Schedule it Ltd - Patching and Development Policy
Patching
We instruct an independent external security company to perform penetration testing and other security tests on our software and services every month. Please contact us for the latest PCI-DSS and OWASP TOP10 compliance reports.
1.0 Overview:
1. This policy has been put in place to establish a mechanism for
identifying and ranking security vulnerabilities across all teams
within the Security Alerts Team.
2.0 Purpose:
The purpose of this policy is to provide a framework for
vulnerability identification, threat assessment, priority ranking and
voluntary or involuntary remediation via patch distribution by
manual or automated methods.
3.0 Scope:
3.1 The general scope of this policy applies to all Schedule it Ltd
assets managed by members of the Security Alerts Team that
contain software subject to security alerts.
3.2 Each group adopting this policy will specify management
representatives for their team during the Security Alerts
Team meetings. Updates including attendance, alerts discussed,
and actions recommended will be mailed to the responsible
mangers via the satt-managers email alias.
4.0 Responsibilities:
4.1 The Security Alerts Team, composed of Infosec and
operational team members periodically identifies significant
security vulnerabilities that may impact Schedule it Ltd assets. This
team will also make recommendations about the timeline for patch
installation based on the threat.
4.2 The Security Alerts Team will continue to monitor the status
of each alert discussed, being sure to track any changes in the
status of the alert (I.E. exploit availability, patch availability, etc.)
and update the temporal score of CVSS to reflect these changes.
These changes could raise or lower the initial CVSS score. Any
updates to an alert will be tracked by the InfoSec SATT duty
representative.
4.3 The patch or update will be automatically or manually applied
to each host depending on the priority ranking assigned to each
patch as outlined in the section 5.0. Responsibility for patch
quality assurance, patch distribution, audit, and adding the patches
to the standard image is determined by each support organization.
5.0 Priority Ranking:
5.1 All updates will be ranked as P1-P4
5.2 Priority ranking depends on the CVSS score of a vulnerability.
The CVSS score is determined based on access conditions and
impact of a vulnerability, as well as time dependant qualities of a
vulnerability, such as patch and exploit availability. The Security
Alerts Team POC is responsible for assigning a CVSS score to an
alert. The vulnerability is then scored in the alerts database and
discussed during the scheduled Security Alerts Team meeting.
5.3 A priority ranking will be given to an alert based on the CVSS
score. Any borderline alerts will be moved up or down based on
the consensus of the Security Alerts Team members. The alerts
priority will be assigned based on the following chart:
CVSS Vulnerability Assessment Results:
CVSS Score - 0, Priority 4, Patch SLA - Discretionary.
CVSS Score - 1-3, Priority 3, Patch SLA - Next Patch Cycle (3-6 months)
CVSS Score - 4-6, Priority 2, Patch SLA - 4 Weeks
CVSS Score - 7-10, Priority 1, Patch SLA - 2 Weeks
6.0 Enforcement:
6.1 Criteria for Enforcement are dependent on the Priority Ranking
of a patch. Enforcement can include:
• Automated application of a patch or operational change to the
system
• Black Holing of the system to remove it from the network
until the patch is applied
• Power deactivation of the system
• Removal of the system from the data center
• Re-installation of the OS based the IT supported standard
image
7.0 Exceptions:
7.1 No scoring system is flawless and will never replace common
sense. Each hosting group reserves the right to individually lower
or raise a priority ranking for individual servers or a group of
servers based on business impact. Priority adjustments need to be
signed off by a management representative responsible for the
Asset in question.
7.2 A written explanation of any priority adjustment must be
submitted to the Security Alerts Team.
7.3 At any time an alert may be created or escalated to P1 status
regardless of the CVSS score if there is a credible risk to
Schedule it Ltd.
Development
Schedule it Ltd uses a customized methodology for developing software focusing on Agile Feature-Driven Development. FDD is customer-centric, iterative, and incremental, with the goal of delivering tangible software results often and efficiently. FDD in Agile encourages status reporting at all levels, which helps to track progress and results. FDD allows our teams to update the project regularly and identify errors quickly. FDD is a favourite method among development teams because it helps reduce confusion and rework. New code, features and final full testing are tested against OWASP.