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- AlgoSec Celebrates Strong Growth and Profitability in H1 2020
Leader in network security management solutions reports YoY growth of 26% in product revenues in H1 2020 AlgoSec Celebrates Strong Growth and Profitability in H1 2020 Leader in network security management solutions reports YoY growth of 26% in product revenues in H1 2020 August 25, 2020 Speak to one of our experts RIDGEFIELD PARK, N.J., August 25, 2020 – AlgoSec , the leading provider of business-driven network security management solutions, today announced strong year-on-year growth of 26% in product revenues and profitability in the first half of 2020. During H1, the company also hired 55 employees. “Thanks to the efforts of our staff and partners, we have achieved excellent results in the first half of 2020, despite the ongoing impact of the pandemic,” Said Yuval Baron, CEO of AlgoSec. “This highlights how demand for our solutions is growing, to help companies do more with less, and do it fast. AlgoSec enables organizations to automate their security policy change management in a business-driven manner while maintaining a strong security and compliance posture.” Solution innovations AlgoSec introduced new updates in 2020 to help enterprise customers address their network security management challenges. In April 2020, AlgoSec released the version A30.10 update of its core AlgoSec Network Security Management Suite, which offers new cloud security management capabilities for AWS and Azure. The AlgoSec Security Management Suite (ASMS) A30.10 builds on A30’s market-leading automation capabilities for seamless, zero-touch security management across SDN, cloud and on-premise networks. Key features of A30.10 include extended support for Cisco ACI, Tetration and FirePower in addition to enhanced automation for F5 AFM and Juniper Junos Space. About AlgoSec The leading provider of business-driven network security management solutions, AlgoSec helps the world’s largest organizations align security with their mission-critical business processes. With AlgoSec, users can discover, map and migrate business application connectivity, proactively analyze risk from the business perspective, tie cyber-attacks to business processes and intelligently automate network security changes with zero touch – across their cloud, SDN and on-premise networks.Over 1,800 enterprises , including 20 of the Fortune 50, utilize AlgoSec’s solutions to make their organizations more agile, more secure and more compliant – all the time. Since 2005, AlgoSec has shown its commitment to customer satisfaction with the industry’s only money-back guarantee . All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their registered owners. *** Media Contacts:Tsippi [email protected] Craig CowardContext Public [email protected] +44 (0)1625 511 966
- AlgoSec | Sunburst Backdoor: A Deeper Look Into The SolarWinds’ Supply Chain Malware
Update : Next two parts of the analysis are available here and here . As earlier reported by FireEye, the actors behind a global... Cloud Security Sunburst Backdoor: A Deeper Look Into The SolarWinds’ Supply Chain Malware Rony Moshkovich 2 min read Rony Moshkovich Short bio about author here Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur. Vitae donec tincidunt elementum quam laoreet duis sit enim. Duis mattis velit sit leo diam. Tags Share this article 12/15/20 Published Update : Next two parts of the analysis are available here and here . As earlier reported by FireEye, the actors behind a global intrusion campaign have managed to trojanise SolarWinds Orion business software updates in order to distribute malware. The original FireEye write-up already provides a detailed description of this malware. Nevertheless, as the malicious update SolarWinds-Core-v2019.4.5220-Hotfix5.msp was still available for download for hours since the FireEye’s post, it makes sense to have another look into the details of its operation. The purpose of this write-up is to provide new information, not covered in the original write-up. Any overlaps with the original description provided by FireEye are not intentional. For start, the malicious component SolarWinds.Orion.Core.BusinessLayer.dll inside the MSP package is a non-obfuscated .NET assembly. It can easily be reconstructed with a .NET disassembler, such as ILSpy , and then fully reproduced in C# code, using Microsoft Visual Studio. Once reproduced, it can be debugged to better understand how it works. In a nutshell, the malicious DLL is a backdoor. It is loaded into the address space of the legitimate SolarWinds Orion process SolarWinds.BusinessLayerHost.exe or SolarWinds.BusinessLayerHostx64.exe . The critical strings inside the backdoor’s class SolarWinds.Orion.Core.BusinessLayer.OrionImprovementBusinessLayer are encoded with the DeflateStream Class of the .NET’s System.IO.Compression library, coupled with the standard base64 encoder. Initialisation Once loaded, the malware checks if its assembly file was created earlier than 12, 13, or 14 days ago. The exact number of hours it checks is a random number from 288 to 336. Next, it reads the application settings value ReportWatcherRetry . This value keeps the reporting status, and may be set to one of the states: New (4) Truncate (3) Append (5) When the malware runs the first time, its reporting status variable ReportWatcherRetry is set to New (4) . The reporting status is an internal state that drives the logic. For example, if the reporting status is set to Truncate , the malware will stop operating by first disabling its networking communications, and then disabling other security tools and antivirus products. In order to stay silent, the malware periodically falls asleep for a random period of time that varies between 30 minutes and 2 hours. At the start, the malware obtains the computer’s domain name . If the domain name is empty, the malware quits. It then generates a 8-byte User ID, which is derived from the system footprint. In particular, it is generated from MD5 hash of a string that consists from the 3 fields: the first or default operational (can transmit data packets) network interface’s physical address computer’s domain name UUID created by Windows during installation (machine’s unique ID) Even though it looks random, the User ID stays permanent as long as networking configuration and the Windows installation stay the same. Domain Generation Algorithm The malware relies on its own CryptoHelper class to generate a domain name. This class is instantiated from the 8-byte User ID and the computer’s domain name, encoded with a substitution table: “rq3gsalt6u1iyfzop572d49bnx8cvmkewhj” . For example, if the original domain name is “ domain “, its encoded form will look like: “ n2huov “. To generate a new domain, the malware first attempts to resolve domain name “ api.solarwinds.com “. If it fails to resolve it, it quits. The first part of the newly generated domain name is a random string, produced from the 8-byte User ID, a random seed value, and encoded with a custom base64 alphabet “ph2eifo3n5utg1j8d94qrvbmk0sal76c” . Because it is generated from a random seed value, the first part of the newly generated domain name is random. For example, it may look like “ fivu4vjamve5vfrt ” or “ k1sdhtslulgqoagy “. To produce the domain name, this string is then appended with the earlier encoded domain name (such as “ n2huov “) and a random string, selected from the following list: .appsync-api.eu-west-1[.]avsvmcloud[.]com .appsync-api.us-west-2[.]avsvmcloud[.]com .appsync-api.us-east-1[.]avsvmcloud[.]com .appsync-api.us-east-2[.]avsvmcloud[.]com For example, the final domain name may look like: fivu4vjamve5vfrtn2huov[.]appsync-api.us-west-2[.]avsvmcloud[.]com or k1sdhtslulgqoagyn2huov[.]appsync-api.us-east-1[.]avsvmcloud[.]com Next, the domain name is resolved to an IP address, or to a list of IP addresses. For example, it may resolve to 20.140.0.1 . The resolved domain name will be returned into IPAddress structure that will contain an AddressFamily field – a special field that specifies the addressing scheme. If the host name returned in the IPAddress structure is different to the queried domain name, the returned host name will be used as a C2 host name for the backdoor. Otherwise, the malware will check if the resolved IP address matches one of the patterns below, in order to return an ‘address family’: IP Address Subnet Mask ‘Address Family’ 10.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 Atm 172.16.0.0 255.240.0.0 Atm 192.168.0.0 255.255.0.0 Atm 224.0.0.0 240.0.0.0 Atm fc00:: fe00:: Atm fec0:: ffc0:: Atm ff00:: ff00:: Atm 41.84.159.0 255.255.255.0 Ipx 74.114.24.0 255.255.248.0 Ipx 154.118.140.0 255.255.255.0 Ipx 217.163.7.0 255.255.255.0 Ipx 20.140.0.0 255.254.0.0 ImpLink 96.31.172.0 255.255.255.0 ImpLink 131.228.12.0 255.255.252.0 ImpLink 144.86.226.0 255.255.255.0 ImpLink 8.18.144.0 255.255.254.0 NetBios 18.130.0.0 255.255.0.0 NetBios 71.152.53.0 255.255.255.0 NetBios 99.79.0.0 255.255.0.0 NetBios 87.238.80.0 255.255.248.0 NetBios 199.201.117.0 255.255.255.0 NetBios 184.72.0.0 255.254.0.0 NetBios For example, if the queried domain resolves to 20.140.0.1 , it will match the entry in the table 20.140.0.0 , for which the returned ‘address family’ will be ImpLink . The returned ‘address family’ invokes an additional logic in the malware. Disabling Security Tools and Antivirus Products If the returned ‘address family’ is ImpLink or Atm , the malware will enumerate all processes and for each process, it will check if its name matches one of the pre-defined hashes. Next, it repeats this processed for services and for the drivers installed in the system. If a process name or a full path of an installed driver matches one of the pre-defined hashes, the malware will disable it. For hashing, the malware relies on Fowler–Noll–Vo algorithm. For example, the core process of Windows Defender is MsMpEng.exe . The hash value of “ MsMpEng ” string is 5183687599225757871 . This value is specifically enlisted the malware’s source under a variable name timeStamps : timeStamps = new ulong[1] { 5183687599225757871uL } The service name of Windows Defender is windefend – the hash of this string ( 917638920165491138 ) is also present in the malware body. As a result, the malicioius DLL will attempt to stop the Windows Defender service. In order to disable various security tools and antivirus products, the malware first grants itself SeRestorePrivilege and SeTakeOwnershipPrivilege privileges, using the native AdjustTokenPrivileges() API. With these privileges enabled, the malware takes ownership of the service registry keys it intends to manipulate. The new owner of the keys is first attempted to be explicitly set to Administrator account. If such account is not present, the malware enumerates all user accounts, looking for a SID that represents the administrator account. The malware uses Windows Management Instrumentation query “ Select * From Win32_UserAccount ” to obtain the list of all users. For each enumerated user, it makes sure the account is local and then, when it obtains its SID, it makes sure the SID begins with S-1-5- and ends with -500 in order to locate the local administrator account. Once such account is found, it is used as a new owner for the registry keys, responsible for manipulation of the services of various security tools and antivirus products. With the new ownership set, the malware then disables these services by setting their Start value to 4 (Disabled): registryKey2.SetValue(“Start”), 4, RegistryValueKind.DWord); HTTP Backdoor If the returned ‘address family’ for the resolved domain name is NetBios , as specified in the lookup table above, the malware will initialise its HttpHelper class, which implements an HTTP backdoor. The backdoor commands are covered in the FireEye write-up, so let’s check only a couple of commands to see what output they produce. One of the backdoor commands is CollectSystemDescription . As its name suggests, it collects system information. By running the code reconstructed from the malware, here is an actual example of the data collected by the backdoor and delivered to the attacker’s C2 with a separate backdoor command UploadSystemDescription : 1. %DOMAIN_NAME% 2. S-1-5-21-298510922-2159258926-905146427 3. DESKTOP-VL39FPO 4. UserName 5. [E] Microsoft Windows NT 6.2.9200.0 6.2.9200.0 64 6. C:\WINDOWS\system32 7. 0 8. %PROXY_SERVER% Description: Killer Wireless-n/a/ac 1535 Wireless Network Adapter #2 MACAddress: 9C:B6:D0:F6:FF:5D DHCPEnabled: True DHCPServer: 192.168.20.1 DNSHostName: DESKTOP-VL39FPO DNSDomainSuffixSearchOrder: Home DNSServerSearchOrder: 8.8.8.8, 192.168.20.1 IPAddress: 192.168.20.30, fe80::8412:d7a8:57b9:5886 IPSubnet: 255.255.255.0, 64 DefaultIPGateway: 192.168.20.1, fe80::1af1:45ff:feec:a8eb NOTE: Field #7 specifies the number of days (0) since the last system reboot. GetProcessByDescription command will build a list of processes running on a system. This command accepts an optional argument, which is one of the custom process properties enlisted here . If the optional argument is not specified, the backdoor builds a process list that looks like: [ 1720] svchost [ 8184] chrome [ 4732] svchost If the optional argument is specified, the backdoor builds a process list that includes the specified process property in addition to parent process ID, username and domain for the process owner. For example, if the optional argument is specified as “ ExecutablePath “, the GetProcessByDescription command may return a list similar to: [ 3656] sihost.exe C:\WINDOWS\system32\sihost.exe 1720 DESKTOP-VL39FPO\UserName [ 3824] svchost.exe C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe 992 DESKTOP-VL39FPO\UserName [ 9428] chrome.exe C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe 4600 DESKTOP-VL39FPO\UserName Other backdoor commands enable deployment of the 2nd stage malware. For example, the WriteFile command will save the file: using (FileStream fileStream = new FileStream(path, FileMode.Append, FileAccess.Write)) { fileStream.Write(array, 0, array.Length); } The downloaded 2nd stage malware can then the executed with RunTask command: using (Process process = new Process()) { process.StartInfo = new ProcessStartInfo(fileName, arguments) { CreateNoWindow = false, UseShellExecute = false }; if (process.Start()) … Alternatively, it can be configured to be executed with the system restart, using registry manipulation commands, such as SetRegistryValue . Schedule a demo Related Articles Q1 at AlgoSec: What innovations and milestones defined our start to 2026? AlgoSec Reviews Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read 2025 in review: What innovations and milestones defined AlgoSec’s transformative year in 2025? AlgoSec Reviews Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read Navigating Compliance in the Cloud AlgoSec Cloud Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read Speak to one of our experts Speak to one of our experts Work email* First name* Last name* Company* country* Select country... Short answer* By submitting this form, I accept AlgoSec's privacy policy Schedule a call
- Check Point and AlgoSec | AlgoSec
AlgoSec & Check Point AlgoSec seamlessly integrates with Check Points NGFWs to automate application and user aware security policy management and ensure that Check Points’ devices are properly configured. AlgoSec supports the entire security policy management lifecycle — from application connectivity discovery, through ongoing management and compliance, to rule recertification and secure decommissioning. Solution brief Cloudguard datasheet How to Check Point Regulatory compliance Learn how to prepare your Check Point devices for a regulatory audit Check Point Risk Assessment Learn how assess risk on your Check Point devices with AlgoSec Mapping your Network Visualize your complex network, including your Check Point devices, with a dynamic network topology map See how Check Point Users Can Benefit from AlgoSec Schedule time with one of our experts
- ARCON | AlgoSec
Explore Algosec's customer success stories to see how organizations worldwide improve security, compliance, and efficiency with our solutions. Arcon Maintains Security Across Diverse Customer Networks With AlgoSec Organization ARCON Industry Financial Services Headquarters Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Download case study Share Customer success stories "Using AlgoSec is a double benefit to us because we can reduce the cost and number of errors in our daily operation and also expand our offerings to our customers" Global Managed Services Company Optimizes Firewall Policies and Reduces Risks AlgoSec Business Impact • Improve security and assure compliance of its customers • Deliver comprehensive reports • Reduce costs and misconfiguration errors • Expand offerings to Arcon’s customers Background Founded in 1995, Arcon is the leading MSSP in Brazil. The company operates facilities in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Brasília, Flórida, Salvador and Belém, managing the networks of many of Brazil’s top 100 companies, including banks, retailers, manufacturers and telecom companies. Arcon protectsmore than 600,000 users across five continents and processes more than one billion transactions each day. In addition to strategic management of IT security, Arcon protects data, servers, workstations and mobile devices and helps customers identify and control access to their systems. The company also evaluates risks in applications and provides technology infrastructure to support its customers’ businesses. Challenge Arcon provides security services to hundreds of other companies, including major retailers and banks, which require the tools that enable it to rapidly identify compliance issues and assess risks associated with network configurations. It must also be able to determine how to best optimize customers’ security policies and track changes made to firewall rules. With so many customers and service level agreements that require near immediate responses, Arcon needed visibility across the networks it manages and into reports allowing them to quickly find and fix issues and to counsel customers on changes that would improve their systems’ security. Solution Flavio Carvalho, the Security Management Services Director at Arcon, was charged with maintaining security across its own network, as well as diverse customers’ networks. Carvalho and his team selected the AlgoSec Security Management solution. “The combination of ease-of-use and the value add of AlgoSec’s reports, the ability to manage different technologies from multiple vendors, the cost per device managed, and the visibility across customer’s networks were key for us,” comments Carvalho.The quality of the AlgoSec’s reports clinched the deal. “With AlgoSec, we can quickly and easily provide PCI compliance reports to our customers, including banks and large retail stores. The excellent quality of the reports adds value to the services we manage for them,” says Carvalho. Results Arcon’s clients expect regular updates on the security of their networks — including recommendations for policy optimization, risk mitigation strategies, compliance verification and the impact of rule changes. “It would be impossible for us to deliver all of these in monthly reports without AlgoSec,” Carvalho notes. We have a big retail customer with SLAs of just one hour. “With AlgoSec we have been able to meet these SLAs much more easily than before. A report that previously took a day to generate can now be completed in a few minutes at the click of a button,” Carvalho notes.Shortly after implementation, Arcon’s experience with one large bank customer validated their decision to use AlgoSec — and made their customer very happy. “Our customer was under pressure because of high CPU utilization in their main firewall cluster,” explains Carvalho. “They needed us to investigate what was going on and to solve the issue as quickly and cost-effectively as possible. Using AlgoSec, we were able to easily identify a series of duplicate and poorly-written rules that were causing the trouble, and we solved the problem at no cost to the customer.”“Using AlgoSec is a double benefit to us because we can reduce the cost and number of errors in our daily operations and also expand our offerings to our customers,” adds Carvalho. “It’s easy to work with AlgoSec, as we have a direct contact and an excellent AlgoSec support team, which is always available to help us when necessary” concludes Carvalho. Schedule time with one of our experts
- [Panel] How Financial Institutions Can Achieve Network Security and Compliance | AlgoSec
Webinars [Panel] How Financial Institutions Can Achieve Network Security and Compliance Financial institutions have strict network security requirements, which sometimes hinder innovation and digital transformation. Security and regulatory requirements act as a barrier to innovation. However, financial institutions can enable business innovation, while still achieving network security and compliance. Watch AlgoSec’s panel discussion, as Asher Benbenisty, Director of Product Marketing, and Yitzy Tannenbaum, Product Marketing Manager, discuss how financial institutions can simplify the network security management, reduce risk and ensure continuous compliance. They discuss: How intelligent automation helps overcome security management intricacy How to make sure network changes meet compliance requirements and pass regulatory audits the first time Industry metrics so you can benchmark your own organization as well as see how the finance sector compares to other industries Case studies from other financial institutions September 8, 2020 Yitzy Tannenbaum Product Marketing Manager Asher Benbenisty Director of product marketing Relevant resources Automated Security Policy Allows Financial Institutions to make the Triple Play Keep Reading Security policy management for financial institutions Keep Reading Choose a better way to manage your network Choose a better way to manage your network Work email* First name* Last name* Company* country* Select country... Short answer* By submitting this form, I accept AlgoSec's privacy policy Continue
- Português | Algosec
Securely accelerate application delivery by automating application connectivity and security policy across the hybrid network estate. Solução de gestão de segurança Algosec Bem-vindo! Administrar sua política de segurança de rede em firewalls locais e controles de segurança na nuvem é um delicado ato de equilíbrio. Por um lado, é preciso reduzir o risco, minimizando a superfície de ataque; por outro, deve-se viabilizar a produtividade ao prover conectividade para suas aplicações comerciais críticas. No entanto, processos de administração de política de segurança de rede sempre foram complexos, demorados e cheio de erros. Não precisa ser assim. No local e na nuvem, a AlgoSec simplifica e automatiza a administração de política de segurança de rede para tornar sua empresa mais ágil, mais segura e mais compatível, o tempo todo. Uma abordagem única de ciclo de vida para a administração de Política de Segurança AlgoSec é única no que tange a administração de todo o ciclo de vida da política de segurança para garantir uma conectividade contínua e segura para seus aplicativos comerciais. Através de um único painel de vidro você pode detectar automaticamente os requisitos de conectividade de aplicativos, fazer uma análise de risco proativa e rapidamente planejar e executar alterações na segurança da rede e desativar com segurança as regras do firewall, todos isso sem contato físico e orquestrado de maneira transparente em seu ambiente heterogêneo. Com AlgoSec você pode Unificar a administração de política de segurança de rede em ambientes heterogêneos de nuvem, em ambientes definidos por software e locais Garantir a conformidade contínua e reduzir drasticamente os esforços de preparação de auditoria de firewall Prover conectividade para aplicativos de forma rápida e segura, e evitar interrupções relacionadas com a rede Alinhar equipes de segurança, de rede e de aplicações, e adotar DevSecOps Automatizar a administração de alterações no firewall e eliminar erros de configuração Reduzir o risco através da configuração correta de segurança e segmentação eficaz de rede A Solução de Gestão de Segurança AlgoSec Análise de Política de Segurança de Rede Mais informações Firewall Analyzer Automação de Mudanças de Política de Segurança Mais informações FireFlow Calculadora ROI Brochura de Soluções AlgoSec Representante local Test name Phone: +55-11-991068906 Email: [email protected] Algosec Korea 정욱 이사 (Sales Engineer) Phone: +82-10-9953-5717 Email: [email protected] Links relevantes TELEFONICA Estudo de Caso NATURA Estudo de Caso AlgoSec Para LGPD Schedule time with one of our experts
- F5 Networks & AlgoSec | Visibility & Analysis of LTM and AFM | AlgoSec
Integrating AlgoSec with F5 Networks firewalls, LTM, AFM, and network security devices offers visibility and compliance for hybrid networks F5 Networks and AlgoSec AlgoSec seamlessly integrates with F5 BIG-IP LTM and AFM modules to provide customers with unified security policy management across their heterogeneous networks. AlgoSec delivers visibility and analysis of F5 LTM and AFM. AlgoSec supports the entire security policy management lifecycle — from application connectivity discovery through ongoing management and compliance to rule recertification and secure decommissioning. Solution brief View webinar Key benefits Uniform security policy across your hybrid network environment. Deploy applications faster by automating network security change management processes. Avoid security device misconfigurations that cause outages. Reduce the costs and efforts of firewall auditing and ensure success. How to Unified visibility for the hybrid environment Cleanup, recertify, and optimize Security Policies Audit-ready compliance reports SEE HOW F5 USERS CAN BENEFIT FROM ALGOSEC Schedule time with one of our experts
- AlgoSec | How To Prevent Firewall Breaches (The 2024 Guide)
Properly configured firewalls are vital in any comprehensive cybersecurity strategy. However, even the most robust configurations can be... Uncategorized How To Prevent Firewall Breaches (The 2024 Guide) Tsippi Dach 2 min read Tsippi Dach Short bio about author here Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur. Vitae donec tincidunt elementum quam laoreet duis sit enim. Duis mattis velit sit leo diam. Tags Share this article 1/11/24 Published Properly configured firewalls are vital in any comprehensive cybersecurity strategy. However, even the most robust configurations can be vulnerable to exploitation by attackers. No single security measure can offer absolute protection against all cyber threats and data security risks . To mitigate these risks, it’s crucial to understand how cybercriminals exploit firewall vulnerabilities. The more you know about their tactics, techniques, and procedures, the better-equipped you are to implement security policies that successfully block unauthorized access to network assets. In this guide, you’ll understand the common cyber threats that target enterprise firewall systems with the goal of helping you understand how attackers exploit misconfigurations and human vulnerabilities. Use this information to protect your network from a firewall breach. Understanding 6 Tactics Cybercriminals Use to Breach Firewalls 1. DNS Leaks Your firewall’s primary use is making sure unauthorized users do not gain access to your private network and the sensitive information it contains. But firewall rules can go both ways – preventing sensitive data from leaving the network is just as important. If enterprise security teams neglect to configure their firewalls to inspect outgoing traffic, cybercriminals can intercept this traffic and use it to find gaps in your security systems. DNS traffic is particularly susceptible to this approach because it shows a list of websites users on your network regularly visit. A hacker could use this information to create a spoofed version of a frequently visited website. For example, they might notice your organization’s employees visit a third-party website to attend training webinars. Registering a fake version of the training website and collecting employee login credentials would be simple. If your firewall doesn’t inspect DNS data and confirm connections to new IP addresses, you may never know. DNS leaks may also reveal the IP addresses and endpoint metadata of the device used to make an outgoing connection. This would give cybercriminals the ability to see what kind of hardware your organization’s employees use to connect to external websites. With that information in hand, impersonating managed service providers or other third-party partners is easy. Some DNS leaks even contain timestamp data, telling attackers exactly when users requested access to external web assets. How to protect yourself against DNS leaks Proper firewall configuration is key to preventing DNS-related security incidents. Your organization’s firewalls should provide observability and access control to both incoming and outgoing traffic. Connections to servers known for hosting malware and cybercrime assets should be blocked entirely. Connections to servers without a known reputation should be monitored closely. In a Zero Trust environment , even connections to known servers should benefit from scrutiny using an identity-based security framework. Don’t forget that apps can connect to external resources, too. Consider deploying web application firewalls configured to prevent DNS leaks when connecting to third-party assets and servers. You may also wish to update your security policy to require employees to use VPNs when connecting to external resources. An encrypted VPN connection can prevent DNS information from leaking, making it much harder for cybercriminals to conduct reconnaissance on potential targets using DNS data. 2. Encrypted Injection Attacks Older, simpler firewalls analyze traffic by looking at different kinds of data packet metadata. This provides clear evidence of certain denial-of-service attacks, clear violations of network security policy , and some forms of malware and ransomware . They do not conduct deep packet inspection to identify the kind of content passing through the firewall. This provides cybercriminals with an easy way to bypass firewall rules and intrusion prevention systems – encryption . If malicious content is encrypted before it hits the firewall, it may go unnoticed by simple firewall rules. Only next-generation firewalls capable of handling encrypted data packets can determine whether this kind of traffic is secure or not. Cybercriminals often deliver encrypted injection attacks through email. Phishing emails may trick users into clicking on a malicious link that injects encrypted code into the endpoint device. The script won’t decode and run until after it passes the data security threshold posed by the firewall. After that, it is free to search for personal data, credit card information, and more. Many of these attacks will also bypass antivirus controls that don’t know how to handle encrypted data. Task automation solutions like Windows PowerShell are also susceptible to these kinds of attacks. Even sophisticated detection-based security solutions may fail to recognize encrypted injection attacks if they don’t have the keys necessary to decrypt incoming data. How to protect yourself against encrypted injection attacks Deep packet inspection is one of the most valuable features next-generation firewalls provide to security teams. Industry-leading firewall vendors equip their products with the ability to decrypt and inspect traffic. This allows the firewall to prevent malicious content from entering the network through encrypted traffic, and it can also prevent sensitive encrypted data – like login credentials – from leaving the network. These capabilities are unique to next-generation firewalls and can’t be easily replaced with other solutions. Manufacturers and developers have to equip their firewalls with public-key cryptography capabilities and obtain data from certificate authorities in order to inspect encrypted traffic and do this. 3. Compromised Public Wi-Fi Public Wi-Fi networks are a well-known security threat for individuals and organizations alike. Anyone who logs into a password-protected account on public Wi-Fi at an airport or coffee shop runs the risk of sending their authentication information directly to hackers. Compromised public Wi-Fi also presents a lesser-known threat to security teams at enterprise organizations – it may help hackers breach firewalls. If a remote employee logs into a business account or other asset from a compromised public Wi-Fi connection, hackers can see all the data transmitted through that connection. This may give them the ability to steal account login details or spoof endpoint devices and defeat multi-factor authentication. Even password-protected private Wi-Fi connections can be abused in this way. Some Wi-Fi networks still use outdated WEP and WPA security protocols that have well-known vulnerabilities. Exploiting these weaknesses to take control of a WEP or WPA-protected network is trivial for hackers. The newer WPA2 and WPA3 standards are much more resilient against these kinds of attacks. While public Wi-Fi dangers usually bring remote workers and third-party service vendors to mind, on-premises networks are just as susceptible. Nothing prevents a hacker from gaining access to public Wi-Fi networks in retail stores, receptions, or other areas frequented by customers and employees. How to protect yourself against compromised public Wi-Fi attacks First, you must enforce security policies that only allow Wi-Fi traffic secured by WPA2 and WPA3 protocols. Hardware Wi-Fi routers that do not support these protocols must be replaced. This grants a minimum level of security to protected Wi-Fi networks. Next, all remote connections made over public Wi-Fi networks must be made using a secure VPN. This will encrypt the data that the public Wi-Fi router handles, making it impossible for a hacker to intercept without gaining access to the VPN’s secret decryption key. This doesn’t guarantee your network will be safe from attacks, but it improves your security posture considerably. 4. IoT Infrastructure Attacks Smartwatches, voice-operated speakers, and many automated office products make up the Internet of Things (IoT) segment of your network. Your organization may be using cloud-enriched access control systems, cost-efficient smart heating systems, and much more. Any Wi-Fi-enabled hardware capable of automation can safely be included in this category. However, these devices often fly under the radar of security team’s detection tools, which often focus on user traffic. If hackers compromise one of these devices, they may be able to move laterally through the network until they arrive at a segment that handles sensitive information. This process can take time, which is why many incident response teams do not consider suspicious IoT traffic to be a high-severity issue. IoT endpoints themselves rarely process sensitive data on their own, so it’s easy to overlook potential vulnerabilities and even ignore active attacks as long as the organization’s mission-critical assets aren’t impacted. However, hackers can expand their control over IoT devices and transform them into botnets capable of running denial-of-service attacks. These distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks are much larger and more dangerous, and they are growing in popularity among cybercriminals. Botnet traffic associated with DDoS attacks on IoT networks has increased five-fold over the past year , showing just how promising it is for hackers. How to protect yourself against IoT infrastructure attacks Proper network segmentation is vital for preventing IoT infrastructure attacks . Your organization’s IoT devices should be secured on a network segment that is isolated from the rest of the network. If attackers do compromise the entire network, you should be protected from the risk of losing sensitive data from critical business assets. Ideally, this protection will be enforced with a strong set of firewalls managing the connection between your IoT subnetwork and the rest of your network. You may need to create custom rules that take your unique security risk profile and fleet of internet-connected devices into account. There are very few situations in which one-size-fits-all rulemaking works, and this is not one of them. All IoT devices – no matter how small or insignificant – should be protected by your firewall and other cybersecurity solutions . Never let these devices connect directly to the Internet through an unsecured channel. If they do, they provide attackers with a clear path to circumvent your firewalls and gain access to the rest of your network with ease. 5. Social Engineering and Phishing Social engineering attacks refer to a broad range of deceptive practices used by hackers to gain access to victims’ assets. What makes this approach special is that it does not necessarily depend on technical expertise. Instead of trying to hack your systems, cybercriminals are trying to hack your employees and company policies to carry out their attacks. Email phishing is one of the most common examples. In a typical phishing attack , hackers may spoof an email server to make it look like they are sending emails from a high-level executive in the company you work for. They can then impersonate this executive and demand junior accountants pay fictitious invoices or send sensitive customer data to email accounts controlled by threat actors. Other forms of social engineering can use your organization’s tech support line against itself. Attackers may pretend to represent large customer accounts and will leverage this ruse to gain information about how your company works. They may impersonate a third-party vendor and request confidential information that the vendor would normally have access to. These attacks span the range from simple trickery to elaborate confidence scams. Protecting against them can be incredibly challenging, and your firewall capabilities can make a significant difference in your overall state of readiness. How to protect yourself against social engineering attacks Employee training is the top priority for protecting against social engineering attacks . When employees understand the company’s operating procedures and security policies, it’s much harder for social engineers to trick them. Ideally, training should also include in-depth examples of how phishing attacks work, what they look like, and what steps employees should take when contacted by people they don’t trust. 6. Sandbox Exploits Many organizations use sandbox solutions to prevent file-based malware attacks. Sandboxes work by taking suspicious files and email attachments and opening them in a secure virtual environment before releasing them to users. The sandbox solution will observe how the file behaves and quarantine any file that shows malicious activity. In theory, this provides a powerful layer of defense against file-based attacks. But in practice, cybercriminals are well aware of how to bypass these solutions. For example, many sandbox solutions can’t open files over a certain size. Hackers who attach malicious code to large files can easily get through. Additionally, many forms of malware do not start executing malicious tasks the second they are activated. This delay can provide just enough of a buffer to get through a sandbox system. Some sophisticated forms of malware can even detect when they are being run in a sandbox environment – and will play the part of an innocent program until they are let loose inside the network. How to protect yourself against sandbox exploits Many next-generation firewalls include cloud-enabled sandboxing capable of running programs of arbitrary size for a potentially unlimited amount of time. More sophisticated sandbox solutions go to great lengths to mimic the system specifications of an actual endpoint so malware won’t know it is being run in a virtual environment. Organizations may also be able to overcome the limitations of the sandbox approach using Content Disarm and Reconstruction (CDR) techniques. This approach keeps potentially malicious files off the network entirely and only allows a reconstructed version of the file to enter the network. Since the new file is constructed from scratch, it will not contain any malware that may have been attached to the original file. Prevent firewall breaches with AlgoSec Managing firewalls manually can be overwhelming and time-consuming – especially when dealing with multiple firewall solutions. With the help of a firewall management solution , you easily configure firewall rules and manage configurations from a single dashboard. AlgoSec’s powerful firewall management solution integrates with your firewalls to deliver unified firewall policy management from a single location, thus streamlining the entire process. With AlgoSec, you can maintain clear visibility of your firewall ruleset, automate the management process, assess risk & optimize rulesets, streamline audit preparation & ensure compliance, and use APIs to access many features through web services. Schedule a demo Related Articles Q1 at AlgoSec: What innovations and milestones defined our start to 2026? AlgoSec Reviews Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read 2025 in review: What innovations and milestones defined AlgoSec’s transformative year in 2025? AlgoSec Reviews Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read Navigating Compliance in the Cloud AlgoSec Cloud Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read Speak to one of our experts Speak to one of our experts Work email* First name* Last name* Company* country* Select country... Short answer* By submitting this form, I accept AlgoSec's privacy policy Schedule a call
- AlgoSec | Evolving network security: AlgoSec’s technological journey and its critical role in application connectivity
Over nearly two decades, AlgoSec has undergone a remarkable evolution in both technology and offerings. Initially founded with the... Application Connectivity Management Evolving network security: AlgoSec’s technological journey and its critical role in application connectivity Nitin Rajput 2 min read Nitin Rajput Short bio about author here Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur. Vitae donec tincidunt elementum quam laoreet duis sit enim. Duis mattis velit sit leo diam. Tags Share this article 12/13/23 Published Over nearly two decades, AlgoSec has undergone a remarkable evolution in both technology and offerings. Initially founded with the mission of simplifying network security device management, the company has consistently adapted to the changing landscape of cybersecurity. Proactive Network Security In its early years, AlgoSec focused on providing a comprehensive view of network security configurations, emphasizing compliance, risk assessment, and optimization. Recognizing the limitations of a reactive approach, AlgoSec pivoted to develop a workflow-based ticketing system, enabling proactive assessment of traffic changes against risk and compliance. Cloud-Native Security As organizations transitioned to hybrid and cloud environments, AlgoSec expanded its capabilities to include cloud-native security controls. Today, AlgoSec seamlessly manages public cloud platforms such as Cisco ACI, NSX, AWS, GCP, and Azure, ensuring a unified security posture across diverse infrastructures. Application Connectivity Discovery A recent breakthrough for AlgoSec is its focus on helping customers navigate the challenges of migrating applications to public or private clouds. The emphasis lies in discovering and mapping application flows within the network infrastructure, addressing the crucial need for maintaining control and communication channels. This discovery process is facilitated by AlgoSec’s built-in solution or by importing data from third-party micro-segmentation solutions like Cisco Secure Workloads, Guardicore, or Illumio. Importance of Application Connectivity Why is discovering and mapping application connectivity crucial? Applications are the lifeblood of organizations, driving business functions and, from a technical standpoint, influencing decisions related to firewall rule decommissioning, cloud migration, micro-segmentation, and zero-trust frameworks. Compliance requirements further emphasize the necessity of maintaining a clear understanding of application connectivity flows. Enforcing Micro-Segmentation with AlgoSec Micro-segmentation, a vital network security approach, aims to secure workloads independently by creating security zones per machine. AlgoSec plays a pivotal role in enforcing micro-segmentation by providing a detailed understanding of application connectivity flows. Through its discovery modules, AlgoSec ingests data and translates it into access controls, simplifying the management of north-south and east-west traffic within SDN-based micro-segmentation solutions. Secure Application Connectivity Migration In the complex landscape of public cloud and application migration, AlgoSec emerges as a solution to ensure success. Recognizing the challenges organizations face, AlgoSec’s AutoDiscovery capabilities enable a smooth migration process. By automatically generating security policy change requests, AlgoSec simplifies a traditionally complex and risky process, ensuring business services remain uninterrupted while meeting compliance requirements. In conclusion, AlgoSec’s technological journey reflects a commitment to adaptability and innovation, addressing the ever-changing demands of network security. From its origins in network device management to its pivotal role in cloud security and application connectivity, AlgoSec continues to be a key player in shaping the future of cybersecurity. Schedule a demo Related Articles Q1 at AlgoSec: What innovations and milestones defined our start to 2026? AlgoSec Reviews Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read 2025 in review: What innovations and milestones defined AlgoSec’s transformative year in 2025? AlgoSec Reviews Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read Navigating Compliance in the Cloud AlgoSec Cloud Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read Speak to one of our experts Speak to one of our experts Work email* First name* Last name* Company* country* Select country... Short answer* By submitting this form, I accept AlgoSec's privacy policy Schedule a call
- AlgoSec | Router Honeypot for an IRC Bot
In our previous post we have provided some details about a new fork of Kinsing malware, a Linux malware that propagates across... Cloud Security Router Honeypot for an IRC Bot Rony Moshkovich 2 min read Rony Moshkovich Short bio about author here Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur. Vitae donec tincidunt elementum quam laoreet duis sit enim. Duis mattis velit sit leo diam. glibc_2 Tags Share this article 9/13/20 Published In our previous post we have provided some details about a new fork of Kinsing malware, a Linux malware that propagates across misconfigured Docker platforms and compromises them with a coinminer. Several days ago, the attackers behind this malware have uploaded a new ELF executable b_armv7l into the compromised server dockerupdate[.]anondns[.]net . The executable b_armv7l is based on a known source of Tsunami (also known as Kaiten), and is built using uClibc toolchain: $ file b_armv7l b_armv7l: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, ARM, EABI4 version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, interpreter /lib/ld-uClibc.so.0, with debug_info, not stripped Unlike glibc , the C library normally used with Linux distributions, uClibc is smaller and is designed for embedded Linux systems, such as IoT. Therefore, the malicious b_armv7l was built with a clear intention to install it on such devices as routers, firewalls, gateways, network cameras, NAS servers, etc. Some of the binary’s strings are encrypted. With the help of the HexRays decompiler , one could clearly see how they are decrypted: memcpy ( &key, "xm@_;w,B-Z*j?nvE|sq1o$3\"7zKC4ihgfe6cba~&5Dk2d!8+9Uy:" , 0x40u ) ; memcpy ( &alphabet, "0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ. " , 0x40u ) ; for ( i = 0; i < = 64; ++i ){ if ( encoded [ j ] == key [ i ]) { if ( psw_or_srv ) decodedpsw [ k ] = alphabet [ i ] ; else decodedsrv [ k ] = alphabet [ i ] ; ++k; }} The string decryption routine is trivial — it simply replaces each encrypted string’s character found in the array key with a character at the same position, located in the array alphabet. Using this trick, the critical strings can be decrypted as: Variable Name Encoded String Decoded String decodedpsw $7|3vfaa~8 logmeINNOW decodedsrv $7?*$s7
- AlgoSec | Top 6 Hybrid Cloud Security Solutions: Key Features for 2024
Hybrid cloud security uses a combination of on-premises equipment, private cloud deployments, and public cloud platforms to secure an... Uncategorized Top 6 Hybrid Cloud Security Solutions: Key Features for 2024 Tsippi Dach 2 min read Tsippi Dach Short bio about author here Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur. Vitae donec tincidunt elementum quam laoreet duis sit enim. Duis mattis velit sit leo diam. Tags Share this article 1/15/24 Published Hybrid cloud security uses a combination of on-premises equipment, private cloud deployments, and public cloud platforms to secure an organization’s data, apps, and assets. It’s vital to the success of any organization that uses hybrid cloud network infrastructure. The key factors that make hybrid cloud security different from other types of security solutions are flexibility and agility. Your hybrid cloud security solution must be able to prevent, detect, and respond to threats regardless of the assets they compromise. That means being able to detect anomalous behaviors and enforce policies across physical endpoints, cloud-hosted software-as-a-service (SaaS) deployments, and in public cloud data centers. You need visibility and control wherever your organization stores or processes sensitive data. What is Hybrid Cloud Security? To understand hybrid cloud security, we must first cover exactly what the hybrid cloud is and how it works. Hybrid cloud infrastructure generally refers to any combination of public cloud providers (like AWS, Azure, Google Cloud) and private cloud environments. It’s easy to predict the security challenges hosting some of your organization’s apps on public cloud infrastructure and other apps on its own private cloud. How do you gain visibility across these different environments? How do you address vulnerabilities and misconfiguration risks? Hybrid cloud architecture can create complex problems for security leaders. However, it provides organizations with much-needed flexibility and offers a wide range of data deployment options. Most enterprises use a hybrid cloud strategy because it’s very rare for a large organization to entrust its entire IT infrastructure to a single vendor. As a result, security leaders need to come up with solutions that address the risks unique to hybrid cloud environments. Key Features of Hybrid Cloud Security An optimized hybrid cloud security solution gives the organization a centralized point of reference for managing security policies and toolsets across the entire environment. This makes it easier for security leaders to solve complex problems and detect advanced threats before they evolve into business disruptions. Hybrid cloud infrastructure can actually improve your security posture if managed appropriately. Some of the things you can do in this kind of environment include: Manage security risk more effectively. Lock down your most sensitive and highly regulated data in infrastructure under your direct control, while saving on cloud computing costs by entrusting less sensitive data to a third party. Distribute points of failure. Diversifying your organization’s cloud infrastructure reduces your dependence on any single cloud platform. This amplifies many of the practical benefits of network segmentation. Implement Zero Trust. Hybrid cloud networks can be configured with strict access control and authentication policies. These policies should work without regard to the network’s location, providing a strong foundation for demonstrating Zero Trust . Navigate complex compliance requirements. Organizations with hybrid cloud infrastructure are well-prepared to meet strict compliance requirements that apply to certain regions, like CCPA or GDPR data classification . With the right tools, demonstrating compliance through custom reports is easy. Real-time monitoring and remediation . With the right hybrid cloud security solutions in place, you can gain in-depth oversight into cloud workloads and respond immediately to security incidents when they occur. How Do Hybrid Cloud Security Solutions Work? Integration with Cloud Platforms The first step towards building a hybrid cloud strategy is determining how your cloud infrastructure deployments will interact with one another. This requires carefully reviewing the capabilities of the major public cloud platforms you use and determining your own private cloud integration capabilities. You will need to ensure seamless operation between these platforms while retaining visibility over your entire network. using APIs to programmatically connect different aspects of your cloud environment can help automate some of the most time-intensive manual tasks. For example, you may need to manage security configurations and patch updates across many different cloud resources. This will be very difficult and time-consuming if done manually, but a well-integrated automation-ready policy management solution can make it easy. Security Controls and Measures Your hybrid cloud solution will also need to provide comprehensive tools for managing firewalls and endpoints throughout your environment. These security tools can’t work in isolation — they need consistent policies informed by observation of your organization’s real-world risk profile. That means you’ll need to deploy a centralized solution for managing the policies and rulesets these devices use, and continuously configure them to address the latest threats. You will also need to configure your hybrid cloud network to prevent lateral movement and make it harder for internal threat actors to execute attacks. This is achieved with network segmentation, which partitions different parts of your network into segments that do not automatically accept traffic from one another. Microsegmentation further isolates different assets in your network according to their unique security needs, allowing access only to an exclusive set of users and assets. Dividing cloud workloads and resources into micro-segmented network zones improves network security and makes it harder for threat actors to successfully launch malware and ransomware attacks. It reduces the attack surface and enhances your endpoint security capabilities by enabling you to quarantine compromised endpoints the moment you detect unauthorized activity. How to Choose a Hybrid Cloud Security Provider Your hybrid cloud security provider should offer an extensive range of features that help you optimize your cloud service provider’s security capabilities. It should seamlessly connect your security team to the cloud platforms it’s responsible for protecting, while providing relevant context and visibility into cloud security threats. Here are some of the key features to look out for when choosing a hybrid cloud security provider: Scalability and Flexibility. The solution must scale according to your hybrid environment’s needs. Changing security providers is never easy, and you should project its capabilities well into the future before deciding to go through with the implementation. Pay close attention to usage and pricing models that may not be economically feasible as your organization grows. SLAs and Compliance. Your provider must offer service-level agreements that guarantee a certain level of performance. These SLAs will also play an important role ensuring compliance requirements are always observed, especially in highly regulated sectors like healthcare. Security Posture Assessment. You must be able to easily leverage the platform to assess and improve your overall security posture in a hybrid cloud model. This requires visibility and control over your data, regardless of where it is stored or processed. Not all hybrid cloud security solutions have the integrations necessary to make this feasible. DevSecOps Integration. Prioritize cloud security providers that offer support for integrating security best practices into DevOps, and providing security support early in the software development lifecycle. If your organization plans on building continuous deployment capabilities now or in the future, you will need to ensure your cloud security platform is capable of supporting those workflows. Top 6 Hybrid Cloud Security Solutions 1. AlgoSec AlgoSec is an application connectivity platform that manages security policies across hybrid and multi-cloud environments . It allows security leaders to take control of their apps and security tools, managing and enforcing policies that safeguard cloud services from threats. AlgoSec supports the automation of data security policy changes and allows users to simulate configuration changes across their tech stack. This makes it a powerful tool for in-depth risk analysis and compliance reporting, while giving security leaders the features they need to address complex hybrid cloud security challenges . Key Features: Complete network visualization. AlgoSec intelligently analyzes application dependencies across the network, giving security teams clear visibility into their network topology. Zero-touch change management. Customers can automate application and policy connectivity changes without requiring manual interaction between administrators and security tools. Comprehensive security policy management. AlgoSec lets administrators manage security policies across cloud and on-premises infrastructure, ensuring consistent security throughout the organization. What Do People Say About AlgoSec? AlgoSec is highly rated for its in-depth policy management capabilities and its intuitive, user-friendly interface. Customers praise its enhanced visibility, intelligent automation, and valuable configuration simulation tools. AlgoSec provides security professionals with an easy way to discover and map their network, and scale policy management even as IT infrastructure grows. 2. Microsoft Azure Security Center Microsoft Azure Security Center provides threat protection and unified security management across hybrid cloud workloads. As a leader in cloud computing, Microsoft has equipped Azure Security Center with a wide range of cloud-specific capabilities like advanced analytics, DevOps integrations, and comprehensive access management features into a single cloud-native solution. Adaptive Application Controls leverages machine learning to give users personalized recommendations for whitelisting applications. Just-in-Time VM Access protects cloud infrastructure from brute force attacks by reducing access when virtual machines are not needed. Key Features: Unified security management. Microsoft’s security platform offers visibility both into cloud workflows and non-cloud assets. It can map your hybrid network and enable proactive threat detection across the enterprise tech stack. Continuous security assessments. The platform supports automated security assessments for network assets, services, and applications. It triggers alerts notifying administrators when vulnerabilities are detected. Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) compatibility. Microsoft enables customers to extend visibility and protection to the IaaS layer, providing uniform security and control across hybrid networks. What Do People Say About Microsoft Azure Security Center? Customers praise Microsoft’s hybrid cloud security solution for its user-friendly interface and integration capabilities. However, many users complain about false positives. These may be the result of security tool misconfigurations that lead to unnecessary disruptions and expensive investigations. 3. Amazon AWS Security Hub Amazon AWS Security Hub is a full-featured cloud security posture management solution that centralized security alerts and enables continuous monitoring of cloud infrastructure. It provides a detailed view of security alerts and compliance status across the hybrid environment. Security leaders can use Amazon AWS Security Hub to automate compliance checks, and manage their security posture through a centralized solution. It provides extensive API support and can integrate with a wide variety of additional tools. Key Features: Automated best practice security checks. AWS can continuously check your security practices against a well-maintained set of standards developed by Amazon security experts. Excellent data visualization capabilities. Administrators can customize the Security Hub dashboard according to specific compliance requirements and generate custom reports to demonstrate security performance. Uniform formatting for security findings. AWS uses its own format — the AWS Security Findings Format (ASFF) — to eliminate the need to normalize data across multiple tools and platforms. What Do People Say About Amazon AWS Security Hub? Amazon’s Security Hub is an excellent choice for native cloud security posture management, providing granular control and easy compliance. However, the platform’s complexity and lack of visibility does not resonate well with all customers. Some organizations will need to spend considerable time and effort building comprehensive security reports. 4. Google Cloud Security Command Center Google’s centralized platform helps administrators identify and remediate security risks in Google Cloud and hybrid environments. It is designed to identify misconfigurations and vulnerabilities while making it easier for security leaders to manage regulatory compliance. Some of the key features it offers include real-time threat detection, security health analytics, and risk assessment tools. Google can also simulate the attack path that threat actors might use to compromise cloud networks. Key Features: Multiple service tiers. The standard service tier provides security health analytics and alerts, while the premium tier offers attack path simulations and event threat detection capabilities. AI-generated summaries. Premium subscribers can read dynamically generated summaries of security findings and attack paths in natural language, reducing this technology’s barrier to entry. Cloud infrastructure entitlement management. Google’s platform supports cloud infrastructure entitlement management, which exposes misconfigurations at the principal account level from an identity-based framework What Do People Say About Google Cloud Security Command Center? Customers applaud the feature included in Google’s premium tier for this service, but complain that it can be hard to get. Not all organizations meet the requirements necessary to use this platform’s most advanced features. Once properly implemented and configured, however, it provides state-of-the-art cloud security that integrates well with Google-centric workflows. 5. IBM Cloud Pak for Security IBM’s cloud security service connects disparate data sources across hybrid and multi-cloud environments to uncover hidden threats. It allows hybrid organizations to advance Zero Trust strategies without compromising on operational security. IBM provides its customers with AI-driven insights, seamless integrations with existing IT environments, and data protection capabilities. It’s especially well-suited for enterprise organizations that want to connect public cloud services with legacy technology deployments that are difficult or expensive to modify. Key Features : Open security. This platform is designed to integrate easily with existing security applications, making it easy for customers to scale their security tech stack and improve policy standards across the enterprise. Improved data stewardship. IBM doesn’t require customers to move their data from one place to another. This makes compliance much easier to manage, especially in complex enterprise environments. Threat intelligence integrations. Customers can integrate IBM Cloud Pak with IBM Threat Intelligence Insights to get detailed and actionable insights delivered to cloud security teams. What Do People Say About IBM Cloud Pak? IBM Cloud Pak helps connect security teams and administrators to the content they need in real time. However, it’s a complicated environment with a significant amount of legacy code, well-established workarounds, and secondary components. This impacts usability and makes it less accessible than other entries on this list. 6. Palo Alto Networks Prisma Cloud Palo Alto Networks offers comprehensive cloud-native security across multi-cloud and hybrid environments to customers. Prisma Cloud reduces risk and prevents security breaches at multiple points in the application lifecycle. Some of the key features this solution includes are continuous monitoring, API security, and vulnerability management. It provides comprehensive visibility and control to security leaders managing extensive hybrid cloud deployments. Key Features: Hardens CI/CD pipelines. This solution includes robust features for reducing the attack surface of application development environments and protecting CI/CD pipelines. Secures infrastructure-as-code (IaC) deployments. Extensive coverage for detecting and resolving misconfigurations in IaC templates like Terraform, Kubernetes, ARM, and CloudFormation. Provides context-aware prioritization. Palo Alto Networks addresses open source vulnerabilities and license compliance problems contextually, bringing attention to the most important issues first. What Do People Say About Palo Alto Networks Prisma Cloud? Palo Alto Networks is highly regarded as an enterprise security leader. Many customers praise its products, and Prisma Cloud is no different. However, it comes with a very high price tag that many organizations simply can’t afford. This is especially true when additional integration and implementation costs are factored in. Additionally, some customers have complained about the lack of embedded Identity and Access Management (IAM) controls in the solution. Optimize Hybrid Cloud Security with AlgoSec Security leaders must continually adapt their security deployments to meet evolving cybersecurity threats in hybrid cloud environments. As the threat landscape changes, the organization’s policies and capabilities must adjust to meet new demands. Achieving this level of flexibility is not easy with purely manual configuration and policy workflows. Human error is a major element in many data breaches, and organizations must develop security best practices that address that risk. Implementing the right cloud security platform can make a significant difference when it comes to securing complex hybrid cloud deployments. The ability to simulate in-depth configuration changes and automate the deployment of those changes across the entire environment offers significant advantages to operational security. Consider making AlgoSec your cybersecurity co-pilot for identifying vulnerabilities and addressing security gaps. Avoid costly misconfigurations and leverage intelligent automation to make your hybrid cloud environment more secure than ever before. Schedule a demo Related Articles Q1 at AlgoSec: What innovations and milestones defined our start to 2026? AlgoSec Reviews Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read 2025 in review: What innovations and milestones defined AlgoSec’s transformative year in 2025? AlgoSec Reviews Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read Navigating Compliance in the Cloud AlgoSec Cloud Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read Speak to one of our experts Speak to one of our experts Work email* First name* Last name* Company* country* Select country... Short answer* By submitting this form, I accept AlgoSec's privacy policy Schedule a call
- AlgoSec | 16 Best Practices for Cloud Security (Complete List for 2023)
Ensuring your cloud environment is secure and compliant with industry practices is critical. Cloud security best practices will help you... Cloud Security 16 Best Practices for Cloud Security (Complete List for 2023) Rony Moshkovich 2 min read Rony Moshkovich Short bio about author here Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur. Vitae donec tincidunt elementum quam laoreet duis sit enim. Duis mattis velit sit leo diam. Tags Share this article 4/27/23 Published Ensuring your cloud environment is secure and compliant with industry practices is critical. Cloud security best practices will help you protect your organization’s data and applications. In the process, reduce the risks of security compromise. This post will walk you through the best practices for cloud security. We’ll also share the top cloud security risks and how to mitigate them. The top 5 security risks to cloud computing right now Social engineering. Social engineering attackers use psychological deception to manipulate users into providing sensitive information. These deception tactics may include phishing, pretexting, or baiting. Account compromise. An account compromise occurs when an attacker obtains unauthorized entry to it. A hacker can access your account when you use weak passwords or steal your credentials. They may introduce malware or steal your files once they access your account. Shadow IT. This security risk occurs when your employee uses hardware or software that the IT department does not approve. It may result in compliance problems, data loss, and a higher risk of cyberattacks. Insider activity (unintentional or malicious) . Insider activity occurs when approved users damage your company’s data or network. These users can either do it purposefully or accidentally on-premises. For example, you may disclose private information unintentionally or steal data on purpose. Insecure APIs . APIs make communication easier for cloud services and other software applications. Insecure APIs can allow unauthorized access to sensitive data. This could, in turn, lead to malicious attacks, such as data theft. The attackers could also do illegal data alteration from data centers. 16 best practices for cloud security Establish zero-trust architecture Use role-based access control Monitor suspicious activity Monitor privileged users Encrypt data in motion and at rest Investigate shadow IT applications Protect Endpoints Educate employees about threats Create and enforce a password policy Implement multi-factor authentication Understand the shared responsibility model m Audit IaaS configurations Review SLAs and contracts. Maintaining logs and monitoring Use vulnerability and penetration testing Consider intrusion detection and prevention One of the most critical areas of cloud security is identity and access management. We will also discuss sensitive data protection, social engineering attacks, cloud deployments, and incident response. Best practices for managing access. Access control is an integral part of cloud network security. It restricts who can access cloud services, what they can do with the data, and when. Here are some of the best practices for managing access: Establish zero-trust architecture Zero-trust architecture is a security concept that treats all traffic in or out of your network as untrusted. It considers that every request may be malicious. So you must verify your request, even if it originates from within the network. You can apply zero-trust architecture by dividing the system into smaller, more secure cloud zones. And then enforce strict access policies for each zone. This best practice will help you understand who accesses your cloud services. You’ll also know what they do with your data resources. Use role-based access control Role-based access control allows you to assign users different access rights based on their roles. This method lessens the chances of giving people unauthorized access privileges. It also simplifies the administration of access rights. RBAC also simplifies upholding the tenet of least privilege. It restricts user permission to only the resources they need to do their jobs. This way, users don’t have excessive access that attackers could exploit. Monitor suspicious activity Monitoring suspicious behavior involves tracking and analyzing user activity in a cloud environment. It helps identify odd activities, such as user accounts accessing unauthorized data. You should also set up alerts for suspicious activities. Adopting this security strategy will help you spot security incidents early and react quickly. This best practice will help you improve your cloud functionality. It will also protect your sensitive data from unwanted access or malicious activities. Monitor privileged users Privileged users have high-level access rights and permissions. They can create, delete and modify data in the cloud environment. You should consider these users as a huge cybersecurity risk. Your privileged users can cause significant harm if they get compromised. Closely watch these users’ access rights and activity. By doing so, you’ll easily spot misuse of permissions and avert data breaches. You can also use privileged access management systems (PAS) to control access to privileged accounts. Enforcing security certifications also helps privileged users avoid making grievous mistakes. They’ll learn the actions that can pose a cybersecurity threat to their organization. Best practices for protecting sensitive data Safeguarding sensitive data is critical for organizational security. You need security measures to secure the cloud data you store, process and transfer. Encrypt data in motion and at rest Encrypting cloud data in transit and at rest is critical to data security. When you encrypt your data, it transforms into an unreadable format. So only authorized users with a decryption key can make it readable again. This way, cybercriminals will not access your sensitive data. To protect your cloud data in transit, use encryption protocols like TSL and SSL. And for cloud data at rest, use powerful encryption algorithms like AES and RSA. Investigate shadow IT applications Shadow IT apps can present a security risk as they often lack the same level of security as sanctioned apps. Investigating Shadow IT apps helps ensure they do not pose any security risks. For example, some staff may use cloud storage services that are insecure. If you realize that, you can propose sanctioned cloud storage software as a service apps like Dropbox and Google Drive. You can also use software asset management tools to monitor the apps in your environment. A good example is the SaaS solution known as Flexera software asset management. Protect Endpoints Endpoints are essential in maintaining a secure cloud infrastructure. They can cause a huge security issue if you don’t monitor them closely. Computers and smartphones are often the weakest points in your security strategy. So, hackers target them the most because of their high vulnerability. Cybercriminals may then introduce ransomware into your cloud through these endpoints. To protect your endpoints, employ security solutions like antimalware and antivirus software. You could also use endpoint detection and response systems (EDRs) to protect your endpoints from threats. EDRs use firewalls as a barrier between the endpoints and the outside world. These firewalls will monitor and block suspicious traffic from accessing your endpoints in real time. Best practices for preventing social engineering attacks Use these best practices to protect your organization from social engineering attacks: Educate employees about threats Educating workers on the techniques that attackers use helps create a security-minded culture. Your employees will be able to detect malicious attempts and respond appropriately. You can train them on deception techniques such as phishing, baiting, and pretexting. Also, make it your policy that every employee takes security certifications on a regular basis. You can tell them to report anything they suspect to be a security threat to the IT department. They’ll be assured that your security team can handle any security issues they may face. Create and enforce a password policy A password policy helps ensure your employees’ passwords are secure and regularly updated. It also sets up rules everyone must follow when creating and using passwords. Some rules in your password policy can be: Setting a minimum password length when creating passwords. No reusing of passwords. The frequency with which to change passwords. The characteristics of a strong password. A strong password policy safeguards your cloud-based operations from social engineering assaults. Implement multi-factor authentication Multi-factor authentication adds an extra layer of security to protect the users’ accounts. This security tool requires users to provide extra credentials to access their accounts. For example, you may need a one-time code sent via text or an authentication app to log into your account. This extra layer of protection reduces the chances of unauthorized access to accounts. Hackers will find it hard to steal sensitive data even if they have your password. In the process, you’ll prevent data loss from your cloud platform. Leverage the multifactor authentication options that public cloud providers usually offer. For example, Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers multifactor authentication for its users. Best practices for securing your cloud deployments. Your cloud deployments are as secure or insecure as the processes you use to manage them. This is especially true for multi-cloud environments where the risks are even higher. Use these best practices to secure your cloud deployments: Understand the shared responsibility model The shared responsibility model is a concept that drives cloud best practices. It states that cloud providers and customers are responsible for different security aspects. Cloud service providers are responsible for the underlying infrastructure and its security. On the other hand, customers are responsible for their apps, data, and settings in the cloud. Familiarize yourself with the Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft Azure guides. This ensures you’re aware of the roles of your cloud service provider. Understanding the shared security model will help safeguard your cloud platform. Audit IaaS configurations Cloud deployments of workloads are prone to misconfigurations and vulnerabilities. So it’s important to regularly audit your Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) configurations. Check that all IaaS configurations align with industry best practices and security standards. Regularly check for weaknesses, misconfigurations, and other security vulnerabilities. This best practice is critical if you are using a multi-cloud environment. The level of complexity arises, which in turn increases the risk of attacks. Auditing IaaS configurations will secure your valuable cloud data and assets from potential cyberattacks. Review SLAs and contracts. Reviewing SLAs and contracts is a crucial best practice for safeguarding cloud installations. It ensures that all parties know their respective security roles. You should review SLAs to ensure cloud deployments meet your needs while complying with industry standards. Examining the contracts also helps you identify potential risks, like data breaches. This way, you prepare elaborate incident responses. Best practices for incident response Cloud environments are dynamic and can quickly become vulnerable to cyberattacks. So your security/DevOps team should design incident response plans to resolve potential security incidents. Here are some of the best practices for incident response: Maintaining logs and monitoring Maintaining logs and monitoring helps you spot potential cybersecurity threats in real time. In the process, enable your security to respond quickly using the right security controls. Maintaining logs involves tracking all the activities that occur in a system. In your cloud environment, it can record login attempts, errors, and other network activity. Monitoring your network activity lets you easily spot a breach’s origin and damage severity. Use vulnerability and penetration testing Vulnerability assessment and penetration testing can help you identify weaknesses in your cloud. These tests mimic attacks on a company’s cloud infrastructure to find vulnerabilities that cybercriminals may exploit. Through automation, these security controls can assist in locating security flaws, incorrect setups, and other weaknesses early. You can then measure the adequacy of your security policies to address these flaws. This will let you know if your cloud security can withstand real-life incidents. Vulnerability and penetration testing is a crucial best practice for handling incidents in cloud security. It may dramatically improve your organization’s overall security posture. Consider intrusion detection and prevention Intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDPS) are essential to a robust security strategy. Intrusion detection involves identifying potential cybersecurity threats in your network. Through automation, intrusion detection tools monitor your network traffic in real-time for suspicious activity. Intrusion prevention systems (IPS) go further by actively blocking malicious activity. These security tools can help prevent any harm by malware attacks in your cloud environment. The bottom line on cloud security. You must enforce best practices to keep your cloud environment secure. This way, you’ll lower the risks of cyberattacks which can have catastrophic results. A CSPM tool like Prevasio can help you enforce your cloud security best practices in many ways. It can provide visibility into your cloud environment and help you identify misconfigurations. Prevasio can also allow you to set up automated security policies to apply across the entire cloud environment. This ensures your cloud users abide by all your best practices for cloud security. So if you’re looking for a CSPM tool to help keep your cloud environment safe, try Prevasio today! Schedule a demo Related Articles Q1 at AlgoSec: What innovations and milestones defined our start to 2026? AlgoSec Reviews Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read 2025 in review: What innovations and milestones defined AlgoSec’s transformative year in 2025? AlgoSec Reviews Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read Navigating Compliance in the Cloud AlgoSec Cloud Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read Speak to one of our experts Speak to one of our experts Work email* First name* Last name* Company* country* Select country... Short answer* By submitting this form, I accept AlgoSec's privacy policy Schedule a call



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