Category: Cyber threats

How can the Monitoring service benefit your business?

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You know that one of the primary functions of management is controlling. You can’t truly manage a business or a website if you can’t see what is happening with it. When we are talking about a site, knowing if it is online (not experiencing downtime), seeing how busy it is, and checking if the servers are experiencing any troubles are crucial. For all those purposes, you can get a Monitoring service.

Monitor every aspect of your digital infrastructure

There are Monitoring services that include multiple monitoring types. For example, some can check your business DNS infrastructure to see if your domain is responding. You can also check your business’s web hosting with a web check or an FTP check.

Other monitors can check your email servers with SMTP, IMAP, or POP monitoring. Of course, there are also ways to check your database response with MySQL, MSSQL, or another check.

Fantastic Monitoring service with a variety of check types!

24/7 Monitoring is a great benefit for your business

24/7 Monitoring really matters. Now, in the world of globalization, you can have clients from all around the world. That means that your business can’t afford downtime. It must always be online. You need a Monitoring service that can constantly check it and alarm you in case of a problem. That way, your team can see the problem on time and act accordingly. Remember, downtime means fewer clients, and that can affect your revenues. 

Visual understanding of the situation

One of the benefits for your business that a Monitoring service can bring is a better understanding of your business and its traffic. You can see graphs and charts that can better show you the vital information. Yes, the IT crew can read even hard-to-understand messages generated by servers, but for the rest of the team, a beautiful graph that synthesizes the most important information is a huge plus. 

Better security

A Monitor service won’t protect your business but will alert you for troubles. You can identify bad traffic or unauthorized activity on time, act fast and reduce the damages or completely evade problems. You can also see which points of your network are attacked more frequently and add extra security there. 

Manage your reputation

Experiencing downtime can severely damage your business reputation. If you can see the problems right on time, you can evade them or bring up your business fast. You don’t want that client to relate your brand with downtime, sluggish service, and overall bad experience, do you? 

Easy forecasting

If you have more information, you can easily forecast the future. Based on the data you are collecting, you can make predictions about the traffic, server demand, and plan accordingly. One time you can get surprised, but the next time, you can use the experience and be prepared to respond correctly. 

Conclusion

Thanks to the Monitoring service, you can have all the essential information, refreshed live or almost live. Those benefits will allow you to manage your business better and be sure that your customers get good service.

What is the purpose of a Private DNS server?

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Purpose of Private DNS server

As the name suggests, a Private DNS server appears to be something personalized. It links your network and the Domain Name System server, protecting data from being intercepted by third parties. They are DNS networks that are not linked to the Public DNS. Consider it a Private library with a small collection of books. This has both advantages and disadvantages. Yes, you will be unable to read certain types of books. Nevertheless, there is one advantage: no one will know what you are reading because your library is secret.

Furthermore, we refer to Private as DNS over TLS (Transport Layer Security) or DNS over HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure). This is because when you use DoT (DNS over TLS) or DoH (DNS over HTTPS), all DNS queries are encrypted. This makes it far more difficult for malicious third parties to monitor your online activity.

Elements

The followings are the components of the Private DNS server:

  • TLS stands for Transport Layer Security and is used to secure two-way communication between a client and a server on one side and a server on the other. Furthermore, SSL (Security Socket Layer) has been totally replaced with Transport Layer Security (TLS).
  • HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) – It generates encryption codes or session keys that must be validated by a third party. Users without authorization will not be able to access the information of others due to the system’s security.

Private DNS server vs. Public DNS server – Differences

  • Companies are in charge of their own Public DNS servers. For example, pages linked to the company’s public website would get components for a website from this Public DNS server.

A Private DNS server, on the other hand, may be only responsible for addressing queries related to the company’s internal assets. System administrators can optimize the performance of each program by configuring the servers and networks.

  • The most important advantage of adopting Private DNS is security. The usage of DNS for public and private purposes is kept separate to avoid confusion. The Public DNS server only provides IP addresses for web servers and other publicly accessible assets. Only a Private DNS protected within the internal network’s perimeter can be used to obtain IP addresses for internal support.

An additional motive for businesses using Private DNS is to protect their employees’ online usage. Public DNS providers gain a comprehensive image of their consumers’ online activities, which they can exploit to create resale profiles. The traffic patterns are disguised via a Private DNS.

Conclusion

Let’s review. Public DNS is one of the most critical security concerns on the Internet. The Private DNS server, on the other hand, is an excellent defense against this. It can be configured to protect you and your devices from malicious Internet actors. So don’t be hesitant to take advantage of this opportunity.

Teardrop attack explained

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Teardrop attack is another threat that is popular and could cause a lot of damage. So, let’s explain a little bit more about it!

Teardrop attack – Definition

The Teardrop attack is a common type of Denial of Service (DoS) attack. The criminals who initiate the attack aim to overwhelm their victims and make their devices or networks unreachable. For that purpose, they send a massive amount of oversized data packets.

How does the Teardrop attack work?

Cybercriminals take advantage of the vulnerability of some devices and affect the reassembly process of TCP/IP or its fragmentation codes. As a result, their victims are experiencing difficulties through the process of reassembling these modified data packets and bringing them back in their correct order. They continuously try to reconstruct them when finally the victim’s network or devices crash completely.

As we mentioned, the Teardrop attack also includes sending a large amount of traffic to the victims. The reason for that is simple: attackers want to make sure their attempt is going to be successful, and the stress over their target is going to be significant. The endless repetition of the unsuccessful reassembly and traffic demand is going to lead to the exhaustion of the victim’s resources. Thus, it becomes unable to function and lacks availability.

Main targets of Teardrop attack

The attackers commonly use the Teardrop attack to hit operating systems (OS) that are considered a bit aged. For example, versions of Linux before 2.0.32 and 2.1.63. and Windows versions such as NT, Windows 3.1x, Windows 95, Windows 7, Windows Vista. They are not supported anymore, and there are no security patches.

The new versions of operating systems are not the popular choice for attackers. So, you are probably suggesting that this type of attack is a bit outdated. Yet, that is not actually true. A lot of big government and healthcare organizations are still using these former versions. In addition, a significant number of them also still work with old devices and computers to complete their day-to-day tasks.

How to prevent it?

There are some things you could do to prevent the Teardrop attack. Let’s see what the options are:

  • Protect your network with a robust firewall. It is going to filter junk and infected information, and your network is going to be safe.
  • Prevent packet segmentation. You could accomplish it via path MTU discovery (PMTUD). The technique allows you to determine the maximum transmission unit (MTU) dimension on the path of a particular network between two IP hosts.
  • Set maximum segment size (MSS). MSS allows you to determine the maximum size of data (in bytes) for each data packet. 

Conclusion

The Teardrop attack is an actual cyber threat, and it should not be neglected. In case you are using these operating systems (OS) that are considered a bit aged, try implementing all or some of the measures for prevention.