Application White-listing With Bit9 Parity

Application White-listing With Bit9 Parity K.PADMAVATHI I. Introduction Antivirus is a requirement for a host of compliance standards and is championed to be a critical component for any security baseline (PCI-DSS 3.0-5.1). A recent google search for â€Å"Cyber Security Breaches† in Google News shows 16,700 results in Google News. Even NIST has stated that that AV is not an adequate control. The basis for this argument is that AV, even with heuristics, looks for methods or signatures that are known to the specific AV vendor. Bit9 Parity goes a step further and restricts the execution of any executable or applications to those only allowed by the product (Bit9 Datasheet, 2013). Parity has a host of benefits as well as some significant drawbacks, but with proper and careful implementation, a deployment of Parity can be successful. Parity has multiple methods to manage and control an environment. Parity is deployed with a server, database and console to control and manage Parity Agents. The deployed agents are a package of executables and configurat ion files that contain a kernel module that sits on the hardware layer and proxies the raw system calls from the user layer to those resources. For this reason it makes manipulation of the agent from the user layer very difficult. There is also a management console to manipulate the server that controls all agents on endpoints. II. Pre-Deployment During pre-deployment, the first thing that must be decided is where it will be deployed. Bit9 would recommend that the product be deployed on all systems in an environment. However, this is not feasible as the cost of the product and the complexity of most environments makes 100% immediate deployment difficult. Parity takes a default deny approach (Bit9 Data Sheet, 2014). This is a good method for protection but can make deployments difficult. To deal with this situation it is a good idea to deploy the product in homogenous environments first. Therefore, in planning deployment it is best to identify and group environments by their similarity and their levels of criticality. The most critical could be where the protection needs to go first. However an additional risk of deploying the product in critical environments is that by description they are critical to the business. So the product must deployed with care, proper planning and testing. III. To Protect the Environment (Client-side) Protection and prevention is absolutely ideal when it comes to deployment of Parity. When working with dynamic and non-homogenous environments the product should be deployed in this mindset. An excellent environment for deploying to protect would be a desktop or laptop (client side) environment. IV. To Control the Environment In order to protect an environment administrators and security personnel must control andunderstand their environment. However methods of deployment can differ with these underlying goals in mind. Deploying to control should be applied in specific environments that have rigorous change control and a low level of change. This would be server environments or other systems that are running on end-of life operating systems, such as Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems, as well as some Point of Sale Systems (POS). V. Deployment After deciding what environment to start, it is time to build out the Parity Server and console. According to the Bit9 installation guide, the server should have a SQL server available or a new SQL server database, either 2005 or 2008 deployed and configured prior to installation. (Parity 6.0 Deployment Guide, 2013) The server will also need .net framework 3.5 and a host of other web application Microsoft requirements. All should be included with a current version of Server 2008. Prior to installation ensure that all servers meet local hardening procedures. VI. Configuration After the server has been installed, it should be simple to browse to the https://localhost which will direct to the Parity console if logging on locally. Browsing from another system to https://server name which will direct the administrator to the Parity console. The default credentials should be username admin and password admin. As always, best practices, change immediately. VII. Bit9 Knowledge Base Another critical component is the Bit9 knowledgebase. The Bit9 knowledgebase is one of the single largest collection of known good executables available commercially. This will require outbound connectivity to the Bit9 knowledgebase servers on port 443 from the Parity server. It will also require a license from Bit9 knowledgebase. There is an open API to query the data through a restful API. (Script attached – Appendix B) The knowledgebase can be configured in the Administration tab > Licensing >Parity Knowledge Activation. VIII. Other System Administration On the system administration tab there are a host of other setup actions that can be accomplished on this tab as well. On the mail tab, the SMTP settings for alerts can be configured to send alerts for status of systems. The advanced options has the ability to back-up the database, configure automated updates, log out times for the parity console, file uploads configuration, old computer cleanup, software rule completion, and certificate options. Most of these options are not of much concern, however the cleaning up of old agents should be configured. IX. Policy Configuration Designing the policies in Parity is absolutely critical to having a successful deployment. The default policies that come with the product are a good place to start. â€Å"Default Policy† which is designed for the agents to go to once the agent is initially installed. The â€Å"Local Approval Policy† which is designed to approve any running executables on the system. The â€Å"Template Policy† which is designed to be copied and configured for new policies. Initially four new policies need to be created for management of agents. â€Å"Lockdown Policy† must be created to replace the Default Policy and to be the final stop for agents during configuration. â€Å"Lockdown Reporting† policy which will be configured on systems to report as if they were in lockdown without actually blocking, and a â€Å"Monitoring Policy† to start hashing and collecting execution information on systems. â€Å"Disabled Policy† should also be created to for the installation of the agents, and removal of the agents if necessary. X. Deploying Agents After all the agent configuration policies have been created and some basic software rules like the .net software rule, it is time to start deploying agents. The agents can be downloaded from https://parityserver/hostpkg/. It is best to start with an agent disabled policy.Installing the agent can be done on all systems through multiple methods, GPO, software packaging and through scripting. Scripting is beneficial, because it can be scheduled and the output can be collected for error checking. See appendix B for an example installation script. Installing the agents is a slow process which requires getting a list of all devices, verifying in the Parity Console the assets are available and the communication level of the agent. Something to consider is that any Windows version after Server 2008 and Windows 7 should deploy the agents without the need for a reboot. However older versions will require a reboot. If the agents are not communicating with the Parity Server ensure that agents can reach the server on TCP port 41002 or reboot the system if necessary. XI. Locking Down the Agents After ensuring that all agents are deployed it is time to start locking down agents. This can be accomplished by selectively moving agents into the â€Å"Monitoring Policy†. This step in the installation process has the most impact on the system therefore it is best to move agents into this policy during times of less usage and only move a few agents at a time. XII. Policies and Procedures Before moving any systems into lockdown (other than testing systems) it is time to ensure there is a process for addressing blocked executables that users/administrators need to run on the systems. It is likely that any organization that is going to deploy Parity will have methods and processes for IT workflow. This is an ideal method for dealing with end user issues with Parity blocks of potentially useful and needed executables. This should be communicated with the user population to ensure that users know where to go in case they have Parity block. XIII. Operational Uses for Parity There are many other uses for Parity other than just to protect the environment. It is an excellent source of information showing exactly what is running in an environment. By querying the data in Parity, a Security Analyst could research to find if a downloaded malicious file actually reached the endpoint system or not. An Analyst could also upload a hash from doing analysis on another system to Parity to block across the install base. The server actually has a very simple SOAP API utilizing JSON that can be called very simply from web posts. XIV. Conclusion When evaluating any technology technologist and security practitioners should carefully analyze with due care the technologies, especially those that will require employee time and energy as well as significant capital expenditure. Bit9’s Parity will take significant time, funds, and energy to deploy. It will take a concerted effort from senior leadership to decide on the product and then organizational push to deploy it. The approach that Application-White listing takes is a simple one, trust only what is known and all other executables and binaries are not trusted and are not allowed to run. If an organization believes that they may be targeted by an advanced actor then the advanced protection provided by an approach like Application-White listing should be evaluated. The decision is a risk decision, the protections Parity offers are significant. If deployed properly, malware will not be able to gain a persistence on a network, as well a huge number of other attacks will be mitigated. If an organization deems that they need the level of security, the costs and energy that Parity takes to deploy are well worth the efforts.

Throwing a Surprise Birthday Party

Throwing a surprise birthday party for someone is not an easy task, it takes patience and planning. Surprise parties are usually thrown for friends and family usually on birthdays or accomplishments and are pretty fun to participate in. In this event everyone is aware of it except for the person the surprise party is being thrown for. You have to know where its going to be held, have everyone on the same page, and that it’s a party afterwards. Planning for these types of events can be a little hectic but the ending result it’s usually priceless. First, you have to choose where the event is going to be held.This is the first step because where spacing is everything. The amount of people helping for the surprise depends on how small or large of sale it should be. The people involved in the surprise should all have the same attitude and should all be ready to surprise. The event can be at a familiar place because it would be less likely for the person to know it’s a surprise. Next, you have to make sure everyone is on the same page. This is key when throwing surprise parties. Make sure you let it be known to all participants that it is a surprise, meaning that a particular person doesn’t know its happening.It should stay that way until it is over with. Usually when everyone is on the same page things go smooth and as planned. When the party boy or girl is coming through the door it is very important that everybody hiding in their spots all hop out and scream â€Å"SURPRISE! † as they jump out. They reaction given is usually a priceless one. One they will remember for a long time. With that being said, when throwing a surprise party you have to make sure you have a gift that the person has wanted. This adds to the â€Å"surprise† in the surprise party. Being around friends, family and loved ones already makes it a great experience.Adding a great gift would be even better. Great gifts are always memorable. Consequently, you can’t just have that big surprise and let that be the highlight of the night. Dim the lights crank up the tunes and lets have a party. Adding great music and food to top off the celebration makes everything worthwhile. All in all, a good surprise party is not that hard to accomplish. With gathering your friends and loved ones, making sure they are on one accord, having a successful surprise, good gifts and a party afterwards. There isn’t any other surprise party that can beat it.

Leisure Industry Competition Essay

1. Discuss using examples from a leisure industry of your choice, the extent to which competition creates efficiency. There are many ways in which a firm or leisure industry can be considered to be efficient. First of all they may be productively efficient. This is where they would be operating at their lowest average cost, meaning they are benefiting from all economies of scales and experience no diseconomies of scale. They particularly must avoid any waste of factors of production. Allocative efficiency exists when the firm is operating where Price is equal to Marginal Cost. When a firm or industry is allocatively efficient this means they are producing what society wants and allocating resources to increase both output and quality. This may be in the form of specialisation. If dynamic efficiency exists this means that the firm or industry is experiencing abnormal profit. Their aim must always be to increase output in the future often by investing in research and development, such firms are often benefitting from monopoly power. Pareto efficiency is where production of one good can increase without the production of another decreasing. I believe that increased competition will create productive efficiency. This is because if there is increased competition through an increase in the supply of for example entertainment channels entering the TV broadcasting industry this will result in firms having the reduce their prices of advertising slots due to the potential fall in the number of viewers. This will mean that they are now price takers in the market and as a result their revenue will decrease. As the firms are profit maximisers they will be unsatisfied with their revenue falling and as a result they will need to reduce their average cost in an attempt to maintain their previous profit level. They will reduce their average cost by avoiding any waste of factors of production in the production of the good/service and in order to do so they will often reduce their output of any new television programmes as there is a potential that they may be unsuccessful and as a result viewers will often see an increase in the numbe r of repeats of television programmes. They will also decrease their output of new programmes in order to stop any potential diseconomies of scale and improve communication in the production of their good/service. Therefore at this point I believe that in  the leisure industry firms such as ITV have become more productively efficient as a result of increased competition. Some firms also have the ability to attain economies of scale. An example would be SKY who obtained technical economies of scale by the introduction of 3D and HD boxes, and purchasing economies of scale by the purchase of previously unavailable channels and programmes such as HBI and the FA cup. Attaining these economies of scale reduced SKYs average cost leading to them being more productively efficient. This further backs up my point that increased competition does result in greater efficiency. However, it could be argued that this is dependent upon the scale of competition. For example, when Channel 4 and Channel 5 first entered the market this was not the case, meaning efficiency did not increase. However, as these channels have become more well established this is now the case. One could also argue that this is also not the case for the BBC due to the fact that they are funded by the Government and do not compete on price. The BBC is a public monopoly but they are certainly not efficient. The BBC is not cutting costs in order to become more productively efficient; the Government is reducing their funding therefore this has created the need for the company to be more productively efficient. They are doing this in a number of ways such as moving production from London to Manchester as it is cheaper and therefore will reduce their costs. Therefore increased competition is not the factor that is causing the BBC to become more productively efficient – Government intervention is. This leads me to the conclusion that the greater the number of firms the more likely they are to increase productive efficiency. But increased competition is not the only factor; government intervention must also be considered. In the leisure industry there is always a need for Travel Agents to be allocatively efficient, this is because it is vital that they produce what society wants. If it was the case that certain Travel agents were not providing the holidays that consumers wanted this would simply result in holiday makers going elsewhere. This is especially the case at present because barriers to entry/exit have decreased meaning new firms are entering the market all of the time due to improved communication. This has increased competition mainly due to the internet as many travel agents and comparison websites have set up online to compare the best deals, which increases the  power to the consumer as they are no longer required to visit the main four travel agents. This has resulted in a greater need for travel agents to avoid mis-allocation of their resources by decreasing the number of planes and destinations. This is because if they do not allocate their holidays to societies needs their Marginal Cost will increase above their price. Therefore increased competition leads to an increase in the need for firms to allocate resources to what society needs and ensure that they are increasing their quality and output to become allocatively efficient. We have established that increased competition will inevitably result in increased output; however it will also increase external costs. For example in eco tourism, if output increases in visits to the rainforest this will cause a major increase in the number of negative externalities. Therefore in this case it would be beneficial to decrease the output of such visits in order to reduce negative externalities. In fact I would argue that a monopoly provider of eco tourism holidays would be the most beneficial for the environment as they might produce holidays at the social optimum level. Taking these factors into consideration I strongly believe that increased competition will force firms to think about how they can allocate resources efficiently but sometimes at a social cost. With SKY benefiting from technical economies of scale it could also be argued that by investing in HD and 3D boxes this has also allowed them to become dynamically efficient as their abnormal profits allow them to invest in research and development which allows them to increase output in the future with the same factors of production inevitably leading to monopoly power. This benefits consumers as they are able to consume greater output in the form of 3D and HD programmes or a wider range of channels in the future without the needed for greater factors of production. However, I could argue that this is not in fact them demonstrating greater efficiency as a result of increased competition but rather creating even more barriers to entry for other firms wishing to compete with them in the broadcasting market. It also could be questioned as to how much of their abnormal profits are actually being invested into research and development as I am aware that the majority of their profits goes to shareholders. Therefore I am led to believe that although theoretically SKYs monopoly power and the lack of competition they  face gives them the opportunity to be dynamically efficient; in reality it is questionable as to what will drive competition in the future. Although it could in fact be more competition that will drive future efficiency and not the abnormal profits of just a few firms. I strongly believe that increased competition is most likely to result in efficiency in the travel market as there are little barriers to entry that current travel agents are able to put up in order to stop competition affecting their profits. This is mostly due to the fact that the internet has allowed many new companies to set up online giving consumers the opportunity to compare prices directly; therefore increasing the need for travel agents to be allocatively efficient making the statement true. However I accept some may argue that if a firm is being allocatively efficient at a social cost they should not be considered to be allocatively efficient and therefore my judgment could be questioned. On the other hand when firms are not competing on price, like for example the BBC, an increase in competition is not likely to result in them becoming more efficient as decreasing their average cost is not likely to be a priority but instead they are more likely to need to increase the quality of their good or service. In theory I believe that the best way to ensure efficiency in the future is to invest in R+D (creating new barriers to entry like SKY) and the way to get firms to do this is increased competition. In reality this may result in negative externalities or potentially abuse of monopoly power and monopolies may often end up being inefficient in the long run.

Finance Shell - 1286 Words

Re: Global Equity Markets: The Case of Royal Dutch and Shell Structure: The Royal Dutch/Shell Group is different because it appears that it is functioning as a single company instead of two separate companies. Yet, they are functioning as two separate companies. The Shell Company in the Netherlands, the Shell Company in the UK and the Shell Petroleum Company in the USA all appear to be maintaining their own identities in their respective countries. The Royal Dutch and Shell Company share equally in the Shell Company in the Netherlands, The Shell Company in the UK and the Shell Company in the U.S. They are not separate companies since they are linked by corporate charter. There is a separation of the two entities on the holding†¦show more content†¦The third option would be to enter into a swap with the Wall Street firm. Net Payoffs: The case stated that the one way commission is 5cents per share. New York has a two way commission of 10 cents giving us a 25 cent commission. Shell (London) has 30 basis points for commission for small trades since we are going for a round trip the total basis points would be 60 plus the 50 basis points for the Stamp Tax. Shell was quoted a spread of .03 divided by 8.63 x 10,000equals 35 plus 03 plus 03 (going both ways gives us a total of 151 bps Royal Dutch (Amsterdam has a spread of 227.8 which is divided into .3 x 10000 giving us a 13 bps plus commission of 30 cents per share going both ways for a total of 60 cents per share and a FX spread of 06 (03 +03 ((down and back)) giving us a total of 79 per share. Buy/Sell Option The first arbitrage option will be 395,088 x 25 cents transaction cost =$98,772 You would then add the transaction cost in London $5000 x 151= $755,000 The total transaction cost for this would be $853,000. 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