As Cyber Attacks Proliferate, Don’t Be a Sitting Duck, Infinitely Virtual Advises – Treat Security as a Process
Leading Cloud Hosting Provider Offers Tips to Those Who May be Ripe for Hackers
LOS ANGELES(April 20, 2015) – Hacking doesn’t happen only to other people.
While the notorious Sony hack may have implied that the biggest targets are the most vulnerable, any organization can be a victim – and, perhaps surprisingly, an unwitting perpetrator.
So says Adam Stern, founder and CEO of cloud hosting provider Infinitely Virtual.
Stern’s counsel applies to IT infrastructure companies as much – or perhaps even more – than it does to users. On April 23-24, Stern will be on hand at SMB TechFest (http://www.smbtechfest.com/index.asp), at the Business Expo Center, 1960 S. Anaheim Way, in Anaheim, Calif.
Deploying appropriate security protections, with technologies such as clustered firewalls and intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDPS), doesn’t come cheap, Stern suggests, noting that many of the smaller players in the hosting business can’t and don’t make that investment.
At the other end of the hosting spectrum, one of the industry’s largest providers was recently attacking a mid-range player from thousands of servers each night – and the big provider’s security detail couldn’t even see the ongoing attack emanating from its own environment. Which raises the really big question: if they couldn’t discern the attacks going out, can they see them coming in?
It’s not alarmist to recognize that these scenarios have become distressingly common. Organizations – provider and user alike – aren’t defenseless, but there’s no longer an excuse for being caught napping.
Infinitely Virtual’s Stern recommends that users do due diligence within their own organizations and with the providers they retain. Among his words to the wise:
- Treat security as a process, not an event. Achieving some measure of security requires a specific mindset that every organization needs to understand and then internalize, Stern says. It doesn’t matter if you’re VISA or a neighborhood bank or a small business – every organization is more and less secure over time, since the nature of cyber attacks constantly evolves. The process of security means adjusting and learning accordingly. A head-in-the-sand approach ensures that an organization will become less secure.
- Corollary to #1: If your policy isn’t dynamic, you don’t have one. Security isn’t like filling out loan application; it’s not a matter of checking boxes and moving on, Stern stresses. The dynamic extends to asking questions – lots of them. Where are threats coming from? Are we looking at our environment in a holistic manner? Are we conducting a quarterly analysis of what’s secure, what’s not, what could be more secure, and then implementing a framework for how to deal with it?
- Beware the unwitting perpetrator. Like crimes in the non-virtual world, DOS attacks and cyber hacks rarely come with calling cards. Those with ill intent find honeypots of oblivious organizations they can commandeer easily, with a single password. In the incident referenced earlier, the mega-provider didn’t even have an abuse team. So, at the very least, SMBs need to insist that their hosting company assign a unique password to every server – and have an abuse team at the ready… just in case.
- Patching is for sweaters and tires, not firewalls. Piecemeal approaches to security simply don’t work. Patching a hole or fixing a bug, and moving on – that’s hardly the stuff of which effective security policies are made. Because security is a moving target, scattershot repairs ignore the hundreds or even thousands of points of vulnerability that a policy of ongoing monitoring can help mitigate
- The perfect is the enemy of the good. Perfection in countering cyber attacks is as elusive here as it is in any other endeavor. Even so, that can’t be an argument for complacence or anything less than vigilance backed up by state-of-the-art technology. Consider a strategic approach to security as a form of corporate physical fitness. Sitting ducks, after all, can’t move nearly as swiftly as hawks.
As Stern sums up, “It was William Osler, the 19th Century physician who co-founded Johns Hopkins, who said, ‘Security can only be achieved through constant change, adapting old ideas that have outlived their usefulness to current facts.’ Where IaaS is concerned, Osler could hardly have been more prescient.”
About Infinitely Virtual
Infinitely Virtual is a leading provider of high quality and affordable Cloud Server technology, capable of delivering services to any type of business, via terminal servers, SharePoint servers and SQL servers – all based on Cloud Servers. TouchCloud™, the company’s latest offering, combines Windows 2012 Server and Windows 8 or 8.1 touch-screen capabilities, automatically touch-enabling all Windows 8/8.1 applications in the cloud. The company was established as a subsidiary of Altay Corporation, and through this partnership, Infinitely Virtual provides customers with expert 24×7 technical support. More information about Infinitely Virtual can be found at: http://www.infinitelyvirtual.com or call 866-257-8455.
Media Contact:
Ken Greenberg
Edge Communications, Inc.
323-469-3397
ken@edgecommunicationsinc.com
