This glossary provides a central resource of definitions most commonly used in Nat. Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) information security publications and in the Committee for National Security Systems (CNSS) information assurance publications. Each entry in the glossary points to one or more source NIST publications, and/or CNSSI-4009, and/or supplemental sources where appropriate. This is a print on demand edition of an important, hard-to-find publication.
Covers: elements of computer security; roles and responsibilities; common threats; computer security policy; computer security program and risk management; security and planning in the computer system life cycle; assurance; personnel/user issues; preparing for contingencies and disasters; computer security incident handling; awareness, training, and education; physical and environmental security; identification and authentication; logical access control; audit trails; cryptography; and assessing and mitigating the risks to a hypothetical computer system.
In today's computing environment, there are many threats to the confidentiality of information stored on end user devices, such as personal computers, consumer devices (e.g., personal digital assistant, smart phone), and removable storage media (e.g., universal serial bus [USB] flash drive, memory card, external hard drive, writeable CD or DVD). Some threats are unintentional, such as human error, while others are intentional. Intentional threats are posed by people with many different motivations, including causing mischief and disruption and committing identity theft and other fraud. A common threat against end user devices is device loss or theft. Someone with physical access to a device has many options for attempting to view or copy the information stored on the device. Another concern is insider attacks, such as an employee attempting to access sensitive information stored on another employee's device. Malware, another common threat, can give attackers unauthorized access to a device, transfer information from the device to an attacker's system, and perform other actions that jeopardize the confidentiality of the information on a device.
Countering Cyber Sabotage: Introducing Consequence-Driven, Cyber-Informed Engineering (CCE) introduces a new methodology to help critical infrastructure owners, operators and their security practitioners make demonstrable improvements in securing their most important functions and processes. Current best practice approaches to cyber defense struggle to stop targeted attackers from creating potentially catastrophic results. From a national security perspective, it is not just the damage to the military, the economy, or essential critical infrastructure companies that is a concern. It is the cumulative, downstream effects from potential regional blackouts, military mission kills, transportation stoppages, water delivery or treatment issues, and so on. CCE is a validation that engineering first principles can be applied to the most important cybersecurity challenges and in so doing, protect organizations in ways current approaches do not. The most pressing threat is cyber-enabled sabotage, and CCE begins with the assumption that well-resourced, adaptive adversaries are already in and have been for some time, undetected and perhaps undetectable. Chapter 1 recaps the current and near-future states of digital technologies in critical infrastructure and the implications of our near-total dependence on them. Chapters 2 and 3 describe the origins of the methodology and set the stage for the more in-depth examination that follows. Chapter 4 describes how to prepare for an engagement, and chapters 5-8 address each of the four phases. The CCE phase chapters take the reader on a more granular walkthrough of the methodology with examples from the field, phase objectives, and the steps to take in each phase. Concluding chapter 9 covers training options and looks towards a future where these concepts are scaled more broadly.
The escalation of security breaches involving personally identifiable information (PII) has contributed to the loss of millions of records over the past few years. Breaches involving PII are hazardous to both individuals and org. Individual harms may include identity theft, embarrassment, or blackmail. Organ. harms may include a loss of public trust, legal liability, or remediation costs. To protect the confidentiality of PII, org. should use a risk-based approach. This report provides guidelines for a risk-based approach to protecting the confidentiality of PII. The recommend. here are intended primarily for U.S. Fed. gov¿t. agencies and those who conduct business on behalf of the agencies, but other org. may find portions of the publication useful.
Electric power is a critical infrastructure that is vital to the U.S. economy and national security. Today, the nation's electric power infrastructure is threatened by malicious attacks, accidents, and failures, as well as disruptive natural events. As the electric grid evolves and becomes increasingly interdependent with other critical infrastructures, the nation is challenged to defend against these threats and to advance grid capabilities with reliable defenses. On November 1, 2019, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened a workshop to gather diverse perspectives on current and future threats to the electric power system, activities that the subsector is pursuing to defend itself, and how this work may evolve over the coming decades. This publications summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.
A log is a record of the events occurring within an org¿s. systems & networks. Many logs within an org. contain records related to computer security (CS). These CS logs are generated by many sources, incl. CS software, such as antivirus software, firewalls, & intrusion detection & prevention systems; operating systems on servers, workstations, & networking equip.; & applications. The no., vol., & variety of CS logs have increased greatly, which has created the need for CS log mgmt. -- the process for generating, transmitting, storing, analyzing, & disposing of CS data. This report assists org¿s. in understanding the need for sound CS log mgmt. It provides practical, real-world guidance on developing, implementing, & maintaining effective log mgmt. practices. Illus.