What Is Security Content Automation Protocol (SCAP)? Specifications, Tools, and Importance
SCAP provides protocols and standards to organize and measure flaws in security, configurations, and software flaws.
- Security Content Automation Protocol (SCAP) is defined as a solution that provides protocols and standards for the organization, expression, and measurement of security information, configuration errors, and software problems.
- Simply put, SCAP is a checklist that enterprises follow to improve their cybersecurity posture. It helps automate and streamline processes such as known vulnerability analysis, security configuration verification, and report generation.
- This article covers the specifications, tools, and importance of SCAP.
Table of Contents
What Is Security Content Automation Protocol (SCAP)?
Security Content Automation Protocol (SCAP) is a solution that provides protocols and standards for the organization, expression, and measurement of security information, configuration errors, and software problems. Simply put, SCAP is a checklist that enterprises follow to improve their cybersecurity posture. It helps automate and streamline processes such as known vulnerability analysis, security configuration verification, and report generation.
The key benefit of SCAP is enhanced organizational security. At the most superficial level, the correct use of this solution reduces the risk of data breaches and other cyber attacks. Besides this, SCAP assists enterprises in compliance with relevant policies, laws, and regulations, even those that are revised constantly. This is achieved through standardized compliance checks.
SCAP minimizes the risk of human error through comprehensive to-do lists that automate network security. In turn, this automation of the security evaluation and management process reduces costs that would have otherwise arisen from using human labor and damages caused by cybersecurity breaches. Efficiency enhancement is another benefit of SCAP, streamlining security processes and automating vulnerability evaluation.
Ultimately, SCAP is a valuable tool in today’s corporate world, where regulatory compliance is paramount, and a single successful cyber attack can spell doom for a company’s profitability and goodwill. Complying with all applicable laws and securing enterprise systems to prevent and detect threats efficiently becomes simple with the correct SCAP deployment.
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SCAP Specifications
Listed below are the Security Content Automation Protocol specifications (also known as SCAP components or languages) as of SCAP 1.3.
SCAP Specifications
1. Asset identification
Asset identification describes the purpose, data model, methodology, known use cases for asset identification, and usage guidance. It provides constructs required for uniquely identifying assets based on available information and identifiers.
This SCAP component plays a vital role in the ability of an enterprise to correlate various data sets about assets swiftly.
2. Asset Reporting Format (ARF)
ARF is a data model to express the transport format of asset information and the relationships between reports and assets. The data model is standardized and enables asset data reporting, correlation, and fusing across and among enterprises.
ARF is flexible, technology- and vendor-agnostic, and valuable for various reporting applications.
3. Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS)
CVSS is an open framework used to transmit information about the characteristics of IT vulnerabilities. The quantitative model used by CVSS ensures accurate and repeatable measurement and displays the vulnerability characteristics used for score generation.
This SCAP specification is a standard measurement system for organizations, agencies, and industries needing consistent and accurate vulnerability impact scoring.
4. Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE)
CVE is a catalog of public information on security vulnerabilities. This SCAP component supports the exchange of information between security platforms.
Additionally, CVE provides a baseline index point for evaluating coverage offered by various security tools.
5. Common Configuration Enumeration (CCE)
CCE is a key SCAP specification developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). CCE serves as a unique identifier for specific configuration settings or security risks within a system. It is helpful for the standardized identification, remediation, and assessment of potential vulnerabilities.
CCE consists of a unique alphanumeric identifier, a brief summary of the vulnerability or configuration, metadata such as severity level, affected technology or platform, and remediation steps. The key benefit of CCE is the consistent and standardized transmission of security information across platforms and tools.
This gives cybersecurity professionals access to a static identifier for specific vulnerabilities and configurations, regardless of their platforms for assessing and remediating security risks.
CCE also helps organizations comply with security regulations and standards. CCE users have a consistent framework to identify and address security risks, making it easier to demonstrate compliance with security obligations in a standardized and consistent way. This simplifies the process of passing assessments and audits.
Additionally, CCE includes a common language based on CVSS to describe and categorize issues. This provides a standardized approach to assessing the severity of vulnerabilities based on factors such as ease of exploitation, potential impact, and remediation options.
Finally, CCE comes with a comprehensive database of vulnerabilities and configuration settings. This database is helpful for security professionals to spot and analyze security risks. It is regularly updated with the latest data on emerging security vulnerabilities and threats.
6. Common Platform Enumeration (CPE)
CPE, developed by NIST, is a standardized approach to identifying specific software and hardware platforms within IT systems. It works by assigning a unique identifier to each software or hardware platform. This identifier includes data such as product name, version number, and vendor name. CPE identifies and categorizes operating systems, network devices, applications, and other hardware and software components.
The goal of CPE is to simplify collaboration and data sharing about potential vulnerabilities for security professionals. This SCAP standard also enables more efficient vulnerability management by standardizing the identification and tracking of vulnerabilities across platforms. Like CCE, CPE comes with a comprehensive database of platform data helpful in identifying and assessing potential cybersecurity risks.
7. Open Vulnerability and Assessment Language (OVAL)
OVAL is a community-powered framework and language to specify low-level testing procedures that drive checklists. It is used to standardize assessment and reporting processes for the current state of a system.
OVAL definitions are written in XML and help report configurations, vulnerabilities, and the state of applied patches. Additionally, OVAL helps users gain critical insights into software inventory and compliance status.
8. Open Checklist Interactive Language (OCIL)
Developed by NIST, OCIL is a language used to build and manage interactive checklists for the security assessment of IT systems. Interactive checklists created using OCIL help guide security assessments, collect data from system administrators, and give feedback on system security status.
Additionally, OCIL helps standardize the description of assessment questions, response choices, and scoring procedures. This simplifies the communication and exchange of assessment data among different tools and platforms.
OCIL comes with several built-in functions to enhance security assessment effectiveness. For instance, the branching logic included in OCIL allows for more targeted assessments that use previous responses and scoring mechanisms tailored to prioritize remediation efforts based on risk severity.
OCIL can be used to gauge a variety of security controls, including network security, application security, and access controls.
9. Trust Model for Security Automation Data (TMSAD)
TMSAD has been developed by NIST and designed to standardize establishing and maintaining trust in the data used by SCAP tools. TMSAD covers the best practices and guidelines to ensure the completeness, integrity, and accuracy of SCAP data. It helps govern data collection, storage, distribution, and processing. Additionally, it regulates the verification of the integrity, confidentiality, and authenticity of SCAP data.
TMSAD comes with verification and audit mechanisms that assist in compliance with established rules and guidelines. These mechanisms can verify data integrity, detect potential security vulnerabilities and attacks, and monitor data flows.
TMSAD is critical to ensure practical security assessments because incomplete or inaccurate data can result in ineffective assessments that increase the risk of system vulnerabilities.
10. Extensible Configuration Checklist Description Format (XCCDF)
TXCCDF is developed by NIST and built to standardize the description of security configuration requirements and assessment of IT system security. Simply put, XCCDF is a language for creating machine-readable security checklists. Checklists created using this SCAP specification can include security requirements such as configuration settings, access controls, and file permissions.
Additionally, XCCDF includes guidelines and rules to assess IT system security based on these checklists. These guidelines cover the definition of the assessment scope, the identification and prioritization of security controls, and assessment result reporting.
11. Software Identification (SWID)
NIST has also developed SWID. SWID tags standardize information about the software installed on IT systems, including product name, publisher, version number, and patches and updates.
SWID tags are based on the ISO/IEC 19770-2 standard. These tags are helpful for software inventory management, compliance reporting, and vulnerability assessment. They are usually generated by vendors and come pre-included with software products. However, SWID tags can also be generated manually or using automated tools.
A key benefit of using SWID tags is software inventory management process automation. Standardized information about software products makes it easy to identify installed software products quickly and accurately. This can help enterprise teams ensure compliance with security policies and licensing agreements.
Additionally, SWID tags help in patch management and vulnerability assessment. They provide a comprehensive overview of the software products installed on enterprise IT systems, allowing IT teams to identify the products at risk of being affected by known security vulnerabilities. Once the vulnerable products are identified, security teams can identify the patches and updates that need to be installed to minimize cybersecurity risk.
Besides the SCAP specifications listed above, emerging specifications include Asset Summary Reporting (ASR), Open Checklist Reporting Language (OCRL), and Common Misuse Scoring System (CMSS).
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SCAP Tools
Now that we’re familiar with the specifications of the Security Content Automation Protocol let’s understand how they are used in software applications, along with SCAP data and standards, to automate different security-related tasks.
For instance, SCAP tools can leverage XCCDF to create security policies and checklists to assess and manage the security posture of IT infrastructure. Another example would be using OVAL and SWID for the vulnerability checks of software products installed on IT systems.
SCAP tools are helpful for several tasks, including reporting, vulnerability assessment, configuration management, and compliance checks.
A few popular SCAP tools are:
1. OpenSCAP
OpenSCAP is an open-source SCAP tool that provides a standardized security compliance and vulnerability management solution. This tool leverages SCAP standards and data to automate the security assessment of IT systems. Users can scan for vulnerabilities, check configurations for security policy compliance, and generate security reports using command-line utilities.
A key highlight of OpenSCAP is using XCCDF to define security policies and checklists. Using the standardized descriptions of security policies and configurations from XCCDF, OpenSCAP automates the checking of systems against said policies.
OpenSCAP also supports OVAL, providing users with a standardized way to describe threats and vulnerabilities. Using OVAL, OpenSCAP scans IT environments for known vulnerabilities and generates reports detailing the associated security risks.
Critical applications of OpenSCAP include vulnerability assessment, compliance checking, configuration management, and reporting. Additionally, users can integrate OpenSCAP with other security solutions such as intrusion detection and prevention, vulnerability scanners, and security information and event management (SIEM) to enhance the security and compliance of IT systems across organizations.
2. Tenable Nessus
Nessus by Tenable is a SCAP-powered vulnerability management solution that is part of the Tenable Network Security range of products. It is a comprehensive SCAP tool specializing in continuous monitoring and vulnerability assessment.
The Nessus product line includes Nessus Cloud, Nessus Professional, Nessus Home, and Nessus Manager. Key functionalities of Nessus include vulnerability scanning for IT infrastructure, cloud environments, mobile devices, and web applications. Extended features include malware detection, auditing of control systems such as embedded devices and SCADA, compliance checks, and configuration auditing.
The Nessus scanning engine uses plug-ins to detect new vulnerabilities. Plug-in feeds are pushed to users regularly, allowing enterprise systems to stay protected even as new vulnerabilities crop up. While Nessus does not have built-in penetration testing capabilities, scan results can be integrated with pen-testing tools like Metasploit, Immunity CANVAS, and Core IMPACT.
The Nessus dashboard and console interface are designed with user-friendliness in mind. Administrators can create security policies with a few clicks and run preconfigured reports or customize them for specific environments. Targeted email notifications can also be sent for scan results and remediation actions.
Additionally, endpoint agents can be deployed for offline scanning. Scan results are collected once the device is reconnected to a secure network. Enterprise users can access a comprehensive knowledge base, on-demand training, and product documentation.
3. Greenbone OpenVAS
Open Vulnerability Assessment Scanner (OpenVAS) is an open-source vulnerability scanner. It is powered by Greenbone Networks, a vulnerability management company, and a community of developers and researchers. This full-featured vulnerability scanner comes with multiple capabilities, such as authenticated and unauthenticated testing, low-level and high-level industrial and internet protocols, and performance tuning for large-scale scanning.
OpenVAS also features an advanced internal programming language that allows users to implement most types of vulnerability testing. Vulnerability detection tests and other countermeasures are obtained from SCAP-compliant sources, including SCAP specifications such as CVE, CVSS, and OVAL.
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Importance of SCAP
Implementing standardized setups is an effective way to get the best out of an enterprise cybersecurity framework. This provides a comprehensive blueprint of ongoing security processes and allows for replication across channels.
Below are the top five reasons a SCAP solution is essential for security-conscious enterprises.
Importance of SCAP
1. Improves cybersecurity posture
SCAP gives enterprise security teams access to checklists that enable them to configure their security system and make it more effective. The frameworks for these checklists are built after in-depth research and experimentation by experts, giving users an effective solution for vulnerability scanning, patch management, and other cybersecurity measures.
Default SCAP checklists address common cyber threats across industries. These highly flexible solutions allow security teams to customize their checklists according to their needs. This helps enhance the quality of organizational security systems and address threats that would otherwise remain hidden.
2. Streamlines vulnerability evaluation
Unless a cyber attack has been successfully conducted on an organization, it’s not always easy to quantify the true impact of cybersecurity flaws and loopholes. Besides, waiting for an attack to be carried out is one of the worst ways to evaluate vulnerabilities!
Enter SCAP, which allows companies to ‘put a number’ to the potential damages they face. This enables security teams to deploy the right cybersecurity solutions for their environment. SCAP tools can quantify the degree of vulnerability within an enterprise IT infrastructure and estimate a vulnerability score. This score helps users identify areas at the risk of the highest impact and focus on fixing them.
SCAP vulnerability evaluation is more than just a single score; it’s a detailed breakdown that differentiates existing vulnerabilities from emerging ones. This allows for highly targeted and effective vulnerability management.
3. Simplifies compliance
Regulatory compliance is usually a high-stakes game; companies need a meticulous system to win. SCAP checklists are a simple and effective solution that automatically addresses companies’ most critical compliance requirements across industries.
‘Automation’ is the keyword here. Human error is responsible for a chunk of common non-compliance issues. A 2021 report by IBM pegged the cost of data breaches caused by human error in low compliance environments at around $2.3 million higher than in environments with good cyber hygiene practices.
Enterprises handling compliance assessments manually are more likely to make costly mistakes and compromise the organization’s security posture. SCAP simplifies compliance by automatically assessing system compliance levels, identifying shortcomings, and recommending countermeasures, all at a higher speed and accuracy than human operators.
4. Makes software deployments easy
Deploying new software solutions at scale can be a nightmare, especially from a cybersecurity perspective. The vendor’s support teams might not get the internal technicalities perfectly right as enterprise security teams most likely won’t be familiar with the intricacies of configuring the new software from the get-go.
SCAP can help by assessing the configuration settings of any recognized software solution within a short period. Once evaluated, SCAP can launch compliant software automatically on enterprise systems and ensure effective integration.
As SCAP continues to grow in popularity, more software vendors and developers are creating solutions that comply with SCAP checklists out of the box. This allows SCAP tools to run them automatically once deployed.
5. Boosts cybersecurity collaboration
Security flaws and vulnerabilities are not exclusive to a specific team, organization, industry, or geographical region. Cybersecurity teams worldwide face the same issues and would benefit significantly from teaming up to fight against them.
SCAP is a revolutionary measure in the cybersecurity space due to the standardized identifiers it provides. This allows teams from anywhere worldwide to uniquely identify specific configurations, platforms, issues, and other components. They can then share information and insights with each other easily.
With SCAP, the cybersecurity world has a common ground to discuss vulnerabilities and cyber threats and formulate standard guidelines to fix them.
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Takeaway
Security Content Automation Protocol (SCAP) is rapidly marking its territory as a crucial component of modern cybersecurity. SCAP specifications and tools allow organizations across industry verticals and geographies to monitor and assess the vulnerabilities of their IT infrastructure and ensure improved security and compliance.
As the threat landscape continues to evolve, SCAP will likely become more necessary for organizations looking to collaborate and stay ahead of bad actors and cyber threats.
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