Subject: [Nea] Draft updated NEA charter for review

From: "Susan Thomson \(sethomso\)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2006 13:37:23 -0400

A draft updated charter is included below. It has been updated in
consultation with the security AD, Russ Housley, and includes the
outcome of consensus questions posed at the last BOF (first 3 items
below).

The charter is the one reviewed prior to the last BOF with the following
updates:
* Vendor-specific attributes are required to be documented
* Identify mandatory-to-implement PT for interoperability
* Accommodate technologies for detecting lying endpoints
* Omit specific PT requirements re EAP  
  (given the inclusion of mandatory-to-implement PT above)
* Clarifications that deployment modes may be "advisory" (no impact on
network access) or "mandatory" (network access impacted)
* Clarifications that remediation protocols not in scope 

Please let us know of issues as soon as possible, preferably no later
than Wed 9/27. 

Note that the milestone dates have NOT been updated yet.

The charter will enter the review cycle in IESG shortly and a decision
taken re WG
formation.

Apologies for delay and thanks for your patience.

Thanks
Steve and Susan

------------------------------------------------
Proposed NEA WG Charter
September 21, 2006 Version

Network Endpoint Assessment (NEA) architectures have been implemented in
the industry to assess the "posture" of endpoint devices for the
purposes of monitoring compliance to an organization's posture policy
and optionally restricting access until the endpoint has been updated to
satisfy the posture requirements. An endpoint that does not comply with 
posture policy may be vulnerable to a number of known threats that may 
exist on the network. The intent of NEA is to facilitate corrective
actions 
to address these known vulnerabilities before a host is exposed to
potential attack. 
Two deployment scenarios will be supported: advisory mode and mandatory
mode. 
In advisory mode, an endpoint may be advised of the result of posture
assessment 
and any recommended remediation actions, but is provided normal network
access 
regardless of the result. In mandatory mode, a non-compliant endpoint is
given 
restricted access to the network sufficient for remediation purposes and
any essential 
services or denied access completely.

Posture refers to the hardware or software configuration of an
endpoint as it pertains to an organization's security policy. Posture
may include knowledge that software installed to protect the machine 
(e.g. patch management software, anti-virus software, host firewall
software, 
host intrusion protection software or any custom software) is enabled
and up-to-date. 
On network access and while connected, an endpoint supporting NEA
protocols can be 
queried for such posture information in either advisory or mandatory
modes.

Since NEA involves many different components from different vendors,
interoperation is highly desirable. The priority of the NEA working
group is to 
standardize protocols at the higher layers in the architectures: 
the Posture Attribute protocol (PA) and the Posture Broker protocol
(PB). 
PA and PB will be designed to support a variety of lower layer
protocols.
When used with standards for lower layers, these new protocols will
allow 
interoperability between an NEA Client from one vendor and an NEA Server
from another.

Since there are already several non-standard protocols at these higher
layers, the NEA working group will consider these existing protocols
as candidates for standardization. A requirements document will be
written and used as a basis for evaluating the candidate protocols.
The working group may decide to standardize one of the candidate
protocols, use one of them as a basis for a new or revised protocol,
or decide that a new protocol is needed.

The NEA Requirements document will include a problem statement,
definition of terms, requirements for the PA and PB protocols, and an
overall 
security analysis. It will also include generic requirements for the
protocol
transporting PA, PB: the Posture Transport protocol (PT). PT protocols
may  be 
standardized in other WGs since these protocols may not be specific to
NEA. The NEA WG 
will identify one mandatory to implement PT protocol to ensure
interoperability.

PA, the Posture Attribute protocol, consists of posture attributes
that are carried between a particular Posture Collector in a NEA
client and a particular Posture Validator in a NEA Server. The PA
protocol is carried inside the PB protocol. Certain posture attributes
will be standardized to ensure interoperability but vendor-specific
attributes will also be supported. Vendor-specific attributes must
be documented in an RFC.

The PB (Posture Broker) protocol aggregates posture attributes
from one or more Posture Collectors in an NEA client and sends them to
the NEA server for assessment by one or more Posture Validators.

The PT (Posture Transport) protocol (or stack of protocols) is suitable
for carrying 
the PB protocol at the time of network connection, or shortly after.

The NEA working group will not work on standardizing protocols other
than PA and PB at this time. Further work in the NEA WG or in other WGs
will be considered via the standard rechartering process after the
completion of these milestones.

One commonly discussed issue with NEA systems is how to handle
compromised endpoints, whose reports of their own posture may not be
accurate. Detecting or handling such endpoints is out of scope of
the NEA WG. Work on PA will focus on attributes useful for assessing
posture of those endpoints reporting accurate information. However,
the protocols developed by the NEA WG must be designed to accommodate
emerging technologies for identifying and dealing with lying endpoints.

Note that NEA is not intending to standardize protocols for remediation.

NEA is intended to be used with new or existing tools that can be used
in 
the absence of NEA. There is an open issue with respect to NEA
applicability 
in deployment scenarios where the endpoint is owned by a party that is
different 
from the organization providing network access.

Milestones:

NOTE: DATES TO BE UPDATED.

June 2006:
* Submit first version of NEA Requirements I-D

July 2006:
* Agree on charter and milestones at IETF 66

September 2006:
* WG Last Call on NEA Requirements I-D 

October 2006:
* Deadline for submission of candidate specs for PA and PB
* Submit first version of NEA Evaluation I-D 

November 2006:
* At IETF 67, review NEA Evaluation I-D

December 2006:
* WG Last Call on NEA Evaluation I-D

January 2007:
* Submit NEA Requirements I-D and Evaluation I-D to IESG as Info RFC
* Submit first draft of PA and PB specs for review

March 2007:
* Discuss unresolved issues with PA and PB specs at IETF 68
* Agree on solutions to unresolved issues with PA and PB specs

April 2007:
* Submit revised draft of PA and PB specs

June 2007
* WG Last Call on PA and PB specs

July 2007
* Resolve outstanding Last Call comments on requirements I-D at IETF 69

August 2007:
* Submit PA and PB specs to IESG for publication as Proposed

_______________________________________________
Nea mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/nea

---

From: "Alper Yegin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 23 Sep 2006 01:45:03 +0300

Hi Susan,

The charter text does not mention "EAP", though it was mentioned in the
earlier version and also in your updates list. Is the solution stack still
based on EAP? Also, what exact layers are covered by "PT"?

Thanks.

Alper

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Susan Thomson (sethomso) [mailto:[email-masked]]
> Sent: Friday, September 22, 2006 8:37 PM
> To: [email-masked]
> Subject: [Nea] Draft updated NEA charter for review
>

---

From: "Stephen Hanna" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2006 17:12:19 -0400

PT is the transport for PA and PB. EAP (with accompanying
EAP methods) is one option (but not the only one) for PT.
This has always been the case.

The NEA BOF in Montreal agreed to add a requirement for
the NEA WG to identify a Mandatory To Implement PT.
With that addition to our charter, it seems clear that
we shouldn't try to identify the MTI PT now or build
into the charter any assumptions about what that protocol
will be. Deciding on the MTI PT is the work of the NEA WG.

Thanks,

Steve

-----Original Message-----
From: Alper Yegin [mailto:[email-masked]] 
Sent: Friday, September 22, 2006 6:45 PM
To: 'Susan Thomson (sethomso)'; [email-masked]
Subject: RE: [Nea] Draft updated NEA charter for review

Hi Susan,

The charter text does not mention "EAP", though it was mentioned in the
earlier version and also in your updates list. Is the solution stack
still
based on EAP? Also, what exact layers are covered by "PT"?

Thanks.

Alper