Monday, July 8, 2013

Data Leakage Prevention

Securing Organizations Confidential Data with Data Loss Prevention Systems

Data leakage prevention is one of the key topics which we have been talking in present. Due to the organizations moving towards big data, financial systems, ERP and other data storage solutions which resides in cyber space, we have seen increasing number of frauds associated with the technology revolution in the cyberspace.  It’s all about data.
This post highlights the threats and the counter measures, so we can protect the sensitive personal data. I prefer the approach of “ Trust but verify model ”.  Because if the statistics are speaking most of the malicious attacks are carried out with the involvement of the internal users. Therefore we have to protect the data aligning with the security standards and countries privacy laws.   In my point of view there should be a balance between security measurements and privacy.

Potential Threats



ID Theft Tops FTC's List of Complaints
          For the 5th straight year, identity theft ranked 1st of all fraud complaints. 
          10 million cases of Identity Theft annually.
          59 percent of companies have detected some internal abuse of their networks


























Top 10 Most Frequent Incidents

  1. Patient PHI sent to partner, again, and again
  2. Employee 401k information sent outbound and inbound
  3. Payroll data being sent to home email address
  4. Draft press release to outside legal council
  5. Financial and M&A postings to message boards
  6. Source code sent with resume to competitor
  7. SSNs…and thousands of them
  8. Credit Card or account numbers….and thousands of them
  9. Confidential patient information 
  10. Internal memos and confidential information






















Data Loss Prevention - Three Key Customer Challenges

  1. Where is my confidential data stored?        Data at Rest
    This address the data storage and databases.
  2. Where is my confidential data going?        Data in Motion
    This address the data leakage protection which is done in the network layer.
  3. How do I fix my data loss problems?    Data Policy Enforcement









Why Data Loss Prevention is a Priority

          Compliance
          Brand and Reputation Protection
          Remediation Cost


Unified Data at Rest and Data in Motion Protection



DLP Solutions 

Now let’s consider the solution are available to mitigate this and secure your data. DLP solution are one of the sophisticated tool which can use to protect data while having insight of your data. Below I have add some market leading DLPs and some of the features which caught my eye. Mainly most of the DLP have the same features but depending on the vendor the products maturity and few features changes. Mainly in almost in all DLPs the data leakage protection is broken in to three layers. It is the network data protection, storage data protection and endpoint data protection.


Definition of Data Loss Prevention

Products that, based on central policies, identify, monitor, and protect data at rest, in motion, and in use, through deep content analysis.
                  -Rich Mogull of Securosis





Identify where holes or exit points where leaks may occur

Instant messaging (Yahoo Instant Messaging, Windows Live)
P2P file sharing (e.g. LimeWire case as reported by LA Times)
Media streaming
Web mail (Yahoo mail, Gmail, Hotmail)
USB storage devices (ZDNet story from UK)
Removable drives
Devices connected through external ports (Firewire, serial, parallel)
FTP server
Printouts






How data are flagged and identified

Initial predefined policies 
Social security numbers
Prescribed in HIPAA, SOX, GLBA, etc.(Bank account numbers, Credit card numbers)
Customized categories based on client needs
Data Discovery
Looks into the content and not just the file type
Examine context considerations (factor in parent directories, user group matching)
Structured data matching (SSN, credit card numbers, etc)
Unstructured data matching (diagrams, source codes, media files)
Fingerprint the data by using one way hash and saved in the database
Information can then be used to identify confidential data elsewhere


Three different levels of DLP solution

Data in Motion
Data which uses HTTP, FTP, IM, P2P and SMTP protocols are mirrored in the DLP server for inspection where visibility is enhanced
Data at Rest
Data in file servers, databases, hosts computers set for file sharing, etc.
Data at End Points

Data which sits on end user hosts (workstations and notebooks)
































Technical Feature Considerations

Deep content analysis, monitoring and prevention
Identification and blocking capability
Centralized Management
Central policy setting, dashboard features
Broad content management across platforms and ease of Integration
Review of information infrastructure including software for requirement and compatibility issues
Automated remediation
Transfer confidential files, LDAP lookup, secure purging of sensitive data

Business Environment Considerations

Matching with Business Need
Matches defined business need over feature allure
Market Presence
Major presence in the market, financial industry experience
Staffing Needs
Staffing considerations to handle additional responsibilities


Email Security with DLP








































          End point Security with DLP

      Nowadays DLP Solutions have couple of interesting technologies to provide endpoint Data Leakage prevention methods to assist the upcoming endpoint technologies such as BOYD (Bring Your Own Device).


The below setup is an example of how we can configure endpoint security to the mobile devices in your company network. But to function properly your excising proxy server should support the https decryption. Proxies such Squid, ISA don't support https decryption. 
























    


      



  DLP Vendor Comparison 




  










Trust but Verify - Threat modeling 






       



















      


  



At the end of this blog i would like to remind you that DLP another example for the Trust but Threat Verify model as OWASP Threat modeling says. But again we should carefully analyse the pros and cons of the solution before implementing. 







Author - Shariyaz Abdeen
View Shariyaz Abdeen's profile on LinkedInhttp://lk.linkedin.com/in/shariyaz
 shariyaz1@gmail.com