Guides to help setup Proxies, SSL/TLS Certificates, Software, platforms and more.
As of June 2023, all code-signing certificates will be issued on a pre-configured, secure USB device that meets FIPS compliance. This means that code-signing certificates can no longer be simply downloaded from a certificate vendor or reseller and …
Microsoft’s SQL Server Reporting Services is a popular Business Intelligence framework. Through SSRS, administrators can analyze, collate, and synthesize data from a variety of sources into easy to consume web-based reports. It is common for …
F5’s BigIP is one of the world’s premier load balancing platforms. Under the BigIP umbrella, there are many product options which act as plugins to TMOS (the underlying linux-based operating system upon which BigIP is built). From a load balancing …
OPNSense is a popular BSD-based routing and security appliance loved by many for its ease of use and vast feature set. Originally a fork of PFSense, OPNSense took the deliberate move to rearchitect certain components in the interests of pushing new …
HomeAssistant is an extremely popular self-hosted platform for integrating with an impressively large selection of smart home devices. HomeAssistant allows users to create rules called “Automations” that trigger on various conditions and execute …
OpenSSL is a popular library used for performing various actions around SSL/TLS such as generating keypairs, creating CSRs, and testing connectivity against endpoints encrypted via SSL/TLS. While alternatives such as BoringSSL and LibreSSL do exist, …
FTPS has always been a topic of much confusion among systems administrators. It has also largely fallen out of favor in deference to SFTP which has fewer networking requirements. But what is the difference between FTPS and SFTP? What about FTPS is …
Instant Messaging is a popular method of communication both at home and in the workplace. It is not always easy however to ensure that communication remains private. One of the best ways to guarantee message privacy is to both self-host the …
Usually we focus on SSL/TLS and its role in encryption in-transit. However, equally worth understanding is encryption at-rest. While encryption in-transit (also called in-flight) focuses on secure transmission via an insecure channel, both the …
This is perhaps one of the most abstract uses of an HSM, so let’s start with a real-world scenario. Your IT department recently read the last article in this series and wants to setup an offline root CA whose private key is stored on the Nitrokey …
In our last article, we have covered getting started with the NitroKey HSM. Today we will go through the process of setting up an entire internal PKI backed by the security guarantee the HSM provides. First, we will generate a root CA with a private …
SSL/TLS relies on a public/private keypair in order to keep data secure in transit. If a private key is no longer private, the communication is no longer secure. For most organisations, simply making sure to generate private keys on the server where …
Microsoft’s .NET framework is a collection of tools and libraries accessible from various “.NET Programming Languages” used by developers to build applications on the Windows Platform. ASP.NET, which runs natively on IIS (Microsoft’s web server …
Two of the most important considerations for any website owner are security and speed. Historically, these goals have been ever at odds. One of the most effective techniques for insuring a consistent experience for end users is a caching layer. …
HAProxy is an extremely powerful free and open-source load balancing solution. With it, you can insure high availability within your datacenter. Highly available systems are better for business continuity and better for security, as they can be …
OCSP Stapling is an exciting technology supported by all recent servers and clients that with just a few minutes of your time will allow you to reduce the network load on your servers and provide faster load times for your sites and services.
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