Материал: Крючков Фундаменталс оф Нуцлеар Материалс Пхысицал Протецтион 2011

∙for developers of IT products, to the strict adherence to the specified procedures of preparing and providing evidence for evaluation, and the support of the product lifecycle;

∙for users and developers of automated systems, to the development or sound choice of protection profiles, security jobs and, accordingly, IT products meeting real demand for security of automated systems;

∙for testing centers and certification authorities, to the preparation for and harmonization of their IT security evaluation work with international standards, as well to the accreditation of these within the International Agreement framework.

Still, this is the way for us to go. It will help use the extensive experience gained to date internationally not only in the field of standardization but also in the development of ITs in general, and enable Russian experts to take an active part in creating new and improving current international standards, and influence so the IT and IT security evolution.

8.5. Effects of the Federal Technical Regulation Law on IT security

The Federal Technical Regulation Law took effect on 1 July 2003. Prospectively, this was expected to give impetus to major changes in the information security policies. This law governs relations arising in the development, adoption, use and fulfillment of mandatory requirements to products and fabrication, operation, storage, transportation, sale and disposal processes; as well as in the development, adoption, use and voluntary fulfillment of requirements to products and fabrication, operation, storage, transportation, sale and disposal processes, and to performance of work and services. Falling within the regulation scope of this law is also creation of products and information security services [14, 15].

The new law seeks to simplify the product marketing formalities, create prerequisites for harmonizing Russian and international standardization systems and provide legislative support to the powers of inspecting and supervising authorities. The law declares the accessibility of standards to users and enables makers and consumers to get involved in elaboration of regulations and standards. It also envisages the development of technical regulations which will guarantee security of goods and services and will be binding upon makers. Standards, as such, will cease to be mandatory. It is the consumer that will be expected to evaluate the quality of products and

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choose the one of a better quality (particularly that certified for compliance with some standards).

Still, there are some concerns brought to life by such sweeping changes in the field of standardization. These include absence of the requirement for producers to comply with standards, a potential decrease in the quality of products and lack of responsibility for this. All this was discussed at the conference “IT-SECURITY: New Requirements to Partic ipants in the Information Security Market” held in Moscow on the new law adoption day.

While noting the positives the adoption of the new law entails, the participants in the conference formulated proposals for state authorities to realize towards avoiding potential negative effects of legislative changes in the field of information security. The most important of these are as follows:

∙the current procedures of employing technical requirements to information security should be preserved for the transitional period;

∙the Law should be amended so that to enable development and introduction of information security technical regulations;

∙a state authority should be appointed to be responsible for development of information security technical regulations;

∙licensing exemptions should be introduced for any information security facilities;

∙testing laboratories and certification centers of different agencies should be joined for providing services on a one-stop-shop basis;

∙differentiation should be provided between where information security rights shall be guaranteed by the state and where the customer and the contractor shall be entitled to be guided by any tools, in a range from corporate standards to expert appraisals, to determine the quality of services and products;

∙a number of laws, including the laws “On Electronic Digital

Signature”, “On Official Secrets”, “On Information Security” and “On Standards in Information Technologies and Information Security Facilities”, should be adopted.

If realized, as seen by the participants in the conference, these will lead the new law to improve the state of the art in the field of information security. Anyhow, all regulations will have effect over the period of transition (7 years).

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8.6. Reliability of computerized NM A&C systems and backup of information

Along with access security, reliability and fault tolerance of information systems are what is also decisive to information security. As evidenced by the foregoing, Russian information security criteria lay emphasis on countering subjective security threats. However, reliability of systems is not less important to the design and operation of NM A&C systems.

The following data has been made available by GERLIG, a German insurance company [16]. It is loss of information that accounts for 74% of cases of closures of businesses in Germany. Statistical evidence exists that, in the event of a breakdown, an information system has a critical recovery time. If no recovery of information takes place over this time, the organization will cease to exist with a 100% probability. The critical recovery time is 5 days and a half for an insurance company, 5 days for a production facility, 2 days for a bank and some 24 hours for a facility with a continuous production cycle.

Such estimates should take into account that serviceability of many critical applications shall be guaranteed at 100%, since operations of these are what the whole of the current social infrastructure (law enforcement bodies, government authorities, energy generating and shipping companies, etc.) relies on. Examples of such critical systems are enterprises circulating nuclear material. Full loss of nuclear material at these must be avoided with a 100-percent guarantee. The industry standard [1] establishes some requirements and regulations pertaining to ensuring reliability of NM A&C systems.

Excluding complete loss of information in conditions of normal operation and in design-basis accidents requires a data storage and recovery system in place. This system includes the following:

∙backup of the server or use of backup on hard magnetic disks (RAID– technology);

∙in-house storage of distributive copies of both base and applied software;

∙storage of backup database copies. Not less than two sets of alternately used external media of backup copies should be in place, these to be stored, as agreed respectively, in a separate file depository or/and at another computer center.

The above components relate to the choice of the function and information backup strategy. We shall comment in brief on these. Normally, local networks designed to handle critical information are

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required to include a backup server (a standby domain controller for networks controlled by Windows NT). The data in the main and backup servers is synchronized periodically during operations. If the main server fails, information handling is automatically taken over by the backup server. Modern solutions offer diverse cluster systems with distributed loading when the server failure does not lead to the failure of the whole system.

Instead of one magnetic carrier, RAID–technology (R edundancy Array of Independent Disks) uses an array of many comparatively cheap highreliability and high-speed disks. This disk array is organized using a controller such that the resulting system had a higher reliability than the disks it is composed of. Different modes are used to write data on disks, making it possible to mirror information or recover same after faults. Such high-reliability disk arrays are often combined with cluster systems for operations. There should be however an understanding that a catastrophic failure of RAID–arrays will lead to complete halt o f such systems.

Choosing a backup strategy needs serviceability support requirements to the system to be evaluated. It should be remembered that backup of functions makes the whole of the system costlier. The desire to have the functions of a system backed up multiply and safely runs counter to a couple of important engineering principles: first, the reliability of a system is inversely proportional to the number of components therein, and, second,

a system cannot be more reliable than the least reliable component thereof. In parallel, it needs to be determined if a system is of the class 24×7×365,

that is, is expected to operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 365 days per year. In fact, no NM A&C system requires to be so rigidly regulated. The industry standard requires the serviceability of an NM A&C system to be recovered in not more than 10 hours. It is emphasized that this standard is established for each particular subsystem at the stage of developing a computerized NM A&C system.

Where all information is lost, emergency recovery of the system requires the base and applied software and the content of databases to be restored. This is achieved via storing software distributives and backup database copies. The standard identifies two requirements to storing backup data copies: there should be more than one copy in place and the backup copies should be stored separately from the original copies, preferably in a territorially remote location. The fundamentals of data storing principles are set forth in [17]:

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∙each backup data copy shall not be the only one but shall be multiply

duplicated based on a “grandfather–father–son” patt ern;

∙reliable data media is chosen for making backup copies;

∙full-value backup copies are made;

∙for reliable storage, backup copies shall be kept in a separate room which is distant from the primary data media;

∙the quality and the restorability of the backup copies shall be checked on a regular basis.

The recovery of data based on these principles is somewhat time-taking. Still, they need to be strictly observed. So, where backup copies are kept in the server room, they are of a practically zero value for the recovery of information. In the event of a fire, they will be lost together with the original information.

A span of 250 hours is established by the standard as the maximum value of the average operating time to fault. It is specified that computers should fall into class 5 and meet the reliability requirements under GOST 27201–87. Rooms that accommodate components of the NM A&C system should satisfy to fire and general industrial requirements under GOST 12.4.009– 89.

Human factor should not be disregarded as well. Poor personnel skills and negligence of duties often lead to the absence of a data backup and recovery strategy or to this being merely formal and failing to conform to respective regulations and rules. As evidenced by expert estimates for Western companies, up to 75% of all backup copies are not fit for recovery.

For the human factor to be taken into account, the standard has organizational support provisions set forth in a separate paragraph. The standard requires each enterprise to develop a set of documents to specify the organizational structure, and the rights and the obligations of the NM A&C system operating personnel. The documents should also specify:

∙the personnel’s functions, rights and obligations for supporting the operations of the NM A&C system, including as far as preventive maintenance is concerned;

∙the personnel actions during hardware and software faults and failures;

∙the personnel actions in specific cases;

∙the personnel actions for the system recovery;

∙the responsibility of officials, personnel and users.

It is suggested that each enterprise should develop requirements to the training level, qualification and number of the specialist personnel needed

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