I usually use this blog to talk about general security related issues, but on this special occasion, I’d like to tell you all about a new book of mine that just came out.
Even though I’ve been a writer for almost 15 years, this is my first published book, and it’s also good news for many users of UAG, IAG or eGap users, as this is the 1st public book about these products.
For those who never heard of these products, UAG is the latest member of a line of secure remote-access products. It was originally developed by Whale Communications from Israel, which was purchased by Microsoft in 2006. In 2007, the previous version named IAG (Intelligent Application Gateway) was released, and a few months ago, UAG (Unified Access Gateway) was released as part of the Forefront family of security products.
The book itself is not really finished – I still have a few more chapters to write, but the publisher has released the first three chapters as something they call RAW (short for Read As we Write). It’s like a Beta version – readers can get it right now, way before the book is officially out, and also make comments or suggestions to it. This is a great honor for me, of course, as the publisher only releases into RAW books that are very well written, and can stand their ground without significant edits.
Even though the book is about UAG, a lot of it also applies to IAG, and even eGap. It’s written specifically for the UAG beginner, and starts with basic concepts and design. It then goes through advanced configurations and troubleshooting, as well as Direct Access. It does not, however, cover advanced scenarios like ADFS or customizations.
Interested? I hope so…go ahead and look at:
https://www.packtpub.com/microsoft-forefront-uag-2010-administrators-handbook/book
Monday, August 2, 2010
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Automan
An old boss of mine used to say that his best employees are the laziest, because they create automation to do their job, and automation reduces human error. Since human error is one of the leading causes of security breaches, this also means that using automation appropriately could not only serve to free up time, but also reduce your exposure and boost your security.
Granted, developing automation can be a pain. It sometimes takes days of development and testing, but the benefits are fantastic. For example, one of the most common security pain points out there are user accounts. Every time an employee joins the company, you have to create an account, create a random password, fill in all the account details, assign the user to various groups, and finally, convey the appropriate information to the user securely. If an employee leaves, it’s even worse, because you have to close out the account with very precise timing, to make sure the ex-employee doesn’t get locked out prematurely, but also not be able to connect from home after leaving his position. The worst are role-changes, which require you to carefully clean-up the account of unnecessary permissions, to make sure the employee can’t abuse the rights he had in the past.
When you need to do this on a routine basis, within a few days, you would be able to perform such tasks almost blindly. Like driving a car, this is what we refer to as “over-learned activity”. After a while, we tend to feel confident enough to chew a sandwich while doing it, talk on the phone or installing a server (talking about the network here…not installing a server while driving a car), and that’s where the little mistakes creep in. We might send the password to the wrong person; add the user to a group that has too many permissions, or worse. I’ve met an engineer who once, absentmindedly, misspelled the first name of a person named Bart as…well…you can guess. That guy got some chewing, but he might as well have exposed his network to attackers if his absentmindedness led somewhere else.
If you’re lucky, perhaps your company is rich enough to afford identity management software, but the costs of such suites and their adoption is immense. If so, why not write up your own automation? A VBScript, ASP page, PERL script or sometimes even a Batch file can save you tons of tedious work. If you’re thinking to yourself “heck…I ain’t no programmer!” you might be selling yourself short. Some tasks are so simple to achieve in VBScript and Batch that you can achieve this almost instantly. For example, a script to generate a random password in VBScript is so simple. Here’s a clever and tight one by Martijn Haverhoek http://www.haverhoek.nl/index.php?/archives/36-Random-password-generator-vbscript.html . Here’s another one, written in JavaScript: http://blazonry.com/javascript/password.php . With time and patience, a script can be written to automate almost the entire process of creating and deleting user accounts, as well as other administration tasks.
Even when using automation, mistakes can still happen, but by shortening the processes, it makes them less tedious and encourage performing them with more attention and focus. Another advantage is that it may allow you to delegate some tasks to your subordinates (knowing that there is less things for them to mess-up) or to your colleagues when you go on leave. Even if you are a decision maker and will never get into programming, you can still benefit your organization by hiring or contracting someone to develop some automation for you. Start simply by thinking which processes are performed routinely, and which are the most annoying or tedious. From then on…the sky’s the limit!
Granted, developing automation can be a pain. It sometimes takes days of development and testing, but the benefits are fantastic. For example, one of the most common security pain points out there are user accounts. Every time an employee joins the company, you have to create an account, create a random password, fill in all the account details, assign the user to various groups, and finally, convey the appropriate information to the user securely. If an employee leaves, it’s even worse, because you have to close out the account with very precise timing, to make sure the ex-employee doesn’t get locked out prematurely, but also not be able to connect from home after leaving his position. The worst are role-changes, which require you to carefully clean-up the account of unnecessary permissions, to make sure the employee can’t abuse the rights he had in the past.
When you need to do this on a routine basis, within a few days, you would be able to perform such tasks almost blindly. Like driving a car, this is what we refer to as “over-learned activity”. After a while, we tend to feel confident enough to chew a sandwich while doing it, talk on the phone or installing a server (talking about the network here…not installing a server while driving a car), and that’s where the little mistakes creep in. We might send the password to the wrong person; add the user to a group that has too many permissions, or worse. I’ve met an engineer who once, absentmindedly, misspelled the first name of a person named Bart as…well…you can guess. That guy got some chewing, but he might as well have exposed his network to attackers if his absentmindedness led somewhere else.
If you’re lucky, perhaps your company is rich enough to afford identity management software, but the costs of such suites and their adoption is immense. If so, why not write up your own automation? A VBScript, ASP page, PERL script or sometimes even a Batch file can save you tons of tedious work. If you’re thinking to yourself “heck…I ain’t no programmer!” you might be selling yourself short. Some tasks are so simple to achieve in VBScript and Batch that you can achieve this almost instantly. For example, a script to generate a random password in VBScript is so simple. Here’s a clever and tight one by Martijn Haverhoek http://www.haverhoek.nl/index.php?/archives/36-Random-password-generator-vbscript.html . Here’s another one, written in JavaScript: http://blazonry.com/javascript/password.php . With time and patience, a script can be written to automate almost the entire process of creating and deleting user accounts, as well as other administration tasks.
Even when using automation, mistakes can still happen, but by shortening the processes, it makes them less tedious and encourage performing them with more attention and focus. Another advantage is that it may allow you to delegate some tasks to your subordinates (knowing that there is less things for them to mess-up) or to your colleagues when you go on leave. Even if you are a decision maker and will never get into programming, you can still benefit your organization by hiring or contracting someone to develop some automation for you. Start simply by thinking which processes are performed routinely, and which are the most annoying or tedious. From then on…the sky’s the limit!
Monday, October 19, 2009
Chain of events
When thinking about security, one of the things that are hardest to grasp is the way things are linked together, and of course, the ingenuity of criminals. One small thing can lead to disasterous results in ways a normal person could not even imagine.
For example, a well known story is about a family that went to a public event, and parked their car in the parking lot, like everybody else. The car was a piece of junk, so there was no reason to steal it, and therefore, the owners didn’t install any protection. When thieves broke into it, they weren’t even interested in the car itself, but instead, they stole the GPS that was in it. No…they didn’t want the $50 they could hawk it for, but instead, they just put it in their own vehicle, and pressed “go home”. Thirty minutes later, they were in the driveway of the car’s owner, and entered the house using the remote they also found in the car. I guess there’s no need to detail the resulting mess.
There are several preventative measures to prevent this kind of thing (the simplest would be to set the HOME location on the GPS at a point that’s actually a mile or two from home, or not at all), but the point is that everything can be used for bad deeds, even if it is worthless in itself. Knowing where you work, for example, will allow a clever social engineering hacker to squeeze some info from your co-workers. For example, when you are going on vacation (which would be a good time to hit your house) or what days you stay late at the office.
What can you do about this? Unfortunately, not enough. The criminal mind thinks differently than us, normal people, and even amongst the crooks, there are the more devious kind. A good practice is simply to pretend to be a bad guy for a day. Sit in your car outside your home or office, and try to come up with a way to break in. Sit at your computer, and think how YOU can bust into your boss’s computer, and then try to figure out how you would block him from doing the same to you. Some of us just can’t do it – too old to think outside the box, but you might also try having your kids suggest thoughts.
For example, a well known story is about a family that went to a public event, and parked their car in the parking lot, like everybody else. The car was a piece of junk, so there was no reason to steal it, and therefore, the owners didn’t install any protection. When thieves broke into it, they weren’t even interested in the car itself, but instead, they stole the GPS that was in it. No…they didn’t want the $50 they could hawk it for, but instead, they just put it in their own vehicle, and pressed “go home”. Thirty minutes later, they were in the driveway of the car’s owner, and entered the house using the remote they also found in the car. I guess there’s no need to detail the resulting mess.
There are several preventative measures to prevent this kind of thing (the simplest would be to set the HOME location on the GPS at a point that’s actually a mile or two from home, or not at all), but the point is that everything can be used for bad deeds, even if it is worthless in itself. Knowing where you work, for example, will allow a clever social engineering hacker to squeeze some info from your co-workers. For example, when you are going on vacation (which would be a good time to hit your house) or what days you stay late at the office.
What can you do about this? Unfortunately, not enough. The criminal mind thinks differently than us, normal people, and even amongst the crooks, there are the more devious kind. A good practice is simply to pretend to be a bad guy for a day. Sit in your car outside your home or office, and try to come up with a way to break in. Sit at your computer, and think how YOU can bust into your boss’s computer, and then try to figure out how you would block him from doing the same to you. Some of us just can’t do it – too old to think outside the box, but you might also try having your kids suggest thoughts.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Cloudy weather
There’s been a lot of talk in the industry recently about software-as-a-service, hosted services and cloud computing. Getting rid of the burden of managing servers and messing around with hardware seem charming, and has a lot of financial and administrative advantages, but is it SAFE?
Well, most of the stuff I write about here warns people that this or that is more dangerous than it appears, but this time, it’s quite the opposite. Cloud technology is actually is safer than the alternative in most configurations.
The thing about hosting services is that it takes away the hardest thing to control – physical security. I discussed this in my blog about thin clients – a physical computer or storage container is a sensitive thing. Cell phones and laptop theft is pretty obvious, but standard servers are also sensitive to some abuse. Even though most companies keep the servers in a secure room, not everyone can afford proper security, and even when a company can, the design is often imperfect because IT personnel are rarely trained in physical security. They might think a cardkey lock is secure, forgetting that the glass door or windows can be easily broken. They might setup alarms, but not be able to afford an onsite guard that can react fast enough in case of burglary. They might install smoke detectors, but miss out on proper fire extinguishers or water drainage infrastructure.
Also, having your own servers require some serious maintenance. AV updates need to be monitored, software updates installed, and security hardening needs to be done, and kept up regularly. Even though technologies like SMS are easily available, many companies don’t get them because of costs, and even with them, the massive resources on servers are a major honey pot. Many sysadmins are tempted to put some of their MP3s or movies “temporarily” on the file server, simply because it’s an easy plug until they come up with the cash to expand their own HD. Having this type of data would often be overlooked, but it may also expose the company to legal challenges or a virus infection.
While cloud technology is not yet perfect, and certainly does not fit every client or every scenario, it can have an important boost for the company’s security. Naturally, attention has to be given here as well, as a small or Startup Company that delivers hosted solutions might be riddled with the same problems, but with some major players entering the market in recent months, this is a great opportunity to get secure while reducing costs.
Well, most of the stuff I write about here warns people that this or that is more dangerous than it appears, but this time, it’s quite the opposite. Cloud technology is actually is safer than the alternative in most configurations.
The thing about hosting services is that it takes away the hardest thing to control – physical security. I discussed this in my blog about thin clients – a physical computer or storage container is a sensitive thing. Cell phones and laptop theft is pretty obvious, but standard servers are also sensitive to some abuse. Even though most companies keep the servers in a secure room, not everyone can afford proper security, and even when a company can, the design is often imperfect because IT personnel are rarely trained in physical security. They might think a cardkey lock is secure, forgetting that the glass door or windows can be easily broken. They might setup alarms, but not be able to afford an onsite guard that can react fast enough in case of burglary. They might install smoke detectors, but miss out on proper fire extinguishers or water drainage infrastructure.
Also, having your own servers require some serious maintenance. AV updates need to be monitored, software updates installed, and security hardening needs to be done, and kept up regularly. Even though technologies like SMS are easily available, many companies don’t get them because of costs, and even with them, the massive resources on servers are a major honey pot. Many sysadmins are tempted to put some of their MP3s or movies “temporarily” on the file server, simply because it’s an easy plug until they come up with the cash to expand their own HD. Having this type of data would often be overlooked, but it may also expose the company to legal challenges or a virus infection.
While cloud technology is not yet perfect, and certainly does not fit every client or every scenario, it can have an important boost for the company’s security. Naturally, attention has to be given here as well, as a small or Startup Company that delivers hosted solutions might be riddled with the same problems, but with some major players entering the market in recent months, this is a great opportunity to get secure while reducing costs.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Is it safe to talk?
the short answer is NO, but the longer one depends a lot on you. Voice mail systems are pretty much standard all around, but few people realize what a security risk they can pose. On the surface, a phone seems pretty harmless. What are they going to do? Leave me a threatening message? Well, maybe, but that's not the danger.
Most people choose to leave a custom voice message on their voice mailbox. Something like "Hi, you've reached James Voca, IT manager for Pirulo systems. Please leave your message and I'll call you back" seems pretty ordinary, doesn't it? Well, for an employee giving you a call, it is, but if someone outside calls in, you just informed him or her which company it is, what's the name of the IT Manager, and how he sounds like. In the wrong hands, this data is very valuable. A type of hacking known as "Social Engineering" focuses on using peoples tendency to behave socially can use exactly that. A social engineering hacker would typically call employees of the company on the phone, and try to get them to give out sensitive data or access. With the info from this mailbox, the hacker can pretend to be the IT Manager, and influence others. Many users will recognize the high ranking position holder and tell/do anything he wants. They would give him their passwords, let him take over their computer remotely and more. Here's a scenario:
Hacker: Hi Jane. This is James from IT. I'm at home and late for meeting - do you mind if I log into your machine to get a PPT I really need?
Jane: Sure, James
Hacker: Cool. I'm sending you an Email with a link - just click it and I'll be in and out in a minute.
Outcome: Hacker can implant a backdoor on Jane's computer, or just use it to get access to some sensitive internal servers.
How about another scenario:
Hacker: Hi Scott. This is James from IT. A guy from HB is coming in to pick up my laptop for repair - be sure to let him through, OK?
Scott (security guard): Sure thing, James.
Outcome: The hacker can waltz in the building, grab some laptop and disappear with it, causing both financial damage and possibly stealing important data from the computer.
This is not the only danger, of course. Most modern voice mail systems let people access them remotely. You would typically call yourself, punch in some PIN and can listen to your messages. Many people don't want to remember complicated numbers, and set the PIN at 0000, 1234 or the default (which is often one of these too). When this happens, anyone else can call into the voice mail, guess that number and listen to your messages. These would usually be just some nagging from your Bank, but they could also contain sensitive info. For example, it could be a message from your doctor about your blood work, a message from a vendor talking about things you purchased or worse. A hacker that knows how you sound like, and that you've just ordered 10 servers from Deck.com can call them, quote back some "secret" info from the message, and divert the goods to his house. He can also call you, pretend to be the vendor and get you to let him in the building with the "servers", and a good opportunity to do some damage.
The lesson here is simple - don't think that the voicemail system is safe, just because it's not connected to your computer. In fact, your own answering machine at home could expose you personally to some dangerous elements. Does your message sound like "Hi, you've reached the Smith family at 2245 lake drive"? You're just inviting people to come over and clean up your house. I recommend taking four measures:
1) Have your PIN secure - no simple numbers, but ones that are chosen carefully, changed frequently and aren't easy to guess
2) Have your message give as little info as possible. A good one could be "Hi, you've reached Jack - please leave a message". Same thing at home - "You've reached the Cole residents, please leave a message".
3) Listen to your messages frequently, and delete them. right away. Don't leave messages to linger on your phone from Friday afternoon to Sunday noon.
4) When you are leaving messages to others, whether you are a vendor, a client, a boss or a subordinate, keep in mind that you can never know the level of security the other side keeps. Treat a message left like a note left on the door - others may read it. Keep sensitive info out of the message, and just call back later.
Most people choose to leave a custom voice message on their voice mailbox. Something like "Hi, you've reached James Voca, IT manager for Pirulo systems. Please leave your message and I'll call you back" seems pretty ordinary, doesn't it? Well, for an employee giving you a call, it is, but if someone outside calls in, you just informed him or her which company it is, what's the name of the IT Manager, and how he sounds like. In the wrong hands, this data is very valuable. A type of hacking known as "Social Engineering" focuses on using peoples tendency to behave socially can use exactly that. A social engineering hacker would typically call employees of the company on the phone, and try to get them to give out sensitive data or access. With the info from this mailbox, the hacker can pretend to be the IT Manager, and influence others. Many users will recognize the high ranking position holder and tell/do anything he wants. They would give him their passwords, let him take over their computer remotely and more. Here's a scenario:
Hacker: Hi Jane. This is James from IT. I'm at home and late for meeting - do you mind if I log into your machine to get a PPT I really need?
Jane: Sure, James
Hacker: Cool. I'm sending you an Email with a link - just click it and I'll be in and out in a minute.
Outcome: Hacker can implant a backdoor on Jane's computer, or just use it to get access to some sensitive internal servers.
How about another scenario:
Hacker: Hi Scott. This is James from IT. A guy from HB is coming in to pick up my laptop for repair - be sure to let him through, OK?
Scott (security guard): Sure thing, James.
Outcome: The hacker can waltz in the building, grab some laptop and disappear with it, causing both financial damage and possibly stealing important data from the computer.
This is not the only danger, of course. Most modern voice mail systems let people access them remotely. You would typically call yourself, punch in some PIN and can listen to your messages. Many people don't want to remember complicated numbers, and set the PIN at 0000, 1234 or the default (which is often one of these too). When this happens, anyone else can call into the voice mail, guess that number and listen to your messages. These would usually be just some nagging from your Bank, but they could also contain sensitive info. For example, it could be a message from your doctor about your blood work, a message from a vendor talking about things you purchased or worse. A hacker that knows how you sound like, and that you've just ordered 10 servers from Deck.com can call them, quote back some "secret" info from the message, and divert the goods to his house. He can also call you, pretend to be the vendor and get you to let him in the building with the "servers", and a good opportunity to do some damage.
The lesson here is simple - don't think that the voicemail system is safe, just because it's not connected to your computer. In fact, your own answering machine at home could expose you personally to some dangerous elements. Does your message sound like "Hi, you've reached the Smith family at 2245 lake drive"? You're just inviting people to come over and clean up your house. I recommend taking four measures:
1) Have your PIN secure - no simple numbers, but ones that are chosen carefully, changed frequently and aren't easy to guess
2) Have your message give as little info as possible. A good one could be "Hi, you've reached Jack - please leave a message". Same thing at home - "You've reached the Cole residents, please leave a message".
3) Listen to your messages frequently, and delete them. right away. Don't leave messages to linger on your phone from Friday afternoon to Sunday noon.
4) When you are leaving messages to others, whether you are a vendor, a client, a boss or a subordinate, keep in mind that you can never know the level of security the other side keeps. Treat a message left like a note left on the door - others may read it. Keep sensitive info out of the message, and just call back later.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
The ups and downs of backing up
My experience is that any and every user appreciates the importance of backing up your stuff, but when it comes to actually doing it, almost nobody does it, and even some large organizations are failing at it. Backup failure isn't necessarily "not doing it at all", but can also mean that it's done improperly. A proper backup is such that a person or organization will never, under any circumstances, lose more than a day's worth of work. Before we even go there, I should stress one important fact - many users, and even experienced system engineers often confuse between backup and archive. Backup is when you copy your current data to another storage medium, so that if something happens to the original, you can restore it and not lose anything. Archiving is similar, but opposite - you copy your data to another storage medium, and then delete the original.
For example, many people burn DVDs with their older files and delete the originals, and most of them consider this a backup. This is, in fact, an archive, but few people are aware that a recordable DVD has a limited lifespan, and is very sensitive to physical harm. Putting your photos on a DVD and stowing it in the closet is not safer than storing food in the trunk of your car. Often, we discover this only in hind-site, when trying to recover a file from a disc burned 3 years ago, only to discover that it's partially or completely unreadable.
I believe network engineers won't need to read this, so I'm addressing this to the home user, mostly. For a backup to be worth anything, it has to meet some basic principles:
1) It has to be done to a media with at least SOME reliability.
2) It has to be done frequently.
3) It has to be stored in a place that is safe, but not too unreachable.
4) It has to be tested routinely.
What does all this mean? Well, 1st, this means you should not use a media that's unreliable. A writeable DVD, for example, has a low reliability rating, while a hard drive has more. That's not to say that a hard drive is bulletproof, but it's usually more reliable, and also easier to detect if it fails. This is because if it dies, you would usually be able to hear it, and respond by replacing it, while if a DVD stops being readable, you'll only find out when you put it in the drive. A high level tape drive, like an LTO or DLT is also very reliable, although these babies start at a few hundred dollars, so would be off the table even for some business customers.
A frequent backup is also important. Many users start this with full intentions of going all the way, but after a while, they kind'a give it up, and forget to backup for weeks or even months. Typically, you remember to do it right after your hard drive crashes, of course. A good way to avoid this pothole is to setup some automatic backup mechanism. If you use an external drive, for example, this can be done rather easily, and many external drives even come with the software. If not, Windows has a built in backup mechanism which is quite effective (especially the one that's in Windows 7!).
3rdly, if a lightning strikes your house, or a fire breaks out, the backup won't do you much good if you leave the DVDs next to the computer or leave the external drive connected. One should strive to keep the backup as far away as possible from the computer, although not too far. If you store it across town, you might have a good excuse to forget to backup. Also, if it's that far, you might become too lazy to drive over and get a file if you need it. A good solution could be to have a reciprocal agreement with a neighbor - you hold their drive during the week, and they hold yours. If you have an detached garage or storage shed, this could be good too (although, take care to prevent the drive from freezing or getting too much humidity).
Lastly, a backup that's untested will often fail you at the worst possible moment. You might discover that it hasn't actually run for over a month, or that some files are unreadable. A good practice is to test the backup around once a month. If you have a calendar like Outlook, you can use it to remind yourself to check it now and then.
One more thing - many people feel that buying a large drive just to store backup on is wasteful. In a way, that's true, but if you want to save some money there, you might consider getting a refurbished drive. These are inherently less reliable, but since you can easily detect if it stops working, it could be a suitable solution anyway. Also, keep in mind that you can activate folder-compression on it, as performance is less of an issue, and so use a drive smaller than your main one.
For example, many people burn DVDs with their older files and delete the originals, and most of them consider this a backup. This is, in fact, an archive, but few people are aware that a recordable DVD has a limited lifespan, and is very sensitive to physical harm. Putting your photos on a DVD and stowing it in the closet is not safer than storing food in the trunk of your car. Often, we discover this only in hind-site, when trying to recover a file from a disc burned 3 years ago, only to discover that it's partially or completely unreadable.
I believe network engineers won't need to read this, so I'm addressing this to the home user, mostly. For a backup to be worth anything, it has to meet some basic principles:
1) It has to be done to a media with at least SOME reliability.
2) It has to be done frequently.
3) It has to be stored in a place that is safe, but not too unreachable.
4) It has to be tested routinely.
What does all this mean? Well, 1st, this means you should not use a media that's unreliable. A writeable DVD, for example, has a low reliability rating, while a hard drive has more. That's not to say that a hard drive is bulletproof, but it's usually more reliable, and also easier to detect if it fails. This is because if it dies, you would usually be able to hear it, and respond by replacing it, while if a DVD stops being readable, you'll only find out when you put it in the drive. A high level tape drive, like an LTO or DLT is also very reliable, although these babies start at a few hundred dollars, so would be off the table even for some business customers.
A frequent backup is also important. Many users start this with full intentions of going all the way, but after a while, they kind'a give it up, and forget to backup for weeks or even months. Typically, you remember to do it right after your hard drive crashes, of course. A good way to avoid this pothole is to setup some automatic backup mechanism. If you use an external drive, for example, this can be done rather easily, and many external drives even come with the software. If not, Windows has a built in backup mechanism which is quite effective (especially the one that's in Windows 7!).
3rdly, if a lightning strikes your house, or a fire breaks out, the backup won't do you much good if you leave the DVDs next to the computer or leave the external drive connected. One should strive to keep the backup as far away as possible from the computer, although not too far. If you store it across town, you might have a good excuse to forget to backup. Also, if it's that far, you might become too lazy to drive over and get a file if you need it. A good solution could be to have a reciprocal agreement with a neighbor - you hold their drive during the week, and they hold yours. If you have an detached garage or storage shed, this could be good too (although, take care to prevent the drive from freezing or getting too much humidity).
Lastly, a backup that's untested will often fail you at the worst possible moment. You might discover that it hasn't actually run for over a month, or that some files are unreadable. A good practice is to test the backup around once a month. If you have a calendar like Outlook, you can use it to remind yourself to check it now and then.
One more thing - many people feel that buying a large drive just to store backup on is wasteful. In a way, that's true, but if you want to save some money there, you might consider getting a refurbished drive. These are inherently less reliable, but since you can easily detect if it stops working, it could be a suitable solution anyway. Also, keep in mind that you can activate folder-compression on it, as performance is less of an issue, and so use a drive smaller than your main one.
Monday, June 8, 2009
This car has more than 9 Lives
Most of us obsess about retaining our data - we buy large hard drives, burn countless DVDs and protect it all with RAID controllers and UPS devices. What many people care much less about is making sure that discarded data is really gone. How many times have you thrown a dead hard disk in the trash, wiping a tear for your lost files? Did you consider that a person with sufficient technical skill may grab it from the trash, recover the data and make some coins off it?
Well, the issue of data destruction has been the center of much debate. Most people are already aware that deleting a file doesn't really erase it - it simply deletes the reference to the file in the disks directory (I'm talking about actually deleting, not moving it to the trash, which doesn't delete anything), while the data is still there, untouched. A file that has been deleted can be re-created simply by finding it's 1st sector, and creating a file entry that points to it. Once you delete a file, it can be overwritten by windows, as it the system creates new files. the new files might overwrite some or all of the file's original sectors, which are now marked as free, but these sectors can also remain untouched for years.
Some people will go the distance, and actually format the hard drive before throwing it away, but this too is not sufficient. Restoring a formatted drive is more time consuming, but certainly possible. The US Department of defense probed this issue in the past, and produced a standard, known as DOD standard 5220.22, that instructs exactly what to do to erase data properly. Later on, there was some debate as to this was safe enough. Some expert claimed that you would need to overwrite the data over a dozen times, and that has been misquoted repeatedly in the press since then.
Security experts are very much concerned about erasing data securely. A company cannot risk it's commercial data falling into the wrong hands simply because somebody was too lazy and took a shortcut with the disk. Same goes for other types of media - DVDs, backup tapes etc. Even a lost cell phone could present a serious security breach, as it could include phone numbers of sensitive customers, sensitive emails or meetings etc. I would like to take this opportunity to debunk some myths about data destruction.
1) Hard drive demolition derby.
• A common method of destroying disks, by punching a hold through them, or banging them strongly with a hammer is far from secure. It's not easy to recover in this condition, but it's certainly possible.
• With modern IDE and SATA disks, using a 5220.22 secure erase software is very safe. there's no need to overwrite everything dozens of times. The need for that kind of rewrites referred to some very old MFM drives.
• Using software erasure is pretty slow, but it can be done unattended, so setting up some dedicated old computer for that is pretty easy. Just make sure no one tries to steal the old drives from that station.
• A very effective way to destroy a disk is to take it apart, and separate the plates from the other components. Dumping the plates in a different trash facility makes it pretty much impossible to recover.
• There is a technique that allows data recovery off a drive in almost any condition, but that process is so lengthy and expensive, that most experts would consider it irrelevant. Recovering data from a disk that was physically destroyed would cost so much time and money, that even government agencies don't bother with it.
• Take care to monitor old computers - many times people upgrade the disk and don't think of giving the old disk back to the IT group for sanitation. Some even take the old disks home, thereby exposing the company to huge risks. This also goes for computers that are being retired - don't sell them to 3rd party companies without either sanitizing them, or making sure that the buying company commits with a contract to do this to ALL disks.
2) Other media types:
• Recovering data off other media types, such as tapes, CDs, floppy's etc is rather easy, but these media types are also much easier to destroy. Even a little heat can totally kill an optical disc, and a strong magnet can kill a tape almost instantly. I would, however, recommend a process is used for this - don't just break a CD, and don't pop it in the oven - use a CD shredder, which costs very little these days.
• Users often overlook CDs as a potential security risk, and often throw them in the trash. A security officer would be wise to issue a recurring reminder to all employees to collect discarded CDs and DVDs and have the IT or security department dispose of them securely. This goes not only for data disks, but also software - if someone finds and uses an old copy of windows for illegal purposes, with the company's serial number, it could lead back to the company and carry legal repercussions.
• Many people carry around USB drives to take a file or two back-and-forth from/to home. This is a big risk as these drives rarely get formatted, and often are lost. I would recommend any organization introduce a security mechanism to block such devices altogether, or at least control them with a policy (for example, require to have them signed by corporate security before they are allowed in)
Well, the issue of data destruction has been the center of much debate. Most people are already aware that deleting a file doesn't really erase it - it simply deletes the reference to the file in the disks directory (I'm talking about actually deleting, not moving it to the trash, which doesn't delete anything), while the data is still there, untouched. A file that has been deleted can be re-created simply by finding it's 1st sector, and creating a file entry that points to it. Once you delete a file, it can be overwritten by windows, as it the system creates new files. the new files might overwrite some or all of the file's original sectors, which are now marked as free, but these sectors can also remain untouched for years.
Some people will go the distance, and actually format the hard drive before throwing it away, but this too is not sufficient. Restoring a formatted drive is more time consuming, but certainly possible. The US Department of defense probed this issue in the past, and produced a standard, known as DOD standard 5220.22, that instructs exactly what to do to erase data properly. Later on, there was some debate as to this was safe enough. Some expert claimed that you would need to overwrite the data over a dozen times, and that has been misquoted repeatedly in the press since then.
Security experts are very much concerned about erasing data securely. A company cannot risk it's commercial data falling into the wrong hands simply because somebody was too lazy and took a shortcut with the disk. Same goes for other types of media - DVDs, backup tapes etc. Even a lost cell phone could present a serious security breach, as it could include phone numbers of sensitive customers, sensitive emails or meetings etc. I would like to take this opportunity to debunk some myths about data destruction.
1) Hard drive demolition derby.
• A common method of destroying disks, by punching a hold through them, or banging them strongly with a hammer is far from secure. It's not easy to recover in this condition, but it's certainly possible.
• With modern IDE and SATA disks, using a 5220.22 secure erase software is very safe. there's no need to overwrite everything dozens of times. The need for that kind of rewrites referred to some very old MFM drives.
• Using software erasure is pretty slow, but it can be done unattended, so setting up some dedicated old computer for that is pretty easy. Just make sure no one tries to steal the old drives from that station.
• A very effective way to destroy a disk is to take it apart, and separate the plates from the other components. Dumping the plates in a different trash facility makes it pretty much impossible to recover.
• There is a technique that allows data recovery off a drive in almost any condition, but that process is so lengthy and expensive, that most experts would consider it irrelevant. Recovering data from a disk that was physically destroyed would cost so much time and money, that even government agencies don't bother with it.
• Take care to monitor old computers - many times people upgrade the disk and don't think of giving the old disk back to the IT group for sanitation. Some even take the old disks home, thereby exposing the company to huge risks. This also goes for computers that are being retired - don't sell them to 3rd party companies without either sanitizing them, or making sure that the buying company commits with a contract to do this to ALL disks.
2) Other media types:
• Recovering data off other media types, such as tapes, CDs, floppy's etc is rather easy, but these media types are also much easier to destroy. Even a little heat can totally kill an optical disc, and a strong magnet can kill a tape almost instantly. I would, however, recommend a process is used for this - don't just break a CD, and don't pop it in the oven - use a CD shredder, which costs very little these days.
• Users often overlook CDs as a potential security risk, and often throw them in the trash. A security officer would be wise to issue a recurring reminder to all employees to collect discarded CDs and DVDs and have the IT or security department dispose of them securely. This goes not only for data disks, but also software - if someone finds and uses an old copy of windows for illegal purposes, with the company's serial number, it could lead back to the company and carry legal repercussions.
• Many people carry around USB drives to take a file or two back-and-forth from/to home. This is a big risk as these drives rarely get formatted, and often are lost. I would recommend any organization introduce a security mechanism to block such devices altogether, or at least control them with a policy (for example, require to have them signed by corporate security before they are allowed in)
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