At area 1 security, we’re accountable to you: that means we believe you should pay only to cybersecurity company that works

CloudFlare, Inc. operates as a cloud services provider that delivers a range of services to businesses worldwide. The company provides an integrated cloud-based security solution to secure a range of combination of platforms, including public cloud, private cloud, on-premise, software-as-a-service applications, and IoT devices; and website and application security products comprising web application firewall, bot management, distributed denial of service, API gateways, SSL/TLS encryption, secure origin connection, and rate limiting products. It also offers website and application performance solutions, including content delivery, load balancing, DNS, agro smart routing, video stream delivery, content optimization, virtual backbone, always online, and cloudflare waiting room and registrar; and network services, which deliver network connectivity, security, and performance to customers as a service, including WAN, WARP, magic transit, magic firewall, cloudflare network interconnect, and spectrum. In addition, the company provides zero trust services, such as cloudflare access, cloudflare gateway, remote browser isolation, cloud access security broker, cloudflare area 1 email security, and data loss prevention products that protect, inspect, and privilege data. Further, it provides developer-based solutions consisting of cloudflare workers, pages, stream, and images, as well as Cloudflare Data Localization suite, a tool that set rules and controls at the network edge; durable objects and R2 object storage products; Consumer DNS Resolver, a consumer app to browse the Internet; and consumer VPN for consumers to secure and accelerate traffic on mobile devices. The company serves customers in the technology, healthcare, financial services, consumer and retail, and non-profit industries, as well as government. CloudFlare, Inc. was incorporated in 2009 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

Area 1 Security

DevOps! Hmm.… What a fitting name from those tech people who are always trying to be cool, right? As if the casual work clothes don’t do that enough already. Lol.. Well it turns out there’s more to this acronym than some bespectacled people just trying to sound cool. And if you’re reading this article, you’re probably more interested in this concept than just how quirky it sounds. So, welcome, researcher; this article explains as clearly as possible for any audience level so anyone can share in the coolness of using such a techy term 😎. If you are a tech professional trying to get a good grasp of this concept or just someone who randomly stumbled upon this term on the internet, welcome to a new page of understanding. DevOps DevOps, short for Development and Operations, is like a magic potion for software development and IT operations. It helps create and deliver software faster and more efficiently. In this article, we will embark on a journey to explore DevOps through the eyes of five different audiences: a child, a teenager, an adult, a professional, and an expert. Each level will delve deeper into DevOps, gradually building an understanding of its concepts and practices. Level 1: Explaining DevOps to a Child Let’s imagine that you're a curious 8-year-old who eats out a lot and has little knowledge of software development. DevOps is like running a restaurant. The developers are the chefs, and they create the meal (the software code). The operations team is like the waiters and waitresses who package the meal (software) in various utensils and deliver it to the visitors waiting in the eating area. DevOps is the teamwork that ensures that visitors get the meal they want as quickly and professionally as possible. Basically, software chefs and deliverers work together to create a sophisticated software generation system known as DevOps. Level 2: Explaining DevOps to a Teenager Now, let's discuss DevOps with a teenager who can understand more abstract concepts. DevOps is like televised dance training where two parties - the leader (developers) and the dancers (operators) - entertain the audience (users). Developers write the code and add new features, like a dance leader generating new dance moves. Operations make sure the software runs smoothly, just like the dancers choreograph the dance moves expertly. DevOps is the music that keeps the dance synchronized, allowing updates and changes to happen without missing a beat. As can be observed, this explanation separates the concept of DevOps from just the practice of it, i.e., the music is different from the dance moves. This is because while DevOps rightly describes the combined functioning of software developers and operators, it is not limited to just this factory-like system. A number of software tools known as DevOps tools have also been developed to enable even a single developer to be able to practice DevOps. These are known as DevOps Software, and an excellent example of such a tool is , which provides the infrastructure for packaging and deploying software so that a developer can practice DevOps while only focusing on the coding part. Aptible Level 3: Explaining DevOps to an Adult As an adult, you may wonder how DevOps impacts your daily life. DevOps is a set of practices and tools that bridges the gap between . It's all about collaboration, automation, and continuous improvement. software development and IT operations Imagine you're building a house and you outsource it to a company to construct and maintain the house. The development team designs and constructs the rooms (software features), while the operations team maintains the house (keeps it running smoothly) over time. DevOps is the contract that ensures that this system runs seamlessly. Now imagine that your house is a robot house that is capable of upgrading itself with new features you ask for while you live in it. DevOps can also be described this way. It introduces automation tools, like robots, that help build and upgrade the house (software) faster and with fewer errors, even after it has been released to the public. So, to answer the question of how DevOps affects you as a user, continuous improvement means that as you live in the house (use the software), it gets better over time based on your feedback. Level 4: Explaining DevOps to a Professional Now, let's dive deeper into DevOps for professionals. At this level, you're already familiar with the basics and are seeking a more detailed understanding. DevOps is a software development system that follows the following principles; DevOps emphasizes strong collaboration between development and operations teams. This ensures everyone is on the same page, resulting in better communication and faster problem-solving. Collaboration: Automation is the heart of DevOps. It involves using tools to automate repetitive tasks, such as code testing, deployment, and server provisioning. This reduces errors and accelerates the development process. Automation: CI/CD pipelines automate the testing and deployment of code changes. This means that whenever developers make changes, they are automatically tested and deployed to production if they pass all tests. This speeds up the release of new features and fixes. Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD): DevOps teams constantly monitor software performance in real time. This feedback loop helps identify issues early and allows for quick adjustments. Monitoring and Feedback: IaC treats infrastructure (servers, databases, networks) as code, allowing for easy and consistent provisioning and management. Infrastructure as Code (IaC): DevOps often pairs with a microservices architecture, where applications are broken down into smaller, independent services. This allows for faster development and easier maintenance. Microservices: Level 5: Explaining DevOps to an Expert For experts, DevOps is a complex and dynamic field that requires a deep understanding of various tools and practices. Let's explore some advanced DevOps concepts: 1. Security (Sec) becomes an integral part of DevOps (Dev), ensuring that security measures are integrated into the software development and deployment process. DevSecOps: 2. Technologies like Docker and Kubernetes are used to package and manage applications and their dependencies, making it easier to deploy and scale applications. Containerization and Orchestration: 3. Experts are well-versed in IaC tools like Terraform and Ansible, enabling them to define infrastructure as code and manage complex infrastructure environments. Infrastructure as Code (IaC) Tools: 4. SRE is a discipline that combines software engineering and IT operations. It focuses on creating highly reliable and scalable software systems. Site Reliability Engineering (SRE): 5. Experts may practice Chaos Engineering to proactively identify weaknesses in systems by intentionally introducing failures. Chaos Engineering: 6. Experts leverage advanced automation tools and techniques, including machine learning and artificial intelligence, to optimize processes and enhance predictive analytics. Advanced Automation: Conclusion DevOps is a journey, and depending on your level of expertise and familiarity with technology, your understanding of it can vary. At its core, DevOps is about collaboration, automation, and continuous improvement. Whether you're a child, teenager, adult, professional, or expert, DevOps plays a crucial role in shaping the way software is developed, deployed, and maintained in today's technology-driven world. The key is to start where you are and gradually deepen your knowledge as you progress through these different audience levels as a no-infrastructure platform for deploying and scaling software infinitely.

DevOps Explained: Five Levels of Understanding

Hi Jagdeep, welcome to our series “Behind the Startup.” Please tell us about yourself and the story behind ? Ishan Pandey: Syscoin Hi! I’m Jagdeep Sidhu, Syscoin Lead Core Developer, President of the nonprofit Syscoin Foundation, and CTO of Blockchain Foundry Inc, which is a publicly-traded company on the Canadian Securities Exchange. My academic background includes AI, neural networks, and client/server protocols. I saw the world-changing potential of blockchain technology and became involved as a core developer in the industry's earlier days. We have evolved Syscoin over the years since we began the workaround 2013. Jagdeep Sidhu: Syscoin’s first mainnet release took place in 2014, even before Ethereum. It has evolved in harmony with the developments required for it to survive and thrive long term. Much of our research has been put into what an ideal blockchain would look like in the new world where money is replaced with value and we remove intermediaries from all of our day-to-day business processes. What exactly are ‘rollups’ and how have they aided blockchain technology? Ishan Pandey: We consider Rollups, particularly ZK-Rollups, the most promising way for the blockchain industry to scale smart contracts and move forward with the least amount of trade-offs, from a pure decentralization perspective. Jagdeep Sidhu: Understanding the mechanics isn’t required in order to appreciate why they are important. Basically, inside a Rollup, everything functions just like on the Ethereum mainnet but much faster and cheaper, and in a way that is basically transparent to the user. Service providers are given great flexibility in how they handle fees or whether to charge fees at all. This, plus other aspects, make Rollups very adaptable to existing business models and make new ones possible. Plus, the user doesn’t have to interact directly with L1 very much, if at all, while using a Rollup-based service. A little more technically speaking, the idea is that execution work is done off-chain, and some nodes or a sequence of nodes provide a succinct state update to the Ethereum mainchain representing the new state of the rollup. That relatively small state update is like a fingerprint representing perhaps many thousands of executions that have occurred within the rollup. You can almost think of it like Lightning Networks, except involving computation and “state” instead of simple aggregations of value in/out. This might sound like simple hashing to the more technical-minded, but actually accomplishing this properly has required some significant advancements in the field of cryptography. If you want to learn more about Rollups, take a few minutes and read my Medium article titled "The Ultimate Guide to Rollups". There you will learn the basics and gain some understanding of the main types, optimistic and zero-knowledge (ZK), and how they differ. Please tell us a little bit about Syscoin and how it is different from Ethereum. Ishan Pandey: The main point of differentiation between Syscoin and Ethereum is layer 1 security. Ethereum is in the process of shifting to a proof-of-stake model with sharding in order to provide finality and serve on-chain data availability at scale, largely for rollup-based services. In stark contrast, Syscoin's rollup-centric layer 1 design and network can accomplish finality and provide effective resistance to MEV attacks while keeping Bitcoin's proof-of-work paradigm and the hard economics of being merge-mined with Bitcoin’s own network. Jagdeep Sidhu: Also, rapid advancements in the area of zero-knowledge proofs point towards Syscoin likewise fulfilling data availability and light-client security needs at scale within the tried-and-true proof-of-work paradigm. We have a lot of very promising research focused on those two points, and on some other areas surrounding ZKP that I have yet to publicly describe. Syscoin has a very strong focus on providing true scalability without sacrificing proven security and decentralization. It is now possible to achieve that trifecta by way of modular designs and recent cryptographic advancements. Another point of contrast can be seen in the manner in which Syscoin has evolved as a project. I’ll preface this by mentioning that we consider Ethereum's EVM as the "gold standard" for decentralized computation. The Ethereum community contributes immense intellectual capital to the evolution of blockchain technology. However, due to Ethereum's level of adoption and downstream concerns, the project might be seen as a little more rigid and less apt or able to quickly factor the latest cryptographic advancements into its fundamental layer 1 design. On the other hand, the Syscoin project has been much more flexible. This is partly because we recognized very early that the scalability challenges associated with smart contracts still needed solving, and rightly refrained from deploying EVM capabilities back then. We could have just as easily launched support for smart contracts and driven adoption onto our platform prematurely as many alt-Etherea have. Instead we chose an evolution-focused strategy where we factored the best emerging advancements into our layer 1 design over time, while awaiting the emergence of true scaling solutions for computation from academia’s cryptography research. True scalability is emerging now in the form of advancements in the area of Rollups, and those of the ZK/validity proof variety are of particular focus within the Syscoin project. As such, the time arrived in Q4 last year for our EVM layer 1, called NEVM (Network-Enhanced Virtual Machine), which is reflective of Syscoin's modular design. This was deployed to mainnet on December 6, 2021. Any smart contract running on Ethereum can be deployed on Syscoin with 100% compatibility. NFTs are becoming increasingly common, despite the fact that many people are still unsure about how to delve into them. What are your views on NFTs and their ever-rising popularity? Ishan Pandey: There are many potential use cases for digitally representing your unique assets. The fundamental concept of NFTs can extend far beyond quirky digital artwork. Examples include music rights, land deeds, a specific bullion bar that has been assayed and serialized, or an automobile with a VIN. Jagdeep Sidhu: While the concept of NFTs has arguably been around since the early days of Bitcoin as a "colored coin" implementation, Ethereum has made NFTs much more interesting and opened the way to the more recent popularity you see. You will see NFTs become more commonplace in tandem with the evolution of layer 2 scalability. The masses will soon be able to delve into NFTs without necessarily knowing the term "NFT" or even that they are participating in a blockchain transaction. This will come thanks to things like ZK-Rollups and economies of scale enabling ideal user-experiences for GameFi, rollup-integrated metaverses, IoT and eventually smart cities. Web 3.0 is one of the most talked-about and debated technology concepts in recent times. Please explain the decentralization factor that Web 3.0 brings with it. Ishan Pandey: Web 2.0 brought a much-enhanced user-experience over v1, but revealed the problems inherent to centralized control such as censorship, manipulation of records, and exploitation of user data. Web 3.0 is a term that generally refers to the burgeoning field of decentralized digital protocols and services. We are still in the early days of this new stage, but it has already shown itself to be very promising. Our vision of a well-evolved Web 3.0 goes beyond just disintermediation of financial value. It includes you having ownership of your own decentralized digital ID with the ability to control exactly what level of details are divulged on a case-by-case basis. This will be key to things like proof of legal ownership, physical access rights among an IoT within a smart city, the ability to participate in the decentralized voting systems of an honest future, and much more. It's very important that the appropriate underlying protocols and infrastructures are available to support this vision at scale while providing appropriate security guarantees. What motivates Syscoin most as a project is engineering the solutions necessary to fulfil those needs. Jagdeep Sidhu: The development of multi-chain platforms is gaining popularity lately since they help new companies and provide the finest opportunity to enter the crypto sector. Can you give us a detailed rundown of this cross-chain router protocol? Ishan Pandey: The Syscoin project was an early trail-blazer of trustless cross-chain bridging, and we continue to push the boundaries there with new research. A little background… About two years ago we introduced “Syscoin Bridge” to mainnet. Initially, this was a first-class (mutual-chain-aware) integration between Syscoin and Ethereum that used fraud-proof gamification between agents to secure a 2-way peg mechanism between Bitcoin-based tokens and ERC-20s on Ethereum. This effectively brought Dogecoin's previously unfinished "Dogethereum" concept to reality while also extending its functionality to a Bitcoin-based asset layer. Jagdeep Sidhu: Since then we have repurposed this tech to serve as the ideal bridge between base-chain and our new EVM called NEVM, both of which use SYS as their native/gas coin. In this environment our bridge design operates much more affordably compared to bridging directly with Ethereum itself where fees are still quite high. We are now edging into some very interesting cross-chain research that we are not going to elaborate on right now beyond saying it can be potentially game-changing, and that it involves leading-edge cryptography. Look for us to maybe talk more about that in the near future. For the time being, to facilitate liquidity between separate ecosystems, we are utilizing MPC-based bridging solutions through partners like Multichain (formerly known as AnySwap), which has been working quite well to fulfill those needs. What does the roadmap ahead for the crypto ecosystem as a whole? Ishan Pandey: Speaking of the crypto ecosystem as a whole, we are heading into some really exciting and positive times. These times ahead will also be turbulent for a lot of projects because we are just beginning to see ZK-Rollups as an emerging macro-trend in the blockchain industry. Ethereum’s woeful scaling challenges will be largely solved by ZK-Rollups, resulting in a lot of capital returning to Ethereum that had previously moved to other cheaper/faster smart-chains. Some of those alt-Ethereum chains can perhaps become Rollups on Ethereum and/or Syscoin. Syscoin is importantly positioned for this emerging future by providing the same scalability, low fees, and functionality expected of tomorrow’s Ethereum, yet coupled with some very important fundamental security and decentralization characteristics that are absent from Ethereum. In sum, Syscoin is set to be a valuable option for you as a smart contract platform in tomorrow’s world. Jagdeep Sidhu: Disclaimer: The purpose of this article is to remove informational asymmetry existing today in our digital markets by performing due diligence, asking the right questions, and equipping readers with better opinions to make informed decisions.

ZK-Rollups are the Most Promising Way for the Blockchain Industry to Scale Smart Contracts 

is an integrated directory service developed by Microsoft for Windows network servers. It's part of the Microsoft Windows server operating system and is included as part of the Windows Server operating system. At first, Active Directory was just in charge of centralizing domain-related tasks. But over time it has evolved into a more comprehensive directory service that includes features like support for user management, change tracking, authorization, licensing, and other utilities. Active Directory Active Directory Security Active Directory security is a practice of keeping security for Microsoft Active Directory into account whenever Active Directory domains are in use. It comprises a wide range of procedures to avoid unauthorized access from all threats. The major security procedures revolve around using good practices and securing access to the in-memory applications as well as to the database. Other procedures include the following: stopping Remote Access, preventing the use of Kerbases, using spoofing protection, maintaining the integrity of Active Directory, and enforcing restrictions on the user directory permissions. In addition, all the above can be performed automatically with the Active Directory Domain Shield (ADDS) TCP/IP The main objective of the above-mentioned security procedure is to secure the access of the users to all objects. Basically, Active Directory security rules , as well as to other resources such as files, and share. Active Directory also contains security features that prevent remote execution of executable files and code, deny the access of applications and programs by known users, deny the writing of DLL files, and also deny the access of system tasks associated with the running user. However, it is very important to establish these policies for the Active Directory so that the corporate information does not get into the wrong hands. For instance, a known user should not be allowed to edit the CPanel settings of the corporations where he gets maintenance tasks from. establish boundaries among user accounts and control the access of objects Active Directory security groups provide a set of policies that allows the service administrators to manage the security of Active Directory independently. Therefore, they can configure, install, configure, and modify the policies as required. The following types of security groups are used by the Active Directory service administrators such as the following: Computer Accounts Computer accounts or user accounts are distributed amongst the Active Directory services on the basis of the hierarchy in Active Directory. There is an order in which user accounts are specified in Active Directory and the computer accounts are deployed first. In most cases, the top Active Directory hierarchy is used for the deployment of the computer accounts on the top level. In some of the cases, local users are granted permission to be part of an Active Directory group. There are certain computer accounts such as the security group of the and the machine account. The distribution of these user accounts is according to the hierarchy of Active Directory specified in the Active Directory policy. Therefore, in most cases, the computer accounts of the Active Directory have to be secured before the other user accounts. Windows Management Server Global Groups The next Active Directory security group is the Global group of Active Directory users. The of the Global group of the Active Directory users is the same as that of the local group of the user. The group contains two root domain members, whereas the computer accounts of the global users are specified as a local group. structure Therefore, the of the global Active Directory group is the same as that of the local group of the user. But, the of the global group of Active Directory users is not the same as that of the user account security. configuration security Domain Local Then there is another Active Directory security group called the domain local and this is a smaller set of the Active Directory objects. The distribution of the objects of this smaller set of Active Directory objects is based on the hierarchy of the Active Directory objects of the domain local. However, there are certain differences in the setup of the domain local and the global Active Directory groups. Therefore, the security of the objects of the smaller Active Directory groups is different from the security of the global Active Directory group scopes. Active Directory Security Focus Security Groups Group Policy Domain Policy 1. Security Groups There are two kinds of AD security groups: static and dynamic. A static group is used to give access to resources (protection principle). For instance, you wish to grant a single user access to certain files on a file server. Then another user with the same account would be able to add more files and folders to the server. These additional users can be granted permission to read or write the files they are allowed to without the need for authorization. The second kind of security group is known as nested groups. A group of user accounts is granted additional privileges based on the security levels of their parents. For instance, a newly created user account has a greater level of privilege than the next level up in a hierarchy of user accounts. In addition to inheriting the privileges of its parent account, a user account can also gain privilege levels of other nested groups. These additional levels of privilege allow users to become a member of multiple groups and still maintain isolation from other users. Active Directory Security groups and ad groups are usually implemented within the security policy of a workstation or a browser by means of Active Directory Users and Computers. This policy will provide access to objects that are members of any one of the two types of AD groups. Then, when users try to access these objects they will be automatically redirected to the required application. This prevents them from accidentally accessing an object that is not part of their intended group. 2. Group Policy Implementing group policy objects requires the integration of Windows Server, or Microsoft Exchange Server. You can install group policy objects into your company's database via the Microsoft Exchange Server 2008 or Microsoft Active Directory Sites and Tools interface. After you have created your policy, you should then associate it with a users' group policy or a computer's group policy. This is achieved by creating policy objects in the Microsoft Active Directory Sites and Tools console. Once this has been done, all the computer settings and the computer's security settings will be associated with the Active Directory settings that you have created. Therefore, the local computer users will be able to access the Active Directory site whenever they want. Active Directory will enable you to provide your organization with: greater asset management capability, improved connectivity, and more. 3. Domain Policy In Active Directory, the domain policy is the central policy settings for any computer in an organizational unit or the domain. Any computer in a domain automatically inherits the global or localized group policy from its parent. The domain policy allows you to define the permissions that users have access to on the parts of your network that are not local to you. Permissions can be defined by policies or by zone access control lists. With Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS), a computer's domain policy is replicated to every computer that is a member of the domain. Many companies now use Active Directory domains to maintain their corporate passwords and other important data. To protect these passwords and other information from unauthorized access, many companies now use an effective Active Directory Domain Support (AD DS) program. Some companies use a program that is part of Active Directory and linked with their . This program is usually called a password expander or password recovery tool. The program enables the administrator to automatically renew the passwords of the Active Directory users and the data is saved in a database. The database stores the passwords of all the users in a format that can be decrypted using the password expander program. SQL server Another option that you have with Active Directory Domain Support is to create a custom Windows password policy. You can create a complex Active Directory domain policy or a simple one, which is quite effective when it comes to controlling user access to the different types of files that are found on Active Directory domains. You can set the values as a range or as a specific value, such as "earcher password expiration time". You can also create an encryption algorithm for your Active Directory password policies. Hacking Active Directory Active Directory (AD) is a database that stores information about users, groups, and even permissions for each object. Active Directory is normally deployed around many organizations around the globe to provide central access to computers and other networking devices so that computers and users can easily identify and be authorized to connect to specific computers or network resources. This central access can make tasks such as connecting to the Internet much faster. However, the AD system does have certain limitations that a hacker or group of hackers could exploit to gain unauthorized access to domain services. AD servers run on domain controllers, which act as the point-and-click interface for users or computer users to gain access to their local computers or networks. The AD system also provides support for web service applications and could allow attackers to compromise and access information in a network environment. AD application security and authentication are quite complex and often involve sophisticated protocols, so it is important to implement measures that can mitigate the risk posed by AD against external attacks. Hacking refers to the process of gaining unauthorized access to information by compromising a system or an application using various methods. It is usually performed by an attacker who gains access to a targeted machine via the Internet. A few common methods that AD hackers use include credential theft, bypassing application security, and exploitation of target machine vulnerabilities. Many network attacks are carried out by attackers who have gained local administrator privileges. By gaining local administrator privileges, they are able to execute additional commands on the targeted machine. Hacking can cause serious security incidents. In the past, many organizations have experienced long-term security issues related to AD without the knowledge of IT professionals. Hacking techniques such as SQL injection, buffer overflow, and remote code execution have caused significant damage to companies that have failed to take preventative measures. These security incidents can also result in company losses due to loss of confidential information or data loss. Active Directory security is one of the major reasons why many companies have failed to invest in this technology. AD integrates with other technologies such as Kerberoasting, which is a Java application's framework. This implementation requires extensive network resources, which is difficult to manage for most small businesses. Another major barrier for companies using Kerberoasting is the requirement for high-level programming skills, which is a prerequisite for maintaining and upgrading AD functionality. On the other hand, many small businesses and organizations that have failed to invest in Active Directory might be able to adapt to the new Active Directory configuration without any major security issues. One way of achieving this is by leveraging the services of third-party AD providers who offer access to a wide variety of AD functions through the use of different components. The most vulnerable component of Active Directory is the area where Active Directory domains and their user information reside. Many organizations that use Active Directory fail to realize that by default, all the objects within the directory have authorization by the local domain and their owners. The problem that arises when an unsupervised user tries to gain access to the Active Directory information is that an authenticated attacker can bypass the permission restrictions and gain access to the directory. There are various ways by which an unsupervised user and an authenticated attacker can share the same account such as through file sharing and directory access. Securing Active Directory Recent security researchers have observed a disturbing trend with online attacks, which primarily focus on hijacking the Active Directory platform. Its controlling role within the Active Directory data centre makes Active Directory an ideal malware launching platform. The directory serves as a central information repository for all of Microsoft's client software such as browsers, office suite suites, email services, etc. From a strategic security viewpoint, the ability to hijack or attack this vital system file should be a serious concern for all businesses. Be Proactive! As a proactive measure, organizations must ensure that they are implementing best practices to protect themselves against Active Directory vulnerabilities. While it is difficult to completely protect all of the files and data held on the Active Directory servers, implementing prevention methods will help reduce risks. This will in turn lead to a reduction in data breaches, which can result in financial loss, exposure of trade secrets, and reputation damage. Ensuring that all employees know how to change the password at regular intervals is a good practice for Active Directory security. One way to accomplish this is to provide training to staff on the process. It is not sufficient to simply instruct staff how to remember and change the Active Directory passwords. Employees must understand how to implement and maintain these policies in real-world situations. Installing and using anti-virus and firewalls on the internal network, ensuring that employees use appropriate passwords, and regularly changing the passwords stored on the Active Directory database are additional means of preventing Active Directory password fraud. In addition to anti-virus programs, some businesses have incorporated further measures into their Active Directory security plan by using verification systems, such as managing the use of the Windows login and creating user logs. Active Directory traffic passes through two types of protocols; those between an Active Directory server and an external host, as well as between the Windows domain controller and domain users. While it is not possible to enforce all possible forms of Active Directory communication, Active Directory security can be significantly increased by enforcing at least one standard protocol, such as . This standard was developed by Microsoft to establish a transport layer between Active Directory and other networking applications. When users connect to an application over a non-network connection, they often experience the message "Service unable", when attempting to open a file or contact a directory. By using TCP 445, administrators can ensure that Active Directory packets will be treated the same way regardless of whether they pass through an external network or through the Active Directory servers on the Intranet. TCP 445 An additional means of Active Directory is to control access to the directory from domain controllers and other unauthorized users. There are a number of ways to accomplish this. The Windows server includes the Networking Services client package, which automatically installs security features required to give Windows authentication and access permissions to Active Directory objects. Additional security options can be added to Windows by using Windows updates securing 2019 platform Some organizations are more concerned about Active Directory maintenance than are others. If you find that you have a large amount of Active Directory information that must be replicated across different servers in your company, you may want to consider Active Directory cloning, which is a relatively simple procedure. In the past, Active Directory cloning meant having to add a couple of registry keys to every affected server, making it very inefficient and time-consuming. New technology provided by Microsoft now allows you to utilize Active Directory cloning in a much more efficient manner that is simple and straightforward. While Active Directory cloning is not yet a widely used feature, it is best practice to implement this process before trying to implement Active Directory security in your company's network. The final step to securing Active Directory security is to instruct all domain admins to turn the auto-renewal of with the DNS server. Auto-renewal essentially means that when a DNS record is added or deleted from the DNS server, it does not automatically remove the record from Active Directory. Although not recommended, some organizations recommend that Active Directory administrators allow recording renewal so that any new changes they make to Active Directory will be propagated across the system. off DNS records Concluding In this article, we have discussed the best practices for securing Active Directory. These best practices will help you secure your Active Directory so that your business can continue to run smoothly. While Active Directory security is best implemented by the Domain Admin rather than by the layperson, securing Active Directory in your organization is easier to do when the correct safeguards are in place. If you do decide to implement Active Directory security in your organization, make sure that you use the recommendations provided above so that your network will be much more effective and secure.

Securing Microsoft Active Directory

We sometimes hear the word "tenancy" when it comes to cloud software applications, but if you had googled the tenancy concept, it would mean the ownership of land or area by another person for a given time. The question, then, is how does SaaS apply to a tenancy? In , tenancy refers to the sharing in a private or public environment of computing services that is distinct from other users and kept invisible. In SaaS, the tenancy is broken down into two formats: single-tenant SaaS and multi-tenant SaaS. cloud computing What Is a Single Tenant? Single-tenancy is an architecture in which one entity is supported by a single instance of a software application and supporting infrastructure. In (SaaS) distribution models or cloud computing, single-tenancy is generally introduced. A client named a tenant would have a singular instance of a SaaS program allocated to them in single-tenancy architectures. software-as-a-service Some standard features of single-tenancy models are that they appear to provide a high degree of user interaction and control of users and reliability, protection, and backup ability. Benefits of Single-Tenant SaaS Architecture 1. Security A more secure environment is also allowed by single-tenant architecture. This is because the information of each tenant is entirely separate from the knowledge of other clients, single-tenant settings more easily allow enhanced protection as the data of each client is entirely different from each other. The probability of one client inadvertently accessing the data of another (as in a multi-tenant environment) is virtually eliminated. 2. Dependability Thanks to the independent output of the tenant's software, a single-tenant system is known to be very secure. The result of the activities of another tenant is not compromised by running the program locally. 3. Backup/Restore In the single-tenant system, the tenant can manage updates by downloading and upgrading local applications. When configuring backups and recovery options, this model allows for better overall control. This also allows for the backup of each user to be carried out separately. 4. Migration They can quickly move an application to their own managed servers if a tenant wishes to move from a single-tenant (SaaS) system into a self-hosted or local environment. With a single tenancy, the process is less complicated for companies who might eventually want to move into a self-hosted domain. 5. Flexibility In a single-tenant environment, there is greater control over the implementation and framework. This control allows the platform to provide more customization, flexibility, and more control over the local software's activities and functions. What Is a Multi-Tenant? In cloud computing, multitenancy means that multiple clients of a cloud provider use the same computing resources. Cloud customers are not aware of each other, despite the fact that they share resources, and their data is kept totally separate. of cloud computing; cloud services will be much less functional without it. In several types of public cloud computing, including IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, containers, and serverless computing Multi-tenancy is a core component Benefits of Multi-Tenant SaaS Architecture 1. Lower costs A cloud provider may sell its services to many customers at a much lower cost than if each customer needs their own dedicated infrastructure, with many customers sharing resources. 2. Better Resource Usage One computer reserved for one tenant is not useful because it is not possible that one tenant can use all the processing power of the computer. The use of available resources is maximized by sharing computers between multiple tenants. 3. Maintenance Effortlessly The is designed in such a way that it makes it much more efficient to manage the application for the vendors. It is easy to customize the modules and render using the program conveniently. Since shared codes are nearly popular, you do not need to change the codes or data structures. multi-tenant application architecture 4. Simple to add a new customer For delivering top-notch customer support, SaaS networks offering multi-tenant environments are typically sticklers. That's because they have a high number of clients and need to make sure they have a good experience with each one. Since it has an automatic signup mechanism, the multi-tenant application would give the vendors the advantage. It also automates the configured domain and the sub-domain. Setting the default data and configuring the program are other automated activities. 5. Easy to Customize You can include an additional layer with multi-tenancy-based applications to allow customization while also retaining an underlying codebase that remains consistent for all users, including, of course, all new customers. Single Tenancy VS Multi-Tenancy Image courtesy - techtarget Single Tenant - The tenant is the SaaS client in a single-tenant SaaS setting. By design, this form of architecture allows running on the SaaS server for a single instance of a piece of software per client. Typically, single-tenancy is contrasted with multi-tenancy, an architecture in which many clients represent a single instance of a software application. Multi-Tenant - The clients are still offices in a multi-tenant setting, but they are all situated inside one high-rise building this time. Within a larger SaaS software product, each client operates from its own space. Each consumer shares the same database and framework in a multi-tenant architecture. For companies who want a smoother start-up environment and fewer hardware requirements, multi-tenancy is usually ideal. Multi-tenancy is cheaper compared to single-tenancy, has better use of capital, has a lower maintenance cost, and potentially greater processing power. Single Tenant vs. Multi-Tenant SaaS Architecture Image courtesy - peoplefluent Architectures of single-tenant vs. multi-tenant all have their upsides and downsides. A significant drawback of a single-tenant structure is that more maintenance than a multi-tenant system is expected. The client has to update and modify the single-tenant architecture, while the multi-tenant architecture uses the universal updates that have been launched for all users at once. There are parallels between single-tenant and multi-tenant architectures, but they also have variations. The B2B environment is based on the multi-tenant SaaS architecture, in which two or even more parties can cooperate on the same operation at the same time, whereas the single-tenant architecture does not provide its customers with this capability. Single Tenant Architecture People are often not sure which architecture to choose, but the architecture of single-tenant vs. multi-tenant is pretty straightforward. This framework helps users to use a piece of software as a single instance per each client on the SaaS server when it comes to single-tenant architecture. Multi-Tenant Architecture It is possible to define multi-tenant architecture as the setting in which customers are offices, but all offices (customers) are situated within the same building in this case. Within a large SaaS software product, every client operates from its own space, making it much more comfortable and accessible in some cases. Today, start-up companies use multi-tenant architecture because it offers them different advantages. Multi-tenancy is not the solution for them; however, if a company wishes to move from a finely-managed business environment to a self-hosted domain. Single-Tenant vs. Multi-Tenant Architecture Which One is Better for SaaS Applications? Nowadays, when it comes to designing SaaS applications, developers and companies prefer to select the most effective and cost-effective architecture. Single-tenant offers a high degree of user interaction with control and customization, protection, reliability, and restore and backup functionality. The single tenancy is now part of the SaaS marketplace with a higher per-person cost than multi-tenant architecture. There are multi-tenant options to provide enforcement, protection, rapid onboarding, and excellent customer service. After evaluating the advantages and disadvantages of the architecture of single-tenant SaaS and multi-tenant SaaS, it is concluded that multi-tenancy provides more long-term investment and growth benefits for SaaS application vendors. While it is not an easy task as it entails immense privacy and security problems, it gives the company more significant data capacity and a higher ceiling.

Single-Tenant Cloud vs Multi-Tenant: Understanding the difference between SaaS Architecture

So what can SGX and TEEs be used for beyond the obvious cases? Imagine a magical piece of hardware that no one can see inside, even if they break it open, that is the promise of and TEEs (Trusted Execution Environments). Intel SGX Cryptographers for decades have been pushing the limits of secure computation. This is when the computing party is oblivious to the result and underlying data. Example: did Alice or Bob supply a larger number without revealing the underlying numbers to training machine learning models on encrypted data. Some of these problems have been solved, but often times the solutions are neither generalised nor efficient. Let’s discuss how trusted hardware works, its standard use cases and some more unique ones, before discussing various blockchain projects that use this technology and the future of TEEs. Note SGX is a subset of TEEs that is currently the most widely used and I use the terms fairly interchangeably throughout the post. Why Private Compute? Privacy is often valued greatly in particular instances and brushed away on others, let’s give some examples cases where privacy does matter. Secure lotteries where , where the code is public and individuals can attest that the lottery is running that code. no one can cheat or rig the numbers How to share images for classification by an algorithm if the images are locked under by HIPPA, GDPR and other data privacy controls. Privacy Implementation Some of the current cryptographic primitives tools available for secure computation include techniques such as (FHE), (sMPC), and (ZKPs). However these techniques are either too specialised (not generalised), too slow, or too computationally expensive to make them practical in a production environment. Systems like SGX provide similar security guarantees but is much today. fully homomorphic encryption secure multiparty computation Zero Knowledge Proofs faster, cheaper and practical High level on how SGX works, which is relatively comparable to TEEs. Figure: Technicalities This is how SGX works on a high level, specific implementation details are passed over here. Code runs in a hardware protected enclave / area [1] separate from OS, which has a private key associated that is secret Enclave can communicate through special channels to the application Use remote attestation to prove that a specific piece of code ran on a suitable enclave producing a specific result (“quote”), whose integrity is verified[2]. With this, a developer can send open sourced code to an enclave, a user can verify that the code running inside the enclave is equivalent to the open sourced code via remote attestations. Users then can inspect the code for any backdoors or unexpected functionality. Common Use Cases Let’s start with the common and obvious use cases of this technology. Most Common Use Cases These use cases that already have fairly common cryptographic constructions for, but can also be done in TEEs. Determining whether Alice or Bob is wealthier without revealing the actual value( ). Counting votes without revealing the linkability between vote and caster. Generating a . Blind auctions where the individuals running the auction are unable to see the bids and also forced to reveal all bids at the end. Yao’s Millionaire Problem random number Provable erasure Regret that moment you shared some photos to a former lover? How can you prove that they deleted the photo, the same applies to GDPR, how can one prove that the data is no longer in the database or in someone’s hands who can access it? If the data was stored inside of an enclave, a user can attest that the data has either been deleted within the enclave or that the associated private key of the data has been deleted and the data can no longer be decrypted. Phew if they didn’t take a photo of the photo…. Key Generation Shamir’s secret sharing is a cryptographic technique that has similar functionality to a multi sig wallet. Generate shards and number are necessary to initiate a transaction. However as a precursor it’s necessary to have a public and private key pair, but how can one prove that the key was destroyed and not copied? Here comes the provable erasure attribute of TEEs, generate the public and private key pair inside the enclave, create the shards, then provable delete and not leak the private key. m n Private Searches and Encrypted Databases Let’s say there exists a database of restaurants that I want to search, and I do not want to reveal my searches to the owner. Mostly I’m afraid that the owner would sell the data to the paparazzi. Currently there is no easy way of enabling private searching of data with standard cryptographic techniques. However with SGX and TEEs it is possible to , without revealing to the operator what one searched for. A similar technique can be used for web searches[ ][ ] search within a dataset that is encrypted by the enclave here here Provable Search Initially we wanted private searches, then why all of a sudden would we want to have provable searches? Don’t traditional databases already provide that in their logs? Yes, but let’s say we gave the NSA some viewing keys to a privacy blockchain. (Viewing keys are used to deanonymize the contents of a private transactions in protocols such as and ). Can we build a system that logs what subset of the keys that were used, with TEEs it is possible to have tamper proof logs, which no other cryptographic system can provide. Zcash Monero Uncommon Use Cases This is where the fun begins, how can we use TEEs in ways that are non intuitive? Some of these ideas are from academic papers, others were conjured up and verified by researchers in the field. Heart Beats Heart beats are a technique to signify that someone or something is still around (the software equivalent of a dead man’s switch). Let’s say if I didn’t send a particular message to my mother every month, she would assume that I have gone missing. But let’s make this actionable. In there are three friends who want to have a 3 of 3 multisig, however they don’t want to lose access to the funds if one friend disappears. Using some code run inside of an SGX enclave, it requires all three to submit individual messages to authorise the transfer of assets. In the event that a friend goes missing, the other two can send in a special message that will require the missing friend to submit a heartbeat within a time frame else the wallet becomes a 2–2 multisig. (Maybe that friend is in hiding, who knows). Paralysis Proofs t Centralised Non Custodial Exchanges Sounds like an oxymoron to an extent, but it’s possible to have a which can never steal users funds. Maybe non custodial is a misnomer because the funds are technically associated with the private key of the enclave. Users can attest that the code running in the enclave is equal to code that the developers have open sourced and that there is no secret back door. Even more exciting, when new code is pushed to the enclave, the developer can implement a functionality that allows users to use the older code, until the new code has been fully audited, etc. non custodial exchange that is centralised Private Machine Learning Data is the new oil (hash power probably is these days though) and companies hold their data very close, rarely sharing it unless they’re forced to. Sometimes this is a market failure, ex: if hospitals shared their broken bone x-rays to each other, they can [ ]. This would improve patient outcomes, but cannot be done due to HIPPA and GDPR[3]. However secure compute to the rescue, here each hospital will send encrypted images to the enclave, and the enclave will decrypt it locally and train a model. Even more interesting the model potentially could only reside in the enclave and can never be exported. One limitation, most enclaves have limited computational power, thus the training of models will take some time, but there are some . Along with the . train a superior model than if they used their subset of data another paper recent advances that might get around this GPUs with TEEs Although medical reasons are most cited for private machine learning, there’s an implication that’s more far reaching. For self driving cars to become safer and more common it is essential to collect more data to improve their algorithms and models. But cars collect so much data that it is unfeasible to send it to a centralised data center, however if the data is verifiably analysed locally and the output is sent to a central server the output is order of magnitudes smaller (verifiable federated learning). Because car manufactures cannot have malicious users sending altered output and they need to . tame fears of mass surveillance Secret Blockchains and Smart Contracts Imagine a blockchain who’s client / node code is only known by the developer and cannot be deciphered by anyone else. The developer encrypts the byte code and sends it to each enclave, once inside the byte code is decrypted and run against a suite of formal verification tests to attest that the code functionality is what people assume it to be. Blockchain Consensus This generally runs counter to the “decentralisation” ethos of the cryptocurrency community, but what if SGX was used for part of the consensus mechanism? In , SGX’s random number generator is used to elect a consensus leader who will create the next block. The authors cite “low-latency transaction validation, deterministic confirmation time, negligible energy consumption, and equitably distributed mining” as benefits in the system. along with and are additional consensus mechanisms that have been designed using SGX and are only possible given properties of the enclave. Proof of Luck Proof of Time and Proof of Ownership Proof of Useful Work Proof of Elapsed Time Cheap BFT Compute Byzantine Fault Tolerant compute, refers to any compute that is unstoppable, like any BFT consensus mechanism. Ethereum can be seen as one giant BFT computer, however it is extremely expensive to run, but anything smart contract on the network will be executed given the incentives. Censorship of the network is difficult. How can we have the same censorship resistant compute, but have it be dramatically cheaper? If we have a we know how code should execute. And because the enclave itself does not know what code is running on top of the VM, then we have cheaper private BFT compute. Image computer programs that are anonymous and that are unstoppable….no one has really understands the ramifications of that yet. Think anonymous (not pseudonymous) assassination markets. publicly verifiable VM inside of an enclave And More This just touches the cusp of the powers of TEEs, here are some additional use cases that you can read on your own time: , , , and . Vote Buying with Dark DAOs Bitcoin Mixing Securing Tor Stealing Bitcoins from other Enclaves Secure Public Clouds Use Case Summary Here is a list of the use cases explored in this piece, only some of them are exclusive to TEEs but might be less performant using other techniques. Like anything cryptography, there are multiple ways to achieve the same goal, but there are inherent trade offs. For the sake of conciseness we will not go heavily into the trade offs space between different cryptographic constructions. Table of use cases, examples from the table linked here: , Figure: ZKP MPC Blockchain Projects Using TEE / SGX Given these unique properties of TEEs it’s no wonder why some blockchain protocols have adopted this technology as either part of their core technology or implemented it for an ancillary feature. Most of them use it for private compute, but some have a unique spin. All of the projects and companies below are currently being built out and / or have been used in production in the past, this list excludes many academic projects that are more research focused. Academic Projects Background Tesseract Town Crier / Oasis Labs Ekiden Hyperledger Fabric and TEEs TeeChain Blockchain Companies using SGX These are some companies that came up when asking around, I have not verified how production ready they are and the list is ordered alphabetically to have no bias. Ankr Network Atana Network Chainlink Covalent AI Engima — Secret Nodes Golem — Graphene NG iExec Jupiterchain.tech MobileCoin Taxa Network Trias Weeve What will you create with SGX and TEEs? After conducting this survey of uncommon TEE use cases, I’ve realised that these are the use cases that will become the most common. The value of these tools are for the hard problems that cryptography has yet to solve, comparing two numbers are easy, but verifiable federated learning to entirely anonymous smart contract platforms is the future that we are looking at. And we are just starting to truly understand the use cases and the ramifications. Further Readings and Research Arxiv Papers Trusted Execution Environment SGX Attacks and Vulnerabilities Unfortunately SGX and TEEs are not infallible, like all cryptographic tools there are trade offs. These issues are prevalent in all forms of existing TEEs, however we will focus on the particular faults of SGX as they are better documented. Side channel attacks (this is a class of attacks), , , (this one is quite infamous), (some of these have been partial fixed) cache-timing attacks cache attacks speculative execution attacks different speculative execution attack Licensing issues (what if Intel stop licensing enclaves to specific projects) Centralised remote attestation (the servers are run by Intel, Proof of Intel) Not anonymous attestations (Intel knows what particular device it is attesting for) Closed Source (hardware design and some of the software components) Proof of Intel (for attestations and manufacturing of the devices, don’t want to have a all over again, which turned out to be false but there are similar things this and ) Supermicro event like this Bright Future However the future is not that bleak, despite some of the existing pitfalls of Intel’s SGX, there are a new generation of TEEs that are coming around. This includes the project which is working on an open source RISC-V implementation. Along with which is sidechannel immune and SGX 2.0. Keystone Gradient Non Blockchain Companies Using SGX / TEEs 1password Signal Anjuna IBM Cloud Microsoft Azure Alibaba Cloud Footnotes [1] Enclaves are suppose to be a hardware isolated regions separate from the operating system. However in SGX that is not the case. Enclaves in the SGX framework are not hardware isolated from the OS. They are basically a memory primitive, in which the memory address space of the code being executed by the enclave, as well as the SP, PC, and some microarchitectural state are obfuscated from the OS. To be actually robust to sidechannel attacks, the page tables and faults need to be hidden from the OS, and SGX doesn’t do this. SGX’s page table faults are observable by the OS, and the OS can cause faults, therefore a malicious OS, can directly learn a secure container’s memory accesses at page granularity, and any piece of software can perform cache timing attacks, which use the cache tag state as exfiltration path. These vulnerabilities were demonstrated in 2018 by the Foreshadow attack [2] Noted by Christian from Gradient, it is possible to fix enclave sidechannel attacks, but the remote attestations are a weak point. SGX and Apple’s use strongly isolated device keys to do attested boot to honest state. In their cases the attestation is to Intel or Apple servers, not anyone else. This attestation is anonymous in the prover stage. With Gradient however, they are working on an anonymous attestation scheme, so one can check the integrity of a processor without reliance on a central third party, and without ever exposing identity. SEP not [3] This is more of a social issue, medical groups can get consent from their patients to share data with others however choose not to do so. Thus even if the tools are created it is unlikely that many would use it. Special thanks to the reviewers: Lorenz Breidenbach (IC3 / ETH Zurich), Christian Wentz (Gradient), Martina Long (Primitive Ventures), Dawn Song (UC Berkeley / Oasis Labs), Kevin Britz (Totient Labs)

Adventures of an Enclave (SGX / TEEs)

It has been ten years since Amazon launched EC2. Cloud is very much real. Thousands of systems run in the Cloud. Multi-tenancy is a key concept tied to cloud from its inception. It let multiple untrusting parties share resources while giving them the illusion of his own space. The best example of this idea is an apartment complex, which gives each tenant his own space while sharing resources like plumbing, shared spaces, security, maintenance etc. For multi-tenancy to be useful, the resource cost per tenant should be less than the cost of owning his own resource (house) exclusively. A multi-tenant App in the Cloud needs to manage three types of resources: OLTP executions, data storage, and OLAP batch executions (analytics). For an example, think of an App that has a web app or a mobile app. The App will have a set of services that provide the backend for the app, a database, and a system to process its analytics. Since the state of the art architectures is built using stateless servers, separate databases, and separate analytics systems, we can tackle multi-tenancy separately for each aspect data, execution, and analytics. Let’s explore each of these aspects and discuss techniques for supporting them. Execution Multi-tenancy Cloud can implement sharing at different levels. Give each tenant his own machine. Give each tenant his own VM Give each tenant his own container (e.g. docker) Let multiple tenants share the same process (e.g. JVM) As going down the list, each gets more resource sharing, but less isolation (security). IaaS ( Infrastructure as a Service) platforms provide level two in the above list. PaaS and SaaS providers should choose among 2–3. One of the key advantages of the Cloud, if it is properly done, is that a user only “Pay for what she used”. Basically, there are no costs for being available, rather you pay only if it gets used. For IaaS such as AWS, this comes almost for free as it shares hardware across users through VMs. However, “Pay for what you use” does not come free for PaaS and SaaS. Let’s assume a Cloud provider “XCloud” that has 1 million users, who have deployed their PaaS/SaaS apps in XCloud. At a given time, only a few hundred to thousands of those Apps will be active. However, we do not know which Apps. So when a user arrived at XCloud for AppY, out of the blue, we need to be able to serve him. We have two choices. Keep at least one instance of each App running Boot up the App fast when a user has arrived. Option one is really wasteful. Think AppY is Gmail, and Google does not want to keep running a VM per each Gmail account all the time. If they keep a once instance for each user running, it is hard for them to let users pay only when there App used. This is the difference between VMs vs. containers or in process multi-tenancy. VMs take seconds to minutes to boot, and unless your app is really simple, there is no way you can boot it up fast enough to serve the user who just came. Typically, you need to get back to the user in less than ten seconds. Containers like docker solve this problem. They are lightweight VMs and can boot up in milliseconds. Thinking about the Gmail example, it is no wonder containers came from Google as they have the same problem. It is worth noting that using docker does not guarantee that your app will start fast, and you can very well mess it up at your App’s code. However, with careful coding, you can often hit the mark. Hence, containers remove a major overhead added by infrastructure. Another interesting point to note is that this is the reason microservices and docker based systems are so interested in the start time. If your system can boots-up fast enough to serve the user, that will lead to major cost saving as you do not need to keep an instance running all the time per App. Moreover, it will also significantly simplify the autoscaling algorithms as then the algorithm does not need to predict the load and keep a buffer of instances running to counter for startup time. Comparing containers vs. in process multi-tenancy (level 4 in our list), the latter can be even more efficient. We have done a lot of work in the area [1,2]. However, sharing a process look scary in retrospect as you need to trust the programmer of the platform of not having made a mistake. Also, performance isolation is tricky with in-process multi-tenancy. It seems Cloud computing has settled with containers based multi-tenancy for executions, the middle ground. Containers provide acceptable performance and isolation. In retrospect, a sensible choice. Finally, there is a much simpler solution that works in some cases. It is worth noting that, if your servers are stateless, which is the case in most enterprise deployments, then you can do without multi-tenancy at all. If server is stateless and it can look at the request, figure out the tenant, and just in time do what is required for that tenant, then you do not need multi-tenancy. Instead you can run a pool of servers common to all tenants and assign one to each app as users arrives. For data, you can use a multi-tenant data base as described in the next section. If this solution possible, it will reduce the complexity of your architecture significantly. Data Multi-tenancy After a restart, both VMs and containers lose their disks. Hence, multi-tenanting stateful servers such as databases, message broker etc are much more complicated than running them in a container. One option is to use the mounted disks such as S3 or block devices. However, this could be slow. For most applications, we need to use a database system that runs on top of proper hardware. Even on top of hardware, we need to share storage across tenants. There are several choices. The article provides a great outline of these choices except for the following choice #5, which did not exist at the time of writing. Multi-Tenant Data Architecture A Database server per tenant A Database per tenant (the same server is shared between multiple tenants) A Table per tenant A Table shared among tenants Multi-tenant aware databases The approach #1 and #2, sharing the database server or the database, is acceptable in an IaaS setup, but prohibitively expensive for PaaS or SaaS setup. For example, it is not practical to keep a million databases one per each tenant. The approach #3, giving a table per tenant, is better than #1 and #2, but still prohibitive if we are talking about million tenants. The approach #4, having one table shared between many tenants, provides the necessary performance. However, all tenants need to share the same schema with this method, which is acceptable for most PaaS and SaaS scenarios. Just like in-process multi-tenancy, for isolation, we need to trust the programmers of the database system to not have made any mistakes. However, it is easier to verify the SQL filtering rather than verifying Java or C++ code used with the in-process multi-tenancy. The fifth approach (e.g. ) will provide the best of all worlds. If carefully implemented, it can provide #4 level or better performance and isolation at the database level. Although we would have to trust the RDBMS developer to not make a mistake, I believe that within the RDBMS there is a better chance of handling isolation. Moreover, database developers are likely to understand the domain much better, which will let them do a better job. Oracle now have a multi-tenant database server Analytics Multi-tenancy Thanks to Big data, everything must have analytics. For most SaaS applications, analytics has become a competitive advantage. Multi-tenancy requirements for Analytics are different from OLTP use cases that we have considered so far. Implementing them in a PaaS or a SaaS environment needs answers for several challenges. Analytics includes data collection, data storage, running analysis, and provide controlled access to results. Cloud providers can do following to facilitate data collection. Add instrumentations to track transactions Provide data collectors operators that users can place within their apps Provide a data sink API (e.g. REST/JSON API) to which users can publish events Each method should track tenant and user information with each event. While handling the rest, solutions for storage, analysis, and data collection are intertwined with each other. In my opinion, the answer depends on several questions about what user needs. Does all tenant share the same schema? Should they able to define their own event types? Do users need user-level data isolation or can they live with tenant level isolation? Do users and tenants need to run their own queries ( analysis) or can they live with pre-canned queries? Based on these requirements, solutions change. Let’s look at each solution. Use Super-tenant Space If the PaaS control the data generation, data analysis, and presentation of the final results, then the system can push data into a super-tenant store and handle permissions itself. Although this might be a boring solution, this is a common use case for most SaaS apps, which gives their user’s pre-cooked analytics and nothing else. If users want to do their own analysis, the system can offer a way to export their data. Shared Tables Filtered by a Column Just like with the data storage, if all users can share the same set of tables (schema), then we can store data by just adding a user and tenant columns to the table. This works pretty well. Assigning ownership to the results of the data calculated by analysis, however, has some complexity. Hence the analysis logic (e.g. Hadoop Jobs) have to resolve the ownership of each record by adding ownership data as part of the data record. Another advantage is that with this method, PaaS can run a single set of analytics queries once on all the data partitioned using “group by” operators. Tenant’s Own space Providing a private space for each tenant is the most flexible. It provides most of the control to the end user. Each tenant can have his own schema and his own analytics queries. As usual, this flexibility needs to be paid for. It is expensive due to several reasons. If there are a lot of tenants, giving a database table for each tenant is a problem if you are using conventional databases as they are not designed to handle millions of tables nor databases. As discussed before, one solution is to use a natively multi-tenant database (e.g. ). Otherwise, the PaaS needs to handle many database servers and partition tables between those servers, which will be very complicated. Oracle 12 Unlike earlier method where SaaS can run a single analytics job to process data across all tenants (e.g. partitioned using “group by”), having a tenant’s own space would need analytics job per each tenant. Often initiating an analytics job has significant overhead. Hence, in contrast to running a single job, having many jobs will be significantly slower. In this setup, SaaS need a much larger computing cluster. Another challenge is that users can run a heavy job that will hog the cluster and slow down others. Hence, the SaaS needs a way to limit the amount of computing power used by a single tenant. It is possible to do a hybrid solution where SaaS provides a shared Schema for shared data and provide a tenant’s own space for user-defined data. PaaS can charge additional cost from the users for private space and thereby limit the number of users. In either case, the cost would be proportional to the data generated by the tenant and cost structure need to be adjusted accordingly. Conclusion After ten years of Cloud computing, there are thousands of systems that run in the Cloud. This article explores multi-tenancy, a key idea in the cloud. Multi-tenancy is the ability to run multiple tenants (users) within the same system. While realizing multi-tenancy, a Cloud may choose between multiple levels of isolation ranging from sharing same hardware using VMs to sharing the same process through clever programming. We explored how to build a multi-tenant App. A multi-tenant App in the Cloud needs to manage three types of resources: executions, data storage, and OLAP batch executions ( analytics). We explored each and saw that the executions are converging towards containers and databases towards multi-tenant databases. Furthermore, the article discussed several solutions to support multi-tenant analytics. References Milinda Pathirage, Srinath Perera, Sanjiva Weerawarana, Indika Kumara, A Multi-tenant Architecture for Business Process Execution, 9th International Conference on Web Services (ICWS), 2011 Afkham Azeez, Srinath Perera, Dimuthu Gamage, Ruwan Linton, Prabath Siriwardana, Dimuthu Leelaratne, Sanjiva Weerawarana, Paul Fremantle, Multi-Tenant SOA Middleware for Cloud Computing 3rd International Conference on Cloud Computing, Florida, 2010 Hope this was useful if you enjoyed this post you might also find the following interesting. _Microservices are the new architecture style of building systems using simple, lightweight, loosely coupled services…_medium.com Mastering the Four Balancing Acts in Microservices Architecture _Act 1: Google doesn’t like Databases_hackernoon.com Chronicle of Big Data: A Technical Comedy is how hackers start their afternoons. We’re a part of the family. 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Multi-tenancy after 10 years of Cloud Computing

Introduction Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) are essential practices in modern-day DevOps and software development. In this comprehensive guide, we will explore focusing on the needs of beginners and infrastructure engineers interested in . the fundamentals of CI/CD and delve into enhancing the security of CI/CD pipelines, DevSecOps Part 1: What Is CI/CD? . It is the backbone of DevOps practices, enabling software to be continuously built, tested, automated, and delivered in a continuous cadence. CI/CD stands for Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment Understanding Continuous Integration ✅ focuses on automated tests and builds. Developers' changes are stored in a shared repository, and these changes go through a series of automated builds and tests before merging. This ensures By merging developers can track features and bug fixes that get merged into the shared repository, leading to faster development and easier bug tracking. Continuous Integration (CI) consistent code quality and rapid development. code changes in small increments, Exploring Continuous Deployment ✈️ Continuous Deployment (CD) automates the deployment process, delivering a production-ready code to the pre-production or production environment. It allows for frequent deployments and bridges the gap between developers, operations teams, and business requirements. Continuous deployment enables by automating the effort taken for deployment. It also allows for a production-ready version of the code to always be present, with newly tested changes added in continuous increments. This process helps reduce issues and enables faster debugging. more business requirements to be delivered at a faster rate The Difference Between CI and CD ⚖️ While CI and CD are closely related, there are distinct differences between the two. It involves merging developed features into a shared repository, followed by automated builds, unit tests, and UI tests to ensure code readiness for production. Once a deployment-ready code version is ready, the process moves to continuous deployment, where the code is tested for functionality and then merged into production using Both CI and CD work in sync to deliver software at a rapid frequency with reduced manual efforts. CI focuses on prepping and branching code for the production environment. automated deployment pipelines. InfoWarningTip Imagine you are a baker running a bakery. 🥖 As ingredients are prepared and mixed together, the bakers conduct frequent taste tests and quality checks to ensure the consistency and quality of the final product. This process allows for early detection of any issues or adjustments needed before the final baking. CI is like having a well-organized kitchen where all the necessary ingredients and tools are readily available for the bakers. CD, on the other hand, is like Once the baking process is complete and the final product is approved, your bakery's delivery team promptly delivers the freshly baked goods to customers. This continuous cycle of baking and delivering ensures that customers receive the most up-to-date and high-quality products at a rapid pace. 🚚🍞🏭 having an efficient delivery system in place. Similarly, in software development, CI/CD enables developers to continuously integrate, test, and deploy their code systematically and efficiently✨👩‍💻🚀, ensuring consistent quality and frequent releases to end-users. Part 2: Security Challenges in CI/CD Implementing CI/CD practices introduces various security challenges that organizations must address. In this section, we will explore some common security issues, the problem of tool sprawl in CI/CD pipelines, and strategies to mitigate these risks effectively. 1. Security Vulnerabilities, Secrets, and Threats 🔑 CI/CD pipelines introduce potential security vulnerabilities when incorporating external dependencies without thorough evaluation. For example, integrating third-party libraries without proper vetting or lacking sufficient security checks can inadvertently introduce malicious code into projects. These vulnerabilities can compromise the overall integrity of the software and expose it to risks. Neglecting security measures can result in vulnerabilities and the introduction of malicious code, potentially compromising the integrity and security of the software. In addition to general security considerations, specific challenges related to open-source software and secret leakage should be addressed. Security is of utmost importance in CI/CD pipelines due to continuous building, testing, and software deployment. Open-source software is widely used in CI/CD pipelines, providing numerous benefits such as flexibility, cost-effectiveness, and access to a large community of developers. However, it also introduces certain risks that need to be managed. that attackers can exploit. Open-source dependencies may contain vulnerabilities Furthermore, Secrets, such as API keys and credentials, are often required during the software development and deployment process. These secrets can be unintentionally exposed if not properly managed, leading to unauthorized access and potential data breaches. secret leakage is a critical concern in CI/CD pipelines. Another important aspect to consider in CI/CD security is the risk of supply chain attacks. occur when a malicious actor infiltrates the software development process at any point in the supply chain and introduces malicious code or compromises the integrity of the software. This can happen through the compromise of third-party libraries or dependencies, which can then be unknowingly included in the CI/CD pipeline. Supply chain attacks 2. Access Control and Privilege Management 🔐 Proper access control and privilege management are essential to protect sensitive code, data, and infrastructure. The lack of proper access control and privilege management in CI/CD pipelines poses a significant risk. If these accounts are compromised, unauthorized changes to the codebase and infrastructure can occur, leading to potential data breaches, system vulnerabilities, and other security incidents. It is crucial to prioritize the security of developers' accounts to mitigate the risk of unauthorized access and strengthen the overall security posture of the CI/CD pipelines. Hackers are particularly attracted to developers' accounts due to the extensive access rights and privileges they possess. 3. Difficulties in Continuous Security Monitoring and Testing 🕵️‍♀️ While continuous security monitoring and testing are essential for ensuring the integrity and safety of CI/CD pipelines, there are some risks and challenges that organizations should be aware of: : Continuous security monitoring and testing tools may , leading to either unnecessary alerts or missed security vulnerabilities. Organizations need to fine-tune these tools and establish effective processes for validating and responding to security alerts. (Again, alert fatigue!) False Positives and Negatives generate false positives or false negatives : Continuous security monitoring and testing can be Organizations need to allocate adequate resources to support these activities and ensure that they do not impact the overall performance of the CI/CD pipeline. Resource Intensive resource-intensive, requiring dedicated infrastructure and computational power. : The threat landscape constantly evolves, with new security vulnerabilities and attack vectors emerging regularly. Organizations must stay updated on the latest security trends and continuously adapt their security monitoring and testing practices to address new threats effectively. Threat Landscape Evolution : Effective continuous security monitoring and testing require skilled professionals with expertise in security practices and tools. Organizations may need to invest in training or hire specialized personnel to ensure the success of these activities. Skill and Knowledge Requirements 4. Tool Sprawl and Complexity 🧩 Integrating security monitoring and testing tools into the CI/CD pipeline can be complex, especially when dealing with multiple tools and technologies. Organizations need to carefully plan and implement the integration to ensure seamless operation and avoid any disruptions to the pipeline. The adoption of multiple tools and technologies in CI/CD pipelines can lead to tool sprawl and increased complexity. This occurs when organizations use a wide range of tools without proper integration and management, resulting in security gaps and difficulties in monitoring and maintaining the pipeline. Additionally, the use of multiple tools can contribute to alert fatigue. Alert fatigue refers to the overwhelming number of security alerts and notifications that organizations receive, often leading to a lack of attention and response to critical security incidents. When organizations utilize numerous tools in their CI/CD pipelines, each tool may generate its own set of alerts and notifications. This can quickly become overwhelming for security teams, making it challenging to identify and respond to genuine security threats effectively. Part 3: Enhancing CI/CD Security into the CI/CD pipeline to ensure the integrity and safety of software. In this section, we will discuss key risks associated with CI/CD pipelines and provide actionable recommendations to enhance security. DevSecOps integrates security practices Bon appétit and happy DevSecOps! 🍽️👩‍🍳👨‍🍳 In a real-life cooking analogy, DevSecOps can be likened to a professional chef running a restaurant. Imagine yourself as the head chef responsible for creating delicious dishes while ensuring the highest standards of food safety and security. 🍽️👩‍🍳👨‍🍳 In the world of DevSecOps, the chef follows a continuous process of , just like developers and infrastructure engineers do with software. Let's dive deeper into the analogy to understand how it aligns with : integrating, testing, and delivering food to customers DevSecOps principles : The chef ensures that all ingredients used are fresh and of the highest quality. Just as developers integrate their code changes, the chef follows standardized recipes and techniques to prepare each component of the dish. This step is similar to the conducted during CI, ensuring that the ingredients (code) are well-prepared and meet the required standards. ✅ Continuous Integration (CI) automated tests : Once the dish is prepared and has passed the chef's quality checks, it is ready for deployment to the customers. The chef pays attention to every detail, ensuring that the presentation, taste, and overall quality of the dish meet the restaurant's standards. This mirrors the deployment of software in CD, where the code is , with a focus on delivering a high-quality product. ✈️ Continuous Deployment (CD) tested, packaged, and deployed to the production environment : Just as a chef prioritizes food safety and security, DevSecOps emphasizes integrating security practices throughout the development and deployment process. The chef ensures that the ingredients used are sourced from trusted suppliers, follows proper hygiene and sanitation protocols, and monitors cooking temperatures to prevent foodborne illnesses. Similarly, DevSecOps practices involve to protect software systems from security threats. 🔒🔐 Security and Safety (DevSecOps) secure coding, vulnerability scanning, access control, and continuous monitoring By applying DevSecOps principles, developers and infrastructure engineers can create software that is not only innovative and efficient but also secure and reliable, just like a chef in a professional kitchen. This approach ensures that end-users receive at a rapid pace, just as customers enjoy delicious and safe dishes from a well-managed restaurant. 🚀🌟🔒 high-quality, safe, and secure software Best Practices for CI/CD Security 🛡️ Implementing best practices helps mitigate risks and enhance the security of CI/CD pipelines. Here are some recommended practices: Restrict Access and Minimize Privileges 🔐: Grant access based on necessity, limiting it to critical controls, configurations, and sensitive data. By adopting the principle of least privilege, you mitigate the risk of compromised accounts by providing attackers with extensive system access. Implement Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) 📶: Require the use of MFA for logging into the CI/CD platform. MFA adds an extra layer of security, significantly raising the bar for unauthorized users to gain access, even if credentials are compromised. Employ Secure Connections with OpenID Connect (OIDC) 🔒: Utilize OIDC for securely connecting workloads to external systems, providing a robust framework for authentication and cross-domain identity verification. Utilize Pre-Reviewed Software Dependencies 📦: Provide developers with pre-reviewed and trusted software dependencies, ensuring the integrity of the supply chain and reducing the need for individual package verification. This helps minimize the risk of incorporating vulnerable or malicious code. Secure Runtime Secrets 🤐: Safely store secrets like API keys and credentials in the CI/CD platform, utilizing strong security measures such as enforced MFA and role-based access controls. Additionally, ensure rigorous credential hygiene and vigilant monitoring of internal and external threats to prevent unauthorized access. Implement Advanced Defense Systems 🛡️: Incorporate alert systems into your security framework, such as honeytokens or honeypots. These mechanisms can enhance security by detecting and alerting you to potential threats and unauthorized activities. Lastly, Continuous Improvement 🔄 Continuous improvement is a vital aspect of DevSecOps. As security threats evolve, evaluating and enhancing your security measures regularly is crucial. Stay vigilant by staying informed about emerging threats and adapt your practices accordingly. By fostering a culture of continuous improvement, you can ensure that your DevSecOps practices remain robust and effective in addressing evolving security challenges. Conclusion 🌟 are powerful approaches that enable rapid development, deployment, and integration of security practices. By understanding the fundamentals of CI/CD and implementing best practices for CI/CD security, beginners and infrastructure engineers can confidently build robust software. CI/CD and DevSecOps Remember, security is a shared responsibility. Collaborate with your team, prioritize security practices, and leverage tools and analysis to identify and fix security issues in your code. Together, we can enhance CI/CD security and drive the adoption of DevSecOps principles. Next time, I will talk about Shift-Left. Bon appétit! May Infosec be with you. ✨🔒

Bon Appétit: An Introduction to CI/CD and  DevSecOps With a Delicious Bakery Story

If you were a chef at an upscale Michelin-starred restaurant, would you buy vegetables and meat from random not verified sources? The cost of almost any average project is measured in hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. I believe that our industry should have the same approach as restaurants. For example, there's no need to install an additional library to generate UUIDs. Node.js and browsers it out of the box: The first question to ask yourself right away: do you really need a new dependency? Could the problem be solved using the current environment, such as the language or installed libraries? support crypto.randomUUID() For instance, if you only need a dropdown, is it worth installing something like Bootstrap? Perhaps it's better to limit yourself to a single, focused library with an ? The second question: do you need the entire library? unstyled dropdown component from Radix UI Okay. We have a few candidates in mind. So, how do we choose the right one? A beautifully formatted README? A well-known name? More forks, stars, and downloads than others? Unfortunately, these factors alone aren't enough. Here, we are selecting a service provider. We want any issues that arise to be resolved quickly, the functionality to remain up-to-date, and, above all, for the service to be safe and reliable. Simple external metrics don’t always indicate the quality or long-term suitability. Before installing what we've found on the repository catalog, it would be great to visit the GitHub repository and analyze its content. I have prepared a list of criteria that I have been using for the last few years. I hope they will help you choose the most suitable libraries. It's essential to consider them comprehensively and, in some cases, make compromises when choosing between them. I am not criticizing the libraries mentioned below or trying to discourage their use. In some instances, I have intentionally omitted names to focus on the criterion example while maintaining factual accuracy. Disclaimer: 1. Security How safe is it to use? It may sound like fiction, but yes, dependencies can be dangerous. For example, an interesting feature to a library with 500k downloads: it tries to replace all files on the computer with ❤️ if your IP address falls within a specific range. was added An interesting fact is that this dependency was used in . How can we discover such issues? Check the issues page, or try googling by the library's name. Usually, such information surfaces quickly. vue-cli 2. Maintenance When was the last release? How often do releases occur? Regular releases ensure that issues are resolved and updates support constantly changing technologies. In the context of mobile development, regular releases also ensure that the project compiles successfully. Here's an example from the world of Go: the authors of a library with 18.2K stars decided to stop maintaining their dependency and archived it. This means that, in a few years, the lack of support and updates will become a problem. Now imagine installing a similar dependency without checking GitHub first. It’s sort of checking the expiration date of products. Here is an example of frequent good releases: 3. Open / Closed Issues What is the ratio of open issues to closed ones? How willing are the authors to accept changes? It's possible that you might need to contribute something someday. For instance, this library is quite popular and has a 98% percentage of closed issues. Only 18 are open. How quickly are critical issues resolved? Once, I chose an ORM with 31k stars, but at some point, we encountered a problem that blocked us. We had to look for workarounds and eventually switch to another solution. Unfortunately, almost four years have passed, and the problem still hasn't been resolved. Such issues can be identified by sorting by the most commented. Has the contribution process been organized by the creators? Is there a clear, defined workflow in place? For instance, the creators of Next.js recorded even a 40-minutes video about their contribution process. 4. Code Quality Yes, there may be a lot of code, but it's always possible to examine its different parts. How is the project organized? Is it understandable, and well-structured, and do good practices apply? The worse the code is written, the higher the likelihood of the project's demise in the future. Many small candidates were eliminated at this stage for me. 5. Test coverage Does the library have tests? What is the test coverage? How were the tests written? Even if maintainers review merge requests, there is a chance that something may be overlooked. There are a lot of different people contribute to the library. Normally, test coverage information is displayed on badges at the top of the repository. However, if it is not, we can always search for tests in the project. For instance, the library family has excellent test coverage and includes various types of tests. formatjs 6. Library Size Mobile applications often have large dependency sizes and the whole app can be even more than 200MB, which can cause issues during cellular network downloads and consume a lot of storage space. This is especially problematic for front-end CSR apps, where slow internet speeds can dramatically increase loading times. For web projects, there is a great tool to determine package sizes: . Of course, server-side rendering and tree shaking might reduce the size, but this needs to be always verified. https://bundlephobia.com A popular example is date manipulation libraries. The functionality provided by (2.9KB) might be sufficient, eliminating the need to install (72.1KB) or (26.8KB). dayjs moment.js date-fns 7. Number of Dependencies All the points listed above are multiplied, to some extent, by the number of dependencies in the entire dependency tree of the project. A great tool to check the complete dependency tree: https://npm.anvaka.com 8. License Have you ever thought about this? I hadn't either. For example, the MIT and Apache 2.0 licenses allow for the free use of libraries in commercial projects, while some GPL v2 licenses have specific requirements and restrictions. In one of our projects, we had a table prepared by a lawyer to check all our dependency tree's licenses. So if you see something unusual in a license, it's better to consult a lawyer to avoid problems during an audit. We can extract all licenses from existing npm dependencies using the utility. P.S. I'm not a lawyer, and this wasn't legal advice. It's a rare and specialized case that something might not be suitable due to the license, but it's still possible. legally The End! Thank you for reading my article! The key point of it was to show real-world examples that shallow and fast decision-making sometimes can lead not to the best option. By considering these criteria, you will be able to make a more informed decision. Please feel free to leave any comments or suggestions you may have. Don't hesitate to share your experience in the comments as well. Your likes and comments inspire me to write new articles. Happy cooking :)

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