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Category Archives for "Networking"

Risky Business #383 — Inside FireEye’s research gag

On this week's show we take a look at what the hell it happening in Germany, where FireEye sought and obtained an ex parte injunction against a bunch of security researchers over a presentation they were about to do at 44Con. We speak with infosec lawyer Alex Urbelis -- he was at 44Con when all this came to light and he shares his insights.

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Python up and running

Python has certainly become one of the top languages of the day.  In this post, I want to spend some time to get you up and running with it.  We’ll start with a base install of Python and then walk through an example to introduce some basic Python concepts.  If you’re in infrastructure, particularly networking, then Python is a language you should be putting some time towards learning.  Most of the vendors out there are coming out with some level of Python integration for their products.  Matt Oswalt spends some time in one of his recent posts talking about how important this integration is as well as gives a couple of examples.  Bottom line – all of us in infrastructure should be finding better ways to do things and Python is a good place to start. 

Note: If you’re interested in the future of networking as a whole, check out this other post from Matt Oswalt where he talks about next gen networking skills.  Good stuff.

I always like to start from the beginning so let’s start from absolute scratch.  I’m going to start with a CentOS 7 host that has Continue reading

Juniper vSRX Automation with Ansible

Virtual appliances not only provide for a great lab environment, but are the future of how network services will be tested, validated, and delivered within an Enterprise. And Juniper gets this – they spent a lot of time covering the vSRX and vMX product lines at the most recent Networking Field Day event.

Over the next few months, I’ll more than likely be spending a lot of time on Juniper gear, and it will be the virtual platforms, so it was good timing to get to be in the room to learn more about them along with many of the automation capabilities Juniper supports across their product families.

NETCONF Rules All for Juniper

While I have not spent as much time on Juniper kit as I would have liked over the past few years, the one awesome thing to see and experience first-hand is that they have a unified API (NETCONF) across all of their products.

Why is this so valuable? Well, for one, we get to use the same libraries and integrations across platforms. As an example, we can use the Juniper Ansible modules across any of their devices. In this post, we’ll take a look at using one Continue reading

CCIE Recert Should Be Like Wilderness Medicine Recert

Last winter I had to recertify CCIE. This time it felt like a negative, adversarial ordeal: reviewing and relearning a lot of stuff that I don’t use in order to justify the sunk costs of obtaining the certification. It’s also a zero-sum game: time spent on recertification is time not spent learning newer, more relevant things. I’ve seen a couple of blog posts (here and here) lately related to this issue. How could recertification be done better?

Outside my professional life, I’ve long been a search and rescue volunteer here in rural Colorado. As part of that, I maintain a Wilderness First Responder (WFR) certification. WFR is a certification for remote emergency medical care that starts as an 80-hour class. It’s required for most types of guiding and outdoor education careers.

Unlike with the CCIE, I always look forward to WFR recertification, even though it’s expensive and I have to take vacation time in order to do it. Why? It’s fun, cooperative, progressive, educational, and encouraging. It’s done as a 16-24 hour class that mixes classroom review, hands-on lab practice, and new material that’s been introduced or updated in the preceding years. This allows recertification candidates to interact Continue reading

Obama advisors: Encryption backdoors would hurt cybersecurity, net infrastructure vendors

Making encryption backdoors available to law enforcement would be bad for cybersecurity in general and hurt vendors that make encryption gear, a presidential advisory group says.While the FBI argues that it needs legislation to require access points into encryption platforms, the National Security Council is preparing to tell President Obama that the downsides include weakening the privacy of Internet communications, according to a draft NSC report obtained by the Washington Post.“[B]ecause any access point to encrypted data increases risk, if government efforts to secure access are successful, this approach would reduce cybersecurity,” the document says.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

CloudFlare + WHMCS: Faster Websites For Your Customers

We’re at the cPanel Conference in Denver this week, so feel free to drop by our booth and say hello. It’s a great opportunity to connect with our partners and better understand their needs. We’re always trying to streamline our partners’ user experience, and we thought it would be a fitting time to walk through our recently updated WHMCS integration.

CloudFlare’s WHMCS 6.0 plugin lets hosting providers and registrars extend all the benefits of CloudFlare directly to their customers. You can offer your entire user base a global CDN with 62 points of presence, automatic web content optimization, basic DDoS protection, reputation-based threat protection, and much more with virtually no extra work.

These benefits are seamlessly integrated into your WHMCS client. All your customers need to do is click a button, and a new CloudFlare account will be configured for them.

Screenshot of WHMCS CloudFlare Integration

While signing up for an account on www.cloudflare.com only takes a few minutes, users do need to point the relevant DNS records to CloudFlare’s nameservers. Offerring a one-click solution via our WHMCS integration is a great opportunity for hosting providers and registrars to streamline the process for their customers.

Universal SSL with WHMCS

CloudFlare’s Universal Continue reading

7 security and privacy concerns at the polls

Presidential raceImage by ReutersA recent poll by Wakefield Research delved into the psyche of the American voter asking them many questions about who will lead them through cyberspace the next four years. According to the survey, which was sponsored by PKWARE, the majority (64 percent) of registered U.S. voters believe it is likely that a 2016 presidential campaign will be hacked.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Killer SDN Applications: A view in 2015

Whilst on the DLR in London earlier this year (2015) a set of thoughts came to light whilst pondering centralised decision making for part of a network. It’s not uncommon to hear “Product X is a great platform that just needs the killer app”. Why the DLR? No drivers, swipe-in-swipe-out ticketing and a well defined service. A train still takes you from A to B, but the whole service around it has completely changed to keep up with the requirements. Thought provoking stuff.

TL;DR

Many people talk about killer apps and are seemingly waiting for them to pop in to existence. This post goes someway to come to terms with the lack of emerging killer apps and why we’re one paradigm shift away from seeing it happen.

The Rub

I’ve said this a million times, but traditional networking skill sets view the network as a CLI that is linked to features. Separation of the monolith seems mad! Why separate something out when what we have today works? Well, that’s the key issue.

The IPEngineer Laws of Humans

Networking as we mostly know it today:

a) Is massively reliant on error prone humans
b) Humans are an expensive resource to have Continue reading

How the Internet Really Works

Way back in April of 2014, I started a series over on Packet Pushers called “How the Internet Really Works.” This is a long series, but well worth reading if you want to try and get a handle around how the different companies and organizations that make up the ecosystem of the ‘net actually do what they do.

Overview
DNS Lookups
The Business Side of DNS (1)
The Business Side of DNS (2)
Reverse Lookups and Whois
DNS Security
Provider Peering Types
Provider Peering and Revenue Streams (1)
Provider Peering and Revenue Streams (2)
Standards Bodies
IETF Organizational Structure
The IETF Draft Process
Reality at the Mic (Inside the IETF, Part 1)
Reality at the Mic (Inside the IETF, Part 2)
Reality at the Mic (Inside the IETF, Part 3)
Internet Exchange Points
That Big Number Database in the Sky (IANA)
NOG World (Network Operator Groups)
The Internet Society

The slides that go with this set of posts are available on slideshare, as well. This set is in Ericsson format, but I have older sets in “vendor neutral” formatting, and even cisco formatting (imagine that!).

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The post How the Internet Continue reading

8 ways to fend off spyware, malware and ransomware

Spyware, malware, phishing and, more recently, ransomware -- the list of online threats can be confusing and daunting. Knowing what you’re up against is half the battle. Each of these types of attacks have specific characteristics:Spyware – software that collects information about you or your computer without your knowledge.Malware – a broad category of software (including viruses, worms, Trojan horses, etc.) that damages your computer, in either a minor or major way.Phishing – an attempt to get your personal information (usernames, passwords, credit card numbers and), usually for nefarious reasons. Usually accomplished by electronic communication (e.g., email), but also by "social engineering" (tricking people into abandoning standard security protocol).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Why startup leaders need to set the tone for security

Federal consumer-protection authorities have called on the entrepreneurs building tech startups to prioritize cybersecurity from the earliest stages of the development process.[ Related: Tech startups need to get serious about security ]But a variety of factors -- cost, lack of technical expertise, rush to market, etc. -- can make security seem like more of a burden or an impediment to the startup's growth than anything else.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Corebot cleverly written botnet malware with growth potential

There's a new botnet malware on the loose, called Corebot, that researchers believe has the potential to develop into a significant threat.The malware was first spotted by IBM Security X-Force, and Damballa followed up with a deep dive into how the malware works, and what else the malware's author is working on.The malware itself is particularly clever, said Loucif Kharouni, senior threat researcher at Damballa, in that it is written from scratch to be modular, making it easy for the author to add plugins to do specific tasks.MORE ON CSO: How to spot a phishing email "Most malware is based on older malware, on Zeus code for example," he said. "This one looks like it was built new, from scratch."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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