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October 24, 2012

Anti-patterns in security architecture – part 4

Building an ‘on-prem’ solution in the cloud Cloud has now been around long enough for those who depend heavily on IT infrastructure to realise that moving their operations to the cloud is smart. It is brilliant for many reasons. It gives you greater flexibility – you only pay for what you use, and you don’t have to tie a lot of capital long-term in technology, which is likely to be out of date by the time the investment has been returned.

Anti-patterns in security architecture – part 3

18.10.2012

Back-to-back firewall Some wrongly believe that there is a security benefit in ‘doubling up’ on firewalls to implement the same set of controls. In addition, some believe it is beneficial if the two firewalls come from different manufacturers. The thinking behind the second part is that coming from different sources will not have the same vulnerabilities. But all such a solution brings is additional costs, complexity, and maintenance overheads. After all, in the case of a standard OSI layer 3/4 firewall all it does is allow to pass (or not) communication according to its settings.

Best practices for safe and secure remote work

10.10.2012

In order to ensure the cyber security of operations for staff working remotely it is vital to implement a number of appropriate procedures and technical measures. Adequate preparation of devices and systems used, as well as maintaining appropriate safety practices can vastly decrease the risk of cyber attacks and therefore prevent the company from suffering losses. Safe and secure remote working- recommendations for employees How to safely access company applications and resources while working remotely?

Anti-patterns in security architecture – part 2

10.10.2012

Management bypass Defence-in-depth is a widely accepted approach to protecting the critical resources of a system. In addition, a good system architecture practice is to separate the data plane from the management plane. This separation can be achieved with network controls. It is however a common mistake to only apply the defense-in-depth approach to the data plane, and not to the management plane. How to know if you are using a ‘management bypass?

Best Authentication Practices

05.04.2012

Authentication – one of the basic actions we perform day in, day out, often probably not giving much thought to it as it is so ‘basic’. And yet, as it often is in life, simple things can be amongst some of the most important blocks on which other elements of the system depend. Such as your security in the digital world for example. The system is only as strong as its weakest link – the original probably is slightly different, but you know what I mean.