Security Metrics - The Useful and Not-So-useful

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Security Metrics The Useful and Not-So-Useful Doug Copley CISO – Beaumont Health Chairman Emeritus – Michigan Healthcare Cybersecurity Council 17-DEC-2015


Why Measure At All? »

» » » » » »

Integral to a program’s governance Necessary to determine process effectiveness Can show resource gaps or shortages Manage service provider SLAs Supports continuous improvement Provides assurance to executives & the Board of Directors Provides basis for comparative benchmarking “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.” - W. Edwards Deming


Why Measure your InfoSec Program? Are our vulnerability management efforts effective? Are we educating our workforce? And changing behavior?

How resilient are our information systems? Is our risk posture improving or degrading?


Effective Security Metric Characteristics » » » » » » »

»

Be quantitative, or at least ordinal NOT be measured one time only Measure breadth of activities/involvement Be presented in context Measure against established baselines/targets Demonstrate control effectiveness Should induce action and/or influence behavior Can be used to make plan/strategy changes


What Should I Measure? »

Depends on Audience Board/C-level execs  Management team  CISO/Security Mgmt  Info security staff 

»

Dependent on maturity of the security program Low maturity – sheer counts may show progress  Moderate maturity – % of target effectiveness  High maturity – defect rate, duration of attack 


Metrics Categories  InfoSec Management  Access Control  Human Resource Security  Risk Management  Security Policy  Security Organization  Audit & Compliance  Asset Management  Threat Intelligence

 Physical Security  Communications  Systems Acquisition, Development & Mgmt  Incident Management  Cryptography  Business Resilience  Operations Mgmt  Supplier Relationships


Metrics Categories  Access Control  Human Resource Security  Security Policy  Security Organization  Audit & Compliance  Asset Management

 Physical Security  Communications  Systems Acquisition, Development & Mgmt  Incident Management  Cryptography  Business Resilience  Operations Mgmt  Supplier Relationships


What Should I Measure? »

Metrics must be meaningful to the audience 

This is NOT the look you want from your audience:

What are you trying to say?

OR

They will be different by audience  There is no one metric that will fit all of them 


How to Present Metrics


Creating Meaningful Diagrams »

A good security metric can provide the following information: Current value – normal?  Current value – satisfactory?  Trend – Increase or decrease  Trend – Improving or degrading? 

»

Use colors and arrows to represent them in a compact and concise way Ideally, it will clearly show required actions

»

Do not make your audience search for meaning

»


Making Them Visual Âť

Make the slides visually appealing and informative to the target audience


Show Metrics in a Time Series Attempts to Access Malware 120,000

106,971

100,000

80,000

60,000

56,602 48,953

62,262

57,801

52,210 44,808

52,210 45,256

39,460

36,297

40,000

21,111 20,000

0 0

AUG 14

SEP 14

OCT 14 NOV 14 DEC 14

Jan-15

Feb-15

Mar-15

Apr-15

15-May

15-Jun

15-Jul

15-Aug


Improving or Worsening? Data Loss Prevention Security Events (n=193) 600 547

500 418 400 346 300

274

230

219 196

200 172

117

183

184 68

100 116

89

64

58

45

48

Mar-14 Only IronKey

Apr-14 SSN

May-14 US Credit Cards

Jun-14 Linear (Only IronKey)

Jul-14 Linear (SSN)

Aug-14 Linear (US Credit Cards)


Does Downward Slope Mean Good? IT Audit and Compliance Items - 24 Month Trend 140 127 121

120 120

113 108

105

106

107

106

105

114

114

122

124

112 104

103

100

80 65

61

61

67

66

New Closed

60

Open 38

40 20

19

11

0

21

20

0

0

2014-03

2014-05

2014-06

2014-07

2014-08

10

2014-02

0

02

2014-01

01

2013-11

01

2013-10

10

0

9

02

2013-09

10

2013-07

0

2013-06

1

3

2013-05

11

10

7

2013-03

0

2012-11

0

7

2012-10

3

4

2013-08

20

2013-02

2013-01

2012-09

2012-08

0


Pulling It All Together »

Do NOT make metrics slideware that is shared via email 

»

Make sure you can explain them in person

Make sure the slides not only show the data, but explain the significance Help the reader understand what to look for  Don’t assume they know what it means 


Examples (focused on CISO/leadership)


Example Metric #1

Not So Not Good Good? So Good?


Improved Metric #1 % Workforce Completed Security Training 100% 90%

Target range

80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20%

Phishing campaign click rate

10% 0% Oct'14

Nov'14

Dec'14

Better

Jan'15

Feb'15

Mar'15

Apr'15

May'15

Jun'15

Jul'15

Aug'15

Sep'15

Key Message: Training is progressing well and we’re recognizing the intended results

Oct'15


Example Metric #2 # Open Vulnerabilities 250

200

150

100

50

0

Oct'14 Nov'14 Dec'14 Jan'15 Feb'15 Mar'15 Apr'15 May'15 Jun'15 Exploitable Sev 4-5

Jul'15

Aug'15 Sep'15 Oct'15

Non-Exploitable Sev 4-5

Not So Not Good Good? So Good?


Improved Metric #2 Vulnerability Management Efforts 100 90

% of Target Systems Scanned

80 70 60 50

# Critical, Exploitable Unpatched Vulnerabilities

40 30 20 10 0 Oct'14

Nov'14

Dec'14

Jan'15

Feb'15

Mar'15

>90 days

Better

Apr'15 46-90 days

May'15

Jun'15

Jul'15

Aug'15

Sep'15

Oct'15

0-45 days

Key Messages: 1. There has been steady progress, but we’re still not scanning all target systems 2. Patching/Remediation requires improvement. Unacceptable number open past 90 days.


Example Metric #3

USB

Not So Not Good Good? So Good?


Improved Metric #3 Percent DLP Events Resolved Within Target Timeframes 120

100

80

60

40

20

What’s the exposure? Like vulnerabilities, remediation timing – how long Are they open. Maybe % events closed within 5 days? Trending of critical events isrisk important identify A measure of aggregate would betoeven better. Broken business processes and their remediation What % of alerts are being closed monthly? 14

20

16

12

13

15

20

19

13

0 Oct'14 Nov'14 Dec'14

# Open

Jan'15

Feb'15 Mar'15 Apr'15 May'15 Jun'15

Critical <3 Days

Better

High <6 days

9 Jul'15

13

11

Aug'15 Sep'15

9 Oct'15

Med-Low <30 days

Key Messages: 1. Remediation on critical events is lacking 2. Need more focus on resolving open items Valuable addition could be reaction time (i.e. is it taking minutes/hours/days to escalate to an analyst?).


Example Metric #4 Managed PCs and Servers 5000 4500 4000 3500 3000 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0 Oct'14 Nov'14 Dec'14 Jan'15 Feb'15 Mar'15 Apr'15 May'15 Jun'15

# Managed PCs

Jul'15

Aug'15 Sep'15 Oct'15

# Managed Servers

Not So Not Good Good? So Good?


Improved Metric #4 Managed PCs and Servers 6000

5000

4000

3000

2000

1000

0 Oct'14

Nov'14

# Managed PCs

Better

Dec'14

Jan'15

Feb'15

Unmanaged PCs

Mar'15

Apr'15

May'15

# Managed Servers

Jun'15

Jul'15

PCs on Gold Build

Aug'15

Sep'15

Oct'15

Servers on Gold Build

Key Messages: 1. Still not actively managing all PCs – requires attention 2. Too many systems not configured to company standards


Example Metric #5 Weekly URL Filtering Porn Access Attempts

Minutes on Social Media

Ann Smith Joe Box Cliff Jones John Doe Jane Clemens Buford Horen Henry Isaac Jeff King Sue Beggs Nick Molar Kyle Bicuspid Iggy Incisor

Bob Jan Fred Feb Mary Mar Alex Apr Max May Jack Jun Justin Jul Andy Aug Sally Sep Oliver Oct Ned Nov Doug Dec 0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

Not So Not Good Good? So Good?

700

800


Improved Metric #5 2500

Attempts to Access a Malicious Site

2000

1500

1000

500

0 Oct'14 Nov'14 Dec'14 Jan'15 Feb'15 Mar'15 Apr'15 May'15 Jun'15

Better

Jul'15 Aug'15 Sep'15 Oct'15

Key Messages: 1. Good progress, but still consistently see indicators of compromise 2. Need to strengthen anti-malware controls


Example Metric #6 Identified Risk Items 40 36 35 30 25

22

20 15 10

6 5

2

0 External Assessment

External Audit

Internal Assessment

Internal Audit

Not So Not Good Good? So Good?


Improved Metric #6 Risk Register Activity 80

Total Identified Risks

70 60

Risks with Action Plans 50 40

Aggregate Relative Risk

30 20 10 2

0

1

2

0

0

2

4

7 3

1

2

3

0 Oct'14 Nov'14 Dec'14

Better

Jan'15

Feb'15 Mar'15 Apr'15 May'15 Jun'15

Jul'15

Aug'15 Sep'15

Oct'15

Key Messages: 1. Risk posture moving in the right direction 2. Should add temporary staffing to inject a sizeable reduction in overall risk posture


Example Metric #7 40

37

35

32

37

30

30 25

18

20

15 10

14

17

12 8

7

Tier 0

Tier 1

9

7

5

0

Total Critical Apps

Tier 2

App Plans Updated 2014/2015

Tier 3 Apps Not Tested in 2014/2015

Good?NotNot BadSo Good?


Improved Metric #7 Resiliency / Preparedness 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 Tier 0

Tier 1 Critical Systems

Better

Tier 2 Plans Updated in 2015

Tier 3 Plans Tested in 2015

Key Messages: 1. Need significant improvement in system disaster recovery planning and testing


Executive Dashboard » »

Intended to convey a high-level status of the program to C-level executives and the Board Security Dashboard should convey: Status of regulatory compliance  Capability, Maturity and Implementation level of program elements  Key areas of information risk to the organization  Current initiatives and future state posture  External ties and intelligence information 

»

Must answer the question “Is our Information Security program effective?”


Example Program Scorecard InfoSec Management Program (IS)

Human Resources Security (HR)

Access Control (AC) 22

4

3

Physical Security (PS)

Communications Security (CS)

Cryptography (CR)

5

2

11

Systems Acquisition, Development, and Maintenance (SD)

Incident Management (IM)

2

Modified ISO 27001 Scorecard

1

0

Operations Management (OM)

Business Continuity (BC) 1

Asset Management (AM)

Compliance (CO) 3

0

4

2

Organization of Information Security (OI)

Security Policy (SP)

Risk Management (RM)

7

Supplier Relationships (SR) 0


HIPAA Compliance


Sample Dashboard #1

34


Sample Dashboard #2

35


Sample Dashboard #3


Sample Dashboard #4


Questions?


Thank You! Doug.Copley@Beaumont.org Doug.Copley@mihcc.org


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