2016 Controls Map - Indexed to NIST - Free Gift

Delivered to you with pleasure and as a courtesy of one of the best managers I have had. Jerry Breaud trusted me to run with my gut instinct and allowed me to work on a personal project designed from its initial conception to give as much to the community as it does to our company.

Thank you to VMware and Intel, both of whom supported this effort and allowed me to create, validate, and openly give this information back to the community so that others can benefit from this work product.

Download! 
You can find the mapping under the downloads tab.

Look for 2016 Controls Map New_River_v5 CG (012).xlsm. Please note this is a macro-enabled spreadsheet. View the macro using [ALT]-[F11].

Quick Summary

The purpose of the build kit is to create a blueprint for a repeatable solution that is capable of meeting multiple compliance requirements. The objective is to build the solution properly the 1st time, and have the solution meet the technical control requirements for multiple regulations, standards, and best practices. While we have appreciation and understanding for administrative and physical controls, our focus is understandably on the technical configuration and setup of these complex virtual systems.

Challenge

We continue to see large multinational organizations struggling with the complexity of multiple regulations and required combined control frameworks. We have spoken with senior security and compliance executives from financials, defense, and many other entities with sensitive data. This is a serious and daunting problem – and we have good news.

Opportunity

The opportunity is to create a sustainable common controls baseline to address multiple regulations and standards. It's as simple as this. The result helps organizations quickly to a lowest common denominator set of technical configurations that collectively create a technical build gold configuration. This is a baseline set of configurations with a target of achieving 90+ % compliance for a majority of authoritative sources out-of-the-box aligned with NIST controls.

Execution

Someone recently looked at the body of work and made the assumption we simply borrowed from existing mappings. We looked. And were not satisfied with the accuracy and usefulness of the common existing mappings out there. This was several months of heads-down effort reviewing every single control and then getting two different third party audit firms to supplement the effort.

• Review and complete where necessary control mappings from common regulations, standards, and best practices into NIST.
• Identify any control gaps and create an effective control overlay. 
• Independently validate results by at least 2 different consulting companies formally, and informally with a number of peers.

Deliverable

The incredible work NIST has done with bodies of work like NIST SP800-160 Systems Security Engineering Considerations for a Multidisciplinary Approach in the Engineering of Trustworthy Secure Systems by Dr. Ron Ross, Michael McEvilley, and Janet Carrier Oren greatly inspired our team. We borrowed generously from these materials.

• Recommended common control alignment map to NIST with additional control overlays addressing multiple regulations and standards. 
• Recommended product configurations, security solutions, and specific design requirements to create repeatable, compliant, secure systems.

But I didn't think PCI mapped directly into SP800-53?

It doesn't. Please allow me to introduce the concept of overlays in case you haven't run across them before. Taken from the summary document...

[...] To help ensure that selected and implemented controls are sufficient to adequately mitigate risks to organizational operations and assets, SP 800-53 Rev. 4 introduces the concept of overlays. An overlay provides a set of security controls, control enhancements, and supplemental guidance for community-wide use or to address specialized requirements, technologies, or unique missions and environments of operation. For example, the federal government may decide to establish a government-wide set of security controls and implementation guidance for public key infrastructure (PKI) systems that could be uniformly applied to information. [...]

Microsoft Throws Down!

First, I read this... https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/03/microsoft-expands-azure-datacenters-to-france-looks-to-beat-aws-on-image-of-trust/. Then I reviewed the Trust Center *once again*... to see if there have been any changes in the last couple weeks.

For those that are unaware of the great strides Microsoft has made in the world of audit attestation, pay close attention to the additions and greatly enhanced Microsoft Trust Center. You can search services, location, and/or industry for compliance adherence.

I know several people over at Microsoft, and it is with sincere pleasure that I'm excited about the way that Microsoft is executing on using trust as a competitive differentiator. My hat is off. Excellent work. The cloud competitive market has no option but to respond. The speed with which Microsoft has built parity with Amazon's compliance technical marketing should be noticed.

Microsoft is serious about compliance and fully intends to capitalize on the investment that went into appealing to a broad market shaken by shifting regulatory requirements and frequent security breaches. What they have done isn't cheap. Or easy. But it will surely pay off.

PCI DSS v3.2 Spreadsheet Format

PCI DSS v3.2 Spreadsheet loaded here: https://www.compliancequickstart.com/

You'll also find the latest versions that have been updated including version 4. You will find that blog post here: Cloud Audit Controls: PCI DSSv4 Spreadsheet Format 

Many are wondering about 3.2.1. The NIST mapping is the same!

Quick and Dirty Cloud Assessment

Some of you guys have insane resources, capital, people, that you can throw at the problem until it's solved.

Unfortunately, that's not all of you. Or maybe it IS you, but you're not going to spend anymore time than necessary to make sure that you have the basics covered.

Here's the short list.

1. Review the following list of security solutions and make sure that you have answers for each one of the security solutions/products that apply to you.

http://www.cloudauditcontrols.com/p/requirements-checklist.html

2. Find the hardening guide for each one of the products that you have installed and make sure you focus on reducing the attack surface and exploitability of the systems by implementing moderate to complete hardening on the systems.

3. Ensure that you have basic segmentation implemented to protect multitier applications.

4. Implement traffic filtering for external-facing applications. I'm a big fan of these guys. No affiliation whatsoever. Look at some of the other offerings that they have as well.

https://www.incapsula.com/website-security/https://www.incapsula.com/website-security/

If you want one of the best peer-reviewed security standards that I believe is actionable and reasonable to implement, consider PCI DSS. There is some overlap between some of the requirements. It still requires a moderate amount of interpretation. I've done a tremendous amount of work in and around the standard, and I'm not speaking flippantly or borrowing from someone else's opinion when I state these things.

Here's a short blog post that contains distilled requirements that I consider must-haves:

http://www.cloudauditcontrols.com/2012/03/practices-for-protecting-management.html

5. Final additional considerations not required specifically by most regulations and standards. [a] Consider Network Behavior Anomaly Detection such as Fire Eye. [b] Consider white listing, sandboxing, persistence, and other measures to limit attack surface, attack vectors, escalations, attack persistence.

This is typically when I tell organizations that are uncomfortable making product decisions to engage a reputable security-focused reseller. Of course I have my favorites for different situations. But I don't know your environment. My brother founded and runs https://www.criticalstart.com. I've used some of his guys in the past for different assessments. Good work. Another couple that I like are https://www.redlegg.com and https://depthsecurity.com. Both founded by stand-up guys that care about the customer and care about getting it right.

CVE Analysis Spreadsheet - 2015 through 2016 Q1

Here's a dump of the CVE's from January 2015 through March 2016 with a quick search feature. Simply input minimum CVSS score, any search terms under description, vendor, or product, and it immediately counts combined matches. For example, the number of vulnerabilities from Microsoft with a CVSS score greater than 4 is 628. Apple has 613.

Simply navigate to the documents tab and look for CVE Analysis spreadsheet.

Controls Spreadsheet NEI 08-09 [Rev. 6] Cyber Security Plan for Nuclear Power Reactors

Controls spreadsheet under Documents tab. Look for NEI08-09r6.ver ... .xlsx under Authorities.

NIST Cyber Security Framework (CSF) Excel Spreadsheet

NIST Cybersecurity Framework Excel Spreadsheet

Go to the documents tab and look under authorities folder. Contains properly split-out table, database import sheet, search, and blind reverse map to 800-53r4.

Document: NIST Cybersecurity Framework.ver.xx
Documents Site: https://www.compliancequickstart.com/

Excel Spreadsheet: HHS-ONC Security Risk Assessment Tool & HIPAA Security Rule Toolkit

Posting Excel spreadsheets of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) Security Risk Assessment (SRA) Tool (https://www.healthit.gov/providers-professionals/security-risk-assessment-tool) and the NIST-provided HIPAA Security Rule Toolkit (http://scap.nist.gov/hipaa/).

You can download Controls_HIPAA.ver.01c.xlsx under the Documents tab which takes you here: https://sites.google.com/site/cloudauditcontrols/.

Why you need to read the Summary of NIST SP 800-53 Revision 4

This is the most concise list of answers I've seen to the most commonly asked questions and misconceptions my customers, peers, and students have about NIST SP800-53r4.

http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-53-rev4/sp800-53r4_summary.pdf

Just read the table of contents for a readout on those topics... It will look as if someone is reading my email! Nice work Kelly, Greg, and Doug.

Summary of NIST SP 800-53 Revision 4, Security and Privacy Controls for Federal Information Systems and Organizations
Kelley Dempsey
Computer Security Division Information Technology Laboratory
Greg Witte
Doug Rike G2, Inc. Annapolis Junction, MD
February 19, 2014
Table of Contents

1 Introduction
2 NIST SP 800-53 Revision 4 and the Risk Management Framework (RMF)
3 Control Baselines and Tailoring
4 Documenting the Control Selection Process
5 Assurance
6 Security Controls
7 International Information Security Standards
8 Overlays
9 Privacy

Here's how I loosely explain it.

• [Introduction] 800-53 was put in place to define controls for federal systems. Controls keep bad things from happening.
• [RMF] This assumes the use of the Risk Management Framework. You cannot get away from this. Learn and use it. Repeatedly.
• [Baselines and Tailoring] The baselines are not meant to be blindly applied. They must be tailored for your situation.
• [Documentation] Document everything.
• [Assurance] Systems assurance helps you sleep at night.
• [Controls] Security controls enable you to protect your systems from bad stuff.
• [International] Yes!! There is a tremendous amount of overlap between these recommendations and international ISO-IEC recommendations. Look at how they line up! Perfectly? No. But wave your hands and explain it away. Don't do that... that's a joke. Seriously. Don't do that.
• [Overlays] NIST understands they don't cover every situation and expect you to document additional protections they don't cover. Call these overlays.
• [Privacy] Here's an example overlay.

On my wish list is a NIST for Dummies explained using Legos...

DRAFT Automation Support for Security Control Assessments

Here is a draft release that came out tonight for public review. This is solid. Well-thought out. Really looking forward to where this goes, and I'm going to be following this closely.

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**NIST IR 8011: DRAFT Automation Support for Security Control Assessments**
http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/drafts/nistir-8011/nistir_8011_ipd-draft_vol1_overview.pdf

[From Executive Summary]
Evolving threats create a challenge for organizations that design, implement, and operate complex information systems containing many moving parts. The ability to assess all implemented information security controls as frequently as needed using manual procedural methods has become impractical and unrealistic for most organizations due to the sheer size, complexity, and scope of their information technology footprint. Additionally, the rapid deployment of new technologies such as mobile, cloud, and social media brings with it new risks that make ongoing manual procedural assessments of all controls impossible for the vast majority of organizations. Today there is broad agreement in the information security community that once an information system is in production, automation of security control assessments1 is needed to support and facilitate near real-time information security continuous monitoring (ISCM).

[From Introduction]
Automated assessments have the potential to provide more timely data about security control defects (i.e., the absence or failure of a control), better enabling organizations to respond before vulnerabilities are exploited. Additionally, automated security control assessment has the potential to be less expensive and less human resource-intensive than manual procedural testing. Any realized savings could free up resources to be used on other activities, for example, investing in additional safeguards or countermeasures or responding to security defects and incidents in a more timely manner.

[Planned Volumes]
Volume 1 Automation Support for Security Control Assessments
Volume 2 Hardware Asset Management (HWAM)
Volume 3 Software Asset Management (SWAM)
Volume 4 Configuration Settings Management
Volume 5 Vulnerability Management
Volume 6 Boundary Management (Physical, Filters, and Other Boundaries)
Volume 7 Trust Management
Volume 8 Security-Related Behavior Management
Volume 9 Credentials and Authentication Management
Volume 10 Privilege and Account Management
Volume 11 Event (Incident and Contingency) Preparation Management
Volume 12 Anomalous Event Detection Management
Volume 13 Anomalous Event Response and Recovery Management