By Ann Grove, Logical's President 

Although some developers see threat modeling as a low-value, high-effort exercise, the process provides a helpful, holistic view to find, identify, and evaluate risks that wouldn't otherwise be recognized.

​That was the contention of John Misczak (@johnmisczak) at an OWASP Philly (@phillyowasp) event Friday. Misczak is a senior consultant at Security Risk Advisors, a security and compliance services and products company. The day's theme was web application security in agile environments. (See the next blog post to learn about better integrating the security team into the development team.)

Misczak said that a good threat model picks up problems that are not identified by other security assessments such as penetration tests (pen tests).

Let's look at the top five of the Misczak Top 10 areas that a threat model should address: 

1. Threats introduced if the application or technology being modeled employs jump host architecture. A jump host is a computer used to manage devices in a separate security zone such as a trusted computer managing a host in a DMZ. Misczak provided the example of a company that pulls in blog content from a static service.  
2. Threats introduced through the use of third-party code libraries. Misczak talked about a real-life case where a library of thousands of libraries were taken offline due to an infringement dispute. While I couldn't find that news story, the risk is clear since third-party library components comprise up to 90 percent of applications. (As a side note, Larry Maccherone (@lmaccherone) from Comcast recently presented at the Philly Security Shell and in part discussed the effectiveness of securing library components with Software Composition Analysis.) 
3. Threats introduced by weak key management. Misczak provided the example of two systems reconciled through a flat file when the key on one side is weak. Organizations should also consider where keys are stored, how file and directory permissions are managed, how keys are rotated, whether the key is on the same server or is pulled from elsewhere at the moment is needed for encryption or decryption. 
4. Threats introduced by rate limiting. According to Misczak, organizations may wish to consider NOT locking out users who with a minute or two make a couple of password reset attempts (which generate a code sent to the user via email or by text). The organization may wish to only throttle against automated attacks that generate hundreds of attempts per minute, Misczak  said. 
5. Threats introduced by service accounts. Primarily, Misczak pointed to risk from the reuse of service accounts for multiple applications and services. He also mentioned that regular maintenance is required: passwords need to be updated and service accounts should be rotated.

This writer (Ann) has helped prepare threat model reports for a security consultancy client and the results were presented much like the results of a pen test with a list of findings (security weaknesses), and, for each finding, the assets impacted, a risk rating, a description of the problem, and recommendations. Therefore, I asked Misczak if organizations track and resolve threat model findings using the same methods applied for pen test findings. Misczak said many organizations do not track pen test findings to closure, and so should use a different approach to ensure that all threat model findings are fully addressed.

For those interested in threat modeling, Misczak recommended checking out a new, open-source OWASP threat modeling tool, Threat Dragon. Available for Windows, Mac, Linux (soon), or via web app, the tool includes system diagramming and a powerful rule engine to auto-generate threats/mitigations.

Employ Security by Design with Static Analysis

A static analysis tool is a debugging tool that examines code for known issues without executing an application. Typically, static analysis is run on a designated frequency such as weekly or monthly.

To implement static analysis, Lackey recommends beginning with classes of vulnerability that are the easiest to address. This also demonstrates to the organization that static analysis can deliver both value and velocity. The analysis tool should be “tuned” for each class to eliminate most false positives before moving onto the next class, Lackey says, rather than attempting to tune all classes at once. For instance, a team can start with command execution and later move on to XSS, SQLi, Directory Traversal, etc.

In addition, rather than instituting automatic blocking to prevent disallowed primitives, Lackey recommends talking to developers. Through conversation, the security team can learn what a developer is attempting to protect and discuss how that can best be accomplished through hashing, encryption, file system operations, or another method. 
Finally, Lackey recommends building proactive alerting so that leaders are advised when sensitive or rarely changed portions of the codebase are modified. He suggests alerting development and security engineers to changes to key platform protections, rather than blocking so that approvals are not needed during an emergency. For instance, a team can establish an alert for a hash change on key files, authorization of primitives, session management, encryption wrappers, etc. This provides accountability without impacting velocity. 

Provide Continuous Feedback with Penetration Testing and Bug Bounties

Lackey discussed two primary sources of security visibility: penetration tests and bug bounty programs. 

Penetration testing (pen testing) was “real-time enough when software was released every 18 months,” Lackey said. The purpose of pen testing in organizations with bounties has shifted; the value of pen tests now is that they are more directed.

Many organizations augment pen tests these days with bug bounty programs which provide truly real-time and continuous feedback. Through bounty programs, organizations compensate or reward external volunteer testers for finding weaknesses or bugs in the product being tested. The emergence of bounty platforms such as HackerOne and Bugcrowd make bounty programs more manageable, for instance for international payments, Lackey said.

Increase Security Visibility 

To increase security visibility, Lackey recommends developing capabilities to detect attacks as early as possible in the attack chain. This is especially important when a bounty program is planned, in case a bounty hunter discovers a bug that he or she decides not to report, Lackey said. The hunter could decide to sell the bug to hackers or use the bug for a live exploit later. 

In addition, organizations should continuously test and refine their vulnerability and incident response processes and mature their forensic capabilities.

Conclusion

Organizations realize it is no longer feasible for security teams to primarily focus efforts late in development when discovered bugs are costly and may delay scheduled releases. Security teams in agile environments are increasingly participating in the early phases of web application development and are collaborating with, educating, and empowering developers. Even in fast-paced agile environments, secure development is possible with techniques such as integrating security into design, providing continuous security feedback, and making security visible, Lackey said.​

By Ann Grove, Logical's President

So you've hired a consultant or agency to develop a marketing deliverable such as a blog post, white paper, or video. Now is not the time to wash your hands of the project. Instead, increase the effectiveness of the content and improve the outcome by providing your consultant with some key documents you will likely already have on hand if you have a marketing team: 

• Buyer personas, so the consultant understands the audience
• Keywords that a potential customer would use to search for the organization or the topic of the content, so those words can be used in the piece
• A list of specific targeted industry verticals
• Content examples (yours or a competitor's) that got a strong response from the intended audience
• Any style guide or logo-usage guidelines

Your marketing consultant also need at least one more resource: a Subject Matter Expert (SME) or collaborator. Occasionally we meet a client who wants its assigned consultant to develop content with minimal direction and no team interaction. The results tend to be disappointing.

Our most successful projects are typically those where the client takes the time to discuss things like market trends, industry news, and product differentiation. The client's deep industry knowledge enhances our keyword-optimized and targeted content, resulting in high-performing results.

Logical offers free project consultations and takes all of the stress out of outsourcing security content and compliance analysis needs. Reach us at +1 717.927.6168 or reach out using our Contact page.