Comparing IEDs and Digital Threats

Two weeks ago Vago Muradian from This Week in Defense News interviewed Army Lt Gen Michael Barbero, commander of the Joint IED Defeat Organization. I was struck by the similarities between the problems his command handles regarding improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and those involving digital security professionals.

In fact, you may be aware that papers and approaches like Intelligence-Driven Computer Network Defense Informed by Analysis of Adversary Campaigns and Intrusion Kill Chains by Eric M. Hutchins, Michael J. Cloppert, and Rohan M. Amin, Ph.D. were inspired by the desire to move "left of boom" regarding IEDs.

In this post I will highlight elements from the interview which will likely resonate with those working digital security problems.

  • The threat "shares information globally," and engages in an "arms race" with defenders, sometimes by "sitting in front of a computer" devising the latest tools and techniques.
  • The adversary can introduce changes to tools and techniques in weeks and months, not years or decades as was the case with conventional or strategic weapons.
  • For a "meagre expenditure," the adversary can impose "huge costs on defenders."
  • The goal of the security program (i.e., JIEDDO) is to provide commanders freedom of maneuver to conduct operations (business) in an IED environment.
  • "If you're worrying about the device, you're playing defense." Don't focus only on the device, put pressure on the networks (of adversaries who design, build, and operate the weapons.)
  • Intelligence plays a key role in defeating adversaries. Winning involves applying "lethal pressure, "along with government techniques. "It takes a network to defeat a network."
  • Defeating the device attracts the most attention and funding, but training users and attacking the network must also be pursued. Training involves ensuring that operators are using countermeasures effectively and appropriately.
  • JIEDDO shares threat intelligence in unclassified form so industry partners can devise countermeasures. The unclassified documents are backed by a classified appendix that describes how troops deploy countermeasures in operational settings.
I find the first four minutes of that interview, then comments about unclassified intel sharing at the seven minute mark, to be fascinating. It's clear to me that "malware" is the equivalent to IEDs in this context. Sure enough, just as in the IED world, defeating malware attracts a log of "attention and funding," but training users and "attacking the network" are just as, if not more, important.

If you'd like to see examples of the IEDs encountered in the field and some US countermeasures, check out the first segment.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Zeek in Action Videos

Image
This is a quick note to point blog readers to my Zeek in Action YouTube video series for the Zeek network security monitoring project .  Each video addresses a topic that I think might be of interest to people trying to understand their network using Zeek and adjacent tools and approaches, like Suricata, Wireshark, and so on.  I am especially pleased with Video 6 on monitoring wireless networks . It took me several weeks to research material for this video. I had to buy new hardware and experiment with a Linux distro that I had not used before -- Parrot .  Please like and subscribe, and let me know if there is a topic you think might make a good video.
Read more

MITRE ATT&CK Tactics Are Not Tactics

Image
Just what are "tactics"? Introduction MITRE ATT&CK  is a great resource, but something about it has bothered me since I first heard about it several years ago. It's a minor point, but I wanted to document it in case it confuses anyone else. The MITRE ATT&CK Design and Philosophy document from March 2020 says the following: At a high-level, ATT&CK is a behavioral model that consists of the following core components: • Tactics, denoting short-term, tactical adversary goals during an attack; • Techniques, describing the means by which adversaries achieve tactical goals; • Sub-techniques, describing more specific means by which adversaries achieve tactical goals at a lower level than techniques; and • Documented adversary usage of techniques, their procedures, and other metadata. My concern is with MITRE's definition of "tactics" as "short-term, tactical adversary goals during an attack," which is oddly recursive. The key word in the tacti...
Read more

New Book! The Best of TaoSecurity Blog, Volume 4

Image
  I've completed the TaoSecurity Blog book series . The new book is  The Best of TaoSecurity Blog, Volume 4: Beyond the Blog with Articles, Testimony, and Scholarship .  It's available now for Kindle , and I'm working on the print edition.  I'm running a 50% off promo on Volumes 1-3 on Kindle through midnight 20 April. Take advantage before the prices go back up. I described the new title thus: Go beyond TaoSecurity Blog with this new volume from author Richard Bejtlich. In the first three volumes of the series, Mr. Bejtlich selected and republished the very best entries from 18 years of writing and over 18 million blog views, along with commentaries and additional material.  In this title, Mr. Bejtlich collects material that has not been published elsewhere, including articles that are no longer available or are stored in assorted digital or physical archives. Volume 4 offers early white papers that Mr. Bejtlich wrote as a network defender, either for technica...
Read more