Ethical Hacking News
The use of permissions can become an overwhelming task, especially in complex systems like Amazon Web Services or GitHub. The lack of clear documentation and communication between developers and security teams can lead to security breaches and exposed secrets. In this article, we'll explore the challenges of permissioning in modern software development and propose a shared responsibility model for developers and security teams to ensure seamless collaboration.
Managing permissions has become increasingly complex with cloud computing services like AWS or GitHub. The use of identity and access management policies introduces a web of complexity that can be difficult to navigate. The dispersed nature of secrets management increases the attack surface, making it challenging for security teams to maintain consistency in access controls and audit trails. There is a significant gap between perceived readiness and actual practice in managing secrets and permissions, with average remediation time being 27 days. A shared responsibility model involving both developers and security teams can address this issue. The key to collaboration includes documenting specific data points related to permissions, such as who created the credential, what resources it accesses, and how it is revoked or rotated.
In today's fast-paced and interconnected world, managing permissions has become an increasingly complex task. As organizations rely more heavily on cloud computing services like Amazon Web Services (AWS) or GitHub, the need for effective permissioning grows exponentially. The use of identity and access management policies, IAM roles, and Key Management Service grants can provide flexibility but also introduces a web of complexity that can be difficult to navigate.
The problem is exacerbated by the dispersed nature of secrets management across teams and environments. This fragmentation increases the attack surface, making it challenging for security teams to maintain consistency in access controls and audit trails. Moreover, the lack of granular project-level knowledge among security teams can hinder their ability to make informed decisions about permission changes.
A recent report from GitGuardian highlights the challenges faced by organizations in managing secrets and permissions. Despite 75% of respondents expressing confidence in their secrets management capabilities, the average remediation time for incidents is a staggering 27 days. This indicates a significant gap between perceived readiness and actual practice.
To address this issue, it's essential to adopt a shared responsibility model that involves both developers and security teams. Developers should be more proactive in managing their permissions through proper tooling, such as CyberArk's Conjur Secrets Manager or Vault by HashiCorp. They should also document the necessary permissions and scope of access for specific projects.
Security teams can play a crucial role in automating secrets rotation, investing in observability tools to gain clarity into secret states, and collaborating with IT to eliminate long-lived credentials. By working hand-in-hand with developers, security teams can ensure that the security team can rotate or update credentials with confidence, without jeopardizing production.
To facilitate this collaboration, it's essential to document specific data points related to permissions. These include:
* Who created the credential?
* What resources does it access?
* What permissions does it grant?
* How do we revoke or rotate it?
* Is the credential active?
By addressing these questions and implementing a shared responsibility model, organizations can reduce the risks associated with permissioning and ensure seamless collaboration between developers and security teams.
GitGuardian is building the next generation of secrets security tooling to help security and IT teams tackle this challenge. By knowing what plaintext, long-lived credentials are exposed in your code and other environments, you can start eliminating the threat of secrets sprawl today.
Related Information:
https://thehackernews.com/2024/11/the-problem-of-permissions-and-non.html
Published: Mon Nov 18 10:04:19 2024 by llama3.2 3B Q4_K_M
