In today's fast-paced digital world, applications are the driving force behind businesses. They handle customer interactions, process data, and run critical operations. But what happens when these applications encounter issues or even fail?
That's where application monitoring and logging come into play. They provide valuable insights into how software systems work. Monitoring helps track performance and detect problems, while logging captures important events and errors. Together, they empower organizations to gain visibility, optimize performance, and enhance user experiences.
Once you've launched an application, the greatest risk you face is becoming complacent. If you don't actively test, monitor, and stay informed about new vulnerabilities, you may remain unaware that your software is being compromised until substantial damage occurs.
Over time, a range of events can introduce problems that compromise the security of your application. These include:
When you deploy your application, the host platforms may be secure. However, subsequent updates can introduce vulnerabilities that were not present initially.
Servers and networks can undergo inadvertent or intentional configuration changes, which can create new vulnerabilities and weaken the security of your application.
Users may make changes to the content or configuration of the client software, which can inadvertently expose vulnerabilities within the application.
As new exploit and attack techniques come to light, previously unknown or unexploited vulnerabilities within your application can be surfaced, posing potential security risks.
These factors emphasize the importance of continuous monitoring, testing, and staying updated with the latest security practices to address and mitigate these evolving threats effectively.
To stay informed, you can utilize various channels, including:
By regularly monitoring and scanning logs, you can identify emerging attack patterns and potential security breaches promptly.
Conduct regular scans of your application components and refer to vulnerabilities databases to ensure that all modules have been patched to protect against newly discovered threats.
Implementing a bug bounty program allows users to report issues they discover, which can be triaged and investigated for potential security vulnerabilities.
Engage with your customers through feedback channels and support calls. They can provide valuable insights into potential security issues or vulnerabilities that require attention.
Conduct periodic re-testing of your application to assess its security posture. This helps identify any vulnerabilities that may have been introduced or missed during development or subsequent updates.
By proactively leveraging these channels, you can enhance your awareness of security concerns and take timely actions to address them, bolstering the overall security of your application.
Security monitoring can be classified into two categories: passive and active. Each category serves a specific purpose in identifying attacks and emerging security issues. Additionally, there are various components that can be monitored to enhance security:
In passive monitoring, events are logged and analyzed after they occur. This retrospective approach allows for in-depth examination of security incidents and their impact.
Active monitoring involves continuous real-time logging and response to events as they happen. This proactive approach enables immediate action to mitigate security threats.
Key components that can be monitored include:
- System and application logs: Monitoring logs provides insights into events and activities within the system or application, allowing for the detection of anomalies or suspicious behavior.
- Application heartbeats: Tracking the "heartbeat" or regular signals from applications helps ensure their availability and detect any disruptions or abnormalities.
- Intra-application communications: Monitoring the communication between different components or modules within an application can identify unauthorized or malicious interactions.
- System and service response codes: Monitoring the response codes or lack thereof from systems and services helps identify potential issues or attacks targeting the application.
- Resource utilization: Tracking the usage of CPU, RAM, disk, network interface, and other resources provides visibility into potential performance bottlenecks or unusual activities that may indicate security breaches.
- Client requests and service responses: Monitoring incoming client requests and outgoing service responses helps detect abnormal or malicious behavior from external sources.
- Configuration changes: Keeping an eye on changes in platform or application configurations, particularly when using cloud or web hosts, helps ensure the integrity and security of the environment.
- Application, system, and network activity: Monitoring overall activity within the application, system, and network infrastructure helps detect unauthorized access attempts, unusual patterns, or suspicious behavior.
Continuous security monitoring is now considered essential for effective security operations. Automation plays a significant role in alleviating the burden on administrators. However, a combination of automated and manual monitoring is recommended. Relying solely on automated systems can lead to false reporting if configurations or updates are not correctly implemented. Humans should continuously oversee and monitor the automated systems to ensure accurate and effective security monitoring.
Intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDPS) offer a way to automate the monitoring of your plans. An intrusion detection system (IDS) acts as a passive system that logs unauthorized activities occurring on both the network and hosts. It serves the purpose of detecting and recording potential security breaches. On the other hand, an intrusion prevention system (IPS) goes a step further by actively responding to suspicious activity, such as blocking malicious traffic. However, it is crucial for network administrators to ensure that legitimate traffic is not accidentally blocked, striking a balance between security and operational needs.
IDPS systems can monitor network traffic, access to resources on host computers, or both, providing the capability to detect and respond to security threats. Nevertheless, one must be mindful of false alarms. Too many false positives can lead to the system operator ignoring genuine warnings, potentially allowing a real security event to go undetected. Conversely, false negatives may create a false sense of security by failing to report critical events
|
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Alarm |
Silence |
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True Alarm |
True Positive: Alarm sounds during an actual incident. |
True Negative: Alarm silent, and there is no incident. |
|
False Alarm |
False Positive: Alarm sounds, although there is no incident. |
False Negative: The alarm does not sound, even though there is an actual incident. |
Position IDPS probes and sensors strategically where interesting traffic occurs:
- Behind firewalls, dual-homed proxies, routers, and VPN servers.
- Next to single-homed proxies, servers, and wireless access points.
When implementing application logging, it is crucial to log security events. Security specialists and system operators rely on this information for various purposes, including:
Security logs provide valuable insights into potential attacks or suspicious activities within the application or system.
Logging security events assists in gathering data for investigating and understanding security incidents, aiding in incident response and mitigation.
By logging security events, you can establish a reference point or baseline for monitoring systems, allowing deviations from normal behavior to be detected and addressed promptly.
Security logs help track and prevent repudiation, enabling organizations to implement controls to hold individuals accountable for their actions.
Logging security events supports the monitoring of policy violations, ensuring compliance with security policies and regulations.
To protect sensitive information, security logs should be stored in a secure area inaccessible to potential attackers. It is crucial to keep security logs separate from other types of logs, such as process monitoring, auditing, and transaction logs, as they serve different purposes. Additionally, encryption should be employed to safeguard communications between IDS/IPS sensors and their console, ensuring the integrity and confidentiality of the data transmitted.
To enhance security in your organization, consider the following measures:
1. Implement a proactive continuous monitoring program to ensure ongoing security.
2. Recognize the risks of false positives and false negatives in intrusion detection systems, ensuring effective configuration to minimize both.
3. Position intrusion detection and prevention systems behind firewalls, dual-homed proxies, routers, and VPN servers for comprehensive network monitoring.
4. Place intrusion detection and prevention systems adjacent to single-homed proxies, servers, and wireless access points to closely monitor their activities.
5. Ensure that servers that do not require internet access, such as databases, are not publicly exposed to minimize potential vulnerabilities.
6. Safeguard system logs from unauthorized access to maintain the integrity and confidentiality of critical information.
7. Implement logging within your applications to capture security-related information that may not be available through network device or host platform logs. This includes authentication and authorization events, application actions, targets, and outcomes.
By implementing these practices, you can strengthen the security posture of your organization and enhance your ability to detect, respond to, and mitigate potential security threats effectively.
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