Visibility Gap of Your Security Tools
I have been focusing on visibility lately and often specifically on gaps. Visibility gaps demand the attention of every cybersecurity professional. Success often hinges on how quickly these gaps get closed. The very act of which helps us achieve what they need the most - greater visibility. Solving for these gaps will equip us by catalyzing transformation. No need for Artificial Intelligence or Machine Learning, just an advanced persistent drive to close these visibility gaps!
I introduced this idea in a previous Diary Is Your SOC Flying Blind? This time, I want to focus on your security agents. Are they working and providing their intended value? How do you know? What would it look like to have an Agent Health Dashboard that answered two fundamental questions all day long:
Is the agent installed?
Is the agent performing its expected role?
I like to include practical ideas when I am the Handler. To that end, I developed several ideas across several diverse dimensions for you to consider. Perhaps next week, you will use this as a checklist to complete or perform a spot check.
Visibility for your developers and DBAs
Number of active sessions
Number of runaway sessions
Application performance metrics
Visibility for your physical security
Camera feeds
Badges that show to be both inside and outside of the building at the same time
Visibility for your networks
Netflow volume
Traffic volume
New ports and services
Trends over time for each
Visibility for your Servers and Workstations
Day log volume
Communication patterns
Lateral movement detection
Trends over time for each
Alert when devices stop sending their logs
Activity performed by administrators
Application question - What visibility gaps exist, and what can you do next week on purpose to close one of them? Please leave your ideas and suggestions in our comments box!
Russell Eubanks
Keywords: cyber visibility
2 comment(s)
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Comments
Anonymous
Jan 27th 2020
4 years ago
1. If the Antivirus or File Integrity Management settings have files or folders excluded from their oversight, those files or folders need to be covered somehow by a different process.
2. I've never met anyone who correlated the number of alarms sent by the tools to the number acknowledged or acted upon by the staff. If a class of alarms only goes to one person (in error), and they have those alarms sent to a sink hole, there's a problem. If the delivery mechanism is broken for a class of alarm notifications, you'll never notice unless this form of correlation is performed.
Anonymous
Jan 31st 2020
4 years ago