Vulnerability to Vigilance: The importance of Security Configuration Management

In an incident, an Amazon S3 bucket containing 1.5 million files was leaked due to a misconfiguration. It comprised sensitive data such as national ID numbers, employee PII, etc. Data breaches due to misconfigurations are common, and 80% of ransomware attacks are also attributed to misconfigurations. 

Misconfigurations are unintentional and common but have a devastating impact on security. A single oversight can cause a chain reaction of events ranging from disruptions to serious security incidents. 

CISOs worldwide therefore swear by security configuration management as an essential IT hygiene practice. It acts as an armor of cyber resilience by ensuring constant awareness of threat entry points and enabling proactive response.

In this blog, we talk about how security configuration management works, its benefits, and a quick guide to selecting an effective SCM tool.

What is security configuration management?

Security configuration management is the process of adjusting and maintaining configurations for information systems to minimize security risks. This involves monitoring any changes to baseline settings and initiating the required remediation to ensure they are optimized.

How does security configuration management work?

Security configuration management identifies benchmark and optimal settings and runs periodical audits to check configurations, pinpoint deviations and suggest remediation activities.

Here’s how security configuration management works:

Asset discovery

The first crucial security configuration management requirement is identifying components within information systems. It involves using network scans, monitoring traffic, analyzing logs, and employing other methods to gain an understanding of critical assets and their default settings.

Baseline establishment

Baseline configurations are standardized settings to ensure secure IT assets. These parameters are established in alignment with the security policies of the organizations. You must also refer to industry standards and benchmarks from organizations such as NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) and CIS (Center for Internet Security) for establishing these baselines.

Monitoring and change detection

Security configuration management systems continuously monitor network components, systems, and application configurations to identify any unauthorized changes from baseline settings. These deviations can serve as entry points for vulnerabilities and therefore, alerts are raised to initiate response. Periodic configuration audits are also carried out to facilitate change management processes.

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Remediation

The deviations are remediated to ensure compliance with established policies and practices. These corrective actions are based on the misconfiguration category, affected systems, and severity levels. Examples of remediation include the application of patches, modifying encryption settings, access control mechanism changes, enforcing strong passwords, etc.

How is security configuration management related to compliance?

Security configuration management is closely intertwined with compliance. This is because the baseline configurations are established in accordance with security controls aligned with regulatory requirements.

SCM continuously ensures adherence to these policies and scans for configuration deviations that can impact compliance. SCM software additionally assists with documentation management for maintained configurations, which serves as evidence for compliance auditors. Any security risks resulting from misconfigurations and causing security weaknesses are identified and mitigated on time to ensure regulatory compliance. These capabilities can further be enhanced by using a compliance automation tool.

Organizations subject to multiple regulatory requirements often use tools like Sprinto for automated configuration checks, policy enforcement, continuous control monitoring, and more.

Sprinto can raise alerts for misconfigurations and facilitate continuous monitoring of other compliance parameters. This makes security efforts and compliance processes more streamlined and scalable.

How to choose the right Security Configuration Management tool?

Manually identifying misconfigurations and remediating them can leave scope for incompatible settings across the environment as well as human error. A security configuration management tool can ensure standardized configurations across your digital landscape while saving you cost and time. However, choosing the tool involves some careful considerations as well as considerable preliminary work. 

Here are the 5 steps to choose the right SCM tool:

Define intended outcomes

Start by defining the security improvements that it intends to accomplish with the SCM tool. These may be achieving business resilience, minimizing unauthorized access, reducing incidents caused by default settings, etc. The key cybersecurity metrics to measure these outcomes must be finalized with the evaluation team.

Understand the current environment

Take stock of operating systems, applications, devices, etc., to understand system complexity. Conduct preliminary risk assessments, vulnerability scans, threat analysis etc. to understand the loopholes and current security posture. Assess the existing security measures in place and identify the regulatory requirements the organization is subject to.

Review SCM products

Shortlist a few vendors that align with your business requirements and book a trial or demo. You must consider the following factors while selecting one:

Compatibility: Check whether the tool is compatible with your existing operating systems, cloud platforms, and other IT infrastructure. This is crucial for comprehensive visibility across the environment.

Customization and ease of use: The tool must feel intuitive and there must be customization options for defining any new policies or making changes to benchmark settings.

Scalability: The tool must be capable of handling increasing volume of data and diverse IT environments while maintaining performance to drive scalability and growth

Maintenance and support: The help desk must be responsive and you must also enquire about the frequency of updates released and methods of communicating them.

Cost: You must build an ROI case for the tool before finalizing the investment to see if it fits your budget and proves beneficial in the long run.

Vendor reputation: Look for vendor reviews, testimonials, case studies, and market reputation to understand their experience with similar businesses. You can look for peer comparisons, pros and cons, and overall ratings on websites like G2 to get a fair idea of the vendor’s brand image.

Get the teams onboard

After finalizing the tool, start integrating your current tech stack and customize critical configurations. Arrange for security, configuration, and employee training to help teams understand the product and address any concerns. Establish a monitoring and feedback mechanism for continuous improvement.

Benefits of security configuration management

Businesses that successfully manage security configurations can boost their system dependability and reduce outages. Proper configuration management facilitates transparency and monitors any alterations to minimize cyber attacks and ensure a stable environment.

Better visibility for risk reduction

Security configuration management provides comprehensive visibility into configuration settings that malicious actors commonly exploit. This helps organizations understand potential risk areas and address issues before they escalate to security breaches.

Enhanced system reliability

SCM minimizes any system instability or downtime caused by misconfigurations. It also evaluates the impact of any change management processes on configurations and system reliability. Automated remediation of discrepancies ensure a stable and resilient environment.

Scalability

Configuration management facilitates easy deployment of any new products or system expansion through quick integrations and easy accommodation of updates. Automated configuration checks ensure there is no increased manual overload for monitoring the scalable environment.

Consistent security posture

SCM enforces secure and standardized configurations across all assets in the IT environment. Uniform settings are ensured across development and production environments to mitigate risks and ensure a robust security posture.

Optimize security configurations with Sprinto

Not having a security configuration management system in place can force the organization to go into firefighting mode and address threats on the fly. This can not only be damaging in the short term but can complicate remediation efforts when misconfigurations are eventually identified. And the effort and resources needed to fix them is greater as time goes by. If you are in a regulated industry, 

A compliance automation platform like Sprinto helps you map relevant controls with applicable regulatory requirements and compliance frameworks while alerting the security teams when misconfigurations occur or when controls are about to fail. Sprinto’s health dashboard also gives a quick snapshot of the control summary to help you understand compliance health.

FAQs

What are some examples of security misconfigurations?

Some examples of security misconfigurations include unpatched systems, default credentials, unnecessary ports and services, unencrypted files, excessive user privileges, etc.

Why does security misconfiguration occur?

Security misconfigurations can occur because of various reasons such as human error, default passwords, inadequate testing, unnecessary software or features, cloud complexity challenges, and more. 

How to prevent security misconfigurations?

Some easy ways to prevent security misconfigurations include arranging for workforce training, limiting admin access, disabling default accounts and passwords, removing unnecessary features and using automated configuration management tools.