disaster recovery & business continuity

Transforming Lives. Inventing the Future. www.iit.edu

I ELLINOIS T UINS TI TOF TECHNOLOGY

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Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity

Ray TrygstadITM 478/578 Spring 2004Master of Information Technology & Management ProgramCenter for Professional Development

Slides based on Whitman, M. and Mattord, H., Principles of Information Security; Thomson Course Technology 2003

Tra ns fo rm ing Live s . Inve nting the Future . www.iit.edu

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ILLINOIS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

Learning ObjectivesUpon completion of this lesson the student should be able to:

– Describe what contingency planning is and how incident response planning, disaster recovery planning, and business continuity plans are related to contingency planning.

– Discuss the elements that comprise a business impact analysis and the information that is collected for the attack profile.

– Recognize the components of an incident response plan.


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Learning ObjectivesUpon completion of this lesson the student should be able to:

– Explain the steps involved in incident reaction and incident recovery.

– Define the disaster recovery plan and its parts.– Define the business continuity plan and its

parts.– Discuss the reasons for and against involving

law enforcement officials in incident responses and when may be required.


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FIGURE 7-1 Contingency Planning and the SecSDLCContingency Planning and the SecSDLC

Contingency Planning

Design:planning for continuty

Chapter 7

Investiga te

Ana lyze

Implement

Ma inta in

Physica l Design


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Continuity StrategyManagers must provide strategic

planning to assure continuous information systems availability ready to use when an attack occurs

Plans for events of this type are referred to in a number of ways: – Business Continuity Plans (BCPs)– Disaster Recovery Plans (DRPs)– Incident Response Plans (IRPs)– Contingency Plans


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Continuity Strategy

Large organizations may have many types of plans, small organizations may have one simple plan, but most have inadequate planning


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Contingency Planning

Components of Contingency Planning (CP):– Incident Response Planning (IRP) – Disaster Recovery Planning (DRP) – Business Continuity Planning (BCP)


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Contingency Planning The primary functions of these three

planning components: – IRP focuses on immediate response, but if the

attack escalates or is disastrous the process changes to disaster recovery and BCP

– DRP typically focuses on restoring systems after disasters occur, and as such is closely associated with BCP

– BCP occurs concurrently with DRP when the damage is major or long term, requiring more than simple restoration of information and information resources


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Contingency Planning Team

Before any planning can begin, a team has to plan the effort and prepare the resulting documents

Champion - A high-level manager to support, promote, and endorse the findings of the project


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Contingency Planning Team Project Manager - Leads the project and

makes sure a sound project planning process is used, a complete and useful project plan is developed, and project resources are prudently managed

Team Members - Should be the managers or their representatives from the various communities of interest: Business, IT, and Information Security


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Contingency Planning Hierarchy

ContingencyContingencyPlanningPlanning

DisasterDisasterRecoveryRecovery

IncidentIncidentResponseResponse

BusinessBusinessContinuityContinuity

FIGURE 7-2 Contingency Planning Hierarchy


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Contingency Planning Timeline

FIGURE 7-3 Contingency Planning Timeline

Incident Response (IRP)Incident Response (IRP)Disaster Recovery Planning (DRP)Disaster Recovery Planning (DRP)

Business Continuity (BCP)Business Continuity (BCP)

Attack Post Attack(hours)

Post Attack(days)


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Major Steps in Contingency Planning

Identification of Identification of threats and attacksthreats and attacks

Business unit analysisBusiness unit analysis

Scenarios of Scenarios of successful attackssuccessful attacks

Assessment of Assessment of potential damagespotential damages

Classification of Classification of subordinate planssubordinate plans

Incident Incident planningplanning

Incident Incident detectiondetection

Incident Incident reactionreaction

Incident Incident recoveryrecovery

Plan for Plan for disasterdisaster

recovery recovery

CrisisCrisisManagementManagement

RecoveryRecoveryoperationsoperations

EstablishEstablishContinuityContinuitystrategystrategy

Plan for Plan for continuity ofcontinuity ofoperations operations

Continuity Continuity managementmanagement

Incident responseplanning

Business impactanalysis (BIA)

Disasterrecoveryplanning

Businesscontinuityplanning

FIGURE 7-4 Major Steps in Contingency Planning


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Business Impact AnalysisBegin with Business Impact Analysis

(BIA)if the attack succeeds, what do we do then?

The CP team conducts the BIA in the following stages:1.Threat attack identification2.Business unit analysis3.Attack success scenarios4.Potential damage assessment5.Subordinate plan classification


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Threat Attack Identification & Prioritization

Update threat list with latest developments and add the attack profile

The attack profile is the detailed description of activities during an attack

Must be developed for every serious threat the organization faces

Used to determine the extent of damage that could result to a business unit if the attack were successful


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Table 7-1 – Attack Profile

Date of AnalysisDate of Analysis

Attack name & descriptionAttack name & description

Threat & probable threat agentThreat & probable threat agent

Known or possible vulnerabilitiesKnown or possible vulnerabilities

Likely precursor activities or indicatorsLikely precursor activities or indicators

Likely attack activities or indicators of attack in Likely attack activities or indicators of attack in progressprogress

Information assets or risk from this attackInformation assets or risk from this attack

Damage or loss to information assets likely Damage or loss to information assets likely from this attackfrom this attack

Other assets at risk from this attackOther assets at risk from this attack

Damage or loss to other assets likely from this Damage or loss to other assets likely from this attackattack

TABLE 7-1 Attack Profile


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Business Unit AnalysisThe second major task within the BIA

is the analysis and prioritization of business functions within the organization

Identify the functional areas of the organization and prioritize them as to which are most vital

Focus on a prioritized list of the various functions the organization performs


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Attack Success Scenario Development Next create a series of scenarios depicting

the impact a successful attack from each threat could have on each prioritized functional area with:– details on the method of attack – the indicators of attack – the broad consequences

Attack success scenarios details are added to the attack profile including:– Best case– Worst case– Most likely alternate outcomes


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Potential Damage Assessment

From the attack success scenarios developed, the BIA planning team must estimate the cost of the best, worst, and most likely cases

Costs include actions of the response team

This final result is referred to as an attack scenario end case


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Subordinate Plan Classification Once potential damage has been assessed, a

subordinate plan must be developed or identified

Subordinate plans will take into account the identification of, reaction to, and recovery from each attack scenario

An attack scenario end case is categorized as disastrous or not

The qualifying difference is whether or not an organization is able to take effective action during the event to combat the effect of the attack


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Incident Response Planning

Incident response planning covers the identification of, classification of, and response to an incident

An incident is an attack against an information asset that poses a clear threat to the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of information resources


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Incident Response Planning

Attacks are only classified as incidents if they have the following characteristics:– Are directed against information assets– Have a realistic chance of success– Could threaten the confidentiality, integrity, or

availability of information resources IR is more reactive, than proactive, with

the exception of the planning that must occur to prepare the IR teams to be ready to react to an incident


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Incident PlanningThe pre-defined responses enable the

organization to react quickly and effectively to the detected incident

This assumes two things: – first, the organization has an IR team– second, the organization can detect the

incidentThe IR team consists of those

individuals needed to handle the systems as incident takes place


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Incident Planning

The military process of planned team responses can be used in an incident response

The planners should develop a set of documents that guide the actions of each involved individual reacting to and recovering from the incident

These plans must be properly organized and stored


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Incident Response PlanFormat and Content

– The plan must be organized to support quick and easy access to the information needed

Storage– The plan should be protected as sensitive

information – On the other hand, the organization needs

this information readily available


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Incident Response Plan

Testing– An untested plan is not a useful plan.

The levels of testing strategies can vary:– Checklist– Structured walk-through– Simulation– Parallel– Full-interruption


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Incident Detection The most common occurrence is a complaint about

technology support, often delivered to the help desk Possible detections:

– intrusion detection systems, both host-based and network-based

– virus detection software – systems administrators – end users

Only through careful training can the organization hope to quickly identify and classify an incident

Once an attack is properly identified, the organization can respond


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Incident IndicatorsPossible indicators of

incidents: – Presence of unfamiliar

files– Unknown programs or

processes– Unusual consumption of

computing resources– Unusual system crashes

Probable indicators of incidents:– Activities at unexpected

times– Presence of new accounts– Reported attacks– Notification from IDS

Definite indicators of incidents:– Use of dormant accounts– Changes to logs– Presence of hacker tools– Notifications by partner

or peer– Notification by hacker

Predefined situations that signal an automatic incident: – Loss of availability– Loss of integrity– Loss of confidentiality– Violation of policy– Violation of law


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Incident or DisasterWhen Does an Incident Become a

Disaster?– the organization is unable to mitigate the

impact of an incident during the incident– the level of damage or destruction is so

severe the organization is unable to quickly recover

– It is up to the organization to decide which incidents are to be classified as disasters and thus receive the appropriate level of response


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Incident Reaction Incident reaction consists of actions that

guide the organization to stop the incident, mitigate the impact of the incident, and provide information for the recovery from the incident

In reacting to the incident there are a number of actions that must occur quickly including:– notification of key personnel – assignment of tasks– documentation of the incident


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Notification of Key Personnel Most organizations maintain alert rosters

for emergencies. An alert roster contains contact information for the individuals to be notified in an incident

Two ways to activate an alert roster: – A sequential roster is activated as a contact

person calls each and every person on the roster– A hierarchical roster is activated as the first

person calls a few other people on the roster, who in turn call a few other people, and so on


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The Alert Message

The alert message is a scripted description of the incident, with just enough information so that everyone knows what part of the IRP to implement

Can be prepared rapidly by filling in the blanks in a template included in the IRP


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Documenting an Incident Documenting the event is important:

– First, it is important to ensure that the event is recorded for the organization’s records, to know what happened, and how it happened, and what actions were taken. The documentation should record the who, what, when, where, why, and how of the even

– Second, it is important to prove, should it ever be questioned, that the organization did everything possible to prevent the spread of the incident

– Finally, the recorded incident can also be used as a simulation in future training sessions


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Incident Containment Strategies Before an incident can be contained, the

affected areas of the information and information systems must be determined

The organization can stop the incident and attempt to recover control through a number of strategies including:– severing the affected circuits– disabling accounts– reconfiguring a firewall– The ultimate containment option, reserved for

only the most drastic of scenarios, involves a full stop of all computers and network devices in the organization


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Incident Recovery Once the incident has been contained, and

control of the systems regained, the next stage is recovery

The first task is to identify the human resources needed and launch them into action

The full extent of the damage must be assessed

The organization repairs vulnerabilities, addresses any shortcomings in safeguards, and restores the data and services of the systems


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Damage Assessment There are several sources of information:

– including system logs– intrusion detection logs– configuration logs and documents– documentation from the incident response– results of a detailed assessment of systems and

data storage Computer evidence must be carefully

collected, documented, and maintained to be acceptable in formal proceedings

Individuals assessing damage need special training


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RecoveryIn the recovery process:

– Identify the vulnerabilities that allowed the incident to occur and spread and resolve them

– Address the safeguards that failed to stop or limit the incident, or were missing from the system in the first place. Install, replace or upgrade them

– Evaluate monitoring capabilities. Improve their detection and reporting methods, or simply install new monitoring capabilities


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Recovery

In the recovery process:– Restore the data from backups– Restore the services and processes in use– Continuously monitor the system– Restore the confidence of the members of

the organization’s communities of interest– Conduct an after-action review


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Automated Response New systems can respond to incidents

autonomously Trap and trace uses a combination of

resources to detect intrusion then trace back to source

Trapping may involve honeypots or honeynets

Entrapment is luring an individual into committing a crime to get a conviction

Enticement is legal and ethical, while entrapment is not


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Disaster Recovery Planning Disaster recovery planning (DRP) is planning the

preparation for and recovery from a disaster The contingency planning team must decide which

actions constitute disasters and which constitute incidents

When situations are classified as disasters plans change as to how to respond - take action to secure the most valuable assets to preserve value for the longer term even at the risk of more disruption

DRP strives to reestablish operations at the ‘primary’ site


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DRP Steps There must be a clear establishment of

priorities There must be a clear delegation of roles and

responsibilities Someone must initiate the alert roster and

notify key personnel Someone must be tasked with the

documentation of the disaster If and only if it is possible, some attempts

must be made to mitigate the impact of the disaster on the operations of the organization


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Crisis Management Crisis management is actions taken during and after

a disaster focusing on the people involved and addressing the viability of the business

The crisis management team is responsible for managing the event from an enterprise perspective and covers: – Supporting personnel and families during the crisis – Determining impact on normal business operations and, if

necessary, making a disaster declaration– Keeping the public informed– Communicating with major customers, suppliers, partners,

regulatory agencies, industry organizations, the media, and other interested parties


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Disaster Recovery Planning

Establish a command center to support communications

Includes individuals from all functional areas of the organization to facilitate communications and cooperation

Some key areas of crisis management include:– Verifying personnel head count– Checking the alert roster– Checking emergency information cards


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DRP Structure Similar to the IRP, DRP is organized by

disaster, and provides procedures to execute during and after a disaster

Provides details on the roles and responsibilities for those involved in the effort, and identifies the personnel and agencies that must be notified

Just as the IRP must be tested, so must the DRP, using the same testing mechanisms

Each organization must examine its scenarios, developed during the initial contingency planning, to determine how to respond to the various disasters


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Business Continuity Planning

Business continuity planning outlines reestablishment of critical business operations during a disaster that impacts operations

If a disaster has rendered the business unusable for continued operations, there must be a plan to allow the business to continue to function


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Continuity Strategies There are a number of strategies for

planning for business continuity The determining factor in selection between

these options is usually cost In general there are three exclusive options:

– hot sites– warm sites– cold sites

And three shared functions: – timeshare– service bureaus– mutual agreements


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Off-Site Disaster Data Storage To get these types of sites up and running quickly,

the organization must have the ability to port data into the new site’s systems

These include: – Electronic vaulting - The bulk batch-transfer of data to an

off-site facility.– Remote Journaling - The transfer of live transactions to an

off-site facility; only transactions are transferred not archived data, and the transfer is real-time.

– Database shadowing - Not only processing duplicate real-time data storage, but also duplicates the databases at the remote site to multiple servers.


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Model for IR/DR/BC Plan

The single document set approach supports concise planning and encourages smaller organizations to develop, test, and use IR/DR plans

The model presented is based on analyses of disaster recovery and incident response plans of dozens of organizations


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The Planning Document1. Establish responsibility for managing

the document, typically the security administrator

2. Appoint a secretary to document the activities and results of the planning session(s)

3. Independent incident response and disaster recovery teams are formed, with a common planning committee


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The Planning Document

4. Outline the roles and responsibilities for each team member

5. Develop the alert roster and lists of critical agencies

6. Identify and prioritize threats to the organization’s information and information systems


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The Planning ProcessThere are six steps in the Contingency Planning process:

1. Identifying the mission- or business-critical functions

2. Identifying the resources that support the critical functions

3. Anticipating potential contingencies or disasters

4. Selecting contingency planning strategies5. Implementing the contingency strategies6. Testing and revising the strategy


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Using the Plan

During the incidentAfter the incidentBefore the incident


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Contingency Plan


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Law Enforcement Involvement When the incident at hand constitutes a violation of

law the organization may determine that involving law enforcement is necessary

There are several questions, which must then be answered:– When should the organization get law enforcement

involved? – What level of law enforcement agency should be involved:

local, state, or federal? – What will happen when the law enforcement agency is

involved? Some of these questions are best answered by the

organization’s legal department


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Local, State, or Federal Authorities Selecting the level of law enforcement

depends on the level and type of crime discovered:– The Federal Bureau of Investigation deals with

many computer crimes that are categorized as felonies

– The US Secret Service works with crimes involving US currency, counterfeiting, credit cards, identity theft, and other crimes

– The US Treasury Department has a bank fraud investigation unit and the Securities and Exchange Commission has investigation and fraud control units as well


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State Investigative Services Each state has its own version of the FBI

(except Illinois! – interesting story why not) These state agencies arrest individuals,

serves warrants, and generally enforce laws on property that is owned by the state or any state agency

In Illinois, computer crime is the responsibility of the State of Illinois High Tech Crime Bureau, part of the Attorney General’s Office


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Local Law Enforcement Local agencies enforce all local and state

laws and handle suspects and security crime scenes for state and federal cases

Local law enforcement agencies seldom have a computer crimes task force, but most investigative (detective) units are capable of processing crime scenes, and handling most common criminal activities and the apprehension and processing of suspects of computer related crimes


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Benefits of Law Enforcement Involvement

Involving law enforcement agencies has advantages:– Agencies may be much better equipped at

processing evidence than private organizations

– Unless the organization has staff trained in forensics they may less effective in convicting suspects


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Benefits of Law Enforcement Involvement

Involving law enforcement agencies has advantages:– Law enforcement agencies are also

prepared to handle the warrants and subpoenas needed

– Law enforcement skilled at obtaining statements from witnesses, completing affidavits, and other information collection


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Drawbacks to Law Enforcement Involvement

Involving law enforcement agencies has disadvantages:– On the downside, once a law

enforcement agency takes over a case, the organization loses complete control over the chain of events

– The organization may not hear about the case for weeks or even months


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Drawbacks to Law Enforcement Involvement

Involving law enforcement agencies has disadvantages:– Equipment vital to the organization’s

business may be tagged as evidence, to be removed, stored, and preserved until it can be examined for possible support for the criminal case

– However, if the organization detects a criminal act, it is a legal obligation to involve the appropriate law enforcement officials


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The End…

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