Aligning SecOps Teams With Compliance Roadmaps

All Things Compliance, Security Research & Strategy
4 Min Read •

Compliance is essential, and organizations need to get it right. Despite the importance of compliance, organizations often treat it as an afterthought, rather than a business driver. Some see it as a hurdle or uninvited challenge, even though it can have a significant positive impact on the business.

With the rise of new compliance frameworks like GDPR, the stakes are even higher. If you aren’t compliant, there are heavy fines. Now, more than ever, it’s time to ensure that your organization is adhering to the applicable compliance guidelines.

In this post, we show how SecOps teams can align with compliance roadmaps to drive a more continuous, proactive approach to meeting compliance objectives. Read more “Aligning SecOps Teams With Compliance Roadmaps”

AWS re:Invent 2018 Recap: Security, DevOps, ML, & Hybrid Cloud Take Center Stage

AWS Security
3 Min Read •

Another year at AWS re:Invent has come and gone. As usual it was a jam packed show full of exciting announcements, great keynotes, sessions, and interesting conversations. In case you couldn’t make it to Vegas this year or could use a summary of what you missed while you were running between sessions, here are some of the highlights from our week in the desert. Read more “AWS re:Invent 2018 Recap: Security, DevOps, ML, & Hybrid Cloud Take Center Stage”

Three Old-School Network Security Tips That (Still!) Work for Modern Infrastructure

AWS Security, Containers, Orchestration & Security, Security Research & Strategy
2 Min Read •

The adage “Everything old is new again,” rings true in the cybersecurity industry as much as anywhere else. Some of the best practices from old-school network security still apply to modern virtual server or containerized environments.

Even though hackers are becoming increasingly sophisticated with their attacks, applying some of these oldies but goodies to your arsenal could help reduce the risk of a security incident or breach.

Here are a few security best practices that stand the test of time. Read more “Three Old-School Network Security Tips That (Still!) Work for Modern Infrastructure”

50 Useful Kubernetes Tutorials for IT Professionals

Containers, Orchestration & Security, Dev & DevOps Knowledge, Uncategorized
23 Min Read •

Technologies like Docker have made it easier to continuously deploy applications across any number of host servers. They eliminate the need for having your own virtual machine because all the code and configuration settings you need to run your app is packaged into one container.

Google created Kubernetes to automate a number of tasks and processes involved in managing containerized apps. You can use Kubernetes to automatically deploy, scale, and decommission containerized applications. Of course, Kubernetes is not a silver bullet, and Kubernetes deployments have opened up a new set of infrastructure security concerns for DevOps teams. That’s why it’s important to be well versed in how to work with Kubernetes, as well as the tactics and solutions you can employ to create a more secure environment. For instance, Threat Stack now provides security and IT leaders transitioning to container-based infrastructure with the expertise and enhanced security visibility necessary to effectively manage the addition of container-based cloud environments through our Threat Stack Cloud Security Platform® and Threat Stack Cloud SecOps Program℠.

If you are planning to take a systematic approach to learning Kubernetes, then you should be on the lookout for quality tutorials. The good news is that a lot of resources are available online. There are also more structured courses that sometimes offer certification — if you’re willing to pay, that is. Read more “50 Useful Kubernetes Tutorials for IT Professionals”

AWS EC2 Tagging — An Overview

AWS Security, Dev & DevOps Knowledge
4 Min Read •

Just this morning I received my weekly AWS announcements email, and as I usually do, took a peek to see if there was anything useful or interesting. There were yet more features on their intimidating laundry list of 109 offerings, some outdated and maintained for legacy reasons like Simple Workflow, and some hot off the press like MariaDB RDS support. It’s easy to get lost in the sea of AWS services and be tricked into thinking there’s a feature that will solve your problem. But one feature, in particular, that should be a staple for organizations in their efforts to organize and manage their infrastructure, is tags, which we will discuss in this post.
Read more “AWS EC2 Tagging — An Overview”

How to Create a Threat Model for Cloud Infrastructure Security

AWS Security, Security Research & Strategy
3 Min Read •

Our Motto is: Threat Modeling: The sooner the better, but never too late. — OWASP

The practice of creating a threat model can help teams proactively understand and develop a strategy for managing the possible vulnerabilities their organization faces, instead of waiting until after an incident occurs. OWASP defines threat modeling as “a procedure for optimizing security by identifying objectives and vulnerabilities, and then defining countermeasures to prevent, or mitigate the effects of, threats to the system.”

SecOps teams can benefit from creating a threat model for cloud infrastructure, and defining an approach to operationalizing, hardening, and automating security throughout the software development lifecycle. While it’s best to build security into the design of your systems at the outset, remember the motto: “Threat Modeling: The sooner the better, but never too late.”

Let’s walk through how to get started. Read more “How to Create a Threat Model for Cloud Infrastructure Security”

3 Questions to Ask When You’re Ready to Operationalize Your Security

AWS Security, Budgeting and Buying Tips, Security Research & Strategy
3 Min Read •

New global data from Checkmarx reveals that 92 percent of organizations struggle to implement security into DevOps — even though they say they want to. The heart of this issue is the common misconception that security slows things down, which leads to the common practice of skipping security measures in an effort to get things done.

While this approach may seem to create a payoff in terms of productivity, any gains are short term at best and are always offset by the fact that the company is at greater risk for a breach.

But the truth is, speed and security are not mutually exclusive, and you can effectively integrate security into operations throughout your organization if you follow SecOps best practices.

With that in mind, we’ll use this post to walk through the three major questions your organization must ask as it moves toward operationalized security.

Before diving into the post, however, take a look at details on our upcoming webinar — “How to Spend Your Security Budget in a DevOps World.” Read more “3 Questions to Ask When You’re Ready to Operationalize Your Security”

Security Budgeting Considerations for Containers

AWS Security, Budgeting and Buying Tips, Containers, Orchestration & Security
3 Min Read •

When it comes to managing SecOps, you must consider all the risks at hand, as well as how you can address them. Many of today’s SecOps teams are using containers for development, but this also opens organizations up to a variety of new risk factors.

To mitigate these risk factors, organizations need to ramp up their security budgets. After all, it’s expensive to hire the best SecOps professionals and purchase best-in-class tools to manage cybersecurity.

We recently published The State of Security Budgeting in 2018, which details the results from a survey of 300 technical, operations, compliance, and security professionals in North America, across a variety of industries. Of the organizations that responded, 37% had cloud infrastructure workloads that were container-based. The survey results point to many important budgetary considerations, particularly when it comes to containers. Here’s what you need to know. Read more “Security Budgeting Considerations for Containers”