A TIME OF PEACE, A SEASON OF WONDER AND JOY… WE WISH YOU ALL THE BEST NOW AND THROUGH THE COMING YEAR.
Happy holidays and Joyful New Year from Dynamic Concepts
News
2 Major Security Exploits Discovered
2 Major Security Exploits Discovered
Within the last 24 hours researchers at Google announced two major security threats they discovered which are likely to affect the vast majority of devices from servers, desktops, laptops, cellphones (etc) as well as the devices and operating systems running on them. These threats are known as Spectre and Meltdown and more information can be found on them at www.spectreattack.com. These vulnerabilities affect processors that run “speculative execution.” One exploit (Meltdown) is suspected to affect Intel chips (potentially all that have been made in the past 15-20 years), and the other exploit (Spectre) appears to affect Intel, ARM and potentially AMD chipsets as well (although AMD has denied this in some capacity).
How does this affect our clients?
AWS is the backbone of our infrastructure today and they primarily run on the affected Intel chipsets. AWS has began expediting the patching process and leaving us just a 1-3 hour window of time to notify you before your servers will be rebooted. These last minute maintenance windows are coming in waves and we have been working diligently to keep you informed and updated as soon as we know and will be assisting you in preparing for this event so this occurs with minimal impact to your business.
What should you do?
Standby for confirmation that your server(s) are impacted, we will reach out to you via phone and email to notify you if you are affected. The patch does negatively affect CPU performance by up to ~30% so if you are patched and rebooted, this should be expected.
We also recommend you update the OS on all of your devices running Intel chipsets over the next 24 hours to prevent you from being exploited. If your device is still supported a patch should be rolled out shortly if it does not already exist.
Please open a ticket at tickets.dynamic.com if you have any questions or concerns. You can follow the official news on this exploit by subscribing to our news feed here or at the following locations:
https://newsroom.intel.com/
https://aws.amazon.com/security/security-bulletins/
Your support team,
Dynamic Concepts
Open Source eCommerce
Open Source Myths
There are a lot of misconceptions about open source software (OSS) in terms of its price, when it can be used, and whether it’s a good fit for businesses.
Are open source solutions for small stores?
Can open source solutions like WooCommerce scale for large businesses? Of course — “scaling” software doesn’t matter whether the software is open or not.
And in fact, if you do run into areas that need optimization, at least you’ll have control over the source code to make potential improvements with an open platform vs. one where you don’t have access to the code that runs it.
Here are some benchmarks that WooCommerce can hit:
- Up to 5 orders per second
- That’s 20,000 orders per hour, and about half a million per day, if your store can sustain that rate for more than a flash sale
- 4,000 – 6,000 concurrent shoppers on the site
Your company could be at risk if you haven’t implemented the “New Standard” for business email
Email is more than a communication tool for businesses…it is THE communication tool. On average, a single business user sends and receives nearly 34,000 emails a year¹. But many businesses haven’t addressed new and seemingly unavoidable vulnerabilities. Have you?
Why choose Dynamic Concepts and AWS for your website?
Choose Dynamic Concepts and AWS for your website?
- GLOBALLY AVAILABLE Leverage a reliable, globally available infrastructure to give your customers a responsive, low-latency web experience regardless of their location.
- FAST TO DEPLOY Deploy your website in minutes or hours, never wait for hardware procurement or deployment.
- FLEXIBLE & SCALABLE Ensure that your web traffic is optimally distributed with the flexibility to scale up and down as needed.
- COST-EFFECTIVE Make your website more cost-effective with access to pay-as-you-go web hosting infrastructure.
Provide high-quality content to your customers with low-latency
A responsive, available website is a crucial component of your business. With AWS & Dynamic Concepts you can quickly deliver websites to your customers anywhere in the world with low-latency. There is no need to purchase hardware, build facilities, or find a co-location provider. And with access to a global infrastructure footprint that spans multiple geographic regions, you can safeguard the availability of your website even in the case of rare events like natural disasters. Whether your website has 100 visitors per week or 100 million, AWS allows you to provision what you need to keep your website running smoothly.
Why should you migrate to the AWS Cloud with Dynamic Concepts today?
Why should you migrate to the AWS Cloud with Dynamic Concepts today?
- IMPROVE PERFORMANCE Provision the compute, storage, and memory you need to support even the most demanding workloads without hardware refreshes.
- AUTOMATE SCALING Set conditions that can automatically scale your capacity up and down to maintain availability and optimal resource utilization.
- USE THE SAME TOOLS AS ON-PREMISES Leverage existing virtual machine images and management software like Microsoft System Center and VMWare vCenter
- GAIN GLOBAL AVAILABILITY Access reliable, highperformance global IT infrastructure with a few clicks.
- SECURE YOUR DATA Protect data with 256-bit encryption, virtual isolation, identity and access controls, and more.
- CAPITALIZE ON PAY AS YOU GO PRICING Trade CapEx for OpEx and stop paying for resources that you don’t need.
How Attackers Gain Access to WordPress Sites
Research on March 23, 2016 by Dan Moen
On this blog we write a lot about different vulnerabilities that could lead to site compromise. In our Learning Center we go deep on a myriad of important topics related to WordPress security. Our handy checklist, for example, includes 42 items you really should be paying attention to. But surely not all 42 items are equally important, right? In today’s post we dive into some very interesting data we gathered a couple of weeks ago in a survey, letting the facts tell us what matters most.
How much can you save by deploying the “New Standard”?
For businesses deploying on-premises Exchange, adding additional services such as email archiving and email security can be expensive and costly. But meeting the “New Standard” doesn’t have to be expensive.
When deploying Exchange in the cloud, businesses can easily offload hardware and electricity costs, reduce IT complexity and increase overall security.
What makes up the “New Standard” for Business Email?
The ecosystem around email has changed significantly and dramatically in just the last couple of years. Huge new business risks have come to the forefront. (if you don’t know what those risks are, read our first post of this series 5 Ways Your Email Could be At Risk
Today, there’s a “New Standard” for business email—one that requires servers to protect your business against everything from phishing attacks to legal challenges to the risks of an unpredictable climate. To mitigate these risks, your business must embrace these three key changes to your email infrastructure:
Top Places Your Business Needs to Be Listed Online
Google Places for Business
Listing your business on Google Places for Business should be at the top of your priority list. Google outperforms every other search engine by a long shot. In fact, Google receives nearly 6 billion searches per day.
Advantages
Registering for a business listing on Google is easy and free
Business listings appear in Google Maps
Happy customers can leave reviews on your Google+ page
Create your Google Places for Business listing.
Read more