Breakout discussion: Network access inside a TRE#
Chair: Simon Li
Notes#
What angle is this coming from?
What do TRE admins see as acceptable
Cloud services, e.g. blob storage, limited file shares outside TRE. Some users allowed to egress non-sensitive data outside TRE
Limited proxy
Full session recording for audit purposes? Tried it for central government projects, defence-in-depth. Discussions about security dominate
“Privileged access management” system: Brokers access to different endpoints for admins, so they can manage environment but everything is monitored so can be “replayed” at any point in future
Machine learning security controls for anomaly detection. Begins by learning pattern of normal behaviour.
False positives? How much work to investigate reports? How disruptive for users?
Start in learning mode for several months or longer. Can manually override rules if necessary. Only set to automatically block network connections after you’re confident. Then need 24/7 team on hand to quickly investigate and remedy alerts depending on risk profile
One worry with network access is DNS which could be used to egress data, so you need to run a secured dns service
Thought about using AI tools to spot disclosive analysis patterns, but very complicated and variable input types. Analyse logs of what people have done, not just outputs
Sheffield/AWS: ISO27001 defines requirements for network controls. Less focus on monitoring, network controls are to protect users from themselves.
Looking at something similar to HIC, with restricted network proxy. Can’t close off environment completely, but need restrictions on what they can do.
Deciding whether to go cloud antive route or build own proxy
No developers in infrastructure team though (which drives use of cloud tooling as a primary option)
Building everything in OpenStack