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Like many large enterprises, Boeing is growing more sensitive to
data leakage, but the company is still trying to figure out how to
retool its network to secure its perimeter from outside attacks and
put controls in place to protect its data from internal
threats.
In a presentation at the Burton Catalyst Conference held last
month in San Francisco, Carl Bunje, Boeing's chief technology
officer, said the company is taking a defense-in-depth strategy,
but when it comes to defending the network, it's still evaluating
its options. Bunje and his team want tighter integration of systems
and provide non-Boeing users with both onsite and logical access to
Boeing-hosted systems.
The requirements are driving the company toward a more open
network using a service oriented architecture approach and
Federated ID management. But putting in the right technologies to
make an open network secure is a complex problem, Bunje said.
"We want inside users to be no more trusted than outside users,"
he said. "There's a lot of domains that have to come together to
provide a coordinated, comprehensive set of access points."
While Boeing is retooling its architecture Bunje wants to keep
the same security principals in place. The organization strives to
provide only the least number of privileges necessary for an
employee to perform their job. The company has deployed a
defense-in-depth approach with layered access control, network
level intrusion detection and prevention and continual auditing of
systems to detect abnormal changes.
Boeing is considering network access control, but the
technologies available are either too complicated to deploy, not
mature enough, or don't fit into the company's overall business
model.
"We're still struggling with what that type-2 policy enforcement
is going to be," Bunje said. "We haven't found any technology that
does all types of things we want in any way, shape or form."
Across the board, companies are still struggling to develop an
open network architecture. The goal is to keep systems locked down
while also evaluating and assigning appropriate access privileges
to those attempting to log onto the network.
"It's all about risk calculus, understanding what those business
risks are and how much we're willing to give up in terms of moving
to an open network model," said Phil Schacter, a research vice
president at Midvale, Utah-based Burton Group. "[Companies] want
the business flexibility"
Schacter said current technologies at the network perimeter will
remain the same, instead many firms will be reshuffling
responsibilities between multiple perimeters. At first, companies
are trying to get the maximum mileage out of their existing routers
and network packet filters, Schacter said.
"There will be multiple security models and in some
organizations, especially very diversified global organizations one
model will be appropriate for one area and in another business unit
a very different model will be appropriate," he said. "We'll see
these hybrids and permeations exist in the marketplace."
At Boeing, Bunje is developing zoned access controls to enable
access to its thousands of servers. Each zone has its own access
control policy, interpreted by a policy administration point and
processed by a separate policy decision point.
Access zone development is difficult because each zone
encompasses multiple data centers and data center partitions and
must differentiate at the virtual server level.
Bunje said the company is beginning by increasing the awareness
and responsibility of systems owners for defining and accepting the
appropriate level of risk for their systems. Next, Boeing will
prepare systems for policy driven authorization and multiple levels
of access control.
"This isn't easy and that we're still in the early stages,"
Bunje said. "These are places where standards are going to have to
be filled in."