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The Zero Trust Framework - Threat Hunting Quantum Mechanics (Ravindra Das)(Z-Library)

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Cybersecurity
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The Cybersecurity landscape is a daunting one today. It is nothing like it was 10 years ago. Now, it has become very complex, covert, dynamic, and stealthy. It has literally become a cat and mouse game, in which the Cyberattacker is still one step ahead. This is despite all of the technology that is available to us as a society, which includes Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning. Part of the other problem is that human beings are resistant to change. For example, the password is still the favored way of authenticating and authorizing an individual, but it too has shown its grave limitations. Despite the use of Password Managers, which can create long and complex passwords, people still resort to their old fashioned ways of doing things. So, what is needed now is an extreme change, in which, unfortunately, people have no choice in whether or not they will participate. It is called the Zero Trust Framework, and in this methodology, absolutely nobody can be trusted in either the internal or the external environments. The mantra here is to keep verifying everybody, all the time. The Zero Trust Framework also involves the concept of segmentation, in which the IT and Network Infrastructure of a business is broken down into smaller components, much like a Subnet. Each component will have its own layer of security, and every individual must be authenticated via the use of Multifactor Authentication (MFA). In this book, we review both the concepts and mechanics behind the Zero Trust Framework. We also introduce advanced technologies into it, including the use of Biometrics, the Public Key Infrastructure, and Quantum Mechanics/Quantum Cryptography.

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Ravindra Das is a Cybersecurity Consultant with his own practice, RaviDas. Tech, Inc. (ravidas.consulting). He is Certified in Cybersecurity by the ISC(2), has written and published 9 books with CRC Press, and self-published 24 eBooks on Amazon. His portfolio can be seen at: cybersecuritycontent.news The Cybersecurity landscape is a daunting one today. It is nothing like it was 10 years ago. Now, it has become very complex, covert, dynamic, and stealthy. It has literally become a cat and mouse game, in which the Cyberattacker is still one step ahead. This is despite all of the technology that is available to us as a society, which includes Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning. Part of the other problem is that human beings are resistant to change. For example, the password is still the favored way of authenticating and authoriz- ing an individual, but it too has shown its grave limitations. Despite the use of Password Managers, which can create long and complex passwords, people still resort to their old fashioned ways of doing things. So, what is needed now is an extreme change, in which, unfortunately, people have no choice in whether or not they will participate. It is called the Zero Trust Framework, and in this methodology, absolutely nobody can be trusted in either the internal or the external environments. The mantra here is to keep verifying everybody, all the time. The Zero Trust Framework also involves the concept of segmentation, in which the IT and Network Infrastructure of a business is broken down into smaller components, much like a Subnet. Each component will have its own layer of security, and every individual must be authenticated via the use of Multifactor Authentication (MFA). In this book, we review both the concepts and mechanics behind the Zero Trust Framework. We also introduce advanced technologies into it, including the use of Biometrics, the Public Key Infrastructure, and Quantum Mechanics/ Quantum Cryptography. The Zero Trust Framework
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The Zero Trust Framework Threat Hunting & Quantum Mechanics Ravindra Das
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First edition published 2024 by CRC Press 6000 Broken Sound Parkway NW, Suite 300, Boca Raton, FL 33487-2742 and by CRC Press 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN © 2024 Ravindra Das CRC Press is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, LLC Reasonable efforts have been made to publish reliable data and information, but the author and publisher cannot assume responsibility for the validity of all materials or the consequences of their use. The authors and publishers have attempted to trace the copyright holders of all material reproduced in this publication and apologize to copyright holders if permission to publish in this form has not been obtained. If any copyright material has not been acknowledged please write and let us know so we may rectify in any future reprint. Except as permitted under U.S. Copyright Law, no part of this book may be reprinted, reproduced, transmitted, or utilized in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying, microfilming, and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publishers. For permission to photocopy or use material electronically from this work, access www. copyright.com or contact the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. (CCC), 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400. For works that are not available on CCC please contact mpkbookspermissions@tandf.co.uk Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Das, Ravindra, author. Title: The zero trust framework : threat hunting & quantum mechanics / Ravindra Das. Description: First edition. | Boca Raton : CRC Press, [2024] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2023006003 (print) | LCCN 2023006004 (ebook) | ISBN 9781032492780 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032492810 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003392965 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Computer networks--Security measures. | Computer security. | Trust. | Internet users--Identification. Classification: LCC TK5105.59 .D3738 2024 (print) | LCC TK5105.59 (ebook) | DDC 005.8--dc23/eng/20230228 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023006003 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023006004 ISBN: 978-1-032-49278-0 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-49281-0 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-39296-5 (ebk) DOI: 10.1201/9781003392965 Typeset in Times by SPi Technologies India Pvt Ltd (Straive)
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This book is dedicated to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, the Grand Designer of the Universe, and to my parents, Dr. Gopal Das and Mrs. Kunda Das. This book is also dedicated to: Richard and Gwenda Bowman Anita Bhalla Das and Mary Hanlon Bhalla Tim Auckley and his family My loving cats, Fifi and Bubu
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vii Contents Acknowledgments xi 1 Introduction 1 2 The Fundamental Components of the Zero Trust Framework 5 The Password 5 The Rise of Two-Factor Authentication 9 Multifactor Authentication 12 An Introduction to Biometrics 15 Definition and Unique Features 16 The Process of Identification 17 Other Important Concepts 20 The Biometric Sensor 22 A Review of Fingerprint Recognition 24 The Process of Fingerprint Recognition 25 Fingerprint Recognition Quality Control Checks 25 A Review of Facial Recognition 26 The Techniques of Facial Recognition – Unique Feature Extraction 27 Iris Recognition 29 The Physiological Structure of the Iris 30 Iris Recognition: How It Works 31 Conclusions 32 3 The Public Key Infrastructure and BioCryptography 35 An Overview of the Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) 36 What It Is All About 37 The Public Key and the Private Key 38 The Mathematical Algorithms of the PKI 39 The Components of the PKI 41 The Digital Certificates 41 How Public Key Infrastructure Works 42 Public Key Infrastructure Policies and Rules 43
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viii Contents The LDAP Protocol 44 The PKI Standards 45 Parameters of Public Keys and Private Keys 46 A Review into Biocryptography 47 The Cipher Biometric Template 48 Biocryptography in an MFA for the Zero Trust Framework 48 Biocryptography and Virtual Private Networks 50 The Hashing Mechanism 51 4 Quantum Physics 55 The Origins of the Zero Trust Framework 57 In 2011 58 In 2018 58 In 2019 58 In 2021 59 From 2021 to Present 59 The Demise of Perimeter Security 63 The Emergence of the Zero Trust Framework 64 The Basic Zero Trust Framework Model 68 What Is Segmentation? 69 The Advantages of the Zero Trust Framework 71 The Disadvantages of the Zero Trust Framework 75 Some of the Best Practices 78 The Flaws with the Traditional Zero Trust Framework Model 82 The Use of Biometrics 83 The Weakness of Repeated Authorization and Authentication 85 The Strains of an On Prem PAM 87 Why PAM Is Better Suited for the Cloud 87 The Advantages of Using PAM in the Cloud 89 A Best Practices Guide for Deploying a PAM-Based Solution 91 The Mistakes That Are Made When Deploying PAM Solutions and How to Fix Them 93 The Importance of Just in Time (JIT) Access 96 The Types of JIT Access Accounts 96 The Benefits of JIT Access 97 The Four Pillars to PAM Success 98 The Finer Points of Privileged Access Management 100 The Use of Quantum Mechanics in Our Proposed Model of the Zero Trust Framework 103 Quantum Cryptography 104 The Literature Review 105
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Contents ix The Quantum Key Distribution Center (QKDC) 108 The Photon Particle Array Structures 109 Our Proposed Zero Trust Framework Model 110 5 Threat Modeling/Threat Hunting 113 What Exactly Is Threat Modeling? 113 The Process Involved in Threat Modeling 114 Making the Case for Threat Modeling 115 To the Software Development Team 115 From Upper Management 116 From the Project Management Team 117 How to Have Quality-Based Threat Modeling Meetings 119 The Composition of the Team Meetings 119 The Decision-Making Process 120 The Components of an Effective Threat Modeling Meeting 121 The Penetration Testing Process 122 Automated Penetration Testing and Its Benefits 124 How to Carry Out Threat Modeling in the Software Development Lifecycle 127 The Waterfall Methodology 127 The Agile Methodology 128 Valuing Your Threat Modelers 130 Measuring the Overall Value of Threat Hunting 130 When Does Threat Modeling End in the Project Management or SDLC? 131 Another Way to Measure Threat Modeling Success 132 Who Leads the Threat Modeling Team? 133 Widely Used Threat Modeling Techniques 134 Sources for Chapter 5 137 6 Conclusions 139 Index 143
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xi Acknowledgments I would like to thank Ms. Gabriella Williams, my editor, who made this book into a reality.
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1DOI: 10.1201/9781003392965-1 1Introduction The world of Cybersecurity is now a complex one. Gone are the days when it was all just about Phishing attacks like in the late 90s. Now it is a myriad of threat vectors, psychological tactics, and essentially digital warfare among nations and its peoples. Unfortunately, as time goes on, this is only going to get worse. This is best exemplified by the conflict between Russia and the Ukraine. This war has been going on for almost a year now, with no end in sight. True, there are the military machines of war present. But now, there is a twist – Cyberattacks being launched against the Ukrainians by the Russians. Never has this happened before in the history of warfare. In fact, it is expected that even future wars will be fought mostly on the digital front, as there will be no further need for the physical armor to be present. Even future terrorist attacks will not involve airplanes crashing into build- ings like we saw during 9/11. Now, it will be a series of large-scale Cyberattacks aimed at the Critical Infrastructures of any one country. These will be simulta- neous attacks aimed towards the oil and gas pipelines, water supplies, the food distribution system, the national power grid, and even the nuclear facilities of a country, literally bringing it down to its knees. Even though the threat variants have become much more dangerous and covert and even stealthier, so has the advancements been made in the vari- ous security technologies and tools that are designed to protect not only busi- nesses but also individuals. For example, the tools of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are now being used to speed and automate processes that would take days to achieve. Now, these tools are used to comb through large amounts of data in order to unearth any hidden trends that could prove to be useful for any IT Security team. To some degree, they are also being used to predict what the future Cyber Threat Landscape could potentially look like, as well as what the threat vari- ants could be. But, it should be noted that these tools are only as good as the data that is being fed into them. In other words, garbage in and garbage out. Intelligence sharing has also greatly increased, between both the private and government sectors. This has proven to be of great benefit, as the FBI has been
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2 The Zero Trust Framework able to take some of the most notorious Ransomware groups, and even retrieve the money that was paid as ransom to the hackers. But even despite all of this, it still seems like that it is not enough. The crux of the problem here is that businesses in Corporate America are simply way too reactive. The attitude seems to be of this: “If it has not hit me yet, the chances are that it will never happen”. This is the main reason why people are so ignorant about security issues. The other piece of the puzzle that is often left to blame here in this regard is the cost of implementing security controls. True, it can be a very exhaustive and time-constraining activity to con- duct a Risk Assessment, but the truth of the matter is that security controls are now very affordable today, especially to the small- and medium-sized business (SMBs). Another problem here is that the primary tool that is used for authen- tication as well as authorization has been and continues to be the traditional password. There have been many advances made in password security, especially that of the Password Manager. For example, it can create very long and complex passwords that are almost very difficult to break. It can even remind employees of when they need to reset their passwords, or it can even do it automatically for them. It can also alert the employee if their password has been compro- mised in any way. Even despite all of this, people are still afraid to use, just because this will mean a change in the routines in which things are done. By nature, humans are very resistant to change, and this is a part of the reason of why the Cyberattacker can still carry the way they do. This is an issue that will be further addressed in Chapter 6. Thus, the only way to guarantee that a business or an individual can be mitigated as much as possible from a security breach is to take extreme measures of all kinds. One such example of this is known as the “Zero Trust Framework”. In this methodology, absolutely nobody or anything is to be trusted in both the external and the internal environments. People simply can- not use their passwords anymore in order to gain access to the resources that they need to conduct in their everyday job functions. Instead, employees must be constantly verified all of the time, going through at least three or more layers of proving and confirming their identities. Also, the IT and Network Infrastructure of an organization is broken down into different layers or segments, in order to make sure that the Cyberattacker cannot break through any further. The thinking here is that if the Cyberattacker can break through the first lines of defenses, the chances that they can break through the other, subsequent ones become almost nil. This is a far cry from the traditional approaches, which were called the Perimeter Defense Model. With this kind of methodology, a business was sur- rounded by just one layer of defense, in a circle. Although this would have been
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1 • Introduction 3 heavily fortified, but if the Cyberattacker were to break through, they would then literally have free reigns over all of the digital assets of the company. In this regard, the Zero Trust Framework can totally super cede the Perimeter Defense Model, with all of the internal layers of security that it consists of. Although the Zero Trust Framework is once again viewed as an extreme, this is what is needed today to thwart off the Cyberattackers to the greatest degrees possible. Although this methodology has been around for quite some time (around 10 years or so), it is not until now that it has been formally adopted to varying degrees. But for the most part, there has been success rate with it, as it has been more difficult for the Cyberattacker to penetrate into. Thus, the primary goal of this book is to review the Zero Trust Framework, and how it can be possibly deployed even at your organization. But in this regard, we break away from the traditional Zero Trust Framework Model, and incorporate three new facets into it: • The use of Biometric Technology; • The Use of Quantum Mechanics; • The Use of Asymmetric Key Cryptography, also known as the Public Key Infrastructure, or the PKI.
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5DOI: 10.1201/9781003392965-2 2The Fundamental Components of the Zero Trust Framework In the world of security, not just Cybersecurity, the identification of an indi- vidual is not just a requirement these days, but it is an absolute must. But the ways about going to conduct this identification process vary from company to company; some require multiple layers of it, and some just require one mech- anism in order to fully confirm the identity of the person in question (this will be discussed in detail later on in this chapter). Probably, the most traditional way of confirming somebody has been the password. THE PASSWORD In fact, the password is the dinosaur of identification, having gone back dec- ades. It certainly has proved its identity over time, but now, given the sophis- tication of the Cyberattacker, it has literally outlived its usefulness. A primary reason for this is that this is a much sought after prize for the hacker, because after all, once they have a password, all they need to do is somehow guess the username (unless they already have from a previous security breach). Once this has been accomplished, then their reign of terror can begin. For example, they can drain your bank accounts, and even launch credit card fraud attacks (the author of this chapter has actually been a victim of this). Or, this can be sold on the Dark Web for a rather nice profit, along with the other user- name/password combinations that have been heisted.
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6 The Zero Trust Framework Or in a new trend that is happening these days is that the Cyberattacker can actually hire out another firm on the Dark Web and have them launch on attack using the stolen credentials. This has become known as a “Ransomware as a Service” attack. But even though the password has been such a huge tar- get, many people still choose to keep on doing things associated with it as they normally have. Instead of heeding the warnings of their employers, many people do the following with their passwords: 1) They reuse the same password across multiple platforms; 2) When it is time to reset the password, rather than coming up with something different, they use just slightly different alteration of the original password; 3) They will use a very easy-to-remember password; some of the follow- ing are typical examples that have been used and continue to do so: • Password • 123456 • 123456789 • 12345678 • 1234567 • Password1 • 12345 • 1234567890 • 1234 • Qwerty123 4) They will use other forms to create an easy-to-remember password, such as a birthdate, name of a relative, or even the name of a previ- ous employer. Now, these are obviously a little bit more secure to use that the passwords listed in #3, but they are still very easy to guess, given the use of OSINT (also known as Open Source Intelligence), and the availability of Social Media profiles. Because of this, almost 99% of all business in Corporate America have now mandated that their employees come up with a much stronger password, one that is much harder to crack and break into. Some of the guidelines for creating these kinds of passwords include the following: 1) Keep the password long. Many Cyber vendors recommend creating a password at least 15 to 16 characters long, and this should be inter- spersed with punctuation, numerical values, and upper and lower case letters. 2) Avoid substitutions from previous passwords. The reason for this is because there is a very strong possibility that the older one could
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2 • The Fundamental Components of the Zero Trust Framework 7 have been hijacked in a previous security breach, and if it is altered in just a slight way, it could still very well be detected in a later, brute force attack. An example of substitutions include the following: DOORBELL becoming D00R8377 3) Be careful of using keyboard shortcuts. If you have any key log- ger spyware maliciously deployed on your wireless device, it can track these movements very easily and send them back to the Cyberattacker in a Remote Code Execution (RCE) attack. 4) If you have an existing passphrase created elsewhere, it is recom- mended that you create a different version of that, using a combina- tion of meaningless words in the process. 5) Another, more superior version of the passphrase is to create a sen- tence (not too long) as your password. Here is an example: The Old Duke is my favorite pub in South London Now becomes ThOlDuismyfapuinSoLo (SOURCE: https://blog.avast.com/strong-password-ideas) Other examples include the following: 2BorNot2B_ThatIsThe? (To be or not to be, that is the question – from Shakespeare) L8r_L8rNot2day (Later, later, not today – from the kid’s rhyme) 4Score&7yrsAgo (Four score and seven years ago – from the Gettysburg Address) John3:16=4G (Scriptural reference) 14A&A41dumaS (one for all and all for 1 – from The Three Musketeers, by Dumas) (SOURCE: https://www.webroot.com/us/en/resources/tips-articles/ how-do-i-create-a-strong-password) 6) Another recommended way to create a very strong password is to use your favorite websites, or the ones that you visit most com- monly. Some typical examples of this include the following: ABT2_uz_AMZ! (About to use Amazon) ABT2_uz_BoA! (About to use Bank of America) Pwrd4Acct-$$ (Password for account at the bank) Pwrd4Acct-Fb (Password for a Facebook account) (SOURCE: https://www.webroot.com/us/en/resources/tips-articles/ how-do-i-create-a-strong-password)
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8 The Zero Trust Framework 7) In some places where a complex password is required, you can even create an emoticon. The caveat here is that you can’t use the actual image, you can only create one from the symbols that are available on your keyboard. The following matrix displays this: ! @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) _ + { } | “ < > - = [ ] ; \ ‘ , . / Because these newer versions of passwords are far more complex than the eas- ier ones just listed, people still tend to shy away from using these. The answer is quite simple here, as they are too hard to remember. And that is using the Password Manager. It can be technically defined as follows: They store your login information for all the websites you use and help you log into them automatically. (SOURCE: https://www.howtogeek.com/141500/why-you- should-use-a-password-manager-and-how-to-get-started/)
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