First Facebook, then AWS—What Outrages May Be Next and How to Keep Your Systems Safe

Facebook has been at the center of some major outages recently, and system admins everywhere are scratching their heads wondering what outage will happen next. First, it was Facebook sharing users’ phone numbers with advertisers. This required a system change that is still being implemented. Then it was Facebook letting political firm Cambridge Analytica access the private data of 50 million users for targeted advertising.

Once again system admins scrambled to make sure their system and data was safe. Now, it’s Amazon Cloud Services making the news but this time system admins may be wondering if they should be worried about what outage might happen next?

After another system administrator published an article about how he discovered that hackers were able to break into Amazon’s system and access a large number of system images, he got a lot of flack from system admins who were upset because as they apparently believe the article would make system administrators look bad.

Stay one step ahead: the key to outage prevention?

While this might be true for some systems, system admins everywhere should take a step back and think about the lessons that can be learned from these outages. This outaged users and system admins had to scramble to make sure their system was safe. But what could they have done to prevent this outage in the first place?

The answer is likely outage prevention. Protecting system security by blocking outages before they can happen. And while system admins everywhere are working tirelessly to make sure their system is protected, it’s not always an easy task. But system admins must look for ways to make their system safer, and outrage prevention might be the answer.

One way system admins can help to prevent outages is by securing their operating system. This means taking steps to ensure that the system is as protected as possible against attacks. For example, system admins can use firewalls and other security measures to help protect their system.

In addition, they should keep their system updated and check system logs to make sure there are no system breaches or system errors. But the operating system is only one part of their system; it’s necessary, but not sufficient for outage prevention.

System admins must pay attention to other security details if they want to protect themselves and their system against outages:

– Check user accounts (privileged and unprivileged system users)

– Account management (password management, access management, encryption)

– Permissions (permission control system to protect against privilege escalation)

– Policies for system configuration changes (for example to block system images from being changed by unauthorized users)

– Data protection (to ensure data is properly protected as it moves through the system)

In the case of Facebook, system admins could have used data protection measures to ensure that user data was properly protected as it moved through the system. And in the case of AWS, system admins should be sure to check user accounts and permissions to make sure that unauthorized users can’t access system data.

By being proactive and using a variety of security measures, Managed Information Technology Solutions can help system administrators stay ahead of the latest security threats and protect their system against outages. Contact Novustek to learn more about how they can help you keep your system safe.