOR, ETC. Occam’s Razor: “When considering multiple possible causes, select the cause requiring the least complexity”  Not guaranteed to be correct, but likely Hanlon’s Razor: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” Duncan’s Corollary: “Never attribute to an attack that which is adequately explained by negligence.”  “Negligence” can be misconfiguration, software flaw, or user error  Example of inadvertent internally-sourced “attack”

13 Copyright © 2014 Juniper Networks, Inc. AVOID BYSTANDER EFFECT/DIFFUSION OF DUTY First responders would never do this in the real world, but they fall prey to it in the cyber world: Don’t assume someone else will respond! Ask questions. Lots of questions.  Recipients of questions: be professional and answer appropriately  Consider documenting individual findings in “security observation reports” Advocate for proper brainstorming practices  In the first round, get the ideas out there; no vetting whatsoever  Second round, go back and evaluate the first-round responses  Disciplined facilitator is sometimes needed for this to be effective

14 Copyright © 2014 Juniper Networks, Inc. REPLACE BLACKLISTING WITH WHITELISTING Blacklisting: “That, which is not expressly denied, is permitted.”  Far too many systems start out this way  Painful to go back and close up unnecessary ports/services/features Whitelisting: “That, which is not expressly permitted, is denied.”  Much safer  Start with all services disabled, then enable only those that are needed Example: Instead of allowing browsing everywhere, and then blocking access to a few pages, block all pages except for a selected few.

15 Copyright © 2014 Juniper Networks, Inc. GET SMART AND STAY SMART ON CRYPTO “Gosh, crypto is hard!” Doesn’t have to be difficult to understand the basics  Key length is important: long, but not too long (time is an issue, too)  Key space should be as large as possible (or reasonably pragmatic)  Don’t keep plaintext and encrypted text around, close by  Repetition means something failed; algorithm selection is important  Watch out for so-called “security improvement trade-offs”  Example of password-typing alternate-left-right scheme (“key space”, above) Full-disk encryption is worth mentioning again, at this point

16 Copyright © 2014 Juniper Networks, Inc. UNDERSTAND SPHERE OF ACTION Expectations and assumptions creep into our thought processes, distort our reasoning, and cause us to produce incorrect results Cyber threats are global but not the typical disasters most of you handle  Example of NRP and Lori Bush, “There’s the hurricane/forest fire/flood!” Cultural & linguistic differences affect results  Example of CAPTCHA workaround, earlier  Mismatch of importance regarding Asia/Pacific “loss of face”  Example of encipher/decipher v. encrypt/decrypt  Time and date formats (ISO-8601), ICS phonetic alphabet

17 Copyright © 2014 Juniper Networks, Inc. POLICIES AND PROCEDURES No excuses for not having Acceptable Use Policies, Password Policies, Data Retention Policies, and so forth; write’em down, publicize them Don’t expect staff to pick good password management schemes; research apps, make recommendations (working group for NCEMA?) Consider implementing two-factor access schemes Remember that policies and guidelines should be viewed primarily as tools for education; enforcement comes only when education fails

18 Copyright © 2014 Juniper Networks, Inc. FIGURE OUT WHAT HAPPENED LATER “Accountability is the price of openness.” [Daniel E. Geer, Sc.D.] No one builds a perfect system, so institute appropriate logging and auditing mechanisms so that after something goes wrong, you can backtrack to figure out what happened Study Ken Thompson’s “Reflections on Trusting Trust”  1984 ACM Turing Award lecture  Brilliant, short (3 pages) explanation on how all systems are flawed because humans are involved, and cannot be separated  Completely destroys the “Many eyes makes good security” argument

19 Copyright © 2014 Juniper Networks, Inc. DON’T ATTEMPT TO BUILD PERFECT SYSTEMS “The perfect is the enemy of the good enough” (or something like that) Lots of unnecessary effort is expended on lofty conceptions of the really cool and awesomely beautiful solution to a basic problem Don’t build seamless systems, especially in an emergency “Make them seamful, but with beautiful seams.” [Mark Weiser]  Example from ruggedized telecom-in-a-box in Hurricane Katrina

20 Copyright © 2014 Juniper Networks, Inc. BE PART OF THE SOLUTION, NOT THE PRECIPITATE Encourage proper brainstorming  Need sector-specific experts like you to think up interesting problems  We don’t know the stuff that you don’t even know you already know Roll up the results into tabletop exercises Collaborate with cybersecurity incident responders  We both learn from each other  We can help with cross-sector exercises  We’ll know who to call when we find something important

21 Copyright © 2014 Juniper Networks, Inc. ANYTHING ELSE? Q&A Contact Information: Jim Duncan, +1