Backing up databases is critical and complex

Databases, also referred to as structured data, are an essential part of any data center. While databases do not typically hold a high percentage of the terabytes housed in a given data center, they do hold a high percentage of mission-critical data. Understanding their unique structure and operation is key to backing them up.Structured data cannot be backed up like unstructured data due to three very big challenges. First, databases are typically stored in datafiles that are constantly changing as long as something is making updates to the database. This means you cannot just back them up like any other file.To read this article in full, please click here

Automation Win: Recreating Cisco ACI Tenants in Public Cloud

This blog post was initially sent to the subscribers of our SDN and Network Automation mailing list. Subscribe here.

Most automation projects are gradual improvements of existing manual processes, but every now and then the stars align and you get a perfect storm, like what Adrian Giacommetti encountered during one of his automation projects.

The customer had well-defined security policies implemented in Cisco ACI environment with tenants, endpoint groups, and contracts. They wanted to recreate those tenants in a public cloud, but it took way too long as the only migration tool they had was an engineer chasing GUI screens on both platforms.

Read more …

Automation Win: Recreating Cisco ACI Tenants in Public Cloud

This blog post was initially sent to the subscribers of our SDN and Network Automation mailing list. Subscribe here.

Most automation projects are gradual improvements of existing manual processes, but every now and then the stars align and you get a perfect storm, like what Adrian Giacommetti encountered during one of his automation projects.

The customer had well-defined security policies implemented in Cisco ACI environment with tenants, endpoint groups, and contracts. They wanted to recreate those tenants in a public cloud, but it took way too long as the only migration tool they had was an engineer chasing GUI screens on both platforms.

Read more …

Solving Microservices Connectivity Issues with Network Logs

The network is foundational to distributed application environments. A distributed application has multiple microservices, each running in a set of pods often located on different nodes. Problem areas in a distributed application can be in network layer connectivity (think network flow logs), or application resources unavailability (think metrics), or component unavailability (think tracing). Network layer connectivity can be impacted by various factors such as routing configuration, IP pool configuration, network policies, etc. When service A cannot talk to service B over the network, or an external application cannot connect to service A, network logs become an essential source of historical data needed for troubleshooting connectivity issues. Just like in a traditional network, network logs enable cluster administrators to monitor the Kubernetes microservices network.

 

 

Network Logs Can Address Multiple Use Cases

Network logs can be used to serve the unique requirements of different teams (DevOps, SecOps, Platform, Network). The value of Kubernetes network logs resides in the information collected, such as detailed context about endpoints (e.g., pods, labels, namespaces) and the network policies deployed in configuring the connection. Within the IT estate, DevOps, SecOps, Network and Platform teams can use network logs to address use cases that Continue reading

Yes, we can validate leaked emails

When emails leak, we can know whether they are authenticate or forged. It's the first question we should ask of today's leak of emails of Hunter Biden. It has a definitive answer.

Today's emails have "cryptographic signatures" inside the metadata. Such signatures have been common for the past decade as one way of controlling spam, to verify the sender is who they claim to be. These signatures verify not only the sender, but also that the contents have not been altered. In other words, it authenticates the document, who sent it, and when it was sent.

Crypto works. The only way to bypass these signatures is to hack into the servers. In other words, when we see a 6 year old message with a valid Gmail signature, we know either (a) it's valid or (b) they hacked into Gmail to steal the signing key. Since (b) is extremely unlikely, and if they could hack Google, they could a ton more important stuff with the information, we have to assume (a).

Your email client normally hides this metadata from you, because it's boring and humans rarely want to see it. But it's still there in the original email document. An email Continue reading

Best of Fest: AnsibleFest 2020

Thank you to everyone who joined us over the past two days for the AnsibleFest 2020 virtual experience. We had such a great time connecting with Ansible lovers across the globe. In case you missed some of it (or all of it), we have some event highlights to share with you! If you want to go see what you may have missed, all the AnsibleFest 2020 content will be available on demand for a year. 

 

Community Updates

This year at AnsibleFest 2020, Ansible Community Architect Robyn Bergeron kicked off with her keynote on Tuesday morning. We heard how with Ansible Content Collections, it’s easier than ever to use Ansible the way you want or need to, as a contributor or an end user. Ansible 2.10 is now available, and Robyn explained how the feedback loop got us there. If you want to hear more about the Ansible community project, go watch Robyn’s keynote on demand. 

 

Product Updates

Ansible’s own Richard Henshall talked about the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform product updates and new releases. In 2018, we unveiled the Ansible certified partner program and now we have over 50 platforms certified. We are bridging traditional Continue reading

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  • Developers care about shipping secure applications. Application security products and processes, however, have not kept up with advances in software development. There are a new breed of tools hitting the market that enable developers to take the lead on AppSec. Learn how Continue reading

Evolution of Excel 4.0 Macro Weaponization – Continued

Introduction 

The evolution of the Excel 4.0 (XL4) macro malware proceeds apace, with new variations and techniques regularly introduced. To understand the threat landscape, the VMware NSBU Threat Analysis Unit extended its previous research on XL4 macro malware (see the previous blog) to analyze new trends and techniques.  

Against analysis engines, the new samples have some novel evasion techniques, and they perform attacks more reliably. These variants were observed in June and July. Figure 1 depicts the Excel 4.0 macro malware wave.  

Figure 1: Malicious XL4 submission: May-Aug 2020 

Broadly, the samples can be categorized into three clusters. Based on the variation of the samples in these three clusters, the weaponized documents can be grouped into multiple variants. 

Cluster 1: Relative Reference   

The samples in this cluster appeared in the month of June. They use FORMULA.FILL for obfuscation and to move the payload around the sheet. The formula uses relative references to access values stored in the sheet. There are variations in this category; Continue reading

Where Service Mesh and SmartNICs Meet

Intel sponsored this post. Smart Network Interface Controllers (SmartNICS) puts the service mesh at center stage where the network and the application layer meet. The new dimensions that come with the integration of hardware and software is ushering in a new generation of capabilities such as cryptographic operations and new approaches to resource utilization. At VMworld last month, VMware featured SmartNICs as part of

Member News: Haitian Chapter Calls for More Community Networks

From the community: The Haiti Chapter of the Internet Society recently posted a video advocating for more community networks in the country. Internet access is a necessity during the COVID-19 health emergency, the Chapter said. Still, there is a challenge of providing access in rural areas of the country. The Chapter wants a plan that allows communities to build their own networks “where it is not yet economically viable for Internet service providers” to offer broadband service.

Going to school: The Kyrgyzstan Chapter has provided an update about its very active ilimBox project, which provides an Internet-in-a-box service to schools in the country. In late August, the ilimBox team, with the financial support of the European Union, installed 22 ilimBox devices in the border villages of Batken region.

Don’t split the Internet: The Greater Washington, D.C., Chapter has voiced opposition to U.S. President Donald Trump’s plans to ban Chinese apps TikTok and WeChat from the U.S. The Chapter is “against breaking the Internet,” it wrote. The proposed ban “undermines the foundations of the Internet.” The Chapter’s statement echoes the position of the Internet Society as a whole.

Safety first: The St. Vincent and the Grenadines Continue reading

Introducing Cloudflare One Intel

Introducing Cloudflare One Intel
Introducing Cloudflare One Intel

Earlier this week, we announced Cloudflare One, a single platform for networking and security management. Cloudflare One extends the speed, reliability, and security we’ve brought to Internet properties and applications over the last decade to make the Internet the new enterprise WAN.

Underpinning Cloudflare One is Cloudflare’s global network - today, our network spans more than 200 cities worldwide and is within milliseconds of nearly everyone connected to the Internet. Our network handles, on average, 18 million HTTP requests and 6 million DNS requests per second. With 1 billion unique IP addresses connecting to the Cloudflare network each day, we have one of the broadest views on Internet activity worldwide.

We see a large diversity of Internet traffic across our entire product suite. Every day, we block 72 billion cyberthreats. This visibility provides us with a unique position to understand and mitigate Internet threats, and enables us to see new threats and malware before anyone else.

At the beginning of this month, as part of our 10th Birthday Week, we launched Cloudflare Radar, which shares high-level trends with the general public based on our network’s aggregate data. The same data that powers that view of the Internet also Continue reading

The OSI model explained and how to easily remember its 7 layers

The Open Systems Interconnect (OSI) model is a conceptual framework that describes networking or telecommunications systems as seven layers, each with its own function.The layers help network pros visualize what is going on within their networks and can help network managers narrow down problems (is it a physical issue or something with the application?), as well as computer programmers (when developing an application, which other layers does it need to work with?). Tech vendors selling new products will often refer to the OSI model to help customers understand which layer their products work with or whether it works “across the stack”. [ Related: What is IPv6, and why aren’t we there yet? ] The 7 layers of the OSI model The layers are: Layer 1—Physical; Layer 2—Data Link; Layer 3—Network; Layer 4—Transport; Layer 5—Session; Layer 6—Presentation; Layer 7—Application.To read this article in full, please click here

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