CISA Shares Specs for Threat-Hunting Solution

Outflow_Designs/Shutterstock

The Cyberspace Solarium Commission is now pushing the Biden administration to require the same thing for companies serving the Defense Department.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency wants to know whether industry can meet certain performance and security features to support a threat-hunting system.

The 2021 National Defense Authorization Act gives CISA the power to deploy technology, including information collection tools, on federal agency networks and applications and to hunt for threats and vulnerabilities on those systems without notifying agencies in advance. It also calls for the Homeland Security secretary to submit to Congress a review of CISA’s ability to conduct such threat hunting given its resources within a year of enactment. 

“CISA Threat Hunting requires a solution that provides data resiliency for the incident management system,” according to a request for information the agency issued Friday. “The desired solution should have redundancy, failover, load balancing, rate limiting, and the option to scale to the cloud. The desired system should meet the minimum level of encryption 140-2. The system should handle full account logging (successful/unsuccessful) to all assets in the system and integrate with existing [security information event management] architecture.”

After reports of breaches at federal agencies started rolling in—hackers who compromised the software development environment of the ubiquitous IT management company SolarWinds were likely roaming federal networks for many months undetected—congressional cybersecurity leaders emphasized the importance of the threat-hunting provisions in the NDAA

Then-President Donald Trump had promised to veto the bill—and did. But Congress overrode him, and now the congressionally mandated Cyberspace Solarium Commission is pushing the new administration to go further than the NDAA by requiring the same sort of threat hunting within the defense industrial base. A new white paper from the commission recommends priorities for the administration, referencing the SolarWinds hack throughout.

“The FY2021 NDAA mandates a report from the Secretary of Defense on the feasibility and suitability of a program requiring threat hunting on DIB networks,” the paper reads. “The Biden-Harris administration should go beyond a report and pass a policy directive requiring companies that make up the Defense Industrial Base, as part of the terms of their contract with DoD, to create a mechanism that allows mandatory threat hunting on DIB networks.”

One concern voiced by industry about the collection and sharing of threat information relates to security.

While CISA stressed that the RFI does not equate to a promise to issue a request for proposals or quotations, questions included in the document indicate what the agency is looking for in a task management system for its threat-hunting efforts.

CISA wants those responding to share how experienced they are with data encryption; details of their multifactor authentication use; if customers are allowed to review and approve security controls and whether the provider works with them to monitor the hosted infrastructure; whether any virtualization used is on dedicated hardware not shared with other tenants; if full monitoring of the host system can be integrated with existing customer systems at the operating system and network levels; and how regularly they verify connections between the systems of customers, providers, and other clients.

Responses to the RFI are due Feb. 2. It is set to become inactive 15 days after that.

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.