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Questions and Answers
What is one advantage of white-box pen testing over traditional black-box testing?
Manual source code review is particularly beneficial because it can uncover:
Which element is crucial for effective threat modeling?
What does the security analysis process aim to achieve?
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In threat modeling, what does a diagram-driven approach primarily involve?
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Why might tests conducted by product vendors before release be insufficient?
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What does vulnerability assessment typically involve?
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What role does a security model play in a system's design?
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What is the primary objective of threat modeling using attack trees?
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What does a leaf node in an attack tree represent?
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How can nodes in an attack tree be differentiated in terms of requirements?
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What does the iterative nature of attack tree methodology encourage?
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What role do attack trees play in shaping security policies?
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Who primarily benefits from the creative thinking encouraged by attack trees?
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What is a significant characteristic of attack paths in the context of threat modeling?
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Why is the brainstorming encouraged by attack trees considered semi-structured?
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What is one advantage of using fixed attack checklists in threat modeling?
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What is a disadvantage of using pre-constructed generic attack checklists?
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In the STRIDE threat modeling framework, what does 'Tampering' refer to?
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What key idea does the STRIDE framework encourage analysts to think about?
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What underlying issue does the hotel safebox example illustrate in threat modeling?
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What is a potential risk associated with over abstraction in threat modeling?
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Which of the following actions could lead to escalation of privilege?
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When should threat models ideally be updated?
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What is one major assumption made in Internet Threat Modeling?
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Which scenario illustrates a failure in threat modeling regarding online banking?
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Why is security considered unobservable?
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Which of the following is true about the testing aspect of security?
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What is a significant issue with traditional network perimeter defenses?
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What is a challenge related to assurance in security?
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What does the 'Secure' label in Google Chrome signify?
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What does the historic cryptographer's model address?
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What is the principle of 'Security-by-design' intended to achieve?
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Which factor complicates the deployment of security upgrades?
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What is a significant challenge posed by 'software complexity' to security?
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Why might low-cost security solutions often win out in the market?
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What is a reason user non-compliance undermines computer security mechanisms?
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Which of the following describes the 'defender-attacker asymmetry' in security?
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What factor relates to the 'missing context of danger and losses' in security breaches?
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How does market economics affect the development of security solutions?
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Study Notes
Pen Testing
- Traditionally black-box pen testing involves testing the system from the attacker's perspective with limited knowledge of the system.
- White-box pen testing exposes the internal workings of the system to testers, increasing the chances of finding vulnerabilities and allowing for better integration with overall security analysis.
- Product vendors' pre-release testing may not identify all vulnerabilities, especially those arising from customer-specific configurations and deployment environments.
Security Analysis
- Aims to identify vulnerabilities related to design and overlooked threats.
- Suggests ways to improve defenses when weaknesses are found.
- Ideally begins early in a product’s lifecycle and continues in parallel with design and implementation.
- Manual source code review can uncover vulnerabilities not apparent through black-box testing alone.
- Analysis should trace how existing defenses address identified threats and note any remaining unmitigated threats.
- Vulnerability assessment is the process of identifying weaknesses in already deployed systems, often including pen testing.
Security Model
- Relates system components to parts of a security policy.
- Can be explored to increase confidence that system requirements are met.
- Can be designed prior to defining policies.
Threat Model
- Identifies threats, threat agents, and attack vectors considered in scope, both known from the past and anticipated.
- Defines elements that are out of scope.
- Accounts for adversary modeling.
- Should identify and consider all assumptions made about the target system, environment, and attackers.
Threat Modeling: Diagram-Driven
- Starts with a visual architectural representation of the system.
- Draws a diagram showing system components and network links.
- Identifies and marks system gateways where system controls restrict or filter communications.
- Delimits trust domains to better understand trust assumptions.
- Encourages semi-structured brainstorming to generate a stream of questions and stimulate free thought about possible threats and attack vectors.
Threat Modeling: Attack Trees
- Used to identify attack vectors.
- Starts with a root node representing the overall attack goal.
- Lower nodes break down alternative ways to achieve the goal.
- Can illustrate the steps composing a full attack.
- Multiple children of a node represent distinct alternatives.
- Nodes can be annotated with details, costs, or other measures.
- Help classify attack vectors into known attack categories.
- Output an extensive list of possible attacks.
- Can help determine which attacks pose a real risk in the target system.
- Motivates security architects to “think like attackers”.
Threat Modeling: Attack Trees (Cont.)
- Attack trees can be used to prioritize attack vectors based on ease and relevant classes of adversaries.
- Encourage directed brainstorming and reduce ad-hoc-ness in threat modeling.
- Benefit from creative minds and require a skill that improves with experience.
- Best used iteratively, with the tree extended as needed.
Threat Modeling: Checklists
- Consult fixed attack checklists compiled from past experience.
- Advantages: Extensive checklists exist, ensuring well-known threats are not overlooked.
- May require less experience or provide better learning opportunities.
- Disadvantages: Pre-constructed generic lists contain attacks in generalized terms and may overlook threats relevant to particular environments and designs.
- Long checklists can be tedious and replace security analysts’ creativity with boredom.
- Checklists are best used as a complementary tool to other threat modeling schemes.
Threat Modeling: STRIDE
- Stands for Spoofing, Tampering, Repudiation, Information Disclosure, Denial of Service, and Escalation of Privilege.
- Augments the diagram-driven approach by asking "Where can things break?".
- Stimulates open-ended thoughts, guided by six keywords.
Model—Reality Gaps
- Threat modeling may be inaccurate, oversimplified, or focus on the wrong threats.
- Implicit trust and failure to record assumptions explicitly can lead to misplaced trust.
- Rapid technology evolution makes threat modeling accuracy difficult to maintain.
Examples of Failed Threat Modeling
- Disabling online bank transfers to protect compromised accounts may not prevent adversaries from purchasing products with funds from the compromised account.
- Using a list of one-time passwords to exhaust password leaks may not prevent phishing websites from obtaining passwords from the list.
- Traditional network perimeter defenses are ineffective against attacks from within the network or via bypassed security mechanisms.
- Labels indicating a website as "Secure" are ineffective against malicious sites with valid certificates.
Internet Threat Modeling
- Assumes endpoints are trustworthy and the communication link is under attacker control.
- Follows the traditional cryptographer's model of securing data transmitted over unsecured channels.
- Assumption of trustworthy endpoints is often incorrect due to the prevalence of malware and keyloggers.
Practical Aspects
- Testing is inherently incomplete and cannot prove the absence of vulnerabilities.
- The definition of "secure" remains an open question.
- Security is unobservable due to the unknown universe of potential exploits.
Higher-Level Principles
- Security-by-design: Security should be an integral part of the design process, not an independent layer added at the end.
- Design-for-evolution: Systems should be designed for flexibility, allowing for easy and secure updates and backward compatibility.
Why Security is Hard!
- Intelligent, Adaptive Adversary: Attackers are often intelligent, adaptive, and economically motivated, while defenders typically follow protocols and standards.
- Defender-Attacker Asymmetry: attackers need only exploit one weakness, while defenders must protect against all.
- Scale of Attack: The Internet facilitates the reproduction and amplification of attacks.
- Universal Connectivity and Low Traceability: It is easy to connect to the Internet, but difficult to trace attacks and identify attackers.
Why Security is Hard! (Cont.)
- Pace of Technology Evolution: Continuous software upgrades and patches create challenges for security.
- Software Complexity: Complexity is the enemy of security.
- Developer Training and Tools: Many developers lack security training.
- Interoperability and Backward Compatibility: Interoperability requirements complicate deploying security upgrades.
- Market Economics and Stakeholders: Market forces may prioritize features and low cost over security.
Why Security is Hard! (Cont.)
- Missing Context of Danger and Losses: Consequences of security breaches are often not linkable to the root cause.
- Managing Secrets: Managing secrets is difficult due to software systems and human factors.
- User Non-Compliance (Human Factors): Users may undermine security mechanisms that have no visible benefits.
- Error-Inducing Design (Human Factors): It is difficult to design security mechanisms with intuitive and user-friendly interfaces that resist social engineering.
- Non-Expert Users (Human Factors): Users are often non-experts and may have limited technical background.
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Description
Explore the concepts of black-box and white-box penetration testing, as well as the importance of security analysis in identifying vulnerabilities. Understand the roles of product testing and source code review in enhancing system defenses. This quiz will cover key strategies for securing systems throughout the product lifecycle.
