Hi Joe,
Appreciate the detailed thoughts on this. Would take this opportunity to share some of my thoughts around the points that you mentioned. So far,discussions have focused on the actuator and orchestrator, and the fundamental
premise has been that actuators communicate to orchestrators directly; and actuator profile provides all necessary information to the orchestrator to enable C&C. This, of course works fine.
A device profile, the way I see it, is metadata about an logical openc2 “agent” on a device. Having an agent that encapsulates transport, authc, authz, integrity, whatever ; and provides a single service interface to all
actuators on the device has logistical benefits. My suggestion is to view the ecosystem as orchestrator
à device
à actuator semantics vis-à-vis the orchestratoràactuator semantics. This separation of concerns is highly useful from a practical standpoint. At the same time, collapsing the device and actuator into one as
a special case gives us what we have right now, as a direct orchestrator
à actuator semantics
Specific to the example that you mention
>The ACME company may have a product that has routing function, DIT analytic function, static filtering functions etc. Is the proposal that we standardize an ACME profile? My ‘instinct’ states that a bottoms
up approach is better. Look at the device profiles and identify the ‘functional blocks’ to standardize and strive for a disjoint sets. Devices are likely to have multiple actuator profiles.
No… we standardize a device profile that makes it possible to publish the capabilities of an “agent” on the device. For example, the transport (port/protocol etc) , authc/authz (oidc, mtls, user/pass), any logical device id/address etc.
And we standardize the actuator profile(s) the way we are doing currently; but include additional information / semantics for it to use the device profile information and to bind to the agent on the device. This is in line with devices having multiple actuator
profiles.
For the other point about bootstrap and the draft profiles, I think we need to both. While we have traction on the profiles, it would be good to flesh out the bootstrap process. I can volunteer to put up an initial proposal towards bootstrapping
an actuator into an openc2 ecosystem.
Hopefully this sounds logical and makes sense, glad to be part of the conversation…
Regards
-Sudeep
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Mr. Das,
I read your “OpenC2 abstractions and implementations”.
Thank you, what a clear and concise document and read through your email and (with minor discrepancies) agreed with your points.
Despite the fact that I agree with essentially everything you bring up, interestingly enough I do not see the necessity of the so called ‘device profile’
within the TC, though I do hope that we see vendors and mission owners aggressively produce ‘device profiles’.
Here is my logic or lack thereof:
-
The Language Specification defines the ‘actions’ (what you are doing) and targets (what you are doing it to). The language spec accommodates the extension (look at section 2.2.6)
-
The actuator profiles (note plural) defines the subset of actions and targets that are meaningful IN THE CONTEXT of the functional actuator and provides a means to define options that refine how a
particular action is to be done. (case in point, if we tell a DAR analytic to scan a file, do we want to refine the scan command to distinguish a static signature vs a heuristic vs machine learning via a naïve Bayesian classifier?
-
The implementation specifications (again, note the plural) define the integration/ implementation IN THE CONTEXT of a particular cyber ecosystem.
I really want to make this clear: We (in general the TC, in particular the AP-SC) need to create an actuator profile writing guide, and I hope that the
mission owners and vendors produce ‘device profiles’. Here is where we might have a disagreement: I do not think we should ‘standardize’ the device profile. The ACME company may have a product that has routing function, DIT analytic function, static filtering
functions etc. Is the proposal that we standardize an ACME profile? My ‘instinct’ states that a bottoms up approach is better. Look at the device profiles and identify the ‘functional blocks’ to standardize and strive for a disjoint sets. Devices are
likely to have multiple actuator profiles.
Regarding your points ‘b’ and ‘c’ which you also discussed in your document, I agree in principle that we would want a ‘basic’ stack implemented so we can
bootstrap the device when it first comes on for purposes of registration etc. In fact, if I read your paper correctly, we should look into whether or not we can have an inband initialization/ negotiation process. I do in fact agree, but my question to you
is, at this point we only have two draft profiles (neither of which have been submitted to the TC yet) and do not have a draft implementation spec yet. Should we leverage some of the existing work being done in the repositories now? Or should we pursue the
bootstrapping first?
Your email (and Duncan and Dave) really stimulated thoughts, thank you!
VR
Joe Brule
From: openc2@lists.oasis-open.org <openc2@lists.oasis-open.org>
On Behalf Of Das, Sudeep
Sent: Monday, May 14, 2018 1:12 PM
To: duncan@sfractal.com; TC OpenC2 <[email protected]>
Subject: [Non-DoD Source] Re: [openc2] RE: OpenC2 document structure
From a practical and implementation standpoint, I think Duncan’s points are spot on. My reasoning would be
- The device is the one that has the actual hardware and software capabilities for letting an actuator carry out its function
- In practice, one would “enroll” a device into an openc2 ecosystem, and there will be one or more actuators on that device.
- It seems a more cleaner separation of concerns if actuator interactions were with the device, and the device interacts with the orchestrator/transport/messaging/authentication. There are significant gains
to interoperability in this paradigm. A provider can just to device management, and another vendor can just to actuators, and they will be able to work together with greater ease than if every single actuator had to include logic to manage enrolment/transport/authC/authZ
- The number, type, purpose and functionality of actuators is unbounded. That of devices is finite. Custom actuators that interact with well defined and finite device profiles have a more streamlined approach
towards an ecosystem play.
Having joined openc2 recently, I have struggled with the “out of scope” nature of key touch points in a command and control ecosystem. I have tried to summarize some of the big picture out of scope items at
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XdGkHvgHn7JXJYnlyqNOqx29QabZVFHLi-T7D4rF4OE , inspired mostly by Danny Martinez’s previous outline on open questions and items.
Back to the primary question:
Yes, a device profile makes sense. Not just that, it’s likely imperative that such a thing existed. Semantically, a device profile would include the so called out of scope items, as well as one or more actuator profiles
-Sudeep
From: <openc2@lists.oasis-open.org> on behalf of "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
Date: Thursday, May 10, 2018 at 10:36 AM
To: TC OpenC2 <openc2@lists.oasis-open.org>
Subject: [openc2] RE: OpenC2 document structure
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> "...a meaningful difference in the types of content needed between an actuator profile and a device profile ..."
My reason for asking was just that question - do we need something that aggregates the transport and actuator profiles
for a device. Is AP sufficient? My gut is that AP is not sufficient but I'll happily drop concept of device profile if it is. It came out from the fact in all my examples there is a device I'm describing by listing the specs involved. If only humans need DP
for understanding purposes, then drop the concept. If something needs that info in realtime to make a decision, then we do need it. Maybe it's nothing more than the response to a particular query and device profile is just a term to help humans know what a
device does.
> "what APs and transport specs a device conforms to is a configuration activity that's outside the scope of OpenC2"
I would argue it's inside the scope if we really want to get eventually to responding at cyber speed. If humans have
to get involved with configurations then it will not be cyberspeed. For some (clearly not all) applications, introspection (ie the automagically figuring out what functionality exists, or could exist at what cost) will be needed.
> "And if the device vendor is really bringing a new function to the table, isn't that a request for a change to the
L-Spec to incorporate a new action(s)?"
We have literally hundreds of security functions we do not yet profiles for; yet real products exist. To my knowledge,
we have the actions we need for all of them. Maybe time will cause us to add something but I maintain we have the vast majority covered and someone could start making AP's for all of them now. I think it will be hard and take awhile for us to standardize on
the 'specification' AP for (pick any one of IDS, IPS, NGFW, URL Filter, Deception, IADM, WebProxy, ...). Yet we we could come up today with the 'extension' AP for a snort-IDS, Palo Alto NGFW, Attivo Deception, Symantec WebProxy, etc. Ie let's deal with some
very explicit profile extensions for specific existing high runner (or low runner, whatever anyone wants to do) devices.
Note my email came about because I yelled at some people they should be making actuator profiles and the ensuing discussions
are what led to this email thread. Partly it was they couldn't look at our stuff and figure out the big picture (hence the document structure questions). And partly it was not knowing where to start since their 'profile' wasn't one we were working on (hence
the extension part of the discussion).
My gut is we (both the vendors and the users doing it for the vendors who don't do it themselves) should be making
lots of 'custom' profiles for anything users are already using in their networks. I don't want people holding back and thinking for example an IDS can't use OpenC2 because we don't have a specification for an OpenC2 IDS Actuator Profile. You should be able
to do a custom extension today. We should be doing it to prove we can. If we can't, then we should fix whatever is wrong. We have some chicken/egg issues and I don't want the slow progress on AP specifications to impede getting the custom extensions going.
iPhone, iTypo, iApologize
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [openc2] RE: [Non-DoD Source] [openc2] OpenC2 document
structure
From: Dave Lemire <dave.lemire@g2-inc.com>
Date: Thu, May 10, 2018 12:36 pm
To: "Brule, Joseph M" <jmbrule@radium.ncsc.mil>
Cc: "duncan@sfractal.com"
<duncan@sfractal.com>,
TC OpenC2
<openc2@lists.oasis-open.org>
In response to questions 1 & 2: I concur that Duncan's examples nicely illustrate the scope of what needs to be defined.
I think we can craft some language and a picture or two that can either be included as a standard appendix or placed on the TC's wiki page and pointed to from each document (maybe an item in the informative references section?). As is usual with me for these
sorts of questions, I always wonder if there are other worked examples within OASIS that we could / should emulate.
I submit this layering diagram as a starting point for such a picture.
I think Question 3 requires more thought and time.
3) does concept of 'device profile' make sense? If so, do we (ie Implementation SC) need to
make a document on what an implementer needs to include (ie how to make a device profile)? Should we write a spec on 'formatting' a device profile (eg it's a json data structure ...)
My basic question is whether there's a meaningful difference in the types of content needed between an actuator profile
(which we've agreed to organize around functions) and a device profile that a vendor might create for one of their products (or perhaps a function(s) within one of their products). It seems to me that informing a producer what APs and transport specs a device
conforms to is a configuration activity that's outside the scope of OpenC2. And if the device vendor is really bringing a new function to the table, isn't that a request for a change to the L-Spec to incorporate a new action(s)?
David P. Lemire,
CISSP
OpenC2 Technical Committee Executive Secretary
OpenC2 Implementation Considerations SC Co-chair
Contractor support to NSA
Email: dave.lemire@g2-inc.com
Office: 301-575-5190 / Mobile: 240-938-9350
On Thu, May 10, 2018 at 12:15 PM, Brule, Joseph M <jmbrule@radium.ncsc.mil>
wrote:
You are stone cold correct and I like your examples. Openc2 is in fact a suite of documents but that has not been clearly articulated, most likely for the simple
reason that the elements of the ‘suite’ are in progress.
The best way to do this? The approach that makes sense to me is your third option (or
included in each document.) or perhaps a concise summary in each document and point to a reference (which is your first option.)
Now is a good time to bring this up. The Language spec is moving nicely, we almost have a profile and we reactivated the IC-SC.
I have been involved in several discussions about OpenC2 and this is an attempt to organize some thoughts, document
them, and solicit feedback from the wider community.
One issue we need to address is documenting the overall structure of the documentation for OpenC2. I don't know if
this is a separate document, a webpage, or included in each document.
I'm not sure of the correct words to propose so I'm going to explain by giving examples as background and then I'll
discuss the document structure issue.
Let's say I would like to develop some open source software (which I do) for the first use case I submitted (https://github.com/oasis-tcs/openc2-usecases/blob/master/sFractalConsulting/01.another_user.md)
and I would like to send an openc2 command from SO3 to FW5. For my example I would like FW5 to be an AWS NACL stateless packet filter and I would like SO3 to interface using a HTTPS API. I would like to write the software that would terminate on the Amazon
side of the interface. It would start out 'just mine' but would be submitted to be part of the AWS opensource projects to provide an 'official' OpenC2 interface to AWS NACL's should Amazon agree to the pull request.
I believe there are 3 different specifications we are drafting that are applicable.
- the OpenC2 Language Specification
- the OpenC2 HTTPS API Transport Specification
- the OpenC2 stateless packet filter Actuator Profile Specification.
As further background to point I'll eventually make, let's assume AT&T wants to do similar with the second use case
they submitted (https://github.com/oasis-tcs/openc2-usecases/blob/master/ATT/02.allow.md)
also for AWS NACL's, but in their case using OpenDxl pub/sub transport and assume we were to create a OpenDxl transport specification (I'll cover the case where we don't later). For their example the 3 specifications would be:
- the Language Specification
- the OpenC2 OpenDxl Transport Specification
- the stateless packet filter Actuator Profile Specification.
Example 3 is just Example 2 where AT&T uses OpenDxl but the OpenC2 TC decides that there can only be one OpenC2 pubsub
transport (I hope they don't, but this is for illustrative purposes) and TC chose OpenDDS over OpenDxl because McAfee hasn't actually made OpenDxl 'open'. In this case the software could be compatible with:
- the Language Specification
- the stateless packet filter Actuator Profile Specification
but would not be compatible with a transport specification.
I apologize but I have not filled in
https://github.com/oasis-tcs/openc2-usecases/blob/master/sFractalConsulting/11.deception.md
but I will. In this case several security functions are involved and the technology (either cymmetria or attivo) has one OpenC2 Consumer that integrates several OpenC2 Actuator Profiles. Assume for illustrative purposes that we'd standardized all the actuator
profiles for Attivo (example 4) and some, but not all, of the actuator profiles for Cymmetria (example 5).
The example 4 specifications are:
- the OpenC2 Language Specification
- the OpenC2 HTTPS API Transport Specification
- the OpenC2 deception1 (assume we have real functions) Actuator Profile Specification
- the OpenC2 deception2 Actuator Profile Specification
- the OpenC2 deception3 Actuator Profile Specification
The example 5 specifications are:
- the OpenC2 Language Specification
- the OpenC2 HTTPS API Transport Specification
- the OpenC2 deception1 Actuator Profile Specification
- the OpenC2 deception4 Actuator Profile Specification
- an Cymmetria-provided deception5 Actuator Profile Specification that "extends" a new security function
If I put myself in the shoes of someone not as involved as I've been, I do not think we do a good job of explaining
how the documents interact and that all these examples are valid. It's also not clear to me whether we need another document that is provided by the implementer of the device in each example (an device profile?) that specifies what transport and actuator profiles
(including extensions) a given device (using term to mean either physical or virtual device) supports. I think this is a very important issue because (1) there are more security professionals that are NOT intimately involved in OpenC2 and (2) for the foreseeable
future there will be more 'extensions' than there are 'standard' actuator profiles.
The questions for discussion are:
1) does the above make sense as valid examples of how the specifications go together?
2) should there be something explaining the overall structure? If so, webpage or separate document or in each document?
3) does concept of 'device profile' make sense? If so, do we (ie Implementation SC) need to make a document on what
an implementer needs to include (ie how to make a device profile)? Should we write a spec on 'formatting' a device profile (eg it's a json data structure ...)
iPhone, iTypo, iApologize
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