Next Generation Firewalls

We are excited to discuss next generation firewalls for small businesses. We will include brief overviews of the Fortinet 40F, SonicWall TZ 350, Sophos XG 106, and WatchGuard T35 firewalls. First off, every small business needs to have a firewall implemented to prevent data loss, provide VPNs for remote work and to give IT professionals a way to manage devices on your network. The Fortinet 40F provides 5 Gigabits per second speed and offers the new SoC SD-WAN ASIC processor for faster performance and ultra-low latency. The SonicWall TZ 350 provides a higher number of SSL VPN licenses and provides a cloud-based sandbox when an identified threat is noted. The Sophos XG 106 provides larger onboard RAM and has an integrated SSD. The WatchGuard T35 provides the scalability to your business without ripping out existing network security devices, if you are envisioning fast growth into the future. If you’re not sure which device you need, reach out to Cuevista today. We are here to secure and provide availability to your business’s sensitive data.

Cross Platform Mobile Apps

The days of cross platform mobile app languages are here and they are flourishing for faster development. These types of languages allow you to program once for Android and Apple devices. There are three popular languages for App development and those are Xamarin, React Native and Flutter. We would like to add there are many others; however, we will just be discussing the most popular. All three languages are open source platforms and provide native functionality where applicable for Android or Apple devices. Xamarin is a framework by Microsoft that allows the programmer to build Apps with C# and the .Net framework. React native is a framework by Facebook that allows the programmer to build apps with JavaScript. Flutter is a framework by Google that allows the programmer to build Apps with Dart. All three are great options, but some are more efficient than others based on your project requirements (i.e. Graphics, Code Reusability, Native Functionality, etc.). These popular cross platform mobile app languages all have their pros and cons, but with the right selection your project will run and perform flawlessly.

Docker or Kubernetes

Virtualization with Docker or Kubernetes. Both solutions are operating system level virtualization that runs software packages called containers. This type of virtualization of resources is the latest trend for spinning up a web server, website, database, etc. The Docker concept originated on Linux; however, Microsoft has implemented its own concept called Kubernetes that takes the guess work out of resource allocation when deploying a container. The primary difference between them is the Docker environment is designed to run on a single node and Kubernetes is designed to run on a series of nodes. Both of them are great virtualization options with Docker leaning towards small business solutions and Kubernetes leaning towards enterprise solutions; however, a new product called Docker Swarm is on the horizon to give Microsoft a run for its money. Also, we will note both solutions can be ran together.

Automation with Powershell

Get started with windows automation with these 5 helpful cmdlets for Powershell:

1. Get-Help – it allows a user to see what a specific cmdlet does.

2. Get-Command – this is very helpful when troubleshooting in a shell and searching modules.

3. Get-ChildItem – this cmdlet lists items inside of a folder.

4. Foreach-Object – is used to process objects through script block and/or calling a property or method directly.

5. Get-Member – this cmdlet displays the properties of a folder object.

By using PowerShell automation can be a few keystrokes away.

Trick Bot Trojan

Alert! TrickBot is a Trojan targeting Windows machines and is on the rise. The TrickBot trojan was originally developed in 2016 and contains many different modules that are configured to steal credentials and encrypt the data to remote servers. The highlights of some of these modules include the EternalBlue exploit and embedded malicious code within file attachments in emails. Be on the lookout and don’t click on links in emails.