The document discusses building reliability and security into cloud software, emphasizing the importance of DevOps practices and automation in rapidly delivering SaaS products. It introduces the concept of 'rugged software,' which is designed to endure adversity and ensure security through robust practices. Additionally, it outlines frameworks for achieving ruggedness in software development, as well as the need for security integration within operational processes.

1. The Rugged Way in the
Cloud–Building Reliability
and Security Into Software
James Wickett
james.wickett@owasp.org
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2. 2

3. @wickett
• Operations and Security for software
delivered on the cloud
• National Instruments, R&D
• Certs: CISSP, GSEC, GCFW, CCSK
• Tags: OWASP, Cloud, DevOps, Ruby
• Blogger at theagileadmin.com
• I do stuff for LASCON (http://lascon.org)
• Twitter: @wickett
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4. Cloud @ NI
We built a DevOps team to rapidly deliver
new SaaS products and product functionality
using cloud hosting and services (IaaS, PaaS,
SaaS) as the platform and operations, using
model driven automation, as a key
differentiating element.
With this approach we have delivered
multiple major products to market quickly
with a very small staffing and financial outlay.
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5. National Instruments
• 30 years old; 5000+ employees
around the world, half in Austin,
mostly engineers; $873M in
2010
• Hardware and software for data
acquisition, embedded design,
instrument control, and test
• LabVIEW is our graphical
dataflow programming language
used by scientists and engineers
in many fields
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6. From toys to black holes
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7. NI’s Cloud Products
• LabVIEW Web UI Builder
• FPGA Compile Cloud
• more to come...
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8. ni.com/uibuilder
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10. 10

11. FPGA Compile Cloud
• LabVIEW FPGA compiles take hours and
consume extensive system resources;
compilers are getting larger and more
complex
• Implemented on Amazon - EC2,
Java/Linux,C#/.NET/Windows,
and LabVIEW FPGA
• Also an on premise product,
the “Compile Farm”
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12. Using the FPGA
Compile Cloud
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13. Building
Rugged
In
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14. Am I healthy?
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15. Am I healthy?
• Latest and greatest research
• Justification to insurance companies
• Measurement and testing as available
• Point in time snapshot
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16. Am I secure?
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17. Am I secure?
• Latest and greatest vulnerabilities
• Justification of budget for tools
• Measurement and testing as available
• Point in time snapshot
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18. People, Process, Tech
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19. It’s not our problem anymore
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20. If you want to build a ship, don't
drum up people together to collect
wood and don't assign them tasks
and work, but rather teach them to
long for the endless immensity of
the sea
- Antoine Jean-Baptiste Marie Roger de Saint Exupéry
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21. Twitter Survey
What is one word that you
would use to describe ‘IT
Security’ people?
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22. unicorns
paranoid prepared
Tenacious
HAWT!
smart masochistic
demented jaded smart
sisyphean
omnium-gatherum
facebored
passionate
weird
drunk compassionate
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23. Us vs. Them
• Security professionals often degrade
developers
• Developers don’t get security people
• There is interest across the isle, but often
ruined by negative language
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24. Why do you see the speck that is in your
brotherʼs eye, but do not notice the log that is in
your own eye?
- Jesus
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25. Adverse conditions
need Rugged solutions
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26. Adversity fueled
innovation
• NASA in Space
• Military hard drives
• ATMs in Europe
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27. Chip and PIN ATM
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28. The Internets is Mean
• Latency
• Distribution
• Anonymity
• Varied protocols
• People
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29. Systems are complex
• “How Complex Systems Fail”
• Failure at multiple layers
• Synonyms in other industries
• Defense in Depth
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30. Software needs to
meet adversity
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31. Intro to Rugged
by analogy
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32. Current Software
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33. Rugged Software
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34. Current Software
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35. Rugged Software
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36. Current Software
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37. Rugged Software
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38. Current Software
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39. Rugged Software
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40. Current Software
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41. Rugged Software
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42. Current Software
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43. Rugged Software
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44. 44

45. Rugged Software
Manifesto
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46. I am rugged... and more importantly,
my code is rugged.
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47. I recognize that software has become
a foundation of our modern world.
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48. I recognize the awesome
responsibility that comes with this
foundational role.
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49. I recognize that my code will be used
in ways I cannot anticipate, in ways it
was not designed, and for longer
than it was ever intended.
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50. I recognize that my code will be
attacked by talented and persistent
adversaries who threaten our
physical, economic, and national
security.
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51. I recognize these things - and I
choose to be rugged.
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52. I am rugged because I refuse to be a
source of vulnerability or weakness.
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53. I am rugged because I assure my
code will support its mission.
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54. I am rugged because my code can
face these challenges and persist in
spite of them.
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55. I am rugged, not because it is easy,
but because it is necessary... and I
am up for the challenge.
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56. Rugged-ities
• Availability
• Survivability
• Defensibility
• Security
• Longevity
• Portability
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57. Security vs. Rugged
• Absence of • Verification of
Events quality
• Cost • Benefit
• Negative • Positive
• FUD • Known values
• Toxic • Affirming
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58. Rugged Survival Guide
• Defensible Infrastructure
• Operational Discipline
• Situational Awareness
• Countermeasures
On YouTube: “PCI Zombies”
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59. Security as a Feature
• SaaF is possible, but hard for most products
• Tough to measure
• Hiding among other features
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60. Rugged as a Feature
• RaaF addresses to customer felt needs
• Values that people covet
• Buyers want it
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61. Qualities of Rugged
Software
• Availability - Speed and performance
• Longevity, Long-standing, persistent - Time
• Scalable, Portable
• Maintainable and Defensible - Topology Map
• Resilient in the face of failures
• Reliable - Time, Load
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62. Measuring Ruggedness
• Physical: Heat, Cold, Friction, Time, Quantity
of use, Type of use
• Software: Concurrency, Transactions, Speed,
Serial Load, Input handling, Entropy, Lines of
Code
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63. Measuring Frameworks
• Measured by lack of incidents and
quantifying risk and vulns
• OWASP / CVE tracking
• Common Vuln Scoring System (CVSS)
• Mitre Common Weakness Enumeration
(CWE)
• Common Weakness Scoring System
(CWSS)
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64. Supply and ______
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65. Marketing Possibilities
• Positive: Rugged Rating System
• 3rd party verification of Ruggedness
• Self Attestation
• Negative: warning signs
• Buyers Bill of Rights
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66. Measuring Rugged
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67. 3rd Party Warnings
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68. Self Attestation
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69. Implicit vs. Explicit
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70. Explicit Requirements
• Customers Demand
• 20% Use Cases
• Most Vocal
• Failure results in loss of customers but not
all customers
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71. Implicit Requirements
• Customers Assume
• 80% of use cases
• Unsaid and Unspoken
• Most basic and expected features
• Failure results in a loss of most customers
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72. Is Security Explicit
or Implicit?
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73. Is Rugged Explicit
or Implicit?
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74. 74

75. Rugged
Implementations
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76. build a
rugged
team
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77. People and Process
• Sit near the developers... DevOpsSec
• Track security flaws or bugs in the same bug
tracking system
• Train to automate
• Involve team with vendors
• Measurement over time and clear communication
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78. OPSEC Framework
• Know your system and people
• Make security better in small steps
• Add layers of security without
overcompensating
• Use a weekly, iteration-based approach to
security
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79. 79

80. Programmable
Infrastructure
Environment
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81. Configuration
Management
• Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
• Model driven deployment
• Version control everything
• PIE (Programmable Infrastructure
Enviroment)
• Know Your Environment if you want to
make it defensible
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82. What is PIE?
• a a framework to define, provision,
monitor, and control cloud-based systems
• written in Java, uses SSH as transport,
currently supports Amazon AWS (Linux
and Windows)
• takes an XML-based model from source
control and creates a full running system
• to define, provision, monitor, and control
cloud-based systems
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83. PIE ingredients
• model driven automation
• infrastructure as code
• DevOps
• dynamic scaling
• agility
• security in the model
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84. 84

85. The Model
• XML descriptions of the system as ‘specs’
• system (top level)
• environment (instance of a system)
• role (“tier” within a system)
• image (specific base box config)
• service (specific software or application)
• commands (for various levels)
• templates (files to be parsed)
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86. 86

87. 87

88. The Registry
• uses Apache Zookeeper
(part of Hadoop project)
• the registry contains information
about the running system
• specific addressing scheme:
• /fcc/test1/external-services/2/tomcat
• [/<system>/<environment>/<role>/<instance>/<service>]
pie registry.register /fcc/test1/external-services/2
pie registry.bind /fcc/test1
pie registry.list /fcc/test1
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89. Control
• create, terminate, start, stop instances using
the AWS API
• enforce scaling policy
• execute remote commands
pie control.create /fcc/test1/external-services/2
pie control.stop /fcc/test1/external-services/2
pie control.enforce /fcc/test1
pie control.remote.service.restart /fcc/test1/external-services/2/external-tomcat
pie control.remote.execute /fcc/test1/external-services/2 –i exe[0]=“ls –l /etc/
init.d”
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90. Provisioning
• deploy services and apps
• two-phase for fast deploys
• update config files and parse templates
pie provision.deploy.stage /fcc/test1/external-services/2 –i pack[0]=lvdotcom-auth
pie provision.deploy.run /fcc/test1/external-services/2 –i pack[0]=lvdotcom-auth
pie provision.remote.updateConfig /fcc/test1
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91. Monitoring
• integrated with third party SaaS monitoring
provider Cloudkick
• systems register with Cloudkick as they
come online and immediately have
appropriate monitors applied based on tags
set from the model
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92. 92

93. Logging
• logging in the cloud using splunk
• logging agents are deployed in the model
and they are given the config from registry
and the model as they come online
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94. Rugged Results
• repeatable – no manual errors
• reviewable – model in source control
• rapid – bring up, install, configure, and test
dozens of systems in a morning
• resilient – automated reconfiguration to
swap servers (throw away infrastructure)
• rugged by design
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95. build
the new
DMZ
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96. What’s a DMZ?
• Demilitarized Zone
• Physical and logical divisions between assets
• Military history
• Control what goes in and what goes out
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97. Control your
environment
• Make every service a DMZ
• Cloud environment
• 3-tier web architecture
• Allow automated provisioning
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98. Traditional 3-Tier Web Architecture
Firewall
Web
Web
Web
DMZ 1
Firewall
Middle Tier Middle Tier
DMZ 2
Firewall
DB LDAP
DMZ 3
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99. Rugged Architecture
firewall firewall firewall
Web Web Web DMZ x3
firewall firewall
Middle Tier Middle Tier
DMZ x2
firewall firewall
DB LDAP
DMZ x3
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100. firewall firewall firewall
Web Web Web
Repeatable
firewall firewall
Verifiable
Middle Tier Middle Tier Prod/Dev/Test Matching
firewall firewall
Controlled
DB LDAP Automated
firewall firewall firewall firewall firewall firewall
Web Web Web Web Web Web
firewall firewall firewall firewall
Middle Tier Middle Tier Middle Tier Middle Tier
firewall firewall firewall firewall
DB LDAP DB LDAP
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101. firewall firewall firewall firewall firewall firewall firewall firewall firewall
Web Web Web Web Web Web Web Web Web
firewall firewall firewall firewall firewall firewall
Middle Tier Middle Tier Middle Tier Middle Tier Middle Tier Middle Tier
firewall firewall firewall firewall firewall firewall
DB LDAP DB LDAP DB LDAP
firewall firewall firewall firewall firewall firewall firewall firewall firewall
Web Web Web Web Web Web Web Web Web
firewall firewall firewall firewall firewall firewall
Middle Tier Middle Tier Middle Tier Middle Tier Middle Tier Middle Tier
firewall firewall firewall firewall firewall firewall
DB LDAP DB LDAP DB LDAP
firewall firewall firewall firewall firewall firewall firewall firewall firewall
Web Web Web Web Web Web Web Web Web
firewall firewall firewall firewall firewall firewall
Middle Tier Middle Tier Middle Tier Middle Tier Middle Tier Middle Tier
firewall firewall firewall firewall firewall firewall
DB LDAP DB LDAP DB LDAP
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102. Rugged 3-Tier
Architecture Benefits
• Control
• Config Management
• Reproducible and Automated
• Data can’t traverse environments
accidentally
• Dev and Test Tier accurate
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103. OWASP Secure Coding
Quick Reference Guide
• Checklist format that can be added to into
your sprints
• Helps development team find common
security flaws
• Topics include: Input Validation, Output
Encoding, Auth, Session Management,
Memory Management, ...
• http://bit.ly/OWASPQuickRef
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104. Rugged Next Steps
• Use Rugged language
• Know your systems
• Automate, track results, repeat
• Begin weekly OPSEC in your org
• Attend LASCON (http://lascon.org)
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105. Rugged Resources
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106. h"ps://groups.google.com/a/owasp.org/group/rugged-­‐so4ware
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107. Recommended Reading
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