1 1 00:00:00,240 --> 00:00:01,800 As a cybersecurity analyst, 2 2 00:00:01,800 --> 00:00:04,530 it's your responsibility to understand the risks 3 3 00:00:04,530 --> 00:00:07,890 to an enterprise and its information technology systems. 4 4 00:00:07,890 --> 00:00:10,050 Now, you must always analyze the systems 5 5 00:00:10,050 --> 00:00:13,260 to understand how they support the business's workflow 6 6 00:00:13,260 --> 00:00:16,650 and how the confidentiality, integrity, and availability 7 7 00:00:16,650 --> 00:00:20,040 of these systems could be threatened by an attacker. 8 8 00:00:20,040 --> 00:00:21,930 You need to be thinking about a few things 9 9 00:00:21,930 --> 00:00:25,080 when trying to determine what level of risks exist. 10 10 00:00:25,080 --> 00:00:28,410 For instance, how can an attack be performed? 11 11 00:00:28,410 --> 00:00:30,750 For example, can this attack be performed 12 12 00:00:30,750 --> 00:00:32,070 against your current network 13 13 00:00:32,070 --> 00:00:34,890 in its current situation and security status? 14 14 00:00:34,890 --> 00:00:38,730 And are the assets even accessible to the outside world? 15 15 00:00:38,730 --> 00:00:40,440 How about what is the potential impact 16 16 00:00:40,440 --> 00:00:42,360 to the confidentiality, integrity, 17 17 00:00:42,360 --> 00:00:44,640 and availability of the data? 18 18 00:00:44,640 --> 00:00:45,840 When you're putting things in place 19 19 00:00:45,840 --> 00:00:47,940 to protect the confidentiality, integrity, 20 20 00:00:47,940 --> 00:00:49,500 and reliability of the data, 21 21 00:00:49,500 --> 00:00:52,440 you're going to do that based on the potential impact. 22 22 00:00:52,440 --> 00:00:54,690 Also, you need to consider how likely it is 23 23 00:00:54,690 --> 00:00:56,910 that the risk will actually occur. 24 24 00:00:56,910 --> 00:00:59,190 How exploitable is this flaw? 25 25 00:00:59,190 --> 00:01:01,140 How bad is this vulnerability? 26 26 00:01:01,140 --> 00:01:03,030 Is this just something theoretical 27 27 00:01:03,030 --> 00:01:05,430 or is there a working exploit out in the wild 28 28 00:01:05,430 --> 00:01:07,350 that people are using every day? 29 29 00:01:07,350 --> 00:01:10,770 This is going to determine how likely this thing is to occur. 30 30 00:01:10,770 --> 00:01:12,840 Finally, you need to think about what mitigations 31 31 00:01:12,840 --> 00:01:14,700 you already have in place. 32 32 00:01:14,700 --> 00:01:17,160 For example, if you have some mitigations in place 33 33 00:01:17,160 --> 00:01:18,780 that will prevent a certain vulnerability 34 34 00:01:18,780 --> 00:01:20,160 from being exploited, 35 35 00:01:20,160 --> 00:01:22,770 then that vulnerability is effectively mitigated 36 36 00:01:22,770 --> 00:01:26,040 and controlled and you don't have to worry as much about it. 37 37 00:01:26,040 --> 00:01:27,270 When you're doing these type of things, 38 38 00:01:27,270 --> 00:01:29,100 you also need to think about how long it takes 39 39 00:01:29,100 --> 00:01:30,990 to put additional controls in place, 40 40 00:01:30,990 --> 00:01:33,300 to help bring those mitigations up if needed, 41 41 00:01:33,300 --> 00:01:35,460 and are adding additional protections 42 42 00:01:35,460 --> 00:01:37,980 even going to be cost-effective for you. 43 43 00:01:37,980 --> 00:01:39,540 To help you do all of this, 44 44 00:01:39,540 --> 00:01:42,240 we use a concept known as threat modeling. 45 45 00:01:42,240 --> 00:01:44,550 Threat modeling is the process of identifying 46 46 00:01:44,550 --> 00:01:47,820 and assessing the possible threat actors and attack vectors 47 47 00:01:47,820 --> 00:01:50,580 that pose a risk to the security of an application, 48 48 00:01:50,580 --> 00:01:52,740 a network, or other systems. 49 49 00:01:52,740 --> 00:01:54,420 When you're evaluating the system, 50 50 00:01:54,420 --> 00:01:57,150 you need to do it both from an inside-out perspective 51 51 00:01:57,150 --> 00:01:58,680 and an outside-in. 52 52 00:01:58,680 --> 00:02:00,090 That means, you need to consider 53 53 00:02:00,090 --> 00:02:01,650 both the defender's point of view 54 54 00:02:01,650 --> 00:02:03,660 and the attacker's point of view. 55 55 00:02:03,660 --> 00:02:05,880 By doing this, you can start seeing 56 56 00:02:05,880 --> 00:02:07,680 where your systems are vulnerable 57 57 00:02:07,680 --> 00:02:10,800 and what type of mitigations you need to put in place. 58 58 00:02:10,800 --> 00:02:13,140 Threat modeling can be used against your corporate networks 59 59 00:02:13,140 --> 00:02:15,390 in general at a large scale, 60 60 00:02:15,390 --> 00:02:17,640 or you can look at specific targets 61 61 00:02:17,640 --> 00:02:19,590 like a certain website or an application 62 62 00:02:19,590 --> 00:02:20,550 that you're deploying. 63 63 00:02:20,550 --> 00:02:23,190 Both of these are very important to do. 64 64 00:02:23,190 --> 00:02:24,443 Now, when you do threat modeling, 65 65 00:02:24,443 --> 00:02:26,670 this is a cooperative area. 66 66 00:02:26,670 --> 00:02:29,310 You need to get inputs from a variety of stakeholders. 67 67 00:02:29,310 --> 00:02:31,410 You need to have your cybersecurity experts there 68 68 00:02:31,410 --> 00:02:33,660 with their knowledge on the relevant threat intelligence 69 69 00:02:33,660 --> 00:02:36,420 and research, as well as non-experts 70 70 00:02:36,420 --> 00:02:38,190 such as the users and customers, 71 71 00:02:38,190 --> 00:02:39,840 the people from the business side, 72 72 00:02:39,840 --> 00:02:43,710 human resources, legal, and other areas of your business. 73 73 00:02:43,710 --> 00:02:46,590 By working together, we can best model the threat 74 74 00:02:46,590 --> 00:02:48,990 and understand the likelihood and the impact 75 75 00:02:48,990 --> 00:02:50,580 if something bad happens. 76 76 00:02:50,580 --> 00:02:52,170 When you're conducting threat modeling, 77 77 00:02:52,170 --> 00:02:54,540 there is three main areas you need to consider. 78 78 00:02:54,540 --> 00:02:57,090 You need to think about the adversary capability, 79 79 00:02:57,090 --> 00:02:59,880 the attack surface, and the attack vector. 80 80 00:02:59,880 --> 00:03:02,100 When we talk about an adversary's capability, 81 81 00:03:02,100 --> 00:03:05,400 we're talking about a formal classification of the resources 82 82 00:03:05,400 --> 00:03:08,880 and expertise available to that particular threat actor. 83 83 00:03:08,880 --> 00:03:12,210 For example, do they use acquired and augmented tools? 84 84 00:03:12,210 --> 00:03:14,460 Which means they're basically using commodity malware 85 85 00:03:14,460 --> 00:03:16,770 and open source tools and techniques. 86 86 00:03:16,770 --> 00:03:19,230 Or do they have a developed capability? 87 87 00:03:19,230 --> 00:03:20,940 If they have a developed capability, 88 88 00:03:20,940 --> 00:03:22,290 this means they can identify 89 89 00:03:22,290 --> 00:03:24,180 and exploit zero day vulnerabilities 90 90 00:03:24,180 --> 00:03:27,330 and deploy significant human and financial resources 91 91 00:03:27,330 --> 00:03:29,910 to attack planning and execution. 92 92 00:03:29,910 --> 00:03:31,380 Maybe they're advanced. 93 93 00:03:31,380 --> 00:03:33,780 This means they can exploit things like supply chains 94 94 00:03:33,780 --> 00:03:36,900 and introduce vulnerabilities way back early in the cycle 95 95 00:03:36,900 --> 00:03:39,660 where you won't even know they're there inside your systems. 96 96 00:03:39,660 --> 00:03:40,650 This is especially true 97 97 00:03:40,650 --> 00:03:41,940 when you're dealing with a nation state 98 98 00:03:41,940 --> 00:03:44,040 because they use an integrated approach 99 99 00:03:44,040 --> 00:03:46,380 where they're using cyber and non-cyber methods 100 100 00:03:46,380 --> 00:03:48,150 to achieve their goals. 101 101 00:03:48,150 --> 00:03:51,090 The second area we have to consider is our attack surface. 102 102 00:03:51,090 --> 00:03:53,190 Now, the attack surface is the point at which 103 103 00:03:53,190 --> 00:03:56,100 a networker application receives external connections 104 104 00:03:56,100 --> 00:03:58,680 or inputs and outputs that are potential vectors 105 105 00:03:58,680 --> 00:04:00,930 to be exploited by a threat actor. 106 106 00:04:00,930 --> 00:04:04,230 Every network has some form of attack surface out there, 107 107 00:04:04,230 --> 00:04:06,780 and you have to determine what it is for your network. 108 108 00:04:06,780 --> 00:04:08,970 For example, when you go to my website 109 109 00:04:08,970 --> 00:04:10,500 to access your course, 110 110 00:04:10,500 --> 00:04:12,090 there is an attack surface there 111 111 00:04:12,090 --> 00:04:13,860 because you're accessing our servers 112 112 00:04:13,860 --> 00:04:16,050 and our network through your web browser. 113 113 00:04:16,050 --> 00:04:17,430 And that means we could be attacked 114 114 00:04:17,430 --> 00:04:19,500 using that as part of your attack vector 115 115 00:04:19,500 --> 00:04:21,780 going in through that attack surface. 116 116 00:04:21,780 --> 00:04:23,550 Now, to determine your attack surface, 117 117 00:04:23,550 --> 00:04:25,500 you have to inventory your assets 118 118 00:04:25,500 --> 00:04:27,300 and figure out what's on your network, 119 119 00:04:27,300 --> 00:04:28,590 because if you know what's there, 120 120 00:04:28,590 --> 00:04:30,300 you can then defend what's there. 121 121 00:04:30,300 --> 00:04:32,370 Now, there are three areas that you should consider 122 122 00:04:32,370 --> 00:04:33,870 when you're doing your threat modeling 123 123 00:04:33,870 --> 00:04:35,700 in terms of attack surface. 124 124 00:04:35,700 --> 00:04:38,070 You need to think about the network holistically. 125 125 00:04:38,070 --> 00:04:40,140 This would be things like the switches, 126 126 00:04:40,140 --> 00:04:41,700 the routers, the computers, 127 127 00:04:41,700 --> 00:04:44,760 all those things that make up your corporate data network. 128 128 00:04:44,760 --> 00:04:47,790 The second area is any websites or cloud services you have, 129 129 00:04:47,790 --> 00:04:49,920 because these are all things that could be attacked 130 130 00:04:49,920 --> 00:04:52,350 from an end user either through the web front end 131 131 00:04:52,350 --> 00:04:55,201 or programmatically through an API. 132 132 00:04:55,201 --> 00:04:56,070 And the third area 133 133 00:04:56,070 --> 00:04:59,310 is any kind of custom software applications you may have. 134 134 00:04:59,310 --> 00:05:00,690 If you have some sort of form 135 135 00:05:00,690 --> 00:05:02,760 or control on the user interface 136 136 00:05:02,760 --> 00:05:03,900 or you have some kind of software 137 137 00:05:03,900 --> 00:05:05,880 that's been deployed that uses an API 138 138 00:05:05,880 --> 00:05:07,800 or file or data imports, 139 139 00:05:07,800 --> 00:05:09,990 that all introduces vulnerabilities 140 140 00:05:09,990 --> 00:05:11,850 to the host and the platform, 141 141 00:05:11,850 --> 00:05:13,980 and so you have to consider these custom applications 142 142 00:05:13,980 --> 00:05:15,930 as you're thinking about the different places 143 143 00:05:15,930 --> 00:05:18,720 'cause they are part of your total attack surface. 144 144 00:05:18,720 --> 00:05:20,670 Now, the third main area you have to consider 145 145 00:05:20,670 --> 00:05:22,320 is your attack vector. 146 146 00:05:22,320 --> 00:05:24,390 Now, an attack vector is a specific path 147 147 00:05:24,390 --> 00:05:27,030 by which a threat actor gains unauthorized access 148 148 00:05:27,030 --> 00:05:28,170 to a system. 149 149 00:05:28,170 --> 00:05:30,630 Now, an attack vector can be one of three things. 150 150 00:05:30,630 --> 00:05:32,820 It can be cyber, which means you're using hardware 151 151 00:05:32,820 --> 00:05:35,190 or software against an IT system. 152 152 00:05:35,190 --> 00:05:36,030 It could be human, 153 153 00:05:36,030 --> 00:05:37,860 which means you're using social engineering 154 154 00:05:37,860 --> 00:05:39,960 to conduct your attack through coercion, 155 155 00:05:39,960 --> 00:05:42,090 impersonation, or even force. 156 156 00:05:42,090 --> 00:05:43,500 Or it can be physical, 157 157 00:05:43,500 --> 00:05:45,750 which means you're trying to take over local access 158 158 00:05:45,750 --> 00:05:48,240 by being on-premise and touching the thing 159 159 00:05:48,240 --> 00:05:49,860 to do your attack. 160 160 00:05:49,860 --> 00:05:51,030 These are the three ways 161 161 00:05:51,030 --> 00:05:52,590 that you can think about attack vectors, 162 162 00:05:52,590 --> 00:05:55,560 either cyber, human, or physical. 163 163 00:05:55,560 --> 00:05:57,300 So now that we've talked about the three main areas 164 164 00:05:57,300 --> 00:05:58,320 of threat modeling, 165 165 00:05:58,320 --> 00:06:00,360 which consist of the adversary capability, 166 166 00:06:00,360 --> 00:06:02,850 the attack surface, and the attack vector, 167 167 00:06:02,850 --> 00:06:04,650 we need to think about the likelihood 168 168 00:06:04,650 --> 00:06:06,180 and the impact that are involved 169 169 00:06:06,180 --> 00:06:08,070 with some kind of an attack. 170 170 00:06:08,070 --> 00:06:10,560 Remember, there are thousands or even millions 171 171 00:06:10,560 --> 00:06:12,870 of threat actors in adversary groups out there. 172 172 00:06:12,870 --> 00:06:14,490 Some of them are script kiddies 173 173 00:06:14,490 --> 00:06:16,140 and they have very low capability, 174 174 00:06:16,140 --> 00:06:18,875 and some are nation states and APTs, 175 175 00:06:18,875 --> 00:06:20,760 and they have a very high capability. 176 176 00:06:20,760 --> 00:06:22,350 Depending on who you're dealing with, 177 177 00:06:22,350 --> 00:06:24,960 you're going to have a larger impact or a less impact 178 178 00:06:24,960 --> 00:06:27,120 and you're going to be more likely or less likely 179 179 00:06:27,120 --> 00:06:28,500 to have an attack. 180 180 00:06:28,500 --> 00:06:30,240 All of this comes down to risk, 181 181 00:06:30,240 --> 00:06:32,450 and risk is assessed by factoring your likelihood 182 182 00:06:32,450 --> 00:06:35,130 of an event and the impact of that event. 183 183 00:06:35,130 --> 00:06:36,600 When I talk about likelihood, 184 184 00:06:36,600 --> 00:06:38,850 this is the chance of a threat being realized, 185 185 00:06:38,850 --> 00:06:41,490 which is usually going to be expressed as a percentage. 186 186 00:06:41,490 --> 00:06:43,590 For instance, if I have a nation state 187 187 00:06:43,590 --> 00:06:45,240 trying to go after my company, 188 188 00:06:45,240 --> 00:06:46,410 the chances are 189 189 00:06:46,410 --> 00:06:49,620 that they have a high likelihood of being able to break in. 190 190 00:06:49,620 --> 00:06:51,690 They probably have an 80 or 90% chance 191 191 00:06:51,690 --> 00:06:53,610 because they have such sophistication 192 192 00:06:53,610 --> 00:06:55,260 and they have access to zero day exploits 193 193 00:06:55,260 --> 00:06:57,150 and other things like that. 194 194 00:06:57,150 --> 00:06:59,970 Now, on the other hand, if we consider the impact, 195 195 00:06:59,970 --> 00:07:02,070 this is going to be the cost of a security incident 196 196 00:07:02,070 --> 00:07:03,330 or disaster scenario, 197 197 00:07:03,330 --> 00:07:06,600 which is usually going to be expressed in cost or dollars. 198 198 00:07:06,600 --> 00:07:09,360 So let's say I had some sort of an event that happened 199 199 00:07:09,360 --> 00:07:11,640 and it was something like it was going to take my server down 200 200 00:07:11,640 --> 00:07:12,960 for five minutes. 201 201 00:07:12,960 --> 00:07:14,760 What is the impact of that? 202 202 00:07:14,760 --> 00:07:17,160 Well, it probably has a very small cost for me, 203 203 00:07:17,160 --> 00:07:19,230 because if my server's down for five minutes, 204 204 00:07:19,230 --> 00:07:21,690 you, as a student will probably just try to come back 205 205 00:07:21,690 --> 00:07:23,700 in five minutes and then make your purchase. 206 206 00:07:23,700 --> 00:07:26,730 So we had very little or no impact financially. 207 207 00:07:26,730 --> 00:07:27,563 Now, on the other hand, 208 208 00:07:27,563 --> 00:07:29,340 if I was a credit card processing agency 209 209 00:07:29,340 --> 00:07:31,650 processing all of the world's credit card transactions 210 210 00:07:31,650 --> 00:07:33,210 like Visa or MasterCard 211 211 00:07:33,210 --> 00:07:35,010 and you took me down for five minutes, 212 212 00:07:35,010 --> 00:07:37,080 that's going to cost me thousands 213 213 00:07:37,080 --> 00:07:39,960 or hundreds of thousands of dollars in processing fees 214 214 00:07:39,960 --> 00:07:41,100 that we're not able to take 215 215 00:07:41,100 --> 00:07:42,930 because the cards aren't going to be working. 216 216 00:07:42,930 --> 00:07:44,610 And so there'd be a much higher impact 217 217 00:07:44,610 --> 00:07:46,020 if they were down for five minutes 218 218 00:07:46,020 --> 00:07:48,180 than if I was down for five minutes. 219 219 00:07:48,180 --> 00:07:50,370 So what all this comes down to is risk 220 220 00:07:50,370 --> 00:07:52,140 and how you can calculate risk. 221 221 00:07:52,140 --> 00:07:54,060 And again, this comes down to your likelihood 222 222 00:07:54,060 --> 00:07:55,170 and your impact, 223 223 00:07:55,170 --> 00:07:57,750 and we use these percentages and these dollar amounts 224 224 00:07:57,750 --> 00:08:00,120 to come up with some final calculation. 225 225 00:08:00,120 --> 00:08:02,340 Now, when we talk about risk later on in this course, 226 226 00:08:02,340 --> 00:08:04,350 we're going to determine your actual threats 227 227 00:08:04,350 --> 00:08:06,630 annual rate of occurrence, the ARO, 228 228 00:08:06,630 --> 00:08:08,070 and how much it really does cost you 229 229 00:08:08,070 --> 00:08:09,960 if you have this incident happen. 230 230 00:08:09,960 --> 00:08:12,630 But for now, I just want to cover the basic concepts 231 231 00:08:12,630 --> 00:08:13,860 of the fact that we have to consider 232 232 00:08:13,860 --> 00:08:16,623 our likelihood and impact as we do our threat modeling.