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Cybersecurity: Potential Threats in 2022

In 2022 cyberattacks will be even more elaborate than in the previous years. The number of cyberattacks will increase, too. This is the forecast made by experts in cybersecurity, Check Point Research (CPR).

Attacks will mostly be aimed at supply chains for medium and big businesses. In 2021 Kaseya and SolarWinds brands fell victims of such attacks.

These are the technologies to be used by cybercriminals this year:

· Fake news

Cybercriminals will be creating and spreading fake news for fraud and phishing attacks. They are going to use AI and deepfake to make photos and videos with the aim to steal confidential information.

· Personal data theft

Theft of personal data of companies’ employees, clients and business partners is becoming more and more large-scale. Attackers are getting greedier, and ransom amounts are going to continue to grow.

· Using mobile malware

With mobile payment systems being used more frequently, malware attacks on consumers’ mobile devices in order to steal more will also become more frequent.

· Large-scale online attacks using new technology

Cybercriminals are keeping up with companies thatconstantly improve technologies and infrastructure to boost their security systems. In the current year criminals will be penetrating company networks using security system testing tools. Such attacks may lead to global failures in company operations.

· Cryptocurrency attacks

Attackers will be turning more attention to hacking crypto exchanges. They will be motivated by last year’s successful cyberattacks, Africryft hack being one of them. As a result of the attack on the South African crypto platform investors lost about $3.6 bln.Active growth of such crimes is expected this year.

Company managements should stay alert and work towards cybercrime prevention by securing every bit of their networks with the use of optimal solutions that will reveal and block more and more elaborate and global cyberattacks.

About Version 2 Digital

Version 2 Digital is one of the most dynamic IT companies in Asia. The company distributes a wide range of IT products across various areas including cyber security, cloud, data protection, end points, infrastructures, system monitoring, storage, networking, business productivity and communication products.

Through an extensive network of channels, point of sales, resellers, and partnership companies, Version 2 offers quality products and services which are highly acclaimed in the market. Its customers cover a wide spectrum which include Global 1000 enterprises, regional listed companies, different vertical industries, public utilities, Government, a vast number of successful SMEs, and consumers in various Asian cities.

About SafeDNS
SafeDNS breathes to make the internet safer for people all over the world with solutions ranging from AI & ML-powered web filtering, cybersecurity to threat intelligence. Moreover, we strive to create the next generation of safer and more affordable web filtering products. Endlessly working to improve our users’ online protection, SafeDNS has also launched an innovative system powered by continuous machine learning and user behavior analytics to detect botnets and malicious websites.

Cybersecurity Essential #1: The Firewall

The Firewall is Here to Stay

A firewall is a network security device that monitors incoming and outgoing network traffic and decides whether to allow or block specific traffic based on a defined set of security rules. Firewalls have been a first line of defense in network security for decades. They establish a barrier between secured and controlled internal networks that can be trusted and untrusted outside networks, such as the Internet. 

Firewalls have evolved beyond simple packet filtering and stateful inspection. Most companies are deploying next-generation firewalls to block modern threats such as advanced malware and application-layer attacks. Next-generation firewalls (NGFW) are more sophisticated than packet-filtering and stateful inspection firewalls. Why? They have more levels of security, going beyond standard packet-filtering to inspect a packet in its entirety. That means inspecting not just the packet header, but also a packet’s contents and source. NGFW are able to block more sophisticated and evolving security threats like advanced malware.

Necessary Capabilities

Advanced Threat Protection

Most traditional firewalls integrate with a separate intrusion prevention system (IPS) to gain additional security features. Next generation firewalls have IPS capabilities built in to protect against a wide variety of threats, such as DDoS attacks, malware and spyware. Further integration with threat intelligence systems like SIEM provide advanced layers of protection to defend against the modern threat landscape. 

SSL Inspection

Malicious threats can be hidden within encrypted web traffic. In order to filter out malicious content, the NGFW intercepts encrypted web activity to filter out malicious activity through a “man in the middle” approach. The NGFW will first decrypt the incoming web traffic and then scan for threats like malware or viruses. After its examination, the traffic will be encrypted and forwarded to the user so that the user can access the data as originally intended. 

Application Control

The users on your network use several tools on their devices, such as email, social media and other vendor applications. Some of these web applications can be malicious and lead to open backdoors that can be exploited to enter your network. Application control allows organizations to create policies that either allow, deny or restrict access to applications. This not only protects organizations by blocking risky applications but also helps them manage their application traffic to ensure availability for business-critical resources. 

User Identity Awareness

User identity awareness allows organizations to enforce policies that govern access to applications and other online resources to specific groups or individuals. The NGFW integrates with your authentication protocols (such as LDAP or Active Directory) so that access is governed by user identity as opposed to IP address. User identity awareness not only helps organizations control the types of traffic allowed to enter and exit their network but also manage their users.

Deep Packet Inspection

Deep packet inspection inspects data to identify and filter out malware and unwanted traffic. By inspecting the content of a data packet, the NGFW can intelligently determine which applications are being used or the type of data being transmitted. This allows the firewall to block advanced network threats (such as DDoS attacks, trojans, spyware and SQL injections) and evasion techniques used by threat actors. 

Centralized Management

Firewalls need proper security management to ensure that they meet the security needs of the organizations that need protection. Firewall capabilities need to be updated and firewall rules need to ensure they are being properly enforced. Centralized management of your firewall(s) is crucial in gaining on overall view of your firewall configurations. Organizations need to ensure they can scale their firewall to ensure that their organization has maximum protection to fit their growth needs.

Reporting & Insights

Firewalls generate logs that detail information about security and network traffic that security administrators review to understand the overall activity. This information provides organizations with useful insights to help them prioritize application traffic and understand their network security and monitor user activity.

About Version 2 Digital

Version 2 Digital is one of the most dynamic IT companies in Asia. The company distributes a wide range of IT products across various areas including cyber security, cloud, data protection, end points, infrastructures, system monitoring, storage, networking, business productivity and communication products.

Through an extensive network of channels, point of sales, resellers, and partnership companies, Version 2 offers quality products and services which are highly acclaimed in the market. Its customers cover a wide spectrum which include Global 1000 enterprises, regional listed companies, different vertical industries, public utilities, Government, a vast number of successful SMEs, and consumers in various Asian cities.

About Portnox
Portnox provides simple-to-deploy, operate and maintain network access control, security and visibility solutions. Portnox software can be deployed on-premises, as a cloud-delivered service, or in hybrid mode. It is agentless and vendor-agnostic, allowing organizations to maximize their existing network and cybersecurity investments. Hundreds of enterprises around the world rely on Portnox for network visibility, cybersecurity policy enforcement and regulatory compliance. The company has been recognized for its innovations by Info Security Products Guide, Cyber Security Excellence Awards, IoT Innovator Awards, Computing Security Awards, Best of Interop ITX and Cyber Defense Magazine. Portnox has offices in the U.S., Europe and Asia. For information visit http://www.portnox.com, and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.。

How Edge Computing will Make Hyperconverged Infrastructure Ubiquitous

Edge computing has been one of the hottest buzzwords in IT over the past year, and it’s easy to see why. Businesses are implementing innovative workloads using new technologies that require on-premises processing of data due to the requirements of lower latencies, the volume of data being generated, autonomy or even regulation that requires it to run outside the cloud or primary data center. In this article, we’ll take a closer look at how edge computing is transforming the industry—including how enterprises can best utilize edge computing to fuel innovation in their business strategies while protecting their data assets at the same time.

Organizations looking to deploy edge computing solutions on hyperconverged infrastructure are attracted by three main advantages of edge computing: performance, security, and cost-efficiency.

Edge computing can boost application performance in several ways: The speed at which data is processed increases by reducing latency and allowing critical operations to occur at local nodes. All of these benefits improve the overall end-user experience.

In terms of flexibility, edge computing technologies offer clear benefits over their more traditional counterparts deployed in conventional data centers.

Where Edge Computing and Hyperconverged Infrastructure Intersect

Edge computing is one of those terms that’s been thrown around a lot lately, but what does it mean? Edge computing involves placing compute resources closer to where data is generated and used rather than sending all data back to centralized servers or the public cloud. This enables the adoption of new applications and use cases such as AI/ML, augmented reality, computer vision, etc. where additional data generated and processed at the edge has a direct impact on the organization (higher revenues, lower costs, or potentially both depending on the environment). The benefit is clear: lower latency times and better performance for applications.

Edge computing requires businesses to rethink their relationship with managing infrastructure, but many CIOs may not fully understand how an enterprise can leverage edge computing. Often unique in edge computing deployments are the lack of on-premises IT expertise to deploy and manage infrastructure, and legacy workloads that need to be run on-premises with newer workloads – challenges solved by edge-ready HCI.

What is hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI)? HCI pools together resources into an infrastructure that can be managed with cloud-like ease for the entire stack (hypervisor, storage, etc.). Virtualization software turns many high-performing processors into multiple virtual machines with their own virtual processors, thus allowing each OS to run its own set of programs independent of other OS running on other processors. This means that if you need more processing power in an application or system, you can add more virtual processor cores to an existing virtual machine (VM) without affecting other processes running on other VMs.

Enterprise Use Cases

Edge computing offers many use cases for hyperconverged infrastructure in addition to those already mentioned above, including cloud services, mobile/IoT device data collection and storage, business continuity/disaster recovery, and Industry 4.0 Manufacturing Automation.

Edge computing can take advantage of HCI by using shared storage between compute nodes and allowing users to manage all their edge computing workloads from a single management interface (like that of Scale Computing’s HC3). This streamlined process removes network latency caused by transferring data between sites. By storing data on edge servers that reside as close as possible to its point of origin, we reduce network traffic and make business insights actionable faster than ever before.

Today’s enterprises rapidly move away from managing isolated IT systems. They’re modernizing to gain operational excellence through integrated systems with built-in cybersecurity protections and designed for digital transformation with multiple application profiles. Using edge computing infrastructure platforms with built-in high availability (HA) will decrease costly downtime at major companies that rely on highly distributed equipment assets in each global region where they operate.

Edge Computing in Action with HCI

Now that edge computing has become a reality for enterprises, and as HCI continues to demonstrate its viability in enterprise data centers, there’s no doubt that we’ll see more and more edge computing use cases in years to come.

Edge computing has several advantages over centralized cloud architectures (which involve transferring large amounts of data from sites to a central location), including cost savings, improved performance, and higher levels of security. This makes it an ideal solution for both large businesses—companies with multiple sites that are tired of paying expensive bandwidth bills—and smaller companies that can’t afford traditional cloud costs.

The downside is that storing all your data on-premises means you have limited access to it if something goes wrong or needs maintenance. In situations like these, having an edge hyperconverged infrastructure could be just what the enterprise needs to ensure business continuity at every level. With HCI, everything sits onsite; system components are close by, so they can easily communicate with each other and quickly respond when problems arise.

HCI Changes Everything

Companies are still trying to figure out what edge computing is and how it works for them. Luckily, you don’t have to learn edge computing from scratch. The best way for most enterprises to start leveraging HCI for edge computing can be done by deploying software on edge-ready hardware that scales up when necessary, but scales down if the number of workloads decreases.

All of these advantages come with minimal costs — so much so that leading industry experts think edge computing will make hyperconverged infrastructure ubiquitous in companies of any size. And if there’s one sure thing about pervasive hyperconvergence, it’s going to change everything we know about business as usual.

Want to see edge computing and HCI in action? Request a demo today!

About Version 2 Digital

Version 2 Digital is one of the most dynamic IT companies in Asia. The company distributes a wide range of IT products across various areas including cyber security, cloud, data protection, end points, infrastructures, system monitoring, storage, networking, business productivity and communication products.

Through an extensive network of channels, point of sales, resellers, and partnership companies, Version 2 offers quality products and services which are highly acclaimed in the market. Its customers cover a wide spectrum which include Global 1000 enterprises, regional listed companies, different vertical industries, public utilities, Government, a vast number of successful SMEs, and consumers in various Asian cities.

About Scale Computing 
Scale Computing is a leader in edge computing, virtualization, and hyperconverged solutions. Scale Computing HC3 software eliminates the need for traditional virtualization software, disaster recovery software, servers, and shared storage, replacing these with a fully integrated, highly available system for running applications. Using patented HyperCore™ technology, the HC3 self-healing platform automatically identifies, mitigates, and corrects infrastructure problems in real-time, enabling applications to achieve maximum uptime. When ease-of-use, high availability, and TCO matter, Scale Computing HC3 is the ideal infrastructure platform. Read what our customers have to say on Gartner Peer Insights, Spiceworks, TechValidate and TrustRadius.

Mac Patch Management 101

To reduce the risk of vulnerabilities, IT administrators must ensure the devices they manage, which sometimes includes Mac devices, have the latest updates installed, even if support for Mac is not their major competency. 

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What does the acronym QA mean?

We interview Daniel Rodríguez, head of QA at Pandora FMS

Today, in the intriguing adventures of the Pandora FMS blog, we are finally going to discover and reveal the secret behind the initials “QA”. For this investigation we will have the help of Daniel Rodríguez, the very celebrated head of the QA team at Pandora FMS.

Thanks to him we will get rid of all doubts, as we did with other enigmatic investigations on acronyms, such as UFO, CD or, how to forget!, WTF, which made us work for months on the day-to-day of the streets and in the deepest parts of the net.

If you want to follow us again in this reading, go ahead, you will feel like someone who came out of an adventure: satisfied and eager to tell it.

How did you end up in a company like Pandora FMS?

I knew some people who worked here at the time and they recommended the company. They started by saying that “it’s the best”, “come here”, “we would make a great team, you’ll see how much you will like these people and how well they will treat you”… And, you know, I couldn’t resist.

For the inexperienced: What does QA mean?

Don’t worry, I will solve your ancestral doubt. “QA” is equal to “Quality Assurance”. My brand, my crew.

What exactly do you do in the QA team?

We run batteries of tests on the tools we offer every time something is fixed or a new feature is added to find bugs. So customers can have versions that are as stable as possible.

And you as the head of this team, what are you in charge of?

As head of QA, I am in charge of managing the team’s work, maintaining the test environment, and testing the most difficult or demanding tests.

What are the most satisfying tasks of your day to day?

Uhhh, when the release is out without any trouble and in a convenient way, it gives me a high all over my body…

And the most stressful or terrible ones?

Final pre-release testing. They tend to be very stressful because we have a release date and unforeseen events always arise at the last minute, as you can imagine.

What do you think is the most important lesson you have learned working for this company?

Adapting to situations where work is developed differently, in this case with remote working due to the current situation. Yes, that could be an example.

Any remarkable/unspeakable anecdotes at this time in Pandora FMS?

Many, almost all of them unspeakable.

What hobbies drive you crazy?

Video games and music. They blow me away.

Tell me the first thing that comes to mind when I say these words:

* Pandora: Collaboration
* Friday night: Friends
* Bugs: Work
* Sunday evening: Movie

About Version 2 Digital

Version 2 Digital is one of the most dynamic IT companies in Asia. The company distributes a wide range of IT products across various areas including cyber security, cloud, data protection, end points, infrastructures, system monitoring, storage, networking, business productivity and communication products.

Through an extensive network of channels, point of sales, resellers, and partnership companies, Version 2 offers quality products and services which are highly acclaimed in the market. Its customers cover a wide spectrum which include Global 1000 enterprises, regional listed companies, different vertical industries, public utilities, Government, a vast number of successful SMEs, and consumers in various Asian cities.

About PandoraFMS
Pandora FMS is a flexible monitoring system, capable of monitoring devices, infrastructures, applications, services and business processes.
Of course, one of the things that Pandora FMS can control is the hard disks of your computers.

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