Creation date: 2009-02-16
Status: work-in-progress
This Security Policy sets out the policy for the secure operation of the CAcert critical computer systems. These systems include:
These roles are directly covered:
Non-critical systems are not covered by this manual, but may be guided by it, and impacted where they are found within the security context. Architecture is out of scope, see CPS#6.2.
Important principles of this Security Policy are:
Each task or asset is covered by a variety of protections deriving from the above principles.
This Security Policy is part of the configuration-control specification for audit purposes (DRC). It is under the control of Policy on Policy for version purposes.
These parts are not part of the policy: green comments, red errors.
This policy document says what is done, rather than how to do it.
This Policy explicitly defers detailed security practices to the Security Manual ("SM"), The SM says how things are done. As practices are things that vary from time to time, including between each event of practice, the SM is under the direct control of the Systems Administration team. It is located and version-controlled on the CAcert wiki.
Section Headings are the same in both documents. Where Sections are empty in one document, they are expected to be documented in the other.
The team leaders may from time to time explicitly defer single, cohesive components of the security practices into separate procedures documents. Each procedure should be managed in a wiki page under their control, probably at SystemAdministration/Procedures. Each procedure must be referenced explicitly in the Security Manual.
CAcert shall host critical servers in a highly secure facility. There shall be independent verification of the physical and access security.
Computers shall be inventoried before being put into service. Inventory list shall be available to all Access Engineeers and all Systems Administrators. List must be subject to change control.
Units shall have nickname clearly marked on front and rear of chassis. Machines shall be housed in secured facilities (cages and/or locked racks).
Acquisition of new equipment that is subject to a pre-purchase security risk must be done from a vendor that is regularly and commercially in business. Precautions must be taken to prevent equipment being prepared in advance.
Wytze: new section replacing 'cables':
Equipment that is subject to a service security risk must be retired if service is required. See also §2.2.3.3.
Storage media (disk drives, tapes, removable media) are inventoried upon acquisition and tracked in their use.
New storage media (whether disk or removable) shall be securely wiped and reformatted before use.
Removable media shall be securely stored at all times, including when not in use. Drives that are kept for reuse are wiped securely before storage. Reuse can only be within critical systems.
When there is a change to status of media, a report is made to the log specifying the new status.
Storage media that is exposed to critical data and is to be retired from service shall be destroyed or otherwise secured. The following steps are to be taken:
Records of secure erasure and method of final disposal shall be tracked in the asset inventory. Where critical data is involved, two systems administrators must sign-off on each step.
In accordance with the principle of dual control, at least two persons authorized for access must be on-site at the same time for physical access to be granted.
Access to physical equipment must be authorised.
The Security Manual must present the different access profiles. At least one Access Engineer must control access in all cases. At least one systems administrator will be present for logical access. Only the most basic and safest of accesses should be done with one systems administrator present.
Only Systems Administrators are authorised to access the data. All others must not access the data. All are responsible for protecting the data from access by those not authorised.All physical accesses are logged and reported to all.
There is no procedure for emergency access. If emergency access is gained, this must be reported and justified immediately. See DPR.
All personel who are in possession of physical security codes and devices (keys) are to be authorised and documented.
Current and complete diagrams of the physical and logical CAcert network infrastructure shall be maintained by systems administration team leader. These diagrams should include cabling information, physical port configuration details, and expected/allowed data flow directions, as applicable. Diagrams should be revision controlled, and must be updated when any change is made.
Only such services as are required for normal operation should be visible externally; systems and servers which do not require access to the Internet for their normal operation must not be granted that access.
System and server connections internal to the CAcert infrastructure should be kept to the minimum required for routine operations. Any new connectivity desired must be requested and approved by system administration team leader and then must be reflected in the appropriate infrastructure diagram(s).
All ports on which incoming traffic is expected shall be documented; traffic to other ports must be blocked. Unexpected traffic must be logged as an exception.
All ports to which outbound traffic is initiated shall be documented; traffic to other ports must be blocked. Unexpected traffic must be logged as an exception.
Logs should be examined regularly (by manual or automatic means) for unusual patterns and/or traffic; anomalies should be investigated as they are discovered and should be reported to appropriate personnel in near-real-time (e.g. text message, email) and investigated as soon as possible. Suspicious activity which may indicate an actual system intrusion or compromise should trigger the incident response protocol described in section 5.1.
Any operating system used for critical server machines must be available under an OSI-approved open source software license.
Any operating system used for critical server machines must support software full-disk or disk volume encryption, and this encryption option must be enabled for all relevant disks/volumes when the operating system is first installed on the machine.
Servers must enable only the operating system functions required to support the necessary services. Options and packages chosen at OS install shall be documented, and newly-installed systems must be inspected to ensure that only required services are active, and their functionality is limited through configuration options. Any required application software must follow similar techniques to ensure minimal exposure footprint.
Documentation for installing and configuring servers with the appropriate software packages and configurations will be maintained by the system administrators.
A.1.i, A.1.k:
Software used on production servers must be kept current with respect to patches affecting software security. Patch application is governed by CCS and must be approved by the systems administration team leader, fully documented in the logs and reported by email to the systems administration list on completion (see §4.2).
Application of a patch is deemed an emergency when a remote exploit for a weakness in the particular piece of software has become known (on servers allowing direct local user access, an emergent local exploit may also be deemed to be an emergency). Application of patches in this case may occur as soon as possible, bypassing the normal configuration-change process. The systems administration team leader must either approve the patch, instruct remedial action, or refer the case to dispute resolution.
Declaration of an emergency patching situation should not occur with any regularity. Emergency patch events must be documented within the regular summaries to Board.
Software assessment takes place on various test systems (not a critical system). See §7. Once offered by Software Assessment (team), system administration team leader has to approve the installation of each release or patch.
Any changes made to source code must be referred back to software assessment team.
These two paras seem in wrong place. Either add a "3.4.3. User Access" or?
General user access to CAcert services shall normally be conducted through a web-based application interface. Features are made available according to Assurance Points and direct permissions.
Direct Permissions are managed by the Application to enable special online administrators from the Support Team access to certain functions.
This bit is expanded!
The access control lists (see §1.1.1) are:
List Name | Who | Purpose of access | Relationship | Manager |
Physical Control List | Access Engineers | control of access by personnel to hardware | exclusive of all other roles | Boards of CAcert and of Oophaga |
Physical Access List | systems administrators | hardware-level for installation and recovery | exclusive with Access Engineers and Software Assessors | Boards of CAcert and of Oophaga |
SSH Access List | systems administrators | Unix / account / shell level | includes by default all on Physical Access List | systems administration team leader |
Support Access List | supporters | support features in the online interface | includes by default all systems administrators | systems administration team leader |
Repository Access List | software assessors | change the source code repository | exclusive with Access Engineers and systems administrators | software assessment team leader |