Security

With the three pillars of observability considered more or less canon for IT monitoring philosophy these days, and logging being one of those pillars, it’s important to understand the tools, systems, and solutions that help IT practitioners do a good job of aggregating, normalizing, and leveraging logs in all their forms to provide improved insight…

Websites and applications all need to interact with their users, which means users must have some way to input data, whether it’s a text box on a website or a web form within an application. When this kind of input data is directly turned into a SQL query, the program or website allowing the input…

Whether you’re running an instance of open-source MySQL or Microsoft SQL Server, you need to be certain you have robust, high-quality security measures in place. This is extremely important for preventing malicious access to your database, particularly if sensitive or personal data is stored on your servers. In this article, I cover the essential SQL…

The Domain Name System (DNS) vies with the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) for the title of “Achilles heel of the internet.” If you want to take down large swathes of the internet in a single event, DNS and/or BGP are how you’d go about it. Over the past few decades, there have been innumerable security…

  <Syslog_output> <server> 192.168.1.1</server> </syslog_output> Many people are familiar with the above commands, which are used for forwarding syslog to the syslog server (192.168.1.1). However, do you know how syslog can be helpful? Read on to find out how and see some different use cases for enabling syslog in your infrastructure. The primary use of…

Since the release of SQL Server® 2017 on Linux®, DBAs have been waiting for a native release of SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) on Linux. At this point, Microsoft has stated that they have no plans for a native Linux version of SSMS. However, they have just released a preview version of SQL Operations Studio,…

IT is really busy these days. In fact, IT’s been busy for as long as you can remember. Security issues today alone could keep you busy full-time, but there’s just not enough time in the day. Strategic initiatives and fires seem to take precedent daily, pushing some of the more necessary, but rudimentary, parts of…

Remote work is on the rise in today’s digital era. Even in cases where employees live and work within the same city, many opt for regular work from home hours. According to Gallup’s State of the American Workplace survey, 43% of employees worked remotely in some capacity in 2016, a 39% increase from 2012. On…

For administrators managing assets across enterprise networks, Active Directory is one of the most important tools in their toolbox. It doesn’t matter how large or small your operation is—managing assets, users, and authorizations across your network can be a headache. While Microsoft Active Directory (AD) is pretty indispensable when it comes to keeping tabs on…

LogMeIn has been in widespread use for some time now, but many of you are looking for a change. Although it might seem like LogMeIn has a near monopoly on the market, some competitive contenders can provide you with a suitable LogMeIn replacement. This guide provides a list of some of the best LogMeIn free…

Do you regularly clean up your Active Directory® (AD)? Have you set a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly schedule, or do you wait until you receive a change request? If you neglect AD cleanup and maintenance, your environment will get cluttered and increasingly difficult to navigate. Accounts become inactive for a variety of reasons, such as…

Security Groups, User Accounts, and Other AD Basics At many enterprises and SMBs that use Windows devices, IT teams are likely to use Active Directory (AD). Essentially, Active Directory is an integral part of the operating system’s architecture, allowing IT more control over access and security. AD is a centralized, standard system that allows system…

It can be hard to keep on top of all the software on your computer, especially if every time you open a program it tells you it needs updating. Luckily, you can install a software updater to manage this process for you. The importance of software updaters is twofold: first, they make sure you’re using…

Every federal agency has security compliance requirements that must be met on an annual or ongoing basis. Two of the most important requirements are FISMA (Federal Information Systems Management Act) and FedRAMP (Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program). While these two federal requirements have a lot in common, they pertain to different types of systems….

The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), one of the most rigorous pieces of privacy legislation to date, has become almost synonymous with data privacy. This is partly due to its broad scope. The GDPR applies to any organization collecting and processing the data of an EU citizen—even if the organization isn’t based in…

SAP security is a technical module that works within SAP systems to allow access where it’s needed and prevent access where it’s not. Establishing good internal security and access processes is a vital part of helping ensure your SAP system is protected and will function well. Protecting against external threats is important, but internal threats…

Active Directory (AD) is a battle-tested software many company administrators use as a standard remedy for concerns about outsider access to data. But within AD, there are many types of security protocols to choose from. What if I don’t want to enable email access to my users, but instead I want my users to securely…

Access rights in your business are vitally important. Errors around who has access to what can create, at a minimum, productivity disruptions and problems with employees not having access to what they need—and at worst can result in unauthorized access, privacy breaches, data losses, or compliance failures. As a result, it’s important to be clear…

Network security predominantly falls into two different categories: on-premises and cloud-based. Enterprises choose which one they use to protect their system by considering several factors including individual needs and operational costs. Both approaches are concerned with keeping a network as secure as possible, but cloud security measures get the most scrutiny. So, which is it?…