Category Archives: Security

Recap of European Identity & Cloud Conference 2013

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The 2013 edition of the European Identity & Cloud Conference just finished. As always KuppingerCole Analysts has created a great industry conference and I am glad I was part of it this year. To relive the conference you can search for the tag #EIC13 on Twitter.

KuppingerCole manages each time to get all the Identity thought leaders together which makes the conference so valuable. You know you’ll be participating in some of the best conversations on Identity and Cloud related topics when people like Dave Kearns, Doc Searls, Paul Madsen, Kim Cameron, Craig Burton … are present. It’s a clear sign that KuppingerCole has grown into the international source for Identity related topics if you know that some of these thought leaders are employed by KuppingerCole themselves.

Throughout the conference a few topics kept popping up making them the ‘hot topics’ of 2013. These topics represent what you should keep in mind when dealing with Identity in the coming years:

XACML and SAML are ‘too complicated’

It seems that after the announced death of XACML everyone felt liberated and dared to talk. Many people find XAMCL too complicated. Soon SAML joined the club of ‘too complicated’. The source of the complexity was identified as XML, SOAP and satellite standards like WS-Security.

There is a reason protocols like OAuth, which stays far away from XML and family, have so rapidly gained so much followers. REST and JSON have become ‘sine qua none’ for Internet standards.

There is an ongoing effort for a REST/JSON profile for XACML. It’s not finished, let alone adopted, so we will have to wait and see what it gives.

That reminds me of a quote from Craig Burton during the conference:

Once a developer is bitten by the bug of simplicity, it’s hard to stop him.

It sheds some light on the (huge) success of OAuth and other Web 2.0 API’s. It also looks like a developer cannot be easily bitten by the bug of complexity. Developers must see serious rewards before they are willing to jump into complexity.

OAuth 2.0 has become the de-facto standard

Everyone declared OAuth 2.0, and it’s cousin OpenID Connect, to be the de facto Internet standard for federated authentication.

Why? Because it’s simple, even a mediocre developer who hasn’t seen anything but bad PHP is capable of using it. Try to achieve that with SAML. Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s not without problems. OAuth uses Bearer tokens that are not well understood by everyone which leads to some often seen security issues in the use of OAuth. On the other hand, given the complexity of SAML, do we really think everyone would use it as it should be used, avoiding security issues? Yes, indeed …

API Economy

A lot of talk about the ‘API Economy’. There are literally thousands and thousands of publicly available APIs (named “Open APIs”) and magnitudes more of hidden APIs (named “Dark APIs”) on the web. It has become so big and pervasive that it has become an ecosystem of its own.

New products and cloud services are being created around this phenomena. It’s not just about exposing a REST/JSON interface to your date. You need a whole infrastructure: throttling services, authentication, authorization, perhaps even an app store.

It’s also clear that developers once more become an important group. There is nu use to an Open API if nobody can or is willing to use it. Companies that depend on the use of their Open API suddenly see a whole new type of customer: developers. Having a good Developer API Portal is a key success factor.

Context for AuthN and AuthZ

Manye keynote and presentations referred to the need for authn and authz to become ‘contextual’. It was not entirely sure what was meant with that, nobody could give a clear picture. No idea what kind of technology or new standards it will require. But it was all agreed this was what we should be going to 😉

Obviously, the more information we can take into account when performing authn or authz, the better the result will be. Authz decisions that take present and past into account and not just whatever is directly related to the request, can produce a much more precise answer. In theory that is …

The problem with this is that computers are notoriously bad at anything that is not rule based. Once you move up the chain and starting including the context, next the past (heuristics) and ending at principles, computers are giving up pretty fast.

Of course, nothing keeps you from defining more rules that take contextual factors into account. But I would hardly call that ‘contextual’ authz. That’s just plain RuBAC with more PIPs available. It only becomes interesting if the authz engine is smart in itself and can decide, without hard wiring the logic in rules, which elements of the context are relevant and which aren’t. But as I said, computers are absolutely not good at that. They’ll look at us in despair and beg for rules, rules they can easily execute, millions at a time if needed.

The last day there was a presentation on RiskBAC or Risk Based Access Control. This is situated in the same domain of contextual authz. It’s something that would solve a lot but I would be surprised to see it anytime soon.

Don’t forget, the first thing computers do with anything we throw at them, is turning it into numbers. Numbers they can add and compare. So risks will be turned into numbers using rules we gave to computers and we all know what happens if we, humans, forgot to include a rule.

Graph Stores for identities

People got all excited by Graph Stores for identity management. Spurred by the interest in NoSQL and Windows Azure Active Directory Graph, people saw it as a much better way to store identities.

I can only applaud the refocus on relations when dealing with identity. It’s what I have been saying for almost 10 years now: Identities are the manifestations of relationship between two parties. I had some interesting conversations with people at the conference about this and it gave me some new ideas. I plan to pour some of those into a couple of blog articles. Keep on eye on this site.

The graph stores themselves are a rather new topic for me so I can’t give more details or opinions. I suggest you hop over to that Windows Azure URL and give it a read. Don’t forget that ForgeRock  already had a REST/JSON API on top of their directory and IDM components.

Life Management Platforms

Finally there was an entire separate track on Life Management Platforms. It took me a while to understanding what it was all about. Once I found out it was related to the VRM project of Doc Searls, it became more clear.

Since this recap is almost getting longer than the actual conference, I’ll hand the stage to Martin Kuppinger and let him explain Life Management Platforms.

That was the 2013 edition of the European Identity & Cloud Conference for me. It was a great time and even though I haven’t even gotten home yet, I already intend to be there as well next year.

Smart Meters … but not so secure

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In this article Martin Kuppinger from KuppingerCole Analysts discusses a security leak in a device used for controlling heating systems.

It’s shocking but I am not surprised. IT history is riddled with cases of devices, protocols and standards that required solid security but failed. Mostly they failed because people thought they didn’t need experts to build in security. Probably the most common failure in IT security: thinking you don’t need experts.

Who remembers WEP or even S/MIME, PKCS#7, MOSS, PEM, PGP and even XML?

The last link shows how simple sign & encrypt is not a fail safe solution:

Simple Sign & Encrypt, by itself, is not very secure. Cryptographers know this well, but application programmers and standards authors still tend to put too much trust in simple Sign-and-Encrypt.

The moral of the story is: unless you really are an IT security expert, never ever design security solutions yourself. Stick to well known solutions, preferably in tested and proven libraries or products. Even then, I strongly encourage you to consult an expert, it’s just too easy to naively apply the, otherwise good, solution in the wrong way.

Prevent, Detect and Recover

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Most organizations spend a lot of money trying to prevent damage to information assets.  Typical measures are firewalls, anti-malware, authentication, authorization … But sadly most organizations forget there are three dimensions to proper risk management:

  1. Prevent. Measures to prevent risks from becoming reality. This is where typically most investments are done.
  2. Detect. Detect, after the fact, that something damaging happened to information assets. This is not limited to mere detection but also includes determining the actual impact.
  3. Recover. Undo the damage that was done, ideally as if nothing happened but minimally to a level accepted by the organization. A good detection, specifically of impact, is needed to properly recover.

It is amazing how much money is spend on the first dimension and how little is spend on the other two. Yet a good information risk management consists of a good balance between all three dimensions.

  • If you are not good at detecting damage to information assets, how can you know how well your prevention is performing?
  • If you can detect an intrusion but you have no idea what they did, how can you recover?

Prevent, detect and recover is not limited to attacks from hackers, human or technical errors are as damaging as hackers.

Imagine you periodically receive a file from an external party, this file is to be processed and will result in updates to the database. A responsible organization will take typical measures like signing and encrypting the file, verifying it’s structure using a schema … all aimed at preventing damage. But what if the external party made an honest error and supplied you with the wrong file?

None of the earlier measures will prevent the damage to your database. Even if you can’t automatically detect this damage, perhaps you’ll have to wait for a phone call from the external party, you can take measures to recover. Database schema’s and the updates could be crafted in such a way that you can “rollback” the processing of the erroneous file.

Information risk management should not be limited to prevention, but balance it with detection and recovery. It should also give sufficient attention to risks originating from human or technical errors. In fact, most damage will come from this and not from malicious users or hackers.

My pin code is … ****

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Yes, you read that right, I gave you my pin code, it’s … ****. Of course, unless you lack a brain, you know that **** is not even a valid pin code. It’s what you see on screen when you enter your code at any ATM. No need to protect that … or is there?

One bank in Belgium goes to great lengths to protect you from devious people trying to read that “****” while you enter your code. They have a special film on the display that makes it impossible to read the display unless you are standing perfectly in front of it. So, nobody can read that “****”, only you can. They even have a sticker on the machine telling you how they do their best to protect you.

They do not protect you in any way from someone looking at what you type on the key pad though. In fact, from the looks of it, they do their very best to make it as easy as possible for strangers to see what you are typing on the key pad.

I know many of their ATM locations are surrounded by excellent spots from which you can undisturbed see any pin code being entered on they key pad. Even when the ATM is indoors, it is conveniently located near a large bright window. A large bright window lacking any protecting measures for that matter. Someone living in the house opposite the street can easily farm many pin codes a day.

It’s good to see how smart people are doing their very best to protect me from fraud and theft. Thank you.

Some still don’t get it!

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This post is about security, so if you are not into that, feel free to skip it.

Today I get a friendly email from the national railroad company of Belgium (NMBS) in which they announced a brand new site to order international train tickets. It also mentioned that instead of using my made up user name I could now use the email address I used while registering to log in.

That sounds great, another site that uses an email address to log in instead of something like “johnsmith342”.

Then they kind of messed up. For my convenience and to make sure I would be able to use their shiny new site to buy lots of international train tickets they included my password. Yes, you read that right, they mailed me my password. Without me asking for it.

They have no clue about processes and procedures for dealing with passwords. They are not helping the world in teaching people how to deal with authentication secrets, social engineer and phishing.

I can only hope the password is not stored clear text. Due to password policies it is often necessary to access the password in clear text, only storing a hash is not working any more. Common databases like Microsoft Active Directory, Novell eDirectory and probably many others use two way encryption to store passwords. They have many secure access layers between a public api and the encryption keys to access to the clear text version of the password.

Honestly, emailing me my own password without my consent doesn’t generate a lot of trust in how they deal with sensitive information. That includes my trust in how they store my password in their systems.

We care about you … sort of …

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Some companies insist on letting you know that the mail you just received from them, has been properly scanned, dissected and cleansed before it reached your mailbox.

Sometimes it can go wrong however:

Internal Virus Database is out-of-date.
Checked by AVG.
Version: 7.5.524 / Virus Database: 270.4.1/1517 – Release Date: 24/06/08 20:41

I wonder if I should delete the mail or not. As a juice extra, somewhere else in the mail they refer to their company as “Your IT Reference on the Web !“.

Challenge Questions … a tale from reality

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Last weekend I was in a shop buying a new subscription for my mobile phone. As usual I was hit by an avalanche of questions asking for my name, address, shoe size … One question in particular caught my attention …

The shop attendant asked me “for a password”, a password I could use if I couldn’t go to one of their shops and had to call their call center. By supplying the password to the call center they could verify it was really me.

I don’t know about anyone else but I personally call my mobile subscription provider about once every 5 years. The service they offer just works, rarely needs change and if it does need change, they often have a website to help you out. Chances are high I would have completely forgotten the password by the time I had to call them.

The conversation with the shop attendant went like this:

  • Attendant: “You have to choose a password, a password you can use when calling our call center“
  • Me: “Oh … hmm … how many times can I guess when I am calling in?“
  • Attendant (realizing I was afraid of forgetting the password): “We will give you hints if you forgot it“
  • Attendant (still aiming to give excellent customer service): “People often choose the PIN code of their credit or debit card ...”
  • Attendant (now realizing not everyone liked this idea): “… but of course you don’t have to, you can pick any word“

At that moment I tried not to, at least not obviously, show my emotions about this conversation.

This method to verify who is calling is flawed to say the least. Due to the very low frequency people have to call in, most people will have forgotten their password. Unless of course they used their PIN code, which they hopefully still remember. Since call center employees can obviously read the password (they need to verify it) they have clear text, and probably unnoticed, access to a lot of PIN numbers. Do I need to add that call centers employees are not the most loyal employees you can find?

The fact they give hints when you call in, is stupid as well. Not only do they admit their system is flawed by design, they also help in under mining it themselves. Imagine this conversation when a hacker calls in:

  • Hacker: “Hi, I am John and I need to change my subscription plan“
  • Call Center: “Hi John, could you give us your password please“
  • Hacker: “Oh, I forgot it … could you give a hint?“
  • Call Center: “It looks like your birth year or perhaps your PIN code“
  • Hacker (after a quick look on Facebook): “My year of birth? That should be 1975.“
  • Call Center: “Sorry John, that is not correct, perhaps it’s your PIN code?“
  • Hacker: “No, I would never give my PIN code to you, could you give me the first number? Perhaps I recognize it“
  • Call Center (re-assured it could not be his PIN code): “It starts with 5 John“
  • …

I am sure someone much more experienced in social engineering (I have virtually none) can get someone’s PIN code this way.

Encryption … no, we don’t need that

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Kim Cameron recently went to a conference where he heard a cloud computing vendor utter these, and judging on the blogosphere almost legendary, words:

One of the vendors shook me to the core when he said, “If you have the right physical access controls and the right background checks on employees, then you don’t need encryption”.

Kim admitted he almost choked. I can understand him. We are in for some rough times if there are cloud computing vendors out there who think like that.

On the other hand I would like to take this opportunity to make sure you know that encryption in itself does not mean security. You can apply encryption all over the place, using keys that have a gazillion bits, and still have a unsecure, dumb solution.

Any vendor who replies “We use 256 bit AES encryption” when answering the question “How do you secure transmission of data?” is as dumb as the vendor who says “physical access controls and the right background checks on employees make encryption not necessary”.

Day two @ EIC 2009

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I haven’t blogged about the European Identity Conference since it started. Although I have to say that I made up by using Twitter (@bderidder) during most of the keynotes and presentations. I was present at the very first EIC in 2007, skipped the 2008 edition and joined the 2009 edition again. That gives me a nice opportunity to see how this conference has evolved during it’s 3 first editions.

It has evolved … and mostly in a (very) positive way. Kuppinger Cole succeeded in creating a strong conference agenda with all important IAM and GRC topics covered. Even the catering is perfect! That was not really the case in 2007 during the first edition 😉

I do see a difference though. In 2007 there was this “grassroots” atmosphere. We had a lot of people working on emerging standards like Bandit, Higgins, OpenID, VRM … There was this constant buzz during the presentations, breaks and evening visits to Munich. Everyone felt as if they were part of this new thing called “Identity”.

The 2009 edition is different. It’s definitely a lot more mainstream. There is less of a buzz (if at all). I think that can mean two things. One, EIC is scheduling more “serious” presentations and, two, Identity has matured into something … well … mainstream. As always in these cases, it’s a little of both.

Heavily scheduling presentations about GRC (Governance, Risk and Compliance) is bound to create a more professional (dare I say boring) atmosphere. But, and that is a good thing, Identity is also a lot more mature. Most of the bleeding edge topics in 2007 are now being presented as commercial products and consultancy offerings. The best example would be all the offerings you can see around claims and XACML.  Topics like OpenID or SAML are not exotic anymore. They have become well accepted in the industry. One topic didn’t seem to make it though. “User centric identity” was lost somewhere in the last 2 years. It’s being recycled in the VRM (vendor relationship management) community but with less fanaticism.

Relating to my remark on GRC, hinting at it being a boring subject, I have to make a correction. It’s definitely not a boring subject. I would also say that Kuppinger Cole is absolutely right in scheduling it on the agenda. But you have to admit, it’s a more specialized subject with little to none “sexy” technical aspects.

The conference is not finished, it’s not even half way, yet I think I can make a couple of preliminary conclusions on what I will be taking home on Friday evening:

  1. Identity has matured, most of the exotic topics two years ago are now mainstream and being turned into products by Oracle, Sun, Microsoft, IBM … and numerous other larger and smaller players in the market. Clients also notice these offerings and buy them.
  2. It’s not clear if the current level of maturity of Identity is sufficient. There haven’t been any presentations on this and Kuppinger Cole is not making statements on this. Unless it’s about GRC of course, but what about other aspects? There are bound missing gaps in Identity right now and they are being forgotten in all the happiness surrounding claims, federation …
  3. There is a lot of talk about GRC, both in presentations and during breaks. Nevertheless, I personally still perceive it as something at a conceptual (hype?) level. That is at least the overall impression I got at this conference. Topics like these, high level business concepts, always carry a risk of remaining empty. It’s very easy to talk an entire day about GRC without knowing a thing about it, it’s a lot harder to do that with topics that have a direct technical link.
  4. Authorization is massively misunderstood and apparently has yet to reach the maturity level Identity currently has. Whenever the word “authorization” is dropped, people either go RBAC or think it’s about claims. It will probably take more then one year (and conference) to get this right.

I forgot some conclusions but since the conference is not over yet, I will get another chance to write about those.

For what it is worth, some advice for a 2010 conference:

  • Try to create some of that 2007 “grassroots” atmosphere, there are plenty of topics that can do this, both in Identity, Authorization and hopefully GRC as well.
  • Turn the GRC topics into something with real and tangiable content. It’s so easy to talk about GRC without actually saying anything.
  • GRC brings IAM to the world of “Business ICT Alignment”, that means to the world of Enterprise Architecture. So … where are the IAM and Enterprise Architecture topics?
  • Authorization definitely should come back and hopefully with the message that it is not about RBAC and not about claims. Those are merely tools and technologies that will have a much shorter lifespan then authorization itself. We have to dig deeper and unravel more of what authorization is really all about.
  • And last, an Identity Award for the longest blog post about day 2 of EIC 2009. Thank you.

Microsoft on ‘Building Security In Maturity Model’

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Last week I went to a presentation on the Building Security In Maturity Model by Gary McGraw. They interviewed about ten organisations who did have a software security team and asked them what they actually do today to make software more secure. They specifically went for a data-driven apporach, no “what could we do” but a 100% focus on “what do they do”. Piling all that information together, some magic processing (read: spreadsheet magic) and you have the Building Security In Maturity Model.

Microsoft was one of the organizatons participating in this effort. Steve Lipner himself wrote about how he experienced this effort and what he thinks from the outcome. One part of his article I would like to emphasise:

I’ve historically not been a fan of “maturity models” because many of them are so abstract and paper-oriented that you can rate “high” on the maturity model and still fail at whatever attribute of your products and processes (quality, timeliness, security) the model purports to measure.  In contrast, I like the BSIMM because

·         It’s specific.  The measures in the BSIMM are things that an development organization actually does to produce secure software.

·         It’s real-world.  Gary, Sammy, and Brian made a rule that no activity would be included in the BSIMM unless at least one of the organizations they interviewed actually performed that activity.

I have about the same idea on maturity models as Steve has. But then, I am mostly sceptical about any model and framework that abstracts away reality so vigorously that I wonder how any organization can successfully use them to achieve improvement.