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November 18, 2020 By cs

NIST issues updated cybersecurity companion guide

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has issued its 5th catalog of security and privacy controls for information systems.
Click on image above to download publication.

The purpose of NIST’s publication is to protect organizational operations from a diverse set of threats and risks.

The catalog addresses security and privacy from a functionality perspective (i.e., the strength of functions and mechanisms provided by the controls) and from an assurance perspective (i.e., the measure of confidence in the security or privacy capability provided by the controls).  Addressing functionality and assurance helps to ensure that information technology products and the systems that rely on those products are sufficiently trustworthy.

The use of these controls is mandatory for federal information systems in accordance with Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-130 and the provisions of the Federal Information Security Modernization Act (FISMA), which requires the implementation of minimum controls to protect federal information and information systems.

The latest publication and supplemental materials can be downloaded from: https://csrc.nist.gov/publications/detail/sp/800-53/rev-5/final.

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: assurance, availability, computer security, confidentiality, controls, cybersecurity, FISMA, information security, information system, integrity, IT, NIST, personally identifiable information, Privacy Act, privacy controls, privacy functions, privacy requirements, Risk Management Framework, security controls, security functions, security requirements, SP 800-171, system, system security

February 12, 2018 By AMK

Pentagon warns CEOs: Protect your data or lose our contracts

The Pentagon is warning defense-industry CEOs to better protect their computer networks or risk losing business.

“The culture we need to get to is that we’re going to defend ourselves and that … we want the bar to be so high that it becomes a condition of doing business,” Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said last week at an industry conference here sponsored by the AFCEA and the U.S.Naval Institute.

Shanahan noted that CEOs would likely be hesitant to “sign a cyber disclosure statement that says everybody you do business with is secure.”

“In areas of safety, protecting your workers, in terms of protecting our data or protecting their information, there should be this standard,” he said after the speech.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.defenseone.com/business/2018/02/pentagon-warns-ceos-protect-your-data-or-lose-our-contracts/145779

A partner organization at Georgia Tech has resources and solutions to help contractors comply with DoD’s cybersecurity requirements.  Find them here: http://gtpac.org/cybersecurity-training-video/ 

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: cyber, cyber attacks, cyberattacks, DoD, information security

September 11, 2014 By AMK

GTRI’s open source intelligence gathering system aggregates threat information to warn of possible cyber attacks

Coordinating distributed denial-of-service attacks, displaying new malware code, offering advice about network break-ins and posting stolen information – these are just a few of the online activities of cyber-criminals. Fortunately, activities like these can provide cyber-security specialists with advance warning of pending attacks and information about what hackers and other bad actors are planning.

Gathering and understanding this cyber-intelligence is the work of BlackForest, a new open source intelligence gathering system developed by information security specialists at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI). By using such information to create a threat picture, BlackForest complements other GTRI systems designed to help corporations, government agencies and nonprofit organizations battle increasingly-sophisticated threats to their networks.

GTRI logo“BlackForest is on the cutting edge of anticipating attacks that may be coming,” said Christopher Smoak, a research scientist in GTRI’s Emerging Threats and Countermeasures Division. “We gather and connect information collected from a variety of sources to draw conclusions on how people are interacting. This can drive development of a threat picture that may provide pre-attack information to organizations that may not even know they are being targeted.”

The system collects information from the public Internet, including hacker forums and other sites where malware authors and others gather. Connecting the information and relating it to past activities can let organizations know they are being targeted and help them understand the nature of the threat, allowing them to prepare for specific types of attacks. Once attacks have taken place, BlackForest can help organizations identify the source and mechanism so they can beef up their security.

Organizing distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks is a good example of how the system can be helpful, Smoak noted. DDoS attacks typically involve thousands of people who use the same computer tool to flood corporate websites with so much traffic that customers can’t get through. The attacks hurt business, harm the organization’s reputation, bring down servers – and can serve as a diversion for other types of nefarious activity.

But they have to be coordinated using social media and other means to enlist supporters. BlackForest can tap into that information to provide a warning that may allow an organization to, for example, ramp up its ability to handle large volumes of traffic.

“We want to provide something that is predictive for organizations,” said Ryan Spanier, head of GTRI’s Threat Intelligence Branch. “They will know that if they see certain things happening, they may need to take action to protect their networks.”

Malware authors often post new code to advertise its availability, seek feedback from other writers and mentor others. Analyzing that code can provide advance warning of malware innovations that will need to be addressed in the future.

“If we see a tool pop up written by a person who has been an important figure in the malware community, that lets us know to begin working to mitigate the new malware that may appear down the road,” Smoak said.

Organizations also need to track what’s being made available in certain forums and websites. When a company’s intellectual property starts showing up online, that may be the first sign that a network has been compromised. Large numbers of credit card numbers, or logins and passwords, can show that a website or computer system of a retail organization has been breached.

“You have to monitor what’s out in the wild that your company or organization owns,” said Spanier. “If you have something of value, you will be attacked. Not all attacks are successful, but nearly all companies have some computers that have been compromised in one way or another. You want to find out about these as soon as possible.”

Monitoring comments on websites can also reveal what kinds of security reputations organizations may have. If the advice is to avoid a particular organization because previous attacks have failed, that can give an organization a sense that its security is good. Attackers often seek the easiest targets, Spanier noted.

Individual organizations could gather the kinds of information monitored by BlackForest, but few organizations have the resources to connect the information. GTRI customizes the system to gather information specific to each user and their industry segment.

“The average organization doesn’t have the means to crawl all of this data and put together the complex algorithms needed to identify the useful information,” Smoak explained. “Because we have the environment and the connectivity, we have what we need to obtain this information.”

By automating much of the work involved in gathering and monitoring information, BlackForest can allow human resources to be used for more challenging information security activities.

“Our goal is to have tools that will help focus the resources so that the most valuable resources are used for the more difficult issues,” said Smoak. “Right now, we tend to find all kinds of security fires the same. This will help us focus on the most important threats.”

BlackForest joins two other GTRI cyber-security systems already available. Apiary is a malware intelligence system that helps corporate and government security officials share information about the attacks they are fighting. Phalanx helps fight the spear phishing attacks that are carried out by tricking email recipients to open malware-infected attachments or follow malicious web links.

Source: http://gtri.gatech.edu/casestudy/blackforest-gtri-aggregates-cyber-threat-informati

Filed Under: Georgia Tech News Tagged With: cybersecurity, denial-of-service, Georgia Tech, GTRI, information security, intelligence gathering, malware, open source, security

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