Security controls, security measures or countermeasurs are safeguards to avoid, detect, counteract, or minimize security risks to physical property, information, computer systems, or other assets. In the field of information security, such controls protect the confidentiality, integrity and availability of information.
Systems of controls can be referred to as frameworks or standards. Frameworks can enable an organization to manage security controls across different types of assets with consistency.
Security controls reduce the likelihood of any impacts of security incidents and protect the CIA triad for systems and data. Protecting the CIA triad helps organizations meet their responsibilities through consistent risk management of systems, assets, data, networks and physical infrastructures.
The definition of countermeasure is given in IETF RFC 2828RFC 2828 Internet Security Glossary and CNSS Instruction No. 4009 dated 26 April 2010 by the Committee on National Security Systems.CNSS Instruction No. 4009 dated 26 April 2010 According to the Glossary by InfosecToday, the meaning of countermeasure is: The deployment of a set of security services to protect against a security threat.
Overview A resource (both physical or logical) can have one or more vulnerabilities that can be exploited by a threat agent in a threat action. The result can potentially compromise the confidentiality, integrity or availability properties of these resources (potentially different than the vulnerable one) of the organization and other involved parties (customers, suppliers). The so-called CIA triad is the basis of information security.
The attack can be active when it attempts to alter system resources or affect their operation: so it compromises integrity or availability. A "passive attack" attempts to learn or make use of information from the system but does not affect system resources, compromising confidentiality.
A threat is a potential for violation of security, which exists when there is a circumstance, capability, action, or event that could breach security and cause harm. That is, a threat is a possible danger enabling the exploitation of a vulnerability. A threat can be either "intentional" (i.e., intelligent; e.g., an individual cracker or a criminal organization) or "accidental" (e.g., the possibility of a computer malfunctioning, or the possibility of an "act of God" such as an earthquake, fire, or tornado).
A set of policies concerned with information security management, the information security management systems (ISMS), has been developed to manage, according to risk management principles, the countermeasures in order to accomplish to a security strategy set up following rules and regulations applicable in a country.
Types of security controls Security controls can be classified by various criteria. One approach is to classify controls by how/when/where they act relative to a security breach, sometimes termed as control types: Preventive controls are intended to prevent an incident from occurring e.g. by locking out unauthorized intruders; Sometimes known as firewalls or locked server rooms that restrict physical entry Detective controls are intended to identify, characterize, and log an incident e.g. isolating suspicious behavior from a malicious actor on a network or using network monitoring tolls to flag suspicious activity.; Compensating controls mitigate ongoing damages of an active incident, e.g. shutting down a system upon detecting malware After the event, corrective controls are intended to restore damage caused by the incident e.g. by recovering the organization to normal working status as efficiently as possible.
Security controls can also be classified according to the implementation of the control (sometimes termed control categories), for example: Physical controls - includes tangible items such as fences, doors, locks, CCTV systems and fire extinguishers; Procedural or administrative controls - e.g. incident response processes, management oversight, security awareness and training. Technical or logical controls - e.g. user authentication (login) and logical access controls, antivirus software, firewalls; Legal and regulatory or compliance controls - includes privacy laws, policies, regulations and clauses that help organizations handle and protect (e.g. HIPAA, GDPR). These classifications help organizations build a well-designed, multi-layered defense strategy in which different layers help control and prevent threats as they occur.
Physical controls If a potential malicious actor has physical access to a computer system, they have a greater chance of inflicting harm upon it.
Electronic destruction devices Devices such as a USB Killer may be used to damage or render completely unusable anything with a connection to the motherboard of a computer, such as a USB port, video port, Ethernet port, or serial port. Without proper protection, these devices may result in the destruction of ports, adapter cards, storage devices, RAM, motherboards, CPUs, or anything physically connected to the device attacked, such as monitors, flash drives, or wired switches. These types of devices can even be used to damage smartphones and cars, as well.
This threat can be mitigated by not installing or restricting physical access to easily accessible ports in situations where they are not necessary. A port-closing lock which permanently disables access to a port short of the actual port being disassembled. When it is necessary for a port to be accessible, an optocoupler can allow for a port to send and receive data to a computer or device without a direct electrical connection, preventing the computer or device from receiving any dangerous voltage from an external device.
Hard drives and storage In an unsecured scenario, a malicious actor may steal or destroy storage devices such as hard drives or SSDs, resulting in the destruction or theft of valuable data.
If the data of a storage device is no longer necessary, data theft is best prevented against by physically destroying or shredding the storage device.
If the data of a storage device is in use and must be secured, one can use encryption to encrypt the contents of a storage device, or even encrypt the whole storage device save for the master boot record. The device can then be unlocked with a password, biometric authentication, a physical dongle, a network interchange, a one-time password, or any combination thereof. If this device is a boot drive, however, it must be unencrypted in a pre-boot environment so the operating system can be accessed. Striping, or breaking data into chunks stored upon multiple drives which must be assembled in order to access the data, is a possible solution to physical drive theft, provided that the drives are stored in multiple, individually secured locations, and are enough in number that no one drive can be used to piece together meaningful information.
Not to be neglected is the process of adding physical barriers to the storage devices themselves. Locked cases or physically hidden drives, with a limited number of personnel with knowledge and access to the keys or locations, may prove to be a good first line against physical theft.
Control effectiveness and lifecycle Security controls include both technical controls (such as access management and firewalls) and administrative controls (including policies and procedures).
An effective controls testing and verification process allows:
Identifying safeguards that are protecting confidentiality, integrity, and availability of assets.
Detailed overview of any security posture of the service.
Contribution to any mitigation plans that may be prioritized for reducing risks arising because of any weaknesses or failures of controls
Steps for assessment:
Document security control implementation: securing infrastructure, configuring components, identifying & access management, security polices
Monitor & verify security controls: Usually manual or automated testing and it tests penetration, reviewing logs, vulnerability scanning, any surveys and interviews with staff, and more.
Reporting test results: Generating reports, metrics, trends
Controls are part of a risk treatment strategy applied after risk assessment and designing, building, operating, and changing them is a part of the lifecycle.
Purpose in organizations University IT policy states that “Using a set of standardized controls allows IT security to ensure all University and Medical Center areas are protected from threats.”
Controls in four basic categories: Computer Controls, Data Protection, Network Protections, User Authentication
Computer Controls: Organizations may implement email protection, endpoint detection & response, centralized patch management, and domain membership.
Data Protection: For protecting data organizations may equip full disk encryption and media destruction
Network Protection: Protecting the network is important for keeping information safe from unwanted users. Organizations may use flow monitoring, logging network & system activity, network border protections and prohibit firewall to be bypassed to reduce an attack.
User Authentication: Organizations may use two-factor authentication, may force users to change their passwords annually, have only authorized account management, and use a Local Admin Password Solution (LAPS).
Information security standards and control frameworks
The ISO/IEC 27000 series standards promote good security practices and define frameworks or systems to structure the analysis and design for managing information security controls. The most recent version, ISO/IEC 27001;2022, released in October 2022, specifies 93 controls; some of the most well-known standards are outlined below.
International Standards Organization
ISO/IEC 27001:2022 was released in October 2022. All organizations certified to ISO 27001:2013 are obliged to transition to the new version of the Standard within 3 years (by October 2025).
The 2022 version of the Standard specifies 93 controls in 4 groups: A.5: Organisational controls A.6: People controls A.7: Physical controls A.8: Technological controls
It groups these controls into operational capabilities as follows:
Governance Asset management Information protection Human resource security Physical security System and network security Application security Secure configuration Identity and access management Threat and vulnerability management Continuity Supplier relationships security Legal and compliance Information security event management; and Information security assurance
The previous version of the Standard, ISO/IEC 27001, specified 114 controls in 14 groups: A.5: Information security policies A.6: How information security is organised A.7: Human resources security - controls that are applied before, during, or after employment. A.8: Asset management A.9: Access controls and managing user access A.10: Cryptographic technology A.11: Physical security of the organisation's sites and equipment A.12: Operational security A.13: Secure communications and data transfer A.14: Secure acquisition, development, and support of information systems A.15: Security for suppliers and third parties A.16: Incident management A.17: Business continuity/disaster recovery (to the extent that it affects information security) A.18: Compliance - with internal requirements, such as policies, and with external requirements, such as laws.
U.S. Federal Government information security standards The Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) apply to all US government agencies. However, certain national security systems, under the purview of the Committee on National Security Systems, are managed outside these standards.