Leveraging OpenSSH to Move Files in Windows Server 2019
Having worked with Unix and Linux servers for a long time, one feature that I came to appreciate is the Secure Shell (SSH) daemon. The SSH server daemon allows users to securely connect to Linux and Unix servers using an SSH client. Those of you who work with Linux and Unix servers are quite familiar with open-source SSH tools such as Putty and WinSCP. Personally, I find WinSCP quite helpful as it allows me to transfer files back and forth from my Windows desktop machine to …
Best Practices – Setting up StealthAUDIT SQL Server Database
If you decided to implement StealthAUDIT to meet your data access governance and security needs, then you made the right decision. StealthAUDIT core requires a SQL Server database to store the audited data, configuration settings, and certain historic data. In this blog, I will review some of the best practices when it comes to setting up the SQL Server database to be used by StealthAUDIT. This blog is not intended to replace the StealthAUDIT Installation Guide, but rather s…
5 Data Privacy Best Practices
With the enactment of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and the ever-evolving COVID-19 pandemic, Data Privacy has been at the forefront in 2020 and will remain an important challenge that organizations must take head-on as the way the world works continues to change. Stringent data privacy controls are an essential measure organizations need to take to not only ensure compliance with data privacy regulations but also to maintain customer trust and loyalty in the expanding digital wor…
What Comes After the FireEye Attack
By now it’s common knowledge that FireEye has disclosed they were the victims of an attack by a nation-state seeking government information. If you aren’t aware of the particulars of this attack, I strongly encourage you to take a few minutes and read the blog posted by the FireEye team. It includes details about the attack and what was compromised, as well as how the company plans to address the situation.
In the next few days, we will face a barrage of messages from vendors seeking to re…
South Africa’s Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) Compliance
Following in the footsteps of GDPR, CCPA, and LGPD, South Africa’s data privacy law, Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA), took effect on July 1st, 2020, with an effective date for enforcement of July 1st, 2021. What this means is that affected organizations have a year to prepare and should take advantage of the grace period to stay ahead of requirements.
POPIA is modeled after the EU’s GDPR, as many recent data privacy laws and frameworks have been. By doing so POPIA grants use…
How to Create and Mount NFS Exports on CentOS Linux
NFS, the Network File System, is a common method for sharing files over a network from a Unix host. In this blog, we’ll go over how to create NFS exports (i.e., shares) on a CentOS 8 host, as well as how to mount those exports from a Linux client.
NFS exports are supported on most Linux distributions, although the specific required packages may differ per your distro (e.g., CentOS/RHEL, Ubuntu, etc.). However, the overall workflow and methodology will be the same.
To start, you need a L…
Installing SQL Server 2019 on Centos 8
Microsoft announced the release of SQL Server 2019 at Ignite 2019 with some exciting new features including Scalar UDF inlining, always-on connection, and Linux support. In my previous blog, I walked through the steps of integrating a Linux host running on CentOS 8 into a Windows Active Directory (AD) domain configured on Windows 2012 R2 Server Standard Edition. In this blog, I will be using the same AD domain joined CentOS 8 server to install and configure SQL Server 2019 for Linux.
Wheth…
Malware’s Growth During the COVID-19 Pandemic
If recent years have taught us anything about the intent of threat actors, it’s that no victim or circumstance is off limit when there’s a profit to be made. Throughout the year attackers have used COVID-19 to take advantage of victims’ fears of the virus, exploited new attack surfaces resulting from the increase in remote work, and even attempted to steal vaccine research.
Earlier this year, it was reported that the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) has seen reports in cybercrim…
Authentication, Authorization, Single Sign-On, & Federated Identity Explained
Identity and access management (IAM) is a major part of day-to-day enterprise workflows, and with that often comes confusion around authentication, authorization, single sign-on, and federated identity. Let’s break each down in simple terms, which also apply to consumer workflows in addition professional environments.
Authentication (AuthN) vs. Authorization (AuthZ)
Authentication is confirming a user is who they say they are, when logging-in to an account, service, website, application…
