Himanshu Dwivedi: iSCSI Security (Insecure SCSI)

Black Hat Briefings, Las Vegas 2005 [Audio] Presentations from the security conference

Himanshu Dwivedi's presentation will discuss the severe security issues that exist in the default implementations of iSCSI storage networks/products. The presentation will cover iSCSI storage as it pertains to the basic principals of security, including enumeration, authentication, authorization, and availability. The presentation will contain a short overview of iSCSI for security architects and basic security principals for storage administrators. The presentation will continue into a deep discussion of iSCSI attacks that are capable of compromising large volumes of data from iSCSI storage products/networks. The iSCSI attacks section will also show how simple attacks can make the storage network unavailable, creating a devastating problem for networks, servers, and applications. The presenter will also follow-up each discussion of iSCSI attacks with a demonstration of large data compromise. iSCSI attacks will show how a large volume of data can be compromised or simply made unavailable for long periods of time without a single root or administrator password. The presentation will concluded with existing solutions from responsible vendors that can protect iSCSI storage networks/products. Each iSCSI attack/defense described by the presenter will contain deep discussions and visual demonstrations, which will allow the audience to fully understand the security issues with iSCSI as well as the standard defenses. Himanshu Dwivedi is a founding partner of iSEC Partners, LLC. a strategic security organization. Himanshu has 11 years experience in security and information technology. Before forming iSEC, Himanshu was the Technical Director for @stake's bay area practice, the leading provider for digital security services. His professional experiences includes application programming, infrastructure security, secure product design, and is highlighted with deep research and testing on storage security for the past 5 years. Himanshu has focused his security experience towards storage security, specializing in SAN and NAS security. His research includes iSCSI and Fibre Channel (FC) Storage Area Networks as well as IP Network Attached Storage. Himanshu has given numerous presentations and workshops regarding the security in SAN and NAS networks, including conferences such as BlackHat 2004, BlackHat 2003, Storage Networking World, Storage World Conference, TechTarget, the Fibre Channel Conference, SAN-West, SAN-East, SNIA Security Summit, Syscan 2004, and Bellua 2005. Himanshu currently has a patent pending on a storage design architecture that he co-developed with other @stake professionals. The patent is for a storage security design that can be implemented on enterprise storage products deployed in Fibre Channel storage networks. Additionally, Himanshu has published three books, including "The Complete Storage Reference" - Chapter 25 Security Considerations (McGraw-Hill/Osborne), "Implementing SSH" (Wiley Publishing), and "Securing Storage" (Addison Wesley Publishing), which is due out in the fall of 2005. Furthermore, Himanshu has also published two white papers. The first white paper Himanshu wrote is titled "Securing Intellectual Property", which provides insight and recommendations on how to protect an organization's network from the inside out. Additionally, Himanshu has written a second white paper titled Storage Security, which provides the basic best practices and recommendations in order to secure a SAN or a NAS storage network.