Network Security Plan Essay

INTRODUCTION (Purpose and Intent) The Corporation Tech IT Network Security Plan establishes guidelines for IT practices used on a day to day basis to provide a secure and robust computing environment. These practices are used in order to protect the mission, operation, and reputation of Corporation Tech System and its information systems. These system security policies, standards, and procedures that have been established for the Corporation Tech System, are intended to comply with the regulations and policies set down by the State of Florida, Corporation Tech, and the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA). SCOPE These standards and procedures apply to all information systems and resources under the control of Corporation Tech, including all computers connecting to the Corporation Tech network and all Corporation Tech System employees, contractors, and any other individuals who use and/or administer those systems and computers, particularly those involved with information system management. STANDARD PROVISIONS Corporation Tech IT will manage risk by identifying, evaluating, controlling, and mitigating vulnerabilities that are a potential threat to the data and information systems under its control. User accounts and passwords are implemented to maintain individual accountability for network resource usage. Any user who obtains an account and password for accessing a Corporation Tech provided resource, is required to keep these credentials confidential. Users of these systems may only use the accounts and passwords for which they have been assigned and authorized to use, and are prohibited  from using the network to access these systems through any other means. This plan also prohibits the sharing of personal user accounts or passwords for accessing Corporation Tech or Internet computing resources. In the interest of maintaining account security, passwords will be changed on a regular schedule or anytime the integrity of the account is in question. Corporation Tech IT network or computing resources may not be used for personal commercial purposes, for personal profit or to violate the laws and regulations of the United States or any other nation, or the laws and regulations of any state, city, province or other local jurisdiction in any material way. Use of Corporation Tech resources for any illegal activity may result in loss of network access privileges, official reprimand, suspension or dismissal. Corporation Tech will cooperate with any legitimate law enforcement agency or inquiry in the investigation and prosecution of any alleged wrongful activity. Corporation Tech’s network or Internet facilities may not be used to disable or overload any computer system or network, or to circumvent any system intended to protect the privacy or security of another user. Corporation Tech owned networking and communications equipment, may only be moved by Network and Computing Support staff, or authorized agents. Reconfiguration of network hardware or software, except by designated individuals within IT, is strictly prohibited. Prior to connecting any server, network communication or monitoring device to the Corporation Tech Network, approval must be obtained from Data Center Communications. Attachment of any the following devices to the Corporation Tech network, other than those provided or approved by Network and Computing Support, is strictly prohibited: a. DHCP servers. b. DNS servers. c. NAT routers. d. Network Gateways. e. Packet capturing or network monitoring devices. f. Any device that disrupts or negatively impacts network operations. STATEMENT OF PROCEDURES The procedures for conducting a risk assessment and for the control and mitigation of risks to the Corporation Tech Information Systems include: NETWORK CONTROL Corporation Tech IT has software and systems in place that have the ability to monitor and record network, Internet and computer system usage. This includes monitoring and security systems that are capable of recording network traffic, including traffic to World Wide Web sites, chat rooms, newsgroups and e-mail messages, file servers, telnet sessions and file transfers into and out of our internal networks. This capability is necessary in order to maintain the health of Corporation Tech network operations and diagnose network related problems. Corporation Tech IT reserves the right to perform network monitoring at any time. The information collected may be used by technicians and management to assess network utilization and trends, and may also be provided to upper management or other authorities as evidence as part of any investigation of alleged policy violations. Corporation Tech IT reserves the right to perform periodic port scans, segment sweeps, and vulnerability scans on all network segments. Network operations, functions, and resources, which are not required as part of the normal and approved job duties or projects at Corporation Tech, may be bandwidth limited or blocked by network control devices in order to protect the integrity and availability of the overall system. Corporation Tech IT may suspend network access to any location or system that disrupts normal network operations or systems that violate Corporation Tech policy. In this event, an attempt will be made to contact the responsible individual to resolve the problem. DHCP SERVICES Corporation Tech IT provides centralized and redundant DHCP and DNS services for Corporation Tech. Due to the nature of these services, and because of the potential disruption of service and possible security breaches resulting from incorrect setup of additional systems, attachment of unauthorized DHCP or DNS servers is prohibited. The following guidelines must be followed when requesting or using any DHCP or DNS services: †¢ Systems requiring an IP address must support DHCP and be capable of obtaining DHCP address information from one of the centrally administered University DHCP servers. †¢ Using DHCP, devices requesting an IP address will be assigned a dynamic pool address from the subnet to which the device is attached. Devices with dynamically assigned IP addresses may have their address change. †¢ Static IP addresses needed for server class machines or specialized clients must be  requested from the Data Center Communications Team via a Help Desk ticket. DNS SERVICES User workstations, which have been assigned a dynamic pool IP address, will have an associated DNS name assigned by the network. Any DNS name or domain name that is to be associated with Corporation Tech network, must be requested from and/or registered through Web Services. DNS names ending in corptech.com are made available upon request for Corporation Tech approved services. Requests for assignment of DNS names must be for valid Corporation Tech related purposes. DNS names for domains other than corptech.com, and which are to be hosted by Corporation Tech systems, must be requested from Web Services. Any charges for initial or ongoing registration of the requested name are the responsibility of the requestor. DNS names, not in the corptech.com domain, will be handled on a case by case basis. Corporation Tech IT will work with any user requesting a domain name to identify an appropriate and available name, however Corporation Tech IT has final approval for all DNS name assignments. WIRELESS NETWORK SERVICES Because wireless networks can be used to provide access to the same resources and services as wired network systems, the same basic procedures that are used in a wired network environment can also be applied in a wireless network environment. However, due to the nature of wireless networks, additional security and control mechanisms are needed in order to maintain the security, operation and inter-operability of both traditional and wireless systems. Wireless routers are not allowed on the Corporation Tech network unless they have been approved by Corporation Tech IT. Access to the Corporation Tech Wireless network is limited to individuals who have a Corporation Tech account except in locations where the guest network is available. The Corporation Tech Guest Network is segregated from the internal servers and resources used by authenticated users to keep the network secure. The Corporation Tech Guest Network is only available in approved areas, and require a request to be expanded into any other areas. Users of the Corporation Tech Guest Network are required to provide a valid cell phone number in order to authenticate. Destruction and Disposal of Information and Devices Restricted information must be disposed of in such manner as to ensure it cannot be retrieved and recovered by unauthorized persons. When donating, selling, transferring, surplusing or disposing of computers or removable media (such as DVDs), the proper procedures to make data unreadable on those media will be taken. Acceptable procedures are listed on ISSP-009, â€Å"Medial Disposal.† NETWORK ACCESS Anyone who uses the Corporation Tech computing environment must have appropriate status (e.g. management, employee, staff, or authorized third party) and must be properly authenticated when required. Access will be provided to vendors and or other Corporation Tech partners through the sponsored VIP account process, as described on http://www.corptech.com/it/services/vip.aspx. VIP accounts are reviewed and renewed on six month intervals to see if access is still needed. When an employee leaves the organization accounts will be disabled once TERM status is updated, and individual departments must approve re-activation of account access. USER COMPUTING DEVICES Users are responsible for the security and integrity of Corporation Tech information stored on their workstation, which includes controlling physical and network access to the equipment. Users may not run or otherwise configure software or hardware that may allow access by unauthorized users. Anti-virus software must be installed on all workstations that connect to the Corporation Tech Network. Corporation Tech Computers may not be used to copy, distribute, share, download, or upload any copyrighted material without the permission of the copyright owner. PHYSICAL ACCESS Access to Corporation Tech IT Data Center should be restricted to those responsible for operation and maintenance. Access by non-IT personnel is not permitted unless they are escorted by an authorized IT staff member. Computer installations should provide reasonable security measures to protect the computer system against natural disasters, accidents, loss or fluctuation of electrical power, and sabotage. Networking and computing hardware are placed in secure and appropriately cooled areas for data  integrity and security NETWORK HARDWARE Network hardware are housed behind a locked door to protect physical access to switches and other network hardware. Access is only allowed though card access or with a checked out key. All switches and network hardware are password protected at a minimum via a local account setup on the device itself, these passwords are changed periodically as administrators leave the organization. Subnets allowed to authenticate with switch management will be restricted, to create tighter control of backend administration. Exec level access Timeouts implemented on Console and VTY lines, so that any idle sessions are terminated automatically. All switches are time synced using NTP, so that incidents can be tracked and correlated to the proper timeframe. SERVER ENVIRONMENTS All servers are subject to a security audit and evaluation before they are placed into production. Administrative access to servers must be password protected and use two-factor authentication whenever possible. Servers should be physically located in an access-controlled environment. All internal servers deployed at Corporation Tech must be owned by an operational group that is responsible for system administration. Servers must be registered with the IT department. At a minimum, the following information is required to positively identify the point of contact: a. Server owner contact(s) and location. b. Hardware and Operating System/Version c. Main functions and applications d. MAC address (If not a virtual server) Services and applications that will not be used must be disabled where practical. Access to services should be logged and/or protected through access-control methods to the extent possible. The most recent security patches must be installed on the system as soon as practical. Do not use administrator or root access when a non-privileged account can be used. Privileged access must be performed over secure channels, (e.g., encrypted network connections using SSH or IPSec). EXCEPTIONS All requests for exceptions to these standards and procedures will be handled by request, and will follow these guidelines: †¢ Must be submitted in writing to and approved by the CIO or with the proper authority. †¢ Will be reviewed on a case by case basis. NETWORK SECURITY Corporation Tech network design is built around three principles, Defense-in-Depth, Compartmentalization of Information and Principle of Least Privilege. Our first step was to look at what we are protecting, which is ultimately our business and clients data and information. To ensure a sound architecture we started the design of our network with scalability in mind. It is important that our design is flexible enough to meet future needs. The threats we know about and face today may not be the ones we face tomorrow. While developing security requirements for our IT system resources, we will determine if they are mission-critical or data-sensitive resources. This will allow us to determine where data confidentiality and integrity are the most important requirements, or where the priority is continuity of operation (availability). DEFENSE-IN-DEPTH Network safeguards offer the first protection barrier of IT system resources against threats originating outside the network. These threats can be in the form of intruders or malicious code. Our network design offers layered protections. What this means is the security layers complement each other; what one misses the other catches. This will be accomplished by locating security defenses in different places throughout our IT system, as well as not using two of the same types of safeguards. Although this may increase the complexity of our security system and can potentially make management and maintenance more difficult and costly, we believe the safety of the IT system resources should be based on the protection. With defense-in-depth in mind, the first layer of our network security plan starts with our network perimeter security. The principle network security defenses are firewalls, intrusion detection and prevention systems (IPS/IDS), VPN protections and content inspection systems like anti-virus, anti-malware, anti-spam and URL filtering. The traditional first line of defense against attacks is typically the firewall, which is configured to allow/deny traffic by  source/destination IP, port or protocol. It’s very straight forward, either traffic is allowed or it’s blocked. With the advent of Next Generation firewalls, which can include application control, identity awareness and other capabilities such as IPS, web filtering, and advanced malware detection, all of these features can be controlled by one device. COMPARTMENTALIZATION OF INFORMATION Corporation Tech will have IT system resources with different sensitivity levels or different risk tolerance levels and threat susceptibilities. These resources should be located in different security zones. The idea is to hide the data or information and make it available only to those systems where it is necessary for conducting system tasks. Examples of this are: †¢ E-mail, Web and DNS servers are located in the DMZ behind the perimeter firewall. †¢ Databases servers such as SQL servers are located in the Database Zone, within the internal firewall/IPS. †¢ Intranet servers, file servers and user workstations are in the LAN zone within the internal firewall. †¢ The Internet is located in the Internet zone behind the perimeter firewall. Principle of Least Privilege Corporation Tech administrators and users will have minimal privileges necessary for proper functioning within the organization. This rule applies also to data and services made available for external users. An extension to this rule is the â€Å"Need-To-Know† principle which says that users and administrators of Corporation Tech IT system have access to only the information relevant to their role and duties performed. Other points of security that we will address in our network services availability is the single point of failure principle, the separation of duty and job rotation rules. The network paths between users and mission-critical IT system resources, all the links, devices (networking and security) as well as the servers will be deployed in redundant configurations. The goal of the separation of duty and job rotation rule is to limit an employee’s ability to neglect and break the IT system’s security policy. Separation of duty dictates that important tasks/functions should be performed by two or more employees. Job rotation states that there should be rotation of employees in important positions. NETWORK HARDENING For each layer of security, we will ensure they are running the most up-to-date software and operating systems, and that the devices are configured properly. SECURITY ZONES Intrusion Prevention (IPS) devices are responsible for detecting and blocking penetrations and attacks conducted by intruders and malicious malware applications. We recommend an IPS be installed in the network path between potential threat sources and sensitive IT system resources. Attacks through encrypted SSL sessions are a potential vulnerability so we recommend decrypting the sessions prior to it reaching the IPS device in order to inspect unencrypted packets. The IPS will be properly optimized and monitored to catch attackers that have slipped past the first defense (firewall/router). Internal networks will not have direct access to the Internet so a Trojan sent to a user’s workstation through a phishing attack would not allow the intruder to connect to the external network. Internet services are available for internal users only through company email and HTTP Proxy servers. ENABLE SECURE NETWORK ACCESS We will install a VPN that is configured to allow encrypted communication to our network from the outside. Utilizing two-factor authentication, ensuring the integrity of the users making the request. This is external-facing to our network and allows users to tunnel into our LAN from the outside once the appropriate measures are taken to secure access. SEGMENTED DMZ There will be a front-end firewall for the external traffic and a back-end firewall for the internal traffic. Firewall rules will be optimized and tightened on all publicly available systems to allow traffic to only the necessary ports and services living within the DMZ. Firewall rules have been created to only allow the source IP addresses and port to the specific servers and proxies have been added in the network from which administrators are allowed access to the systems. Systems within different VLANs (with a layer 3 switches) have been configured to help isolate and respond to incidents if a server in the DMZ is compromised. Authentication on the LAN is required before access to the DMZ is even attempted. This prevents allowing complete control over these systems at any given time. DEVICE  INTEGRITY All hardware and software will be purchased only from the manufacturer or from resellers who are authorized and certified by the equipment manufacturer. Unused physical interfaces on network devices will be shut down. Access lists that allow only those protocols, ports and IP addresses that are required by network users and services are implemented. Everything else is denied. Network device configuration file are protected from unauthorized disclosure. Steps have been taken to avoid plaintext passwords in the configuration files. This has been accomplished by using encryption and/or a salted hash with iteration to protect the confidentiality of passwords in configuration files. Change passwords/keys immediately if the network device configuration file is transmitted in the clear (or is otherwise exposed) while containing non-encrypted passwords/keys. Secure protocols will be used when transmitting network device configuration files. All unneeded services on network devices must be sh ut down. Log files will be reviewed regularly to gain an in depth understanding of normal network behavior. Any irregularity will be reported and investigated. SECURE MANAGEMENT Only secure protocol standards (SSHv2; IKEv2/IPsec; TLS v1.0+) will be used when performing remote management of network devices. Default usernames and/or passwords will not be used. The network infrastructure security policy should define password length and complexity requirements. Review the network infrastructure security policy. This policy identifies who is allowed to log in to network infrastructure devices and who is allowed to configure network devices, and defines a plan for updating network device firmware at scheduled intervals. PORT VULNERABILITES Port 25 – Is used for SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol). It uses both tcp and udp protocols. This port used for e-mail routing between mail servers and is susceptible to many known Trojan’s. We are keeping this port in a closed state. Port 80 – Is used for web traffic Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP). It uses both tcp and udp protocols. Port 80 udp is also used by some  games, like Alien vs Predator. Code Red and Nimda worms also propagate via TCP port 80 (HTTP). Also, a number of trojans/backdoors use these ports. We are keeping this port in a closed state. Port 139 – Is used for NetBIOS. NetBIOS is a protocol used for File and Print Sharing under all current versions of Windows. By default, when File and Print Sharing is enabled it binds to everything, including TCP/IP (The Internet Protocol), rather than just the local network, meaning your shared resources are available over the entire Internet for reading and deletion, unless configured proper ly. Any machine with NetBIOS enabled and not configured properly should be considered at risk. The best protection is to turn off File and Print Sharing, or block ports 135-139 completely. We will leave this port in an open state but will turn off file and print sharing capabilities. Port 1900 – Is used for SSDP, UPnP. UPnP discovery/SSDP, is a service that runs by default on WinXP, and creates an immediately exploitable security vulnerability for any network-connected system. It is vulnerable to denial of service and buffer overflow attacks. Microsoft SSDP Enables discovery of UPnP devices. We are keeping this port in a closed state. Port 2869 – Is IANA registered for: ICSLAP. It uses both tcp and udp protocols and is used for Microsoft Internet Connection Firewall (ICF), Internet Connection Sharing (ICS), SSDP Discover Service, Microsoft Universal Plug and Play (UPnP), and Microsoft Event Notification. We will leave this port in an open state. Port 5357 – Is used by Microsoft Network Discovery, and should be filtered for public networks. It uses both tcp and udp protocols. It is also IANA registered for: Web Services for Devices (WSD) – a network plug-and-play experience that is similar to installing a USB device. WSD allows network-connected IP-based devices to advertise their functionality and offer these services to clients by using the Web Services protocol. WSD communicates over HTTP (TCP port 5357), HTTPS (TCP port 5358), and multicast to UDP port 3702. We will close this port and redirect traffic to HTTPS (TCP port 5358). Port 6839 – This port is not associated with any particular services and should be closed unless it is associated and used. Port 7435 – This port is not associated with any particular services and should be closed unless it is associated and used. Ports 9100, 9101 and 9102 – These TCP ports are is used for printing. Port numbers 9101 and 9102 are for parallel port s 2 and 3 on the three-port HP Jetdirect external print  servers. It is used for network-connected print devices. These ports should remain open to allow print services. There are no listed vulnerabilities associated with these ports. Port 9220 – This port is for raw scanning to peripherals with IEEE 1284.4 specifications. On three port HP Jetdirects, the scan ports are 9290, 9291, and 9292. It is used for network-connected print devices. This port should remain open to allow print services. There are no listed vulnerabilities associated with this port. Port 9500 – TCP Port 9500 may use a defined protocol to communicate depending on the application. In our case we are using port 9500 to access the ISM Server. The ISM Server is used for exchanging backup and recovery information between storage devices. This port should remain open while services are in use. There are no listed vulnerabilities associated with this port. Port 62078 – This port is used by iPhone while syncing. The Port used by UPnP for multimedia files sharing, also used for synchronizing iTunes files between devices. Port 62078 has a known vulnerability in that a service named lockdownd sits and listens on the iPhone on port 62078. By connecting to this port and speaking the correct protocol, it’s possible to spawn a number of different services on an iPhone or iPad. This port should be blocked or closed when service is not required on the device. References BEST: Network Security Policy and Procedures. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.ct.gov/best/cwp/view.asp?a=1245&q=253996 Example Security Plan. (2014, November 17). Retrieved from http://www.binomial.com/security_plan/example_security_plan_template.php Hardening Network Infrastructure Security Recommendations for System Accreditors. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.nsa.gov/ia/_files/factsheets/Hardening_Network_Infrastructure_FS.pdf Network Security Policy: Best Practices White Paper – Cisco. (2005, October 4). Retrieved from http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/availability/high-availability/13601-secpol.html Paquet, C. (2013, February 5). Security Policies > Network Security Concepts and Policies. Retrieved from http://www.ciscopress.com/articles/article.asp?p=1998559&seqNum=3 SANS – Information Security Resources | Information Security Policy Templates |.