Re: [logs] Due Diligence for Admission in Court

From: todd glassey (todd.glasseyat_private)
Date: Tue Dec 04 2001 - 11:51:10 PST

  • Next message: Harris, John P: "Re: [logs] Due Diligence for Admission in Court"

    Except that on a production system there would be no real users, per se and
    the logging data would be secured by operational setup.
    
    BTW - I have a draft that will be submitted to the IETF on configuring a
    baseline set of services to provide for a clean system. This is a BCP filing
    and if adopted will allow auditors to say - set a system up as such and it
    will likely be ok, all things considered.
    
    Todd
    
    ----- Original Message -----
    From: "Dan Rowles" <daniel.rowlesat_private>
    To: <loganalysisat_private>
    Sent: Tuesday, December 04, 2001 2:08 AM
    Subject: Re: [logs] Due Diligence for Admission in Court
    
    
    > Consider the simple perl script (attached). This will put an entry in to
    > the logs that looks like user bob (or whoever you want) knows the root
    > password.
    >
    > My apologies if I do not have the correct syslog facility and priorities
    > - but this is for demo only :)
    >
    > The perl script attached can be run by any user (on a default RedHat-7.2
    > install anyway). The ability for arbitary users to generate real-looking
    > log entries should be enough to make the logs inadmissible in court.
    >
    > Dan
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >
    > #! /usr/bin/perl
    >
    > use Sys::Syslog qw(:DEFAULT setlogsock);
    > use strict;
    >
    > setlogsock('unix')
    >
    > openlog('su(pam_unix)', 'cons,pid', 'auth');
    > syslog('warning', 'session opened for user root');
    > syslog('warning', 'session opened for user root by bob(uid=123)');
    > closelog();
    >
    > exit;
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >
    > On Tue, 2001-12-04 at 02:34, Tina Bird wrote:
    > > Pardon me for re-opening this can of worms.
    > >
    > > Did we ever come to a consensus, or a pseudo-consensus,
    > > on due diligence for computer logs as evidentiary
    > > quality data?
    > >
    > > What makes a judge unlikely to admit my logs as evidence?
    > > - unauthenticated data sources ("anyone can write to this
    > > datastream, therefore none of it is reliable")
    > > - lack of time synchronization
    > > - long term storage that is not tamper-proof
    > > - no strategy for dealing with all the data once it's collected
    > >
    > > I would propose -- for your non-existent
    > > Joe Average corporate network (I expect there to be
    > > heated discussion - please tell me where I'm totally
    > > off base) (and of course bearing in mind that this
    > > isn't infallible, it's just as good as the "court" can
    > > expect a "diligent" network or system administrator to
    > > do):
    > >
    > > 1) can't enforce secure transmission protocols throughout
    > > the network, because standards aren't sufficiently
    > > evolved -- so standard syslog, SNMP, SMTP are okay for
    > > transport protocols.  (although see #3 below)
    > > 2) central loghost with NTP or other time synchronization
    > > throughout the network -- use ongoing record of process
    > > IDs on logging machines to verify reasonable expectation
    > > that a particular log message came from a given machine
    > > (does that make sense?  I know what I mean...)
    > > 3) access control enforced at loghost that limits which
    > > machines can log -- help reduce likelihood of spoofed
    > > traffic -- or implement other transports altogether, like
    > > the serial cable mechanism we've discussed
    > > 4) loghost is of course totally locked down, SSH only
    > > access, or console only access, and dumps logs to
    > > write-once archive format on regular basis
    > > 5) log review and reduction strategy -- anyone want to
    > > take a stab?  since presumably part of showing that the
    > > data is reliable is showing that I've thought about how
    > > I should process it.
    > > 6) minimum list of machines on that non-existent typical
    > > network that I should be required to monitor to be
    > > credible?
    > >
    > > Things have been awfully quiet out here lately...
    > >
    > > cheers -- tbird
    > >
    > > "I was being patient, but it took too long." -
    > >                                 Anya, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"
    > >
    > > Log Analysis: http://www.counterpane.com/log-analysis.html
    > > VPN:  http://kubarb.phsx.ukans.edu/~tbird/vpn.html
    > >
    > >
    > >
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    >
    >
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