Securing the Toughest Times

by Ron Woerner

Whether you call it lay-offs, downsizing, rightsizing, redundancies, a reduction in force, or whatever, a reduction in staff stinks.  Downturns in the economy often translate to a reduced volume of business, resulting in a correlated reduction in staff.  One of the hardest jobs in Security is ensuring that those who are asked to leave no longer have access to the organization’s resources.  This is especially hard when you know those affected.  However it’s critical that this tough job be done.

The last thing you want or need is for an ex-employee to perform a malicious act as part of their departure.  The recent case with the Fannie Mae consultant is a great example of how a malcontent could potentially cause your organization grave damage.  Luckily, the Fannie Mae sys admin found the malicious script.

You shouldn’t depend on luck to protect your organization’s critical infrastructure during lay-offs. This article contains concrete steps for you to consider before, during, and after the dreaded layoffs.  [Note: the critical nature of these steps is, in actuality, job security for those who need to perform them. Maybe you can use them to justify your job and keep it off of the “chopping block.”]

Before the announcement

Just as in any project (and this is a project), planning and coordination are key.  Those managing or initiating the lay-offs (e.g., Human Resources) must have Security on-board early in the process.  Delays increase risk to the organization.  While secrecy is necessary to protect the process, trusted relationships must be established between all involved, including HR, Security, Legal, and Management.  Security needs to know who is affected in order to know what needs to be protected.  Security can also help properly protect the “list” prior to the official announcement.

Security personnel (both physical and information) need to ensure the protection of personnel and assets during the lay-offs.  On the physical side, you need to make sure that those announcing the lay-offs are protected should the employee(s) get upset or abusive.  Security officers should be trained and ready to handle potential conflicts and workplace violence.

Information security personnel should identify single points of (security) failure and high risk areas.  This includes administrators with expanded ability, authority or access.  Security should also determine if there are any single points of failure in the operations that would be affected by the lay-offs.  Management should address these critical points well before the announcement to prevent any unexpected denials of service.

Security personnel also need to develop processes to remove both physical and logical access as soon as the notification takes place.  This cannot occur too soon before the associate is notified, or else it might alert the associate, resulting in unexpected consequences.  (No one likes to find out that their position is eliminated by having their network or badge access disabled.)  Also, this cannot occur too long afterward, for obvious security reasons.  Ensuring the correct timing requires pre-planning.

As soon as the announcement is made that your organization is considering lay-offs, extend your monitoring efforts.  This could be before the actual lay-offs.  Rumors can spread, and associates might take these rumors as reason to start their preparation should their name be on “the list.”  Your efforts should include Data Leakage Protection (DLP) to ensure associates aren’t shipping critical company information (e.g., customer lists, intellectual property, or company employee data) to themselves or others.  This could occur on the network or off.  It’s very easy for an associate to sneak a USB drive filled with an encyclopedia of company data out the door. You also need to be cognizant of physical theft.

During the announcement

With your planning complete, it is now time to enact and follow those processes.  As soon as the associate is told that he or she is no longer employed by the organization, you need to disable the physical badge, logical network, and phone access.  The accounts should not be deleted, only disabled in case you need them in the future (e.g., rehires). It’s important that all access is also disabled for networks or assets that are externally accessible (e.g., VPN).  The time required for this activity will multiply if IT hasn’t kept complete documentation of each worker’s individual access rights, passwords, user names, and security cards.

Occasionally, the manager will request that the separated associate’s email, phone, or voicemail remain available.  This is to maintain contact with clients or customers.  Security needs to have an exception process in place to handle these requests while making sure the separated employee no longer has access.  It needs to be reassigned to the responsible manager or his/her delegate.  Allowing permanent access is not a good idea.  There should be a set timeframe for this access to remain active before it is disabled.

Also, consider any shared accounts used by the separating employees.  Do they know the UNIX root or Windows administrator password?  Whether it’s that or any other password for a service account, make sure the password is changed ASAP.

Physical security personnel need to be watching and ready in case the affected people become upset.  Normally, you don’t need a physical security presence to escort them.  That can be accomplished by the manager and/or HR representative.  However, Security should be ready in case things turn ugly.  Additionally, they should be watching what property is leaving.

Part of your process should include the retrieval of any assets used by or assigned to the separating employee.  This includes: Computers (laptops), USB drives, two-factor authentication tokens, cell phones / PDAs / pagers, and paper documents.  When the employee is notified, the manager and HR representative should retrieve these items along with any other property of the organization.  Of course, the employee should be allowed to pack up personal belongings, but corporate assets should remain.

Lastly, while the separations occur, continue to monitor online access and activities.  You never know the mindset or attitude of those who depart.  The potential for malicious acts is increased, especially against any resources that can be seen from the outside (external web sites).  Your IDS/IPS should be watching those external network assets and you should be ready to take action.

After the separations

While the major threat may have passed when the laid-off employees have left, it is not completely gone.  There are specific post-separation activities that need to occur to ensure risks stay low.

One of the most critical activities is the inspection of online and paper files left behind by the employee.  Each manager is responsible for making sure this occurs, because he or she is in the best position to know what is and is not needed.  This can be time consuming and tedious, but it can’t be ignored.  The benefit is the freeing of storage space.

The manager or their delegate needs to inspect each piece to determine its disposition and whether or not it is still needed for the business.  This person also needs to determine the retention period for any material that needs to be kept.  This may require collaboration with the legal or compliance department as this material can be recalled for legal proceedings.

Another post-separation activity is inspecting online files for potentially malicious content.  This is especially important for any systems administrators who were let go.  There have been many stories of sysadmins leaving backdoors, Trojan horses, and time or logic bombs behind.  Remaining sysadmins need to inspect any scripts created by the associates along with any scheduled jobs.  Failure to take this step could be devastating for the firm.

Lastly, use this time to document what went right during the process and where you have room for improvement.  Take time to learn from the experience and enhance the process.

Conclusion

Staff reductions are a part of corporate life.  As painful as they are, they are often critical to keep the organization functioning at full capacity.  Security needs to be an active participant in the lay-off process to ensure the risks are kept low.   The removal of access is only one of the many areas requiring the attention of Security.  They also need to be actively monitoring both the physical and on-line activities of the separating associates.  This isn’t to be intrusive, but to ensure the continual protection of the organization.

Having a positive security model with validation and enforcement provides a deterrent to malicious behavior as well as the tools to quickly indentify and contain threats when needed. A positive security model includes: policies, procedures, detective and preventative technology, and proactive monitoring.  The tips in this article will aid you in the development of your security model so you are ready when the time comes.

Checklist of Security Items to Consider with Lay-Offs

Before
Planning / Establish processes
Disabling access
Communications
Establish trusted contacts
HR
Legal
Security
Management
Identify single points of (security) failure
Employees who pose a danger (to themselves or others)
Administrators
Associates with access to sensitive or confidential data
Identify risks
Intellectual property
Confidential data
Property

During
Disable regular individual access
Logical
Physical
Phone
Email
Remove access to shared accounts
Administrator accounts
Service accounts
Other shared passwords
Asset retrieval
Computers (laptops)
USB drives
2 Factor authentication
Cell phones / PDAs / pagers
Paper documents
Enhance monitoring
IDS/IPS
Logs
Physical surveillance

After
Continued vigilance
Review of assets “left behind”
Online documents, files, and shared storage
eMail
Papers
Check for backdoors, Trojan horses, logic bombs
Unix
Windows
Databases
Network devices
Lesson’s learned
What went right?
What could be done better?
Process improvements