Barracuda

Security, Access and Reliability for Cloud-Connected Networks and Applications

Barracuda Network and Application Security

Security, Access, and Reliability for Cloud-Connected Networks and Applications

Traditional security strategies and firewalls were never intended for today’s cloud-integrated infrastructures and workloads. They can’t give branch offices direct access to your cloud applications. They often don’t support cloud-friendly consumption models, and they don’t have the scalability and flexibility that cloud-hosted applications demand.

Barracuda CloudGen Firewalls and Web Application Firewalls are the industry’s first solutions purpose-built for securing cloud-connected networks. They protect all your users, applications, and data – regardless of what your infrastructure looks like. They ensure secure and reliable connections among multiple sites on premises and the cloud with consumption-based pricing, saving you money on infrastructure costs.

Learn more and request a free trial.

Five Pillars to a well-architected Azure security framework

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This is the first in a series of articles on the five pillars for actionable Azure security.  This post contains the following sections:

You can follow the entire series here.

Overview

The cloud is transformational – but the cloud is different.  Companies migrating to the cloud quickly – and sometimes painfully – learn that translating their on-premises security framework to the cloud is more difficult than they presumed.  Not all on-premises solutions will work the same if at all in the cloud, cloud infrastructures themselves contain numerous security services that need to be incorporated, and the very mechanisms behind operating securely in the cloud are different than traditional on-premises solutions.

Companies who have been successful in designing and deploying an actionable cloud security framework focus on five pillars, each of which is addressed in sequence as those customers migrate to and operate within a cloud ecosystem.

Five Pillars for Actionable Azure Security

Every vendor – as well as most consultants and most standards organization – have detailed their particular Cloud Security Framework.  All of these are valid, but most constructed in a kind of vacuum.  They either focus solely on that vendor’s products, or look at security in the same siloed approach that has hamstrung companies from the beginning when they turn to the cloud.

'Actionable Cloud Security is a cycle... Organizations who follow this methodology will create a framework that supports their cloud strategies, and increases their security in the cloud.' ~@rkturner1Click To Tweet

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Cybersecurity professionals lament losing of access to WHOIS database

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One of the tools that cybersecurity professionals have historically relied on is access to a WHOIS database, a publicly shared list of records relating to domain names that includes the dates when these were registered, updated, or are due to expire as well as contact details such as the names of individuals or organizations, physical location, phone number, and email address of the domain owners and the IT staff tasked with maintaining them.

GDPR shuts down access to WHOIS, making it more difficult for #CyberSecurity teams to determine whether a domain is part of a criminal operation. Click To Tweet

But now much of that data is being removed to comply with the mandates of the General Data Protection Rule (GDPR) rule enacted by The European Union. Without access to that data it becomes a lot more challenging to white list domains of known trusted entities versus all the fake domains that cybercriminals rely on to launch malware that needs to communicate back to a command and control mechanism somewhere on the Web.

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New Year, New Threats? Some 2019 Cyber Security Predictions

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The first week back to work after the Christmas break is usually a rude awakening from the previous few days feasting and fun. And when it comes to cybersecurity, the chances are you’ll be plunged straight back into it as the black hats look to exploit any weaknesses they can find. As we head into 2019 it will become increasingly clear that organisations must do better — with the people, as well as the process and technology — to manage cyber risk. If they fail, there are some regulators out there about to bare their teeth.

'As we head into 2019 it will become increasingly clear that organisations must do better — with the people, as well as the process and technology — to manage cyber risk. ' ~@PhilMuncasterClick To Tweet

As 5G lands, beware IoT risk

The Internet of Things (IoT) is already making a huge impact on society and business, embedded in everything from home devices to drug infusion pumps, manufacturing machinery and cars. As 5G drives an even greater proliferation of smart devices, there will be a two-fold threat to firms. First is the risk of Mirai-like IoT malware infecting unsecured consumer and SOHO-grade devices. The resulting botnets could drive an uptick in damaging DoS, crypto-mining, click fraud and much more. Nokia claimed in December that botnet activity represented 78% of malware detection events in communication service provider (CSP) networks in 2018, up from just 33% in 2016.

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Conflicts over Cybersecurity Have Moved to the Global Economic Fore

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The global economy may now be teetering on verge of collapse largely because cyberespionage issues that were either ignored or quietly swept under the rug are now starting to have a major impact on a larger debate over fair trade.

Cyberespionage issues that were either ignored or quietly swept under the rug are now starting to have a major impact on a larger debate over fair trade.Click To Tweet

This week the United States formally indicted two hackers allegedly based in China for compromising the integrity of unidentified managed service providers (MSPs) that had offices in the New York City area. The alleged hack involved a successful phishing attack that resulted in MSPs providing the cybercriminals with access to thousands of downstream customer networks. Other reports suggest that the attack outlined in the indictment is actually part of a larger pattern of attacks aimed at MSPs.

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6 Barracuda executives share security predictions for 2019

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As 2018 winds down, we’re starting to look ahead to 2019 and the changes, developments, and trends the coming year will bring to the cyber security industry. To help you prepare for 2019, we recently sat down to talk to six Barracuda executives, each with their own perspective and predictions about what next year has in store and what businesses need to be aware of to stay secure. [Read more…] about 6 Barracuda executives share security predictions for 2019

Gartner report sees greater reliance on Privileged Access Management tools

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We have met the enemy and it’s us. That’s a feeling many cybersecurity professionals well know. Most security breaches today have a lot more to do with misappropriated credentials than they do with hackers that have found a way around an organization’s defenses. It’s not that hackers don’t have the skills to accomplish that. It’s just a lot easier to accomplish the same goal by stealing credentials using, for example, a phishing attack that tricks unsuspecting users into giving up passwords.

That issue is front and center this week following the publishing of the first ever magic quadrant report specifically address privileged access management (PAM) software. The report forecasts that by 2021 a total of 40 percent of organizations that use formal change management practices will have embedded and integrated PAM tools within them to reduce the overall risk surface. That’s up from less than 10 percent in 2018. The report also notes that by 2021 over 50 percent of organizations that have adopted DevOps will be employing PAM-based secrets management technologies to better protect applications and the infrastructure they run on.

'It's a lot easier for cybercriminals to steal credentials than it is for them to find a way around a company's defenses.' ~@MVizardClick To Tweet

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Implementing shared security models in the cloud gets simpler

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When it comes to cloud security the real issue is not the platforms, but rather a lack of processes for implementing and maintained best cloud security processes. Whenever there is a breach involving a public cloud the issue almost invariably winds up being caused by a developer that forgot to implement one control or another.

This Barracuda blog post by @MVizard explores the new @AWS Security Hub and its role in the shared responsibility model in cloud security. Click To Tweet

Developers are, of course, understandably excited about public clouds because they allow them to build and deploy applications without having to wait for internal IT organizations to provision IT infrastructure. The trouble is that developers are not usually aware of every control that should be implemented to ensure security. Before anyone realizes that, cybercriminals are exfiltrating massive amounts of data regardless because the developer didn’t fully appreciate the inherent shared responsibility model for security when employing public clouds. Cloud service providers can secure the underlying infrastructure, but it’s up to developers and internal IT organizations to make sure the applications deployed on that cloud are secure.

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E-Rate funding: Is your school missing out?

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The E-Rate season is in full swing! Now is the time to learn more about E-Rate so that you can fully leverage the available funds.  Whether you are looking to purchase or upgrade firewalls or any other solutions, you should stop and see if you can utilize E-Rate funding to help save your school budget dollars.

The E-Rate program can help schools meet the requirements to provide a safe computing environment for students. Learn more in this blog. Click To Tweet

To help you navigate the world at E-Rate, here are a few key things you’ll want to consider.

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Opportunity knocks for the channel with SD-WAN technology

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A few weeks ago, we released some research around the topic of networking technologies that help users access the cloud securely and quickly – specifically software defined wide area networking (SD-WAN). We spoke to 410 IT and networking professionals working in EMEA to find out more about the barriers and drivers that are shaping their attitudes towards SD-WAN.

While we spoke to end-users for this research, it revealed some interesting insights for the EMEA channel community. There seems to be an increasing opportunity, as businesses in EMEA overwhelmingly turn to SD-WAN, despite a lack of education and skill.

Only 7% of organizations in EMEA have no plans to adopt SD-WAN, but the region still trails adoption levels in the US and APAC regions. Click To Tweet

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Protection at the data plane

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“The number of records breached due to misconfigured cloud servers, in particular, shot up by 424 percent compared to the previous year,” IBM concluded in its X-Force Threat Intelligence Index 2018.  It’s a sobering statistic – but not one which surprises us.

As one of Microsoft’s top security providers, we’ve protected a lot of Azure workloads.  As an AWS supplier with two security competencies, we’ve protected a lot of AWS workloads.  So as they say in those catchy insurance commercials, we know a thing or two because we’ve seen a thing or two.

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