What is Amazon Lightsail?

Lightsail is a virtual private server (VPS) that bundles compute, storage, networking, and DNS. It also has built-in capabilities that include a managed database, load balancer, support for containers and a content delivery network (CDN).

Still, this simplicity comes with trade-offs. Amazon EC2 opens the door to far more ways to build, deploy and manage applications. It also remains the dominant AWS offering, alongside Amazon S3. But, for a subset of users, Lightsail will be the better fit.

Amazon Lightsail is for businesses that want to spin up a server without having to work through all the pricing, configuration and management details associated with a typical AWS deployment.

What is Amazon EC2?

EC2 Instance is a virtual server in Amazon web services terminology. EC2 means Elastic compute cloud where an AWS subscriber can add or provision a computer server in the AWS cloud. This is an on-demand EC2 instance offered by the AWS where the virtual server can be rented by subscribers on an hourly basis and use the same for application deployment.

With Amazon EC2 Instance, you can configure multiple virtual servers together, add the security or network settings, and manage the storage. It helps you to develop or deploy apps much faster than your expectations. It allows you to scale up based on business needs and provides you with the ability to handle varied needs of your business as well.

Why use Lightsail?

Now, to begin with, let’s say, you are a blogger & have an amazing business idea but when you started exploring, you realize that WordPress should be connected with the MySQL server.

So, when you start configuring it for the server, you get engaged in multiple activities like WordPress configuration, configuring MySQL for WordPress, DNS configuration etc. Along the way, you realize that you are diverted from the actual idea of blogging and got badly stuck with the server management operations. So now don’t panic here. There are many AWS cloud services to save you.

Using Lightsail service here is suggested. You don’t have to worry about the underlying infrastructure, just launch your application and start building your idea directly. It helps to jumpstart your project that includes almost everything like DNS configuration, data transfer, static IP, data storage, security groups etc. The best part is that everything can be availed at very affordable prices. However, the service is not ideal for applications that require a highly configurable environment or consistently high CPU performance, such as video encoding or analytics.

Why use Amazon EC2?

To do the same thing in EC2, you would need to provision the instance, add Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) block storage or Amazon S3 object storage, provision the image, and then configure all the different resources and applications.

Let’s start!! Amazon Lightsail Vs. Amazon EC2

Compute & Storage: If you want granularity and a massive range of configuration options, go with EC2. Lightsail’s solid-state drive (SSD) disk sizes range from 20 GB to 640 GB. You have far more flexibility with EC2, but in most cases, you need to sort out the attached instance storage separately through EBS. With Lightsail, all that is preconfigured.

Plus, if you ever outgrow your VPS instance or need more control, you can take a snapshot and export it to a new instance in EC2.

Databases: Lightsail managed databases don’t provide the same level of performance or throughput that larger databases, such as MongoDB or Cassandra, might require. EC2 instances with provisioned IOPS SSD storage are a better option than Lightsail in these cases. Lightsail can work with other AWS database offerings. It supports Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon Relational Database Service and Amazon Aurora, but you may need to peer to a separate Amazon Virtual Private Cloud to make it work.

Stopping the instances: It is possible to stop and start an instance in both cloud services either EC2 or Lightsail. In practice, AWS still charges for Lightsail instance when an instance is stopped. At the same time, AWS does not charge anything for EC2 instance when it is stopped. 

When we look at the process, Lightsail costs are built on the top of EC2. Enterprises can save money when plan the compute, storage, and networking requirements with EC2. Further, AWS offers the best tools and services to backup or spin up or down EC2 servers. But Lightsail can be the best choice for individual or departmental apps that run for a longer time span. Other services make more sense when a company is first exploring or testing out various applications.

Layots has 20+ years of unmatched experience in IT management. Our solutions offer speed, agility, and efficiency to tackle business challenges in the areas of service management, automation, and operations. So if you are investigating to migrate your business to cloud, Layots can help you to review your options and architect a system that works best for your organization. To know more about this solution, PING US !!!

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Next-generation firewalls (NGFWs) are at the core of an enterprise security strategy. The best ones incorporate policy enforcement for applications, user control, intrusion prevention, deep packet inspection, sandboxing and threat intelligence feeds. Adding more and more components means there’s more to manage and update, which can decrease your efficiency by creating an unnecessarily more complex system.

Through these steps, NGFW firstly recognizes the potential network threats and then becomes aware of malware attacks, software harms, and several other external threats. Then, it works upon preventing them afterward. Here are some tips about what to look for in a next-generation firewall (NGFW) that will satisfy business needs today and into the future.

Security Components

Here are some tips about what to look for in a next-generation firewall (NGFW) that will satisfy business needs today and into the future.

Application Awareness:

Next Generation Firewall must be able to identify, allow, block or limit applications regardless of port, protocol etc. Traditional port-based firewalls only provide you with limited control and visibility of the applications and end-users accessing your network.

Obviously, you don’t want everyone accessing applications like YouTube or Facebook, however, what about your marketing team, or teachers that are streaming a video for a specific lesson? With the right firewall in place, you can apply policies to certain end-users, allowing access to those with jobs pertinent to the applications being used. Different end-users can have different polices applied that prohibit them from accessing certain applications.

Approachability:

Many firewall models deliver tight security and offer GUI-friendly administration. GUIs help prevent installation mistakes, make it easier to diagnose and correct failures, make it easier to train staff and implement changes, upgrades, and replacement. The easier a platform is to administer, the easier it will be to troubleshooting and maintaining the platform.

Deep packet inspection (DPI):  

This capability ensures the various pieces of each packet are thoroughly examined to identify malformed packets, errors, known attacks and any other anomalies. DPI can rapidly identify and then block Trojans, viruses, spam, intrusion attempts and any other violations of normal protocol communications.

VPN support:

A good firewall also establishes and monitors secure channels, enabling remote connectivity.  In order to secure encrypted traffic the Next generation Firewall supports all inbound and outbound SSL decryption capabilities. Look for a firewall that supports both SSL- and IPSec- protected VPN connections from similar devices (for point-to-point or site-to-site VPNs), as well as other secure connections.

Capacity & Throughput:

Ensure that the device has the appropriate number of Ethernet ports and the appropriate speeds (10Mbps/100Mbps and/or 1000Mbps, if necessary).  Ensure that the firewall you select and/or maintain has the CPU capacity necessary to perform packet inspection, gateway security services, and routing functions.

Failover:

Some organizations require WAN failover, or redundant Internet connections with automatic fault detection and correction. Many firewall models don’t have support for automatic failover. If that feature is critical to your organization, confirm that the model you select includes seamless failover; don’t assume high-end firewalls include such functionality by default.

Premium Class Market Players

Layots is partnered with world class OEMs like Cisco, Juniper, Palo Alto, Fortinet, Sophos, Sonic wall, Check Point & Barracuda which is compatible with different operating system and prevents any kind of opportunistic attacks 

Cisco: A proven stateful inspection firewall with next-generation firewall capabilities and network-based security controls for end-to-end network intelligence and streamlined security operations.

Juniper: Juniper Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) Services provide policy-based awareness and control over applications, users, and content to stop advanced cyberthreats—all in a single device. Security management and visibility for centralized, automated policy control across physical and virtual SRX Series firewalls.

Palo Alto Networks: Power, intelligence, simplicity and versatility for enterprise and service provider deployments & A scalable modular design that enables increased performance as enterprise needs grow.

Fortinet: Fortinet’s network security solutions provide powerful protection across the entire attack surface. With Fortinet’s integrated SD-WAN and Next Generation Firewall, your organization has access to an Intrusion Prevention System, VPN, Secure Web Gateway, and more.

Sophos: Sophos firewall has got an interactive GUI. Reporting platform is very good and it has got easy use SSL VPN for the organization. With Sophos Firewall you can track down each and every network traffic on reporting screen. Sophos Firewall has got a good ransomware protection feature.

Sonicwall: SonicWall firewall  is rated a good value too. The company offers its Super Massive line for the largest networks; NSA for mid range companies; and TZ series firewalls for small companies.

Understanding how a NGFW performs requires more than looking at a vendor’s specification or running a bit of traffic through it. Most firewalls will perform well when traffic loads are light. It’s important to see how a firewall responds at scale, particularly when encryption is turned on. Roughly 80% of traffic is encrypted today, and the ability to maintain performance levels with high volumes of encrypted traffic is critical.

We @layots are ready to help your organization by pitching the selection of right network firewall device which best matches your requirements.

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Traditionally, this has been a difficult goal given that security was predicated primarily on control: IT administrators enforce rules to meet business requirements and adhere to compliance obligations. This approach can result in a less than optimal user experience (UX), causing users to seek workarounds in order to get their jobs done. The growth of shadow IT is proof that users are very adept at leveraging unsecured personal devices or unsanctioned cloud services to address the tasks at hand.

Secure Access, in contrast, is designed with a seamless, simple user experience in mind that also provides Zero Trust protection. It is a model based on enablement rather than restriction. The objective is to deliver simple and frictionless access to enterprise information, applications, and services without compromising security – all while making it easy and flexible for IT to implement, manage and adapt security policies that align with an ever-changing environment. Zero Trust assumes that nothing inside or outside of the enterprise perimeter should be trusted and the network must verify anyone and anything trying to connect before granting access. Connectivity is only granted after identity is authenticated, the security posture of the connected device is verified, and the user or thing is authorized to access the desired application, service, or information.

Pulse Clients securely connect users to networks, both data center, and cloud. Wrapped in an extremely user-friendly package, Pulse Clients dynamically enable the appropriate network and security services on users’ endpoints. Users are not distracted from their work activities to figure out what network they are on or what service to enable. With Pulse Secure, the connection just works, helping to deliver the productivity promised by mobile devices. Pulse Client delivers dynamic access control, seamlessly switching between remote (SSL VPN) and local (NAC) access control services on Microsoft Windows devices. Pulse Client also enables comprehensive endpoint security posture assessment for mobile and desktop computing devices, and quarantine and remediate, if necessary

Pulse Secure Connection Workflow

• The user will initiate a connection to the Pulse Secure SSLVPN gateway using the provided VPN URL.
• Users can connect using a browser (for agentless access) or using a persistent VPN agent.
• SSLVPN gateway will perform the user authentication (it can be Active Directory, LDAP, Radius, OTP, etc credentials or it can be Multifactor Authentication).
• After successful authentication, the SSLVPN gateway will perform the compliance check on the user machine (optional)
• Once the authentication and compliance check is Passed successfully, access will be provided only to the authorized resources. Resource access can be controlled through Access rules.
• The policy can be configured per user, group, etc.  

Feature Set of Pulse Secure Access VPN

Dual-transport (SSL + Encapsulating Security Payload) full Layer 3 VPN connectivity with granular access control.

• Client/server proxy application that tunnels traffic from specific applications to specific destinations (available for Windows devices only)
• “On Demand VPN” and “Per App VPN”, for seamless & secure end user experience

• The full range of split tunneling options is configurable, including support for individual IP addresses as well as FQDN.
• Includes enable and disable functionality with overriding route capability and route monitoring.
• Pulse AppConnect enables IT to integrate per-application SSL VPN connectivity for maximum data security and user transparency.

• Users can easily launch SSL VPN via their Web browser, or directly from their desktop.
• Auto Connect feature allows devices to automatically connect to VPN, either at the time when the machine starts or user logs on.
• VPN on demand feature leverages OS capabilities for auto triggering VPN, seamlessly in the background, when an approved application needs corporate access.

• Administrators can deploy Pulse Secure for remote user authentication using a wide array of authentication mechanisms, including hardware token, smart card, soft token, Google Authenticator, one-time passwords, and certificate authentication.
• SAML authentication, for delegating user authentication to an Identity Provider.

• Endpoint devices can be checked prior to and during a remote access session to verify an acceptable device security posture requiring installed/running endpoint security applications (antivirus, personal firewall, etc.), as well as check for IT-required Operating System versions, patch level, browser type, and many other requirements.
• Custom-built checks for specialized customer requirements are also supported.
• Noncompliant endpoints can be quarantined, denied access, or granted access, depending on administrator defined policies

• Enables consolidated reporting and dashboards for simplified management.
• Leverages MDM attributes for more intelligent and centralized policy creation.
• Facilitates transparent “no touch” MDM-based deployment of Pulse Clients to iOS and Android devices

Pulse Secure offers a comprehensive, unified, interoperable and scalable Secure Access platform that securely connects workers to company resources and protects company devices, regardless of location – in the data center, internal network, cloud, or mobile. That’s why the world’s largest and most security conscious organizations rely on Pulse Secure solutions and trust our expertise and know-how.

The post Pulse Secure VPN | Zero Trust Secure Access to Hybrid IT Resources appeared first on Layots Technologies | Accelerate your digital growth.

Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) is a routing technique in telecommunications networks that directs data from one node to the next based on short path labels rather than long network addresses, thus avoiding complex lookups in a routing table and speeding traffic flows.

The increasing need for faster packet routing gave rise to MPLS in the 1990s. Today, MPLS is capable of encapsulating the network layer grouping along with short as well as long labels. In spite of developments and improvements in hardware technology over the years, MPLS may have lost its initial purpose, but its numerous other characteristics have ensured that this technology remains a popular option for enterprises looking at reliable network access.

Premium Market Players

Benefits of MPLS Networking Technology

It is clear from the manner in which MPLS Network technology works that it is designed to increase efficiency while reducing the overall cost. Some other prominent benefits of MPLS are as follows:

• Better Uptime Due to Traffic Management- MPLS allows users to send data packets over alternative paths via a predefined route and wherein the packets are clearly prioritized. This helps the system run like clockwork and critical services are delivered with the best possible uptime guarantees.
• Scalability – MPLS is highly scalable as it allows businesses to add additional locations to the VPN without investing in expensive hardware infrastructure.
• Privacy – unlike an internet connection, MPLS is a private network that is not accessible to users on the internet. MPLS uses a closed user group (CUG) to ensure only your traffic crosses the network.
• Bandwidth Utilization – Because different types of traffic can be put onto the same link, users can rest assured that high-priority traffic (such as SIP) can borrow capacity from a lower priority traffic stream in case required or vice versa. This ensures optimum bandwidth utilization.

How does this MPLS works??

MPLS operates at a layer that is generally considered to lie between traditional definitions of OSI Layer 2 (data link layer) and Layer 3 (network layer), and thus is often referred to as a layer 2.5 protocol. It was designed to provide a unified data-carrying service for both circuit-based clients and packet-switching clients which provide a datagram service model. It can be used to carry many different kinds of traffic, including IP packets, as well as native ATM, SONET, and Ethernet frames.

In an MPLS setup, each data packet is assigned a label and all packet forwarding decisions are based on this label. This eliminates any need to examine the contents of the packet and users can create comprehensive circuits across different types of transports with any protocol. This characteristic also reduces the network’s dependence on one specific data link layer technology like ATM (asynchronous transfer mode) Ethernet, or SONET (synchronous optical networking).

The packet labels are associated with a predetermined path as they transverse through the network. Users can define these paths with respect to different QoS features and priorities. In other words, MPLS allows users the control of network routing by creating paths that function like point-to-point connections within your network while being flexible at the same time.

Business Requirements

Leased lines are designed to offer dedicated point-to-point connectivity. Therefore, they are not designed to cater to complex network requirements. MPLS can offer both one-to-many and point-to-point connectivity thereby, catering to multiple business requirements.

For more clarity, we at Layots can help you assess your current and future network requirements to arrive at a more informed decision. You can contact us directly or chat with us and our experts will get in touch with you for an initial consultation.

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As a result, data consumption in India is estimated to grow to 100 million terabytes by 2022. This data will be stored in a distributed ecosystem of multiple devices and data centres. Consumer preferences in terms of data consumption and the industry push for cloudification hence require significant growth in high-bandwidth and (in some instances) low-latency connectivity. Additionally, the recent pandemic and ensuing lockdowns have led to greater awareness of the need to be equipped for remote working, which may become a long-term requirement across many organizations.

An Internet leased line is a premium Internet connectivity product, normally delivered over fiber, which provides uncontended, symmetrical bandwidth with full duplex traffic. It is also known as an Ethernet leased line, dedicated line, data circuit or private line.

This connection can be used for internet access, business data exchange, video and voice calls and any other form of telecommunication. The term ‘dedicated internet’ is often used when talking about leased lines, put simply the amount of bandwidth you pay for is reserved solely for your use so there are no changes in speed or availability at times of high demand. The leased line is always active and available for a fixed monthly fee.

Layots can help you choose a carrier at the most competitive price, deploy and manage your business’s leased line solution, ensuring a wide coverage to your workers, servers, SaaS-based applications, remote sites and telephone lines. 

Premium Market Players

Feature Set of Enterprise Leased Line

We can advise on the best connectivity solutions to suit the way your business works, whether it’s physical connectivity or wireless connectivity. For a fully integrated, Layots Business Connectivity Solution, speak to a Communications expert today. 

The post Rise of Connectivity Services in India: Internet Leased Line (ILL) appeared first on Layots Technologies | Accelerate your digital growth.

We are in this together. We can do this together.

IT guys spend most of their valuable time in maintaining as well as administering existing IT systems — it is an important work, but certainly they can do better. How? Well, there’s always more work to do, considering that IT leaders wish to grow as business grows. Every IT guy wishes to provide meaningful value to their Managers. 

Ultimately, understanding how changes in patterns of work stand to impact the day-to-day lives of your IT staff will allow you to smartly deal with the current situation. We understand that it is too soon to predict the next steps, it has only been weeks and we are trying to get used to the newer ways to work. We want to ensure that you are spending your crucial time right. Use your data to validate. Prioritize things for your IT and implement accordingly.

Best practices to manage your IT Infra from remote

Make WFH experience a productive one for your employee by ensuring that your applications which are supporting your business operations are running smoothly. There are some steps that you can take to make this transition of working from home smooth for your IT.

Make sure all your employees are provided with proper endpoints (Like PC/Desktop/Laptop) & seamless internet connectivity to carry out their day to day business activity.

If you have hosted all your data/applications in an in-house NAS Storage/Physical Server, make sure that the respective employee groups can access their data/application from remote. Enable users with SSL VPN to access your internal resources.

Make sure that you have enabled Multi Factor Authentication/AD Authentication to authenticate the users who are accessing the internal resources

If you have hosted all your applications in an in-house server, make sure that you have protected it with UPS, Redundant Power Supply Unit (SMPS), Precise Cooling & 24×7 CCTV Surveillance.

Ensure files that are confidential are not being accessed without any authentication. Make sure that you frequently backed up all your files. Backup all your files to AWS/Azure Cloud to make sure the availability of data at all time. Use a Backup agent in Individual PCs/Servers to backup your overall data as well as daily incremental data to cloud

If your employees are using their own personal devices to access the internal resources, make sure that you have put a AV/DLP Agent to prevent the data leakage in any form & prevent them from accessing any malicious content

Enable security profiles for each set of users & groups in your firewall. Limit their access based on the work environment. Use content filtering/ Application Control/ AV/ DLP Modules wherever possible

Ensure that you install SSL certificate for your domain & make sure to cross check the licensing details for each & every network devices/Applications to properly operate with valid support contract

Start migrating your data to the cloud as soon as possible. This will help you to avoid the lockdown scenarios in near future, where you don’t need to worry about the data availability/safety & security.

For all employees with the ability to WFH, the home broadband network has become mission critical. VPNs can also be difficult to use, and the corporate VPN infrastructure may not scale sufficiently to handle the sudden influx of simultaneous WFH users. Deploy SDWAN devices in your WFH employees & take control of each device by using a orchestrator/controller. Features: Internet Load balancing & Fail-over, Policy (Application based failover), IPSec tunnels fail-over, Stateful Firewall, QoS, URL filtering & Usage status

Video/Audio conferencing enables people from different locations to hold virtual meetings as if they were in the same location. Enable them with necessary Zoom/ Microsoft Teams/ Cisco Webex Bridges

Building your infrastructure architecture is a hard and slow process that demands a lot of dedication, passion, skills, and money. Even with the latest available solutions, you still need experts to guide you.

That’s why we advice you to rely on some trusted guys who can provide you with Infrasctucture-as-a-Service! Rely on Layots! No more searching and comparisons, we can build you a modern, secure, reliable and scalable infrastructure! 

The post Managing your IT Infrastructure during Lockdown Crisis appeared first on Layots Technologies | Accelerate your digital growth.

Introduction

To manage cloud security in today’s world, you need a solution that helps you address threats to enterprise data and infrastructure, including the major trends you are up against. While information technology does move rapidly and with a degree of unpredictability, a comprehensive risk management approach, designed to flex and adapt, enables organizations to embrace cloud services with security confidence.

The structural foundation of this approach will not only assist in mitigating the risks associated with cloud deployments and usage, but also improve and standardize your security posture and practices across all your environments—public and private clouds as well as bare metal server clouds; and allow you to skip future security overhauls brought on by the emergence of new types of information technologies and security threats.

Compared to on-premises private data centres (i.e., traditional environment), cloud usage introduces incremental risk. Yet, as we propose, this escalation of risk is controllable such that the benefits and risks of using the cloud can be balanced. In essence, driving toward the same security objectives as in traditional environments is the right path when using the cloud.

Security is a split responsibility

Contrasting with the “fully owned and operated” foundation of traditional environments, in all three of the prevalent public cloud models—Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS)—security is a split responsibility between the cloud provider and its subscribers (tenants); with the level of responsibility in the hands of the cloud provider growing in moving across the models from IaaS to SaaS.

Similarly, visibility into the cloud provider’s security operations is not as deep or deterministic as in traditional environments. Consequently, cloud tenants are indirectly asked to trust without full verification. For example, vulnerability scanning, and remediation is part of the cloud provider’s security responsibilities (e.g., of virtual network interfaces and hypervisor in IaaS, and up through the application software in SaaS); but frequency and depth of vulnerability scanning, and prioritizing remediation, is determined by the cloud provider, not individual tenants. Similarly, identifying and mitigating security incidents and configuration errors attributed to the layers of the cloud infrastructure under the cloud provider’s purview are also outside the line-of-sight of the tenants. In cloud environments, the strength of security is partially dependent on the strength of the security operations and administration conducted by the cloud provider.

On-Premises Vs Cloud Security

Today, data is the key that drives the operations of departments. Such data helps keeping track of the performance, discover value adding insights, and improve security.

Data also plays a primary role in defining and outlining various IT security policies, be it on-premises or cloud setup. While some departments prefer in-house data collection and management, others opt for cloud migration because of its services availability and scalability. Cloud technologies have ensured easier management of data, especially ensuring enhanced data security. As the cloud ensures on demand infrastructure access, Departments are able to implement and maintain effective and efficient cloud security frameworks that can manage and tackle emergent threats. Differentiating between traditional IT security and cloud security is especially important. Each has its own set of advantages / limitations and being aware of both approaches will strengthen the Department’s operational decision making.

A traditional IT approach gives the department increased control over daily usage of each device. It is possible to monitor and control data along with daily data management and the data resides within department premises. Though an on-premises setup would need training of existing Department resources on emerging security technologies. However, the biggest challenge with traditional IT systems is the Capital Expenditure required to install and maintain the security components. Asset refresh for end-of-life security components would also add to capital expenditure for the departments. The department is tasked with the responsibility to manage and monitor security related compliances / certifications which in turn are capital intensive and would require internal capabilities within the Department. Hence gaps in the security related practices may give rise to vulnerabilities.

The cloud ensures easier data management and system security. Instead of controlling every aspect of data security control on-site, the Department can easily outsource the data security needs to a prominent and reputable Managed Service Provider.

Furthermore, most cloud developers are more experienced with advanced security and data governance models. This means that the Departments will be able to plan appropriate strategies to ensure real time risk mitigation. An important reason for the reluctance to move more data into the cloud are the concerns around security.

Where to Start?!

Typically, data does not stay in one place on your network, and this is especially true of data in the cloud. Encrypt your data wherever it is in the cloud: at rest, in process, or in motion.

Data in motion

• Data in flight over networks (Internet, e-commerce, mobile devices, automated teller machines, and so on)

• Data that uses protocols such as Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), Transport Layer Security (TLS), Internet Protocol Security (IPsec), Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS), FTP, and Secure Shell (SSH) Data in process

Data in progress

• Transactional data in real time, or sensitive personal financial data stored as encrypted fields, records, rows, or column data in a database Data at rest

Data at rest

• Files on computers, servers, and removable media

• Data stored using full disk encryption (FDE) and application-level models

The principal security technologies and concepts needed to secure cloud environments include the following:

Segmentation & Isolation

Public cloud’s multi-tenancy demands that organizations establish and maintain virtual walls around each of their workloads and the network traffic that flows to and from workloads and among workloads. This effort is essential in shielding workloads and data from other cloud tenants and cloud administrators, and, from a performance perspective, assuring that the workload is not “crowded out” of its necessary compute, storage, and networking resources.

Depending on the workload, best effort performance is intolerable; verifiable service level agreements (SLAs) are essential.

Threat Detection and Mitigation

Threats designed to disrupt operations, undermine integrity, or eventually sow the seeds for data exfiltration are omnipresent. Cloud providers recognized this and have built threat detection and mitigation technologies and procedures into their operations to serve all of their tenants; and, naturally, to maintain service uptime and integrity. Yet, with the micro-targeting of advanced threats, the cloud provider’s threat detection is not a panacea. Adding a second layer of threat detection is an advisable practice for all cloud tenants to defend against the external threats that evaded the “for everyone” threat detection of the cloud provider.

Security Information & Event Management (SIEM)/Log Management

No defence will ever be completely impenetrable; there must be a backstop of non-stop collection of data to discover early warning signals of multi-stage exploits. Continuing on the same path as in traditional environments, next generation SIEM and Log Management forms this essential backstop in cloud environments. For maximum effectiveness, data collection must be broad, from the network layer up through the application layer; monitoring must be conducted on a real-time basis and produce outcomes that are grounded in context. In circumstances where a hybrid approach is used—a mix of private data centre (traditional environment) and public cloud—the SIEM and Log Management capabilities must seamlessly span both environments. Additionally, security intelligence must be equally comprehensive in spanning external and internal factors, in order to filter what can be a mountain of daily security issues to a more manageable, prioritized few.

Incident Response and Forensics

Despite best efforts to protect virtual workloads in cloud environments, the potential of a major security incident still exists and must be handled with expedience and prudence. While a noble aspiration, planning and rehearsal is critical to ensure that cool heads prevail during the heat of the moment. Forensics is also essential, to gauge the exploit’s extent and, of equal importance, to guide defence-tightening adjustments. Comprehensive SIEM and Log Management capabilities are essential in supporting both incident response and forensics.

Identity & Access Management

As previously stated, the remoteness (i.e., access from any device, from anywhere) of public cloud services, and the proliferation of SaaS subscriptions intensify the necessity of an Identity & Access Management (I&AM) system to control user access privileges across private and public environments. Automating subscriber management functions (i.e., bulk SaaS enrolments, self-service password administration, and revocation of access privileges for departed employees across all environments) are also important functions. Reporting on user log-in activity, also a function of I&AM, assists in discovering questionable activities by users and administrators, and in assigning the costs of cloud services to individuals and departments. Last, single sign-on lessens credential sprawl and user time spent in resetting forgotten passwords and logging into each SaaS subscription individually.

Data Protection

Data breach news stories are far too common; and, with certainty, there are countless more data breaches that are either undetected or not publicly reported. Several coordinated approaches assist in mitigating the risk of data breaches (e.g., segmentation and isolation, vulnerability testing, SIEM, and I&AM). Encrypting valuable data in all of its modalities—at rest, in motion, and in use—should also be used. Of equal importance, the cloud user’s

encryption keys should be inaccessible by the cloud provider, to eliminate the potential that the cloud provider can access tenant data, and to ensure that data erasure in the cloud is complete (i.e., by destroying the encryption keys)

Secure Software Development

Secure software development has long been advocated by security professionals as essential in systematically reducing the frequency and severity of software vulnerabilities. Considering the heightened exposure in public cloud environments, the importance of secure software development is equally heightened.

Vulnerability Scanning and Patch Management

Even with devotion to secure software development, vulnerable software still exists, if for no other reason than the threat actors continuously advancing their techniques. Also, other layers of software lie below (e.g., operating system) or to the side of applications (e.g., browsers, drivers, and readers), and are subject to vulnerabilities. Periodic vulnerability scanning and regular patch management is a good standard practice, and one that takes on greater importance in the consideration that vulnerabilities in the configuration of a virtual workload will remain with each new virtual instance of the workload, until the vulnerabilities are discovered and effectively removed from the workload’s configuration profile.

The Last Word! 

 Security in a fast-paced technology-infused world cries for an “invest once and deploy everywhere” approach. For this to be realized, security must be planned in advance and built-in, yet still be fluidly adaptable to circumstances, and singularly controllable. Lacking this type of security approach, the practice of security in the cloud will be on a path of reactiveness, with expensive and sub-optimized operations.  

The post Cloud Security : Planning Guide 2021 appeared first on Layots Technologies | Accelerate your digital growth.

When the SSL certificate gets installed to a website, the URL changes from HTTP to HTTPS. A padlock appears in the URL address bar. Seeing the padlock builds immediate trust with those visiting your site. Without an SSL certificate, there is no other guaranteed way to maintain communication between the users and keep the website private from attackers. An SSL certificate ensures that all the sensitive communications on your website occur through a secure channel using data encryption.

These days, with the consequences of browsing unprotected and untrustworthy sites well-known, consumers are learning to look for the padlock and additional information as a way to protect their computers, their identities, and their lives.

Two main features of SSL certificate:

SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) enhances a web site’s security by providing two important features: encryption and authentication.

• Encryption means that the data sent between your web site and users is unreadable by others. When a user accesses your site using an SSL connection (URLs that begin with https://), the web server and web browser exchange encrypted information. Contrast this with unencrypted web transactions, which are transmitted as plain text and subject to eavesdropping.
• Authentication means visitors can trust that you actually are who you claim to be. When users access your site using an SSL connection, they can be confident that they are seeing your site, and not an impostor’s. Whereas encryption helps protect data, authentication helps prove your identity to others.

How does this SSL certificate work?

SSL Certificates use something called public key cryptography.

This particular kind of cryptography harnesses the power of two keys which are long strings of randomly generated numbers. One is called a private key and one is called a public key. A public key is known to your server and available in the public domain. It can be used to encrypt any message.

If zack is sending a message to Ryan she will lock it with Ryan’s public key but the only way it can be decrypted is to unlock it with Ryan’s private key. Ryan is the only one who has his private key so Ryan is the only one who can use this to unlock Zack’s message. If a hacker intercepts the message before Ryan unlocks it, all they will get is a cryptographic code that they cannot break, even with the power of a computer.

If we look at this in terms of a website, the communication is happening between a website and a server. Your website and server are Zack and Ryan.

Types of SSL Certificates

• Domain Validation
• Organization Validation
• Extended Validation
• Wildcard SSL Certificate
• Multi-Domain SSL Certificate (MDC)

Extended Validation Certificates (EV SSL)

The highest-ranking and most expensive SSL certificate type is an Extended Validation Certificate. This type of SSL certificate, when installed, displays the padlock, HTTPS, name of the business, and the country on the browser address bar. EV SSL certificates are for high profile websites for applications that require identity assurance such as collecting data, processing logins, or online payments.Setting up the EV SSL certificate requires the website owner to go through a standardized identity verification process to confirm they are authorized legally to the exclusive rights to the domain.

• Organization Authorization
• Enrollment Form
• Operational Existence
• Physical Address
• Telephone auth
• Domain auth
• Final Verification call

Organization Validated Certificates (OV SSL)

The encryption across all three certificates is the same. but OV and EV offer better levels of authentication, which is why they cost a little more than Domain validation. The Organization Validation SSL certificate’s primary purpose is to encrypt the user’s sensitive information during transactions. This version of SSL certificate has a high assurance similar to the EV SSL certificate, which is used to validate a business’ creditably. Commercial or public-facing websites have a requirement to install an OV SSL certificate to assure that any customer information shared remains confidential.

To obtain an OV SSL certificate, the website owner needs to complete a substantial validation process. A Certification Authority (CA) investigates the website owner to see if they have the right to their specific domain name.

• Organization authentication
• Locality Presence
• Telephone Verification
• Domain Verification
• Final Verification Call

Domain Validated Certificates (DV SSL)

This is the most basic form of SSL certificate verification. Anyone can get one DV. So, you will never know who is on the other side. The communication will be encrypted but there is no being sure with whom we are communicating.

Domain Validation SSL Certificate has a low assurance and minimal encryption, typically for blogs or informational websites. The validation process to obtain this SSL certificate type is minimal. The process only requires website owners to prove domain ownership by responding to an email or phone call. This SSL certificate type is one of the least expensive and fastest to obtain.

Wildcard SSL Certificates

Wildcard SSL certificates are used to secure a base domain and unlimited subdomains. Purchasing a wildcard SSL certificate is cheaper than purchasing several single-domain SSL certificates. OV Wildcard SSL certificates or DV Wildcard SSL certificates are available for purchase. Wildcard SSL certificates have an asterisk * as part of the common name. The asterisk * represents any valid subdomain that has the same base domain.

 For example, the common name can be *.axiom.com. This SSL certificate type could get installed for install.axiom.com, boot.axiom.com, etcetera.

Multi-Domain SSL Certificates

Multi-Domain certificates can secure up to 100 different domain names and subdomains using a single certificate which helps save time and money. You have control of the Subject Alternative Name (SAN) field to add, change, and delete any of the SANs as needed. Domain Validated, Organization Validated, Extended Validated, and Wildcard SSL types are available as well. Here are some domain name examples that can gain security with just one Multi-Domain SSL certificate:

• www.domain.com
• www.domain.in
• www.domain.org
• domain.com
• checkout.domain.com

Having an SSL certificate reflects positively on your business and helps you stay ahead of the competition if they have not still adopted to the latest encryption technologies. Protect your customer relationships to emerge as a trusted brand. It may not be compulsory to use an SSL certificate, but considering the rate at which unprotected web traffic is intercepted and the web servers are becoming compromised, offering right security for online transactions is becoming critical.

Lastly, Google has incentives for websites that have SSL certificates installed. Helping Google to rank your website higher should be at the top of your list.

Reach out to our Layots Cyber-security team if you want to avoid getting hijacked by unscrupulous cyber criminals and you want to make sure consumers feel safe

Layots has 20+ years of unmatched experience in providing IT solutions. Our solutions offer speed, agility, and efficiency to tackle business challenges in the areas of data security, cyber security, service management, application development, automation, test & development environments and operations.

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Let’s start off with some of the most recent cyber security threats and then we’ll discuss a few of the measures that organisations should put in place to minimize the associated security risks.

Phishing attacks:

Phishing is a form of fraud in which an attacker masquerades as a reputable entity or person in email or other forms of communication. Attackers will commonly use phishing emails to distribute malicious links or attachments that can perform a variety of functions. Phishing scams typically employ social engineering to steal user credentials for both on-premises attacks and cloud services attacks.

Phishers can use public sources of information to gather background information about the victim’s personal and work history, interests, and activities. Typically, through social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. These sources are normally used to uncover information such as names, job titles and email addresses of potential victims. This information can then be used to craft a believable email.

The attack is then carried out either through a malicious file attachment, or through links connecting to malicious websites. In either case, the objective is to install malware on the user’s device or direct the victim to a fake website. Fake websites are set up to trick victims into divulging personal and financial information, such as passwords, account IDs or credit card details.

How to approach?

To help prevent phishing messages from reaching end users, our Layots Cyber security Experts recommend layering security controls, including: Antivirus software, Network Firewalls, Gateway Email Filter, SPAM filtering & Web Security Gateway. Layots offers strong encryption to keep the data secure in place and also while in transit.

The best practices to avoid various types of phishing includes..

1. Turn on two-factor authentication (2FA) — This protective measure requires multiple pieces of information for someone to be able to log in. It requires two of the following:
   • Something you know (a password, passphrase, etc.)
   • Something you have (a mobile app, a smart card, a personal token, etc.)
   • Something you are (bio-metrics such as a retinal scan, fingerprint, etc.)
2. Using a sender policy framework (SPF) — This is a type of email validation system that allows domain managers to authorize specific hosts to use a domain.
3. Verifying suspicious communications through official channels — If you receive a phone call from someone claiming to be your bank, hang up and call your bank directly using the phone number on the back of your card. If you receive an email from someone claiming to be the CEO who wants you to transfer money, send sensitive data or anything else even remotely suspicious, call them or their assistant on an official company phone line. Don’t ever rely on the contact information provided in a suspicious communication.
4. Using websites that are secure and encrypted — Ensure that your website — and those that you visit — are secure and encrypted. This means visiting websites that use secure protocols (HTTPS) instead of insecure ones (HTTP). You can secure your website using SSL/TLS Certificates, which protect the data that is transmitted between your site and your end-users’ web browsers.

Remote Worker Endpoint Security

Endpoint security is the process of protecting individual devices with the broader aim of securing the network and the data of the organization. In any given organization, endpoints are on the front line of the security war. With IT professionals required to monitor and manage hundreds of thousands of endpoints across multiple networks, the chances of missing security vulnerabilities increase exponentially.

How to approach?

Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR):  An EPP is usually an integrated suite of security technologies, such as antivirus/anti-malware, intrusion prevention, data loss prevention and data encryption, to detect and prevent a variety of threats at the endpoint.

An EDR differs from traditional antivirus and anti-malware. It takes a proactive approach by not only detecting suspicious activity and malware, but also by keeping the network safe by containing threats to an endpoint in case of an incident. EDR tools protect endpoints by monitoring events, gathering data and analyzing it to reveal potential cyber-threats and issues. They detect anomalies in endpoints by identifying rare processes, risky occurrences, and strange connections, which are mostly flagged based on baseline comparisons.

Dedicated DLP Software: Data loss prevention, or DLP, is a term that refers to strategies for preventing the leaking or the destruction of company data, especially confidential data. DLP software stops data from going out, instead of guarding against theoretical attacks. It does this by redacting or tokenizing outgoing information, or by blocking risky user actions. DLP systems can also detect unauthorized access of sensitive data, which could be a sign that someone is attempting to move or copy data to an environment that is not managed by the organization the data belongs to.

DLP is also growing in importance due to newer and more stringent regulations, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), that heavily penalize companies for leaking customer data.

The best practices to secure your endpoint includes..

1. Setup VPN on your remote endpoints to allow your users to access a secure link back to the office environment.
2. Automate patching of your off-network devices, monitor the patch status on all machines and track the vulnerabilities that can impact your environment
3. 2FA provides a second layer of authentication to access your applications by requiring users to provide a password (something they know) and a mobile app or token (something they have). 2FA is one of the easiest methods you can use to prevent cyber criminals from taking advantage of weak or stolen credentials (passwords) and hacking into your systems. 
4. Protect end-user data without the hassle of setting up an appliance or local storage at every office location. Use Cloud Backup to back up from anywhere with internet connectivity—including Wi-Fi, so the data on remote endpoints is covered as well.

To know more about the best practices and how to protect your endpoint devices, discuss with our Layots Cyber-security Experts.

IoT devices:

Cyber-criminals are constantly searching for vulnerabilities in business networks, home computers, and now IoT devices for opportunities to steal information, extort businesses, and take control of computer systems remotely. IoT devices open up a whole new world to hackers and cyber-thieves. The responsibility falls on those implementing the technology to take all the necessary precautions to include appropriate safeguards.

The best practices to combat IoT Cyber Threats includes..

● Implement network-level security to authenticate individual IoT devices. This prevents unrecognized requests from being accepted.

● Ensure compliance with regulations such as HIPAA for medical data or Europe’s GDPR requirements. This includes managing and encrypting data efficiently.

● Enforce secure passwords and regular changes. Do not allow the retention of default passwords for IoT devices.

● Include network architecture devices in IoT planning. Firewalls and Routers are favourite entry points for hackers, as they are often neglected in password protection, patching, and software updates.

● Be prepared. No network, server, or IoT device is 100% free of vulnerabilities. The risk of being a victim of cyber-attack – or at least an attempted attack – is very real. Formulate a contingency plan that provides for data recovery, isolating impacted devices, and alternatives to conducting business when devices must be quarantined.

For more information on how Layots can help your business, healthcare institution, or other organization implement a comprehensive defence against IoT cyberattacks, Contact our Cybersecurity Professionals today.

Sophisticated Ransomware Attacks:

Ransomware attacks have become one of the most notorious cyber threats. In this attack, a hacker uses malware to encrypt data that may be required for business operations. An attacker will decrypt critical data only after receiving a ransom. The effects of a single ransomware attack can be extremely damaging to small and midsize businesses, leading to exorbitant costs associated with downtime and recovery.

Solutions like Advanced Threat Protection or Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) provide behavior-based detection and blocking of ransomware attacks that go beyond the limitations of signature-based detection of known malware. Additionally, many enterprises implement application whitelisting to bolster ransomware protection efforts. This solution allows only specified applications to run, reducing the risk of ransomware programs executing on local machines.

Best practices to defeat ransomware attacks:

1. Use anti-virus and anti-malware software or other security policies to block known payloads from launching.
2. Make frequent, comprehensive backups of all-important files and isolate them from local and open networks.
3. Install the latest security updates issued by software vendors of your OS and applications. Remember to Patch Early and Patch Often to close known vulnerabilities in operating systems, browsers, and web plugins.
4. Segment your networks to keep critical computers isolated and to prevent the spread of malware in case of attack. Turn off unneeded network shares.
5. Turn off admin rights for users who don’t require them. Give users the lowest system permissions they need to do their work.
6. Restrict write permissions on file servers as much as possible.
7. Stress the importance of examining links and attachments to make sure they are from a reliable source. Warn staff about the dangers of giving out company or personal information in response to an email, letter, or phone call.
8. For employees who work remotely, make it clear that they should never use public Wi-Fi because hackers can easily break in through this kind of connection.

Learn more about the proper steps to prevent, detect and recover from ransomware, and you can minimize its impact on your business with the help of our Layots Cybersecurity Experts 

Should a security breach occur, you need a robust action plan to efficiently deal with the breach and get your company back on its feet with minimum damage and as quickly as possible. The plan should include a communications strategy for both internal and external stakeholders, including customers, investors, and others. The more you prepare in advance, the better equipped you will be to deal with a crisis.

To explore how we can help build your organisation’s cyber resilience, please reach out to our cyber-security experts or write to us!!

Layots has 20+ years of unmatched experience in providing IT solutions. Our solutions offer speed, agility, and efficiency to tackle business challenges in the areas of data security, cyber security, service management, application development, automation, test & development environments and operations.

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Tally ERP software possess all these powers of accounting, auditing, reporting, representing, operation management, and a lot more. It helps take care of every intense application, varying from funds flow report to reconciliations, vouchers to inventory valuation, credit limits to budget and entire auditing process. At Layots we understand that business transactions are not easy to handle, and that is why an integrated software solution has turned out to be a requirement for most businesses.

Tally can be installed in two ways: on-premise by installing all the hardware and connecting it with the respective system or on cloud by deploying all the data in to a particular server. Now let’s discuss about both the deployment models and understand which is the most cost-effective solution.

Well, the functions offered by both the alternatives will be the same, but the difference arises in their costs. Hosting Tally on-premise setup comprises of multiple costs to be incurred and makes you restricted to one and only one location where your tally is set up. Whereas Hosting Tally on cloud does not comprise of such costs as all these costs are covered and managed by the service provider.

This list does not just end here, as there are a lot more other costs which will be incurred to keep your application (i.e. Tally) running. All the costs including for software licensing, server space, environment conditioning, and other installation service costs add more to its cost. The UPS services also cost higher as there is only one server functioning which requires generator and UPS to eliminate the risk of failures at any power outages. On-premise also requires high assistance of management to maintain the regular functioning of the Tally. The management team should possess expert knowledge and technical abilities to solve all the issues affecting regular working. This management team would require higher costs to be paid to all the experts and professionals adding up more to the costs of your Tally installation.

Hosting Tally on cloud simplifies the hectic accounting work and brings ease in the working process. It helps you take the advantage of the power of cloud computing with the simplicity of tally. You get an extra layer of security by hosting your data on very fast processing servers.

Some of the highlighted features of hosting tally on cloud are listed below:

1. Easy Configuration to Remote Access Tally Data from Anywhere through Web Login portal. It enables you to work from home without any difficulties.
2. Compatible with all devices including Mobiles, Laptops, Tablets running on Mac, Android, or Windows OS.
3. No Extra cost investments for managing & maintaining Servers. Completely follows Pay-as-You-Go Model for Businesses in Cloud.
4. Level 8 Security with Support for Data Flow Encryption to Provide Maximum Security to Users data.
5. Host & Run Latest Version of Tally Accounting Software on Cloud i.e. Tally ERP.9 on Web.
6. Security and backup options are also offered, you need to find the right service provider and the right plan.
7. Zero Downtime and Supported with Printing on local printers
8. Security of Tally accounting data from potential attacks which has updated firewalls/IDS applications

Reach out to our Layots Technical experts, If you would like to get some consultation on getting a server or hosting your application on the cloud -> click on our live chat to talk to us.

Layots has 20+ years of unmatched experience in providing IT solutions. Our solutions offer speed, agility, and efficiency to tackle business challenges in the areas of data security, cyber security, service management, application development, automation, test & development environments and operations.

The post Hosting Comparison: Tally On-Premises Vs On Cloud appeared first on Layots Technologies | Accelerate your digital growth.