Securing information and the systems that store, process, and transmit that information is a challenging task for organizations of all sizes, and many security practitioners spend much of their time on manual processes. Standardized processes to collect, verify, and update security system configurations would allow easier automation of the processes. Automating these routine tasks would free security practitioners to focus on high priority tasks, and should improve operators' ability to prioritize risk based on timely information about threats and vulnerabilities. This working group will define security automation protocols and data format standards in support of information security processes and practices. These standards will help security practitioners to be more effective by automating routine tasks related to client and server security, freeing them to focus on more advanced tasks. The initial focus of this work is to address enterprise use cases pertaining to the assessment of endpoint posture (using the definitions of Endpoint and Posture from RFC 5209). The working group will, whenever reasonable and possible, reuse existing protocols, mechanisms, information and data models. Of particular interest to this working group are existing industry standards, preferably IETF standards, that could support automation of asset, change, configuration, and vulnerability management. The working group will define: 1. A set of standards to enable assessment of endpoint posture. This area of focus provides for necessary language and data format specifications. 2. A set of standards for interacting with repositories of content related to assessment of endpoint posture. An example of such an endpoint posture assessment could include, but is not limited to, the following general steps: 1. Identify endpoints 2. Determine specific endpoint elements to assess 3. Collect actual value of elements 4. Compare actual element values to expected element values 5. Report results This approach to endpoint posture collection enables multiple policies to be evaluated based on a single data collection activity. Policies will be evaluated by comparing available endpoint posture data according to rules expressed in the policy. Typically, these rules will compare the actual value against an expected value or range for specific posture elements. In some cases, the posture element may pertain to software installation state, in which case the actual and expected values may be "installed" or "not installed." Evaluation of multiple posture elements may be combined using Boolean logic. Repository protocols are needed to store, update, and retrieve configuration checks and other types of content required for posture assessment (see step 2 above). A content repository is expected to house specific versions of checklists (i.e. benchmarks), may be required to satisfy different use cases (i.e. asset inventory, configuration settings, or vulnerabilities). In addition, content repositories are expected to store up-to-date dictionary of specific enumerations, such as those used for configuration element identifiers, asset classifications, vulnerability identifiers, and so on. This working group will achieve the following deliverables: - An Informational document on Use Cases - An Informational document on Requirements - An Informational document on SACM Architecture - A standards-track document specifying a protocol and data format for retrieving configuration and policy information for driving data collection and analysis - A standards-track document specifying a protocol and data format for collecting actual endpoint posture The working group will create an overview of related standards work Internet-Draft which will document existing work in the IETF or in other SDOs which can be used as-is or as a starting point for developing solutions to the SACM requirements. The working group may decide to make of this document an Informational RFC, but this is not a mandatory deliverable. The working group will work in close coordination with other WGs in the IETF (including, but not limited to MILE and NEA) in order to create solutions that do not overlap and can be used or re-used to meet the goals of more than one working group. In accordance with existing IETF processes, the group will communicate with and invite participation from other relevant standards bodies and regulatory organizations, and if necessary reuse existing liaison relationships or request the establishment of new liaison relationships. SACM-related efforts are largely aligned, and may overlap, with other IETF (and non-IETF) standardization efforts. There are common "problems" found in SACM, that may be addressed by the work done in SNMP, IPFIX, NETCONF, SYSLOG, NEA, MILE, and potentially others. Of particular interest to SACM is understanding and respecting the distinctions between itself and NEA and MILE. One way the NEA protocols can be used is as the transport for data collected on the endpoint to an external service or data repository for further analysis and action. NEA may also serve the purpose of carrying data-collection instructions. The MILE data formats provide a format to describe incident, threat-related incident, and indicator information. SACM data formats provide ways to understand what endpoints are in your environment, whether they meet policy requirements, and their current configuration state. The data exchanged in MILE, supplementing the SACM data, creates enhanced situational awareness, thus enabling increased understanding of current threats and mitigations. The combined SACM and MILE data sets become a powerful tool to automate security with descriptions of endpoints, known vulnerabilities to those endpoints, and their configurations along with an understanding of layered defenses. Transports from MILE may be used by SACM. After the work items in the current charter have been submitted to and approved by the IESG, the WG will recharter or close.