Re: Bank Audit Best practices

From: Jeff Lumley (jlumley_at_forfend.org)
Date: 03/19/04

  • Next message: Mike Shaw: "Re: Bank Audit Best practices"
    To: "Dante Mercurio" <Dante@webcti.com>
    Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2004 18:23:39 -0500
    
    

    Dante -

    I happen to work at a financial institution, and generally speaking the
    processor has no problem working with security folks to firewall the
    connection. I am a tad surprised the admins are giving you grief about this
    though, usually it is sr. management that has a misconception about the
    security of a "trusted vendor" circuit dropped unprotected on the LAN. Those
    guys should have better sense then that!

    From my experience actually changing over a Credit Union from a non existent
    security model to having all external connections filtered & firewalled, the
    politics are 10X harder than actually working with the Visa's and other
    processors of the world to get the addressing changed and NAT'ed around.

    That said, you are 100% correct in your recommendations to these
    institutions to segregate these lines from the LAN. My best tip for you is
    to use the liability card! Once they realize the potential liability for
    ignoring security from a legal perspective (can you say negligence?) and a
    customer impact perspective (it is not cheap to re-issue 100,000 cards when
    the numbers get comprimised) approval to change things comes rapidly.

    My 2c!

    Jeff Lumley
    Network Analyst

    ----- Original Message -----
    From: "Dante Mercurio" <Dante@webcti.com>
    To: <pen-test@securityfocus.com>
    Sent: Wednesday, March 17, 2004 9:06 AM
    Subject: Bank Audit Best practices

    I'm looking for some feedback from other people who conduct security
    audits and penetration tests on banks.

    One of the network aspects I come across a lot is a direct line to their
    transaction processor. This is often in the form of a point-to-point or
    frame line that is dropped onsite with a router controlled by the
    processor, not the bank. I always point out that this is a network
    security risk, as there is no control from the bank side regarding the
    access provided through that line, and recommend an ACL or departmental
    firewall at that point.

    As always, the administrators look at me like I recommended them selling
    their firstborn. The relationship between the bank and their processor
    is very symbiotic as the bank couldn't even exist without their
    services, yet my perspective is any outside system should go through
    some level of border security in order to monitor and restrict traffic.

    Anyone run into this? How do you handle?

    M. Dante Mercurio
    dante@webcti.com
    Consulting Group Manager
    Continental Technologies, Inc
    www.webcti.com

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