Post Syndicated from Jeremy Milk original https://www.backblaze.com/blog/should-i-hire-a-msp/

Every business faces an ongoing IT question—when to manage some or all IT services or projects in-house and when to outsource them. Maybe you’re facing a new challenge, be it safeguarding against next-gen threats or deploying a new tech stack. Maybe a windfall of growth makes small IT problems bigger. Maybe your IT manager leaves suddenly, and you’re left in the lurch (true story). Or it may just be a desire to focus headcount elsewhere, difficulty finding the right talent, or a push for more efficiency.

If you’re nodding your head yes to any of the above, the answer may be to consider outsourcing a part of the project, or all of it, to a managed service provider. Especially as technologies and threats evolve, how you manage IT resources matters.

In this post, we explain why businesses should be thinking about IT management early on, and when and why hiring a managed service provider (MSP) makes sense when you don’t want to resource IT in-house.

What Is a MSP?

MSPs are companies that provide outsourced IT services to businesses. These services can range from offering light support as needed to installing and running new workflows and scalable systems ongoing. They can even help by leading technical build-outs as companies grow and move into new facilities.

A business can hire a MSP to provide help with one task that they would prefer not to be handled in-house, like data backup or disaster recovery, or they can outsource to an MSP to run their entire IT infrastructure.

When You Need More Than a Band-aid to Fix the Problem

Back to that true story I hinted at above, here’s a personal example from my past when I decided to hire a MSP: Many years ago, I was director of strategy and operations for a boutique management consulting firm when our sole IT manager rather abruptly decided to exit the organization. Before leaving, he emailed me—a fairly non-technical person at the time—instructions for maintaining on-premises servers and laptops in various states of readiness, along with advice that I shouldn’t let company leadership switch from PCs to Macs because it would wreak havoc. At this time, we had also recently deployed Microsoft Sharepoint for document management and storage, but the team hadn’t gotten used to it yet—they still relied on hard drives and emailing copies of important documents to themselves to back them up. What could we do?

My first thought had been to backfill IT management. Yet the team and I didn’t feel we had the knowledge to effectively assess candidates’ skills. We also saw the need and skillset evolving over time, so calling upon a trusted advisor to help vet candidates likely wasn’t the solution. Here were our key criteria:

• Competence to solve immediate problems.
• Vision to plan and execute for the future.
• Internal customer orientation.
• Cultural fit.
• Willingness to be called upon nights and weekends.

It was a big ask.

And we also weren’t sure if we needed a full-time resource forever. So instead of going that route, I started to explore outsourcing our IT infrastructure management and was happy to find MSPs that could effectively handle the organization’s requirements. The MSP that we ultimately chose brought executional excellence, strategic thinking, and high-quality service. I heard nothing but positive feedback from the greater consulting team—team members felt more supported and confident in using technology solutions. As a bonus, choosing a MSP to handle our IT management yielded around 25% IT budget savings compared to hiring a full-time employee and buying or deploying tools ourselves.

The MSP support model is a great choice both in the short or long term depending on a company’s needs, but it might not be right for every business. How do you know if hiring a MSP is right for you?

What to Consider When Hiring a MSP

There are a number of reasons that a company could outsource their IT management to a MSP. When weighing the options, consider the following:

• What services do you need?
• What skills do you have or wish to have in-house?
• How important are the services and skills you need (e.g. security versus less consequential services)?
• How long will you need support for these services and skills (e.g. ongoing versus one time)?
• What are your other considerations (e.g. budget, headcount, etc.)?

Services and Skills

MSPs offer a wide range of services and specialties, from isolated tasks like disaster recovery to ongoing projects like IT infrastructure management. The scope of your needs can help you decide whether hiring or relying on internal support can provide you with appropriate coverage, or whether outsourcing to a MSP will provide the necessary expertise. Some MSPs also specialize in specific industries with specific IT needs.

Security

Data security has never been more important, and the consequences of recovering from a cybersecurity attack are costly. If you already have a ransomware protection and disaster recovery system covered in-house, then you’re all set. On the other hand, if you’re not entirely confident that there is a system in place protecting your company data and backing it up, or if you feel that you or your team aren’t able to keep up with threats as they are evolving, a MSP can help take over that effort for you.

A MSP can identify any preventative or maintenance issues and address them before any data loss occurs. MSPs can also offer ongoing security monitoring and scan for vulnerabilities in your network, keeping your business ahead of a possible attack. Additionally, MSPs can help with regularly maintaining a company’s network so these important security measures don’t fall to the wayside.

Support Duration

A MSP can provide one-time assistance or setup for a specific service you need, or longer-term management depending on the scope of the project. If your business requires 24/7 support, some remote MSP services are available for continuous assistance. Many MSPs offer real-time monitoring and management to ensure that any issues can be identified and fixed before they pose a threat to business operations.

Budget

Hiring an expert to handle IT management in-house can be costly—not to mention building and maintaining a team. Hiring a MSP can free up resources and save money in the long run with predictable, fixed prices.

Another important budgetary factor to consider is the cost of downtime in the case of a ransomware attack. While ransom payments continue to be one of the highest costs to businesses, the true cost of ransomware includes downtime, people hours, device costs, network costs, lost opportunities, and more. MSPs that provide business continuity services can help minimize these costs and ensure they’re avoided in the future.

Is a MSP Right for Your Business?

Are you considering getting help from a MSP with your IT management, or have you turned to one in the past? Comment with your questions or experience working with a MSP below.

The post Should I Hire a MSP? appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup.

Post Syndicated from Molly Clancy original https://www.backblaze.com/blog/what-are-containers/

You’re probably familiar with containers if you’re even remotely involved in software development or systems administration. In their 2020 survey, the Cloud Native Computing Foundation found that the use of containers in production has increased to 92%, up 300% since their first survey in 2016.

But, even if containers are a regular part of your day-to-day life, or if you, like me, are a worthy student just trying to understand what an operating system kernel is, it helps to have an understanding of some container basics.

Today, we’re explaining what containers are, how they’re used, and how cloud storage fits into the container picture—all in one neat and tidy containerized blog post package. (And, yes, the kernel is important, so we’ll get to that, too).

What Are Containers?

Containers are packaged units of software that contain all of the dependencies (e.g. binaries, libraries, programming language versions, etc.) they need to run no matter where they live—on a laptop, in the cloud, or in an on-premises data center. That’s a fairly technical definition, so you might be wondering, “OK, but what are they really?”

Well, typically, when it comes to naming things, the tech world is second only to the world of pharmaceuticals in terms of absurdity (I see your Comirnaty, and I’ll raise you a Kubernetes, good sir… More on that later.). But sometimes, we get it right, and containers are one example.

The generally accepted definition of the term applies almost exactly to what the technology does.

A container, generally = a receptacle for holding goods; a portable compartment in which freight is placed (as on a train or ship) for convenience of movement.

A container in software development = a figurative “receptacle” for holding software. The second part of the definition applies even better—shipping containers are often used as a metaphor to describe what containers do. In shipping, instead of stacking goods all higgledy piggledy, goods are packed into standard-sized containers that fit on whatever is hauling them—a ship, a train, or a trailer.

Likewise, instead of “shipping” an unwieldy mess of code, including the required operating system, containers package software into lightweight units that share the same operating system (OS) kernel and can run anywhere—on a laptop, on a server, in the cloud, etc.

Compared to older virtualization technology, namely virtual machines which are measured in gigabytes, containers are only megabytes in size. That means you can run quite a few of them on a given computer or server much like you can stack many containers onto a ship.

Indeed, the founders of Docker, the software that sparked widespread container adoption, looked to the port of Oakland for inspiration. Former Docker CEO, Ben Golub, explained in an interview with InfoWorld, “We could see all the container ships coming into the port of Oakland, and we were talking about the value of the container in the world of shipping. The fact it was easier to ship a car from one side of the world than to take an app from one server to another, that seemed like a problem ripe for solving.” In fact, it’s right there in their logo.

And that is exactly what containers, mainly via Docker’s popularity, did—they solved the problem of environment inconsistency for developers. Before containers became widely used, moving software between environments meant things broke, a lot. If a developer wrote an app on their laptop, then moved it into a testing environment on a server, for example, everything had to be the same—same versions of the programming language, same permissions, same database access, etc. If not, you would have had a very sad app.

Virtualization 101

Containers work their magic by way of virtualization. Virtualization is the process of creating a simulated computing environment that’s abstracted from the physical computing hardware—essentially a computer-generated computer, also referred to as a software-defined computer.

The first virtualization technology to really take off was the virtual machine (VM). A VM sits atop a hypervisor—a lightweight software layer that allows multiple operating systems to run in tandem on the same hardware. VMs allow developers and system administrators to make the most of computing hardware. Before VMs, each application had to run on its own server, and it probably didn’t use the server’s full capacity. After VMs, you could use the same server to run multiple applications, increasing efficiency and lowering costs.

Containers vs. Virtual Machines

While VMs increase hardware efficiency, each VM requires its own OS and a virtualized copy of the underlying hardware. Because of this, VMs can take up a lot of system resources, and they’re slow to start up.

Containers, on the other hand, virtualize the underlying hardware and the OS. Because they don’t include their own OS, containers are much smaller and faster to spin up than VMs. Want to know more? Check out our deep dive into the differences between VMs and containers.

The Benefits of Containers

Containers allow developers and system administrators to develop, test, and deploy software and applications faster and more efficiently than older virtualization technologies like VMs. The benefits of containers include:

1. Portability: Containers include all of the dependencies they need to run in any environment, provided that environment includes the appropriate OS. This reduces the errors and bugs that arise when moving applications between different environments, increasing portability.
2. Size: Containers share OS resources and don’t include their own OS image, making them lightweight—megabytes compared to VMs’ gigabytes. As such, one machine or server can support many containers.
3. Speed: Again, because they share OS resources and don’t include their own OS image, containers can be spun up in seconds compared to VMs which can take minutes to spin up.
4. Resource efficiency: Similar to VMs, containers allow developers to make the best use of hardware and software resources.
5. Isolation: Also similar to VMs, with containers, different applications or even component parts of a singular application can be isolated such that issues like excessive load or bugs on one don’t impact others.

Container Use Cases

Containers are nothing if not versatile, so they can be used for a wide variety of use cases. However, there are a few instances where containers are especially useful:

1. Enabling microservices architectures: Before containers, applications were typically built as all-in-one units or “monoliths.” With their portability and small size, containers changed that, ushering in the era of microservices architecture. Applications could be broken down into their component “services,” and each of those services could be built in its own container and run independently of the other parts of the application. For example, the code for your application’s search bar can be built separately from the code for your application’s shopping cart, then loosely coupled to work as one application.
2. Supporting modern development practices: Containers and the microservices architectures they enable paved the way for modern software development practices. With the ability to split applications into their component parts, each part could be developed, tested, and deployed independently. Thus, developers can build and deploy applications using modern development approaches like DevOps, continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD), and agile development.
3. Facilitating hybrid cloud and multi-cloud approaches: Because of their portability, containers enable developers to utilize hybrid cloud and/or multi-cloud approaches. Containers allow applications to move easily between environments—from on-premises to the cloud or between different clouds.
4. Accelerating cloud migration or cloud-native development: Existing applications can be refactored using containers to make them easier to migrate to modern cloud environments. Containers also enable cloud-native development and deployment.

Container Tools

The two most widely recognized container tools are Docker and Kubernetes. They’re not the only options out there, but in their 2021 survey, Stack Overflow found that nearly 50% out of 76,000+ respondents use Docker and 17% use Kubernetes. But what do they do?

1. What Is Docker?

Container technology has been around for a while in the form of Linux containers or LXC, but the widespread adoption of containers happened only in the past five to seven years with the introduction of Docker.

Docker was launched in 2013 as a project to build single-application LXC containers, introducing several changes to LXC that make containers more portable and flexible to use. It later morphed into its own container runtime environment. At a high level, Docker is a Linux utility that can efficiently create, ship, and run containers.

Docker introduced more standardization to containers than previous technologies and focused on developers, specifically, making it the de facto standard in the developer world for application development.

2. What Is Kubernetes?

As containerization took off, many early adopters found themselves facing a new problem: how to manage a whole bunch of containers. Enter: Kubernetes. Kubernetes is an open-source container orchestrator. It was developed at Google (deploying billions of containers per week is no small task) as a “minimum viable product” version of their original cluster orchestrator, ominously named Borg. Today, it is managed by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, and it helps automate management of containers including provisioning, load balancing, basic health checks, and scheduling.

Kubernetes allows developers to describe the desired state of a container deployment using YAML files (YAML stands for Yet Another Markup Language, which is yet another winning example of naming things in tech.). The YAML file uses declarative language to tell Kubernetes “this is what this container deployment should look like” and Kubernetes does all the grunt work of creating and maintaining that state.

Containers + Storage: What You Need to Know

Containers are inherently ephemeral or stateless. They get spun up, and they do their thing. When they get spun down, any data that was created while they were running is destroyed with them. But most applications are stateful, and need data to live on even after a given container goes away.

Object storage is inherently scalable. It enables the storage of massive amounts of unstructured data while still maintaining easy data accessibility. For containerized applications that depend on data scalability and accessibility, it’s an ideal solution for keeping stateful data stateful.

There are three essential use cases where object storage works hand in hand with containerized applications:

1. Backup and Disaster Recovery: Tools like Docker and Kubernetes enable easy replication of containers, but replication doesn’t replace traditional backup and disaster recovery just as sync services aren’t a good replacement for backing up the data on your laptop, for example. With object storage, you can replicate your entire environment and back it up to the cloud. There’s just one catch: some object storage providers have retention minimums, sometimes up to 90 days. If you’re experimenting and iterating on your container architecture, or if you use CI/CD methods, your environment is constantly changing. With retention minimums, that means you might be paying for previous iterations much longer than you want to. (Shameless plug: Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage is calculated hourly, with no minimum retention requirement.)
2. Primary Storage: You can use a cloud object storage repository to store your container images, then when you want to deploy them, you can pull them into the compute service of your choice.
3. Origin Storage: If you’re serving out high volumes of media, or even if you’re just hosting a simple website, object storage can serve as your origin store coupled with a CDN for serving out content globally. For example, CloudSpot, a SaaS platform that serves professional photographers, moved to a Kubernetes cluster environment and connected it to their origin store in Backblaze B2, where they now keep 120+ million files readily accessible for their customers.

Need Object Storage for Your Containerized Application?

Now that you have a handle on what containers are and what they can do, you can make decisions about how to build your applications or structure your internal systems. Whether you’re contemplating moving your application to the cloud, adopting a hybrid or multi-cloud approach, or going completely cloud native, containers can help you get there. And with object storage, you have a data repository that can keep up with your containerized workloads.

Ready to connect your application to scalable, S3-compatible object storage? You can get started today, and the first 10GB are free.

The post What Are Containers? appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup.

Post Syndicated from Molly Clancy original https://www.backblaze.com/blog/how-to-add-object-lock-to-your-it-security-policy/

Object Lock is a powerful backup protection tool that makes data immutable. It allows you to store objects using a Write Once, Read Many (WORM) model, meaning after it’s written, data cannot be modified or deleted for a defined period of time. Any attempts to manipulate, copy, encrypt, change, or delete the file will fail during that time. The files may be accessed, but no one can change them, including the file owner or whoever set the Object Lock.

This makes Object Lock a great tool as part of a robust cybersecurity program. However, when Object Lock is used inconsistently, it can consume unnecessary storage resources. For example, if you set a retention period of one year, but you don’t end up needing to keep the data that long, you’re out of luck. Once the file is locked, it cannot be deleted. That’s why it’s important to develop a consistent approach.

In this post, we’ll outline five different use cases for Object Lock and explain how to add Object Lock to your IT security policies to ensure your company gets all the protection Object Lock offers while managing your storage footprint.

When to Use Object Lock: Five Use Cases

There are at least five situations where Object Lock is helpful. Keep in mind that these requirements may change over time. Compliance requirements, for example, might be relatively simple today. However, those requirements may become more complex if your company onboards customers in a highly regulated sector like finance or health care.

1. Reducing Cybersecurity Risk

Cybersecurity threats are increasing. In 2015, there were approximately 1,000 ransomware attacks per day, but this figure has increased to more than 4,000 per day since 2016, according to the U.S. government. To be clear, using Object Lock does not prevent a ransomware attack. Instead, data protected by Object Lock is immutable. In the event of a ransomware attack, it cannot be altered by malicious software. Ultimately, your organization may be able to recover from a cyber attack more quickly by restoring data protected by Object Lock.

2. Meet Compliance Requirements With Object Lock

Some industries have extensive record retention requirements. Preserving digital records with Object Lock is one way to fulfill those expectations. Several regulatory and legal requirements direct companies to retain records for a certain period of time.

• Banks insured by FDIC generally must retain account records for five years after the “account is closed or becomes dormant.” Beyond FDIC, there are many other state and federal compliance requirements on the financial industry. Preserving data with Object Lock can be helpful in these situations.
• In the health care field, requirements vary across the country. The American Health Information Management Association points out that retaining health records for up to 10 years or longer may be needed.
• You may also have to retain data for tax purposes. The IRS generally suggests keeping tax-related records for up to seven years. However, there are nuances to these requirements (i.e., shorter retention periods in some cases and potentially longer retention periods for property records).

3. Fulfilling a Legal Hold

When a company is sued, preserving all relevant records is wise. An article published by the American Bar Association points out that failing to preserve records may “undermine a litigant’s claims and defenses.” Given that many companies keep many (if not all) of their records in digital form, preserving digital records is essential. In this situation, using Object Lock to preserve records may be beneficial.

4. Meeting a Retention Period for Other Needs

Higher-risk business activities may benefit from preserving data with Object Lock. For example, an engineering company working on designing a bridge might use Object Lock to maintain records during the project. In software development, new versions of software may become unstable. Restoring to a previous version of the software, preserved from tampering or accidental deletion with Object Lock, can be valuable.

5. Replacing an LTO Tape System

In an LTO tape system, data immutability is conferred by a physical “air gap,” meaning there’s a literal gap of air between production data and backups stored on tape—the two are not physically connected in any way. Object Lock creates a virtual air gap, replacing the need for expensive physical infrastructure.

How to Add Object Lock to Your Security Policy

No matter the reason for implementing Object Lock, consistent usage is key. To encourage consistent usage, consider adding Object Lock as an option in your company’s security policy. Use the following tips as a guide on when and how to use Object Lock.

• Set Up Object Lock Governance: Assign responsibility to a single manager in IT or IT security to develop Object Lock governance policies. Then, periodically review Object Lock governance and update retention policies as necessary as the security landscape evolves.
• Evaluate the Application of Object Lock in Your Context: Are you subject to retention regulations? Do you have certain data you need to keep for an extended period of time? Take an inventory of your data and any specific retention considerations you may want to keep in mind when implementing Object Lock.
• Document Object Lock Requirements: There are different ways to explain and communicate Object Lock guidelines. If your IT security policy focuses on high-level principles, consider adding Object Lock to a data management procedure instead.
• Add Object Lock to Your Policy for Cloud Tools: Review your cloud solutions to see which providers support Object Lock. Only a few storage platforms currently offer the feature, but if your provider is one of them, you can enable Object Lock and specify the length of time an object should be locked in the storage provider’s user interface, via your backup software, or by using API calls.
• Use Change Management to Promote the Change to the Policy Internally: Writing Object Lock into your policy is a good step, but it is not the end of the process. You also need to communicate the change internally and ensure employees who need to use Object Lock are trained on the Object Lock policies and procedures.
• Testing and Monitoring: Periodically review if Object Lock is being used per the established policies and if data is being properly protected as outlined. As a starting point, review Object Lock usage quarterly and spot check data to ensure it’s locked.

Adding Object Lock to Your Security Tool Kit

Object Lock is a helpful way to protect data from being changed. It can help your organization meet records retention requirements and make it easier to recover from a cyber attack. It’s one tool that can strengthen a robust IT security practice, but you first need a well-developed backup program to keep your company operating in the event of a disruption. To find out more about emerging backup strategies, check out our explainer, “What’s the Diff: 3-2-1 vs. 4-3-2-1-0 vs. 4-3-2” to keep your valuable company data safe. And, for a comprehensive ransomware prevention playbook, check out our Complete Guide to Ransomware.

The post How to Add Object Lock to Your IT Security Policy appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup.

Post Syndicated from Molly Clancy original https://www.backblaze.com/blog/crash-cors-a-guide-for-using-cors/

The dreaded CORS error is the bane of many a web developer’s day-to-day life. Even for experts, it can be eternally frustrating. Today, we’re digging into CORS, starting with the basics and working up to sharing specific code samples to help you enable CORS for your web development project. What is CORS? Why do you need it? And how can you enable it to save time and resources?

We’ll answer those questions so you can put the CORS bane behind you.

What Is CORS?

CORS stands for cross-origin resource sharing. To define CORS, we first need to explain its counterpoint—the same-origin policy, or SOP. The SOP is a policy that all modern web browsers use for security purposes, and it dictates that a web address with a given origin can only request data from the same origin. CORS is a mechanism that allows you to bypass the SOP so you can request data from websites with different origins.

Let’s break that down piece by piece, then we’ll get into why you’d want to bypass the same-origin policy in the first place.

What Is an Origin?

All websites have an origin, and it is defined by the protocol, domain, and port of its URL.

You’re probably familiar with the working parts of a URL, but they each have a different function. The protocol, also known as the scheme, identifies the method for exchanging data. Typical protocols are http, https, or mailto. The domain, also known as the hostname, is a specific webpage’s unique identifier. You may not be as familiar with the port as it’s not normally visible in a typical web address. Just like a port on the water, it’s the connection point where information comes in and out of a server. Different port numbers specify the types of information the port handles.

When you understand what an origin is, the “cross-origin” part of CORS makes a bit more sense. It simply means web addresses with different origins. In web addresses with the same origin, the protocol, domain, and port all match.

What Is the Same-origin Policy?

The same-origin policy was developed and implemented as a security measure against a specific website vulnerability that was discovered and exploited in the 2000s. Before the same-origin policy was in place, bad actors could use cookies stored in people’s browsers to make requests to other websites illicitly. This is known as cross-site request forgery, or CSRF, pronounced “sea surf.” It’s also known as “session riding.” Tubular.

Let’s say you log in to Netflix on your laptop to add Ridley Scott’s 1982 classic, “Blade Runner” to your queue, as one does. You click “Remember Me” so you don’t have to log in every time, and your browser keeps your credentials stored in a cookie so that the Netflix site knows you are logged in no matter where you navigate within their site.

Afterwards, you’re bored, so you fall down an internet rabbit hole wondering why “Blade Runner” is called “Blade Runner” when there are few blades and little running. You end up on a site about samurai swords that happens to be malicious—it has a script in its code that uses your authentication credentials stored in that cookie to make a request to Netflix that can change your address and add a bunch of DVDs to your queue (also, it’s 2006, and this actually happened). You’ve become a victim of cross-site request forgery.

To thwart this threat, browsers enabled the same-origin policy to prohibit requests from one origin to another.

Why Do You Need CORS?

While the same-origin policy helped stop bad actors from nefariously accessing websites, it posed a problem—sometimes you need or want assets and data from different origins. This is where the “resource sharing” part of cross-origin resource sharing comes in.

CORS allows you to set rules governing which origins are allowed to bypass the same-origin policy so you can share resources from those origins.

For example, you might host your website’s front end at www.catblaze.com, but you host your back-end API at api.catblaze.com. Or, you might need to display a bunch of cat videos stored in Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage on your website, www.catblaze.com (more on that below).

Do I Need CORS?

Let’s say you have a website, and you dabble in some coding. You’re probably thinking, “I can already use images and stuff from other websites. Do I need CORS?” And you’re right to ask. Most browsers allow simple http requests like get, head, and post without requiring CORS rules to be set in advance. Embedding images from other sites, for example, typically requires a get request to grab that data from a different origin. If that’s all you need, you’re good to go. You can use simple requests to embed images and other data from other websites without worrying about CORS.

But some assets, like fonts or iframes, might not work—then, you can use CORS—but if you’re a casual user, you can probably stop here.

Do I Need CORS With Cloud Storage?

People use cloud storage for all manner of data storage purposes, and most do not need to use CORS to access resources stored in a cloud instance. For example, you can make API calls to Backblaze B2 from any computer to use the resources you have stored in your storage buckets. If you’re running a mobile application and transferring data back and forth to Backblaze B2, for instance, you don’t need CORS. The mobile application doesn’t rely on a web browser.

You only need CORS if you’re specifically running code inside of a web browser and you need to make API calls from the browser to Backblaze B2. For example, if you’re using an in-browser video player and want to play videos stored in Backblaze B2.

Fortunately, if you do need CORS, Backblaze B2 allows you to configure CORS to your exact specifications while other cloud providers may have completely open CORS policies. Why is that important? An open CORS policy makes you vulnerable to CSRF attacks. To continue with the video example, let’s say you’re storing a bunch of videos that you want to make available on your website. If they’re stored with a cloud provider that has an open CORS policy, you have two choices—open or closed. You pick open so that your website visitors can call up those videos on demand, but that leaves you vulnerable to a CSRF that could allow a bad actor to download your videos. With Backblaze, you can specify the exact CORS rules you need.

If you are using Backblaze B2 to store data that will be displayed in a browser, or you’re just curious, read on to learn more about using CORS. CORS has saved developers lots of time and money by reducing maintenance effort and code complexity.

How Does CORS Work?

Unlike simple get, head, and post requests, some types of requests can alter the origin’s data. These include requests like delete, put, and patch. Any type of request that could alter the origin’s data will trigger CORS, as will simple requests that have non-standard http headers or requests in certain programming languages like AJAX. When CORS is triggered, the browser sends what’s called a preflight request to see if the CORS rules allow the request.

What Is a Preflight Request?

A preflight request, also known as an options request, asks the server if it’s okay to make the CORS request. If the preflight request comes back successfully, then the browser will complete the actual request. Few other systems in computing do this by default, so it’s important to understand when using CORS.

A preflight request has the following headers:

• origin: Identifies the origin from which the CORS request originates.
• access-control-request-method: Identifies the method of the CORS request.
• access-control-request-headers: Lists the headers that will be included in the CORS request.

The web server then responds with the following headers:

• access-control-allow-origin: Confirms the origin is allowed.
• access-control-allow-method: Confirms the methods are allowed.
• access-control-allow-headers: Confirms the headers are allowed.

The values that follow these headers must match the values specified in the preflight request. If so, the browser will permit the actual CORS request to come through.

Setting CORS Up: An Example

To provide an example for setting CORS up, we’ll use Backblaze B2. By default, the Backblaze B2 servers will say “no” to preflight requests. Adding CORS rules to your bucket tells Backblaze B2 which preflight requests to approve. You can enable CORS in the Backblaze B2 UI if you only need to allow one, specific origin or if you want to be able to share the bucket with all origins.

If you need more specificity than that, you can select the option for custom rules and use the Backblaze B2 command line tool.

When a CORS preflight or cross-origin download is requested, Backblaze B2 evaluates the CORS rules on the file’s bucket. Rules may be set at the time you create the bucket with b2_create_bucket or updated on an existing bucket using b2_update_bucket.

CORS rules only affect Backblaze B2 operations in their “allowedOperations” list. Every rule must specify at least one in their allowedOperations.

CORS Rule Structure

Each CORS rule may have the following parameters:

Required:

• corsRuleName: A name that humans can recognize to identify the rule.
• allowedOrigins: A list of the origins you want to allow.
• allowedOperations: A list that specifies the operations you want to allow, including:
  • B2 Native API Operations:
  • B2_download_file_by_name
  • B2_download_file_by_id
  • B2_upload_file
  • B2_upload_part
  • S3 Compatible Operations:
  • S3_delete
  • S3_get
  • S3_head
  • S3_post
  • S3_put

Optional:

• allowedHeaders: A list of headers that are allowed in a preflight request’s Access-Control-Request-Headers value.
• exposeHeaders: A list of headers that may be exposed to an application inside the client.
• maxAgeSeconds: The maximum number of seconds that a browser can cache the response to a preflight request.

The following sample configuration allows downloads, including range requests, from any https origin and will tell browsers that it’s okay to expose the ‘x-bz-content-sha1’ header to the web page.

[
{
"corsRuleName": "downloadFromAnyOrigin",
"allowedOrigins": [
"https"
],
"allowedHeaders": ["range"],
"allowedOperations": [
"b2_download_file_by_id",
"b2_download_file_by_name"
],
"exposeHeaders": ["x-bz-content-sha1"],
"maxAgeSeconds": 3600
}
]

You may add up to 100 CORS rules to each of your buckets. Backblaze B2 uses the first rule that matches the request. A CORS preflight request matches a rule if the origin header matches one of the rule’s allowedOrigins, if the operation is in the rule’s allowedOperations, and if every value in the Access-Control-Request-Headers is in the rule’s allowedHeaders.

Using CORS: Examples in Action

Using your browser’s console, you can copy and paste the following examples to see CORS requests succeed or fail. As a handy guide for you, the text files we’ll be requesting include the bucket configuration of the Backblaze B2 buckets we’re calling.

In the first example, we’ll make a request to get the text file bucket_info.txt from a bucket named “cors-allow-none” that does not allow CORS requests:

fetch(
'https://f000.backblazeb2.com/file/cors-allow-none/bucket_info.txt',
{
method: 'GET'
}
).then(resp => resp.text()).then(console.log)

As you can see, this request returns a CORS error:

Next, we’ll try the same request on a bucket named “cors-allow-all” that allows CORS with any origin, but only specific headers.

fetch(
'https://f000.backblazeb2.com/file/cors-allow-all/bucket_info.txt',
{
method: 'GET'
}
).then(resp => resp.text()).then(console.log)

When you run the code, you will see some text output to the console indicating that, indeed, the bucket allows CORS with all origins, but specific headers:

We didn’t include any headers in our request, so the request was successful and the text file we wanted—bucket_info.txt—appears below the text output in the console. As you can see in the text output, the bucket is configured with an asterisk “*,” also known as a “wildcard,” to allow all origins (more on that later).

Next, we’ll try the same thing on the bucket that allows CORS with all origins, but this time triggers a pre-flight check for a header that is not allowed:

fetch(
'https://f000.backblazeb2.com/file/cors-allow-all/bucket_info.txt',
{
method: 'GET',
headers: { 'X-Fake-Header': 'breaking-cors-for-fun' }
}
).then(resp => resp.text()).then(console.log)

Our bucket is configured to only allow the headers authorization and range, but we’ve included the header X-Fake-Header with the value breaking-cors-for-fun—definitely not allowed—in the request.

When we run this request, we can see another type of failure:

Below the request, but above the CORS errors, you’ll see that the browser sent an options request. As we mentioned earlier, this is the pre-flight request that asks the server if it’s okay to make the get request. In this case, the pre-flight request failed.

However, this request will succeed if we change our bucket settings to allow all headers.

fetch(
'https://f000.backblazeb2.com/file/cors-allow-all/bucket_info.txt',
{
method: 'GET',
headers: { 'X-Fake-Header': 'breaking-cors-for-fun' }
}
).then(resp => resp.text()).then(console.log)

Below, you can see the text output “This bucket allows CORS with all origins and any header values.”

The request was successful, and the text file we requested appears in the console.

At this point, it’s important to note that when configuring your own buckets, you should use caution when using the wildcard “*” to allow any origin or header. It’s probably best to avoid the wildcard if possible. It’s okay to allow any origin to access your bucket, but, if so, you’ll probably want to enumerate the headers that matter to avoid CSRF attacks.

For more information on using CORS with Backblaze B2, including some tips on using CORS with the Backblaze S3 Compatible API, check out our documentation here.

Stay on CORS

Ah, another inevitable CORS pun. Did you see it coming? I hope so. In conclusion, here are a few things to remember about CORS and how you can use it to avoid CORS errors in the future:

• The same-origin policy was developed to make websites less vulnerable to threats, and it prevents requests between websites with different origins.
• CORS bypasses the same-origin policy so that you can share and use data from different origins.
• You only need to configure CORS rules for your Backblaze B2 data if you are making calls to Backblaze B2 from code within a web browser.
• By setting CORS rules, you can specify which origins are allowed to request data from your Backblaze B2 buckets.

Are you using CORS? Do you have any other questions? Let us know in the comments.

The post Crash CORS: A Guide for Using CORS appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup.

Post Syndicated from Elton Carneiro original https://www.backblaze.com/blog/bringing-connected-container-management-to-backblaze-cycle/

Containers have changed the way development teams build, deploy, and scale their applications. Unfortunately, the adoption of containers often brings with it ever-growing complexity and fragility that leads to developers spending more time managing their deployment rather than developing applications.

Today’s announcement offers developers a path to easier container orchestration. The Cycle and Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage integration enables companies that utilize containers to seamlessly automate and control stateful data across multiple providers—all from one dashboard.

This partnership empowers developers to:

• Easily deploy containers without dealing with complex solutions like Kubernetes.
• Unify their application management, including automating or scheduling backups via an API-connected portal.
• Choose the microservices and technologies they need without compromising on functionality.

Getting started with Cycle and Backblaze is simple:

1. Create a Cycle account.
2. Sign up for B2 Cloud Storage and create a bucket and Application Key.
3. Associate your Backblaze Application Key with your Cycle hub via the Integrations menu.
4. Utilize the backup settings within a container config.

For more in-depth information on the integration, check out the documentation.

We recently sat down with Jake Warner, Co-founder and CEO of Cycle, to dig a little deeper into the major cloud orchestration challenges today’s developers face. You can find Jake’s responses below, or you can check out a conversation between Jake and Elton Carneiro, Backblaze Director of Partnerships, on Jake’s podcast.

A Q&A With Cycle

Q: Give us a background on Cycle and what problem you are trying to solve? What is the problem with existing infrastructure like Kubernetes and/or similar?

A: We believe that cloud orchestration, and more specifically, container orchestration, is broken. Instead of focusing on the most common use cases, too many companies within this space end up chasing a never-ending list of edge cases and features. This lack of focus yields overly complex, messy, and fragile deployments that cause more stress than peace-of-mind.

Cycle takes a bold approach on container orchestration: focus on the 80%. Most companies don’t require, or need, a majority of the features and capabilities that come with platforms like Kubernetes. By staying hyper-focused on where we spend our time, and prioritizing quality over quantity of features, the Cycle platform has become an incredibly stable and powerful foundation for companies of all sizes.

The goal for Cycle is simple: Be the most developer-friendly container platform for businesses.

We believe that developers should be able to easily utilize containers on their own infrastructure without having to deal with the mundane tasks commonly involved with managing infrastructure and orchestration platforms. Cycle makes that a reality.

Q: What are the major challenges developers face today with container orchestration?

Complexity. Most deployments today require piecing together a wide variety of different tools and technologies for even the most basic deployments. Instead of adopting solutions that empower development teams without increasing bloat, too many organizations are chasing hype and increasing their ever-growing pile of technical debt.

Additionally, most of today’s platforms require constant hand-holding. While there are many tools that help reduce the amount of time to get a first deployment online, we see a major drop-off when it comes to “day two operations.” What happens when there’s a new update, or security patch? How often are these updates released? How many developers/DevOps personnel are needed to apply these updates? How much downtime should be expected?

With Cycle, we reduce complexity by providing a single turnkey solution for developers—no extra tools required. Additionally, our platform is built around the idea that everything should be capable of automatically updating. On average, we deploy platform updates to our customer infrastructure once every 10-14 days.

Q: Before announcing our integration, had you implemented Backblaze internally? Could you expand on that?

Absolutely! In the early days of Cycle, we made the decision to standardize and flatten all container images into raw OCI images. This was our way of hedging against different technologies going through hype waves. At the time, Docker was the “top dog” in the container space but there was also CoreOS and a number of others.

In an effort to control as much of the vertical stack as possible, we decided that, beyond flattening images, we should also store the resulting images ourselves. This way, if Docker Hub or another container registry unexpectedly changed their APIs or pricing, our platform and users would be insulated from those changes. As you can see, we put a lot of thought into limiting external variables.

Given the above, we knew that having an infinitely scalable storage solution was critical for the platform. After testing a number of providers, Backblaze B2 was the perfect fit for our needs.

Fast-forward to today, where all base images are stored on Backblaze.

Q: As alluded to above, you’re currently building a customer-facing integration. What’s the new feature? Have customers been asking for this?

We’re excited to announce that Cycle now supports automatic backups for stateful containers. A number of customers have been requesting this feature for a while and we’re thrilled to finally release it.

At Cycle, data ownership is very important to us—our platform was built specifically to empower developers while ensuring they, and their employers, still retain full ownership and control of their data. This automated backups feature is no different. By associating a Backblaze B2 API Key with Cycle, organizations can maintain ownership of their backups.

Q: What sparked the decision to partner and integrate with Backblaze specifically?

While there are a number of reasons this partnership makes a ton of sense, narrowing it down to a top three would be:

Performance: As we were testing different Object Storage providers, Backblaze B2 routinely was one of the most reliable while also offering solid upload and download speeds. We also liked that Backblaze B2 wasn’t overly bloated with features—it had exactly what we needed.

Cost: As Cycle continues to grow, and our storage needs increase, it’s incredibly important to keep costs in check. Beyond predictable and transparent pricing, the base cost per terabyte of data is impressive.

Team: Working with the Backblaze team has been incredible. From our early conversations with Nilay, Backblaze’s VP of Sales, to the expanded conversations with much of the Backblaze team today, everyone has been super eager to help.

Q: Backblaze and Cycle share a similar vision in making life easier for developers. It goes beyond just dollars saved, though that is a bonus, but what is it about “simple” that is so important? Infrastructure of the future?

Good question! There are a number of different ways to answer this, but for the sake of not turning this into an essay, let’s focus purely on what we, the Cycle team, refer to as “think long term.”

Anyone can make a process complex, but it takes a truly focused effort to keep things simple. Rules and guidelines are needed. You need to be able to say “No” to certain feature requests and customer demands. To be able to provide a polished and clean experience, you have to be purposeful in what you’re building. Far too often, companies will chase short term wins while sacrificing long-term gains, but true innovation takes time. In a world where most tech companies are built off venture capital, long-term gambles and innovations are deprioritized.

From the way both Cycle and Backblaze have been funded, to a number of other aspects, we’ve both positioned our companies to take those long term risks and focus on simplifying otherwise complex processes. It’s part of our culture, it’s who we are as teams and organizations.

As we talk about developers, we see a common pattern. Developers always love testing new technologies, they enjoy getting into the weeds and tweaking all of the variables. But, as time goes on, developers shift away from “I want to control every variable” into more of a “I just want something that works and gets out of the way.” This is where Cycle and Backblaze both excel.

Q: What can we look forward to as this partnership matures? Anything exciting on the horizon for Cycle that you’d like to share?

We’re really looking forward to expanding our partnership with Backblaze as the Cycle platform continues to grow. Combining powerful container orchestration with a seamless object storage solution can empower developers to more easily build the next generation of products and services.

While we now host our base container images and customer backups on Backblaze, this is still just the start. We have a number of really exciting features launching in 2022 that’ll further strengthen the partnership between our companies and the value we can provide to developers around the world.

The post Bringing Connected Container Management via Cycle appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup.

Post Syndicated from Jeremy Milk original https://www.backblaze.com/blog/analyst-firm-validates-b2-cloud-storage-platforms-time-and-budget-savings/

92% time savings. 71% storage cost savings. 3.7 times lower total cost than the competition.

These are just some of the findings Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) reported in a proprietary, economic validation analysis of Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage. To develop these findings, the ESG analysts did their proverbial research. They talked to customers. They validated use cases. They used our product and verified the accuracy of our listed pricing and cost calculator. And then, they took those results along with the knowledge they’ve gathered over 20 years of experience to quantify the bonafide benefits that organizations can expect by using the Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage platform.

Their findings are now available to the public in the new ESG Economic Validation report, “Analyzing the Economic Benefits of the Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage Platform.”

ESG’s models predicted that the Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage platform will give users an expected total cost of cloud storage that is 3.7 times lower than alternative cloud storage providers, including:

If you don’t have time to read the full report, the infographic below illustrates the key findings. Click on the image to see it in full size.

If you want to share this infographic on your site, copy the code below and paste into a Custom HTML block. 

<div><div><strong>Analyst Firm Validates B2 Cloud Storage Platform’s Time and Budget Savings</strong></div><a href="https://www.backblaze.com/blog/analyst-firm-validates-b2-cloud-storage-platforms-time-and-budget-savings/"><img src="https://www.backblaze.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/ESG-Infographic-scaled.jpg" border="0" alt="The Economic Value of Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage" title="The Economic Value of Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage" /></a></div>

The findings cut through the marketing noise to announce that by choosing Backblaze B2, customers benefit in both time and cost savings, and you don’t have to take it from us.

If that sounds like something you’d appreciate from a cloud partner, getting started couldn’t be easier. Sign up today to begin using Backblaze B2—your first 10GB are free.

If you’re already a B2 Cloud Storage customer—first, thank you! You can feel even more confident in your choice to work with Backblaze. Have a colleague or contact who you think would benefit from working with Backblaze, too? Feel free to share the report with your network.

The post Analyst Firm Validates B2 Cloud Storage Platform’s Time and Budget Savings appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup.

Post Syndicated from Molly Clancy original https://www.backblaze.com/blog/whats-the-diff-backblaze-s3-compatible-api-vs-b2-native-api/

Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage enables thousands of developers—from video streaming applications like Kanopy to gaming platforms like Nodecraft—to easily store and use data in the cloud. Those files are always available for download either through a browser-compatible URL or APIs.

Backblaze supports two different suites of APIs—the Backblaze B2 Native API and the Backblaze S3 Compatible API. Sometimes, folks come to our platform knowing exactly which API they need to use, but the differences between the two are not always immediately apparent. If you’re not sure which API is best for you and your project, we’re explaining the difference today.

B2 Native API vs. S3 Compatible API: What’s the Diff?

Put simply, an application programming interface, or API, is a set of protocols that lets one application or service talk to another. They typically include a list of operations or calls developers can use to interact with said application (inputs) and a description of what happens when those calls are used (outputs). Both the B2 Native and S3 Compatible APIs handle the same basic functions:

• Authentication: Providing account/bucket/file access.
• Bucket Management: Creating and managing the buckets that hold files.
• Upload: Sending files to the cloud.
• Download: Retrieving files from the cloud.
• List: Data checking/selection/comparison.

The main difference between the two APIs is that they use different syntax for the various calls. We’ll dig into other key differences in more detail below.

The Backblaze B2 Native API

The B2 Native API is Backblaze’s custom API that enables you to interact with Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage. We’ve written in detail about why we developed our own custom API instead of just implementing an S3-compatible interface from the beginning. In a nutshell, we developed it so our customers could easily interact with our cloud while enabling Backblaze to offer cloud storage at a quarter of the price of S3.

To get started, simply create a Backblaze account and enable Backblaze B2. You’ll then get access to your Application Key and Application Key ID. These let you call the B2 Native API.

The Backblaze S3 Compatible API

Over the years since we launched Backblaze B2 and the B2 Native API, S3 compatibility was one of our most requested features. When S3 launched in 2006, it solved a persistent problem for developers—provisioning and maintaining storage hardware. Prior to S3, developers had to estimate how much storage hardware they would need for their applications very accurately or risk crashes from having too little or, on the flip side, paying too much as a result of over-provisioning storage for their needs. S3 gave them unlimited, scalable storage that eliminated the need to provision and buy hardware. For developers, the service was a game-changer, and in the years that followed, the S3 API essentially became industry standard for object storage.

In those years as well, other brands (That’s us!) entered the market. AWS was no longer the only game in town. Many customers wanted to move from Amazon S3 to Backblaze B2, but didn’t want to rewrite code that already worked with the S3 API.

The Backblaze S3 Compatible API does the same thing as the B2 Native API—it allows you to interact with B2 Cloud Storage—but it follows the S3 syntax. With the S3 Compatible API, if your application is already written to use the S3 API, B2 Cloud Storage will just work, with minimal code changes on your end. The launch of the S3 Compatible API provides developers with a number of benefits:

• You don’t have to learn a new API.
• You can use your existing tools that are written to the S3 API.
• Performance will be just as good and you’ll get all the benefits of B2 Cloud Storage.

To get started, create a Backblaze account and head to the App Keys page. The Master Application Key will not be S3 compatible, so you’ll want to create a new key and key ID by clicking the “Add a New Application Key” button. Your new key and key ID will work with both the B2 Native API and S3 Compatible API. Just plug this information into your application to connect it to Backblaze B2.

If your existing tools are written to the S3 API—for example, tools like Cohesity, rclone, and Veeam—they’ll work automatically once you enter this information. Additionally, many tools—like Arq, Synology, and MSP360—were already integrated with Backblaze B2 via the B2 Native API, but now customers can choose to connect with them via either API suite.

B2 Native and S3 Compatible APIs: How Do They Compare?

Beyond the syntax, there are a few key differences between the B2 Native and Backblaze S3 Compatible APIs, including:

• Key management.
• SDKs.
• Pre-signed URLs.
• File uploads.

Key Management

Key management is unique to the B2 Native API. The S3 Compatible API does not support key management. With key management, you can create, delete, and list keys using the following calls:

• b2_create_key
• b2_delete_key
• b2_list_keys

SDKs

Some of our Alliance Partners asked us if we had an SDK they could use. To answer that request, we developed an official Java SDK and Python SDK on GitHub so you can manage and configure your cloud resources via the B2 Native API.

Meanwhile, long-standing, open-sourced SDKs for S3 Compatible APIs are available in any language including Go, PHP, Javascript, Ruby, etc. These SDKs make it easy to integrate your application no matter what language it’s written in.

Pre-signed URLs

By default, access to private buckets is restricted to the account owner. If you want to grant access to a specific object in that bucket to anyone else—for example, a user or a different application or service—they need proper authorization. The S3 Compatible API and the B2 Native API handle access to private buckets differently.

The S3 Compatible API handles authorization using pre-signed URLs. It requires the user to calculate a signature (code that says you are who you say you are) before sending the request. Using the URL, a user can either read an object, write an object, or update an existing object. The URL also contains specific parameters like limitations or expiration dates to manage their usage.

The S3 Compatible API supports pre-signed URLs for downloading and uploading. Pre-signed URLs are built into AWS SDKs. They can also be generated in a number of other ways including the AWS CLI and AWS Tools for PowerShell. You can find guides for configuring those tools here. Many integrations, for example, Cyberduck, also offer a simple share functionality that makes providing temporary access possible utilizing the underlying pre-signed URL.

The B2 Native API figures out the signature for you. Instead of a pre-signed URL, the B2 Native API requires an authorization token to be part of the API request itself. The b2_authorize_account request gets the authorization token that you can then use for account-level operations. If you only want to authorize downloads instead of all account-level operations, you can use the request b2_get_download_authorization to generate an authorization token, which can then be used in the URL to authenticate the request.

Uploading Files

With the S3 Compatible API, you upload files to a static URL that never changes. Our servers automatically pick the best route for you that delivers the best possible performance on our backend.

The B2 Native API requires a separate call to get an upload URL. This URL can be used until it goes stale (i.e. returns a 50X error), at which point another upload URL must be requested. In the event of a 50X error, you simply need to retry the request with the new URL. The S3 Compatible API does this for you in the background on our servers, which makes the experience of using the S3 Compatible API smoother.

This difference in the upload process is what enabled Backblaze B2 to offer substantially lower prices at the expense of a little bit more complexity. You can read more about that here.

Try It Out for Yourself

So, which API should you use? In a nutshell, if your app is already written to work with S3, if you’re using tools that are written to S3, or if you’re just unsure, the S3 Compatible API is a good choice. If you’re looking for more control over access and key management, the B2 Native API is the way to go. Either way, now that you understand the differences between the two APIs you can use to work with B2 Cloud Storage, you can align your use cases to the functionality that best suits them and get started with the API that works best for you.

If you’re ready to try out the B2 Native or S3 Compatible APIs for yourself, check out our documentation:

• B2 Native API Documentation.
• S3 Compatible API Documentation.

Of course, if you have any questions, fire away in the comments or reach out to our Sales team. And if you’re interested in trying Backblaze, get started today and your first 10GB of storage are free.

The post What’s the Diff: Backblaze S3 Compatible API vs. B2 Native API appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup.

Post Syndicated from Jeremy Milk original https://www.backblaze.com/blog/announcing-backblaze-developer-day-build-blazing-apps/

Join us for our inaugural Backblaze Developer Day on October 21st. This event is jam-packed with announcements, tech talks, lessons, SWAG, and more to help you understand how Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage can work for you. And it’s free, the good news just keeps coming.

Here’s What’s on the Horizon:

• What’s New: Learn about brand new and recent partner alliances and integrations to serve more of your development needs.
• Tour With Some Legends: Join Co-founder and CTO, Brian Wilson, and our Director of Evangelism, Andy Klein (of Drive Stats fame), for a decidedly unscripted, sure-to-be unexpected tour through the B2 Cloud Storage architecture, including APIs, SDKs, and CLI.
• How to Put It Together: Get a rapid demo on one of our popular B2 Cloud Storage + compute + CDN combinations to meet functionality that will free your budget and your tech to do more.
• A Panel on Tomorrow’s Development: The sunset of monolithic, closed ecosystems is here, so join us to discuss the future of microservices and interoperability.
• What Comes Next: Finally, hear what’s next on the B2 Cloud Storage roadmap—and tell our head of product what you think should come next.

And so much more: We’ll be posting updates on partners and friends that will be joining us, as well as information about getting SWAG from the inaugural Backblaze Developer Day. Keep an eye on this space… So register today for free to grab your spot and we’ll see you on October 21st.

The post Announcing Backblaze Developer Day: Build Blazing Apps appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup.

Post Syndicated from Molly Clancy original https://www.backblaze.com/blog/whats-the-diff-hybrid-cloud-vs-multi-cloud/

For as often as the terms multi-cloud and hybrid cloud get misused, it’s no wonder the concepts put a lot of very smart heads in a spin. The differences between a hybrid cloud and a multi-cloud strategy are simple, but choosing between the two models can have big implications for your business.

In this post, we’ll explain the difference between hybrid cloud and multi-cloud, describe some common use cases, and walk through some ways to get the most out of your cloud deployment.

What’s the Diff: Hybrid Cloud vs. Multi-cloud

Both hybrid cloud and multi-cloud strategies spread data over, you guessed it, multiple clouds. The difference lies in the type of cloud environments—public or private—used to do so. To understand the difference between hybrid cloud and multi-cloud, you first need to understand the differences between the two types of cloud environments.

A public cloud is operated by a third party vendor that sells data center resources to multiple customers over the internet. Much like renting an apartment in a high rise, tenants rent computing space and benefit from not having to worry about upkeep and maintenance of computing infrastructure. In a public cloud, your data may be on the same server as another customer, but it’s virtually separated from other customers’ data by the public cloud’s software layer. Companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and us here at Backblaze are considered public cloud providers.

A private cloud, on the other hand, is akin to buying a house. In a private cloud environment, a business or organization typically owns and maintains all the infrastructure, hardware, and software to run a cloud on a private network.

Private clouds are usually built on-premises, but can be maintained off-site at a shared data center. You may be thinking, “Wait a second, that sounds a lot like a public cloud.” You’re not wrong. The key difference is that, even if your private cloud infrastructure is physically located off-site in a data center, the infrastructure is dedicated solely to you and typically protected behind your company’s firewall.

What Is Hybrid Cloud Storage?

A hybrid cloud strategy uses a private cloud and public cloud in combination. Most organizations that want to move to the cloud get started with a hybrid cloud deployment. They can move some data to the cloud without abandoning on-premises infrastructure right away.

A hybrid cloud deployment also works well for companies in industries where data security is governed by industry regulations. For example, the banking and financial industry has specific requirements for network controls, audits, retention, and oversight. A bank may keep sensitive, regulated data on a private cloud and low-risk data on a public cloud environment in a hybrid cloud strategy. Like financial services, health care providers also handle significant amounts of sensitive data and are subject to regulations like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which requires various security safeguards where a hybrid cloud is ideal.

A hybrid cloud model also suits companies or departments with data-heavy workloads like media and entertainment. They can take advantage of high-speed, on-premises infrastructure to get fast access to large media files and store data that doesn’t need to be accessed as frequently—archives and backups, for example—with a scalable, low-cost public cloud provider.

Hybrid Cloud

What Is Multi-cloud Storage?

A multi-cloud strategy uses two or more public clouds in combination. A multi-cloud strategy works well for companies that want to avoid vendor lock-in or achieve data redundancy in a failover scenario. If one cloud provider experiences an outage, they can fall back on a second cloud provider.

Companies with operations in countries that have data residency laws also use multi-cloud strategies to meet regulatory requirements. They can run applications and store data in clouds that are located in specific geographic regions.

Multi-cloud

For more information on multi-cloud strategies, check out our Multi-cloud Architecture Guide.

Ways to Make Your Cloud Storage More Efficient

Whether you use hybrid cloud storage or multi-cloud storage, it’s vital to manage your cloud deployment efficiently and manage costs. To get the most out of your cloud strategy, we recommend the following:

• Know your cost drivers. Cost management is one of the biggest challenges to a successful cloud strategy. Start by understanding the critical elements of your cloud bill. Track cloud usage from the beginning to validate costs against cloud invoices. And look for exceptions to historical trends (e.g., identify departments with a sudden spike in cloud storage usage and find out why they are creating and storing more data).
• Identify low-latency requirements. Cloud data storage requires transmitting data between your location and the cloud provider. While cloud storage has come a long way in terms of speed, the physical distance can still lead to latency. The average professional who relies on email, spreadsheets, and presentations may never notice high latency. However, a few groups in your company may require low latency data storage (e.g., HD video editing). For those groups, it may be helpful to use a hybrid cloud approach.
• Optimize your storage. If you use cloud storage for backup and records retention, your data consumption may rise significantly over time. Create a plan to regularly clean your data to make sure data is being correctly deleted when it is no longer needed.
• Prioritize security. Investing up-front time and effort in a cloud security configuration pays off. At a minimum, review cloud provider-specific training resources. In addition, make sure you apply traditional access management principles (e.g., deleting inactive user accounts after a defined period) to manage your risks.

How to Choose a Cloud Strategy

To decide between hybrid cloud storage and multi-cloud storage, consider the following questions:

• Low latency needs. Does your business need low latency capabilities? If so, a hybrid cloud solution may be best.
• Geographical considerations. Does your company have offices in multiple locations and countries with data residency regulations? In that case, a multi-cloud storage strategy with data centers in several countries may be helpful.
• Regulatory concerns. If there are industry-specific requirements for data retention and storage, these requirements may not be fulfilled equally by all cloud providers. Ask the provider how exactly they help you meet these requirements.
• Cost management. Pay close attention to pricing tiers at the outset, and ask the provider what tools, reports, and other resources they provide to keep costs well managed.

Still wondering what type of cloud strategy is right for you? Ask away in the comments.

The post What’s the Diff: Hybrid Cloud vs. Multi-cloud appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup.

Post Syndicated from Molly Clancy original https://www.backblaze.com/blog/multi-cloud-strategy-architecture-guide/

Cloud technology transformed the way IT departments operate over the past decade and a half. A 2020 survey by IDG found that 81% of organizations have at least one application or a portion of their computing infrastructure in the cloud (up from 51% in 2011) and 55% of organizations currently use more than one cloud provider in a multi-cloud strategy.

Deploying a multi-cloud approach doesn’t have to be complicated—“multi-cloud” simply means using two or more different cloud providers and leveraging their advantages to suit your needs. This approach provides an alternative to relying on one cloud provider or on-premises infrastructure to handle everything.

If you’re among the 45% of organizations not yet using a multi-cloud approach, or if you want to get more out of your multi-cloud strategy, this post explains what multi-cloud is, how it works, the benefits it offers, and considerations to keep in mind when rolling out a multi-cloud strategy.

First, Some Multi-cloud History

The shift to multi-cloud infrastructure over the past decade and a half can be traced to two trends in the cloud computing landscape. First, AWS, Google, and Microsoft—otherwise known as the “Big Three”—are no longer the only options for IT departments looking to move to the cloud. Since AWS launched in 2006, specialized infrastructure as a service (IaaS) providers have emerged to challenge the Big Three, giving companies more options for cloud deployments.

Second, many companies spent the decade after AWS’s launch making the transition from on-premises to the cloud. Now, new companies launching today are built to be cloud native and existing companies are poised to optimize their cloud deployments. They’ve crossed the hurdle of moving on-premises infrastructure to the cloud and can focus on how to architect their cloud environments to maximize the advantages of multi-cloud.

What Is Multi-cloud?

Nearly every software as a service (SaaS) platform is hosted in the cloud. So, if your company uses a tool like OneDrive or Google Workspace along with any other cloud service or platform, you’re technically operating in a “multi-cloud” environment. But using more than one SaaS platform does not constitute a true multi-cloud strategy.

To narrow the definition, when we in the cloud services industry say “multi-cloud,” we mean the public cloud platforms you use to architect your company’s infrastructure, including storage, networking, and compute.

By this definition, multi-cloud means using two different public IaaS providers rather than keeping all of your data in one diversified cloud provider like AWS or Google or using only on-premises infrastructure.

Multi-cloud vs. Hybrid Cloud: What’s the Diff?

Multi-cloud refers to using more than one public cloud platform. Hybrid cloud refers to the combination of a private cloud with a public cloud. A private cloud is typically hosted on on-premises infrastructure, but can be hosted by a third party. The key difference between a private and public cloud is that the infrastructure, hardware, and software for a private cloud are maintained on a private network used exclusively by your business or organization.

Adding to the complexity, a company that uses a private cloud combined with more than one public cloud is really killing it with their cloud game using a hybrid multi-cloud strategy. It can all get pretty confusing, so stay tuned for a follow-up post that focuses solely on this topic.

How to Implement Multi-cloud: Use Cases

Companies operate multi-cloud environments for a variety of reasons. For some companies, the adoption of multi-cloud may have initially been an unintentional result of shadow IT—when separate departments adopt cloud services without engaging IT teams for assistance. As these deployments became integral to operations, IT teams likely incorporated them into an overall enterprise cloud strategy. For others, multi-cloud strategies are deployed intentionally given their suitability for specific business requirements.

So, how do you actually use a multi-cloud strategy, and what is a multi-cloud strategy good for? Multi-cloud has a number of compelling use cases and rationales, including:

• Disaster recovery.
• Failover.
• Cost optimization.
• Avoiding vendor lock-in.
• Data sovereignty.
• Access to specialized services.

Disaster Recovery

One of the biggest advantages of operating a multi-cloud environment is to achieve redundancy and plan for disaster recovery in a cloud-native deployment. Using multiple clouds helps IT departments implement a modern 3-2-1 backup strategy with three copies of their data, stored on two different types of media, with one stored off-site. When 3-2-1 evolved, it implied the other two copies were kept on-premises for fast recoveries.

As cloud services improved, the need for an on-premises backup shifted. Data can now be recovered nearly as quickly from a cloud as from on-premises infrastructure, and many companies no longer use physical infrastructure at all. For companies that want to be or already are cloud-native, keeping data in multiple public clouds reduces the risk one runs when keeping both production and backup copies with one provider. In the event of a disaster or ransomware attack, the multi-cloud user can restore data stored in their other, separate cloud environment, ideally one that offers tools like Object Lock to protect data with immutability.

Failover

Similarly, some cloud-native companies utilize multiple cloud providers to host mirrored copies of their active production data. If one of their public clouds suffers an outage, they have mechanisms in place to direct their applications to failover to a second public cloud.

E-commerce company, Big Cartel, pursued this strategy after AWS suffered a number of outages in past years that gave Big Cartel cause for concern. They host more than one million websites on behalf of their clients, and an outage would take them all down. “Having a single storage provider was a single point of failure that we grew less and less comfortable with over time,” Big Cartel Technical Director, Lee Jensen, acknowledged. Now, their data is stored in two public clouds—Amazon S3 and Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage. Their content delivery network (CDN), Fastly, preferentially pulls data from Backblaze B2 with Amazon S3 as failover.

Cost Optimization

Challenger companies can offer incentives that compete with the Big Three and pricing structures that suit specialized data use cases. For example, some cloud providers offer free egress but put limits on how much data can be downloaded, while others charge nominal egress fees, but don’t cap downloads. Savvy companies employ multiple clouds for different types of data depending on how much data they have and how often it needs to be accessed.

SIMMER.io, a community site that makes sharing Unity WebGL games easy for indie game developers, would get hit with egress spikes from Amazon S3 whenever one of their hosted games went viral. The fees turned their success into a growth inhibitor. SIMMER.io mirrored their data to Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage and reduced egress to $0 as a result of the Bandwidth Alliance partnership between Backblaze and Cloudflare. They can grow their site without having to worry about increasing egress costs over time or usage spikes when games go viral, and they doubled redundancy in the process.

Avoiding Vendor Lock-in

Many companies initially adopted one of the Big Three because they were the only game in town, but later felt restricted by their closed systems. Companies like Amazon and Google don’t play nice with each other and both seek to lock customers in with proprietary services. Adopting a multi-cloud infrastructure with interoperable providers gives these companies more negotiating power and control over their cloud deployments.

For example, Gideo, a connected TV app platform, initially used an all-in-one cloud provider for compute, storage, and content delivery, but felt they had no leverage to reduce their bills or improve the service they were receiving. They adopted a multi-cloud approach, building a tech stack with a mix of unconflicted partners where they no longer feel beholden to one provider.

Data Sovereignty

Many countries, as well as the European Union, have passed laws that regulate where and how data can be stored. Companies subject to these data residency standards may employ a multi-cloud approach to ensure their data meets regulatory requirements. They use multiple public cloud providers with different geographic footprints in locations where data must be stored.

Access to Specialized Services

Organizations may use different cloud providers to access specialized or complimentary services. For example, a company may use a public cloud like Vultr for access to compute resources or bare metal servers, but store their data with a different, interoperable public cloud that specializes in storage. Or a company may use a cloud storage provider in combination with a cloud CDN to distribute content faster to end users.

The Advantages of Multi-cloud Infrastructure

No matter the use case or rationale, companies achieve a number of advantages from deploying a multi-cloud infrastructure, including:

1. Better Reliability and Lower Latency: In a failover scenario, if one cloud goes down, companies with a multi-cloud strategy have others to fall back on. If a company uses multiple clouds for data sovereignty or in combination with a CDN, they see reduced latency as their clouds are located closer to end users.
2. Redundancy: With data in multiple, isolated clouds, companies are better protected from threats. If cybercriminals are able to access one set of data, companies are more likely to recover if they can restore from a second cloud environment that operates on a separate network.
3. More Freedom and Flexibility: With a multi-cloud system, if something’s not working or if costs start to become unmanageable, companies have more leverage to influence changes and the ability to leave if another vendor offers better features or more affordable pricing. Businesses can also take advantage of industry partnerships to build flexible, cloud-agnostic tech stacks using best-of-breed providers.
4. Affordability: It may seem counterintuitive that using more clouds would cost less, but it’s true. Diversified cloud providers like AWS make their services hard to quit for a reason—when you can’t leave, they can charge you whatever they want. A multi-cloud system allows you to take advantage of competitive pricing among platforms.
5. Best-of-breed Services: Adopting a multi-cloud strategy means you can work with providers who specialize in doing one thing really well rather than doing all things middlingly. Cloud platforms specialize to offer customers top-of-the-line service, features, and support rather than providing a one-size-fits all solution.

The Challenges of Multi-cloud Infrastructure

The advantages of a multi-cloud system have attracted an increasing number of companies, but it’s not without challenges. Controlling costs, data security, and governance were named in the top five challenges in the IDG study. That’s why it’s all the more important to consider your cloud infrastructure early on, follow best practices, and plan ways to manage eventualities.

Multi-cloud Best Practices

As you plan your multi-cloud strategy, keep the following considerations in mind:

• Deployment strategies.
• Cost management.
• Data security.
• Governance.

Multi-cloud Deployment Strategies

There are likely as many ways to deploy a multi-cloud strategy as there are companies using a multi-cloud strategy. But, they generally fall into two broader categories—redundant or distributed.

In a redundant deployment, data is mirrored in more than one cloud environment, for example, for failover or disaster recovery. Companies that use a multi-cloud approach rather than a hybrid approach to store backup data are using a redundant multi-cloud deployment strategy. Most IT teams looking to use a multi-cloud approach to back up company data or environments will fall into this category.

A distributed deployment model more often applies to software development teams. In a distributed deployment, different workloads or different components of the same application are spread across multiple cloud computing environments based on the best fit. For example, a DevOps team might host their compute infrastructure in one public cloud and storage in another.

Your business requirements will dictate which type of deployment you should use. Knowing your deployment approach from the outset can help you pick providers with the right mix of services and billing structures for your multi-cloud strategy.

Multi-cloud Cost Management

Cost management of cloud environments is a challenge every company will face even if you choose to stay with one provider—so much so that companies make cloud optimization their whole business model. Set up a process to track your cloud utilization and spend, and seek out cloud providers that offer straightforward, transparent pricing to make budgeting simpler.

Multi-cloud Data Security

Security risks increase as your cloud environment becomes more complex. There are more attack surfaces, and you’ll want to plan security measures accordingly. To take advantage of multi-cloud benefits while reducing risk, follow multi-cloud security best practices:

• Ensure you have controls in place for authentication across platforms. Your different cloud providers likely have different authentication protocols, and you need a framework and security protocols that work across providers.
• Train your team appropriately to identify cybersecurity risks.
• Stay up to date on security patches. Each cloud provider will publish their own upgrades and patches. Make sure to automate upgrades as much as possible.
• Consider using a tool like Object Lock to protect data with immutability. Object Lock allows you to store objects using a Write Once, Read Many (WORM) model, meaning after it’s written, data cannot be modified or deleted for a defined period of time. Any attempts to manipulate, copy, encrypt, change, or delete the file will fail during that time. The files may be accessed, but no one can change them, including the file owner or whoever set the Object Lock.

Multi-cloud Governance

As cloud adoption grows across your company, you’ll need to have clear protocols for how your infrastructure is managed. Consider creating standard operating procedures for cloud platform management and provisioning to avoid shadow IT proliferation. And set up policies for centralized security monitoring.

Ready for Multi-cloud? Migration Strategies

If you’re ready to go multi-cloud, you’re probably wondering how to get your data from your on-premises infrastructure to the cloud or from one cloud to another. After choosing a provider that fits your needs, you can start planning your data migration. There are a range of tools for moving your data, but when it comes to moving between cloud services, a tool like our Cloud to Cloud Migration can help make things a lot easier and faster.

Have any more questions about multi-cloud or cloud migration? Let us know in the comments.

The post Multi-cloud Architecture Guide appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup.

Post Syndicated from Molly Clancy original https://www.backblaze.com/blog/ransomware-economy/

Ransomware continues to proliferate for a simple reason—it’s profitable. And it’s profitable not just for the ransomware developers themselves—they’re just one part of the equation—but for a whole ecosystem of players who make up the ransomware economy. To understand the threats to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and organizations today, it’s important to understand the scope and scale of what you’re up against.

Today, we’re digging into how the ransomware economy operates, including the broader ecosystem and the players involved, emerging threats to SMBs, and the overall financial footprint of ransomware worldwide.

Top Ransomware Syndicates in Operation Today

Cybercriminals have long been described as operating in “gangs.” The label conjures images of hackers furiously tapping away at glowing workstations in a shadowy warehouse. But the work of the ransomware economy today is more likely to take place in a boardroom than a back alley. Cybercriminals have graduated from gangs to highly complex organized crime syndicates that operate ransomware brands as part of a sophisticated business model.

Operators of these syndicates are just as likely to be worrying about user experience and customer service as they are with building malicious code. A look at the branding on display on some syndicates’ leak sites makes the case plain that these groups are more than a collective of expert coders—they’re savvy businesspeople.

Ransomware operators are often synonymous with the software variant they brand, deploy, and sell. Many have rebranded over the years or splintered into affiliated organizations. Some of the top ransomware brands operating today, along with high profile attacks they have carried out, are shown in the infographic below:

The groups shown above do not constitute an exhaustive list. In June 2021, FBI Director Christopher Wray stated that the FBI was investigating 100 different ransomware variants and new ones pop up everyday. While some brands have existed for years (Ryuk, for example), the list is also likely obsolete as soon as it’s published. Ransomware brands bubble up, go bust, and reorganize, changing with the cybersecurity tides.

Chainalysis, a blockchain data platform, published their Ransomware 2021: Critical Mid-year Update that shows just how much brands fluctuate year to year and, they note, even month to month:

How Ransomware Syndicates Operate

Ransomware operators may appear to be single entities, but there is a complex ecosystem of suppliers and ancillary providers behind them that exchange services with each other on the dark web. The flowchart below illustrates all the players and how they interact:

Dark Web Service Providers

Cybercrime “gangs” could once be tracked down and caught like the David Levi Phishing Gang that was investigated and prosecuted in 2005. Today’s decentralized ecosystem, however, makes going after ransomware operators all the more difficult. These independent entities may never interact with each other outside of the dark web where they exchange services for cryptocurrency:

• • Botmasters: Create networks of infected computers and sell access to those compromised devices to threat actors.
  • Access Sellers: Take advantage of publicly disclosed vulnerabilities to infect servers before the vulnerabilities are remedied, then advertise and sell that access to threat actors.

• Operators: The entity that actually carries out the attack with access purchased from botmasters or access sellers and software purchased from developers or developed in-house. May employ a full staff, including customer service, IT support, marketing, etc. depending on how sophisticated the syndicate is.
• Developers: Write the ransomware software and sell it to threat actors for a cut of the ransom.
• Packer Developers: Add protection layers to the software, making it harder to detect.
• Analysts: Evaluate the victim’s financial health to advise on ransom amounts that they’re most likely to pay.
• Affiliates: Purchase ransomware as a service from operators/developers who get a cut of the ransom.
• Negotiating Agents: Handle interactions with victims.
• Laundering Services: Exchange cryptocurrency for fiat currency on exchanges or otherwise transform ransom payments into usable assets.

Victim-side Service Providers

Beyond the collection of entities directly involved in the deployment of ransomware, the broader ecosystem includes other players on the victim’s side, who, for better or worse, stand to profit off of ransomware attacks. These include:

• Incident response firms: Consultants who assist victims in response and recovery.
• Ransomware brokers: Brought in to negotiate and handle payment on behalf of the victim and act as intermediaries between the victim and operators.
• Insurance providers: Cover victims’ damages in the event of an attack.
• Legal counsel: Often manage the relationship between the broker, insurance provider, and victim, and advise on ransom payment decision-making.

Are Victim-side Providers Complicit?

While these providers work on behalf of victims, they also perpetuate the cycle of ransomware. For example, insurance providers that cover businesses in the event of a ransomware attack often advise their customers to pay the ransom if they think it will minimize downtime as the cost of extended downtime can far exceed the cost of a ransom payment. This becomes problematic for a few reasons:

• First, paying the ransom incentivizes cybercriminals to continue plying their trade.
• Second, as Colonial Pipeline discovered, the decryption tools provided by cybercriminals in exchange for ransom payments aren’t to be trusted. More than a month after Colonial paid the $4.4 million ransom and received a decryption tool from the hackers, CEO Joseph Blount testified before Congress that recovery from the attack was still not complete. After all that, they had to rely on recovering from their backups anyway.

The Emergence of Ransomware as a Service

In the ransomware economy, operators and their affiliates are the threat actors that carry out attacks. This affiliate model where operators sell ransomware as a service (RaaS) represents one of the biggest threats to SMBs and organizations today.

Cybercrime syndicates realized they could essentially license and sell their tech to affiliates who then carry out their own misdeeds empowered by another criminal’s software. The syndicates, affiliates, and other entities each take a portion of the ransom.

Operators advertise these partner programs on the dark web and thoroughly vet affiliates before bringing them on to filter out law enforcement posing as low-level criminals. One advertisement by the REvil syndicate noted, “No doubt, in the FBI and other special services, there are people who speak Russian perfectly, but their level is certainly not the one native speakers have. Check these people by asking them questions about the history of Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan or Russia, which cannot be googled. Authentic proverbs, expressions, etc.”

Though less sophisticated than some of the more notorious viruses, these “as a service” variants enable even amateur cybercriminals to carry out attacks. And they’re likely to carry those attacks out on the easiest prey—small businesses who don’t have the resources to implement adequate protections or weather extended downtime.

Hoping to increase their chances of being paid, low-level threat actors using RaaS typically demanded smaller ransoms, under $100,000, but that trend is changing. Coveware reported in August 2020 that affiliates are getting bolder in their demands. They reported the first six-figure payments to the Dharma ransomware group, an affiliate syndicate, in Q2 2020.

The one advantage savvy business owners have when it comes to RaaS: attacks are high volume (carried out against many thousands of targets) but low quality and easily identifiable by the time they are widely distributed. By staying on top of antivirus protections and detection, business owners can increase their chances of catching the attacks before it’s too late.

The Financial Side of the Ransomware Economy

So, how much money do ransomware crime syndicates actually make? The short answer is that it’s difficult to know because so many ransomware attacks go unreported. To get some idea of the size of the ransomware economy, analysts have to do some sleuthing.

Chainalysis tracks transactions to blockchain addresses linked to ransomware attacks in order to capture the size of ransomware revenues. In their regular reporting on the cybercrime cryptocurrency landscape, they showed that the total amount paid by ransomware victims increased by 311% in 2020 to reach nearly $350 million worth of cryptocurrency. In May, they published an update after identifying new ransomware addresses that put the number over $406 million. They expect the number will only continue to grow.

Similarly, threat intel company, Advanced Intelligence, and cybersecurity firm, HYAS, tracked Bitcoin transactions to 61 addresses associated with the Ryuk syndicate. They estimate that the operator may be worth upwards of $150 million alone. Their analysis sheds some light on how ransomware operators turn their exploits and the ransoms paid into usable cash.

Extorted funds are gathered in holding accounts, passed to money laundering services, then either funneled back into the criminal market and used to pay for other criminal services or cashed out at real cryptocurrency exchanges. The process follows these steps, as illustrated below:

• The victim pays a broker.
• The broker converts the cash into cryptocurrency.
• The broker pays the ransomware operator in cryptocurrency.
• The ransomware operator sends the cryptocurrency to a laundering service.
• The laundering service exchanges the coins for fiat currency on cryptocurrency exchanges like Binance and Huobi.

In an interesting development, the report found that Ryuk actually bypassed laundering services and cashed out some of their own cryptocurrency directly on exchanges using stolen identities—a brash move for any organized crime operation.

Protecting Your Company From Ransomware

Even though the ransomware economy is ever-changing, having an awareness of where attacks come and the threats you’re facing can prepare you if you ever face one yourself. To summarize:

• Ransomware operators may seem to be single entities, but there’s a broad ecosystem of players behind them that trade services on the dark web.
• Ransomware operators are sophisticated business entities.
• RaaS enables even low-level criminals to get in the game.
• Ransomware operators raked in at least $406 million in 2020, and likely more than that, as many ransomware attacks and payments go unreported.

We put this post together not to trade in fear, but to prepare SMBs and organizations with information in the fight against ransomware. And, you don’t have to fight it alone. Download our Complete Guide to Ransomware E-book and Guide for even more intel on ransomware today, plus steps to take to defend against ransomware, and how to respond if you do fall victim to an attack.

The post Introducing the Ransomware Economy appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup.

Post Syndicated from Amrit Singh original https://www.backblaze.com/blog/developers-get-ec2-alternative-with-vultr-cloud-compute-and-bare-metal/

The old saying, “birds of a feather flock together,” couldn’t be more true of the latest addition to the Backblaze partner network. Today, we announce a new partnership with Vultr—the largest privately-owned, global hyperscale cloud—to serve developers and businesses with infrastructure as a service that’s easier to use and lower cost than perhaps better known alternatives.

With the Backblaze + Vultr combination, developers now have the ability to connect data stored in Backblaze B2 with virtualized cloud compute and bare metal resources in Vultr—providing a compelling alternative to Amazon S3 and EC2. Each Vultr compute instance includes a fixed amount of bandwidth, meaning that developers can easily transfer data between Vultr’s 17 global locations and Backblaze at no additional cost.

In addition to replacing AWS EC2, Vultr’s complete product line also offers load balancers and block storage which can seamlessly replace Amazon Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) and Elastic Block Storage (EBS).

With this partnership, developers of any size can avoid vendor lock-in, access best of breed services, and do more with the data they have stored in the cloud with ease, including:

• Running analysis on stored data.
• Deploying applications and storing application data.
• Transcoding media and provisioning origin storage for streaming and video on-demand applications.

Backblaze + Vultr: Better Together

Vultr’s ease of use and comparatively low costs have motivated more than 1.3 million developers around the world to use its service. We recognized a shared culture in Vultr, which is why we’re looking forward to seeing what our joint customers can do with this partnership. Like Backblaze, Vultr was founded with minimal outside investment. Both services are transparent, affordable, simple to start without having to talk to sales (although sales support is only a call or email away), and, above all, easy. Vultr is on a mission to simplify deployment of cloud infrastructure, and Backblaze is on a mission to simplify cloud storage.

Rather than trying to be everything for everyone, both businesses play to their strengths, and customers get the benefit of working with unconflicted partners.

Vultr’s pricing often comes in at half the cost of the big three—Amazon, Google, and Microsoft—and with Vultr’s bundled egress, we’re working together to alleviate the burden of bandwidth costs, which can be disproportionately huge for small and medium-sized businesses.

“The Backblaze-Vultr partnership means more developers can build the flexible tech stacks they want to build, without having to make needlessly tough choices between access and affordability,” said Shane Zide, VP of Global Partnerships at Vultr. “When two companies who focus on ease of use and price performance work together, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.”

Fly Higher With Backblaze B2 + Vultr

Existing Backblaze B2 customers now have unfettered access to compute resources with Vultr, and Vultr customers can connect to astonishingly easy cloud storage with Backblaze B2. If you’re not yet a B2 Cloud Storage customer, create an account to get started in minutes. If you’re already a B2 Cloud Storage customer, click here to activate an account with Vultr.

For developers looking to do more with their data, we welcome you to join the flock. Get started with Backblaze B2 and Vultr today.

The post Developers Get EC2 Alternative With Vultr Cloud Compute and Bare Metal appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup.