RE: Wireless Audit Cost

[Jimi Thompson <jimit () myrealbox com>]

You scenario has a couple of things that I think need clarification - 
1) "complete analysis" - to me this means that a full audit of both 
the wired and wireless networks is taking place.  This is also 
implied because you have discovered that the wired and wireless 
networks aren't segmented properly.  2) "large mobile sales force" - 
is this 300 or 3000?  3) what's the geography?  country and/or 
location have a BIG impact on price (example, I get paid a LOT more 
in California or New York than I do in Las Vegas) and 4) as a general 
rule, your consultant is a different person and/or firm than your 
auditor (hence that whole thing about independent audits), so if you 
perform the audit, you likely wouldn't be developing their actual 
policy and conversely if you are the consultant who is developing the 
security policy, you probably should not be the one conducting the 
audit.

Other than getting the wireless AP's behind a VPN gateway, with the 
scenario that you've given us, I'd be more concerned about those 
laptops.   I'd be wanting to pull in some of the laptops for a random 
audit of what kind of information is on them and how well they are 
being maintained, ESPEICALLY since they belong to your sales force. 
There's an estimate that 40-60% of all laptops that are stolen are 
stolen for the data and not the laptop.  Depending on what's going on 
with the laptops and what's already in place, but I could easily see 
recommending something like Marimba or Altiris to handle patching and 
a VPN client that will not connect unless preestablished conditions 
are met (like having AV software with current updates).

I'd also be inclined to include remediation for the "critical issues" 
in the estimate. In this case, that would be a VPN device with a 
sufficient number of client licenses for all the wireless devices. 
It would also include the time and labor to re-segment the wireless 
network off the internal LAN.  My thinking here is that if the 
company's IT staff had either a) sufficient time, b) sufficient 
know-how or c) sufficient clout to pull it off then it wouldn't be in 
that shape in the first place.  Even if the customer decided to have 
the work done by a consultant or their own IT staff, they still know 
what it should cost and there is absolutely no way to "misunderstand" 
since the estimate will be line itemized showing precisely the 
equipment, software, etc.

HTH,

Jimi

At 6:16 PM -0500 10/31/03, lbrooks () cs fsu edu wrote:
> Thank you for the input so far. It has been helpful.
>
> I had to go back and ask the prof for exactly what he was looking for. He is
> trying to get a feel for what would be a good ball park budget for a complete
> analysis from a private company to put in as a recommendation in the paper he
> is writing. (Someone in another post asked if I could post the study.
> Unfortunately, the paper is meant for publication so I cant. But should it get
> published I will be happy to pass along the name of the publication.)
>
> Here is the scenario that he and I came up with. The company is a medium sized
> company with three buildings and a large mobile sales force using wireless
> laptops. There are ten wireless points located on the internal LAN throughout
> the three buildings. The wired
> network has the usual security measures in place, i.e. firewall blocking
> incoming traffic but not outgoing, servers located in a DMZ (say an http
> server, mail server and dns all Win2K based), no IDS etc, all Cisco hardware.
> No security other than mac filtering on the wireless LAN. What we would be
> looking for is the estimated cost to do a full assessment of the
> vulnerabilities from the, admittedly completely insecure, wireless network to
> the main network and develop a wireless security plan for the organization.
>
> We understand that every network is different. We are just trying to get a
> ball
> park figure for what companies can expect when they go looking for this type
> of service. If that is not detailed enough please let me know and I will try
> to firm it up some more.
>
> Thank you,
>
> Louis Brooks
> Dept. of Computer Science
> Florida State University
>
>
> Quoting "Robert E. Lee" <robert () dyadsecurity com>:
>
> >  Your post looks like a RFQ (Request for Quote). :).  The details you
> >  provided are too scarce to answer fully.  Are you looking for costs of
> >  software, costs of training for your people... or costs to outsource a
> >  wireless security project to a third party?
> >
> >  If it's the latter, there are many security companies (including mine)
> >  that would be willing to help you price out a project like this.  This
> >  sort of pricing/scooping phase is a "standard cost of doing business"
> >  for us.
> >
> >  Sincerely,
> >
> >  Robert
> >
> >  Robert E. Lee
> >  CTO
> >
> >  3400 Irvine Ave, Building 118
> >  Newport Beach, Ca 92660
> >  T (949) 486-6600
> >  F (949) 486-6001
> >  robert () dyadsecurity com
> >
> >  > -----Original Message-----
> >  > From: lbrooks () cs fsu edu [mailto:lbrooks () cs fsu edu]
> >  > Sent: Friday, October 31, 2003 8:01 AM
> >  > To: pen-test () securityfocus com
> >  > Subject: Wireless Audit Cost
> >  >
> >  > Hello List Members:
> >  >
> >  > I work for the Security Group at Florida State University's Department
> >  of
> >  > Computer Science. We are putting together some documentation for a
> >  study
> >  > on
> >  > best practices in wireless security. One of the last bits of
> >  information
> >  > we
> >  > need to collect for the study is the monetary costs associated with
> >  > auditing a
> >  > wireless network. I was hoping that some of the members on this list
> >  would
> >  > be
> >  > willing to help us out with gathering the information. We are looking
> >  at
> >  > the
> >  > projected costs associated with auditing a wireless campus with 10
> >  access
> >  > points for the study. If you have any information or can point me in
> >  the
> >  > right
> >  > direction to finding this information I would be most appreciative.
> >  >
> >  > Thank you,
> >  >
> >  > Louis Brooks
> >  > Dept. of Computer Science
> >  > Florida State University
> >  >
> >  >
> >  >
> >  >
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>
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> see demos from more than 250 industry vendors. If your job touches
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Network with over 10,000 of the brightest minds in information security
at the largest, most highly-anticipated industry event of the year.
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see demos from more than 250 industry vendors. If your job touches
security, you need to be here. Learn more or register at
http://www.securityfocus.com/sponsor/RSA_pen-test_031023
and use priority code SF4.
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