Expert answer:A big concern regarding the Red Team’s penetration is the actual theft of the AX10 test vehicle. According to the Red Team, this was accomplished when the malware infected PROM phoned home over cellular connection. A lack of some general baseline security configurations likely led to the malware being installed on the system. For instance, stronger authentication. The malware was installed using a set of stolen credentials. However, by implementing multifactor authentication, the risk of individuals using unauthorized accounts is reduced by requiring two or more different factors for authentication. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce (2013), “the factors are defined as: (i) something you know (e.g., password, personal identification number [PIN]); (ii) something you have (e.g., cryptographic identification device, token); or (iii) something you are (e.g., biometric)” (p. F-91).Despite the obvious issue of the malware making its way onto the PROM, there appears to be a lack of security controls during configuration. According to Johnson, Dempsey, Ross, Gupta, and Bailey (2011), monitoring the configuration helps ensure the security-focused configuration management controls are operating as intended and providing effective security. Therefore, testing and verifying the configurations burned to the PROM prior to installing it into the AX10 likely would have found the malware.References:Johnson, A., Dempsey, K., Ross, R., Gupta, S., & Bailey, D. (2011, August). Guide for security-focused configuration management of information systems (NIST Special Pub. 800-128). Retrieved from http://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/Legacy/SP/nistspe…U.S. Department of Commerce. National Institute of Standards and Technology. Joint Task Force Transformation Initiative. (2013, April). Security and privacy controls for federal information systems and organizations (NIST Special Pub. 800-53, Rev. 4). doi:10.6028/NIST.SP.800-53r4
