Dealing with hosting/cloud vendors who want to push their SOC audit reports on you
How do you know that your hosted Web application or similar cloud environment is secure and resilient to attacks? Well, if you're like the seemingly majority of organizations, you look to the SOC 2 report of the hosting/cloud provider. SOC 2 reports replaced the former SAS70 reports and cover controls involving security, privacy, and availability. Each year, I review a dozen or so such reports as part of my consulting and security assessment services and they're quite in-depth providing worthy guidance on data center operations. But guess what? They tell you little to nothing about the technical vulnerabilities in your Web applications and servers. And guess what else? That's where the majority of your vulnerabilities are – at least according to the research that comes out every year.
So, when you or someone you've hired wants to test specific systems that are not under your direct control, what do you do? Ask your host/cloud vendors politely and hope they'll let you. Most vendors are okay with it but there are some out there who are absolutely against it. These companies will go to great lengths to keep people from scanning and testing systems hosted on their systems often in the name of minimizing the impact to their other hosted customers. It's "for the greater good", therefore, you just need to trust that all is well in their environment, on your systems, and in and around every other party that's involved. Ha! If hosted security were only that simple.
People are territorial. The last thing a CTO or network architect at one of these vendors wants is for an outside party to point out the flaws in his environment. It's like calling his baby ugly and people just don't take too kindly to that. Even if you approach this from the perspective of we just need to find the flaws before the bad guys exploit them in order to minimize our risks, people are still guarded. This is especially true if it's a third-party relationship, i.e. an outsider such as myself testing the security of a client's Web application that's hosted by a third-party.
If you're wondering (or required to determine) where things stand with your hosted/cloud environment, security-wise, and you're not able to test yourself, ask the following questions:
• When was the last time you performed a full security assessment of the systems that involve our environment?
• Did you run Web-specific tests using Web vulnerability scanners?
• Can I see a copy of that report? (Vulnerability scanner reports won't cut it.)
• How can we test for Web vulnerabilities with user authentication? Some of the nastiest Web security flaws exist behind the login prompt. Is your vendor going to be provided login credentials to thorough scans and manual analysis? If not, who will?
• When's the next round of testing going to be?
If I were responsible for the security a Web application or similar online environment, I'd most certainly want to know how things look operationally. Again, that's what SOC reports are great for. Still, I know that the big vulnerabilities that are exploited and get businesses into the headlines don't typically involve physical security, user account management, data backups and the like. Instead, it's things like SQL injection, weak passwords, missing patches and other common technical weaknesses. People who assume that a clean (or abysmal) SOC 2 report is reflective of the true technical security posture of their full online presence are deluding themselves. I've heard these same concerns from data center auditors. There's a lot of confusion in the marketplace creating unnecessary - and prolonged - vulnerabilities that negate any perceived security audit benefits otherwise.
Don't fall into this trap. Do your vulnerability scans. Follow up with your manual analysis (penetration testing) to see what can be done and from what angles. And do this over and over again along with the SOC 2 (or similar) audits. That's the only way you're going to know where everything stands. Any other approach, even when your environment is hosted by someone else who proclaims to have things under control, is dangerous at best. Ask the tough questions of your hosting/cloud vendor(s). If they're not willing to let you test your own systems in their environment, make them do the dirty work (ideally by hiring a third party) and show that all's well. Otherwise, find another provider before your existing one's practices make you look bad.
About the Author
Kevin Beaver is an information security consultant, expert witness, writer, and professional speaker with Atlanta-based Principle Logic, LLC. Having over 26 years of experience in the industry and 20 years focusing on security, Kevin specializes in performing independent security assessments of Web applications and network systems. He has written 12 books on information security including Hacking For Dummies and The Practical Guide to HIPAA Privacy and Security Compliance. In addition, he's the creator of the Security On Wheelsinformation security audio books and blog providing security learning for IT professionals on the go. Kevin can be reached at www.principlelogic.com and you can follow him on Twitter at @kevinbeaver.
Source: Dealing with hosting/cloud vendors who want to push their SOC audit reports on you
Ewebguru.com Introduces Affordable Hosting Services In India
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Wells Fargo downgrade Rackspace Hosting Inc.(NYSE:RAX) from Outperform to Market Perform in a report released today.
Wells Fargo has downgrade Rackspace Hosting Inc.(NYSE:RAX) from Outperform to Market Perform in a report released on 8/29/2016. They are also stating a potential downside of -1.00%.
Just yesterday Rackspace Hosting Inc. (NYSE:RAX) traded 4.34% higher at $31.50. The company's 50-day average is $25.81 and its two hundred day average is $23.12. The last stock close is up 36.22% from the 200-day average, compared with the S&P 500 Index which has held steady over the date range. Trading volume was was up over the average, with 38,577,824 shares of RAX changing hands over the typical 2,642,020 shares..
See Graph Below:
With a market capitalization of $4.0B, Rackspace Hosting Inc. has a 52 week low of $15.05 and a one-year high of $32.14 with a price-earnings ratio of 28.
A total of 17 brokerages have issued a ratings update on the stock. Six analysts rate the company a strong buy, three analysts rate the stock a buy, 12 analyts rate the company a hold, zero rate the company to underperform, and lastly one brokeragerate the stock as sell with a consensus target price of $26.53
About Rackspace Hosting Inc. (NYSE:RAX)Rackspace Hosting, Inc. (Rackspace) operates in the managed cloud segment of the business information technology (IT) market. The Company offers a portfolio of integrated IT solutions for common business needs. The Company offers services for certain applications, including e-commerce and Web content management sites, business-productivity applications, such as e-mail and collaboration, and data stores. The Company offers private, public and hybrid clouds in its approximately 10 data centers located on over four continents, in Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services data centers, as well as in customer-owned data centers. Its services include dedicated customer care and technical support, such as operating system patching, application monitoring, network and firewall configurations, and identity management. The Company has operations located in multiple cities across the United States, as well as in London, Amsterdam, Zurich, Hong Kong, and Sydney and Mexico City.
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Source: Wells Fargo downgrade Rackspace Hosting Inc.(NYSE:RAX) from Outperform to Market Perform in a report released today.
Crayola DigiTools 3D iPad Set for $4 + pickup at Walmart – CNET
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Best Website Creators To Cut Your Design Time in Half
Whether you're a small-time blogger or the mastermind behind a multi-billion dollar agency, building a quality website is crucial to your success. With 16% of the world's population owning a website, we are facing a rapidly growing industry. According to Hosting Facts, there are roughly 966 million websites in the world today, with that number increasing by the hour.
This number is understandable, considering the perks to owning a website; it's both trendy and professional. Even an online shop or recipe blog provides a social media presence as well as an extra push for success. We've all heard the story about an online shop turned million dollar business.
While owning a website can be an ingredient for success, actually creating one can be daunting. Building a website takes time, and it can be exhausting. If you're not familiar with coding or web-building platforms, (i.e. WordPress) creating that perfect site can be a robust mission. Even with step-by-step guides, YouTube tutorials, and forum explanations, working toward the site you want takes work.
Luckily, if you are willing to put in a little work, you can quickly make a site with website creators, also know as website builders. Website creators are platforms which allow you to build a website quickly (often through drag-and-drop options.) These platforms are ideal for a number of site owners, in that they require no programming skills and no hosting. Many incur monthly costs, which are dollars well spent when considering the accumulative costs of hosting, domain, themes, and plugins. So, which website builders are up to snuff? In this post, I'll be sharing a list of the 25 best website creators as well as a little about each. Already have a favorite website creator? Tell us in the comment section below.
SquarespaceWhether you're looking to dive into eCommerce or organize a personal portfolio, Squarespace is a great, inexpensive choice. This website creator provides a free domain integrated with Getty images, as well as the opportunity to create a logo, utilize metric tools, and track analytics.
Weebly is both a free creator and one of the longest-running platforms available. Not only is the setup simple, but the variety of easy-to-use features makes Weebly a perfect go-to option. No coding required.
Most likely one of the most popular website creators, Wix is offers its users a wonderfully manageable interface. Free hosting, 24/7 support, and friendly mobile design make Wix a perfect option for easy web design. (Not to mention Wix also offers a drag-and-drop feature for quick changes.)
Jimdo is an eCommerce oriented website creator. If you're planning to build your online shop but don't have the coding skills or knowledge on how to do that, Jimdo could be the best choice. It's simple to use and provides all eCommerce tools to manage your online shop.
Webs is another free-to-use website creator. If you are planning to manage your website on your own and don't want to hire a designer or a programmer, you can do it all by yourself using Webs. Also, Webs come with a rich set of features that can't be found anywhere else.
IM Creator gives you free hosting that can be combined with your domain. Also, It's a perfect choice if you prefer not to dedicate a lot of time to learning and designing a website. It has over 70 well-designed templates and a pure drag-and-drop editor.
Website Builder is another free creator for your website. It's a perfect platform for your online shop or a blog. It has more than 10,000 different and custom templates and it's easy to build and customize. Website Builder offers quick and simple eCommerce integration and has free SEO tools.
Volusion is a free website creator, but the trial lasts only 14 days, perhaps that is enough time to see test the platform's usability. Volusion specializes in eCommerce software and design services. Since eCommerce is a huge focus for Volusion, users are able to have multi-channel selling on sites like eBay, Facebook and Amazon. Everything is designed with SEO in mind. It allows you to update products, shipping, and tracking in just a few simple clicks.
Webflow is pretty different from the other website creators. It's an in-browser design studio for professionals who want to build sites for their clients without having to code. It's a perfect choice for designers and agencies who outsource the coding part of their projects to developers.
Voog is a simple platform with a built-in drag-and-drop interface. It's pretty simple to use and has an integrated blog platform. The biggest advantage of Voog is that it supports multiple languages. It allows you to run a multilingual business and target more people around the world.
iPage is a budget-friendly website creator with many features and great customer support. It's one of the oldest players on the market and it's a perfect choice for both beginners and professionals. iPage uses Weebly builder which brings in their excellent tools and features to the platform. The best part is that iPage costs around $2/month.
The primary goal of Sitelio is to provide customers with the simplest way to create a website. It doesn't matter if it's personal or a business website – it should be easy to make it either way. Sitelio is a great place to start your blogging adventure.
Sitey provides plenty of useful features including: hosting, 24/7 support, an image library, Google-friendly mobile options, and analytics. Sitey also features social media integration, blog options and much more.
SiteBuilder provides a perfect mix of outstanding design and high usability. It's one of the simplest and most intuitive website creators on the market. SiteBuilder can work for just about everyone – a designer, newbie, business or a simple blog site. SiteBuilder boasts a perfect set of tools to create your first website.
As you may know, GoDaddy is one of the biggest domain registrars and web hosting companies in the world. Not only do they offer just domain and hosting services, they provide comprehensive site builder tools and world-class customer support services. It's very similar to Wix as they also offer a bunch of great features and photo-editing capabilities.
Moonfruit is the perfect place for beginners or mid-level users to create their website. It has fully customizable templates, powerful and a very flexible website editor. You can start to monetize your website by integrating your site through Google Adsense, and don't forget to take advantage of their beautiful multimedia integration.
Webydo is a well-known website creator in the market. It's a code-free web builder which allows you to create a website without any coding skills. Also, it's a perfect platform for designers to set up and sell websites. Webydo provides fully customizable templates, and it's already 100% optimized for mobile.
SnapPages' primary goal is to help its customers make their websites quickly and easily. They offer video tutorials for each step of the creation process. SnapPages has many different features such as customizable theme designs, a drag-and-drop builder and a simple blog setup.
Mobirise is 100% free, with no hidden fees. With it's extremely easy-to-use platform, Mobirise might be the best option for an inexperienced website owner. Their drag-and-drop layouts allow you to seamlessly plugin in your information and images. Mobirise is based on the stable and responsive Bootstrap 3 framework and does not require coding skills to use Mobirise to its full extent.
One of the best single-page website creators on the market,Strikingly allows you easily create your single page website very quickly. Strinkingly offers customers many features like blogging, eCommerce capabilities and automatically optimizes for a mobile-version.
Yola has all the features you need to create your website. It uses simple and delicate design to reduce any possible distractions. Yola provides top-level customer support; your website will be optimized for mobile, and you can choose from 200 different templates.
Zoho is another free website creator with various website building tools. Zoho gives users access to unlimited bandwidth, pages, galleries and slide shows. Zoho also offers a vast library of well-designed templates.
eHost is an excellent host and customer support provider. They have extremely high standards and their website creator service is fantastic as well. eHost offers hundreds of great looking templates, 24/7 technical support, and a free domain name. It's a great place to start.
uCoz provides you all the features and functions like most other popular CMS platforms. It's a perfect fit for newbies and professionals. It provides two different editors: DIY and thoroughly professional. uCoz allows you to create your own templates or buy pre-made ones.
DudaOne is a website creator that helps you convert desktop websites to fully-responsive mobile websites. If you want to build your site from scratch, they feature a built-in website creator, that gives you access to HTML/CSS and has code-free WYSIWYG editing.
For more useful web design and development tools check out these posts:
Source: Best Website Creators To Cut Your Design Time in Half