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Cloud Security

How to (Securely) Share Certificates with Your Cloud Security Provider

May 23, 2019 — by Ben Zilberman — 0

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Businesses today know they must handle sensitive data with extra care. But evolving cyber threats combined with regulatory demands can lead executives to hold their proverbial security cards close to their chest. For example, they may be reluctant to share encryption keys and certificates with a third party (i.e., cloud service providers), fearing data theft, MITM attacks or violations of local privacy regulations.

In turn, this can cause conflicts when integrating with cloud security services.

So how can businesses securely share this information as they transition to the cloud?

Encryption Basics

Today, nearly all web applications use HTTPS (encrypted traffic sent to and from the user). Any website with HTTPS service requires a signed SSL certificate. In order to communicate securely via encrypted traffic and complete the SSL handshake, the server requires three components: a private key, a public key (certificate) and a certificate chain.

[You may also like: HTTPS: The Myth of Secure Encrypted Traffic Exposed]

These are essential to accomplish the following objectives:

  • Authentication – The client authenticates the server identity.
  • Encryption – A symmetric session key is created by the client and server for session encryption.
  • Private keys stay private – The private key never leaves the server side and is not used as session key by the client.

Hardware Security Module (HSM)

A Hardware Security Module is a physical computing device that safeguards and manages digital keys for strong authentication and provides cryptoprocessing. HSMs are particularly useful for those industries that require high security, businesses with cloud-native applications and global organizations. More specifically, common use cases include:

[You may also like: SSL Attacks – When Hackers Use Security Against You]

  • Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) compliance – For example, finance, healthcare and government applications that traditionally require FIPS-level security.
  • Native cloud applications – Cloud applications designed with security in mind might use managed HSM (or KMS) for critical workloads such as password management.
  • Centralized management – Global organizations with global applications need to secure and manage their keys in one place.

Managing cryptographic key lifecycle necessitates a few fundamentals:

  • Using random number generator to create/renew keys
  • Processing crypto-operations (encrypt/decrypt)
  • Ensuring keys never leave the HSM
  • Establishing secure access control (intrusion-resistant, tamper-evident, audit-logged, FIPS-validated appliances)

The Challenge with Cloud Security Services…

One of the main challenges with cloud security services is the fact that reverse proxies need SSL keys. Managed security services, such as a cloud WAF service, force enterprises to hand over their private keys for terminating SSL connections. However, some can’t (FIPS-compliant businesses, for example) or simply don’t want to (for trust and liability concerns, or simply due to multi-tenancy between multiple customers). This is usually where the business relationship gets stuck.

[You may also like: Managing Security Risks in the Cloud]

…And the Solution!

Simply put, the solution is a HSM Cloud Service.

Wait, what?

Yes, integrating a cloud WAF service with a public cloud provider (like AWS CloudHSM) into an external HSM is the answer. It can easily be set up by a VPN among a cluster sharing the HSM credentials, per application or at large.

Indeed, cloudHSM is a popular solution–being both FIPS and PCI DSS compliant — trusted by customers in the finance sector. By moving the last on-prem component to the cloud to reduce data center maintenance costs, organizations are actually shifting towards consuming HSM as a Service.

Such an integration supports any type of certificate (single domain, wildcard or SAN) and secures minimal latency as public cloud providers have PoPs all around the globe. The external HSM is only used once, while there are no limitations to the amount of certificates that are hosted on the service.

This is the recommended approach to help businesses overcome the concern of sharing private keys. Learn more about Radware Cloud WAF service here.

Read “The Trust Factor: Cybersecurity’s Role in Sustaining Business Momentum” to learn more.

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Application SecurityBotnets

Will We Ever See the End of Account Theft?

March 12, 2019 — by David Hobbs — 0

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There’s an 87 Gigabyte file containing 773 Million unique email addresses and passwords being sold on online forums today called “Collection #1.” We know that many users of websites are using the same passwords all over the internet; even after all the years of data breaches and account takeovers and thefts, user behavior stays the same. Most people want the have the least complex means to use a website possible.

So, what does this mean for businesses?

Anywhere you have applications guarded with username / password mechanisms, there’s going to be credential stuffing attacks, courtesy of botnets.  A modern botnet is a distributed network of computers around the globe that can perform sophisticated tasks and is often comprised of compromised computers belonging to other people. Essentially, these botnets are looking to steal the sand from the beach, one grain at a time, and they are never going to stop. If anything, the levels of sophistication of the exploitation methods have grown exponentially.

Today, a Web Application Firewall (WAF) alone is not enough to fight botnets. WAFs can do some of the job, but today’s botnets are very sophisticated and can mimic real human behaviors. Many companies relied on CAPTCHA as their first line of defense, but it’s no longer sufficient to stop bots. In fact, there are now browser plugins to break CAPTCHA.

[You may also like: WAFs Should Do A Lot More Against Current Threats Than Covering OWASP Top 10]

Case in point: In 2016 at BlackHat Asia, some presenters shared that they were 98% successful at breaking these mechanisms. 98%! We, as humans, are probably nowhere near that success rate.  Personally, I’m likely at 70-80%, depending on what words (and backwards letters!) CAPTCHA presents while I’m rushing to get my work done. Even with picture CAPTCHA, I pass maybe 80% of my initial attempts; I can’t ever get those “select the edges of street signs” traps! So, what if bots are successful 98% of the time and humans only average 70%?

CAPTCHA Alone Won’t Save You

If your strategy to stop bots is flawed and you rely on CAPTCHA alone, what are some of the repercussions you may encounter? First, your web analytics will be severely flawed, impacting your ability to accurately gauge the real usage of your site. Secondly, advertising fraud can run your bill up from affiliate sites. Third, the CAPTCHA-solving botnets will still be able to conduct other nefarious deeds, like manipulate inventory, scrape data, and launch attacks on your site.

[You may also like: The Big, Bad Bot Problem]

Identification of good bots and bad bots requires a dedicated solution. Some of the largest websites in the world have admitted that this is an ongoing war for them. Machine learning and deep learning technologies are the only way to stay ahead in today’s world.  If you do not have a dedicated anti-bot platform, you may be ready to start evaluating one today.

Read “Radware’s 2018 Web Application Security Report” to learn more.

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Application Delivery

Keeping Pace in the Race for Flexibility

February 27, 2019 — by Radware — 2

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Flexibility and elasticity. Both rank high on the corporate agenda in the age of digital transformation and IT is no exception. From the perspective of IT, virtualization and cloud computing have become the de facto standard for deployment models. They provide the infrastructure elasticity to make business more agile and higher performing and are the reason why the majority of organizations today are operating within a hybrid infrastructure, one that combines on-premise with cloud-based and/or virtualized assets.

But to deliver the elasticity promised by these hybrid infrastructures requires data center solutions that deliver flexibility. As a cornerstone for optimizing applications, application delivery controllers (ADCs) have to keep pace in the race for flexibility. The key is to ensure that your organization’s ADC fulfills key criteria to improve infrastructure planning, flexibility and operational expenses.

One License to Rule Them All

Organizations should enjoy complete agility in every aspect of the ADC service deployment. Not just in terms of capabilities, but in terms of licensing . Partner with an ADC vendor that provides an elastic, global licensing model.

Organizations often struggle with planning ADC deployments when those deployments span hybrid infrastructures and can be strapped with excess expenses by vendors when pre-deployment calculations result in over-provisioning. A global licensing model allows organizations to pay only for capacity used, be able to allocate resources as needed and add virtual ADCs at a moment’s notice to match specific business initiatives, environments and network demands.

[You may also like: Maintaining Your Data Center’s Agility and Making the Most Out of Your Investment in ADC Capacity]

The result? Dramatically simplified ADC deployment planning and a streamlined transition to the cloud.

An ADC When and Where You Need It

This licensing mantra extends to deployment options and customizations as well. Leading vendors provide the ability to deploy ADCs across on-premise and cloud-based infrastructures, allowing customers to transfer ADC capacity from physical to cloud-based data centers. Ensure you can deploy an ADC wherever, whenever they are required, at the click of a button, at no extra cost and with no purchasing complexity.

Add-on services and capabilities that go hand-in-hand with ADCs are no exception either. Web application firewalls (WAF), web performance optimization (WPO), application performance monitoring…companies should enjoy the freedom to consume only required ADC services rather than overspending on bells and whistles that will sit idle collecting dust.

Stay Ahead of the Curve

New standards for communications and cryptographic protocols can leave data center teams running amok attempting to keep IT infrastructure updated. They can also severely inhibit application delivery.

Take SSL/TLS protocols. Both are evolving standards that ensure faster encrypted communications between client and server, improved security and application resource allocation without over-provisioning. It allows IT to optimize the performance of applications and optimize costs during large scale deployments.

[You may also like: The ADC is the Key Master for All Things SSL/TLS]

Combining the flexibility of an ADC that supports the latest standards with an elastic licensing model is a winning combination, as it provides the most cost-effective alternative for consuming ADC services for any application.

Contain the Madness

The goal of any ADC is to ensure each application is performing at its best while optimizing costs and resource consumption. This is accomplished by ensuring that resource utilization is always tuned to actual business needs.

Leading ADC vendors allow ADC micro-services to be added to individual ADC instances without increasing the bill. By supporting container orchestration engines such as Kubernetes, it allows the organization to adopt their ADC to the application capacity. This also simplifies the addition of services such as SSL or WAF to individual instances or micro-services.

[You may also like: Simple to Use Link Availability Solutions]

Finding an ADC vendor that addresses all these considerations requires expanding the search from focusing on mainstream vendors. To drive flexibility via IT elasticity means considering all the key ADC capabilities and licensing nuances critical to managing and optimizing today’s diversified IT infrastructure. Remember these three
keys when evaluating ADC vendors:

  • An ADC licensing model should be an catalyst for cutting infrastructure expenditures, not increasing them.
  • An ADC licensing model should provide complete agility in ever aspect of your ADC deployment.
  • An ADC license should allow IT to simplify and automate IT operational processes.

Read the “2018 C-Suite Perspectives: Trends in the Cyberattack Landscape, Security Threats and Business Impacts” to learn more.

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Attack Types & VectorsDDoSDDoS Attacks

Top 3 Cyberattacks Targeting Proxy Servers

January 16, 2019 — by Daniel Smith — 0

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Today, many organizations are now realizing that DDoS defense is critical to maintaining an exceptional customer experience. Why? Because nothing diminishes load times or impacts the end user’s experience more than a cyberattack.

As a facilitator of access to content and networks, proxy servers have become a focal point for those seeking to cause grief to organizations via cyberattacks due to the fallout a successful assault can have.

Attacking the CDN Proxy

New vulnerabilities in content delivery networks (CDNs) have left many wondering if the networks themselves are vulnerable to a wide variety of cyberattacks. Here are five cyber “blind spots” that are often attacked – and how to mitigate the risks:

Increase in dynamic content attacks. Attackers have discovered that treatment of dynamic content requests is a major blind spot in CDNs. Since the dynamic content is not stored on CDN servers, all requests for dynamic content are sent to the origin’s servers. Attackers are taking advantage of this behavior to generate attack traffic that contains random parameters in HTTP GET requests. CDN servers immediately redirect this attack traffic to the origin—expecting the origin’s server to handle the requests. However, in many cases the origin’s servers do not have the capacity to handle all those attack requests and fail to provide online services to legitimate users. That creates a denial-of-service situation. Many CDNs can limit the number of dynamic requests to the server under attack. This means they cannot distinguish attackers from legitimate users and the rate limit will result in legitimate users being blocked.

SSL-based DDoS attacks. SSL-based DDoS attacks leverage this cryptographic protocol to target the victim’s online services. These attacks are easy to launch and difficult to mitigate, making them a hacker favorite. To detect and mitigate SSL-based attacks, CDN servers must first decrypt the traffic using the customer’s SSL keys. If the customer is not willing to provide the SSL keys to its CDN provider, then the SSL attack traffic is redirected to the customer’s origin. That leaves the customer vulnerable to SSL attacks. Such attacks that hit the customer’s origin can easily take down the secured online service.

[You may also like: SSL Attacks – When Hackers Use Security Against You]

During DDoS attacks, when web application firewall (WAF) technologies are involved, CDNs also have a significant scalability weakness in terms of how many SSL connections per second they can handle. Serious latency issues can arise. PCI and other security compliance issues are also a problem because they limit the data centers that can be used to service the customer. This can increase latency and cause audit issues.

Keep in mind these problems are exacerbated with the massive migration from RSA algorithms to ECC and DH-based algorithms.

Attacks on non-CDN services. CDN services are often offered only for HTTP/S and DNS applications.  Other online services and applications in the customer’s data center, such as VoIP, mail, FTP and proprietary protocols, are not served by the CDN. Therefore, traffic to those applications is not routed through the CDN. Attackers are taking advantage of this blind spot and launching attacks on such applications. They are hitting the customer’s origin with large-scale attacks that threaten to saturate the Internet pipe of the customer. All the applications at the customer’s origin become unavailable to legitimate users once the internet pipe is saturated, including ones served by the CDN.

[You may also like: CDN Security is NOT Enough for Today]

Direct IP attacks. Even applications that are served by a CDN can be attacked once attackers launch a direct hit on the IP address of the web servers at the customer’s data center. These can be network-based flood attacks such as UDP floods or ICMP floods that will not be routed through CDN services and will directly hit the customer’s servers. Such volumetric network attacks can saturate the Internet pipe. That results in degradation to application and online services, including those served by the CDN.

Web application attacks. CDN protection from threats is limited and exposes web applications of the customer to data leakage and theft and other threats that are common with web applications. Most CDN- based WAF capabilities are minimal, covering only a basic set of predefined signatures and rules. Many of the CDN-based WAFs do not learn HTTP parameters and do not create positive security rules. Therefore, these WAFs cannot protect from zero-day attacks and known threats. For companies that do provide tuning for the web applications in their WAF, the cost is extremely high to get this level of protection. In addition to the significant blind spots identified, most CDN security services are simply not responsive enough, resulting in security configurations that take hours to manually deploy. Security services are using technologies (e.g., rate limit) that have proven inefficient in recent years and lack capabilities such as network behavioral analysis, challenge-response mechanisms and more.

[You may also like: Are Your Applications Secure?]

Finding the Watering Holes

Waterhole attack vectors are all about finding the weakest link in a technology chain. These attacks target often forgotten, overlooked or not intellectually attended to automated processes. They can lead to unbelievable devastation. What follows is a list of sample watering hole targets:

  • App stores
  • Security update services
  • Domain name services
  • Public code repositories to build websites
  • Webanalytics platforms
  • Identity and access single sign-on platforms
  • Open source code commonly used by vendors
  • Third-party vendors that participate in the website

The DDoS attack on Dyn in 2016 has been the best example of the water-holing vector technique to date. However, we believe this vector will gain momentum heading into 2018 and 2019 as automation begins to pervade every aspect of our life.

Attacking from the Side

In many ways, side channels are the most obscure and obfuscated attack vectors. This technique attacks the integrity of a company’s site through a variety of tactics:

  • DDoS the company’s analytics provider
  • Brute-force attack against all users or against all of the site’s third-party companies
  • Port the admin’s phone and steal login information
  • Massive load on “page dotting”
  • Large botnets to “learn” ins and outs of a site

Read the “2018 C-Suite Perspectives: Trends in the Cyberattack Landscape, Security Threats and Business Impacts” to learn more.

Download Now

BotnetsDDoSSecurityWAF

Protecting Sensitive Data: A Black Swan Never Truly Sits Still

October 10, 2018 — by Mike O'Malley — 2

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The black swan – a rare and unpredictable event notorious for its ability to completely change the tides of a situation.

For cybersecurity, these nightmares can take the form of disabled critical services such as municipal electrical grids and other connected infrastructure networks, data breaches, application failures, and DDoS attacks. They can range from the levels of Equifax’s 2018 Breach Penalty Fines (estimated close to $1.5 billion), to the bankruptcy of Code Spaces following their DDoS attack and breach (one of the 61% of SMBs companies that faced bankruptcy per service provider Verizon’s investigations), to a government-wide shutdown of web access in public servants’ computers in response to a string of cyberattacks.

Litigation and regulation can only do so much to reduce the impact of black swans, but it is up to companies to prepare and defend themselves from cyberattacks that can lead to rippling effects across industries.

[You might also like: What a Breach Means to Your Business]

If It’s So Rare, Why Should My Company Care?

Companies should concern themselves with black swans to understand the depth of the potential long-term financial and reputation damage and suffering. Radware’s research on C-Suite Perspectives regarding the relationship between cybersecurity and customer experience shows that these executives prioritize Customer Loss (41%), Brand Reputation (34%), and Productivity/Operational Loss (34%). Yet, a majority of these same executives have not yet integrated security practices into their company’s security infrastructure such as their application DevOps teams.

The long-term damage on a company’s finances is note-worthy enough. IT provider CGI found that for technology and financial companies alone, they can lose 5-8.5% in enterprise value from the breach. What often goes unreported, however, is the increased customer onboarding costs to combat against large-scale customer churn following breaches.

For the financial sector, global accounting firm KPMG found that consumers not only expect institutions to act quickly and take responsibility, but 48% are willing to switch banks due to lack of responsibility and preparation for future attacks, and untimely notification of the breaches. News publication The Financial Brand found that banking customers have an average churn rate of 20-40% in 12 months, while a potential onboarding cost per customer can be within the $300-$20,000 range. Network hardware manufacturer Cisco estimates as high as 20% of customers and opportunities could be lost.

Just imagine the customer churn rate for a recently-attacked company.

How does that affect me personally as a business leader within my company?

When data breaches occur, the first person that typically takes the blame is the CISO or CSO. A common misconception, however, is that everyone else will be spared any accountability. But the damage is not limited to just security leadership. Due to the wide array of impacts that result from a cyberattack, nearly all C-level executives are at risk; examples include but are not limited to Equifax’s CEO, Richard Smith, Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel and CIO Beth Jacob. This results in a sudden emptiness of C-Suite level employees. Suddenly, there’s a lack of leadership and direction, causing its own internal combination of instability.

Today’s business leaders need to understand that a data breach is no longer limited to the company’s reputation, but the level of welfare of its customers. Just the event of a data breach can shatter the trust between the two entities. CEOs are now expected to be involved with managing the black swan’s consequences; in times of these hardships, they are particularly expected to continue being the voice of the company and to provide direction and assurance to vulnerable customers.

A business leader can be ousted from the company for not having taken cybersecurity seriously enough and/or not understanding the true costs of a cyberattack – that is, if the company hasn’t filed for bankruptcy yet.

Isn’t this something that my company’s Public Relations department should be handling?

One of the biggest contributors to the aftermath chaos of a black swan is the poor/lack of communication from the public relations team. By not disclosing a data breach in a timely manner, companies incur the wrath of the consumer and suffer an even bigger loss in customer loyalty because of delays. A timely announcement is expected as soon as the company discovers the incident, or according to the GDPR, within 72 hours of the discovery.

A company and its CEO should not solely depend on their public relations department to handle a black swan nightmare. Equifax revealed its data breach six weeks after the incident and still hadn’t directly contacted those that were affected, instead of creating a website for customer inquiries. Equifax continues to suffer from customer distrust because of the lack of guidance from the company’s leadership during those critical days in 2017. At a time of confusion and mayhem, a company’s leader must remain forthcoming, reassuring and credible through the black swan’s tide-changing effects.

Following the cybersecurity black swan, a vast majority of consumers must also be convinced that all the security issues have been addressed and rectified, and the company has a plan in place for any future repeated incidents. Those that fail to do so are at risk of losing at least every 1 in 10 customers, exhibiting the potential reach of impact a black swan can have within a company alone, beyond financial aspects.

How Do You Prepare for When the Black Swan Strikes?

When it comes to the black swan, the strategic method isn’t limited to be proactive or reactive, but to be preemptive, according to news publication ComputerWeekly. The black swan is primarily feared for its unpredictability. The key advantage of being preemptive is the level of detail that goes into planning; instead of reacting in real-time during the chaos or having a universal one-size fits all type of strategy, companies should do their best to develop multiple procedures for multiple worst-case scenarios.

Companies cannot afford to be sitting ducks waiting for the black swan to strike, but must have prepared mitigation plans in place for the likelihood. The ability to mitigate through extreme cyber threats and emerging cyberattack tactics is a dual threat to the company, depending on the level of cybersecurity preparation a company possesses. By implementing a strong cybersecurity architecture (internal or third-party), companies can adapt and evolve with the constant-changing security threats landscape; thereby minimizing the opportunities for hackers to take advantage.

In addition to having a well-built security system, precautions should be taken to further strengthen it including WAF Protection, SSL Inspections, DDoS Protection, Bot Protection, and more. Risk management is flawed due to its nature of emphasis on internal risks only. What’s been missing is companies must do more to include the possibilities of industry-wide black swans, such as the Target data breach in 2013 that later extended to Home Depot and other retailers.

It’s Time To Protect Sensitive Data

In the end, the potential impact of a black swan on a company comes down to its business owners. Cybersecurity is no longer limited to a CISO or CSO’s decision, but the CEO. As the symbol and leader of a company, CEOs need to ask themselves if they know how their security model works. Is it easily penetrated? Can it defend against massive cyberattacks?  What IP and customer data am I protecting?  What would happen to the business if that data was breached?

Does it protect sensitive data?

Read “Radware’s 2018 Web Application Security Report” to learn more.

Download Now

Application SecurityCloud SecurityDDoS AttacksSecurityWAF

Protecting Sensitive Data: The Death of an SMB

September 26, 2018 — by Mike O'Malley — 1

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True or False?

90% of small businesses lack any type of data protection for their company and customer information.

The answer?

Unfortunately true.

Due to this lack of care, 61% of data breach victims are specifically small businesses according to service provider Verizon’s 2018 Data Breach Investigations.

Although large corporations garner the most attention in mainstream headlines, small and mid-sized businesses (SMB) are increasingly attractive to hackers because of the combination of valuable records and lack of security protections. The high priority of sensitive data protection should not be limited to large companies but for organizations of all sizes.

While large corporations house large amounts of data, they are also capable of supporting their data center with the respective necessary protections. The combination of lacking security resources while maintaining sensitive personal information is what makes smaller-sized businesses the perfect targets for attackers. Hackers aren’t simply looking at how much information they can gather, but at the ease of access to that data – an area where SMB’s are largely deficient.

The bad publicity and dark connotation that data breaches hold create a survive-or-die situation for SMBs, but there are ways SMBs can mitigate the threat despite limited resources – and they exist in the cloud.

The Struggle to Survive

Because of their smaller stature as a company, most SMBs struggle with the ability to manage cybersecurity protections and mitigation of attacks – especially data breaches. In fact, financial services company UPS Capital found that 60% of smaller businesses fall out of business within six months after a cyberattack. Unlike business giants, SMBs cannot afford the financial hit of data breaches.

Security and privacy of sensitive data is a trending hot topic in today’s society, becoming more of an influence on customers’ purchase decisions. Customers are willing to pay more for provided security protections. Auditor giant KPMG reports that for mobile service providers alone, consumers would not hesitate to switch carriers if one provided better security than the other, as long as pricing is competitive or even for a moderate premium.

[You might also like: Protecting Sensitive Data: What a Breach Means to Your Business]

One Person Just Isn’t Enough

Many SMBs tend to prioritize their business over cybersecurity because of the false belief that attackers would go after large companies first. Research Center Ponemon Institute reports that 51% of its survey respondents say their company believes they are too small to be targeted. For businesses that do invest in cybersecurity, they narrowly focus on anti-virus solutions and neglect other types of attacks such as DDoS, malware, and system exploits that intrusion detection systems can protect from.

Auto dealerships, for example, are typically family-owned and operated businesses, valued at $4 million USD, with typically an average of 15-20 employees overall. Because of its size, of that number of employees there is typically only one employee that manages the IT responsibilities. Dealerships attempt to satisfy the need of security protection with this employee that has relevant certifications and experience; they are equipped with resources to support their day-to-day tasks, but not to manage high-level attacks and threats. Ponemon Institute’s research reports that 73% of its respondents believe they are unable to achieve full effective IT security because of insufficient personnel.

A study conducted by news publication Automotive News found that 33% of consumers lack confidence in the security protection of sensitive data at dealerships. The seriousness of cybersecurity protection, however, should not correlate to the number of employees but the amount and value of the sensitive data collected. The common error dealerships make isn’t the lack of care in their handling of sensitive data, but the underestimation of their likelihood of being attacked.

Dealerships collect valuable consumer information, both personal and financial – ranging from driver’s license information to social security numbers, to bank account information, and even past vehicle records. An insufficient budget and management of IT security make auto dealerships a prime target. In fact, software company MacKeeper in 2016 revealed a massive data breach of 120+ U.S. dealership systems made available on Shodan – a search engine for connected, but unsecured databases and devices. The source of the breach originated from backing up individual data systems to the vendor’s common central systems, without any cybersecurity protections in place.

The Answer is in the Clouds

Cybersecurity is often placed on the backburner of company priorities, perceived as an unnecessary expenditure because of the flawed perception and underestimated likelihood of being attacked. However, the level of protection over personal data is highly valued among today’s consumers and is enough to be the deciding factor for which OS or mobile app/site people would frequent, and likely which SMB they would patronize.

Witnessing the growing trend of data breaches and the rapid advancements of cyberattacks, SMBs are taking note and beginning to increase spending. It is crucial for organizations to not only increase their security budget but to spend it effectively and efficiently. Research firm Cyren and Osterman Research found that 63% of SMBs are increasing their security spending, but still experience breaches.

Internal security systems may seem more secure to smaller business owners, but SMBs lack the necessary security architecture and expertise to safeguard the data being housed. Cloud solutions offer what these businesses need: a data storage system with better security protection services. Meanwhile, in the same Cyren and Osterman Research report, only 29% of IT managers are open to utilizing cloud services. By utilizing cloud-based security as a solution, small-and medium-sized businesses no longer have to depend on one-staff IT departments, but can focus on the growth of their business. Cloud-based security solutions provide enterprise-grade protection alongside improved flexibility and agility that smaller organizations typically lack compared to their large-scale brethren.

Managed security vendors offer a range of fully-managed cloud security solutions for cyberattacks from WAF to DDoS. They are capable of providing more accurate real-time protection and coverage. Although the security is provided by an outside firm, reports and audits can be provided for a deeper analysis of not only the attacks but the company’s defenses. Outsourcing this type of security service to experts enables SMBs to continue achieving and prioritizing their business goals while protecting their work and customer data.

Read the “2018 C-Suite Perspectives: Trends in the Cyberattack Landscape, Security Threats and Business Impacts” to learn more.

Download Now

SecurityWAF

Access to Applications Based on a « Driving License » Model

July 18, 2018 — by Thomas Gobet — 1

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More and more countries are modifying their policies with a new “driving license” model.

With a classic license model, drivers can be caught frequently; they just have to pay a huge amount of money to the police each time.

Since this model has lot of limitations, it was changed to a “point-based model.” Either you begin with 0 points (and you increase it based on your “mistakes”) or your points decrease. Regardless of how the model works, you’re still allowed to drive if you have below a certain number of points on your license.

SecurityWAF

WAFs Should Do A Lot More Against Current Threats Than Covering OWASP Top 10

July 12, 2018 — by Ben Zilberman — 0

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Looking in the rearview mirror

The application threat landscape has rapidly evolved. For years, users consumed applications over the internet using the common tool – web browsers. At every point in time, there were 2-5 web browsers to support, and the variety of application development and testing frameworks was relatively limited. For instance, almost all databases were built using the SQL language. Unfortunately, not long before hackers began to abuse applications in order to steal, delete and modify data. They could take advantage of applications in different ways, primarily by tricking the application user, injecting or remotely executing code. Shortly after, commercialized solutions named Web Application Firewalls (WAF) emerged, and the community responded by creating the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) to set and maintain standards and methodologies for secure applications.

DDoSSecurityWAF

Building Tier 1 IP Transit – What’s Involved and Why Do It?

July 11, 2018 — by Richard Cohen — 4

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Not all internet connectivity is created equal. Many Tier 2 and Tier 3 ISPs, cloud service providers and data integrators consume IP Transit sourced from Tier 1 Wholesale ISPs (those ISP’s that build and operate their own fabric from L1 services up). In doing so, their ability to offer their customers internet services customised to particular requirements is limited by the choices they have available to them – and many aspects of the services they consume may not be optimal.

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