[Some Interesting] Cloud ‘n Sec news: 18th Feb 22
What’s worth your reading time
Cloud
Azure
Improving Azure VM monitoring capabilities with Project Flash
This is first public release of Project flash, which is the internal name given to efforts to around improvign Azure VM availaiblity metrics within Azure.
Flash, as the project is internally known, is a collection of efforts across Azure Engineering, that aims to evolve Azure’s virtual machine (VM) availability monitoring ecosystem into a centralized, holistic, and intelligible solution customers can rely on to meet their specific observability needs. Today, we’re excited to announce the completion of the project’s first two milestones — the preview of VM availability data in Azure Resource Graph, and the private preview of a VM availability metric in Azure Monitor.
This initial release includes 2 capabilities:
First, at-scale analysis for VM availability: VM availability statuses in Azure Resource graph, meaning Kusto Query Language querying is now supported.
Second, VM availability metric in Azure Monitor: An out-of-box VM availability metric great for quick and easy debugging to catch early signs of performance degradation and more.
Read more in the Article: Advancing Azure Virtual Machine availability monitoring with Project Flash | Azure Blog and Updates | Microsoft Azure
GCP
Google Cloud’s First CISO
A first for the platform, is an experienced professional who has focused on Securing and making security better for people, according to himself.
He emphasizes how Google Cloud much like security focused cloud providers can improve customers’ security posture by “looping”, in an interview to SDXcentral, he said:
For the first time in history, we’ve got this feedback loop happening
Quite an interesting article to see who he is as well.
Read the full interview here: Google Cloud’s CISO Wants to Talk About Your Digital Immune System — SDxCentral
Security
One of the biggest NFL teams has been hit by Ransomware attack this week.
Blackbyte strain infected San Francisco 49ers. Some data was stolen and network disruption was caused by the attack, though the victim did not confirm whether the ransomware encrypted devices or not by the time of the report below.
More details here: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/nfls-san-francisco-49ers-hit-by-blackbyte-ransomware-attack/
Think twice before modding Steam games
This one is another example why gaming should never be done in the same device as your main files are. Amongst other reasons, of course.
Steam has identified and block a user who offered a mod with hidden ability to download malicious files including keyloggers and bitcoin mining software into gamers’ machines.
The mod was for Cities: Skylines and the malicious user had apparently performed malicious activities on this game before, like DDoxing other users.
Some of the reasons why I prefer consoles and single player games overall…
Read the full report here: https://www.pcgamer.com/valve-bans-cities-skylines-modder-accused-of-hiding-malicious-code-in-mods/
Learn more about my Cloud and Security Projects:
Web: www.cloudnsec.com
Listen: bit.ly/cloudnsecspotify
Watch: bit.ly/cloudnsecyoutube
Thank you for reading and leave your thoughts/comments!
