The digital horizon is constantly evolving, and at its forefront is the transformative power of cloud computing. Terms like “multi-cloud” and “omni cloud” are not mere buzzwords but signify strategic shifts in how businesses approach their digital infrastructure. This article demystifies these strategies, placing them under the lens for a clearer understanding.
Tracing the Cloud Evolution
From the dawn of mainframe computers to the advent of internet-based cloud solutions, the narrative of cloud computing has been one of innovation and adaptation. Initially, the focus was singular – one business, one cloud provider. Today, the narrative champions competition, diversity of services and integration.
Defining Multi-Cloud
Multi-Cloud is the strategy of using multiple cloud providers, where each provider handles a separate, distinct workload or application. The motivation is often to avoid vendor lock-in, leverage specific features of each provider, or to ensure redundancy and risk distribution.
Most companies want to be able to innovate and grow quickly. But the ability to do so depends on the organization’s ability to balance developer autonomy with platform manageability and security. It’s not an easy task, but one that requires careful planning ahead of time. Here are principles every company should follow on their cloud journey:
The cloud is how companies innovate, scale and grow.
The cloud is how companies innovate, scale and grow. As a result, it’s important to balance developer autonomy with manageability of the platform. By allowing developers the freedom to create and innovate, you can get more out of your investment in technology. However, without proper controls and security measures in place, there are risks associated with this approach as well.
The cloud allows for continuous innovation through agile development practices—the ability for teams to rapidly develop new features or products that allow them to move faster than ever before. As a result of this rapid innovation cycle, developers need access to tools that allow them to keep up with changes across multiple programming languages (like Python, Terraform, Cloud Providers Native Languages) while ensuring compliance with industry standards like ISO, GXP, PCI-DSS or NIST regulations
The shift to the cloud can be overwhelming and confusing, especially as many organizations find themselves with a multi-cloud environment, which can lead to it’s own set of challenges.
In today’s interconnected cloud-first, mobile world, securing your online apps and services is vital. However, building secure solutions which deliver value in today’s complex and regulated environment can be a challenge. With information essentially becoming the currency of the digital age, the creation of multiple compliance regulations has forced organizations to implement technical security measures to protect their online systems and customers. Meeting these compliance requirements can be challenging, especially if you are leveraging the benefits of the cloud. Not only do you need to build and configure your apps and services securely, but you also need to ensure your chosen cloud provider meets any necessary compliance requirements.
Compliance in the Cloud Compliance Is a Shared Responsibility
On Azure, Microsoft is responsible for meeting the compliance requirements for its platform while you are responsible for any compliance measures which relate to your cloud service.
With more certifications than any other cloud service provider, Azure meets a broad set of international as well as industry-specific compliance standards. These include the GDPR, ISO 27001, HIPAA, SOC, among others. Microsoft also conducts regular comprehensive audits to ensure it maintains these standards and adheres to the security controls needed.
However, as stated, ensuring your services that are running on Azure meet compliance requirements is your responsibility. Thankfully Microsoft Azure provides a few tools which can help you secure your cloud services and meet the necessary compliance standards.
In this article I’ll walk you through the steps needed to connecting to your Microsoft Azure environment, as well as giving you a glimpse of how you can manage it by starting up a IaaS virtual machine.
There is endless potential, to what you can manage and automate of Azure resources with PowerShell, but from here to there, first step is connecting it!
Hey, so if you are getting this error I’ll walk you through the easiest ways to remedy it.
PS C:\> Get-AzureVM
Get-AzureVM : ForbiddenError: The server failed to authenticate the request. Verify that the certificate is valid and i s associated with this subscription.
At line:1 char:1
+ Get-AzureVM
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : CloseError: (:) [Get-AzureVM], ComputeCloudException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Commands.ServiceManagement.IaaS.GetAzureVMCommand
or
Set-AzureSubscription : ForbiddenError: The server failed to authenticate the request. Verify that the certificate is valid and is associated with this subscription.
The solution often is easier then you’d think, just like how browsers have their cache so does your Microsoft Azure PowerShell so you’ll want to input this:
Clear-AzureProfile
This will clear your current Azure profile.
You should also consider deleting the content of this folder:
and then you can execute any Azure PowerShell commands that you’d like to run. For a more detailed walkthrough check my article on connecting and managing Microsoft Azure via PowerShell.
PS: If you are still getting errors, you should check whether the mode you are running in is incorrect you can input
Switch-AzureMode AzureResourceManager
Important to note that “Switch-AzureMode” is deprecated and will be removed in a future release. However doing so seemed to import the certificate and removed the “ServiceManagement” modules that were loaded with this install and installed the correct certificate.
So now to see if it’s working we can run Get-AzureVM or Get-AzureRMvm
which outputs:
As always, you can follow me on Twitter at @UlvBjornsson or follow me on here, if you have tips for articles you’d like to read or topics you want to hear more about, hit me up.
Busy days, we had WannaCry remind us about the importance of patch compliance and mitigation (add political pun about encryption and weapons) and we saw IT and business rally to mitigate, patch and get their heads over water.
NotPetya spread over the same attack vector and utilized PsExec with the SMBv1 vulnerability but had a much more complicated payload, which turned out to not be ransomware, but a wiper prompting for a ransom, allowing no way to decrypt essentially rendering the data lost.
So with that in mind I decided to write a post about the upcoming Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, touching on Windows Defender ATP and security in general, and my thoughts surrounding it..
First off, it integrates Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) into Windows 10 essentially unifying the Windows threat protection stack.
To sum it up, it’s built in and not added on.
Security is complicated, it involves layer upon layer, there is exterior security, interior security, network, information, os hardening, user training and so on.
One of the best things with ATP?
It integrates with cloud intelligence and the rest of your security, giving you a single pane of glass for administration.
Windows Defender ATP dashboard view
Now what is the ATP? It covers a range of features such as:
Windows Defender Exploit Guard
Windows Defender Explot Guard (WDEG) uses information from the Microsoft Intelligent Security Graph (ISG) and provides a heavy set of intrusion rules and policies to assist and prrevent advanced threats, as well as zero day exploits.
Machine timeline from Exploit Guard
Windows Defender Application Guard
A real winner here I believe, we’ll see how it turns out when it goes live for everyone, but I like the idea of Windows Defender Application Guard (WDAG) because even if the OS stack, network stack is secure, does not necessarily mean your third-party applications for example your browser is. Example and point: when Tim in accounting accidentally downloads malicious malware or Rambo in security triggers a zero-day worm whilst researching in the wrong container, WDAG will isolate and contain the threat. Keeping your device, apps and data secure. At least in theory.
Windows Defender Device Guard
Also integrated into ATP, Device Guard allows whitelisting of applications on a per-device basis and if anything it gives the Security Operations Center better insight, and automated application control as well as implementation of DDG into ATP gives organizations an easy implementation. Well improved detection, response capabilities and a growing detection dictionary that includes more indicators of attacks (IoA) with a large suite being gathered into one product in the Windows threat protection stack will allow you to remedy, as well as spot weaknesses far faster then before, and reduces the overhead required and the custom implementations required to make all the systems “talk“.
So what is my take from this? I thoroughly believe that the creator of a product (Microsoft) is most likely the best to create a security solution best suited for their product (Windows and surrounding services).
To sum it up ATP integrated with Windows 10, and Cloud Intelligence (Office 365, Microsoft Azure) will be a huge step in the right direction, and be a valuable asset to any Service Operations Center or IT operation team.
As always if you have any suggestions about topics, articles, how-to’s and what not hit me up here or on twitter at @UlvBjornsson
Well improved detection, response capabilities and a growing detection dictionary that includes more indicators of attacks (IoA) with a large suite being gathered into one product in the Windows threat protection stack will allow you to remedy, as well as spot weaknesses far faster then before, and reduces the overhead required and the custom implementations required to make all the systems “talk“.
musings of a consultant 