designed for critical infrastructure and commercial organizations, whereas the RMF establishes mandatory requirements for federal agencies. RMF was established in 2010, and the CSF was established in 2014.
The CSF is based on a framework core that consists of five functions: Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, and Recover. The CSF is not a checklist or procedure—it is a prescription of operational activities that are to be performed on an ongoing basis for the support and improvement of security over time. The CSF is more of an improvement system rather than its own specific risk management process or security infrastructure.
The RMF, defined by NIST in SP 800-37 Rev. 2 (csrc.nist.gov/publications/detail/sp/800-37/rev-2/final), establishes mandatory security requirements for federal agencies. This is the primary risk framework referenced by the CISSP exam. The RMF has six cyclical phases (see Figure 2.5):
Prepare to execute the RMF from an organization- and system-level perspective by establishing a context and priorities for managing security and privacy risk.
Categorize the system and the information processed, stored, and transmitted by the system based on an analysis of the impact of loss.
Select an initial set of controls for the system and tailor the controls as needed to reduce risk to an acceptable level based on an assessment of risk.
Implement the controls and describe how the controls are employed within the system and its environment of operation.
Assess the controls to determine if the controls are implemented correctly, operating as intended, and producing the desired outcomes with respect to satisfying the security and privacy requirements.
Authorize the system or common controls based on a determination that the risk to organizational operations and assets, individuals, other organizations, and the nation is acceptable.
Monitor the system and the associated controls on an ongoing basis to include assessing control effectiveness, documenting changes to the system and environment of operation, conducting risk assessments and impact analyses, and reporting the security and privacy posture of the system.
[From NIST SP 800-37 Rev. 2]
FIGURE 2.5 The elements of the risk management framework (RMF) (from NIST SP 800-37 Rev. 2, Figure 2)
These six phases are to be performed in order and repeatedly throughout the life of the organization. RMF is intended as a risk management process to identify and respond to threats. Use of the RMF will result in the establishment of a security infrastructure and a process for ongoing improvement of the secured environment.
There is significantly more detail about RMF in the official NIST publication; we encourage you to review this publication in its entirety for a complete perspective on the RMF. Much of the information in the prior risk management sections in this chapter was derived from the RMF.
Another important guide to risk management is the ISO/IEC 31000 document “Risk management — Guidelines.” This is a high-level overview of the idea of risk management that many will benefit from reading. You can find it online at www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso:31000:ed-2:v1:en. This ISO guideline is intended to be useful to any type of organization, whether government or private sector. A companion guide, ISO/IEC 31004 “Risk management — Guidance for the implementation of ISO 31000” (www.iso.org/standard/56610.html) might also be of interest, along with ISO/IEC 27005, “Information technology — Security techniques — Information security risk management” (www.iso.org/standard/75281.html).
The NIST RMF is the primary focus of the CISSP exam, but you might want to review other risk management frameworks for use in the real world. Please consider the following for future research:
The Committee of Sponsoring Organizations (COSO) of the Treadway Commission's Enterprise Risk Management — Integrated Framework
ISACA's Risk IT Framework
Operationally Critical Threat, Asset, and Vulnerability Evaluation (OCTAVE)
Factor Analysis of Information Risk (FAIR)
Threat Agent Risk Assessment (TARA)
For further research, you'll find a useful article here: www.csoonline.com/article/2125140/it-risk-assessment-frameworks-real-world-experience.html. Understanding that there are a number of well-recognized frameworks and that selecting one that fits your organization's requirements and style is important.
Social Engineering
Social engineering is a form of attack that exploits human nature and human behavior. People are a weak link in security because they can make mistakes, be fooled into causing harm, or intentionally violate company security. Social engineering attacks exploit human characteristics such as a basic trust in others, a desire to provide assistance, or a propensity to show off. It is important to consider the risks that personnel represent to your organization and implement security strategies to minimize and handle those risks.
Social engineering attacks take two primary forms: convincing someone to perform an unauthorized operation or convincing someone to reveal confidential information. In just about every case, in social engineering the attacker tries to convince the victim to perform some activity or reveal a piece of information that they shouldn't. The result of a successful attack is information leakage or the attacker being granted logical or physical access to a secure environment.
Here are some example scenarios of common social engineering attacks:
A website claims to offer free temporary access to its products and services, but it requires web browser and/or firewall alterations in order to download the access software. These alterations may reduce the security protections or encourage the victim to install malicious browser helper objects (BHOs) (also known as plug-ins, extensions, add-ons).
The help desk receives a call from someone claiming to be a department manager who is currently involved in a sales meeting in another city. The caller claims to have forgotten their password and needs it to be reset so that they can log in remotely to download an essential presentation.
Someone who looks like a repair technician claims a service call was received for a malfunctioning device in the building. The “technician” is sure the unit can be accessed from inside your office work area and asks to be given access to repair the system.
If a worker receives a communication from someone asking to talk with a coworker by name, and there is no such person currently or previously working for the organization, this could be a ruse to either reveal the names of actual employees or convince you to “provide assistance”
