Arcitecta Named a Leader in Coldago Research’s Map 2024 for Unstructured Data Management

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 5, 2025 by itnerd

 Arcitecta, a creative and innovative data management software company, has been named a “Leader” in Coldago Research’s Map 2024 for Unstructured Data Management report. This recognition marks a dramatic leap, notably advancing the company from the Specialists category in 2022. 

Arcitecta earned the top spot in Vision and Strategy, illustrating its astute market insights and go-to-market models that continue to drive its success. It also ranked second in Execution and Capabilities, demonstrating an exceptional ability to transform visionary concepts into innovative products and solutions based on clear directions and talented teams. 

“Leaders in the data management space are champions in their field, and Arcitecta has proven its status through strong technology direction, market vision and strategy, especially with key innovations for its highly scalable metadata database and global namespace capabilities,” said Philippe Nicolas, founder and lead analyst, Coldago Research. “The 2024 Map results highlight Arcitecta’s leadership with a strong ranking in areas of Vision and Strategy and Execution and Capabilities.”

The Coldago Research recognition is the latest achievement for Arcitecta, which made significant strides in its mission to transform how organizations manage and utilize their data. Arcitecta achieved exciting milestones in 2024, including: 

  • Strategic Partnership with Wasabi Technologies: Arcitecta partnered with cloud storage company Wasabi Technologies to integrate its cloud storage into workflows, allowing users to access their data through a single, unified view via Arcitecta’s Mediaflux data management platform – regardless of where the data resides.
  • New Markets and Partnerships: The Powerhouse Museum chose Arcitecta as its new digital asset management solution (DAMS), extending its reach into the museum/gallery/cultural asset market alongside its presence in higher education, government, media and entertainment, and life sciences.
  • Expansion of Mediaflux Solutions: The launch of Mediaflux Multi-Site, Mediaflux Edge, and Mediaflux Burst demonstrated Arcitecta’s commitment to addressing today’s dynamically changing and increasingly distributed data and workflow environments. The company showcased these new solutions at SC24 and IBC2024 in collaboration with Dell PowerScale and ECS/ObjectScale. 
  • Recognition as a Coldago Gem: Arcitecta was named one of Coldago Research’s Gems 2024, one of five innovative companies that have demonstrated exceptional vision and product development.
  • Game-changing Mediaflux Livewire Enhancements: Arcitecta unveiled Mediaflux Livewire solution enhancements to tackle the challenges of transmitting data over low-bandwidth and unreliable network connections, enabling the secure global transfer of massive file volumes around the globe.
  • Award-Winning Technology: Mediaflux Livewire was named “Most Complete Architecture” at the International Data Mover Challenge (DMC) at SuperComputingAsia 2024, highlighting its role as a leading solution for secure, high-speed file transfers.

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Foxit and Pax8 Announce Strategic Partnership

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 5, 2025 by itnerd

Foxit, a leading provider of innovative PDF and eSignature products and services, helping knowledge workers to increase their productivity and do more with documents, and Pax8, a leading cloud commerce marketplace, today announced they have entered into a strategic partnership. Foxit’s industry-leading PDF and eSignature solutions will now be offered via the global Pax8 Marketplace, backed by Pax8’s expertise. Pax8’s MSP partners will now be empowered to deliver Foxit’s cutting-edge technology with unmatched flexibility, scalability, and efficiency to their end customers, who will in turn benefit from significant cost savings, elevated productivity, unprecedented security, and reduced business risks.

This announcement comes at the ideal time – when countless MSPs are facing extreme challenges around the complexity of managing diverse software solutions and providing flexible, cost-effective tools that meet the evolving needs of their clients. At the same time, end users are struggling with rising licensing costs, limited scalability, and risks from unauthorized software use. This partnership overcomes these challenges by combining the most advanced and secure PDF and eSignature solutions from Foxit with Pax8’s streamlined intelligent distribution platform, delivering simplified license management, unmatched flexibility, and access to cost-effective, best-in-class tools that equip both MSPs and their end customers to succeed.

The following four Foxit solutions are now generally available through the Pax8 Marketplace:

  1. Foxit PDF Editor – A powerful tool for creating, editing, and managing PDF documents with ease and efficiency, featuring an AI Assistant that enables users to summarize complex documents, enhance writing, and translate documents in more than 30 languages.
  2. Foxit PDF Editor+ – An enhanced version of the PDF Editor with advanced features for professional users – including 80+ Smart Commands, legally binding eSign, and AI-powered Smart Redact.
  3. eSign for Business – A secure, seamless eSignature solution that enables users to break away from cookie-cutter eSign solutions and enable businesses to get documents signed, collect payments, and keep workflows moving.
  4. Foxit AI Assistant – An intelligent assistant that leverages AI to enhance productivity and streamline document workflows, providing its users with the ability to summarize documents in seconds, quickly rewrite documents with clarity and precision, and to chat naturally to make more informed decisions, faster.

To learn more, please visit https://www.pax8.com/vendors/foxit/.  

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NordStellar launches attack surface management

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 5, 2025 by itnerd

A vulnerable attack surface exposes a company to cyberattacks. However, constantly monitoring and assessing its condition requires a great deal of time and human resources. To help security teams be more efficient, NordStellar, a next-generation threat exposure management platform, has introduced attack surface management (ASM) — a feature designed to automatically discover security gaps by constantly monitoring and evaluating all of the organization’s internet-exposed assets.

The ASM consists of two modules: automatic asset discovery and external vulnerability management. Automatic asset discovery maps infrastructure by running various domain enumeration processes that allow it to automatically identify and catalog all internet-exposed assets associated with the organization, such as web servers, applications, and other network-connected devices. External vulnerability management monitors and scans the discovered assets for known vulnerabilities, providing vulnerability intelligence for more efficient recovery efforts.

“ASM helps to reduce companies’ attack surface by identifying and mitigating vulnerabilities, minimizing the potential for successful attacks. It also offers enhanced visibility into shadow IT so the security team can discover and manage unauthorized IT resources that pose security risks,” says Noreika. “The feature increases operational efficiency because attack surface management tasks are automated, and the risks are prioritized in order to focus remediation efforts on the most critical cases.”

How it works: 

  • Implements automatic asset discovery using various techniques, including DNS enumeration, web crawling, and other OSINT techniques to identify all internet-exposed assets associated with the organization.
  • Conducts vulnerability assessments by scanning the discovered assets for known vulnerabilities using passive service fingerprinting.
  • Prioritizes identified vulnerabilities by evaluating them according to their severity, exploitability, and potential impact.
  • Provides real-time alerts about new vulnerabilities and changes to the attack surface to the organization’s security team and comprehensive reports for a detailed overview of the company’s attack surface and associated risks.

ASM is now available to all NordStellar users. More information here.

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Phishers Exploit Microsoft’s ADFS to Enable Account Takeover

Posted in Commentary with tags , on February 4, 2025 by itnerd

Researchers have uncovered a sophisticated phishing campaign that exploits Microsoft’s Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) using spoofed login pages to harvest user credentials and bypass MFA to take over accounts. You can read the research here:

https://abnormalsecurity.com/resources/targeting-microsoft-adfs-phishing-bypass-mfa-for-account-takeover  

A sophisticated phishing campaign is targeting organizations that rely on Microsoft’s Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS), exploiting the trusted environment of ADFS with spoofed login pages to harvest user credentials and bypass multi-factor authentication (MFA). This allows attackers to take over accounts and gain unauthorized access to critical systems and data, putting sensitive information and organizational security at significant risk.

Roger Grimes, data-driven defense evangelist at KnowBe4, commented:

“I’m a 36-year cybersecurity expert and author of 15 books (one on hacking MFA (https://www.amazon.com/Hacking-Multifactor-Authentication-Roger-Grimes/dp/1119650798) and over 1,500 articles. This is the first time I’ve read about fake ADFS login pages, but ADFS has been involved in bypassing MFA authentication before, so it’s not completely new to use in the hacker scene. All users should use phishing-resistant MFA whenever they can. Unfortunately, most of today’s most popular MFA solutions, including Microsoft Authenticator, Google Authenticator, Duo, push-based MFA, OTP, and SMS-based MFA are very phishable and subject to the exact type of attack reported here.”

Related to this, here’s some relevant articles in relation to MFA:

Don’t Use Easily Phishable MFA and That’s Most MFA!

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/dont-use-easily-phishable-mfa-thats-most-roger-grimes

My List of Good, Strong MFA

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/my-list-good-strong-mfa-roger-grimes

Why Is the Majority of Our MFA So Phishable? and US Government Says to Use Phish-Resistant MFA

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-majority-our-mfa-so-phishable-roger-grimes and https://blog.knowbe4.com/u.s.-government-says-to-use-phishing-resistant-mfa

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AMD Silicon Flaw Found By Security Researchers At Google

Posted in Commentary with tags , on February 4, 2025 by itnerd

Google security researchers have recently discovered CVE-2024-56161, a microprocessor vulnerability that could lead to the loss of Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV) protection, and allow an attacker to load malicious code. You can read the research here:

https://github.com/google/security-research/security/advisories/GHSA-4xq7-4mgh-gp6w

Google Security Team has identified a security vulnerability in some AMD Zen-based CPUs. This vulnerability allows an adversary with local administrator privileges (ring 0 from outside a VM) to load malicious microcode patches. We have demonstrated the ability to craft arbitrary malicious microcode patches on Zen 1 through Zen 4 CPUs. The vulnerability is that the CPU uses an insecure hash function in the signature validation for microcode updates. This vulnerability could be used by an adversary to compromise confidential computing workloads protected by the newest version of AMD Secure Encrypted Virtualization, SEV-SNP or to compromise Dynamic Root of Trust Measurement.

And:

Google notified AMD of this vulnerability on September 25, 2024. AMD subsequently provided an embargoed fix to its customers on December 17, 2024. To coordinate with AMD, we made a one-off exception to our standard vulnerability disclosure policy and delayed public disclosure until today, February 3, 2025. This joint disclosure occurs 46 days after AMD shared the fix with its customers and 131 days after Google’s initial report. Due to the deep supply chain, sequence and coordination required to fix this issue, we will not be sharing full details at this time in order to give users time to re-establish trust on their confidential-compute workloads. We will share additional details and tools on March 5, 2025.

Andrew Obadiaru, CISO, Cobalt had this comment:

     “The discovery of this vulnerability, along with the subsequent collaboration between AMD and Google, underscores the importance of responsible vulnerability disclosure. By proactively identifying and addressing the issue before it could be widely exploited. 

This vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-56161, highlights ongoing hardware security challenges. While CPU vulnerabilities are not new, they remain difficult to detect due to the complexity of modern processors. Additionally, many organizations, including major manufacturers, often prioritize performance over security when it comes to patching CPUs, as such updates can lead to performance trade-offs. Could this vulnerability be a result of that trade-off?

Organizations must ensure that users promptly apply patches through firmware updates, operating system patches, etc. More importantly, hardware manufacturers should prioritize security at the design stage rather than treating it as an afterthought once vulnerabilities are discovered.”

Gunter Ollmann, CTO, Cobalt adds this:

     “For decades flawed or absent update security validation has been a common threat. Failure to sign patches, updates, firmware, and microcode, etc. and failure to verify the signature and identify tampering have seen countless otherwise secure devices and software to fall victim to targeted attack.

Silicon-level device security is both one of the hardest to master and the most vital. The root of trust starts and ends with the secrets within the silicon layer.

If security fails at the silicon-level than all the layers above (firmware, drivers, software, data storage) are undermined and compromised.”

It’s good that this is being fixed as AMD is seeing a rise in its fortunes in the processor space. Thus it is highly likely that it will be targeted by threat actors looking for weaknesses in their silicon that they can exploit to do their evil deeds.

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A Now Fixed But Critical Microsoft Accounts Authentication Vulnerability Enables Takeover 

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 4, 2025 by itnerd

Microsoft has confirmed that critical vulnerability CVE-2025-21396 could enable attackers to access Microsoft accounts and enable an authentication bypass leading to an elevation of privilege and a hacked account. More details can be found here: https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-2025-21396

To be clear this vulnerability is now fixed.

Jim Routh, Chief Trust Officer at cybersecurity company Saviynt, commented:

“This new vulnerability released publicly by Microsoft is a reasonable demonstration of both responsible disclosure and effective response by the software vendor many depend on. 

“First, it is a particularly significant vulnerability that enables escalation of privilege and authentication bypass. In other words, MS accounts can be commandeered by a threat actor.

“Second, it was never exploited in the wild and is no longer possible to exploit this vulnerability according to Microsoft’s announcement. This vulnerability has already been fully mitigated by Microsoft. There is no action for users of this service to take. The purpose of this CVE is to provide further transparency.

“The level of resilience demonstrated by the response to this missing authentication function by Microsoft is a positive thing for digital consumers. This is the way technology is supposed to work and the way enterprise software vendors establish trust in the marketplace.” 

This is a great example of how things work. It got fixed. And the public was informed. Two thumbs up from me. We need to see more of this on a consistent basis.

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Texas responds to “dramatic” rise in attacks with cyber command center

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 4, 2025 by itnerd

Governor Greg Abbott announced in a State of the State address on Sunday that Texas, in partnership with University of San Antonio, will soon launch the Texas Cyber Command to deploy “cutting edge capabilities” to strengthen the state’s ability to anticipate, detect and prevent cyberattacks.

  “The Texas Cyber Command will work in partnership and collaborate with all state universities and Regional Security Operation Centers, as well as local, state, and federal agencies to strengthen the state’s cybersecurity mission,” reads the press release.

The Cyber Command will create a “robust strategy” including:

  • Anticipating and detect potential cyber threats
  • Promoting cybersecurity awareness, professional training, and other workforce-oriented measures
  • Preparing for cyberattacks through exercises, pre-attack coordination and planning, and proactive collaboration with critical infrastructure partners
  • Defending against, responding effectively to, and mitigating the effects of cyberattacks when they occur, working across the state and with relevant partners
  • Providing subject matter expertise, forensic analysis, and other support to conduct post-attack investigations and recovery efforts

The move to launch the statewide cybersecurity command center comes after the state’s Matagorda County government suffered a cyberattack that forced officials from the Emergency Operation Center to declare a disaster.

In 2022, the University of San Antonio joined the US Cyber Command Academic Engagement Network, which works with the Department of Defense on cyberspace operations and capabilities, cyber expertise, and cyber warfare.

Evan Dornbush, former NSA cybersecurity expert, offers perspective on the matter:

  “From a political lens, it’s pretty fascinating that of all places Texas would be one of the first to promote a state-based government resource that the private sector can lean on, and I look forward to seeing how that plays out.

  “From the technical angle, and with a stated goal to anticipate and detect potential cyber threats, Texas is pretty qualified to pioneer this. A lot of talent is concentrated within, and pulling from its deep bench of military, academic, and private sector perspectives will be advantages to getting this off the ground.”

It’s interesting that Texas would be making a move like this as I don’t associate Texas with cybersecurity. I have to applaud them for doing this and I hope Texas does more of this.

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VulnCheck Report Says Exploited CVEs Up 20% In 2024

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 4, 2025 by itnerd

New data published by VulnCheck finds a total of 768 CVEs were publicly reported as exploited in the wild, 20% higher than the record high of 2023 (639 CVEs). 23.6% of these vulnerabilities were zero days, down from 26.8% in 2023. Half of CVEs were reported as exploited within 192 days of publicly disclosure in 2024. “Despite the buzz around zero-day exploitation, these findings indicate that exploitation can happen at any time in a vulnerability’s lifecycle,” the researchers noted.

Evan Dornbush:

I’m a huge fan of VulnCheck’s overall approach. Visibility into potential risk is critical for the modern C-suite. While, as Patrick’s blog post states, exploitation can happen at any time, patch management is essentially a solved problem with tools and services providing awareness and assistance. Two years in a row we see that a quarter of all exploits occur when only the attackers were aware of the vulnerability. As a community, we have to find ways to get that number lower. So long as attackers are the only or majority possessors of vulnerability data and exploit tools, they will maintain their advantage over the defenders.

Lawrence Pingree, VP, Dispersive follows with this:

The primary reason for the shift to more zero days and an increase in vulnerabilities is fully expected as a nexus of trends in threat actor behavior, including:

  1. A rotation to automation of the discovery of vulnerabilities with AI.
  2. The use of behavioral systems to address and live-patch systems ahead of vulnerability patching – forcing threat actors to lesser-known techniques.
  3. Penetration of more targeted applications that are directed more at the supply chains – which tend to be weaker and harder to patch – such as firmware and centralized but exposed application services (embedded in SaaS and IoT/OT).

I would spend some time reading this report as it will guide you in terms of what to focus on so that you can keep your environment as safe as possible.

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Quorum Cyber Launches New Threat Business Unit and Appoints Paul Caiazzo as Chief Threat Officer

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 4, 2025 by itnerd

Quorum Cyber, a global cybersecurity specialist with offices in the UK, the US, and Canada, has set a new strategic direction by acquiring Kivu Consulting Inc – a leader in digital forensics, cyber incident response, business restoration, and ransom negotiations in the global insurance, legal, and government sectors. Kivu provides threat intelligence, threat hunting, and incident response services across the UK, North America, the Middle East, and other international markets. Quorum Cyber has appointed Paul Caiazzo as Chief Threat Officer to lead the Kivu sector of the business and joins the company’s executive team.

This strategic acquisition underscores Quorum Cyber’s global expansion strategy, solidifying its position as a leading Microsoft Security partner and its mission to become Microsoft Security’s most valued partner worldwide.

Acquiring Kivu expands Quorum Cyber’s capabilities by putting cyber threats and adversaries at the heart of its comprehensive global cybersecurity services – better addressing customers’ problems and the protection they need in an inhospitable and unpredictable digital environment. Leading this deeper capability in threat intelligence and incident response, Caiazzo will input research and thought leadership into strategic, tactical, and operational cybersecurity, and will be responsible for integrating the deep experience of the Kivu team with Quorum Cyber, accelerating its threat intelligence and incident response teams.

With Quorum Cyber’s wider offerings, this threat arm of the business will protect customers, before, during, and after any kind of cybersecurity incident. 

In conjunction with this move, Quorum Cyber has released its annual Global Cyber Risk Outlook Report 2025, a comprehensive analysis of the ever-evolving cybersecurity landscape. This report offers crucial insights into the current cyber threats and anticipates emerging risks for 2025. Quorum Cyber will host a webinar on February 25th, 2025, featuring Caiazzo, to delve deeper into the report’s insights, offering actionable advice for organizations to enhance their cybersecurity posture in the face of evolving threats. Registrations for the webinar are open. 

As a cybersecurity engineer, entrepreneur, and strategist with over 27 years’ experience, Caiazzo brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to the role, having previously developed cybersecurity businesses from the ground up. Prior to joining Quorum Cyber, he held senior positions for numerous technology companies from start-ups and scale-ups through to established enterprises such as Avertium, TruShield Security Solutions, Savvis Communications, and Northrop Grumman Mission Systems in support of the US Department of Defense.

Quorum Cyber has a close and longstanding relationship with Microsoft, having been founded as a Microsoft-first security services provider and a member of the Microsoft Intelligent Security Association (MISA). Quorum Cyber holds three Microsoft Security specializations of Threat Protection, Cloud Security, and Information Protection and Governance.

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Leaseweb Launches Public Cloud and Virtual Private Server Solutions in Japan

Posted in Commentary on February 4, 2025 by itnerd

Leaseweb Global today announced the availability of its Public Cloud and Virtual Private Server (VPS) solutions in Japan. Delivered via local, in-country infrastructure, Leaseweb Public Cloud offers a highly competitive blend of cost-effective flexibility and global availability and is designed to be around 30% more cost-effective* than traditional hyperscalers while delivering the performance, reliability, and service levels customers demand. The solution is ideally suited for any global organization looking to expand into the Japanese market with local infrastructure.

With the Japanese Public Cloud market expected to reach $48.29bn in value by 2029, Leaseweb operates a transparent pricing model that eliminates hidden costs. This allows businesses to avoid upfront investment in software licenses or data center infrastructure while benefiting from an on-demand subscription model that supports hourly and monthly billing without long-term commitments. It is compatible with existing hyperscale platforms, making it suitable for organizations deploying new workloads and migrating existing ones.

Backed by the renowned Leaseweb brand and market-leading customer service, the solution is available globally across seven regions to minimize latency. It is suitable for a wide range of industries and use cases, from fintech and SaaS to martech and gaming, and it is built to support both simple applications and complex architectures.

Key advantages of Leaseweb Public Cloud include:

  • No upfront investment required in software licenses or data centers
  • Flexible and cost-predictive on-demand subscription model, including hourly or monthly billing
  • No vendor lock-in
  • Global availability across seven regions for reduced latency
  • Robust data sovereignty features
  • 99.99% availability SLA for all instances
  • 24/7 support by phone and ticketing system in multiple languages
  • Advanced API automation and integration with other Leaseweb solutions and hyperscalers

Leaseweb VPS – Delivering Exceptional Price-Performance, Fast Local Storage, and Easy Deployment

Leaseweb’s new and highly efficient Virtual Private Server (VPS) solution is designed for businesses that need a combination of exceptional price performance, fast local storage, and easy deployment; Leaseweb VPS packages deliver affordable solutions that don’t compromise on quality. Powered by the latest generation of CPUs, local NVMe storage, and lightning-fast 10 Gbps uplink speed, Leaseweb VPS provides customers with the flexibility to scale their infrastructure as their business needs grow.

Delivered via a low-touch, self-service portal, it requires limited technical expertise for setup or management, enabling users to configure their server, monitor resources, and manage snapshots with ease. This makes it ideal for businesses seeking a straightforward and efficient hosting service, as well as those looking for an entry-level solution to Leaseweb Public Cloud.

Leaseweb’s solution was designed with our customers in mind to deliver the value of the hyperscale concept but with better price, performance, and flexibility. Our track record, leadership, and customer-first approach position us to make a significant, positive impact on the Japanese public cloud market,” Duley concluded.

For further information about Leaseweb Public Cloud, please click here.

* Cost reduction percentage is based on benchmarks of standardized workloads. Exact cost reduction will differ based on individual use case and workload. 

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