diarmf assess

My Security Control Assessor Course

April 6, 2021 by cyberaware2 Leave a Comment

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Do I teach Security Control Assessor (SCA) activity?

March 10, 2021 by cyberaware2 Leave a Comment

In this video, we talk about whether I teach security control assessor (SCA) activities. As of 3/2/2021, I don’t have a comprehensive teaching on security control assessor work. I do cover the assessment portion of the NIST 800-37 risk management process, but I don’t teach if from the perspective of a security control assessor like you would expect to see from a deep SCA course. I currently do risk assessments so, I could teach some aspect of being a security control assessor as it relates to risk management framework.

risk assessment methods

February 14, 2014 by Bruce Brown Leave a Comment

Risk assessment methods are covered in NIST SP 800-30, Risk Management and NIST SP 800-115, Technical Guide to Information Security Testing and Assessment.

NIST SP 800-30 covers a high level view framework of risk assessment methods. As you see in the Risk Assessment Methodology Flowchart.

More details on each step in the Risk Assessment method Flow chart.. Its an important aspect of Risk Management as a whole so its talked about over and over on this site.

NIST SP 800-115, Technical Guide to Information Security Testing and Assessment, is are the tasks for assessing security controls so it is an important part of risk assessment methods. You have to know the characteristics of the system (step one of the NIST 800-30, Risk Assessment methods) to do information security testing and assessment.

Information security testing in 800-115 uses 3 types of assessment methods to analyze the effectiveness on security controls (Step 4 of Risk Assessment Method flow chart) and possibly identify vulnerabilities (Step 3):

testing, examination, and interviewing

Testing = process of exercising one or more assessment objects under specific conditions to compare actual and expected behaviors.

Examination = process of checking, inspecting, reviewing, observing, studying, or analyzing one or more assessment objects to facilitate understanding, achieve clarification, or obtain evidence.

Interviewing = the process of conducting discussions with individuals or groups within an organization to facilitate understanding, achieve clarification, or identify the location of evidence.

–NIST SP 800-115

security risk

February 6, 2014 by Bruce Brown Leave a Comment

NIST SP 800-39, Manage Information Security Risk

NIST SP 800-39 deals entirely with fixing the challenge of security risk in an organization. Chapter 2 of 800-39 discusses the basics of security risk management & chapter 3 goes into the process of applying security risk management across and organization.

The Fundamentals of Security Risk Management (Chapter 2, 800-39)
The philosophy security risks and how to manage information security at multiple levels of an organization are discussed in Chpt 2 of NIST SP 800-39. The three layers of security risk are:

Tier 1: Organization level
Tier 2: Mission/Business Process level
Tier 3: Information System level

Tier 1: Organization Level security risk management
Tier 1 addresses security risk from the organizations perspective. This include the implementation of the first component of security risk management which is called risk framing.

In tier 1 or security risk management, the management of the organization establishes governance structure that are in compliance with laws, regulations and policies. Tier 1 activities include establishment of the Risk Executive Function, establishment of the risk management strategy and determination of the risk tolerance.

Security Risk framing provides context for all the security risk activities within an organization, which affects the risk tasks of tier 1 & 2. The result of risk framing is Security Risk Management Strategy.

Security Risk Management Tier 2: Mission/Business Process

Tier 2 Security risk management tasks include: 1) defining the mission processes. 2) Prioritize the mission process with respect to the long term goals of the organization. 3) Define the type of information needed to successfully execute the mission/business processes, critical/sensitivity of the information and the information flows both internal and external of the information.

Tier 3: Information System Security Risk management

From the information system perspective, tier 3 addresses the following tasks:

Categorization of the information system
Allocating the organizational security control
Selection, implementation, assessment, authorization, and ongoing

Chapter 3 focuses on the step to have a comprehensive security risk management program. The tasks discussed include:

Risk Framing
Risk Assessing
Risk Response
Risk Monitoring

Risk Assessment

NIST 800-30 goes into Risk Assessment process. 800-39 covers from a high level. Risk assessment is threat & vulnerability identification and risk determination. Organizational risk framing is a prerequisite to risk assessments, because methods of risk assessment must be established by the contexts of the organizations risk.

Risk Response
Risk response identifies, evaluates, decides on, and implements appropriate courses of action to accept, avoid, mitigate, share, or transfer risk to organizational operations and assets, individuals, other organizations, and the Nation, resulting from the operation and use of information systems.

Risk identification is key to risk response. Risk types include:
Risk accept- is the appropriate risk response when the identified risk is within the organizational risk tolerance. Organizations can accept risk deemed to be low, moderate, or high depending on particular situations or conditions.

Risk avoidance– Organizations may conduct certain types of activities or employ certain types of information technologies that result in risk that is unacceptable. In such situations, risk avoidance involves taking specific actions to eliminate the activities or technologies that are the basis for the risk or to revise or reposition these activities or technologies in the organizational mission/business processes to avoid the potential for unacceptable risk.

Risk mitigation-adding management, technical, administrative safeguards to minimize identified risks to the system.
Risk share & transfer- Risk sharing or risk transfer is the appropriate risk response when organizations desire and have the means to shift risk liability and responsibility to other organizations. Risk transfer shifts the entire risk responsibility or liability from one organization to another organization (e.g., using insurance to transfer risk from particular organizations to insurance
companies).

Risk Monitoring Risk changes with each modification of the system. It’s important to monitor the changes of the risk of a system. Changes to threats can also change risk. This is where Continuous monitoring comes in.

risk identification

January 20, 2014 by Bruce Brown 2 Comments

risk identification

Risk identification is done with a risk assessment. NIST SP 800-30, Guide for Conducting Risk Assessments breaks down the entire process of risk determination, risk identification.

As described in the earlier post DIACAP Process:

Risk = ((Vulnerability * Threat) / Countermeasure) * Asset Value at Risk IT Risk

Risk is the likelihood that a threat will compromise the weakness of an asset. So risk identification is based on knowing the threat, the vulnerability and the asset.

The better you understand these factors, the better your chances of risk determination and risk identification.

NIST SP 800-39, Managing Information Security Risk is a document that defines risk management as the process of not only identifying risk but also, assessing risk, and taking steps to mitigate risks for fit within one of the types or risk, risk acceptance.

Risk identification starts off with identification of the asset.

1) System characterization – Gather information into a System Security Plan (SSP). Identifying risk requires a deep understanding of the asset and its environment. Asset information for the SSP will cover the following:

Hardware
Software
System interfaces (e.g., internal and external connectivity)
Data and information
Persons who support and use the IT system
System mission (e.g., the processes performed by the IT system)
System and data critical (e.g., the system’s value or importance to an organization)
System and data sensitivity

2) Threat Identification – Without a defined threat, there is no way to quantify or identify a threat. Threat identification starts with looking at the threat sources and events. An example to look for threat sources historical data. When has the asset or similar assets from other related organizations in the same industry been attacked or suffered disaster. Remember a threat source is not just criminal-hackers and malware, it can be a natural disaster or unintentional destruction of data or a power outage.

3) Vulnerability Identification – Once the asset and threat are identified, you can more easily determine if your system has a weakness for that particular disaster or exploit. Again, you can look at historical evidence that suggest weakness. You can use scanners to find open ports that are exposed to the Internet.

4) Security Control Analysis – If your system already has security controls in place, you must take that into account because this may lower your risk.

5) Likelihood determination – The probability that your asset will be exploited is based on the threat source motivation, threat capability, your vulnerability and the security controls you have in place. Based on all these factors you can calculated the likelihood of an attack or disaster.

6) Impact Analysis – This where you gather all the data from asset identification, threat source, vulnerability identification, security controls, likelihood of attack and figure you what would happen if something really did happen. How important is your system and its data? What would happen to the mission or bottom line or profits if the system went down for a few hours? a few days? a few weeks? Some system are so important that they cannot be down for even a minute. Impact is very important to the level of risk. The more important the system is, the high the risk.

7) Risk Determination / Risk Identification – Based on all the data gathered you can make a pretty good risk determination. You should have defined the systems components and what data is important, made a pretty good conclusion on threat sources and likelihood of the vulnerability exploits and know exactly what kind of impact there will be if the system goes down.

Who does risk identification:

Ultimately it is the information system owner and authorizing official that must make a determination on what kind of risk they will accept, but they rely heavily on the expertise of an information security engineer, information system security manager, information system security officer and technical professionals to articulate what is happening on the ground.

The ISSO/ISSM/ISSE typically document the process mentioned above or the DIARMF process. Security professionals coordinate with IT professionals to “get into the weeds” of technical security controls and vulnerabilities.

risk management framework steps

January 19, 2014 by Bruce Brown Leave a Comment

The risk management framework steps are detailed in NIST SP 800-37, Guide for Applying the Risk Management Framework to Federal Information Systems.

The DoD has recently adopted the Risk Management Framework steps (called the DIARMF process). There are 6 step: Categorize, Select, Implement, Assess, Authorize and Continuous Monitor.

risk management framework – Step 1. Categorize

The first risk management framework step is categorization. This step consists of classifying the importance of the information system. This is done by the system owner with FIPS 199 and NIST 800-60.

Categorization is based on how much negative impact the organization will receive if the information system lost is confidentiality, integrity or availability.

risk management framework – Step 2. Select

With FIPS 200 and NIST SP 800-53, the organization responsible for the systems security will select the security controls required to limit the risk to their organization. The selection of the controls is based on the categorization of your system. A system security plan is created as a guide to what will be installed and/or configured on the system.

risk management framework – Step 3. Implement

Using the System Security Plan, the organization responsible for the categorized system can begin risk management framework step 3. This step is implementation which is installation and configuration of security patches, hotfixes and security devices where necessary. Guidance for actual implantation has to come from technical manuals, system administrators, system engineers and others technically competent enough to do the work.

risk management framework – Step 4. Assess

The organization has to make sure that the security controls are implemented properly. This is done in risk management step 4, assess. Using NIST SP 800-53A, Guide for Assessing the Security Controls in Federal Information Systems and Organizations is used to determine which controls have been fully implemented to limit the risks to the organization.

risk management framework – Step 5. Authorize

Even after implementation and assessment of the security controls that limits the over all risk to the organization, there is some remaining (residual) risk. The organization must have someone who has enough authority of over the system to accept the residual risk. This person is known as the Authorizing Official.

In risk management framework step 5, an Authorizing Official makes a formal, written acceptance of the risks. The AO makes a decision on whether or not to accept the risk based on the authorization package. The authorization package consists of the system security plan, plan of action and milestone, security/risk assessment report and any other supporting documents.