Risking your private company data? Help secure it with TuxCare now

It’s an endless battle and the stakes are high: your organization’s information is at constant risk from threat actors ranging from your competitors looking for an advantage, to hacking groups that rake in the ransoms, through to state actors that proceed no matter the collateral damage.

Essentially, if it’s connected to the internet, it’s at risk – end of story. And in today’s connected world it probably means all your systems are at risk. Your private data can be taken for ransom and erased, or it could be stolen and exposed to the world.

It’s no wonder that the C-suite suffers continuous anxiety over the potential repercussions. Loss of income and reputation is just the start, a cyberattack can even threaten the viability of an organization as an attack causes lasting damage causing it to close.

Taking protective measures can be effective – but threat protection has challenges of its own. In this article we outline the scope of the problem – and explain how and why TuxCare’s range of Enterprise protection products can help you secure your organization’s workloads.

Contents

1. Threats are out of control
2. Nobody wants to take the risk
3. Even the most hardened companies suffer
4. Why live patching from TuxCare is such a key tool
5. We cover you with extended support too
6. A powerful combination

Threats are out of control

An enormous amount of money is going towards cybersecurity defense, companies spent more than $100bn on cybersecurity in 2020. But, despite that expenditure, there’s little sign that the battle is being won.

We know that organizations are failing to protect against cybersecurity risks, but the huge scale of this failure sometimes gets missed. According to one study in 2019, cybercrime is costing companies $2.9m per minute, with an overall cost of $1.5tn throughout the year.

The current geopolitical situation simply extends the existing epidemic of cybersecurity-related incidents, where published ransomware demands and publicly crippling systems are just the tip of the iceberg. There’s intellectual property theft too, and companies rarely report that.

Recent events around the LAPSUS$ group showed that the targets can include source code (as in the Microsoft case) or chip design schematics and code (as in the nVidia event). This can have serious commercial consequences as your intellectual property is suddenly thrust out into the open, accessible to unscrupulous competitors.

Nobody wants to take the risk

But even if your organization is small or medium-sized and involved in relatively uninteresting or run-of-the-mill activities, the truth is that nobody wants to take the risk of business disruption including blocks to regular operations because of some malicious attack that cripples production or disables service delivery.

That’s why, at all levels, cybersecurity is such a constant stress factor. For senior leaders, and for tech teams. And yes, IT practitioners will know which available tools can help guard against attack success, from cybersecurity awareness and multi-factor authentication through to advanced threat protection, and plain old patching.

The problem is that even if, let’s say, patching is the best tool to (if not eliminate) at least minimize the risk of exposure to these types of events, the reality is that these tools are not always implemented appropriately in a way that ensures cybersecurity.

Even the most hardened companies suffer

Part of the conundrum of the cybersecurity crisis is that the world’s wealthiest, most well-resourced companies are still falling victim to attack. Surely major companies such as Microsoft and Nvidia – victims of Lapsus$ – should be able to find the resources to maximize cyber defenses? Similarly, the victims of 2021s worst cyberattacks included big companies like SolarWinds, Colonial Pipeline, and Kesaya.

All of these companies are arguably in a financial position to protect themselves against attacks – but failed to do so. Despite billions in cybersecurity spending, and efforts to harden their systems against threats, the world’s major corporations suffered catastrophic attacks.

There are several reasons for this. One is simply the scale of the attack threat which is now of a size that what used to be effective defense strategies can now fail. But there are other factors too – and despite the financial firepower of an organization, resources come into play. And so does practical limitations.

Even large companies operate finite budgets, which limits the amount of resources tech teams can deploy. And no matter the field of business, there are practical restrictions – for example with patching, the disruption of the associated restarts and reboots can mean that patching is delayed beyond what would be considered a reasonable window.

Why live patching from TuxCare is such a key tool

Winning the cybersecurity war comes down to the right tools, and often these are cutting edge in nature. By implementing these measures you can reduce the risks at so many levels. The TuxCare suite can help in several ways.

First, TuxCare offers a unique enterprise-grade live patching tool called KernelCare Enterprise. It offers two key advantages. First, KernelCare operates in an automated manner – it automatically finds new patches, and then almost instantly installs patches upon release. There’s little lag involved, compared to the waiting implied by the usual human-driven processes where tech teams first need to hear about a vulnerability, then locate a patch, and then apply it.

But more importantly, KernelCare deploys these patches on the fly, without the need to reboot. There is, therefore, no disruption, and there is no need to schedule maintenance windows. Patches are deployed consistently, as soon as they are released without the need to fit patching around one’s practical requirements.

Our KernelCare service takes care of the Linux kernel, but we also offer a similar service for critical system libraries called LibraryCare and also for database systems, through our DataBaseCare service. TuxCare’s solutions even ensure live patching at the hypervisor level thanks to QEMUCare which ensures QEMU gets patched without the need to disrupt virtual machines.

TuxCare’s live patching solutions cover some of the most disruptive components to patch: for many of these components applying new versions will directly translate to restarts, with the associated operational implications. By using TuxCare you get consistent patching because you don’t need to manage your patching around your operations.

We cover you with extended support too

When we think about risky cybersecurity practices, relying on software that no longer carries official vendor support is possibly one of the most dangerous practices. When there is no vendor support it means that there are no new patches and fixes to cover security risks that emerge over time.

Unfortunately, due to a range of practical considerations, it’s not uncommon to see live workloads running on unsupported software, such as an unsupported version of a Linux distribution. It represents a significant security risk that can really leave senior IT execs with sleepless nights.

At TuxCare we’re aware of this risk, which is why we developed a service for older systems that are kept running past their expected end-of-life date for whatever reason. It’s called Extended Lifecycle Support, and essentially gives you the same patches and fixes you’d receive via official vendor support – but for several years beyond the official end of life. It extends your vendor support and ensures that your older workloads run safely.

A powerful combination

With Live Patching and Extended Lifecycle Support, you have a powerful combination that ensures that your systems are protected against the exploits that emerge from existing and future vulnerabilities.

TuxCare’s solutions and its related solutions run in the background, doing their work quietly. It even supports many systems that have lost vendor support. In combination, TuxCare’s enterprise services deliver consistent, rapid patching of vulnerabilities. We effectively take care of one of the most common cybersecurity risks – and ensures that C-level staff and their technology teams sleep much better at night.