Hardening Email Security with Threat Prevention Platforms
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Hardening email security with threat prevention platforms Anders Skogster Master’s T hesis De cember 2017 School of Technology M aster ’s Degree P rogramme in Information Technology Cyber Security Description Author(s) Type of publication Date Skogster, Anders Master’s thesis December 2017 Language of publication: English Number of pages Permission for web 100 publication : x Title of publication Hardening email securit y with threat prevention platfo rms Degree Programme Master´s Degree Programme in Information Technology, Cyber Security Supervisor(s) Karo Saharinen and Mika Rantonen Assigned by Antti Lehtonen, Cygate Oyj Abstract Most of today’s email traffic consists of spam, malicious emails and other unwanted emails. These emails will fill up the user’s mailbox, infect your computer and possible the whole network you are using. Cygate offers its customers in the ir product portfolio a wide range of different security platforms that can be used for identifying and mitigating threats on different parts of the network . Some of Cygate’s offered on - premises platforms for protection aga inst the email attack vector were compared, a comparison of the threat identification, mitigation and important parts like, setting up the device, administration, logging, polling and cost and benefit ratio. The research was based qualitative research method, in more specific a collective case study. Key parts of the platforms were compared to each other and rated, from setup to cost/benefit ratio . The most valuable part of the study was the comparison of threat m itigation between the platforms , as Cygate can use the results in future projects. An understanding between the differences of the threat prevention platforms was obtained wi th the comparison. The capabilities of the platforms are also better known after analyzing the data and results . The results shows how the platforms positions to each other , in sense of what platform would suit which customer and environment. This is helpful and beneficial knowledge that can be used in future installations and even mor e helpful in coming assessments and discussions with customers on which platform to use. S imilar projects could be done for other threat prevention platforms protecting against other attack vectors. The collection of the raw data and comparison process nee d to be refined in future projects. Keywords/tags ( Cyber - Security, threat prevention, email security ) Miscellaneous 3 Kuvaus Tekijä(t ) Julkaisun laji Päivämäärä Skogster, Anders Opinnäytetyö, ylempi AMK J o u lu k u u 2017 Julkaisun kieli Englanti Sivumäärä Verkkojulkaisulupa 100 myönnetty : x Työn nim Hardening email security with threat prevention platforms Tutkinto - ohjelma Master´s Degree Programme in Information Technology, Cyber Security Työn ohjaaja(t ) Karo Saharinen ja Mika Rantonen Toimeksiantaja(t) Antti Lehtonen, Cygate Oyj Tiivistelmä P äivi ttäisestä sähköpostista suuri osa koostuu roskapostista ja haittaohjelmia sisältävistä postista. Nämä sähköpostit täyttävät käyttäjän sähköpostilaatikon, tartuttavat tietokoneen ja mahdollisesta paikallisen verkon haittaohjelmilla. Cygate tarjoaa tuoteport foliossaan asiakkaalleen valikoima tietoturvalaitteita, joilla voidaan tunnistaa ja estää tietoturvauhkia tietoverkon eri osa - alueilla. Cygaten tarjoamasta tuoteportfoliosta verrattiin kolme paikallisesti asennettavaan ja sähköposti - hyökkäysvektorin torj untaan tarkoitettu tietoturvalaite kyky tunnistaa ja estää tietoturva - uhkia. Myös muut tärkeät osa - alueet kuten laitteen asennus, hallinta, lokien tuottaminen ja laitteen hinta - hyötysuhde ver rattiin keskenään. Tutkimus perustui laadulliseen tutkimu kseen, tarkemmin kollektiiviseen tapaus - tutkimukseen. Tärkein vertailu tutkimuksessa oli tietoturvalaitteiden kyky tunnistaa ja estää tietoturvauhkia. Tutkimuksesta saatiin ymmärrys laitteiden välisistä eroavaisuuksista. Dataa ja tuloksia analysoimalla saatiin my ös selville laitteiden rajoitteet ja toiminnallisuus. Tulokset näyttävät, miten laitteet sijoittuvat toisiinsa nähden, eli mikä laite sopii millekin asiakkaalle ja ympäristöön. Tätä kattavaa tietoa voidaan käyttää hyväksi tulevissa asennuksissa ja vielä si täkin hyödyllisempää, käyttää tieto tulevissa arvioinneissa ja keskusteluissa asiakkaiden kanssa, mitä laitetta käyttää. Vastaavia arviointeja voidaan myös suorittaa muille tietoturvalaitteille eri hyökkäys - vektoreilla. Raakadatan keräys - ja vertailuprose ssit pitää jalostaa tulevia projekteja varten. Avainsanat ( Cyber - Security, threat prevention, email security ) Muut tiedot 1 Acronyms ARPANET Advanced Research Projects Agency Network ASCII American Standard Code for Information Interchange CEO Chief Executive Officer CPU Central Processing Unit DDOS Distributed Denial - of - Service DEC Digital Equipment Corporation DLP Data Loss Prevention DOS Denial - of - Service EEST Eastern European Summer EEST Eastern European Summer Time FTP File Transport Protocol GB Gigabyte HTML HyperText Markup Language IETF Internet Engineer Task Force IMF Internet Message Format IOC Indicators of Compromise IP Internet P rotocol ITOC Information Technology Operations Center KB Kilo Byte LDAP Lightweight Directory Access Protocol MIME Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions MTA Message Transfer Agent PB Petabyte RADIUS Remote Authentication Dial - in User Service RFC Request for Comments SCP Secure Copy Protocol SMTP Simple Mail Transport Protocol SNMP Simple Network Management Protocol SOC Security Operations Center TB Terabyte TCP Transmission Control Protocol TLS Transport Layer Security URL Uniform Resource Locator 2 Conten ts 1 Introduction ................................ ................................ ................................ ....... 6 1.1 Objective of the research ................................ ................................ ......... 9 1.2 Research method ................................ ................................ ................... 10 1.3 Research questions ................................ ................................ ................ 10 1.3.1 Threat prevention capabilities ................................ ........................... 10 1.3.2 Work needed for setting up the system ................................ ............. 11 1.3.3 Administration of the device ................................ ............................. 11 1.3.4 Reports, logging and device polling ................................ ................... 11 1.3.5 Local vendor support ................................ ................................ ......... 12 1.3.6 Cost of device compared to benefit ................................ ................... 13 1.4 Structure of thesis ................................ ................................ .................. 13 2 Theory background ................................ ................................ .......................... 14 2.1 SMTP protocol ................................ ................................ ....................... 14 2.2 Message format ................................ ................................ ..................... 17 2.3 Types of attacks used with emails ................................ .......................... 18 2.3.1 Spam ................................ ................................ ................................ 18 2.3.2 DDoS Attack (email bomb) ................................ ................................ 19 2.3.3 Malware ................................ ................................ ............................ 20 2.3.4 Phishing ................................ ................................ ............................. 22 2.3.5 Spoofing ................................ ................................ ............................ 23 2.4 Email security in the future ................................ ................................ .... 23 3 Research ................................ ................................ ................................ .......... 25 3.1 Environment ................................ ................................ .......................... 25 3.1.1 Platform type, virtual vs. physical ................................ ...................... 26 3.1.2 Mail flow ................................ ................................ ........................... 26 3 3.2 Types of threat prevention on platforms ................................ ................ 27 3.3 Focus on advanced threats ................................ ................................ .... 28 4 Research results ................................ ................................ ............................... 29 4.1 Vendor results ................................ ................................ ....................... 29 4.2 Types of threats in the email attack vector ................................ ............ 31 4.3 Vendor 1 ................................ ................................ ................................ 35 4.3.1 Summary ................................ ................................ ........................... 35 4.3.2 Installation ................................ ................................ ........................ 35 4.3.3 Administration, logging, reporting and polling ................................ ... 36 4.3.4 Malware prevention ................................ ................................ .......... 37 4.3.5 Malicious URLs ................................ ................................ .................. 38 4.4 Vendor 2 ................................ ...............................