Organisatsiooni kaardistamine kasutades avalike dokumentide metaandmeid
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2018
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Paljud ettevõtted ja asutused kasutavad äritegevuseks Interneti, et muuta informatsioon enda pakutavate toodete ja teenuste kohta kättesaadavamaks. Tihtipeale need ettevõtted ja asutused jagavad oma veebilehel elektroonilisi dokumente (näiteks tabelid statistiliste andmetega, juhendid, näited ja õpetused, artiklid, blanketid ja muud dokumendid), mida peetakse vajalikuks jagada. Dokumendid, mis on veebilehtedel kõigile internetikasutajatele vabalt kättesaadavad, võivad sisaldada metaandmeid. Metaandmed on andmed, mis kirjeldavad teisi andmeid, ehk metaandmed kirjeldavad dokumendi sisu ja dokumendi üldiseid omadusi. Metaandmed on näiteks kasutajanimi, kes dokumendi koostas, salvestas, printis või redigeeris, kuid lisaks ka ajatemplid millal eelpool mainitud tegevusi tehti. Täiendavalt võib dokumentides olla informatsiooni arvutite ja infosüsteemide kohta, kus seda dokumenti töödeldi. Metaandmete lisamine dokumentidele toimub valdavalt automaatselt ning kui metaandmeid dokumendist eemaldatud pole, võib dokumendi metaandmetesse sattuda tundlikku informatsiooni kasutaja ja asutuse kohta. Metaandmete olemasolu dokumendis on paljude kasutajate jaoks teadmata ning nad ei ole teadlikud, et võivad potentsiaalselt lekitada informatsiooni asutuse või süsteemide kohta, kus dokumenti töödeldi. Seda informatsiooni on võimalik kasutada küberrünnakute läbiviimiseks või asutuse kaardistamiseks. See magistritöö uurib dokumentide metaandmeid, mis on ligipääsetavad Eesti riigiasutuste veebilehtedel ning mis on kõigile Internetikasutajatele vabalt kättesaadavad. Täpsemalt on vaatluse alla võetud kolme riigiasutuse veebilehel olevad dokumentide metaandmed, et välja selgitada, kas nendes peituvat informatsiooni on võimalik kasutada asutuse kaardistamiseks ja võimalike küberrünnakute teostamiseks. Selle täideviimiseks kasutati kahest etapist koosnevat meetodit. Esimene etapp tugines meetodite välja töötamisel, kuidas asutusi kaardistada, kasutades ainult dokumentide metaandmeid. Teine etapp kirjeldas esimeses etapis välja töötatud meetodi rakendamisel saadud tulemuste analüüsist ja järeldustest.Tehtud analüüsi tulemus näitas, et peaaegu kõik dokumendid sisaldavad metaandmeid, mida on võimalik ära kasutada ühel või teisel viisil asutuse kaardistamiseks või küberrünnakute läbiviimiseks. Magistritöös analüüsisime kokku 2643 dokumenti, millest 12-nel olid metaandmed eemaldatud. Ülejäänud dokumendid sisaldasid informatsiooni kilde, mis kirjeldavad keskkonda kus dokumente on töödeldud ja sisaldasid informatsiooni, mida on võimalik kasutada küberrünnakute läbiviimiseks. Lõputöö on kirjutatud inglise keeles ning sisaldab teksti 77 leheküljel, 6 peatükki, 41 joo-nist ja 26 tabelit.
Many companies and organizations use Internet for their business activities to make infor-mation about their products and services more available for customers. Often those organi-zations and companies share electronic documents on their websites, such as manuals, whitepapers, guidelines, templates, and other documents which are considered as im-portant to share. Documents which are uploaded on organizations’ websites can contain extra information, such as metadata.Metadata is defined as data which describes other data. Metadata associated with docu-ments can contain information about names of authors, creators information, documents general properties, the name of the server, or path where the document was modi-fied. Metadata is added into documents mainly by automated process when document is created, and if documents’ metadata is not properly removed before sharing, it could con-tain sensitive information. Usually people are not aware about metadata existence in doc-uments and could unwillingly leak information about their organization or about them-selves. This information can be used for fingerprinting basis or conducting cyber attacks.In this thesis paper, electronic documents’ metadata which are shared on Estonian gov-ernmental organizations websites were analyzed. More specifically, three institutions’ pub-lic documents’ metadata were observed in order to identify metadata vulnerabilities that can be used for fingerprinting purposes. To achieve that, a fingerprinting method was de-veloped and utilized against observed websites. This thesis is divided into two different stages, where first stage describes the developed fingerprinting method, and second stage presents the outcomes of metadata analysis with the developed method.The results of the conducted research showed that almost all documents which were ana-lyzed contained information which could be used for fingerprinting purposes. We pro-cessed 2643 documents, where only 12 documents had metadata properly removed. All other documents contained pieces of information that describes environment where docu-ment was created and additionally exposed information that could be used for conducting cyber-attacks.
Many companies and organizations use Internet for their business activities to make infor-mation about their products and services more available for customers. Often those organi-zations and companies share electronic documents on their websites, such as manuals, whitepapers, guidelines, templates, and other documents which are considered as im-portant to share. Documents which are uploaded on organizations’ websites can contain extra information, such as metadata.Metadata is defined as data which describes other data. Metadata associated with docu-ments can contain information about names of authors, creators information, documents general properties, the name of the server, or path where the document was modi-fied. Metadata is added into documents mainly by automated process when document is created, and if documents’ metadata is not properly removed before sharing, it could con-tain sensitive information. Usually people are not aware about metadata existence in doc-uments and could unwillingly leak information about their organization or about them-selves. This information can be used for fingerprinting basis or conducting cyber attacks.In this thesis paper, electronic documents’ metadata which are shared on Estonian gov-ernmental organizations websites were analyzed. More specifically, three institutions’ pub-lic documents’ metadata were observed in order to identify metadata vulnerabilities that can be used for fingerprinting purposes. To achieve that, a fingerprinting method was de-veloped and utilized against observed websites. This thesis is divided into two different stages, where first stage describes the developed fingerprinting method, and second stage presents the outcomes of metadata analysis with the developed method.The results of the conducted research showed that almost all documents which were ana-lyzed contained information which could be used for fingerprinting purposes. We pro-cessed 2643 documents, where only 12 documents had metadata properly removed. All other documents contained pieces of information that describes environment where docu-ment was created and additionally exposed information that could be used for conducting cyber-attacks.