WORKSHOP ANNOUNCEMENT - WITAT '96

Third Annual Workshop on Information Technology - Assurance and Trustworthiness September 3-5, 1996 Columbia Hilton, Columbia, MD

Introduction

The Workshop on Information Technology Assurance and Trustworthiness (WITAT) investigates and promotes promising methods of gaining assurance in information technology.

Summary of 1996 Workshop

Are you sure your information is adequately protected?

How do you know that your privacy is being guarded?

Can your customers trust you?

Recent technological advances have forced these issues on the IT field. WITAT brings together people from all different areas of IT to identify and pursue new approaches to these questions. This year's WITAT features panels on all the major types of assurance, including many innovative non-traditional approaches. This workshop recognizes the existence and emergence of numerous methods to obtain assurance. However, the relative value, promise, and applicability of each is unclear for specific systems. The objective for WITAT '96 is to determine merits of these alternative assurance approaches. This objective will be accomplished through the presentation of alternative assurance approaches to assurance stakeholders and producers, receiving immediate feedback from a diverse audience, reviewing reaction to presented approaches and creating a strategy for moving ahead.

Background -- Purpose of workshop

The Workshop -- Workshop schedule

Registration Information

Workshop Committee

Previous 1994 and 1995 WITAT workshops

Background

WITAT '96 is the third in a series of annual workshops addressing the assurance and trustworthiness. The first workshop identified and analyzed crucial issues on assurance in IT systems and provided input to the development of policy guidance for determining the type and level of assurance appropriate in a given environment. The participants came to the consensus that no one technique can provide comprehensively adequate assurance. The second workshop built upon the first by making recommendations based on the issues and problems identified. Specific direction recommended by participants at the second workshop included:

• Create a catalog of assurance methods,
• Create a catalog of threats needs to be created, and
• Recognize that most environments have at least a moderate risk level.

Information on current and past WITAT activities can be found at the WWW address g.

The Workshop

This day will consist of a presentation and discussion of the available approaches to gaining confidence in information systems. Traditional and emerging techniques will be reviewed and debated for their satisfaction of current assurance needs. The panels for this day are as follows ( Details of panel membership):

ASSURANCE PREDICTORS: Can assurance in an information system be gained from looking at the capability of the organization or individuals involved in develop/integrating/maintaining/operating the system? There are many methods that provide information about organizational or individual capability. What assurance do these methods provide? A panel will discuss various methods that indicate an organization's or individual's capabilities in an attempt to answer the above questions. The methods to be discussed include: Capability Maturity Models (CMMs), the Generally Accepted System Security Practices (GSSP), Internalianal Information System Security Certification Consortium (ISC2), ISO 9000 series, Past Performance and Trusted Software Development Methodology (TSDM).

SYSTEM ANALYSIS: The most direct way to achieve assurance in an information system is to analyze it directly. A panel will discuss traditional authoritative methods such as TPEP and ITSEM and the acceptance of less authoritative independent testing.

OPERATIONAL ASSURANCE: Product and system assurance is only one ingredient involved in gaining confidence in an operation. Operational assurance depends not only on the information technology, but also on the people, environment, and processes involved. Even if information technology was 100% free of flaws, people would have to install, configure, and use it correctly to be secure. A panel will discuss the available methods for gaining operational assuraance. The methods studied included: setting policy, risk assessment, background checks, configuration management, training, monitoring, and incident response.

IMPACT MITIGATION: Other known assurance techniques focus on reducing the vulnerabilities of the information system. These new types of assurance are not related to avoiding vulnerabilities of the system at all, but instead seek to mitigate the impact of defects usually in the form of software fixes or monetary reimbursement. A panel will discuss several impact reduction assurance methods including warranties, insurance, and legal liability.

DETERMINING THE APPROPRIATE MIX: What is the right mix of assurance approaches for your organization? It depends on factors such as your environment, reliance on technology, value of reputation, impact of security breaches, and connectivity needs.A panel will guide a discussion of how to determine the most effective combinations of assurance approaches for commercial and government systems, Different ways of composing assurance approaches will be discussed including: assurance arguments, trade-offs, and criteria.

Thursday, 5 September 1996: Workshop on Alternative Assurance Techniques

Participants will break into discussion groups to address implementation issues for alternative assurance techniques. Each group will work on a set of technical issues brought out the previous day about a specific assurance alternative.

Workshop Committee