Security Auditing

Security auditing is not very appreciated process within any organization due to the fact that higher up people like managers would not like to have imposed any rules and due to the fact that they are not IT professionals it may be a bit difficult to explain why security is so important and why certain mechanisms should be implemented. On the other hand some businesses can appreciate the benefits from security auditing for instance when certain weaknesses are identified and countered or advise on better software or hardware is given to save that organization’s money.
The mechanism for security audit is hardly ever standard due to difference of environment between companies. Often techniques such as interview, vulnerability scans and observation/analyses of the logs etc are steps which security auditor undertakes Often the companies’ security policies and procedures need to be analyse not only to check if they may be an issue within those documents but also to base the analyses and mechanism of auditing on these policies. CAAT’s (Computer-Assigned audit Technologies) are utilities to generate system reports that store all the logs and configuration files and sometimes even monitor activities. I think that it’s very useful as the information can be very well formatted and display to an auditor without him going into specific directories/volumes or configuration files to get the information needed. Some of these tools actually have programmed patterns of for instance default configuration files which are being matched to the tested system configuration files and it flags the auditor when positive.
Considering auditor role as an investigator there are certain areas that are need to be checked for instance the way the passwords are generated or the way backups are stored often by asking all sorts of questions based on the auditors experience. I think the very important issue to observe is that some companies have got their own internal auditors/security consultant/officers which can help however to gain objective system audit an external auditor is a must. In many companies that is a way to check how the IT Department is developing and progressing for example the University of East London Dean’s assistants or so called management board may not be full of IT professionals so it may be difficult to judge the amount of work and progress the IT Department is doing, therefore by using an external auditor Dean or management board will receive the report on their achieved goals and aims for the next audit – if that is several visit of an auditor. That is normally the formal report produced few weeks after the audit takes place. Some institutions like Higher education or some government bodies have a law impose to make sure that externals audits are up to date and consistently maintained.

John Edwards. (2008). The Essential Guide to Security Audits. Available: http://www.itsecurity.com/features/security-audit-essentials-042908/#comments.

Communication Security threats

Communication will always require a certain security due to the sensitivity of information being stored. Networking can be explained really simple; all we have to do is send information from point A to the point B, although there are many of complex processes carried out while the information is being transferred. As the information is being sent from A to B is forwarded using different routes using Routers, Switches, Access Points, Firewalls etc, therefore is even more difficult to secure it. There are many threats to communication security therefore I have listed the most important ones by my understanding and experience.
Main vulnerabilities are:

• Packet Sniffing – when an intruder listen to the network traffic and analyses the packets having a possibility to read our incoming and outgoing information using obscure protocols (eg.FTP) in Voice over IP protocol also known as eavesdropping.

• IP Spoofing – where an intruder sends the packets to our network and disguises himself as a trusted host (that we could have communicated with in the past) or in order to try Denial of Service attack so that the packets are reflected on the actual target.

• Password breaking – where there are many methods, brutal-force using rainbow tables or disguising as trusted entity sends requests to the target to confirm his username and password (also known as phishing).

• Man in the middle attack – it’s an attack where intruder attack someone who has already established a trusted communication with us, for instance subcontractor or another company we do business with, therefore because our network is too secure intruder attacks less secure network we have connection with.

• Denial of Service attack – occurs where intruder is sending extremely high amount of packets/information so that our network/server can’t handle it. Sometimes it may be caused by the number of users using certain services at the same time causing ‘legitimate’ denial of service.

• There are also all the other threats that affect communication security like spyware, malware ,viruses ,Trojans ,backdoors ,net boots and other malicious software all designed to interrupt the confidentiality of our information to retrieve it or destroy it.

• General vulnerabilities – operating systems bugs, protocol bugs, transfer medium failure, data storage failure and bad organised physical security (data centre doors wide open).

Microsoft. (2007). Common Security Threats. Available: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb964031%28office.12%29.aspx.