How can you identify security requirements for a project?

Security Projects commence with 'Business Requirements'. Stakeholders, as mentioned, are required to present these requirements to Security Operations Team. However, the challenge lies in getting the correct questions. This is where the expertise of Security Professionals comes into play. Understand the project, prepare your questionnaires, present them to all stakeholders, seeks more questions/requirements from them. Formulate plan, forward first draft, amend, finalize Security plan and present to all.

It is a process used to identify and understand the interests, influence, and potential impact of various individuals or groups involved in or affected by a project, decision, or organization. It helps in managing relationships and addressing concerns effectively by categorizing stakeholders based on their level of influence and interest. This analysis aids in effective communication, management, and decision-making throughout the project or organizational process.

Identifying security requirements through stakeholder analysis involves: 1. Listing stakeholders (clients, users, developers). 2. Understanding their security needs and concerns via interviews or surveys. 3. Prioritizing stakeholders based on influence. 4. Analyzing stakeholder interactions for risks. 5. Reviewing regulatory requirements. 6. Considering industry best practices. 7. Performing risk assessment. 8. Documenting clear security requirements. 9. Validating requirements with stakeholders. 10. Iterating and updating based on evolving needs, regulations, and risks.

Engage with stakeholders (e.g., business owners, IT staff, legal, compliance) to understand their concerns and ensure that the security requirements align with business needs and regulatory obligations.

Para identificar os requisitos de segurança de um projeto, é fundamental realizar uma análise de riscos para identificar potenciais ameaças e vulnerabilidades, consultar especialistas em segurança da informação, considerar requisitos legais e regulatórios pertinentes, e adotar padrões e melhores práticas reconhecidos na área. Além disso, é importante identificar ativos críticos do projeto, realizar avaliações de vulnerabilidades e considerar os requisitos de segurança em todas as fases do ciclo de vida do projeto. Essas medidas garantem que os controles de segurança adequados sejam implementados para proteger os ativos e dados envolvidos no projeto.

Threat modeling is a systematic approach to identifying and evaluating potential security threats or risks to a system, application, or network. It involves analyzing potential vulnerabilities, potential attackers, and potential impacts, in order to prioritize and implement appropriate security controls and countermeasures. It's crucial for building secure systems and applications. It is a structured approach used to identify, prioritize, and mitigate potential security threats to a system or application. It involves analyzing the system's architecture, identifying potential vulnerabilities.

Asset Identification: Make a list of everything the project will use or involve, including information, devices, and software. Threat Modeling: Figure out what could go wrong or what might attack each thing on your list. Use methods like STRIDE or PASTA among a few to help identify these threats. Vulnerability Analysis: Check each part of your project to find weaknesses or security holes. You might use special scanning tools or tests to do this. Risk Evaluation: Decide which threats are most likely to happen and which could cause the most damage. This helps you know where to focus your security efforts. This is the most important phase to ensure all the risks are captured (to the best of the knowledge)

Threat modelling is a specialized subject. Threat modelling works to identify, communicate, understand threats and mitigation. Basic process followed in threat modelling remains same. - Define security objectives - Vulnerability in application - Potential threats* - Establish countermeasures - Generate Threat Modelling Report Ultimate plan is that Buisess is not impacted. *Use frameworks such as STRIDE, DREAD, PASTA, VAST, OCTAVE, NIST etc

One thing I've learned about threat modeling is that using different methods and tools together helps to understand and address risks better. By combining techniques like STRIDE, DREAD, and PASTA, and visual aids like attack trees, we get a clearer picture of potential threats. This makes it easier to decide on the best ways to protect our systems.

Security objectives are the goals or targets that an organization aims to achieve in order to protect its assets, data, and resources from various threats and risks. These objectives typically include Confidentiality: Ensuring that sensitive information is only accessible to authorized individuals or entities. Integrity: Protecting data from unauthorized modification, ensuring it remains accurate and trustworthy. Availability: Ensuring that systems and resources are accessible and usable when needed, minimizing downtime and disruptions. Authenticity: Verifying the identity of users and ensuring that data and communications come from legitimate sources.

While various security areas may emerge during your threat modeling process, it is imperative to systematically categorize security objectives according to the following criteria: Severity: Evaluate the potential impact of the threat on the organization's risk landscape. Threat Actors: Identify the individuals or entities responsible for the threats. Exploitability Likelihood: Assess the probability of the threat being successfully exploited. Mitigation Availability: Determine the existence of available countermeasures to combat the threat effectively. Resource Requirements: Analyze whether mitigation or remediation efforts can be internally managed or necessitate external assistance or specialized tools.

Security Objectives are based on Business Requirements, are aligned with all stakeholders and should counter all threats and risks to all assets. SMART can be used for effective goal setting and objectives development. To set the security obectives context right, we should read of CIA Triard in infosec.

Security objectives are, theoretically fairly easy to define. e.g. A security objective could be to optimise your infrastructures IT and physical security, with minimal disruption, etc., to services. The challenge, however, is that different parts of your IT infrastructure have different security considerations, e.g. servers, firewalls, routers, workstations/ laptops, BYOD equipment, etc. To optimise your overall security you need to have an integrated set of objectives that covers the varied security considerations of you IT, etc., infrastructure. These objectives must work together, to ensure you have a effective security solutions. Remember, you need to consider physical, as well as electronic, security, as part of these objectives.

Security requirements define the necessary measures to protect information, systems, or assets from unauthorized access. Authentication: Ensuring that only authorized users have access to resources. Authorization: Specifying what actions users are allowed to perform on the system. Data encryption: Protecting sensitive information by encoding it in a way that only authorized parties can access. Access control: Limiting access to resources based on user roles and permissions. Auditing and logging: Keeping track of system activity for monitoring and investigation purposes. Vulnerability management: Regularly assessing and addressing weaknesses in the system to prevent exploitation.

Security testing is a type of software testing that aims to uncover vulnerabilities or weaknesses in a system's security mechanisms. It involves assessing the system for potential threats and risks to ensure that sensitive data is protected and that the system is resilient against various forms of attacks such as unauthorized access, data breaches, or denial-of-service attacks. Security testing can include various techniques such as penetration testing, vulnerability scanning, security code reviews, and security audits. Security testing is a crucial aspect of software development aimed at identifying vulnerabilities and ensuring the integrity of system.

One thing I've found useful as a VAPT (Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing) professional is conducting comprehensive security testing throughout the development lifecycle. It's crucial to go beyond just checking for vulnerabilities and actively test the effectiveness of security controls. An example I've seen is using automated scanning tools alongside manual penetration testing to simulate real-world attack scenarios. By continuously testing and refining security measures, we ensure that the system or project is robustly protected against potential threats and vulnerabilities.

You should always carry out security checks following any changes being made to your infrastructure. For example, as a result of the installation, reconfiguration/ upgrade, or removal of one, or more, infrastructure components/ processes. Regular security tests, etc., are needed to ensure your security: - Is able to protect you against any new security threats. - Still enables a successful restoration of services, i.e. your disaster recovery plans are still complete, valid and the data storage media can still restore all required material from backup, etc. Not validating your security and service restoration and related processes will adversely impact your ability, recovery time, etc., if you experience a security incident.

In reality, security requirements may evolve within the project lifecycle. It is important to note the involvement of the cyber team/ security architect at the very start to understand the vision and goals of the project. In this way initial planning phase on the cybersec side can be done. As the business requirements are being firmed up, the technical requirements and design are being formed and these run almost concurrent in identifying the security requirements on different layers - application, network, data and re-assess impact on contractual and regulatory aspects.

To identify security requirements for a project: 1. Conduct risk assessments. 2. Review regulatory requirements. 3. Define data sensitivity. 4. Consider stakeholder inputs. 5. Assess security controls. 6. Incorporate security by design. 7. Document requirements.

I agree with all the points mentioned above in the article. It is also essential to keep yourself updated about new best practices and trends being introduced, as Cybersecurity is ever-evolving. For that, LinkedIn is a great source—you can network and meet security experts and be part of groups and communities that actively discuss new threats, prevention methods, and safety methods.

As per my point of view, Firstly, identifying security requirements for a project involves conducting a thorough risk assessment. Start by understanding the project scope, assets involved, potential threats, and regulatory compliance. Engage stakeholders, conduct interviews, and assess existing security controls. Consider data sensitivity, access controls, encryption needs, and secure coding practices. Collaborate with security experts to identify vulnerabilities and define security measures tailored to the project's specific risks and requirements. Prepare a draft, circulate to obtain views, amend, and finally present to all.

You should also consider about the resilience requirements such as incident response, business continuity plans, RTO, RPO and IT DR of the project and factor them into the design requirements right at the beginning of the project requirements. As these will ensure that you have a response plan in place in the event of of an security incident.