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New NIST Cybersecurity Policy Provides Guidance, Opportunities for SMBs

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Small- and medium-sized business (SMB) are often one of the segments most targeted by cybercriminals. Now, SMBs are backed by legislation signed by U.S. President Trump and unanimously supported by Congress.

On Aug. 14, President Trump signed into law the new NIST Small Business Cybersecurity Act. The new policy “requires the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to develop and disseminate resources for small businesses to help reduce their cybersecurity risks.”

The legislation was proposed by U.S. Senators Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i) and James Risch (R-Idaho). This new policy is a follow-on effort to the Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2014, which was the catalyst for the NIST Cybersecurity Framework.

“As businesses rely more and more on the internet to run efficiently and reach more customers, they will continue to be vulnerable to cyberattacks. But while big businesses have the resources to protect themselves, small businesses do not, and that’s exactly what makes them an easy target for hackers,” said Senator Schatz, lead Democrat on the Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, Innovation, and the Internet, in an official statement. “With this bill set to become law, small businesses will now have the tools to firm up their cybersecurity infrastructure and fight online attacks.”

Per the NIST Small Business Cybersecurity Act (S. 770), within the next year the acting director of NIST, collaborating with the leaders of appropriate federal agencies, must provide cybersecurity “guidelines, tools, best practices, standards, and methodologies” to SMBs that are:

  • Technology-neutral
  • Based on international standards to the extent possible
  • Able to vary with the nature and size of the implementing small business and the sensitivity of the data collected or stored on the information systems
  • Consistent with the national cybersecurity awareness and education program under the Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2014
  • Deployed in practical applications and proven via real-world use cases

The law follows the structure presented by U.S. Rep. Dan Webster (R-Florida) and passed by the House of Representatives. He originally presented the bill to the U.S. House Science, Space, and Technology Committee in March 2017.

SonicWall President and CEO Bill Conner also was instrumental in helping form the groundwork for U.S. cybersecurity laws. In 2009, Conner worked with U.S. Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-West Virginia) and other security-conscious leaders on the Cybersecurity Act of 2010 (S.773). And while the proposal was not enacted by Congress in March 2010, it served as a critical framework to today’s modern policies. Rockefeller was eventually the sponsor of the aforementioned Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2014 (S.1353), which became law in December 2014.

SMBs Highly Targeted by Cybercriminals, Threat Actors

According to a recent SMB study by ESG, 46 percent of SMB decision-makers said security incidents resulted in lost productivity in their small- or medium-sized business. Some 37 percent were affected by disruption of a business process or processes.

“Criminals target SMBs to extort money or steal valuable data, while nation states use small businesses as a beachhead for attacking connected partners,” wrote ESG senior principal analyst Jon Oltsik for CSO.

In fact, in July 2018 alone, the average SonicWall customer faced escalated volumes of ransomware attacks, encrypted threats and new malware variants.

  • 2,164 malware attacks (28 percent increase from July 2017)
  • 81 ransomware attacks (43 percent increase)
  • 143 encrypted threats
  • 13 phishing attacks each day
  • 1,413 new malware variants discovered by Capture Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) service with RTDMI each day

“Criminals target SMBs to extort money or steal valuable data, while nation states use small businesses as a beachhead for attacking connected partners,” wrote ESG senior principal analyst Jon Oltsik for CSO.

Leverage NIST Policy, Frameworks

While SMBs await guidance from the new NIST Small Business Cybersecurity Act, they can leverage best practices from the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, which helps organizations of all sizes leverage best practices to better safeguard their networks, data and applications from cyberattacks.

At a high level, the framework is broken down into three components — Implementation Tiers, Framework Core and Profiles — that each include additional subcategories and objectives. Use these key NIST resources to familiarize your organization to the framework:

Applying Cybersecurity Designed for SMBs

The NIST framework provides a solid foundation to improve an SMB’s security posture. But the technology behind it is critically important to achieving a safe outcome. SonicWall, for instance, is the No. 2 cybersecurity vendor in the SMB space, according to Gartner’s Market Share: Unified Threat Management (SMB Multifunction Firewalls), Worldwide, 2017 report.

With more than 26 years of defending SMBs from cyberattacks, SonicWall has polished and refined cost-effective, end-to-end cybersecurity solutions. These solutions are tailored specifically for small- and medium-sized businesses and can be further customized to meet the needs of specific security or business objectives. A sound, end-to-end SMB cybersecurity should include:

For example, the SonicWall TZ series of NGFWs is the perfect balance of performance, value and security efficacy for SMBs, and delivers access to the SonicWall Capture ATP sandbox services and Real-Time Deep Memory Inspection.TM This integrated combo protects your organization from zero-day attacks, malicious PDFs and Microsoft Office files, and even chip-based Spectre, Foreshadow and Meltdown exploits.

For organizations that want to take it a step further, the SonicWall NSa series of firewall appliances were given a ‘Recommended’ rating by NSS Labs in a 2018 group test. SonicWall topped offerings from Barracuda Networks, Check Point, Cisco, Forcepoint, Palo Alto Networks, Sophos and WatchGuard in both security efficacy and total cost of ownership.

Contact SonicWall to build or enhance your cybersecurity posture for true end-to-end protection from today’s most malicious cyberattacks, online threats and even the latest Foreshadow exploits.

SonicWall solutions are available to SMBs through our vast channel of local security solution providers, many of which are SMBs themselves. In fact, many SonicWall SecureFirst Partners even provide security-as-a-service (SECaaS) offerings to ensure it’s easy and cost-effective for SMBs to protect their business from advanced cyberattacks.

 

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Are you a SonicWall customer who needs to stop the latest attacks? Take advantage of our ‘3 & Free’ program to get the latest in SonicWall next-generation firewall technology — for free. To upgrade, contact your dedicated SecureFirst Partner or begin your upgrade process via the button below.

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IoT & Mobile Threats: What Does 2017 Tell Us About 2018?

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“SPARTANS! Ready your breakfast and eat hearty. For tonight, WE DINE IN HELL!!”

Remember this passionate line by King Leonidas from the movie “300”? We are at the brink of another war — the modern cyber arms race. You need to gear up and be prepared for the thousands of malicious “arrows” that shoot down on you.

This cyber arms race is aimed against governments, businesses and individuals alike, and it’s comprised of different types and forms of cyber attacks. These attacks grow more sophisticated each year, with over 12,500 new Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) reported in 2017 — 78 percent of which were related to network attacks.

It’s critical we learn from the past experiences — successes and failures. So, what can 2017 teach us to be better prepared in 2018? Let’s first look at the hard data.

According to the 2018 SonicWall Cyber Threat Report, SonicWall Capture Labs detected 184 million ransomware attacks and a 101.2 percent increase in new ransomware variants from more than 1 million sensors across more than 200 countries. The increase in new variations signifies a shift in attack strategies.

In addition, SonicWall Capture Labs logged 9.32 billion malware attacks. Network attacks using encryption tactics are also on the rise. Without the ability to inspect such traffic, an average organization would have missed over 900 file-based attacks per year hidden by SSL/TLS encryption.

IoT attacks loom

Internet of Things (IoT) threats and memory attacks are also impending challenges that we face across wired and wireless solutions. According to Gartner, by 2020, IoT technology will be in 95 percent of electronics for new product designs.

Recently, Spiceworks performed a survey that resulted in IoT devices being the most vulnerable to Wi-Fi attacks. This makes IoT and chip processors the emerging battlegrounds. IoT was also a big target as “smart” (pun intended) hardware is not updated regularly and is often physically located in unknown or hard-to-reach places, leading to memory attacks and vulnerabilities.

IoT ransomware attacks are alone on the rise and gain control of a device’s functionality. While many of the IoT devices may not hold any valuable data, there is a risk for owners or individuals to be held at ransom for personal data. Gartner also predicts, through 2022, half of all security budgets for IoT will go to fault remediation, recalls and safety failures rather than protection.

There are many smart devices and IoT devices in the market that connect over Wi-Fi, such as cameras, personal and TVs. Imagine an attack on your personal privacy and a hacker gaining control over your device. Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks still remain a major threat to these devices. Each compromised device can send up to 30 million packets per second to the target, creating an IoT powered botnet.

In fact, at one point in 2017, SonicWall Capture Labs was recording more than 62,000 IoT Reaper hits each day. Considering there could be an estimated 6 billion mobile devices in circulation by 2020, it wouldn’t be totally surprising if the next wave of ransomware targets mobile devices,

How to secure wired, wireless and mobile networks

It is critical to secure your network, both from a wireless and wired perspective. Total end-to-end security is the key to prevent such attacks from happening in the first place. To survive this cyber war, you can follow certain best practices to ensure your protection:

  • Layer security across your wired, wireless, mobile and cloud network
  • Deploy next-gen firewalls that can provide real-time intrusion detection and mitigation
  • Patch your firewalls and endpoint devices to the latest firmware
  • Secure your IoT devices to prevent device tampering and unauthorized access
  • Educate your employees on the best practices
  • Change default login and passwords across your devices

SonicWall solutions include next-generation firewalls, 802.11ac Wave 2 access points, secure mobile access appliances and the Capture Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) cloud sandbox service, all of which combine to provide an effective zero-day threat protection ecosystem.

To protect customers against the increasing dangers of zero-day threats, SonicWall’s cloud-based Capture ATP service detects and blocks advanced threats at the gateway until a verdict is returned. In addition, Capture ATP also monitors memory-based exploits via Real-Time Deep Memory InspectionTM (RTDMI). With innovative SonicWall solutions, rest assured your IoT and mobile devices are protected for the cyberwar.

Download the 2018 SonicWall Cyber Threat Report

The cyber arms race is a challenge we face together. And it’s the core reason we’re committed to passing our findings, intelligence, analysis and research to the global public via the SonicWall 2018 Cyber Threat Report.

READ THE FULL REPORT

RSA Conference 2018: SonicWall is Hot

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Fresh off of April’s massive SonicWall Capture Cloud Platform launch, SonicWall has been featured in a pair of CRN articles highlighting the hottest products at RSA Conference 2018.

The SonicWall Capture Cloud Platform is lauded in CRN’s “10 Hot New Cloud Security Products Announced at RSA 2018” listing. CRN recaps the platform’s ability to integrate security, management, analytics and real-time threat intelligence across SonicWall’s portfolio of network, email, mobile and cloud security products.

Complementing that accolade, a pair of new SonicWall products were listed in the “20 Hot New Security Products Announced at RSA 2018” category. The new SonicWall NSv virtual firewall (slide 7) and SonicWall Capture Client (slide 12) endpoint protection were showcased.

SonicWall Capture Client is a unified endpoint offering with multiple protection capabilities. With a next-generation malware protection engine powered by SentinelOne, Capture Client delivers advanced threat protection techniques, such as machine learning and system rollback.

SonicWall’s Scott Grebe explains automated, real-time breach detection and prevention during RSA Conference 2018

SonicWall Network Security virtual (NSv) firewalls protect all critical components of your private/public cloud environment from resource misuse attacks, cross virtual machine attacks, side channel attacks and common network-based exploits and threats. It captures traffic between virtual machines (VM) and networks for automated breach prevention and establishes access control measures for data confidentiality and ensures VMs safety and integrity.

Did WannaCry Perpetrators Ever Get Their Ransom?

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Cyber criminals prefer to receive ransom in the cyber currency Bitcoin because it is anonymous. The truth is “sort of.” Let’s take a closer look at how Bitcoins work, and how the WannaCry perpetrators, possibly the Lazarus Group, want to be paid.

Bitcoins are different from fiat currencies because, with Bitcoins, no actual coins or bills exist, not even digital ones. With a fiat currency like the dollar, money is represented by actual coins and bills that can be physically stored. Depending on how you pay, your transaction is not recorded or, more often, either recorded anonymously or via an account number, such as a credit card number.

In any case, the number of coins and bills, either in actual money that you have on your hand, or what is recorded on your bank account, are decreased. With Bitcoins, you only have the transaction. Transactions are always public, and can be viewed by anyone. That is right: public, anyone. Anybody can see that money was paid from your account to that of WannaCry. Though, what is different from fiat currencies is that the actual ownership of an account is not necessarily know to anyone. It can be completely anonymous. This is a bit similar to a Swiss number account.

Let’s summarize this, the ownership of an account in Bitcoin may or may not be known to anyone, or generally public. The transaction, however, is always public. Bitcoin tracks transactions in so called Blocks that are linked in a Blockchain. In order to find out how much money somebody has, a “wallet” application would have to browse through the entire Blockchain and select out any transaction that involves the owner’s account number(s).

Different from fiat currencies, though, with Bitcoin, account numbers are free and one can have an endless amount of them. If somebody wants to be completely anonymous, they would use a new account number for every single transaction. Wallet or Account software would make it easy to keep track of them.

WannaCry made use of only three hard-coded account numbers:

Why didn’t WannaCry use a new account number for every instance of WannaCrypt0r to be installed? The answer might be: because in order to get the money from a Bitcoin account, one has to first generate the account number/private key pair, AND be in possession of the private key. Without the private key, they could not get their money: if the private key is being generated within WannaCrypt0r it would need to be communicated reliably where the hostage takers would have real-time access to it. That would give the perpetrators away. If the keys are generated somewhere in the cloud, the communication of private keys may be disguised in some layers of Darknet labyrinth, but it would be easy to shut them down by taking the key servers offline which would be easy to sniff. Also using hundreds or thousands of account numbers would not make it necessarily significantly more difficult for security experts to track payments.

The bigger question how can the perpetrators associate payment with a specific instance of WannaCry. With a uniquely generated account number that might be easy. But there does not appear any way to link the two, other than manually via the Contact Us button in WannaCrypt0r. In fact, the function of the Check Payment appears dubious at best. Supposedly, it is supposed to fetch the private key, but there is no public record of anybody ever having received it. The question is whether it actually works.

How would the perpetrators get the money after people paid ransom? Good question. Since transactions are public, we would know the account numbers to which the money is being transferred. In order to exchange the BTC into a fiat currency, the perpetrators would need to go to an exchange that are more and more government regulated. While a small-scale thug might slip through, the likelihood that a group of Lazarus’ size would stay anonymous is small. The WannaCry perpetrators also could exchange their account numbers for different ones in so called Mixer services as well in Account or Wallet services. Again, a small time thief might stay anonymous, but not when the NSA and every other state actor is after you.

In short, it is very possible that the WannaCry perpetrators never get their money. However, at the same time it is very possible that you never get the key either to recover your files. Even worse, your organization will be on the public record for having paid the extortionists, something which is not good publicity.

For so many reasons it is not a good idea to ever pay ransom, but specifically in the case of WannaCry is practically pointless.

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Explore Advantages of SonicWall Security As A Service

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Don’t try this at home”¦.go with next-gen firewall experts

Cyber attacks are relentless, and increasing in volume, intensity and sophistication. The sophistication of these attacks is beyond your wildest imagining. Do you have the security expertise to guard your business and customer data yourself? Today, more organizations are outsourcing to Security-as-a-Service (SECaaS).

In this two-part blog, I will discuss the top advantages to securing your business with enterprise-class security solutions provided to you as a service. In this first blog, I’ll cover the first four core advantages of SECaaS. In the second, I’ll explore more why this service could work to fit your infrastructure.

Optimally, a Security-as-a-Service provider should enable you to do the following:

1. Outsource your network security to an experienced security provider

Maximize your security position by utilizing certified partners skilled in your next-gen firewalls and associated security technologies. With the right SECaaS solution, you can easily realize the benefits of having an experienced partner overseeing everything for you.

2. Have your SECaaS firewall solution expertly configured by certified engineers

Each business is unique and the firewalls should be built and configurable to fit your needs. Your Security-as-a-Service next-gen firewall solution should block threats on multiple entry points including those from employee laptops, mobile devices and desktops. (Now, even cameras have had malware loaded on them.) You will want custom SECaaS protection for retail, and address the need high-speed wireless network security. For private schools, you will want to protect students and the devices issued to them.

3. The efficiencies of a turn-key solution delivered to your doorstep

You will want your SECaaS solution to have a next-gen firewall, with gateway anti-malware, intrusion prevention and content filtering. All of it should be installed, configured, deployed and managed as one unit. Event data should be available through one reporting system to enable proactive monitor and reporting. Your SECaaS solution should identify threats before your business is impacted.

4. Mobile Mobile Mobile

Allow your employees to access your network while on the road on any device at any time. Your SECaaS should include secure mobile access and VPN for Windows, Apple iOS, Android devices, and enable guest vendors/contractors be able to use the network securely.

Find out how SonicWall Security-as- a-Service (SECaaS) can do it all for you. SonicWall SECaaS provides you with the same level of network security that NASA demands and protects your network from a wide range of emerging threats. Pay month to month for a solution that fits your security needs. SonicWall certified partners are relied upon every day and have gone through rigorous training and education. You will be so happy you did not try this at home.

Securing Your Network Before, During and After Black Friday

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It’s summertime, so that means Black Friday is only four months away. Some retailers like to get a head start on the event and offer special Black Friday deals during July as a means to generate some additional sales over the summer. There are also “Christmas in July” promotions. Most of us, however, will wait to make our purchases until the traditional start of the holiday shopping season in November.

Whether it’s over the summer or later in the year, events such as Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday offer consumers an opportunity to shop for a great deal. Increasingly the researching and purchasing of items during the holiday season is done online. According to the National Retail Federation (NRF) both holiday retail sales and non-store sales increased again last year. Results from a 2015 NRF survey also found that 46 percent of holiday shopping (browsing and buying) would be done online. This was an increase over 2014 and a trend that is likely to continue in 2016.

People enjoy shopping online for many reasons: it’s convenient, there are no crowds, you can often get better deals, and it’s easier to compare items. No wonder it’s become a popular activity, both at home and at the office. And for many employers, that’s the problem. Online shopping at work negatively impacts productivity. It’s like taking an extended lunch break on your computer. It also introduces security risks to the company’s network. Who knows whether the sites employees visit to make purchases are legitimate and aren’t sources for malware distribution.

Shopping isn’t the only online activity that affects organizations. In 2016 there are a slew of sporting events drawing worldwide interest: March Madness and the Ryder Cup in the US, Euro 2016 in France, the Summer Olympics in Brazil to name a few. Like they do with online shopping, employees will be spending time at work focused on something other than their jobs. For example, streaming live events at the office is very popular, albeit somewhat risky. Read Wilson Lee’s blog “Zika is not the only virus you can get by watching the Olympics” for details on the threat streaming the Olympics can pose to your network.

In addition to productivity and security concerns, streaming video opens up a third issue for employers which is the consumption of network bandwidth for a non-essential activity. In fact, during the last Summer Olympics in 2012, Los Angeles City Hall employees were asked to stop watching the games online at work due to the high volume of network traffic it was generating.

Whether or not online shopping and watching streamed sporting events during work are approved by management, most employees will be engaged in these activities at some point. Knowing this, what steps can organizations take to maintain productivity, protect the network from attack and conserve bandwidth? Here are a few:

  • Set limits – Tools such as web filtering and application control provide the ability to restrict access to online shopping sites and streaming video by time of day. Employers have the option to allow these activities during lunch or after hours while blocking them during the rest of the work day.
  • Manage that bandwidth – Another option is to restrict the amount of bandwidth allocated to streaming video. Less bandwidth for non-essential activities means more for those that are critical to the success of your business.
  • Inspect encrypted web traffic – The use of secure sockets layer (SSL) and transport layer security (TLS) to secure internet traffic continues to rise. To protect your network from attacks hidden in encrypted web traffic, make sure your firewall can decrypt and scan encrypted traffic for threats.

If you’d like to learn more about how to protect your network and preserve productivity and bandwidth during the holiday online shopping season and other events watch this free webcast. You can also find information on how SonicWall next-generation firewalls can help on our website.

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SYNNEX Partners with SonicWall at Upcoming PEAK16 in Las Vegas

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Note: This is a guest blog post by Reyna Thompson, Vice President, Product Marketing at SYNNEX.

Reyna Thompson is Vice President of Product Marketing at SYNNEX Corporation. She is responsible for the ConvergeSOLV Secure Networking Business at SYNNEX. Mrs. Thompson joined the SYNNEX team in 2002, as Associate Vice President of Solutions Marketing for the Technology Solutions Division. Prior to working for SYNNEX, Reyna worked for Gates/Arrow Distributing, where she held various roles dating back to 1993.

As a Fortune 212 company, SYNNEX has the size and velocity to help you efficiently run your business, and the security savvy skills and expertise to focus and expand your IT security practice. We are proud to be a distributor for the SonicWall solutions portfolio, and we’re excited to be a sponsor at this year’s Peak 16 ““ Govern Every Identity. Inspect Every Packet. Open Your Own Department of Yes. ““ at the Aria Resort and *** in Las Vegas, NV, Aug. 28-31. There are great keynotes planned for this premier channel partner conference. The speakers include, special guest – Coach Herm Edwards ““former NFL head coach and player and ESPN NFL Analyst, Curtis Hutcheson, VP and General Manager of SonicWall and One Identity, Patrick Sweeney, VP of Product Management and Marketing SonicWall and One Identity and Steve Pataky, VP of Worldwide Security Sales. These keynotes will be followed by business and technical breakouts. Our SonicWall Team is delighted to once again meet face-to-face to help you find, manage and close your next network security deal.

We’re also here to help you scale ““ and, ultimately, grow ““ your business. Key to that is ensuring you have both bandwidth and geographical reach when it comes to professional services. In this year’s booth in the expo hall, SYNNEX will be presenting 5 Ways we can help grow your business. Stop by booth 109 in the expo at PEAK16 to learn more about:

  • How to get FREE vulnerability assessments for use with your customers
  • Seven benefits of joining SYNNEX’s free Security Partner Community
  • How to increase your quoting speed with one-hour turn-around times from SYNNEX
  • How to stand-up your own managed service practice with SYNNEX’s Firewall-as-a-Service offering
  • How to save your time and resources while still earning double digit margins with our nationwide installation services

Don’t wait to register for PEAK16. For more information on how SYNNEX can grow your business, contact us today at sonicwall@synnex.com. Follow the conference hashtag #YESPeak16, @SYNNEX and @SonicWall on Twitter to follow the conversation.

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SonicWall Announces Channel Partner Award Winners at EMEA PEAK16

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EMEA PEAK 16

Last week, SonicWall hosted more than 230 enthusiastic partners at our EMEA PEAK16 event and the information exchange was a valuable one for all of us. The city of Valetta in Malta, with its ancient stone walls and fortresses which have provided defense against attacks throughout history, proved an appropriate location for a security conference. The feedback we received from partners reaffirmed that as threats continue to evolve, customers need to constantly stay at least one step ahead of them. We heard the clear need to allow IT to move away from being an obstacle to the business to becoming an enabler, with technologies that protect from threats, but still provide easy access for all workers, especially those who are mobile or remote.

This week’s EMEA PEAK16 event reinforced for us that it’s more important than ever to provide a security portfolio that helps our partners reinforce their roles as trusted advisors. Partners took advantage of business and technical sessions designed to give them insight to the cyber threat landscape and how the Security portfolio drives real solutions to today’s threats.

EMEA PEAK16 wrapped with the recognition of those partners who exemplify commitment to the SonicWall portfolio and achieved substantial sales growth over the last year. The awards highlighted partner excellence Distribution, Channel Partners, New Partners and the coveted Project of the Year. Congratulations to the following winners:

  • 2015 SonicWall EMEA Best Distributor –Exertis
  • 2015 SonicWall EMEA Best Performing Partner –NetThreat
  • 2015 SonicWall EMEA Best New Comer –Ineo IT Solutions
  • 2015 SonicWall EMEA Special Jury Award –Data-Sec
  • 2015 SonicWall EMEA Project of the Year – Nalta Consultancy

EMEA PEAK16 was a great reminder of the commitment to mutual success we share with our Security partners, and the importance of our very important mission to protect our mutual customers from today’s ever evolving threats. Events like EMEA PEAK16 ‘with the opportunity for networking, along with educational sessions and new product information’ are key to our partner-dependent go-to-market strategy. I think the words of our partners sum it up best:

PEAK16 in Malta

“For me it was one of the best EMEA PEAK´s of the past years – great news, networking, direct contact in order to give feedback and get hot information directly from product-management, engineering, executives and had a lot of FUN! “Work hard – Party hard” and Business is made by people ““ that is one of the secrets to success!” said Nicolai Landzettel, CEO, Data-Sec UG

All of the sessions were interactive where we received strong, positive feedback on the progress of our portfolio and programs and validated the investments we are making to improve partner profitability, expand our sales and technical enablement offerings and build out our partner tools and infrastructure. Each of these elements are being optimized to better align with customer needs and partner engagement models. At EMEA PEAK16, we announced:

  • Enhancements to our Deal Registration program to make it more inclusive of SMB opportunities to reward partners who originate new customers and opportunities
  • Our partner Reward for Value framework which provides incremental discounts now available to partners with technical capabilities who deliver a proof of concept to their customers
  • New strategies for sustained partner sales and technical enablement including expanded curriculum and delivery options
  • A new sales accreditation program recently rolled out to the Security sales teams is now available to all Security Solutions Partners in July 2016. Designed to help continue driving the momentum behind the 30% increase in SonicWall certified Network Security partners over the last year, the program covers the full SonicWall portfolio and includes online learning, tools, training and accreditation.

We look forward to a continued strong year with our EMEA partners as we drive further advancements and enhancements in our portfolio and products and fulfill our mission to protect our mutual customers.

Zika Is Not the Only Virus You Can Get By Watching the Olympics

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It’s August 5, 2016 and you settle down at your computer to watch the Olympic opening ceremony. You have no fear of catching Zika, unlike the thousands of people in Rio. Feeling safe, you navigate to the official broadcast site of the games and click on Watch the Olympics live.

But wait, there’s fine print: Simply Sign-In Using Your TV Provider Account Login/Password And You’ll Have Access To FREE, LIVE Rio Olympics Coverage. Not cool. “Who pays for TV?” you ask yourself. “Haven’t they heard of streaming?” So you search on “Olympics live streaming free” and there, on the first page of results is:

The site doesn’t look official, but hey, the media player icon looks like YouTube, which you know is safe, so you click Play. The site asks you to download and install a video codec. The ceremony starts in five minutes and the screen screams “Stream in HD now!” You’re one step away from the Free Live Stream, so you click Accept”¦within microseconds, your computer is infected with a virus. Perhaps the video will start, perhaps it won’t, but in either case, the malware now on your computer will give you greater problems than missing the opening ceremonies.

How can you protect yourself from such a scenario? Here are some precautions you can take:

  1. Don’t go there. If a website is not an official site, chances are that it does not have the right to stream protected content. And if it does not have rights to stream, then the content is just bait for unsuspecting visitors like you.
  2. Don’t click that. So you ended up on the site anyhow. If it asks you to click a link or icon, tempts you with ads for free stuff, wants to do a download, or wants to install something, the only thing you should click is Close, as in close the browser.
  3. Update, update, update. Whether you are using a PC or a mobile device, update your operating system with the latest hotfixes. Update your browser to the latest level. Update your anti-virus software with the latest signatures. Configure your applications to do all these things automatically.
  4. Control and protect your network with a next-generation firewall. A next-generation firewall includes up-to-date security services that blocks websites of ill-repute, prevents malicious downloads, and kills the latest viruses. It even denies intrusions and attack attempts, snuffs out botnet traffic patterns, and recognizes which countries have the riskiest and most suspect Internet activities. You can’t get this level of security simply by following the first three precautions.

To learn more about the bad things that can infect you on the Internet and the ways that you can inoculate yourself, read our ebook – How ransomware can hold your business hostage.

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Inspect Everything, Protect Everything: Next Generation Firewalls for Network Segmentation Inspection

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Most of us would reach into a cookie jar full of delicious, just-out-of-the-oven, chocolate chip cookies without a care in the world, or any doubt that we should simply enjoy the euphoric chocolaty goodness.

But what about germs? Did everyone wash their hands before reaching into the jar? What soap did they use? How do you know if your delicious cookie hasn’t been infected? It’s not like you can force someone to stand guard with a bottle of hand sanitizer to ensure that everyone is disinfected before they reach their hand into the jar. Or can you?

Your network data is a lot like that jar of cookies. You want to ensure it is available for those trusted to be able to enjoy and use, and you want to keep it safe from infection. You also want to be able to see who else is reaching into your cookie jar, and make sure they aren’t eating all the cookies. You want to make sure you are protected from cookie thieves and other crumb snatchers.

The practice of architecting a network with different zones and segments based on usage, function, or location (for instance, configuring different network zones or VLANs for different uses such as isolating DMZ from LAN traffic) is nothing new. It has been a long standing cornerstone in any enterprise network. Over the years this segmentation theme has grown drastically in some enterprises, such that different hallways or floors of buildings are isolated on specific VLANs, or printers and servers are on different VLANs than end-user workstations. In some cases, there could be further segmenting of various WIFI networks, VoIP networks, or public accessible kiosks. In the Internet of Things model, everything needs to be connected, but, for controlling the connectivity, network segmentation is still a vastly favored and effective method.

However, there is a flaw to this mindset that many network admins and architects have overlooked, and that is the evolving security threat landscape. Most networks using forms of VLAN segmentation have deployed these VLANs on high-performance-core network switches to support the vast demand of connectivity and throughput performance. As such, the most common example one might see of this configuration is several VLANs combined with Layer 3 IP Interfaces built on the core switch. Once this is configured, it enables users to route directly over the switch from user networks to the server networks. While this is traditionally a very effective and standard approach to network communications, it has become an effective way for malware to communicate as well. In this approach, as there is typically no access control between the end-users and server segments, exploits, trojans, and malware can pass freely from zone to zone.

Consider the data as the cookies, and the server zone in which they sit as the cookie jar. You need to make sure every user that reaches their hand into that jar has used hand sanitizer to make sure they are not passing off any infections. You need to make sure the users reaching into that jar are who they say they are, and that they aren’t stealing your favorite cookie. You cannot rely on simple network access control or stateful packet inspection via access list on a core switch to protect your cookies. The threat landscape has evolved, and stateful rules that would permit file share access would also permit communications for the latest ransomware exploits. Don’t let the bad guys hold your cookies hostage.

By deploying the SonicWall Next-Gen Firewall with advanced Gateway Antivirus, Access Control, Application Inspection, Intrusion Prevention, and Advanced Persistent Threat Protection, in combination with a network architecture crafted for segmenting different network zones, you can successfully ensure that everyone’s hands have been disinfected. Keep your cookie jar clean from the latest botnets, exploits, intrusions, and malware. Read more on this topic with our “Executive Brief: Why you need network security segmentation to stop advance threats.”

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