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As part of the research project CyFORT1, today itrust consulting published OpenARIANA2, developed as a successor of the in-house built ARIANA software, a Microsoft Word Add-in supporting the user, among other things, in generating policies and audit reports.
OpenARIANA was developed to address the repetitive task of creating policies, particularly Information Security policies. These documents often consist of standardized text that needs to be tailored and extended to individual customers' requirements. By integrating closely with Microsoft Word, OpenARIANA streamlines the process of document creation and customization in professional settings. It offers a user-friendly interface that enhances productivity and reduces manual effort, making the adaptation of standardized policies to specific client needs both efficient and reliable.
The tool sequentially reads text from each row of an Excel table—constructed from a regulation or standard—and applies the style defined in the column headings. The tool can handle tags to create enumerations and bullets or some customized styles. The tool also allows replacing other tags by customer specific data, e.g. '#Organization' by the name of the organization creating the document.
itrust maintains a repository of ISMS standards like ISO 2700x in a structured format compatible with OpenARIANA. Users who wish to access these standards can contact us at openariana@itrust.lu. Please include proof of eligibility for the standard, such as a payment invoice. Upon verification, we will provide the structured standard free of charge.
As a CyFORT sub-project, CS-GRAM3 delivers a toolset comprising OpenARIANA, providing cloud security governance features such as policies, risk assessment models, audit templates, and KPI. It aims to incorporate the use of the Open Security Controls Assessment Language (OSCAL), developed by NIST. OSCAL is a standardized, data-centric framework for documenting and assessing security controls. This will bring us a step closer to achieving our goal of automating security assessment, auditing, and continuous monitoring. Finally, ISO content, typically expressed in natural language, will be converted into a machine-readable format, leveraging structured data to enable easier integration with existing tools.
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1 Cloud Cybersecurity Fortress of Open Resources and Tools for Resilience.
2 Open Assistance for Reporting on Information system Audits with Normative Assessment.
3 Cloud Services-Governance, Risk management, Audit, and Monitoring.
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Interview with Lëtzebuerger Gemengen, translation by itrust consulting.
In a context of constantly evolving and increasingly sophisticated cyber threats, cybersecurity experts are not standing still, as demonstrated by the CyFORT project. Carlo Harpes and Arash Atashpendar, respectively Managing Director and Head of R&D/CTO at itrust consulting and itrust Abstractions Lab, explain why.
Can you briefly present the CyFORT project?
Carlo Harpes: CyFORT, short for "Cloud Cybersecurity Fortress of Open Resources and Tools for Resilience", is a research project aimed at developing a series of open-source cybersecurity software tools with a focus on cloud computing. As free and open-source software, all CyFORT cybersecurity tools and their technical documentation will be made publicly available online. These permissive licenses allow anyone not only to study our tools, but also to adapt, modify and customize them to suit their needs, without being subject to what we call vendor lock-in.
Is there a specific tool already developed as part of this project?
Arash Atashpendar: Of the six CyFORT sub-projects, today we'll be focusing on the one that's at the most advanced stage of development, namely C5-DEC, short for "Common Criteria for Cybersecurity, Cryptography, Clouds - Design, Evaluation and Certification".
C5-DEC aims at providing an impartial assessment of the security of IT systems and software in line with Common Criteria (CC), a set of internationally recognized standards (ISO/IEC 15408), as well as the complementary methodology ISO/IEC 18045, which deals with a common methodology for the evaluation of IT security (CEM). CC certification gives users the assurance that a product complies with the security guarantees it claims.
C5-DEC consists of two key elements: a software package and a knowledge base containing guides and a wiki of key CC concepts. These elements form a coherent set, covering tools for CC, secure software development and security assessment of cyber-physical systems.
How does C5-DEC improve the product development processes?
Arash Atashpendar: The CC and CEM standards, which are complex and the result of the efforts of multiple countries since 1980, contain extensive security requirements and are methodologically arduous. Certification processes, involving suppliers and laboratories, are often costly and time-consuming. C5-DEC makes these procedures more accessible and efficient, with a CC database, tools for evaluation reports, and checklists. It supports analysts and designers with comprehensive databases for safety design and evaluation.
Are there any other particular features of C5-DEC worth highlighting?
Arash Atashpendar: C5-DEC's secure software development module stores and interconnects specifications, source code and tests for complete traceability. The import/export functions and cryptographic operations make it possible to secure the creation and distribution of software.
C5-DEC integrates and relies on other open-source solutions such as doorstop-dev, asciimatics, OpenProject, GitLab, threagile and Threat Dragon for some of its functionalities such as requirements and artefact management, system design and testing, threat modelling and security risk assessment.
For which users is your solution aimed?
Carlo Harpes: Our target audience includes software designers and CC experts, with a current focus on coaching developers. We are currently looking for a few customers for training on C5-DEC. They would receive free coaching in exchange for written feedback on their use of our tool. Typically, I'm thinking of a number of concrete cases, such as the roll-out of Luxchat, or the mobile application for filing electronic complaints, or even the sending of an electronic sickness certificate to the CCSS and the employer by doctors, with the patient's consent.
Could you give us an example of a practical application?
Carlo Harpes: Imagine the supplier of a smart card wishing to have its product certified for IT security, either because of regulatory recommendations (GDPR, NISS) or simply to build trust among its users.
Designers using C5-DEC can filter CC requirements and focus on security requirements, as well as assurance activities related to cryptography, and use elements of the knowledge base.
Evaluation laboratories can in turn use the evaluation-oriented functionality. For example, it has already been used internally as part of a project for a public sector customer, as well as in research projects for the European Commission and the European Space Agency (ESA), or for the specification of a cryptographic tool.
What are the next developments for C5-DEC?
Arash Atashpendar: We will be updating C5-DEC based on feedback from users, but also on what we discover when using it in the field. We also plan to adapt its future development to the online tool Fit4CSA, recently published by ILNAS as part of the CORAL project. Finally, we want to better adapt our software to the specifics of the EU Cybersecurity Act or CSA (EU regulation 2019/881), for which C5-DEC already provides certain functionalities.
How and when will C5-DEC be released?
Arash Atashpendar: The alpha version of C5-DEC is scheduled for release on 1 December 2023 on the well-known GitHub platform via the following link: https://github.com/AbstractionsLab.
Interview with Lëtzebuerger Gemengen, translation by itrust consulting.
As the threat of cyber-attacks increases, cybersecurity experts are increasing their innovation capacity to protect public and private data as effectively as possible, which is done in the CyFORT project. We spoke to its creators, Carlo Harpes and Arash Atashpendar, Managing Director and CTO/Head of R&D respectively at itrust consulting and itrust Abstractions Lab.
Can you present us CyFORT?
Carlo Harpes: CyFORT is a research project aiming at developing a series of open-source cybersecurity tools, also suited to Cloud Computing. CyFORT stands for "Cloud Cybersecurity Fortress of Open Resources and Tools for Resilience". This work is part of a collaboration with European and local partners, and the results of the project will be published and made freely available to interested parties. Our solutions will help to improve the security of an organization and of a product thanks to open source tools and standards-aligned methods.
Arash Atashpendar: CyFORT targets both public sector institutions and private sector companies that want to improve their software development lifecycle processes, integrate information security and risk analysis methodologies into their organization, and secure their infrastructures, tools and products.
What exactly is meant by "open source"?
Carlo Harpes: As the name suggests, the source code is made available to the public via open access platforms. This allows development to continue in a collaborative way. Anyone can study the code, modify it and distribute it freely, while respecting a few criteria set out in the licences. In this way, anyone can study our solutions without depending on us, or on any third-party platform, and can continue to improve them.
Arash Atashpendar: We also use open source solutions to create increasingly efficient, transparent and flexible tools. Used in sometimes critical areas, these three virtues are more than necessary. As mentioned, the source code for our tools will be published using free or open distribution software licences, and will be made available.
How do you conceive such a project?
Arash Atashpendar: We recycled good and bad experiences from previous research projects: in CRITISEC, we designed an intrusion detection solution that proved to be ineffective because the underlying algorithms developed as part of a thesis proved insufficient in our tests. In addition, multiple industrial software development projects have enabled us to define the need for structured documentation of security requirements, their implementation and verification.
Carlo Harpes: We created a spin-off from itrust's R&D activity, called "itrust Abstractions Lab", a separate structure that allows us to focus more closely on our research and development pillars, such as artificial intelligence and cryptography. But we had conceived this project, we had to overcome the challenge of restructuring it and adapting it several times to the requirements for co-funding.
Can you tell us more about these new products?
Carlo Harpes: One of the work packages is designing CS-GRAM, "Cloud Services - Governance, Risk management, Audit, and Monitoring", a series of tools to support the CISO: OpenAriana helps to write security policies and procedures. By structuring information that generally comes from ISO standards, combining it and customizing it according to a company's needs, it generates policies in the format desired by the customer, and templates to document observations and decisions of an auditor. draw.trickservice.com can be used to draw dependencies between assets and model risk propagation. TRICK generates risk reports in the format required by regulators and in formats that can be read by management.
The following players have already benefited from these tools: Cebi, Creos, Encevo, enovos, LuxMetering, the Grand-Ducal Police, SUDenergie and numerous local authorities.
One successful challenge was to submit risk analyses in the format specified by the ILR regulator in Regulation ILR/N22/7 of 15 September 2022 (a JSON format that was complicated to read), constrained by a tool that had no facility for injecting the parameters that the regulated operators already had in Excel format. Despite the difficulties, ILR received risk analyses in the desired format prepared by the CyFORT tool.
Arash Atashpendar: The second tool is called C5-DEC, which stands for “Common Criteria for Cyber Security, Cryptography, Clouds - Design Evaluation and Certification”. The software component of C5-DEC and its knowledge bases provide a coherent set of tools for the secure software development lifecycle. It also enables the security of IT systems and software to be assessed impartially according to the Common Criteria (CC), an internationally recognized set of standards (ISO 15408). Our tool simplifies these complex and costly processes, making them more accessible and efficient. One of its strengths is that it can be customized. This also gives assessors the assurance that products are compliant. The first version will soon be published as an open source tool, and has already been used in the context of a project for a public sector customer, as well as in research projects for the European Commission and the ESA, among others.
What specific challenges do these solutions address?
Carlo Harpes: We've noticed that a lot of companies have problems managing IT development projects, particularly because projects are not sufficiently documented. Our solutions make it possible to read a product like an open book, well aligned with the standards. They clearly specify the data linked to the product applicable, structure them and therefore ensure security in the development and implementation process. Thus, they provide our customers with a very rigorous process for creating well-documented products.
Arash Atashpendar: Imagine you're interested in a chat tool into which you can slip a message that will be shared in encrypted form. Thanks to our solution, you will be able to test this tool, but also obtain all its specifications to ensure that the promise is kept, that the tool is secure, that the message is encrypted with the agreed algorithms and keys. You'll be able to read everything the tool does, how it does it, what components are involved, what source code is used, etc. This is an enormous gain in time and security for both the next generation of developers and for testers of the software.
Interview with Smart-Cities Luxembourg, translation by itrust consulting.
If digital transformation is a synonym of great opportunities, it also presents important security risks for all companies. Industries, banks, institutions or administrations, whatever their size, must protect themselves from potential cyber attacks. To discuss this topic, we met Carlo Harpes, founder and managing director of itrust consulting, a cybersecurity expert in Luxembourg since 2007.
Can you present us the company, its activity, its customers?
itrust consulting is a Luxembourg company founded 15 years ago, whose activities cover all aspects of what is known as information security, cybersecurity included. In other words, we help our customers to ensure the confidentiality, integrity and availability of their data, and thus the sustainability of their activities. We have methodologies and tools for risk analysis, document templates, requirements and standard processes that are easy to integrate into a corporate culture. Our solutions enable, among other things, the implementation of a certifiable security management system, the improvement of the security organization and the identification of technical vulnerabilities.
Our business area has gradually shifted from the banking sector to industrial companies and essential service providers, particularly in the energy sector. The public sector, in particular Luxembourg and European administrations, is also one of our most important clients. Since the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), we also assist many small companies, often as DPO, in setting up an effective information security governance.
What makes itrust consulting different from its competitors?
We are probably the most active private company in the field of applied research. We are involved in research projects on a European scale. While the demands and deadlines of our customers are a driving force for development, our employees carry out independent R&D work that allows them to deepen and refresh their knowledge. This is essential in a sector like ours that is constantly changing.
Where do we stand in terms of cybersecurity at the Luxembourg level?
Officially, it is a major topic of interest, but its complexity means that it is too often overlooked when decisions are made. As cybersecurity providers and tools are very present in Luxembourg, decision makers often achieve a higher level of security than in other countries. But, on the other hand, we sometimes see gaps and misunderstanding in governance and organization, in risk analysis or in security audits.
What advice do you have for decision makers and entrepreneurs?
Dare to delegate your decisions to experts in the field and arbitrate in case of conflict of interest between different professions within the company. If this happens, take care to listen carefully to the arguments on both sides before you decide. In this way, you will avoid vulnerabilities that are ignored at the time becoming the target of attacks later on.
Be aware of the dependencies that attacks may cause in the supply chain. For example, when the war in Ukraine broke out, cyber attacks targeted a module of the satellite that provided communication between wind turbines in Europe and their owners. Thus, a single attack had an effect on all European wind power production, as operators often decided to shut down their infrastructure due to lack of visibility.
itrust consulting recently celebrated its fifteenth anniversary at an event, how do you look back on the road travelled?
It’s a look full of joy and pride, of course. The ‘startup of the year’ that we were in 2008 has grown up a lot. In recent years, we have written security governance for more than 20 clients, many of whom have achieved 27001 certification. We have applied our risk analysis tools and methodologies to five major players in the energy sector among others. Despite many economic and human challenges and increasing technical complexity, we remain in a continuous acceleration movement.
The evening was also an opportunity to thank our staff, customers and partners. We took the opportunity to announce some future prospects, notably the creation of a new company, ‘itrust Abstractions Lab’, dedicated to cryptography, quantum computers, secure development methods, and software verification and certification.
Among the perspectives mentioned during the event, can we come back to CyFORT?
IPCIE-CIS is a European initiative to encourage companies to invest in cloud technologies. Luxembourg has chosen to focus on Cloud cybersecurity and has encouraged the Luxembourg market to propose its ideas, in a spirit of openness and sharing with the whole sector.
In this context, itrust consulting has developed the Cloud Cybersecurity Fortress of Open Resources and Tools for Resilience (CyFORT) project. In this national project supported by the Ministry of Economy, we will create six tools: one related to intrusion detection and prevention, another dedicated to semantically enriched threats, one for the creation of secure and certifiable software, an application for “smart contracts”, a doctoral research programme against quantum attacks and, finally, a set of tools providing governance functionalities for Cloud security.
So the next fifteen years are going to be busy for itrust consulting!
Yes, there will be no shortage of projects! We really want to make security governance more efficient and encourage exchanges between the players in the market. This is the key to success in the face of an extremely well-organized cybercrime environment. In this respect, preference should be given to local players, who operate in an open manner and create local expertise, rather than investing in products from global leaders. The initial financial gain of these products is too often translated into additional dependencies, price increases, and loss of in-house knowledge. Our open source products will provide an incentive to move in a direction of increased internal competence and control.
On 27 October 2022 itrust consulting celebrated its 15th anniversary, in the beautiful Lalux auditorium in Leudelange.
The first part of the event was dedicated to a technical workshop, where the current research projects Eagle-1 and CyFORT were presented.
The second part was an academic symposium with five expert speakers: Mr Gauthier Crommelink from Ministère de l’Économie on the support of his Ministry for research and innovation in cybersecurity, Prof. Dr Peter Y.A. Ryan, full Professor at the University of Luxembourg on the need of verification in Securing Elections, Mr Alan Kuresevic, CEO of SES Techcom, on how they bring Quantum Key Distribution to Space.
In his birthday speech, Dr Carlo Harpes, Managing Director and founder of itrust consulting showed extracts of policies and procedures that itrust consulting has written in the last years for more than 20 customers, many of which have achieved a 27001 certification, thanks to documents and risk assessments by itrust consulting. He particularly thanked his R&D team for tailoring the risk assessment tool TRICK Service to specific requirements by ILR. At the end of his presentation, Dr Harpes announced the creation of a spin-off company to consolidate the research and development activities to enable a more autonomous and focused approach.
Finally, Dr Arash Atashpendar, the head of Research and Development at itrust consulting provided a presentation of the spin-off company, called “itrust Abstractions Lab”.
The academic symposium was enhanced by the young musical talents of the ‘JazzFellas’ and by the presentation of a painting of Martine Zehren for this anniversary. It was followed by a walking dinner fostering useful conversations.
We would like to thank all participants for contributing to the great atmosphere and for allowing us to share this moment with you!
ILNAS organised an afterwork "Cybersecurity standardisation: meet the international experts".
As part of selected experts from industry and academia, Dr Carlo Harpes, Managing Director and founder of itrust consulting informed on new trends in Information Security, Cybersecurity and Supply Chain Attacks at the conference covering ‘digital logistics’, organized by the ‘Luxembourg Centre for Logistics and Supply Chain Management’ (LCL), together with ‘Cluster for Logistics Luxembourg’ (C4L) in the Luxembourg Chamber of Commerce, celebrating LCL’s 5-year anniversary.
Inspired by the reporter.lu 2021 review, I have adapted a quote by the investigative journalist Hans Leyendecker to my role as Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) in my New Year’s greeting: ‘A good CISO is an unsatisfied CISO. No one who is completely satisfied is capable of implementing security’.
This sentence has comforted many internal and external CISOs I have worked with in 2021: Guillaume, Ingo, Laura, Marc, Matthieu, Patrick, Yannick…
We often feel like a troublemaker when we point out procedures that are not followed, common security practices that are considered too complicated, good reflexes that have been abandoned due to lack of time. We confess our uncertainty about risk analysis or our pessimism if we survive without our advice being followed…
But we have all learned that to succeed, we need a positive spirit, openness to new technologies, autonomy, creativity, and above all an year for market changes. This is generally what CISOs do: they follow the latest recognized standards, try to convince, coach, implement artificial intelligence in network supervision…
But their role is also to find vulnerabilities, to set social engineering traps, to insist on good documentation avoid future errors and loss of know-how, to require traceability of decisions and acceptance of risks (without embellishment), thus ensuring sustainable decisions, instead of justifying preconceived ones. The CISO is thus the right ally for a CEO who is looking for the best decisions in the face of new challenges.
It is by disagreeing with an observed security that the CISO stimulates to find better. And his persistence avoids risks: services started without an adequate agreement on responsibility, too fast migration to the cloud creating dependency for a short-term advantage, open doors to cybercrime, resignation in the face of internal negligence. It avoids downtime or costly replacements or fixes.
Fortunately, it is not only CISOs who are holding back. A courageous CEO recently confessed to me that he often finds himself in the position of putting the brakes on projects in which the customer’s view, financial feasibility, security, legal compliance, etc. have been neglected. Enthusiasm does not guarantee success.
For sustainable projects, managers cannot escape from working with CISOs and taking care of security and data protection themselves. And there are often CISOs who come up with interdisciplinary and creative solutions, sometimes simpler than expected and standing in contrast to the flagship products that do everything but work efficiently without qualified personnel.
Let’s not forget that many great ideas and successes have been created by offensive people like Steve Jobs or meticulous people like Bill Gates… Without sweat and rivalry, customers won’t get the secure services they deserve.
Carlo Harpes
itrust consulting
