Slashdot Mirror
Storage Security
Storage Security is not about turning on the right configuration options on your XYZ brand server appliance. It's about applying solid, methodical security practices to your storage systems, regardless of whether they are disks directly attached to a single computer, Network Attached Storage or part of a Storage Area Network. The authors address the full security cycle, too, starting with evaluating the security of proposed new storage solutions. Comparative data in hand, the book shows you how to narrow the field to a single solution that offers the best balance between functionality and security.
And once the system is selected, you can't stop there. You've got to decide on appropriate security policies for the new storage system, draft and implement a backup and restore plan, deal with disaster recovery and take care of a host of other issues. In short, this is a good guide to an entire range of considerations necessary to select, deploy and manage a secure storage solution.
The book's evaluation methodology is particularly valuable. Each type of storage (directly attached, NAS and SAN) is covered in a chapter of its own. Within each chapter, the authors address specific technologies used to implement that type of storage. For example, the direct-attach chapter discusses such common storage technologies as SCSI and IDE, moderately exotic systems like USB and Firewire drives, and some more advanced solutions like HiPPI and SSA. Each technology is then placed in a matrix and scored in 11 different categories, including popularity and industry acceptance, built-in data protection features, typical fault tolerance and physical security characteristics.
The authors assign each rating on a scale of 1 (poor) to 5 (the best). This gives a good general indication of how each technology measures up, but they tend to rely on a straight average of the ratings when determining the best technology. Although it's true that the average allows you to make a quick ballpark comparison, there are many other factors to consider as well, such as the suitability for your particular environment and the way in which your users need to access their data. The matrixes are quite useful, but just remember that you can't always boil things down to a simple numerical score.
Probably the biggest problem with this book is that it's pretty dry. As a reference book, the writing style is fine, since it's easy to find what you're looking for, and the chapters are concise. It's difficult to read from cover-to-cover, though, which is a shame because that's what you should probably do the first time through. Take it in small doses, a chapter or so at a time, and you should be fine.
Storage Security is about just what you'd think: the security of your data as it's being stored on your server(s). It's not a detailed look at the configuration of any one product, but rather a comprehensive, theory-based approach to managing the security of your storage subsystem from evaluation to purchase to daily operations. If you manage a small or mid-size network, you may or may not need this book. If you have a larger network, though, or have significant data-storage needs, this deserves a space on your shelf.
You can purchase Storage Security: Protecting, SANs, NAS and DAS from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
There are a few product to do just that, such as bestcrypt .
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html
Yes, Windows 2000/XP Professional and Windows Server 2003 all support this feature. Encryption/decryption is done transparently so there is no additional user intervention required.
Also, with PGP you can create PGP disks that are essentially files that are loopback-mounted as an encrypted drive. Any files you copy to this virtual drive are automatically encrypted with your PGP keys.
IEEE is working on a standard (IEEE P1619) which will allow encryption to shared media (SANs I guess). They've set up a working group.
They're looking at (from the website):
Something to look at in the future. Hopefully it'll be more secure than WEP. :)
Unfortunately the words "weak encryption" can definately be attributed to Windows EFS encryption.
Every time you open the file it's decrypted in place, so while the file is "open" it's in an unencrypted state.
A few scenarios to consider:
A) Application A always running. While the application is running, the data file in unencrypted on disk so anyone with the appropriate permissions can read it. Exchange is a good example of this - how often do you shut it off?
B) What happens when you have a powercut. If the file was unencrypted guess what state it'll stay in until you manually poke it?
C) If it's data like word documents then this is the chain of events: open encrypted file, (it decrypts in the background), you change the file, you save it, windows creates a NEW file and writes the changes to it, office deletes the old file, office renames the NEW file to the name of the old file, windows encrypts the changed file, and office etc rename the encrypted version back to the original filename. But the blocks for the decrypted one are on disk for anyone with the appropriate undelete tools to use.
Still, better than nothing?
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
There are patches for the Linux Kernel that use loopback devices and the international patches (CryptoAPI) to encrypt filesystems transparently. They also require CryptoAPI enabled losetup, mount, and umount binaries. Linux Encrypted File System Howto
A similar arrangement is available to OpenBSD. OpenBSD Encrypted Virtual Filesystem Mini-HOWTO
MacOS supports it too. You can create AES encrypted disk images and mount them. And of course so does linux (and I'd guess *bsd). You can make a file and mount it encrypted through the loopback device.
The Right Reverend K. Reid Wightman,
DriveCrypt Plus Pack ($150 USD), which only works with Windows XP, encrypts the entire operating system and/or individual partitions/physical drives. It authenticates from the boot sector and decrypts into system memory on the fly.
An alternative is to create virtual encrypted disks, which sounds like the solution you may be looking for:
DriveCrypt "classic" and Bestcrypt (both under $100) will create virtual encrypted disks. For Windows 98/ME, a free program known as ScramDisk does the same thing (it's the precursor to DriveCrypt).
A freeware version (6.0.2?) of PGP comes with PGPDisk, it can be obtained at www.pgpi.org. PGPDisk does basically the same thing as DriveCrypt/ScramDisk and BestCrypt. PGP 8.0 Personal also has this feature, it's $50 for a personal license.
Some machines are more secure then others. With Suns you can lock the PROM (== BIOS) so that even to boot you need to enter a password. You basically need to open up the box, pull the EEPROM chip, and put in another before you can even think about booting.
Alot harder then simply press DEL on bootup, wouldn't you say? :)
Try doing that with a regular PC BIOS. (I think Apple also uses OpenFirmware (IEEE 1275 as well.)
LoopAES for Linux can encrypt your swap partition and your root partition (all it needs a small unencrypted /boot partition). Unfortunately, there is a big overhead in CPU usage. I tried CryptoAPI for the 2.2 kernels, and on my K6-2 400 Mhz file server it dropped transfer rate to 1.2MB/s. Assuming linear CPU scaling, you'd need about a 2 Ghz just to keep up with 100Mb fast ethernet.
Yes, and there are programs that either crack or read the password (doing a quick Google):
If you don't the PROM password for a Sun the only thing you can do is can a new EEPROM chip -- you can't access the password in anyway. There is no ``discharging'' the battery (though I think some PC BIOSes now do this). Of course you can simply do a BIOS-update to get rid of all the values....
Very handy indeed.
ooooooh! What does this button do? - DeeDee, Dexters Lab.
Actually, there's a lot more to security than just keeping your data secret. Information Security practice is based on three pillars: Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability (AKA "CIA", which sounds like an oxymoron, doesn't it?). There's a lot more to it than just keeping people away from the physical storage medium.
Maybe I should have made this more clear, but the nicest thing about this book is that they cover *all* the security bases, not just the ones most people think of. They show how to evaluate technologies or specific solutions on the "I" and the "A" as well. That's why I think this book is so useful. It points out areas of security that many people often overlook.
Check out my eclectic infosec blog at InfoSecPotpou
This issue has been mentioned several times in the RISKS Digest:
There have been issues with Word going back to 1994: The more things change....
I used to work for a Fortune 500 company as a Unix sys admin. One of my projects was to assist in bringing a new Oracle financials system on line. The data on this system was so sensitive that only the executive board was given access, and then only via SecurID cards from specific locations during specific time windows.
Nightly backup tapes were queued in a fireproof walk-in vault before going offsite at the end of each day. I happened to be strolling by the vault one day and noticed the backup tapes sitting there on a shelf in the vault, right next to the open vault door. I did some checking and found out that the vault was left open during business hours so that the operations folks had easy access to backup media. The vault was in a different department than I/S, on a main hallway, right near the front door of the building. Obviously, I mentioned this to the Operations Manager. The new policy limited access to only a couple of operations supervisors, and instituted a media checkout policy (nothing a little social engineering couldn't thwart, but far better than the previous situation).
So what's the moral of the story? Make sure your security policy deals with backup media. Don't just assume that your operations department (or the offsite storage provider) is securely managing your media.
well, you've just learned something new then.
Linux has had encrypted filesystems for years now.
It isn't discussed often because it works well, and there aren't any big suprises.
if you read through some of the other replies to this thread, there are links to aes, loopback, and the crypto kernel setup.