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Internet Engineering Task Force Nevil Brownlee
INTERNET-DRAFT The University of Auckland
November 1996
Valid for six months Erik Guttman
Sun Microsystems
March 1997
Expectations for Security Incident Response
<draft-ietf-grip-framework-irt-03.txt>
<draft-ietf-grip-framework-irt-04.txt>
Status of this Memo
This document is an Internet Draft. Internet Drafts are working
documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its Areas, and
its Working Groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working
documents as Internet Drafts. This Internet Draft is a product of the
Internet Accounting
GRIP Working Group of the IETF.
Internet Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months.
Internet Drafts may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other
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To learn the current status of any Internet Draft, please check the
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munnari.oz.au (Pacific Rim), ds.internic.net (US East Coast), or
ftp.isi.edu (US West Coast).
Abstract
This
The purpose of this document is intended to facilitate express the setting of general Internet
community's expectations
regarding the operation of Security Incicident Incident Response Teams (SIRTs). Teams. It describes the various important topics in
is not possible to define a set of requirements that would be
appropriate for all teams, but it is possible and helpful to
list and describe the form general set of a 'template,'
through topics and issues which every SIRT should describe itself
are of concern and its functions. interest to constituent communities.
SIRT clients constituents have a legitimate need and right to fully understand
the policies and procedures of their "their" Security Incident Response Team. A
SIRT's template supplies details for the various important topics
One way to support this understanding is to supply detailed information
which
clients must consider when selecting users may consider, in the form of a formal template completed by
the SIRT.
INTERNET-DRAFT An outline of such a template and a filled in example is
provided.
Brownlee, Guttman Internet Draft [Page i]
Expectations for Security Incident Response November 1996 26 March 97
Table of Contents
1 Introduction 3
1.1 Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2 1
2 Scope..............................................................3
2.1 Publishing a SIRT Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.3 Policies and Procedures .....................4
2.2 Relationships between different SIRTs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.4 .........................5
2.3 Establishing Secure Communications between SIRTs . . . . . . . . . . 7
2 Description Template: Security Incident Response Team 7 ............................6
3 Purpose of the Template 8 Information, Policies and Procedures...............................7
3.1 Other Related Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4 The Security Incident Response Team Template 10
4.1 Template Updates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.1.1Date of last update . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.1.2Distribution list for Template Contact Information ...........................................8
3.2 Document Updates . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.2 ..............................................9
3.3 Charter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.2.1Mission Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.2.2Constituency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.2.3Sponsoring organization .......................................................9
3.3.1 Mission Statement.......................................10
3.3.2 Constituency............................................10
3.3.3 Sponsoring Organization / affiliation . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.2.4Authority . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.3 Affiliation...................10
3.3.4 Authority...............................................11
3.4 Policies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.3.1Types .....................................................11
3.4.1 Types of incidents Incidents and level Level of support . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.3.2Co-operation Support.................11
3.4.2 Co-operation and interaction Interaction with other organizations . . . 12
4.3.3Reporting Organizations...12
3.4.3 Reporting and Disclosure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4.3.4Communication Disclosure................................13
3.4.4 Communication and authentication . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
4.4 Authentication........................14
3.4.5 Point of Customer Contacts..............................14
3.5 Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
4.5 .....................................................15
3.6 Incident reporting Reporting Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.6 .....................................15
3.7 Disclaimers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
5 Secondary Purposes of this Document 15
6 ..................................................16
4 Appendix A: Note on procedure definitions 16
7 Glossary of Terms 17
5 Appendix B: Related Material 18
6 Appendix C: Known Security Incident Response Teams 17 19
7 Appendix D: Outline for SIRT Template 21
8 Appendix C: Example: a E: Example - 'filled-in' template 17 Template for a SIRT 22
9 References 29
10 Security Considerations 25
10 Author's Address 25
Nevil Brownlee 29
11 Authors' Addresses 29
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Expectations for Security Incident Response November 1996 26 March 97
1 Introduction
The GRIP Working Group was formed to produce guidelines and
recommendations to facilitate create a document that describes
the consistent handling community's expectations of security
incidents in the Internet community. incident response teams
(SIRTs). Although it is focused on the
Internet, many of the concepts discussed will also be useful need for other
forms of local- and wide-area networks and internets.
Many computer security incidents orginate outside local community
boundaries and affect other 'outside' sites, and others orignate outside such a document originated in the local community and affect hosts or users within it. Often,
therefore,
general Internet community, the handling of security incidents will involve multiple
Security Incident Response Teams. Because expectations expressed should also
closely match those of this characteristic it is
important for every community to have a good security policy, and to
have a Security Incident Response Team (SIRT) in place to manage
communications across community boundaries in a consistent way. more restricted communities.
In the past there have been misunderstandings regarding expectations of
response teams. what to expect
from SIRTs. The goal of this document is to provide a framework in
which to set expectations. By defining such a framework for
presenting the community
can express areas and topics important subjects (related to incident response) that need
are of concern to addressed the community.
Before continuing, it is important to clearly understand what is meant
by any SIRT.
'Consistent handling' implies the term "Security Incident Response Team." For the purposes of
this document, a SIRT is a team that any performs, coordinates, and supports
the response to security incidents that involve sites within a defined
constituency (see Appendix A for a more complete definition). Any
group calling itself a SIRT for a specific constituency must therefore
react to reported security incidents or incidents, and to threats of them to "their"
constituency in ways which the
Internet specific community agrees to be in its
general interest. Every
Since it is vital that each member of a constituent community be
able to understand what is reasonable to expect of their team, A SIRT
needs
should make it clear who belongs to their constituency and define clearly the
services they offer and the level at which
they are offered team offers to clients. Such definitions will be particularly
important the community. Additionally, each SIRT
should publish its policies and operating procedures. Similarly, these
same constituents need to know what is expected of them in contracts and/or agreements which SIRTs make with their
clients.
The "Expectations order for Security Incident Response" is seen as resting on
them to receive the work services of individual SIRTs and their team. This requires that the cooperation between them.
team also publish how and where incidents should be reported.
This document therefore recommends details a 'template' through template which every SIRT
should describe itself and its functions. It further recommends that
templates should will be accessible among teams, used by SIRTs to make possible
communicate this information to their constituents. The constituents
should certainly expect a fully
effective cooperative response framework for incidents or threats across SIRT to provide the entire domain affected by them.
1.1 Definitions
This section defines terms used services they describe in describing security incidents and
response teams. For
the purpose completed template.
It must be emphasised that without active participation from users, the
effectiveness of the GRIP documents only a limited
list is really needed. SIRT's services can be greatly diminished. This should help maintain focus on
is particularly the purpose
of case with reporting. At a minimum, users need to
know that they should report security incidents, and know how and where
they should report them to.
Many computer security incidents originate outside local community
boundaries and affect inside sites, others originate inside the documents, local
community and prevent a duplication of other definitions affect hosts or -
even worse - a proliferation of competing definitions.
Nevil Brownlee users on the outside. Often, therefore,
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Expectations for Security Incident Response November 1996
Constituency
------------
Implicit in 26 March 97
the purpose handling of a Security Incident Response Team is security incidents will involve the
existence cooperation of a constituency. This is
multiple sites and potentially multiple SIRTs. The coordination of
activities across communities and organization requires that the group
parties understand who they are dealing with, and what sort of clients, policies
they have in place.
Many computer security incidents originate outside local community
boundaries and affect inside sites,
networks others originate inside the local
community and affect hosts or organizations served by users on the team.
Security Incident
-----------------
For outside. Often, therefore,
the purpose handling of this document:
'A computer security incident is any event which compromises
some aspect of computer or network security.' incidents will involve multiple sites and
potentially multiple SIRTs. Resolving these incidents will require
cooperation between individual sites and SIRTs, and between SIRTs.
Constituent communities need to know exactly how their SIRT will be
working with other SIRTs and organizations outside their constituency,
and what information will be shared.
The definition rest of an incident may vary between organizations, but at
least this document describes the following categories are generally applicable:
* loss set of confidentiality,
* compromise topics and issues that
SIRTs need to elaborate for their constituents. However, there is no
attempt to specify the "correct" answer to any one topic area. Rather,
each topic is discussed it terms of integrity,
* denial what that topic means. For example,
five types of service,
* misuse,
* damage.
These policy statements are very general categories. For instance the replacement listed (representing those policies
of a
system utility program by a Trojan Horse is an example interest to the community), but the content of 'loss any one of
integrity,' and them will
necessarily be specific to a successful password attack is given team.
Chapter two provides an example overview of 'loss three major areas: The publishing
of
confidentiality.'
Within information by a response team, the definition of an incident the word 'compromised' is used.
Sometimes an administrator may only 'suspect' an incident. During response
team's relationship to other response teams and the
handling of a call it must be established whether or not an incident
really occurred.
Security Incident Response Team
-------------------------------
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Based on two secure
communications. Chapter three describes in detail all the types of
information that the definitions given above:
'A Security Incident Response Team is a group authorized community needs to
manage know about their response to security incidents that involve sites within
its defined constituency.'
In order to be considered a SIRT, a group must:
* provide a channel team.
These topics are condensed into an outline template for receiving reports about suspected incidents,
* provide assistance to members ease of its constituency use by
the community, and is found in handling these
incidents,
* disseminate incident-related information Appendix D. This template can be used
by constituents to its constituency elicit information from their SIRT, and to
other related parties.
Note that we are not referring here to police or other law enforcement
bodies it provides
criteria with which may investigate computer-related crime. SIRT members,
indeed, should not need to have any powers beyond those of ordinary
citizens.
Vendor
------
A 'vendor' is any entity that produces networking or computing
technology, and measure their team's performance.
It is responsible for the technical content of working group's sincere hope that
technology. Examples through the clarification
of 'technology' include hardware (desktop
computers, routers, switches, etc.), the topics in this document, understanding between the community
and software (operating systems,
mail forwarding systems, etc.).
Note its SIRTs will be increased.
2 Scope
The interactions between a constituent community and an incident
response team require first that the supplier of a technology is not necessarily community understands the 'vendor'
of that technology. As an example, an Internet Services Provider (ISP)
might supply routers to each
policies and procedures of its customers, but the 'vendor' is response team. Second, since many
response teams collaborate to handle incidents, the
manufacturer, being community must
also understand the entity responsible relationship between their response team and
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Expectations for the technical content Security Incident Response 26 March 97
other teams. Finally, many interactions will take advantage of
existing public infrastructures and the router, rather than the ISP.
Vulnerability
-------------
A 'vulnerability' is a characteristic of a piece community needs to know how
those communications are going to be protected. Each of technology which can these subjects
will be exploited to perpetrate a security incident. For example, if described in more detail in the following three sections.
2.1 Publishing a
program unintentionally allowed ordinary users SIRT Policies and Procedures
Each user who has access to execute arbitrary
operating system commands in privileged mode, this "feature" would be a
vulnerability.
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1.2 Publishing SIRT Templates
Every SIRT Team should publish information
know as much as possible about its policies and services in of and interactions with this
team long before he or she actually needs them.
A clear statement of the form policies and procedures of a completed template. The simplest way for a SIRT helps the
constituent understand how best to make
its template widely available is report incidents and what support to publish
expect afterwards. Will the SIRT assist in resolving the incident?
Will it on its own information
server so that clients provide help in its constituency can easily find it.
Templates published as pages avoiding incidents in the World Wide Web should include future? Clear
expectations, particularly of the
phrase 'SIRT Template' in their title - this will allow Web search
engines to find them easily.
Whether or not templates are published in a repository, clients - and
potential clients - limitations of the services provided
by a SIRT SIRT, will need to be able to authenticate a
template (verify that make interaction with it was indeed published by the SIRT) more efficient and check effective.
There are different kinds of response teams. Some that it has not been modified (for example by verifying a digital
signature for it).
To facilitate interaction between SIRTs, it would be useful to have a
central repository for them. The GRIP Working Group believe very
broad constituencies (e.g., CERT Coordination Center and the Internet),
others that some have more bounded constituencies (e.g., DFN-CERT, CIAC),
and still others that have very restricted constituencies (e.g.,
commercial response teams, corporate response teams). Regardless of
the existing Internet archive areas could be used for this purpose.
The keeper type of each template repository will be responsibly for verifying response team, the identity of each SIRT lodging a template in constituency supported by it must be
knowledgeable about the repository.
1.3 Relationships between SIRTs
In some cases team's policies and procedures. Therefore, it
is mandatory that response teams publish such information to their
constituency.
As a SIRT may be able provides a service to operate effectively on a this clearly defined constituency,
it should communicate all necessary information about its own. policies
and services in a suitable form. It is much more likely, however, important to understand that
not all policies and procedures must be publicly available. For
example, it is not necessary to understand the internal operation of
a SIRT will need team in order to interact with
other SIRTs. Such interactions could include:
* Responding it, as when reporting an incident or
receiving guidance on how to requests for advice (e.g. "have you seen this
problem before?")
* Reporting analyze or secure one's systems.
In the past, some teams supplied a kind of problems (for onward referal Operational Framework,
others provided Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), while still
others wrote papers for distribution at user conferences or sent
newsletters.
Another efficient way to other SIRTs, communicate the relevant information to service
providers all
concerned, not only constituents but also other teams or organizations,
would be for each SIRT to vendors)
* Working co-operatively publish its guidelines and procedures on its
own information server. This would allow constituents to resolve a security incident
Note that there is a difference between easily access
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Expectations for Security Incident Response 26 March 97
it, although this does not address the problem of how a peering agreement, where constituent or
will find "his" or "her" team. People within the
SIRTs involved agree constituency have to work together and share information, and simple
co-operation, where
discover that there is a SIRT (or any other client) simply contacts another
SIRT and asks for help or advice. Note also "at their disposal." It is foreseen that any client wanting
direct help
completed SIRT templates will soon become searchable by modern search
engines. This will aid in tracking an incident must be prepared to provide
sufficient distributing information about the incident to make tracking possible.
In establishing relationships to support such interactions, SIRTs will
need to decide what kinds existence
of agreements can exist between themselves so
as SIRTs and basic information required to share yet safeguard information, whether this relationship can approach them.
It would be
disclosed, and if so very useful to whom?
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1.4 Establishing Communications between SIRTs
Once two SIRTs have agreed to work together - as outlined above - they
need to establish secure communications channels. a central repository containing all the
completed SIRT templates. No such repository presently exists. This section outlines
some
might change in the future.
Regardless of the issues involved in this.
When a SIRT (SIRT A) wishes to establish a working relationship with
another SIRT (SIRT B), a responsible person source from SIRT A will need to
contact a similarly responsible person at SIRT B. The SIRT B person then
has which the problem: "how do I know who I'm talking to?"
It information is very easy to send forged e-mail, and not hard to establish a
(false) identity by telephone. PGP and PEM provide effective ways retrieved,
the user of
securing e-mail, but securing voice communications is much harder. At
present call-back the template must check its authenticity. It is probably highly
recommended that such vital documents be protected by digital
signatures. These will allow user can verify that the only simple authentication method. template
was indeed published by the SIRT and that it has not been modified
thereafter. This document assumes the reader has familiarity with
the proper use of digital signatures to determine whether a document
is authentic.
2.2 Relationships between different SIRTs
In some cases a SIRT may change as technologies such as scrambled telephones, or
PGP-phone be able to operate effectively on its own
and in close cooperation with its constituency. But with todays
international networks it is much more likely that most of the Internet become available.
PGP relies on
incidents handled by a 'web SIRT will involve parties external to its
constituency. Therefore the team will need to interact with other
SIRTs and sites outside their constituency.
The constituent community should be clear about the nature and
extent of trust,' built up by having known (and trusted)
people sign PGP keys. This model could also this collaboration, as very sensitive information about
individual constituents may be used disclosed in the process.
Such interactions could include asking other teams for SIRTs. To
achieve this each SIRT should publish advice,
disseminating knowledge of problems and working cooperatively
to resolve a list security incident effecting one or more of the SIRTs'
constituencies.
In establishing relationships to support such interactions, SIRTs they have
peering arrangements (i.e. working relationships) with, including PGP
public keys for will
need to decide what kinds of agreements can exist between them so as to
share yet safeguard information, whether this relationship can be
disclosed, and the expiry dates of those keys.
2 Description Template: if so to whom.
Brownlee, Guttman Internet Draft [Page 5]
Expectations for Security Incident Response Team
The Template 26 March 97
Note that there is summarized in a difference between a peering agreement, where the section immediately below,
SIRTs involved agree to work together and share information, and simple
co-operation, where a SIRT (or any other organization) simply contacts
another SIRT and asks for help or advice.
Although the
remainder establishing of such relationships is very important and
affect the document describes its components. A 'filled-in'
example ability of a template SIRT to support its constituency, it is given as Appendix C.
1. Contact Information
----------------------
1.1 Name of up to
the Team
1.2 Address
1.3 Time Zone
1.4 Telephone Number
1.5 Facsimile Number
1.6 Other Telecommunication (STU-III, secure facsimile...)
1.7 Electronic Mail Address
1.8 Public Keys and Other Encryption Information
1.9 Team Members
2. Template Updates
-------------------
2.1 Date teams involved to decide about the details. It is beyond the scope
of Last Update
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2.2 Locations where this Template May Be Found
3. Charter
----------
3.1 Mission Statement
3.2 Constituency
3.3 Sponsors and/or Affiliation
3.4 Authority
4. Policies
-----------
4.1 Types of Incidents
4.2 Level process. But the
same set of Support
4.3 Disclosure information used to set expectations for a user community
regarding sharing of Information
4.4 Cooperation information will help other parties to understand
the objectives and Interaction services of a specific SIRT, supporting a first
contact.
2.3 Establishing Secure Communications
Once one party has decided to share information with Other Entities
4.5 Communication and Authentication
4.6 Points another party, or
two parties have agreed to share information or work together - as
required for the coordination of Customer Contact
5. Services
-----------
5.1 Security Incident Response
5.2 Proactive Activities
6. Incident Reporting Forms
---------------------------
7. Disclaimers
--------------
3 Purpose - all
parties involved need secure communications channels. ("Secure" hereby
relates to the protected transmission of information shared between
different parties and not the Template
The Template which this document proposes is expected to be used appropriate use of the information by a
response team to describe what it does, and in the process create
criteria against which its performance can be measured.
parties.)
The Template
does goals of secure communication are:
- Confidentiality:
Can somebody else access the content of the communication?
- Integrity:
Can somebody else manipulate the content of the communication?
- Authenticity:
Am I communicating with the "right" person?
It is very easy to send forged e-mail, and not attempt hard to specify establish a "correct" way
(false) identity by telephone. Cryptographic techniques, for example
Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) or Privacy Enhanced Mail (PEM) can provide
effective ways of securing e-mail. With the team correct equipment it is
also possible to operate, but
does recommend on specific policies and functions seen as necessary for secure telephone communication. But before using such a team to play a consistent role in
mechanisms, both parties need the overall security framework.
It also comments on additional roles a team might include "right" infrastructure, which is to
say preparation in the ambit
of its operations. advance. The primary purposes most important preparation is ensuring
the authenticity of the Template are:
Nevil Brownlee cryptographic keys used in secure communication:
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Expectations for Security Incident Response November 1996 26 March 97
- to help SIRTs improve Public keys (for techniques like PGP and PEM):
Because they are accessible through the way internet, they operate; must be
authenticated before usage. While PGP relies on a
"Web of Trust" - to improve interactions between different SIRTs, and between SIRTs
and users sign the keys of other organizations such as vendors and law-enforcement
agencies;
- to note necessary interactions with their constituencies in setting
expectations and defining policies; users - to help new groups understand what it takes to "be" PEM relies
on a SIRT.
A Template might appear hierarchy - certification authorities sign the keys of users.
- Secret keys (for techniques like DES and PGP/conventional
encryption): Because they must be known to provide sender and receiver,
they must be exchanged before the communication via a marketing tool secure
channel.
Communication is critical for comparing
different teams, but this kind all aspects of marketing incident response. A team
can best support the use (or abuse) is strongly
discouraged by of the GRIP Working Group.
3.1 Other Related Material
This 'Framework above-mentioned techniques by gathering
all relevant information, in a consistent way. Specific requirements
(like calling a specific number for Response Teams' document is checking the first produced by authenticity
of keys) should be explained right away. SIRT templates provide a
standardized vehicle for delivering this information.
It is beyond the GRIP Working Group. A second scope of this document will set out guide-lines for
technology vendors to help them handle security incidents. The
definition of terms given in address all the next section applies to both documents.
Another relevant IETF document technical
and administrative problems of secure communications. The point is RFC 1244, the Site Security Handbook,
produced by (and being updated by) the Site Security Handbook Working
Group (SSH). Site requirements
that response teams must support and recommendations are covered by use a method to secure the
Handbook, while response team expectations
communications between themselves and procedures are addressed
by their constituents (or other
response teams). Whatever the GRIP documents.
Other documents of interest for mechanism is, the discussion level of incident response
teams and their tasks are available by anonymous FTP. A collection can protection
it provides must be found on:
* ftp://ftp.nic.surfnet.nl/surfnet/net-security/
cert-nl/docs/reports/R-92-01
Some especially interesting documents are:
* CERT-NL Framework
ftp://ftp.cert.dfn.de/pub/csir/docs/cert-nl.opframe.txt
* FIRST potential members
ftp://ftp.first.org/pub/first/newmemlt.txt
ftp://ftp.first.org/pub/first/profile.txt
ftp://ftp.first.org/pub/first/op`frame.txt
Nevil Brownlee [Page 9]
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http://www.first.org/first
* NRL Incident Response Manual
http://hightop.nrl.navy.mil/news/incident.html
* Bibliography
http://www.cert.dfn.de/eng/team/kpk/certbib.html
4 The Security Incident Response Team Template
This material which follows is addressed acceptable to those responsible for
Security Incident Response Teams.
4.1 Template Updates
Details of a Securty IRT change with time, so the template must indicate
when it was last changed, who will be informed of future changes, constituent community.
3 Information, Policies and
(by implication) who will not. Without this, Procedures
In chapter 2, it is inevitable was mentioned that
misunderstandings the policies and misconceptions will arise over time.
4.1.1 Date procedures of last update
This should be sufficient a
response team need to allow anyone interested be published to evaluate their constituent community.
In this chapter we will list all the
currency types of information that the template.
4.1.2 Distribution list for Template Updates
Persons on
community needs to receive from its response team. How this list are notified automatically whenever the template
information is
changed. communicated to a community will differ from team to
team, as will the specific information content. The list might normally cover intent here is
to clearly describe the constituency various kinds of information that a
constituent community expects from its response team.
To make it easier to understand all issues and any other
groups the SIRT has frequent interactions with. Readers not on topics relevant to the list
can then recognise
interaction of constituents with "their" SIRT, we suggest that they should check the central repository (above) a SIRT
publish all information, policies and procedures addressing their
constituency as a document, following template given in Appendix D.
The template structure arranges items, making it easy to supply
specific information, was done for possible updates.
Digital signatures the example in Appendix E. While
no recommendations are made as to what a SIRT should be used adopt for update messages sent by their
policy or procedures, different possibilities are outlined to give some
examples. The most important thing is that a SIRT to
those on its distribution list.
Nevil Brownlee has a policy and that
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Expectations for Security Incident Response November 1996
4.2 Charter
Every 26 March 97
that those who interact with the SIRT must have a charter which specifies what it is to do, can obtain and
the authority under which it will do understand it. The charter
As always, not every aspect for every environment and/or team can
be covered. This outline should be seen as a suggestion. Each team
should feel free to include at
least whatever they think is necessary for
supporting their constituency.
3.1 Contact Information
Full details of how to contact the following:
* mission statement
* constituency
* sponsor / affiliation
* authority
4.2.1 Mission Statement
The mission statement SIRT should focus on the team's core activities,
already stated in the definition of a SIRT. In order to be considered a
Security Incident Response Team, listed here, although
this might be very different for different teams. Some might choose to
restrict the team MUST provide incident
response, by definition.
The goals and purposes availability of a names of all team are especially important, and require
clear, succinct definition.
4.2.2 Constituency
A SIRT's constituency (as defined above) members. No further
clarification is given when the meaning of the item can be determined in many ways.
For example it could be a company's employees or its paid subscribers,
or it could be defined in terms assumed.
- Name of a technological focus, such as the
users of a particular operating system. SIRT
- Mailing Address
- Time zone This is useful for coordinating
incidents which cross time zones.
- Telephone number
- Facsimile number
- Other telecommunication Some teams might provide secure
voice communication (e.g. STU III).
- Electronic mail address
- Public keys and encryption The definition use of constituency should create a perimeter around specific techniques
depends on the
group to whom ability of the team will provide service. The policy section (below)
communication partners to have
access to programs, keys and so on.
Relevant information should explain be
outlined so users can determine
if and how requests from outside they can make use of
secure communication while
interacting with the perimeter will SIRT.
- Team members
- Other information The operating hours and holiday
schedule should be handled.
Constituencies might overlap, as when an ISP supports provided here.
Is there a SIRT, but
delivers services to 24 hour hotline? Is
there any specific customer sites which contact
info? (See also have SIRTs. The
Authority section (below) should make such relationships clear.
People within the constituency have to learn that there is a Security
IRT for their purposes; the building of a trusted relationship with the
constituency is an on-going process which never ends.
Nevil Brownlee 3.4.5).
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4.2.3 Sponsoring organization / affiliation
The sponsoring organization, which authorises the actions 26 March 97
3.2 Document Updates
Details of a SIRT change with time, so the SIRT, completed template must
indicate when it was last changed. Additionally, information should be given next. Defining the affiliation amounts
provided to stating:
"Who is your God?".
4.2.4 Authority
SIRTs may not have authority learn about how to intervene in the operation find out about future updates. Without
this, it is inevitable that misunderstandings and misconceptions will
arise over time; an outdated document will do more harm than good.
- Date of all the
systems within their perimeter. They last update This should identify be sufficient to allow
anyone interested to evaluate the scope
currency of their
control as distinct from the perimeter template.
- Distribution list Mailing lists are a convenient
mechanism to distribute up-to-date
information to a large number of their constituency; if
users. A team can decide to use its
own or an already existing list to
notify users whenever the document
changes. The list might normally
cover the constituency and any other
SIRTs operate hierachically within their perimeter, these
groups the SIRT has frequent
interactions with.
Digital signatures should be
identified.
4.3 Policies
4.3.1 Types of incidents and level used
for update messages sent by a SIRT.
- Location of support the document The types location where a current version
of incident which the document should be accessible
through a team's online information
services. Constituents can then
easily learn more about the team and
check for recent updates.
This online version should also be
accompanied by a digital signature,
3.3 Charter
Every SIRT must have a charter which specifies what it is authorised to address do, and
the
level of support authority under which the team it will contribute when assisting with each
type of incident should be summarized here in list form. do it. The Services
section (later) provides opportunity charter should include
at least the following statements:
- Mission statement
- Constituency
- Sponsor / affiliation
- Authority
Brownlee, Guttman Internet Draft [Page 9]
Expectations for more detailed definition. Security Incident Response 26 March 97
3.3.1 Mission Statement
The team mission statement should state whether it will act on information it receives
about vulnerabilities which create opportunities for future incidents.
A commitment to act on such information focus on behalf of its constituency is
regarded as an optional pro-active service policy rather than a core
service requirement for a SIRT.
4.3.2 Co-operation and interaction with other organizations
This section should make explicit the related groups with which team's core activities,
already stated in the SIRT
routinely interacts. Examples definition of these are listed below.
Incident Response Teams: A SIRT will often need to interact with
other SIRTs. For example a SIRT within a large company may need to
report incidents to a national SIRT, and a national SIRT may need to
report incidents to national SIRTs in other countries.
Vendors: Larger vendors have their own SIRTs, but smaller vendors
may not. SIRT. In such cases a SIRT will need order to work directly with be considered
a vendor.
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Law-enforcement agencies: These include Team, the police team must support the reporting
of incidents and other
investigative agencies. SIRTs support its constituency by dealing with incidents.
The goals and users purposes of the template should be
sensitive to local laws a team are especially important, and regulations, which may vary considerably in
different countries.
Press: require
clear, unambiguous definitions.
3.3.2 Constituency
A SIRT may SIRT's constituency can be approached by the Press for information and
comment from time to time. This is discussed determined in more detail immediately
below.
4.3.3 Reporting and Disclosure many ways. For example it
could be a company's employees or its paid subscribers, or it could be
defined in terms of a technological focus, such as the users of a
particular operating system.
The default status definition of any and all security-related information which constituency should create a
team receives can only be 'confidential,' but rigid adherence perimeter around the
group to this
makes whom the team a 'black hole.' Its template will provide service. The policy section of
the document (see below) should define what
information it explain how requests from outside the
perimeter will report or disclose, to whom, and when.
Different teams are likely to be subject handled.
If a SIRT decide, not to different legal restraints
requiring or limiting disclosure, especially if disclosure their constituency, they work in different
jurisdictions. Each team's template should specify any such restraints,
both
explain the reasoning behind this decision. For example for-fee
SIRTs will not list their clients but declare that they provide
a service to clarify a large group of customers that are kept confidential
because of the clients' expectations and contract.
Constituencies might overlap, as when an ISP provides a SIRT, but
delivers services to inform other teams.
Conflicts of interest, particularly in commercial matters, may customer sites which also
restrain disclosure by a team; have SIRTs. The
Authority section of the present Draft does not recommend on
how document (see below) should make such conflicts
relationships clear.
3.3.3 Sponsoring Organization / Affiliation
The sponsoring organization, which authorizes the actions of the SIRT,
should be addressed.
An explicit policy concerning disclosure to given next. Knowing this will help the Press can be helpful,
particularly in clarifying users to understand
the expectations background and setup of the SIRT. It is vital information for
building up trust between a SIRT's constituency.
'Disclosure' includes:
- reporting incidents within constituent and a SIRT.
Brownlee, Guttman Internet Draft [Page 10]
Expectations for Security Incident Response 26 March 97
3.3.4 Authority
Based on the relationship between team and constituency to other teams;
- handling incidents occurring within the constituency, but reported
from outside it.
- reporting observations this section
will be very different from within one team to another. While an
organizational SIRT will be given its authority by the constituency indicating
suspected or confirmed incidents outside it;
- acting on reports of incidents occurring outside management,
a community SIRT will be supported and chosen by the constituency;
- passing information about vulnerabilities to vendors, to Partner community,
usually in a advisory role.
SIRTs or directly to affected sites lying within or outside the
constituency;
- feed-back may not have authority to parties reporting incidents or vulnerabilities;
- intervene in the provision operation of contact information relating to members all the
systems within their perimeter. They should identify the scope of
their control as distinct from the
constituency, members perimeter of other constituencies, their constituency; if
other SIRTs or
Nevil Brownlee [Page 13]
INTERNET-DRAFT Expectations for Security Incident Response November 1996
law-enforcement agencies.
The reporting and disclosure policy operate hierarchically within their perimeter, these should make clear who will
be the
recipients identified and addressed here.
A disclosure of a SIRT's reports in each circumstance. It team's authority may expose it to claims of
liability. Every team should also
note whether seek legal advice on these matters.
(See section 3.7 for more on liability.)
3.4 Policies
3.4.1 Types of Incidents and Level of Support
The types of incident which the team will expect is able to deal through another Security IRT
or directly with a member address and the
level of another constituency over matters directly
involving that member.
A support which the team will normally collect statistics. If they are distributed, the
template's reporting and disclosure policy should say so, and offer when responding to each
type of incident should be summarized here in list the recipients.
4.3.4 Communication form. The Services
section (see below) provides opportunity for more detailed definition
and authentication
Methods to address non-incident related topics.
The level of secure and verifiable communication support might change, depending on factors like workload
or completeness of information available. Such factors should be established.
This is necessary for communication between SIRTs
outlined and between their impact should be explained. As a list of known
types of incidents will be incomplete with regard to possible or future
incidents, a SIRT and
its constituents. should also give some background on the "default"
support for each reported incident.
The template team should include public keys or pointers
to them, including key fingerprints, together with guidelines state whether it will act on how to
use this information to check authenticity.
At the moment it receives
about vulnerabilities which create opportunities for future incidents.
A commitment to act on such information on behalf of its constituency is recommended that every SIRT have,
regarded as an optional pro-active service policy rather than a minimum, a
PGP key available, since PGP is available world-wide. Teams may also
make other mechanisms available, core
service requirement for example PEM.
For communication via telephone or facsimile a SIRT may keep secret
authentication data SIRT.
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Expectations for parties Security Incident Response 26 March 97
3.4.2 Co-operation and Interaction with whom they may deal, such as an
agreed password or phrase.
4.4 Services
Services other Organizations
This section should be defined in two sections, as listed below.
* direct incident response
+ verification of incident
+ technical assistance and analysis make explicit which related groups with which the
SIRT routinely interacts with. Such interactions are not related to understand
the compromise of a system
+ notification of other involved parties
+ eradication
+ recovery
* optional
+ information provision
- vulnerability archive
- patches and resolutions
Nevil Brownlee [Page 14]
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+ tools
+ education
+ audit and consulting
+ product evaluation
4.5 Incident reporting Forms
Samples of reporting forms provided, but are used by the SIRT (or pointers to them) facilitate
better cooperation on technical topics or services. By no means should
details about cooperation agreements be included at given out, the main objective
of this point in a template.
4.6 Disclaimers
Although section is to give the template does not constitute constituency a contract, liability might
conceivably result from its descriptions basic understanding
what kind of services interactions are established and purposes. The
inclusion what their purpose is.
Examples of these are listed below.
Incident Response Teams:
A SIRT will often need to interact with other SIRTs. For example
a disclaimer at SIRT within a large company may need to report incidents to a
national SIRT, and a national SIRT may need to report incidents
to national SIRTs in other countries to deal with all sites
involved in a large-scale attack.
Vendors:
Larger vendors have their own SIRTs, but smaller vendors may not.
In such cases a SIRT will need to work directly with a vendor to
suggest improvements or modifications, to analyse the end technical
problem or to test provided solutions.
Law-enforcement agencies:
These include the police and other investigative agencies. SIRTs
and users of the template is recommended.
It should be noted that some forms of reporting or disclosure relating sensitive to local laws and
regulations, which may vary considerably in different countries.
A SIRT might advise on technical details of attacks or seek advice
on the legal implications of an incident. Local laws and
regulations may include specific reporting and confidentiality
requirements.
Press:
A SIRT may be approached by the Press for information and comment
from time to time. This is discussed in more detail immediately
below.
Other:
This might include research activities or the relation to the
sponsoring organization.
Brownlee, Guttman Internet Draft [Page 12]
Expectations for Security Incident Response 26 March 97
3.4.3 Reporting and Disclosure
The default status of any and all security-related information which a
team receives will usually be 'confidential,' but rigid adherence to
this makes the team to appear as a 'black hole.' Its template should
define what information it will report or disclose, to whom, and when.
Different teams are likely to be subject to different legal restraints
requiring or limiting disclosure, especially if they work in different
jurisdictions. In addition, they may have reporting requirements
imposed by their sponsoring organization. Each team's template should
specify any such restraints, both to clarify users' expectations and to
inform other teams.
Conflicts of interest, particularly in commercial matters, may also
restrain disclosure by a team; this document does not recommend on
how such conflicts should be addressed.
'Disclosure' includes (but is maybe not limited to):
- Reporting incidents within the constituency to other teams. By
this, site related information might become public knowledge,
accessible for everybody, especially the press.
- Handling incidents occurring within the constituency, but
reported from outside it.
- Reporting observations from within the constituency indicating
suspected or confirmed incidents outside it.
- Acting on reports of incidents occurring outside the constituency.
- Passing information about vulnerabilities to vendors, to Partner
SIRTs or directly to affected sites lying within or outside the
constituency.
- Feed-back to parties reporting incidents or vulnerabilities.
- The provision of contact information relating to members of the
constituency, members of other constituencies, other SIRTs or
law-enforcement agencies.
An explicit policy concerning disclosure to the Press can be helpful,
particularly in clarifying the expectations of a SIRT's constituency.
The press policy will have to clarify the same topics as above more
specifically, as the constituency will usually be very sensitive
Brownlee, Guttman Internet Draft [Page 13]
Expectations for Security Incident Response 26 March 97
towards press contacts.
The reporting and disclosure policy should make clear who will be the
recipients of a SIRT's report in each circumstance. It should also
note whether the team will expect to deal through another SIRT
or directly with a member of another constituency over matters directly
involving that member.
A team will normally collect statistics. If such information are
distributed, the template's reporting and disclosure policy should
say so, and should list methods to obtain such statistics.
3.4.4 Communication and Authentication
Methods of secure and verifiable communication should be established.
This is necessary for communication between SIRTs and between a SIRT
and its constituents. The template should include public keys or
pointers to them, including key fingerprints, together with guidelines
on how to use this information to check authenticity and how to deal
with corrupted information (for example where to report this fact to).
At the moment it is recommended that every SIRT has - if possible - as
a minimum, a PGP key available. Teams may also make other mechanisms
available (for example PEM, MOSS, S/MIME), according to its needs and
the needs of its constituents. Note however, that SIRTs and users
should be sensitive to local laws and regulations. Some countries do
not allow strong encryption or enforce specific policies on the use of
encryption technology. In addition to encrypting sensitive information
whenever possible, correspondence should include digitally signatures.
(Please note, that in most countries, the protection of authenticity
by using digital signatures is not affected by existing encryption
regulations.)
For communication via telephone or facsimile a SIRT may keep secret
authentication data for parties with whom they may deal, such as an
agreed password or phrase.
3.4.5 Point of Customer Contacts
More detailed contact information might be provided. This might
include different contacts for different services or might be a list
of online information services. If specific procedures for access to
some services exist (like addresses for mailing list requests) these
should be explained here.
Brownlee, Guttman Internet Draft [Page 14]
Expectations for Security Incident Response 26 March 97
3.5 Services
Services provided by each SIRT can be differentiated by whether they
relate to the main task, which is incident response, or are provided
in addition (optional in regard to the definition of a SIRT).
Incident response, which usually includes:
- Verification Help with the verification of
incidents, as well as their scope.
- Technical Assistance This may include analysis of
compromised systems.
- Eradication Elimination of the effects of a
security incident.
- Recovery Aid in restoring affected systems
and services to their status before
the security incident.
- Notification of other involved parties
Additional or optional services, which might include:
- Information provision This might include an archive of
known vulnerabilities, patches or
resolutions of past problems.
- Security Tools
- Education and training
- Product evaluation
- Site security auditing and consulting
3.6 Incident Reporting Forms
The use of reporting forms makes it simplier for both sides, users and
teams, to deal with incidents. The constituent may prepare answers to
various important questions before he or she actually contacts the team
and therefore come well prepared. The team gets all the necessary
information at once with the first report and can proceed efficiently.
Brownlee, Guttman Internet Draft [Page 15]
Expectations for Security Incident Response 26 March 97
Depending on the objectives and services of a single SIRT, multiple
forms may be used, for example a reporting form for a new vulnerability
will be very different for the form used for reporting incidents.
It is most efficient to provide forms through the online information
services of the team. The exact pointers to them should be given in
the document, together with statements about appropriate use and
guidelines, for when and how to use the forms. If separate e-mail
addresses are supported for form based reporting, they should be
listed here again.
One example for such form is the Incident Reporting Form provided by
the CERT Coordination Center:
- ftp://info.cert.org/incident_reporting_form
3.7 Disclaimers
Although the document does not constitute a contract, liability might
conceivably result from its descriptions of services and purposes. The
inclusion of a disclaimer at the end of the template is therefore
recommended and should warn the user about possible limitations.
It should be noted that some forms of reporting or disclosure relating
to specific incidents or vulnerabilities can also imply liability, and
SIRTs should consider the inclusion of disclaimers in such material.
In situations where the original version of a document must be
translated into another language, the translation should carry a
disclaimer and a pointer to the original. For example:
Although we tried to carefully translate the original
document from German into English, we can not be certain
that both documents express the same thoughts in the same
level of detail and correctness. In all cases, where there
is a difference between both versions, the German version
is the binding version.
The use of and protection by disclaimers is effected by local laws and
regulations. Therefore each SIRT should be sensitive and if in doubt
should check the disclaimer with a lawyer.
Brownlee, Guttman Internet Draft [Page 16]
Expectations for Security Incident Response 26 March 97
4 Appendix A: Glossary of Terms
This glossary defines terms used in describing security incidents and
Security Incident Response Teams. Only a limited list is included.
For more definitions please refer to other sources, for example to the
[RFC 1983].
Constituency:
Implicit in the purpose of a Security Incident Response Team is
the existence of a constituency. This is the group of users,
sites, networks or organizations served by the team. The team
must be recognized by its constituency to be effective.
Security Incident:
For the purpose of this document this term is synonym to Computer
Security Incident: Any adverse event which compromises some aspect
of computer or network security.
The definition of an incident may vary between organizations, but
at least the following categories are generally applicable:
- Loss of confidentiality of information.
- Compromise of integrity of information.
- Denial of service.
- Misuse of service, systems or information.
- Damage of systems.
These are very general categories. For instance the replacement
of a system utility program by a Trojan Horse is an example of
'compromise of integrity,' and a successful password attack is an
example of 'loss of confidentiality.' Attacks, even if they
failed because of proper protection, might be regarded as an
Incident.
Within the definition of an incident the word 'compromised' is
used. Sometimes an administrator may only 'suspect' an incident.
During the response it must be established whether or not an
incident really occurred.
Security Incident Response Team:
Based on two of the definitions given above, a SIRT is a team
that coordinates and supports the response to security incidents
that involve sites within a defined constituency.
Brownlee, Guttman Internet Draft [Page 17]
Expectations for Security Incident Response 26 March 97
In order to be considered a SIRT, a team must:
- Provide a (secure) channel for receiving reports about
suspected incidents.
- Provide assistance to members of its constituency in
handling these incidents.
- Disseminate incident-related information to its
constituency and to other involved parties.
Note that we are not referring here to police or other law
enforcement bodies which may investigate computer-related crime.
SIRT members, indeed, should not need to have any powers beyond
those of ordinary citizens.
Vendor:
A 'vendor' is any entity that produces networking or computing
technology, and is responsible for the technical content of that
technology. Examples of 'technology' include hardware (desktop
computers, routers, switches, etc.), and software (operating
systems, mail forwarding systems, etc.).
Note that the supplier of a technology is not necessarily the
'vendor' of that technology. As an example, an Internet Services
Provider (ISP) might supply routers to each of its customers, but
the 'vendor' is the manufacturer, being the entity responsible for
the technical content of the router, rather than the ISP.
Vulnerability:
A 'vulnerability' is a characteristic of a piece of technology
which can be exploited to perpetrate a security incident. For
example, if a program unintentionally allowed ordinary users to
execute arbitrary operating system commands in privileged mode,
this "feature" would be a vulnerability.
5 Appendix B: Related Material
Important issues in responding to specific security incidents or vulnerabilities can imply liability, and SIRTs
should consider the inclusion of disclaimers on a site level
are contained in such material.
In situations where [RFC 1244], the original version of a template must Site Security Handbook, produced by
the Site Security Handbook Working Group (SSH). This document will
be
translated into another language, updated by the translation should carry a
disclaimer SSH working group and a pointer will give recommendations for
local policies and procedures, mainly related to the original. For example:
Although we tried to carefully translate our German template
into English, we can not be certain that both avoidance of
security incidents.
Other documents express
the same thoughts in of interest for the same level discussion of detail SIRTs and correctness.
In all cases, where there is a difference between both
versions, the German version is the binding version their
tasks are available by anonymous FTP. A collection can be found on:
Brownlee, Guttman Internet Draft [Page 18]
Expectations for our
operation.
5 Secondary Purposes Security Incident Response 26 March 97
- ftp://ftp.cert.dfn.de/pub/docs/csir/
Please refer to file 01-README for further information about
the content of this Document
The primary audience of directory.
Some especially interesting documents in relation to this document are
as follows:
- ftp://ftp.nic.surfnet.nl/surfnet/net-security/cert-nl/docs/
reports/R-92-01
This report contains the administrators responsible
for communities Operational Framework of users, i.e. 'constituencies.' This section provides
some brief notes on what CERT-NL, the
SIRT clients should expect of their teams.
An incident response team exists primarily to support SURFnet (network provider in the clients Netherlands).
- For readers interested in its
constituency. It the operation of FIRST (Forum of
Incident Response and Security Teams) more information is vital that those clients understand what they
should expect
collected in Appendix C.
- http://hightop.nrl.navy.mil/news/incident.html
This document leads to the NRL Incident Response Manual.
- http://www.cert.dfn.de/eng/team/kpk/certbib.html
This document contains an annotated bibliography of available
material, documents and files about the operation of their team. Provided that a SIRT has published its
template, a constituent/client should be able SIRTs
with links to read many of the template referenced.
- ftp://info.cert.org/incident_reporting_form
This Incident Reporting Form is provided by the CERT
Coordination Center to gather incident information and
discover what to expect, avoid
additional delays by requesting the sites for example more detailed
information.
- http://www.cert.org/cert.faqintro.html
A collection of frequently asked questions from the CERT
Coordination Center.
6 Appendix C: Known Security Incident Response Teams
Today, there are many different SIRTs but no single source list every
team. Most of the major and long established teams (the first SIRT was
founded in such areas as privacy 1988) are nowadays member of FIRST, the worldwide Forum of
Incident Response and
Nevil Brownlee Security Teams. Actually more than 55 teams are
members (1 in Australia, 13 in Europe, all others from America).
Information about FIRST can be found:
- http://www.first.org/
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confidentiality 26 March 97
The actual list of information, members is available also, with the relevant contact
information and whether some additional information provided by the response single
teams:
- http://www.first.org/team-info/
For SIRTs which want to become members of this forum (please note, that
a team will be
contacting downstream sites. Clients should certainly expect needs a SIRT to
provide the services they detail in their template.
An important aspect sponsor - a team already full member of incident response is the 'follow through' FIRST - every
incident should be investigated and appropriate actions taken. Clients
should be encouraged by their SIRT to report incidents so that they can
be acted upon. It must be emphasised that without active participation
(especially reporting) from clients
introduced), the effectiveness following files contain more information:
- http://www.first.org/about/op_frame.html
The Operational Framework of the services
they depend on can be greatly diminished. As a minimum, clients need FIRST.
- http://www.first.org/docs/newmem.html
Guidelines for teams which want to
know that they should report security incidents, and know how and where become member of FIRST.
Many of the European teams, regardless if they should report them.
Individual users (i.e. those who are not part of an organisation which
provides members of FIRST or
not, are listed by countries on a SIRT page maintained by the German SIRT:
- http://www.cert.dfn.de/eng/csir/europe/certs.html
To learn about existing teams and maybe more suitable teams for its members) who observe one's
need it is always a security incident should good approach, to ask their either existing teams or an
Internet Service Provider for details of the most suitable
SIRT to report it to. "right" contact.
Brownlee, Guttman Internet Draft [Page 20]
Expectations for Security Incident Response 26 March 97
7 Appendix B (below) provides some pointers to SIRTs which were known when D: Outline for SIRT Template
This outline summarizes the issues addressed in this document was published.
6 Appendix A: Note on procedure definitions
Policies and statements of services in the template have a logical
structure suitable to be
implemented as procedures, but descriptions of those communicate the policies and procedures should
not be included in for the template.
The following notes are intended to assist those seeking to form or
interaction with SIRTs easily to
improve their SIRTs.
* External
+ identify other response teams
+ define supported clients:
- by domain, through registration system, other means
+ establish secure communication practices
- use the team's constituency. A 'filled-in'
example of network, cell-phones, etc
+ define information that a client site must/should provide
- use this template is given as Appendix E.
1. Contact Information
1.1 Name of reporting forms
* Internal
+ secure the team's infrastructure
+ protect information servers
+ protect sensitive data
+ define expiry Team
1.2 Address
1.3 Time Zone
1.4 Telephone Number
1.5 Facsimile Number
1.6 Other Telecommunication
1.7 Electronic Mail Address
1.8 Public Keys and Encryption Information
1.9 Team Members
1.10 Other Information
2. Document Updates
2.1 Date of Last Update
2.2 Distribution List for Notifications
2.3 Locations where this Document May Be Found
3. Charter
3.1 Mission Statement
3.2 Constituency
3.3 Sponsors and/or Affiliation
3.4 Authority
4. Policies
4.1 Types of Incidents and Level of Support
4.2 Cooperation and Interaction with Other Entities
4.3 Disclosure of sensitive data
+ define disposal practice for sensitive data
+ establish methods for gathering Information
4.4 Communication and keeping statistics
Nevil Brownlee Authentication
4.5 Points of Customer Contacts
5. Services
5.1 Incident Response
5.2 Proactive Activities
6. Incident Reporting Forms
7. Disclaimers
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+ establish 'knowledge base' of lessons learned from past incidents
+ create practical implementations of disclosure policies
+ document explicit practices 26 March 97
8 Appendix E: Example - 'filled-in' Template for disclosure to the Press
The Site Security Handbook is a first resource to consult in securing a
team's infrastructure. SIRT-specific security measures may evolve
later.
7 Appendix B: Known Incident Response Teams
FIRST SIRT
Below is the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams. Information
about FIRST can be found via their World Wide Web home page:
http://www.first.org/first
This page contains pointers to 'Team Contact Information' an example, a filled-in template for SIRTs who
are FIRST members, and a SIRT called XYZ
to 'Teams avoid any confusion with WWW Servers.'
8 Appendix C: Example: existing teams. By no means does this
example imply, that a 'filled-in' template
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>SIRT new founded SIRT should reuse this text.
It is for example purposes only.
SIRT Template for XYZ SIRT</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<P> XYZ-SIRT
--------------------------
Note: no digital signature is currently available for this SIRT
Template. We'll put one up as soon as the technology is adopted
by XYZ Enterprises.
<P>
<XMP>
1. Contact Information
----------------------
1.1 Name of the Team
"XYZ-SIRT": the XYZ Computer Emergency Response Team.
1.2 Address
XYZ SIRT
XYZ Enterprises
Nevil Brownlee [Page 17]
INTERNET-DRAFT Expectations for Security Incident Response November 1996
>>
Private Bag 12-345
>>
MyTown
>>
MyCountry
1.3 Time Zone
>>
MyCountry/Eastern (GMT-0500, and GMT-0400 from April to October)
1.4 Telephone Number
+1 234 567 7890 (ask for the XYZ-SIRT)
1.5 Facsimile Number
+1 234 567 7654 (this is *not* a secure fax)
1.6 Other Telecommunication
None available.
1.7 Electronic Mail Address
>>
<xyz-sirt@sirt.xyz.org>
1.8 Public Keys and Other Encryption Information
Encryption is not currently available, but we plan to install
PGP as soon as possible. Our PGP public key will appear here
as soon as it is available.
Brownlee, Guttman Internet Draft [Page 22]
Expectations for Security Incident Response 26 March 97
1.9 Team Members
>>
Jane Doe of Computing Services is the XYZ-SIRT
coordinator. Other team members will be listed here once
their participation is confirmed.
2. Template Document Updates
-------------------
2.1 Date of Last Update
Please see the bottom of this Web page for this information.
2.2 Distribution List for Notifications
Notifications of updates are submitted to our mailing list
<xyz-sirt-info@sirt.xyz.org>. (Subscription request should
go to <xyz-sirt-info-request@sirt.xyz.org>.)
2.3 Locations where this Template Document May Be Found
This template is available from the XYZ SIRT WWW
site; its URL is
http://www.xyz.org/THIS-INFORMATION-NOT-YET-AVAILABLE
>>
http://www.sirt.xyz.org/op_frame.html
The template will be signed with the XYZ-SIRT's private PGP
>>
key. (WHAT TO DO? Sign just the template? The whole Web
>> page? Try ASCII armor? Or have the signature separate?)
There are no plans for the automatic distribution of fresh
copies of this template after updates; please make sure that
you are using the latest version by checking our Web site.
3. Charter
----------
Nevil Brownlee [Page 18]
INTERNET-DRAFT Expectations for Security Incident Response November 1996
3.1 Mission Statement
The purpose of the XYZ-SIRT is, first, to assist members of
XYZ community in implementing proactive measures to reduce
the risks of computer security incidents, and second, to
assist XYZ community in responding to such incidents when
they occur.
3.2 Constituency
The XYZ-SIRT's contituency constituency is the XYZ SIRT community,
as defined in the context of the "XYZ Policy on Computing
Facilities".
3.3 Sponsors and/or Affiliation
None.
3.4 Authority
The XYZ-SIRT operates under the auspices of, and with
authority delegated by, the Department of Computing Services
of XYZ Enterprises. The Department in turn receives its
authority from the formal ruling bodies of XYZ, as
set out in the "Policy on Computing Facilities". The XYZ-SIRT
Brownlee, Guttman Internet Draft [Page 23]
Expectations for Security Incident Response 26 March 97
has no direct authority over systems at XYZ Enterprises
at large. However, it benefits from the direct authority of
Computing Services with respect to systems managed by this
Department. Also, because Computing Services manages the
XYZ Enterprises Network, and is responsible for connectivity
to it, the Department has indirect authority over systems
in other departments, inasmuch as the Department can order
such systems to be disconnected from the network should
circumstances warrant it.
The XYZ-SIRT expects to work cooperatively with system
administrators and users at XYZ, and, insofar as
possible, to avoid authoritarian relationships. However,
should circumstances warrant it, the XYZ-SIRT will appeal to
Computing Services to exert its authority, direct or indirect,
as necessary.
4. Policies
-----------
4.1 Types of Incidents and Level of Support
The XYZ-SIRT is authorized to address all types of computer
security incidents which occur, or risk occurring, at
XYZ Enterprises.
4.2 Level of Support
The level of support given by XYZ-SIRT will vary depending on
the type and severity of the incident or issue, the type of
Nevil Brownlee [Page 19]
INTERNET-DRAFT Expectations for Security Incident Response November 1996 the type of
consituent, the size of the user community affected, and the
XYZ-SIRT's resources at the time.
No direct support will be given to end users; they are
expected to contact their system administrator, network
administrator, or department head for assistance. The
XYZ-SIRT will support the latter people.
While the XYZ-SIRT understands that there exists great
variation in the level of system administrator expertise at
XYZ, and while the XYZ-SIRT will endeavour endeavor to present
information and assistance at a level appropriate to
each person, the XYZ-SIRT cannot train system administrators,
and it cannot perform system maintenance on their behalf.
In most cases, the XYZ-SIRT will provide pointers to the
information needed to implement appropriate measures.
4.3 Disclosure of Information
>> &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
>> Difficult section; not done yet. Also, it overlaps heavily
>> with the section below; I'm not sure of the best way to
>> separate them. Questions not yet addressed:
- reporting incidents within the constituency to other teams;
- handling incidents occurring within the constituency, but
reported from outside it.
- reporting observations from within the constituency
indicating suspected or confirmed incidents outside it;
- acting on reports of incidents occurring outside the
constituency;
- passing information about vulnerabilities to vendors, to
Partner SIRTs or directly to affected sites lying within
or outside the constituency;
- feed-back to parties reporting incidents or vulnerabilities;
- the provision of contact information relating to members of
the constituency, members of other constituencies, other
SIRTs or law-enforcement agencies.
Food for thought:
Types of info:
- Contact info for constituents.
- Technical info about a vulnerability.
- Technical info about XYZ facilities.
- Information about incidents:
- Statistical summaries
- Admission of incident of certain type
- Admission of root compromise
- Admission of packet sniffing attack
- Admission that user accounts were compromised
- Description of incident
- Identity of affected systems
- Identity of affected people
- Identity of perpetrator
Nevil Brownlee [Page 20]
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Recipients of info:
- XYZ management
- Computing Services management
- Affected sysadmin at XYZ
- Affected sysadmin (or SIRT) at another site
- Affected user(s) at XYZ
- All sysadmins potentially concerned (potentially
vulnerable) at XYZ
- All sysadmins at XYZ
- All users potentially concerned at XYZ
(information the XYZ-SIRT will leak provide pointers to general public)
- All users at XYZ (ditto)
- Computer security community
- Peer sysadmins and SIRTs
- Vendors
- Law enforcement
4.4 the
information needed to implement appropriate measures.
Brownlee, Guttman Internet Draft [Page 24]
Expectations for Security Incident Response 26 March 97
4.2 Cooperation and Interaction with Other Entities
- Other sites:
The XYZ-SIRT will cooperate with other SIRTs (security
incident response teams) and with system administrators at
other sites, to the extent that their bona fide can be
verified. Should provincial or national SIRTs be
constituted, XYZ-SIRT will explore the possibility of peer
relationships with them. The possibility of peer
relationships with close neighbours neighbors will also be explored;
unofficial cooperative climates already exist between XYZ
and several nearby universities and large corporations.
While there are no legal requirements that XYZ-SIRT provide
eny
any information to any body outside XYZ (aside from
law enforcement agencies), XYZ-SIRT will provide such
information when the good of the community justifies it.
However, unless identifying information is needed to track
an incident in progress, such information will be stripped
from the report (unless the affected department gives its
permission that the real information be used).
- Vendors:
The XYZ-SIRT wishes to encourage vendors of all kinds of
networking and computer equipment, software, and services
to improve the security of their products. In aid of
this, a vulnerability discovered in such a product will be
reported to its vendor, along with all technical details
needed to identify and fix the problem. Identifying
details will not be given to the vendor without the
permission of the affected parties.
- Law enforcement:
>>
XYZ has its own Security Department. ( I NEED TO LOOK UP
>>
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN COMPUTING SERVICES, XYZ
>>
SECURITY, AND OUTSIDE POLICE FORCES. ) Informal working
relationships already exist between some system
Nevil Brownlee [Page 21]
INTERNET-DRAFT Expectations for Security Incident Response November 1996
administrators at XYZ and the local police; interest
has been expressed by all parties in formalising formalizing these
relationships. Any progress
made in that area will be reflected in this section.
In the meantime, authorized and unauthorized users of the
XYZ Computing Facilities should be aware that the
XYZ-SIRT will cooperate fully with law enforcement
agencies in detecting, reporting, documenting, and
prosecuting violations of the law; users concerned about
confidentiality are referred to the XYZ "Policy on
Computing Facilities".
Brownlee, Guttman Internet Draft [Page 25]
Expectations for Security Incident Response 26 March 97
- The Press:
The XYZ-SIRT will not interect interact directly with the Press.
If necessary, information will be provided to the
XYZ Public Relations Department, and to the
Customer Relations group of the Computing Services
Department. All queries will be referred to these two
bodies.
- The XYZ SIRT community:
Details of incidents may be released to Computing Services
management, XYZ management, or the Computer
Resources Committee; these bodies will be charged with
maintaining the confidentiality of the information. General
report of incidents, summaries of multiple incidents, and
statistics may be made available to the general XYZ
community, with identifying information stripped (except
where permission has been obtained from the affected
parties). There is no obligation on the part of the
XYZ-SIRT to report incidents to the community, though it
may choose to do so; in particular, it is likely that the
XYZ-SIRT will inform all affected parties of the ways in
which they were affected.
- The public at large:
In general, no particular efforts will be made to
communicate with the public at large, though the XYZ-SIRT
recognizes that, for all intents and purposes, information
made available to the XYZ community is in effect
made available to the community at large, and will tailor
the information in consequence.
- The computer security community:
While members of XYZ-SIRT may participate in discussions
within the computer security community, such as newsgroups,
mailing lists (including the full-disclosure list
"bugtraq"), and conferences, they will treat such forums
as though they were the public at large. While technical
issues (including vulnerabilities) may be discussed to any
level of detail, any examples taken from XYZ-SIRT
experience will be disguised to avoid identifying the
affected parties.
In the paragraphs above, the "affected parties" refers to the
Nevil Brownlee [Page 22]
INTERNET-DRAFT Expectations for Security Incident Response November 1996
legitimate owners, operators, and users of the relevant
computing facilities. It does not refer to unauthorized
users, including otherwise authorized users making
unauthorized usage of a facility; such intruders may have no
expectation of confidentiality from the XYZ-SIRT. They may or
may not have legal rights to confidentiality; such rights will
of course be respected where they exist.
4.5
4.3 Disclosure of Information
The following types of information will be stored and handled
by XYZ-SIRT:
- Contact info for constituents.
- Technical info about a vulnerability.
- Technical info about XYZ facilities.
- Information about incidents:
- Statistical summaries
- Admission of incident of certain type
- Admission of root compromise
- Admission of packet sniffing attack
- Admission that user accounts were compromised
- Description of incident
- Identity of affected systems
- Identity of affected people
- Identity of perpetrator
Recipients of information are - depending on the need to
know - are as follows:
- XYZ management
- Computing Services management
- Affected sysadmin at XYZ
- Affected sysadmin (or SIRT) at another site
Brownlee, Guttman Internet Draft [Page 26]
Expectations for Security Incident Response 26 March 97
- Affected user(s) at XYZ
- All sysadmins potentially concerned (potentially
vulnerable) at XYZ
- All sysadmins at XYZ
- All users potentially concerned at XYZ
(information will leak to general public)
- All users at XYZ (ditto)
- Computer security community
- Peer sysadmins and SIRTs
- Vendors
- Law enforcement
4.4 Communication and Authentication
In view of the types of information that the XYZ-SIRT will
likely be dealing with, telephones will be considered
sufficiently secure to be used even unencrypted. Unencrypted
e-mail will not be considered particularly secure, but will be
sufficient for the transmission of low-sensitivity data. If
it is necessary to send highly sensitive data by e-mail, PGP
will be used. Network file transfers will be considered to
be similar to e-mail for these purposes.
Where it is necessary to establish trust, for example before
relying on information given to the XYZ-SIRT, or before
disclosing confidential information, the identity and bona
fide of the other party will be ascertained to a reasonable
degree of trust. Within XYZ, and with known
neighbour
neighbor sites, referrals from known trusted people will
suffice to identify someone. Otherwise, appropriate methods
will be used, such as a search of FIRST members, the use of
WHOIS and other Internet registration information, etc, along
with telephone call-back or e-mail mail-back to ensure that
the party is not an impostor. Incoming e-mail whose data must
be trusted will be checked with the originator personally, or
by means of digital signatures.
4.6
4.5 Points of Customer Contact
The preferred method for contacting the XYZ-SIRT will be
e-mail. If this is not possible, or not advisable for
security reasons, the XYZ-SIRT can be reached by telephone
during regular office hours.
Brownlee, Guttman Internet Draft [Page 27]
Expectations for Security Incident Response 26 March 97
5. Services
-----------
5.1 Incident Response
>> &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&7
>> This section requires a lot
XYZ-SIRT will help users and administrators to handle the
technical and organizational aspects of incidents. By that,
it will provide and facilitate:
- to understand the extend of thought. the incident
- ...
5.2 Proactive Activities
The XYZ-SIRT will coordinate and maintain the following
services to the extent possible depending on its resources:
- Information services
Nevil Brownlee [Page 23]
INTERNET-DRAFT Expectations for Security Incident Response November 1996
- List of departmental security contacts, administrative
and technical.
- Mailing lists to inform security contacts of new
information relevant to their computing environments.
- Repository of vendor-provided and other security-related
patches for various operating systems.
- Repository of security tools for use by sysadmins.
- "Clipping" service for various existing resources, such
as major mailing lists and newsgroups; important issues
of relevance to operating environments in use at the
XYZ will be reported and archived. newsgroups.
- Auditing services
- Central file integrity checking service for Unix
machines.
- "Tiger teams".
- Security level assignments; machines at XYZ
will be audited and assigned a security level: not all
machines require or can attain the same level of
security, but it is important to know which ones are
reasonably secure and which are not. level.
- Archiving services
- Central logging services for Unix machines.
- Records of security incidents handled.
6. Incident Reporting Forms
---------------------------
>> &&&&&&&& Not done yet; I'll probably use an existing
>> one from somewhere initially.
7. Disclaimers
--------------
>> -- resp. for technical disclosures (bugtraq) etc.?
>> -- resp. for results
There are no own forms developed yet for XYZ-SIRT advice?
>> &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&7
>> WILL NEED XYZ LEGAL COUNSEL ON THIS?
8. Additional Information
------------------------- reporting incidents
to XYZ-SIRT. If possible, please make us of the Incident
Reporting Form of the CERT Coordination Center (Pittsburgh, PA).
The actual version of this template published in this RFC is available from:
ftp://info.cert.org/incident_reporting_form
7. Disclaimers
While every precaution will undoubtedly be
out of date by taken in the time you see it; it is intended as an example only.
Please pick up a fresh copy preparation of
information, notifications and alerts, XYZ-SIRT assumes no
responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages
resulting from our Web site if you actually need
information about XYZ-SIRT.
History the use of this template:
Nevil Brownlee the information contained within.
Brownlee, Guttman Internet Draft [Page 24]
INTERNET-DRAFT 28]
Expectations for Security Incident Response November 1996
1996/07/29 Jane Doe, version 1.0
THIS VERSION HAS ABSOLUTELY NO MANAGEMENT APPROVAL!
</XMP>
</BODY>
</HTML> 26 March 97
9 References
[RFC 1244] P. Holbrooks, J. Reynolds / Site Security Handbook. - July 23,
1991. - 101 pages. - FYI 8.
[RFC 1983] G. Malkin / Internet Users' Glossary. - August 16, 1996. -
62 pages. - FYI 18.
10 Security Considerations
This document discusses issues of the operation of Security Incident
Response Teams, and the teams interactions with their constituency.
It is therefore not directly concerned with the security of
protocols protocols,
applications or network systems themselves. It is not even concerned
about the response and reaction to security incidents.
Nonetheless, it is vital that SIRTs establish secure communication
channels with other teams, and with members of their constituency.
They must also secure their own systems and infrastructure.
10 Author's Address infrastructure, to protect
the interests of their constituency and to maintain the confidentiality
of the identity of victims and reporters of security incidents.
11 Authors' Addresses
Nevil Brownlee
ITSS Technology Development
The University of Auckland
Phone: +64 9 373 7599 x8941
E-mail: n.brownlee@auckland.ac.nz
Nevil Brownlee
Erik Guttman
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Gaisbergstr. 6
69115 Heidelberg Germany
Phone: +49 6221 601649
E-Mail: eguttman@eng.sun.com
This document expires September 26, 1997.
Brownlee, Guttman Internet Draft [Page 25] 29]
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