Hi Dave,
A final point is that concentric layers of protection have to be understood from a risk perspective; in that a vulnerability which requires local login to exploit, or physical presence (ALMOST ANY MACHINE) may be more or less at risk if the employees are trusted and trustable, and the physical access is more ore less controlled. In other words, if a Financial Server or Top Secret Server is running an MS Operating system (already a questionable practice <smile>), and is protected behind umpteen firewalls, AV, IDS/IPS, it may be more vulnerable if any joe could just walk up to it physically and do something like boot it up on CD (BackTrax it) or less vulnerable if there is no unauthorized physical access and the keyboard and monitor are controlled.
Your points before this one are well taken and I do hope some people learn
from the DoS mistake of yours you mentioned.
Risk is a concept for choosing security and controls. Testing, however, is
verifying to what level that security or those controls exist. To test,
you don't make a risk assessment. Doing so would restrict your findings.
You make a thorough test of everything within the business requirements,
policy, regulations, etc. Remember, you're there to make sure they didn't
forget anything. You can't do that if you're making the same guesses they
are. That's why the OSSTMM can help you not miss anything.
In terms of analysis, where you need to trust employees or not, I think you
make a good point about risk but it's the wrong thing to do. Even the most
loyal employee can send the wrong mail by accident to the wrong person or
be fooled into clicking on the phisher's link. You need to treat every
interaction on the network as one of a business perspective where security
provides a means to efficiency, less accidents, and a quicker reaction to
mistakes. In that case it's not about who you trust inside or out but what
you need to keep the business running efficiently. If locking down all the
desktops means less help desk hassles (it doesn't) versus the cost of
employee turn-over from unhappy employees, then make your decision that
way. Not whether or not you trust Alice or Jack. If you really think we
can make good trust choices as human beings, just watch a few daytime talk
shows ;)
-pete.
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