Wallarm Launches Industry-First SaaS Solution to Deliver Security at the API Edge

Posted in Commentary with tags on October 16, 2024 by itnerd

Wallarm, a leader in API security solutions, announced today Security Edge, a breakthrough SaaS solution that delivers security at the API edge. As the industry’s first offering to modernize API Security deployments, Wallarm is taking on legacy Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) that claim most of the traffic is API traffic but are unable to provide real-time API threat protection.

Wallarm’s new solution represents a major shift in how organizations secure and gain visibility into their APIs. It eliminates the need for inefficient and cumbersome distributed traffic redirection, giving organizations immediate and local API protection. Unlike traditional methods that route API traffic through distant cloud servers or rely on CDNs, Security Edge enables organizations to secure API traffic at the API’s edge, where it’s most effective and performant.

Security Edge works by distributing Wallarm filtering nodes positioned as close to the customers’ APIs as possible, using existing cloud providers and infrastructure. While a self-managed deployment can be fully integrated into a customer’s API infrastructure, Security Edge removes the management burden while providing low latency.

Security Edge’s key features and benefits include:

  • Hosted, Managed, Simplified: Wallarm handles infrastructure, deployment, and monitoring and ensures that nodes are up-to-date and functional, removing maintenance requirements.
  • Low Latency, Lower Cost: Security Edge nodes can be geographically distributed at the API edge to deliver security capabilities with minimal latency. 
  • Operational Visibility: Customers can access logs, events, and real-time traffic statistics. 

With Security Edge, Wallarm is opening a new market segment for API security, currently occupied by traditional CDN vendors with infrastructure built for caching traditional web content. Security Edge enables customers to achieve greater protection at a fraction of the cost using a purpose-built API edge solution. 

For more information, visit http://www.wallarm.com/resources/security-edge.

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Mission Welcomes Glenn Grant as SVP of Professional Services

Posted in Commentary with tags on October 15, 2024 by itnerd

Mission, a leading US-based Amazon Web Services (AWS) Premier Tier Partner, has announced the return of Glenn Grant as Senior Vice President of Professional Services. Grant’s appointment reinforces Mission’s dedication to enabling customers with cloud and AI solutions on AWS and positioning Mission to further deliver cutting-edge services that drive measurable business outcomes for its customers. 

Glenn Grant, founder of G2 Tech Group—a company acquired by Mission in 2018—brings over 25 years of experience in IT and outsourced services. A pioneer in managed services in the early 2000s, Grant has a proven track record of transforming businesses and driving growth.

Since the acquisition, Grant has served as Mission’s advisor and board member. At the same time, Grant worked as a business coach and entrepreneur advisor, helping tech companies increase their business value and build strong leadership teams. This experience in scaling businesses and working with private equity-backed ventures is invaluable as Mission grows and expands its services.

As SVP of Professional Services, Grant will lead the team in implementing cutting-edge solutions and best practices to support Mission’s growing customer base. He will focus on scaling the professional services organization to meet the increasing demand for AI and cloud services. “We’re taking what we’ve learned over the last few years, especially in AI, machine learning, and data operations, and up leveling our already rock-solid cloud and DevOps offerings,” Grant explained. 

Grant’s role reinforces Mission’s commitment to reinvesting in AWS technologies and growing customer workloads on the AWS platform. This strategic direction aligns with Mission’s goal of continually enhancing its service offerings to meet the evolving needs of its cloud customers.

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Fortra’s Brand Threats And Fraud Report Now Live

Posted in Commentary with tags on October 15, 2024 by itnerd

Fortra’s 2024 Brand Threats and Fraud Report is now live. The report dives into attacks from Q2 2024 across domains, social media platforms, and the dark web, revealing unexpected trends that could reshape how businesses think about digital security.

Some surprising insights:

  • New gTLDs are now the most dangerous domains for phishing: Phishers are shifting from familiar domains like .com to newer ones like .dev and .vip.
  • Impersonation and cyberattacks are down: Contrary to popular belief, executive and brand impersonation attacks declined by 8%, while cyber hacking incidents fell by 5%—suggesting attackers are pivoting to harder-to-detect strategies.
  • Fraud tools on the dark web are exploding: With fraud tools doubling in Q2 2024, they have become the fastest-growing threat on the dark web, surpassing stolen credit card data.
  • Social media attacks increased by 60% in one quarter: In May alone, brands faced 160 attacks per month, making social platforms a growing playground for cybercriminals.

View the full report here: https://www.phishlabs.com/resources/guides/brand-threats-and-fraud.

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Fortra’s Brand Threats and Fraud Report Is Out

Posted in Commentary with tags on October 15, 2024 by itnerd

Fortra has analyzed hundreds of thousands of domains, social media, counterfeit, and dark web attacks targeting enterprises, their employees, and brands. This report uses the data from those attacks to present key trends shaping the threat landscape.

Some of the key findings include:

  • A 60% surge in social media attacks on brands in Q2 alone.
  • A 55% increase in counterfeit websites mimicking well-known brands.
  • The rise of New Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) like .dev and .vip being used in phishing attacks, outpacing legacy domains such as .com.
  • Fraud tools targeting enterprises more than doubled on the dark web, now representing one of the highest-growing threats.

You can read the report here.

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Cerby Teams with Okta to Elevate Security Posture with Universal Logout 

Posted in Commentary with tags on October 15, 2024 by itnerd

Cerby, the comprehensive identity platform for disconnected applications, today announced it’s collaborating with  Okta, the leading independent Identity partner,  to improve threat detection and response when user accounts are compromised.

Cerby is introducing a new integration that enhances coverage of Universal Logout, part of Identity Threat Protection with Okta AI, to any application by leveraging Cerby’s capability to support application logout without requiring public APIs. This capability is particularly useful when security threats are detected, and immediate response is critical. Cerby’s technology enables Okta to build reliable and scalable integrations without requiring application changes. It also allows Okta customers to protect a broader set of applications, including those out of scope for traditional identity providers. 

Universal Logout enables organizations to terminate user sessions and their tokens for supported applications when Identity Threat Protection detects a change in risk, enabling faster threat response and significantly reducing the attack window.

Universal Logout key features include:

Comprehensive Access Revocation

  • One-click revocation across all devices and supported applications
  • Support for top applications, including those from Microsoft, Google, Salesforce, Slack, and more
  • Continuous expansion of supported applications

Intelligent, Context-Aware Action

  • Responds to changes in device context without user interaction
  • Triggers logout even for out-of-band signals, a unique capability in the industry
  • Adapts logout actions based on risk level and affected applications

Deep Access Revocation

  • Eliminates all active tokens and session data
  • Dismantles the entire chain of authorization inheritance
  • Works to eliminate  lingering access points 

Seamless Integration

  • Works with Okta’s Post-Auth Actions and Entity Risk Policy
  • Complements Identity Threat Protection’s precision risk response capabilities  

As a result of the integration, organizations can bolster their security posture by significantly reducing the window of vulnerability during security events and enabling an immediate response mechanism when user accounts are compromised. In addition, they can improve operational efficiencies through streamlined security operations, incident processes, and simplified user offboarding procedures.

The new integration will become generally available later in 2024.

For more information, visit their solution web page.

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One Year From Today Marks The End Of Support For Windows 10…. Take Action ASAP

Posted in Commentary with tags on October 14, 2024 by itnerd

If you’re someone who’s still running Windows 10, it’s time to start planning to move to Windows 11. Because one year from today, Windows 10 will become an operating system that Microsoft no longer supports. So what does that mean? This will answer this question:

As of October 14, 2025, PCs running Windows 10 will still function, but Microsoft will no longer provide the following:

  • Technical support
  • Feature updates
  • Security updates or fixes

While your Windows 10 PC will continue to function, it will be at greater risk for viruses and malware when Windows 10 reaches end of support. We recommend you transition to a version of Windows that is still supported. If your existing device cannot run Windows 11, a new PC that can run Windows 11 makes for an easy transition and great experience.

The lack of security updates is a big deal as not getting security updates means that you’re more at risk to get pwned. Thus if you have a computer that is capable of running Windows 11, now would be a good time to upgrade.

That brings me to computers that are not capable of running Windows 11. And there are a huge number of those. As a rough guideline, if your PC was made on or before 2018, it is entirely likely that it isn’t capable of running Windows 11. Now there are ways to make what Microsoft calls “unsupported” hardware run Windows 11, but I personally wouldn’t count on that over the long term. More likely you’ll need to buy a new PC. Which of course sucks. But this is Microsoft’s rationale for this hard stance on Windows 11 support. In short, it’s for security reasons. Or so they say.

In any case, regardless of which camp you’re in, you need to take action before October 14th of next year. Because it’s always better to make a calm, logical decision when it comes to something like this rather than be under the gun so to speak when we’re at this date next year.

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Everyone Should Ensure That Their Digital Legacy Can Be Accessed Easily By Those You Trust

Posted in Tips on October 13, 2024 by itnerd

Recently I was asked to take on a very sad case. In short, back in August the male half of a couple suddenly died. And all the couple’s photos, documents, and other stuff was effectively locked on their computer which ran Ubuntu Linux. To make matters worse, the computer was in a state where it wouldn’t boot because something was wrong with the file system. And to make matters even worse, the surviving spouse didn’t have any of the passwords to the computer. Now I have been known to make miracles on demand happen, but this one was a bit out of my league. So after trying what she thought were the passwords associated with this computer, I ended up pulling out the hard drive and plugging it into a laptop where I had installed Ubuntu Linux, However, that computer had problems reading the file system of the drive that I had pulled. So I ended up taking the drives to a place called CBL Data Recovery as I knew they would be able to recover the data from the drive. Now recovering the data wasn’t going to be cheap. As in $700 in total. But at least the surviving spouse would have the data. It took about a week, but I was able to give her a hard drive with the data on it formatted for NTFS, which would work on PC or Mac.

Now while this is a bit of an extreme case, it’s not uncommon for this sort of situation to occur. And it really doesn’t have to. Thus I implore each and every person who reads this to plan ahead by doing any or all of the following:

  • Gather up all the passwords that your family uses and put them in a password protected password manager. My wife and I use eWallet and we have set things up so that copies of the file that contains our passwords are stored in iCloud and our local NAS system. That way there’s multiple ways for either of us to access the file if needed. The reason why I say that you should use a password manager is that unlike a book or a sheet of paper, it’s secure from prying eyes. On top of that, in the case that I described, the late husband had his passwords stored in a document file on the computer that I had to rescue data from. Making it inaccessible to his widow.
  • If you’re in the Apple ecosystem, I strongly suggest that you add a family member or two as a Legacy Contact. In the event of your passing, they can access your devices as well as a lot of the data stored in iCloud. Though you have to contact Apple to assist you with that. This document from Apple speaks to how this works, and how to turn this feature on. The big reason why I strongly suggest that those in the Apple ecosystem turn this on is that if you don’t, nobody, not even Apple themselves can help you in the event of the passing of a loved one.
  • Now Microsoft doesn’t have anything like Apple’s Legacy Contact. But Google has what’s called the Inactive Account Manager. You can find out more by clicking here and the process to set this up is straightforward. Though I will admit that Apple’s Legacy Contact option is far more expansive than what Google offers.

One other thing, if you’re in the Apple Ecosystem, you might also want to set up a recovery contact. That’s someone who can help you to unlock your iPhone, Mac or iPad if you need to because you forgot your passcode or something. You can find out more about how to set up a recovery contact here.

The passing of a loved one is always a traumatic experience. But if you plan ahead, you can reduce some of that trauma for those left behind so that all they have to do is remember the good times they had with the person who is no longer among us.

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How I Keep My MacBook Pro Clean [Applies To Other Notebooks As Well]

Posted in Tips with tags on October 12, 2024 by itnerd

If you use a computer for any length of time, it’s going to get dirty. Especially something like a MacBook Pro where the keyboard will touch the screen and leave all sorts of skin oil on it. And given that the MacBook Pro screen is glossy, it is really noticeable. So the question becomes, how do you keep it clean? Well this is what I do to keep my MacBook clean:

I bought a pack of Amazon Basics microfibre cloths which I talked about here. I did that because one pack of 24 costs as much as the Apple Cloth. Then I do this:

  1. I have a battery powered duster that I use to blow out the keyboard and the space around the hinge.
  2. I spray Whoosh on one cloth to make it damp and clean the screen.
  3. I use a dry microfibre cloth to polish the screen.
  4. I use the damp cloth to clean the keyboard, trackpad and top case. To help with that I use a utility called KeyboardCleanTool to stop the keyboard from responding while I clean it.

That seems to work well for me. I do that maybe once every two weeks. Sometimes once a week if my MacBook is really dirty. And you can use this technique with any notebook and not just Macs.

Do you have any additional tips on how to keep your Mac clean? Or perhaps you have alternate advice that works just as well as this. Please leave a comment and share your wisdom.

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Tesla’s  “We, Robot” Event Appears To Have Impressed Nobody 

Posted in Commentary with tags on October 11, 2024 by itnerd

Last night, Elon Musk held an event called  “We, Robot” which introduced three things:

  • Tesla Cybercab: The Tesla Cybercab is a futuristic, fully autonomous robotaxi designed without a steering wheel or pedals, positioned to revolutionize mass transit with extremely low operating costs. It features a sleek design with upward-opening butterfly doors and a compact cabin that seats two passengers. Musk said the Cybercab uses inductive charging instead of a traditional plug-in. The vehicle is expected to cost under $30,000. Regulatory approval will be needed before it can go into production, which is projected to begin by 2026 or 2027. 
  • Tesla Robovan: The Tesla Robovan is a dustbuster-shaped electric passenger van featuring sliding glass doors, a bright interior, and carriage-style seating for up to 20 passengers. Pricing and release details were not disclosed. 
  • Tesla Optimus: The updated Tesla Optimus robot is a humanoid designed to handle everyday tasks, such as retrieving packages or serving drinks. Optimus walked on stage and interacted with attendees, though its current capabilities are still limited. Elon Musk envisions the robot as a transformative product, with plans to produce millions of units at a price of around $20,000.

The thing is, as much as Elon likes to think he’s the second coming of Steve Jobs, people aren’t buying his act anymore. He’s been promising self driving cars for years, but has never delivered. He has shown off the Optimus robot before, and it did absolutely nothing. The Cybertruck is a truck that fails at doing basic truck stuff. I could go on. Elon has been a vaporware machine for years. And this is reinforced by this text that was tossed onto the screen before the event started:

If you can’t read that, here’s the time stamp via YouTube. In short this whole block of text should be considered “forward looking statements” which is another way of saying don’t rely on anything that Elon says as being fact. That’s a way for Elon to cover his posterior because he’s been burned before for saying stuff that doesn’t happen at all or in the way that he says it will.

All of this isn’t helping the stock price of Tesla:

Clearly the markets are not impressed by this event. Nor should they be. The fact is that Elon Musk is nothing but a grifter. And if he wants to change that perception, he needs to announce products that actually and consistently ship on time and function exactly as promised. For example full self driving needs to happen. The Cybertruck needs to not be a joke. If he does that, maybe he has a shot at being the next Steve Jobs. But until that happens, he’s more akin to being the next Donald Trump. And that’s not good company to be in.

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The Wayback Machine Has Been Pwned

Posted in Commentary with tags on October 10, 2024 by itnerd

Yesterday, Internet Archive’s “The Wayback Machine” suffered a data breach after a threat actor compromised the website and stole a user authentication database containing 31 million unique records claimed by the pro-Palestinian hacktivist group Black Meta. Additionally, the internet archive suffered a DDoS attack today although it is not believed that the two attacks are connected. Here’s the details:

News of the breach began circulating Wednesday afternoon after visitors to archive.org began seeing a JavaScript alert created by the hacker, stating that the Internet Archive was breached.

“Have you ever felt like the Internet Archive runs on sticks and is constantly on the verge of suffering a catastrophic security breach? It just happened. See 31 million of you on HIBP!,” reads a JavaScript alert shown on the compromised archive.org site.

The text “HIBP” refers to is the Have I Been Pwned data breach notification service created by Troy Hunt, with whom threat actors commonly share stolen data to be added to the service.

Hunt told BleepingComputer that the threat actor shared the Internet Archive’s authentication database nine days ago and it is a 6.4GB SQL file named “ia_users.sql.” The database contains authentication information for registered members, including their email addresses, screen names, password change timestamps, Bcrypt-hashed passwords, and other internal data.

The most recent timestamp on the stolen records is September 28th, 2024, likely when the database was stolen.

Here’s some insights from Avishai Avivi, CISO, SafeBreach:

“The latest publicly disclosed breach of the Internet Archive, which could potentially disclose approximately 31 million usernames and passwords, has some cybersecurity veterans like myself scratching our grey beards and asking, “But why?” On the face of it, the Internet Archive doesn’t hold any money, nor does it collect any personal information. Other than nostalgia, there is very little motive for this. Except, there is a database with 31 million users and passwords.

It is unfortunate that despite repeated warnings and recommendations, people still reuse passwords across multiple sites and accounts. Also, despite numerous pleas, they do not activate multi-factor authentication where possible.

So, if you are a cyber-progressive end-user:

  • You use a password manager and a randomly generated password for each site you visit.
  • You don’t share passwords between different sites you visit.
  • You use multi-factor authentication where possible, but certainly on the more sensitive accounts (Bank, Healthcare, etc.)

This breach doesn’t matter to you. At worst, go to Internet Archive site and change your password (if you had one). If you don’t follow one or more of the above, we recommend that you check all other sites where you may have possibly used the same username and password if you did have a user on the Internet Archive.”

This advice is good advice that everyone should follow. Because that would make you far less likely to be a victim of some sort of pwnage.

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