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What DoH Can Really Do

Reading Time: ~ 3 min.

Fine-tuning privacy for any preference

A DNS filtering service that accommodates DNS over HTTPS (DoH) can strengthen an organization’s ability to control network traffic and turn away threats. DoH can offer businesses far greater control and flexibility over their privacy than the old system.

The most visible use of DNS is typically the browser, which is why all the usual suspects are leading the charge in terms of DoH adoption. This movement has considerable steam behind it and has extended beyond just applications as Microsoft, Apple and Google have all announced their intent to support DoH.

Encrypting DNS requests is an indisputable win for privacy-minded consumers looking to prevent their ISPs from snooping on and monetizing their browsing habits. Businesses, on the other hand, should not easily surrender this visibility since managing these requests adds value, helping to keep users from navigating to sites known to host malware and other threats.

Here are three examples of how.

1.  By enhancing DNS logging control

Businesses have varying motivations for tracking online behavior. For persistently troublesome users—those who continuously navigate to risky sites—it’s beneficial to exert some control over their network use or even provide some training on what it takes to stay safe online. It can also be useful in times of problematic productivity dips by helping to tell if users are spending inordinate amounts of time on social media, say.

On the other hand, for CEOs and other strategic business units, tracking online activity can be cause for privacy concerns. Too much detail into the network traffic of a unit tasked with investigating mergers and acquisitions may be unwanted, for example.

“If I’m the CEO of a company, I don’t want people paying attention to where I go on the internet,” says Webroot DNS expert Jonathan Barnett. “I don’t want people to know of potential deals I’m investigating before they become public.”

Logging too much user information can also be problematic from a data privacy perspective. Collecting or storing this information in areas with stricter laws, as in the European Union, can unnecessarily burden organizations with red tape.

“Essentially it exposes businesses to requirements concerning how they’re going to use that data, who has access to it and how long that data is preserved” says Barnett.

By optionally never logging user information and backing off DNS logging except when a request is deemed a security threat, companies maintain both privacy and security.

2. By allowing devices to echo locally

With DoH, visibility of DNS requests is challenging. The cumulative DNS requests made on a network help to enhance its security as tools such as SIEMs and firewalls leverage these requests by controlling access as well as corelating the requests with other logs and occurrences on the network. 

“Let’s say I’m on my network at the office and I make a DNS request,” explains Barnett. “I may want my DNS request to be seen by the network as well as fielded by my DNS filtering service. The network gets value out of DNS. If I see inappropriate DNS requests I can go and address the user or fix the device.”

Continuing to expose these DNS requests through an echo to the local network provides this, while the actual requests are secure and encrypted by the DNS protection agent using DoH. This option achieves the best of both worlds by adding the security of DoH to the security of the local network.

3. By allowing agents to fail open

DNS is instrumental to the functionality of the internet. So, the question is, what do we do when a filtered answer is not available? By failing over to the local network, it’s assured that the internet continues to function. However, there are times when filtering and privacy are more important than connectivity. Being able to choose if DNS requests can leak out to the local network helps you stay in control by choosing which is a priority.

 “Fail open functionality essentially allows admins to make a tradeoff between the protection offered by DNS filtering and the productivity hit that inevitably accompanies a lack of internet access,” says Barnett.

Privacy your way

The encryption of DoH enables options for fine-tuning privacy preferences while preserving the security benefits of DNS filtering. Those that must comply with the needs of privacy-centric users now have control over what is revealed and what is logged, while maintaining the benefits of communicating using DoH.

Click here to read related blogs covering the transition to DNS over HTTPS.

The post What DoH Can Really Do appeared first on Webroot Blog.

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Cyber Resilience for Business Continuity

Reading Time: ~ 2 min.

“Ten years ago, you didn’t see state actors attacking [small businesses]. But it’s happening now,” warns George Anderson, product marketing director at Carbonite + Webroot, OpenText companies.

Sadly, many of today’s managed service providers who serve small and medium-sized businesses now have to concern themselves with these very threats. Independent and state-sponsored hacking groups use sophisticated hacking tools (advanced persistent threats or APTs), to gain unauthorized access to networks and computers, often going undetected for months or even years at a time. In fact, according to the 2020 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, cyber-espionage is among the top patterns associated with breaches targeting businesses worldwide.

These attacks can be difficult even for highly sophisticated enterprise security teams to detect, stop or recover from. But all businesses, no matter their size, must be ready for them. As such, MSPs, themselves ranging in size from a few techs to a few hundred professionals, may find they need help protecting their SMB customers from APTs; that’s on top of the consistent onslaught of threats from ordinary, profit-motivated cyberattackers. That’s where the concept of cyber resilience comes in.

What does cyber resilience look like?

“Being [cyber] resilient – knowing that even if you’re knocked offline you can recover quickly – is essential for today’s businesses,” George says.

The reality is that today’s organizations have to accept a breach is pretty much inevitable. Their level of cyber resilience is the measure of the organization’s ability to keep the business running and get back to normal quickly. “It’s being able to absorb punches and get back on your feet, no matter what threatens,” as George put it in a recent podcast with Joe Panettieri, co-founder MSSP Alert & ChannelE2E.

Read more about how businesses can build a cyber resilient company culture.

How can businesses and MSPs achieve cyber resilience?

Because cyber resilience is about both defending against attacks and preparing for their inescapability,  a major component in a strong resilience strategy is the breadth of coverage a business has. In particular, having tested and proven backup and disaster recovery solutions in place is the first step in surviving a breach. If a business has reliable, real-time (or near real-time) recovery capabilities, then in the event of an attack, they could make it through barely skipping a beat.

Now, George has clarified that “no single solution can offer complete immunity against cyberattacks on its own.” To reduce the risk of events like data loss from accidental deletion, device theft or hardware failure, your clients need multiple layers of protection that secure their devices and data from multiple angles. Here are George’s top data protection tips:

Ultimately, George says ensuring business continuity for MSPs and the businesses they serve through comprehensive cyber resilience solutions is the primary goal of the Carbonite + Webroot division of OpenText.

“We want to up the advocacy and stop attacks from happening as much as we possibly can.  At  the  same time, when they inevitably do happen, we want to be able to help MSPs recover and limit lost time, reputation damage, and financial impact so businesses can keep functioning.”

To learn more about cyber resilience, click here.

The post Cyber Resilience for Business Continuity appeared first on Webroot Blog.

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MSP Insight: Netstar Shares Cyber Resilience Strategies for Remote Work

Reading Time: ~ 5 min.

Guest blog by Mit Patel, Managing Director of London based IT Support company, Netstar.

In this article, Webroot sits down with Mit Patel, Managing Director of London-based MSP partner, Netstar, to discuss the topic of remote work during a pandemic and tips to stay cyber resilient.

Why is it important to be cyber resilient, specifically when working remote?

It’s always important to be cyber resilient, but a lot has changed since the start of the COVID-19 lockdown that needs to be taken into consideration.

Remote work has posed new problems for businesses when it comes to keeping data secure. Since the start of lockdown, there has been a significant increase in phishing scams, ransomware attacks and malicious activity. Scammers now have more time to innovate and are using the widespread anxiety of coronavirus to target vulnerable people and businesses.

Moreover, the sudden shift in working practices makes the pandemic a prime time for cyber-attacks. Employees can no longer lean over to ask a colleague if they are unsure about the legitimacy of an email or web page. Instead, they need to be confident in their ability to spot and avoid potential security breaches without assistance.

Remote work represents a significant change that can’t be ignored when it comes to the security of your business. Instead, businesses need to be extra vigilant and prioritise their cyber resilience.

What does cyber resilience mean to you?

It’s important to differentiate between cyber resilience and cyber security. Cyber security is a component of cyber resilience, referring to the technologies and processes designed to prevent cyber-attacks. Whereas, I believe cyber resilience goes a step further, referring to the ability to prevent, manage and respond to cyber threats. Cyber resilience recognises that breaches can and do happen, finding effective solutions that mean businesses recover quickly and maintain functionality. The main components of cyber resilience include, training, blocking, protecting, backing up and recovering. When all these components are optimised, your cyber resilience will be strong, and your business will be protected and prepared for any potential cyber threats.

Can you share some proactive methods for staying cyber resilient when working remote?

Absolutely. But it’s important to note that no solution is 100% safe and that a layered approach to IT security is necessary to maximise protection and futureproof your business.

Get the right antivirus software. Standard antivirus software often isn’t enough to fully protect against viruses. Businesses need to consider more meticulous and comprehensive methods. One of our clients, a licensed insolvency practitioner, emphasized their need for software that will ensure data is protected and cyber security is maximised. As such, we implemented Webroot SecureAnywhere AnitVirus, receiving excellent client feedback, whereby the client stressed that they can now operate safe in the knowledge that their data is secure.

Protect your network. DNS Protection is a critical layer for your cyber resilience strategy. DNS will protect you against threats such as malicious links, hacked legitimate websites, phishing attacks, CryptoLocker and other ransomware attacks. We have implemented DNS Protection for many of our clients, including an asset management company that wanted to achieve secure networks with remote working capability. In light of the current remote working situation, DNS Protection should be a key consideration for any financial business looking to enhance their cyber resilience.

Ensure that you have a strong password policy. Keeping your passwords safe is fundamental for effective cyber resilience, but it may not be as simple as you think. Start by making sure that you and your team know what constitutes a strong password. At Netstar, we recommend having a password that:

  • Is over 10 characters long
  • Contains a combination of numbers, letters and symbols
  • Is unpredictable with no identifiable words (even if numbers or symbols are substituted for letters)

You should also have different passwords for different logins, so that if your security is compromised for any reason, hackers can only access one platform. To fully optimise your password policy, you need to consider multi-factor authentication. Multi-factor authentication goes a step further than the traditional username-password login. It requires multiple forms of identification in order to access a certain email account, website, CRM etc. This will include at least two of the following:

  • Something you know (e.g. a password)
  • Something you have (e.g. an ID badge)
  • Something you are (e.g. a fingerprint)

Ensure that you have secure tools for communication. Collaboration tools, like Microsoft Teams, are essential for remote working. They allow you to communicate with individuals, within teams and company-wide via audio calls, video calls and chat.

When it comes to cyber resilience, it’s essential that your team know what is expected of them. You should utilise collaboration tools to outline clear remote working guidance to all employees. For example, we would recommend discouraging employees from using personal devices for work purposes. The antivirus software installed on these devices is unlikely to be of the same quality as the software installed on work devices, so it could put your business at risk.

Furthermore, you need to be confident that your employees can recognise and deal with potential security threats without assistance. Individuals can no longer lean across to ask a colleague if they’re unsure of the legitimacy of something. They need to be able to do this alone. Security awareness training is a great solution for this. It will teach your team about the potential breaches to look out for and how to deal with them. This will cover a range of topics including, email phishing, social media scams, remote working risks and much more. Moreover, courses are often added and updated, meaning that your staff will be up to date with the latest scams and cyber threats.

Implement an effective backup and disaster recovery strategy

Even with every preventive measure in place, things can go wrong, and preparing for disaster is crucial for effective cyber resilience.

In fact, a lot of companies that lose data because of an unexpected disaster go out of business within just two years, which is why implementing an effective backup and disaster recovery strategy is a vital layer for your cyber resilience strategy.

First, we advise storing and backing up data using an online cloud-based system. When files are stored on the cloud, they are accessible from any device at any time. This is particularly important for remote working; it means that employees can collaborate on projects and access necessary information quickly and easily. It also means that, if your device is wiped or you lose your data, you can simply log in to your cloud computing platform and access anything you might need. Thus, data can easily be restored, and you’re protected from potential data loss.

Overall, disaster recovery plans should focus on keeping irreplaceable data safe. Consider what would happen to your data in the event of a disaster. If your office burned down, would you be confident that all your data would be protected?

You should be working with an IT support partner that can devise an effective and efficient disaster recovery plan for your business. This should set out realistic expectations for recovery time and align with your insurance policy to protect any loss of income. Their goal should be to get your business back up and running as quickly as possible, and to a high standard (you don’t want an IT support partner that cuts corners). Lastly, your IT support provider should regularly test your strategy, making sure that if disaster did occur, they could quickly and effectively restore the functionality of your business.

What else should fellow MSPs keep in mind during this trying time?

In the last four years, cyber resilience has become increasingly important; there are so many more threats out there, and so much valuable information that needs protecting.

We have happy clients because their machines run quickly, they experience less IT downtime, and they rarely encounter viruses or malicious activity. We know that we need to fix customers’ problems quickly, while also ensuring that problems don’t happen in the first place. Innovation is incredibly important to us, which is why we’ve placed a real focus on proactive client advisory over the last 24 months.

That’s where a strong cyber resilience strategy comes into play. MSPs need to be able to manage day-to-day IT queries, while also focusing on how technology can help their clients grow and succeed in the future.There is plenty of advice around the nuts and bolts of IT but it’s the advisory that gives clients the most value. As such, MSPs should ensure they think like a customer and make technological suggestions that facilitate overall business success for their clients.

The post MSP Insight: Netstar Shares Cyber Resilience Strategies for Remote Work appeared first on Webroot Blog.

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4 Ways MSPs Can Fine Tune Their Cybersecurity Go-To-Market Strategy

Reading Time: ~ 4 min.

Today’s work-from-home environment has created an abundance of opportunities for offering new cybersecurity services in addition to your existing business. With cyberattacks increasing in frequency and sophistication, business owners and managers need protection now more than ever.

MSPs are ideally positioned to deliver the solutions businesses need in order to adapt to the current environment. In this post, we’ll briefly summarize four ways to fine-tune your cybersecurity GTM strategy for capitalizing on the shifting demands of today’s market.

1. Build an Offering That Aligns with Your Customer’s Level of Cyber Resilience

A cybersecurity GTM strategy is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. Each customer has unique needs. Some operate with higher levels of remote workers than others. Some may have more sensitive data than others. And some will have lower tolerances to the financial impact of a data breach than others. So, understand the current state of your customer’s ability to adequately protect against, prevent, detect and respond to modern cyberthreats, and then focus on what aspects of cybersecurity are important to them.

2.  Leverage Multi-Layered Security

Today’s businesses need a cybersecurity strategy that defends against the methods and vectors of attack employed by today’s cybercriminals. This includes highly deceptive and effective tactics like Ransomware, phishing and business email compromise (BEC). These methods require a layered approach, where each layer addresses a different vulnerability within the larger network topology:

  • Perimeter – This is the logical edge of your customer’s network where potentially malicious data may enter or exit. Endpoints (wherever they reside), network connectivity points, as well as email and web traffic all represent areas that may need to be secured.
  • User – The employee plays a role when they interact with potentially malicious content. They can either be an unwitting victim or actually play a role in stopping attacks. This makes it necessary to address the user as part of your GTM strategy.
  • Endpoint – Consider the entire range of networked devices, including corporate and personal devices, laptops, tablets and mobile phones. Every endpoint needs to be protected.
  • Identity – Ensuring the person using a credential is the credential owner is another way to keep customers secure. 
  • Privilege – Limiting elevated access to corporate resources helps reduce the threat surface.
  • Applications – These are used to access information and valuable data. So, monitoring their use by those with more sensitive access is critical.
  • Data – inevitably, it’s the data that is the target. Monitoring who accesses what provides additional visibility into whether an environment is secure.

For each layer, there’s a specific tactic or vector that can form the basis of an attack, as well as specific solutions that address vulnerabilities at that layer.

3. Determine the Right Pricing Model

Pricing can make or break a managed service. Too high and the customer is turned off. Too low and there’s not enough perceived value. Pricing is the Goldilocks of the MSP world. It needs to be just right.

Unlike most of your other services, cybersecurity is a constantly moving target, which can make pricing a challenge. After all, a predictable service offering equates to a profitable one. The unpredictability of trying to keep your customers secure can therefore impact profitability. So, it’s imperative that you get pricing correct. Your pricing model needs to address a few things:

  • It needs to be easy to understand – Like your other services, pricing should be straightforward.
  • It should demonstrate value – The customer needs to see how the service justifies the expense.
  • It needs to focus on protection – Because you have no ability to guess the scope and frequency of attacks, it’s important to keep the services centered around preventive measures.
  • Consider all your costs – Cost is always a factor for profitability. As you determine pricing, keep every cost factor in mind.

4. Rethink How You Engage Prospects

Assuming you’re going to be looking for new customers with this service offering (in addition to selling it to existing customers), it’s important to think about how to engage prospects. The days of cold outreach are long gone as 90% of buyers don’t respond to cold calls3. Instead, today’s buyer is looking to establish connections with those they believe can assist their business. Social media sites have become the primary vehicle for a number of aspects of the buyer’s journey:

Build a Cybersecurity GTM Strategy that Works

The biggest challenge with bringing a cybersecurity service to market is meeting the expectations of the prospective customer. Demonstrate value from the very first touch through social media engagement and content. Meet their unique needs with comprehensive solutions that address all their security vulnerabilities. And finally, make sure your pricing is simple, straightforward and easy to understand.

The post 4 Ways MSPs Can Fine Tune Their Cybersecurity Go-To-Market Strategy appeared first on Webroot Blog.

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10 Ways a Commercial DNS Filtering Service Improves Your Cyber Resilience

Reading Time: ~ 3 min.

If you’ve landed on this blog, then there’s a good chance you’re already aware that DNS is undergoing a major overhaul. DNS 2.0—aka encrypted DNS, DNS over HTTPS, or DoH—is a method for encrypting DNS requests with the same HTTPS standard used by numerous websites, such as online banking, to protect your privacy when dealing with sensitive information display.

While there’s no doubt that DoH offers incredible privacy benefits, it also has the potential to be a major security risk for businesses. That’s because DoH effectively wraps DNS requests in encryption protocols, which prevent traditional DNS or web filtering security solutions from being able to filter requests to malicious, risky, or otherwise unacceptable or inappropriate websites.

Although some DNS filtering solutions are now making moves to modernize, many of them simply provide the option to either allow or block all DoH requests, rather than offering any sort of nuanced control.

“That’s really where Webroot® DNS Protection differs from the competition,” says George Anderson, product marketing director at Webroot, an OpenText company. “Ours is currently the only DNS security product that lets businesses fully leverage DoH and its privacy benefits. Our solution encrypts data using HTTPS to route DNS requests through secure Webroot resolvers to prevent eavesdropping, manipulation, or exploitation of data.”

How a Commercial DNS Filtering Service is a Game Changer

According to George, the cyber resilience benefits of using a private, commercial DNS security service that fully supports DoH are numerous. When we asked him to narrow down to his top 10, here’s what he had to say.

  1. First, it provides a very secure, reliable, multi-point of presence connection to the internet with high availability.
  2. Second, trusted DNS resolvers process ALL of your internet requests—we are talking any user, server, or application using the internet with a single, tamperproof choke point for admin and policy request controls.
  3. Third is confidentiality. It keeps your organization’s internet requests private and invisible to malicious actors, your ISP, and so-called “free” DNS resolvers—all of whom can abuse this data.
  4. It then gives your organization full visibility and log access to all of your internet traffic requests, allowing for security analysis and management through reports or ingestion via a SIM/SIEM.
  5. With Webroot, you also get transparent security policy filtering of both encrypted (DoH) and clear text (DNS) requests.
  6. Webroot BrightCloud® threat intelligence data automatically applies the latest and most accurate internet domain security in real time to every outbound request, regardless of source, meaning we stop the majority of malicious and suspicious request responses that could have led to a breach.
  7. A commercial service also provides the flexibility to manage internet access for guest/public WiFi networks, IP address ranges, user groups down to individual user, and lets you filter using a wide range of domain categories.
  8. In the context of WFH, if the user is connected to the internet via VPN or a local DNS agent on their device, then a DNS filtering solution protects them no matter where they connect.
  9. Also, from a WFH perspective, you need your DNS security service to integrate with the majority of VPNs and work easily with your other security and network technologies.
  10. Lastly, and definitely key your organization, a commercial DNS security service can offer great visibility into internet usage with scheduled executive reporting that lets you oversee internet use, assist with HR initiatives, and help ensure compliance.

As DoH continues to grow in adoption, George advises all businesses to be proactive about their cyber resilience strategies. Particularly as more work is conducted outside of more traditional office settings, it’s critical to understand and embrace the value that a flexible cloud gateway—whose protection is not confined to a physical network—can offer.

“Ultimately, in a world where many companies continue to support remote workers, businesses really can’t afford not to use a filtering solution that provides both privacy and security control.”

– George Anderson, product marketing director at Webroot, an OpenText company

Learn more about Webroot’s answer to DNS filtering or take a free trial of Webroot DNS Protection here.

The post 10 Ways a Commercial DNS Filtering Service Improves Your Cyber Resilience appeared first on Webroot Blog.