Creation date: 2009-02-16
Status: work-in-progress
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 computer systems include:
These roles and teams are effected:
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.
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.
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.
Physical assets and security procedures are generally provided and maintained as set forth in the Memorandum of Understanding between CAcert and Stichting Oophaga Foundation of 10 July 2007, and as amended from time to time. Approval of both boards of CAcert and Oophaga is required for changes to the MoU.
The MoU places responsibility for the physical assets (hardware), hosting and for control of access to the hardware with Oophaga.
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 Systems Administrators. 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.
Acquisition may be done by CAcert systems administrators but the ownership and control of the hardware transfers to Oophaga the moment the equipment is in use.
Cabling to all equipment shall be labeled at both ends with identification of end points.
Storage media (disk drives, tapes, removable media) are inventoried upon acquisition. CAcert system administrators will report any changes in the use or location of the media to the routine logging list for update to the inventory.
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. When there is a change to status of media, a report is made to the log specifying the new status (sysadmins present, steps taken, location of storage, etc). Drives that are kept for reuse are wiped securely before storage. Reuse can only be within critical systems.
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, 2 system 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 CAcert systems administrator will be present for logical access to CAcert critical servers. Only the most basic and safest of accesses should be done with one CAcert systems administrator present. Others must not access the data.
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 CAcert 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.
(iang:) this one is covered in DRC-A.5.f. which says: "The security manual describes how computer systems are configured and updated to protect them against hostile intrusion, unauthorized electronic access, and "malware" and how individuals are authorized to perform those tasks."
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 in the wiki.
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.
This section deals with applications written in-house.
CPS 6.6 refers to this section for all info.
Software development takes place on various test systems (not a critical system). See §7. Once offered by Software Development (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 development.
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.
Direct command-line access to critical systems shall only be granted to systems administrators designated on the Remote and Virtual Access and Contact List (SSH Access List). Systems administrators who appear on the CAcert _Access_ List in the MoU, Appendix B, are implied to be on the SSH Access List.
The access control lists are:
Changes to the above lists are approved by the board.
A strong method of authentication is used and documented.
Upon resignation from systems administration team, or determination by two members of the OS access list that access is no longer required, an entity's access to CAcert systems may be be temporarily removed. The removal is made permanent when the Board approves the change to the Access List.
Maybe easier just to say, on direction of the Arbitrator.
Primary systems administration tasks shall be conducted under four eyes principle. These shall include backup performance verification, log inspection, software patch identification and application, account creation and deletion, and hardware maintenance.
System administrators must pass a background check and comply with all applicable policies in force.
Access to Accounts (root and user via SSH or console) must be strictly controlled. Passwords and passphrases entered into the systems will be kept private to CAcert sysadmins in all cases.
Only system administrators designated on the Access List shall be authorized to access accounts.
Assumes above that there is no reason to have access to a Unix-level account on the critical machines unless on the Access List.
All remote communications for systems administration purposes is encrypted, logged and monitored.
Passwords must be kept secure. The procedure for changing passwords should be documented.
Response times should be documented.
All changes made to system configuration must be recorded.
Logs shall be maintained for:
Access to logs must be restricted. The security of the logs should be documented. The records retention should be documented.
Logging should be automated, and use should be made of appropriate system-provided automated tools. Automated logs should be reviewed periodically; suspicious events should be flagged and investigated in a timely fashion.
Configuration changes, no matter how small, must be logged. Access to this log shall be restricted.
All physical visits will be logged and a report provided by the accessor.
The procedure for all backups must be documented, according to the following sub-headings.
Backups must be taken for operational and for disaster recovery purposes ("offline"). Disaster recovery backups must be offline and remote. Operational backups may be online and local.
Document.
Backups must be protected to the same level as the critical systems themselves. Offline backups should be distributed.
Document.
Backups must be encrypted and must only be transmitted via secured channels. Off-site backups must be dual-encrypted using divergent methods.
Two CAcert system administrators must be present for verification of a backup. Four eyes principle must be maintained when the key and backup are together. For any other purpose than verification of the success of the backup, see next.
The encryption keys must be stored securely by the CAcert systems administrators. Paper documentation must be stored with manual backups.
Conditions and procedures for examining the backups for purposes other than for verification must be documented and must be under Arbitrator control.
Termination of user data is under direction of the Arbitrator. See CCA.
Document.
The systems administration team leader is to maintain incident reports securely. Access to incident reports is restricted.
Document.
This is the end of the Security Policy.