Tag Archives: networksecurity

Back Up and Running in Cloud Native

February 20, 2023Techautomation, aws, cloud, cloudcomputing, cloudfront, cloudnative, cybersecurity, devops, devsecops, lightsail, networksecurity, S3, secops, security, sysadminHarout

Finally had the time to rebuild and refresh the blog site. gotsudo.com in now full Cloud Native running in AWS (has always been, however in a more traditional server-based installation).

The recent migration included an AWS Lightsail service that provides various bundles of OS/applications, which in my case is WordPress running on Linux. Various tiers are also available to fit every budget out there.

I decided to take things a step further, and serve the public facing version of the website in a static configuration, leveraging AWS S3 to host the site files, with AWS CloudFront caching layer sitting upfront for the parent gotsudo.com address.

This allows me to limit access to the actual WordPress site running in Lightsail, transforming it to a true authoring and publishing site, rather than a public front-facing one.

Various WordPress plugins are available that can easily produce a static version of the website, and can also integrate with AWS services (or any other CSP) to auto publish files into S3 or any other repository of choice. While these make things much easier and more integrated, I decided to air-gap the systems, allowing me to selectively produce the published files and upload them to S3 using other means of tailored automation.

Later on, I may add some more integrations to the site, however at this point I’m quite happy with how far it came over a busy weekend’s time.

DNS Security

February 2, 2023Techcybersecurity, dns, dnssecurity, networking, networksecurity, secops, security, sysops, systemsecurityHarout

Well this is an interesting approach by Google to counter DNS cache poisoning effectiveness.

https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/19/google_dns_queries/

If your DNS queries LoOk liKE tHIs, it’s not a ransom note, it’s a security improvement.

Uptime…

May 22, 2022Techavailability, devops, devsecops, dns, dnssecurity, engineering, homeoffice, linux, networkinfrastructure, networksecurity, secops, security, sysadmin, uptimeHarout

Remember the days when server up-time was how we measured service availability and bragged about it? This Pi-hole DNS server running on a Debian-loaded mini PC at my home office, is now at 177 days since last reboot, yet is fully patched and running latest version of Pi-hole DNS. Maybe it’s because there are no windows near this mini PC 😏

hackathon Gems

April 8, 2022Techcybersecurity, hackathon, hiring, networksecurity, security, securityconsulting, securitycontrols, securityprofessionalsHarout

If you’re attending a hackathon/security conference looking to recruit good security professionals, keep an eye for those using personal Internet devices, tethering via cell phone, or better yet, tethering via a cable connection to their cell phone to gain internet access.

As to those who are using the convention center’s free wifi during a hackathon/security event, maybe enroll them in some good security training programs first, if you really want to hire them.