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4 min IT Ops

Google Cloud DataFlow – A Game Changer?

So the biggest revolution in database and analytics technology – namely the distributed batch processing technique known as MapReduce (and the associated Hadoop-centric ecosystem that has built up around it) is a legacy technology for one Silicon Valley player. Last week Google announced the arrival of Google Cloud Dataflow – a new service for cloud-based big data analytics that, Google says, supersedes MapReduce.[ While various VCs and

1 min

Gartner calls for rebalancing security budgets: invest more in detection vs. prevention

In his talk last week at the 2014 Gartner Security and Risk Management Summit, Gartner Analyst Neil McDonald said that when targeted attacks are considered, traditional technologies like firewalls, intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDS/IPS) and anti-malware tools fail in detection. That is because it's hard to use them to detect attacks that nobody has seen before, hence have no known signature. Based on Gartner's security infrastructure model, McDonald points out that companies are s

1 min Incident Response

Top 3 Takeaways from the "Need for Speed: 5 Tips to Accelerate Incident Investigation Time" Webcast

In a thorough and detailed webcast earlier this week, we heard from michael belton and Lital Asher - Dotan on the increasingly urgent subject, “Need for Speed: 5 Tips to Accelerate Incident Investigation Time ”. Meticulous and successful plans for efficient incident response can make or break an organization after a

2 min

Scanning time machine: Reporting on a historical scan

In network security, the questions are urgent. Are we protected against malware? Do we have protocols in place to prevent a hacker from breaking in? Sometimes, however, you need to look back in time and see what the status was in the past. If you have been tracking a vulnerability and it finally goes away, you might want to check the information in a past scan and compare it to changes in your environment. Another reason you might want to report on a historical scan is an audit. If you are re

3 min IT Ops

Smart Integration Testing with Dropwizard, Flyway and Retrofit

It’s widely understood that increasing the scope and complexity of a piece of software almost always dramatically increases the effort required to verify it. Verification typically entails testing the behavior of the new feature, plus ensuring no existing functionality has been adversely affected. Because this kind of testing can quickly become painful for even the simplest of components, and because at Logentries

3 min IT Ops

Why You Should Analyze Your Logs When Load Testing

We recently hosted awebinar about running load tests (with BlazeMeter ) and then analyzing the log data generated on the application under test (with Logentries ). We had a great response and I wanted to share a few more thoughts about why load and stress testing your applications is an important step in understanding how your systems will behave in production when incr

1 min IT Ops

How to Run JMeter Tests for 500k Users & Analyze Log Data Results

Logentries recently co-hosted a webinar with BlazeMeter on advanced JMeter testing for 500,000+ users. The webinar had almost 1,000 registrants, and focused on helping  users understand what’s happening on their systems during load testing; identify any warnings or exceptions being thrown; and how to use log data to analyze performance under this load level. In this webinar, Logentries co-founder Trevor Parsons and BlazeMeter DevOps Team Leader Refael Botbol covered how

3 min IT Ops

Correlating Logs and Server Metrics...Finally!

Server resource usage information is a key data point that is critical for any Operations/DevOps team. I like to think of server resource usage information as analogous to the dashboard of your car — it can tell you if you are running out of gas or if something is overheating your system. Similarly, if you keep a record of your server metrics you can also use them to investigate and debug issues in your systems, understand performance trends as well as use in capacity planning over time.

4 min IT Ops

Debugging Rails with Logs

This article was written by Jack Kinsella, a Logentries customer based in Berlin. Jack owns Oxbridge Notes and co-founded Bolivian Express. Below Jack has shared an excerpt from his writings on A Comprehensive Guide to Debugging Rails. Seasoned Rails pros will have interpreting logs down second nature, but I’ll outline the important realizations I had as a beginner for the sake of the version of me out there who is new to Rails development. Whenever you visit a page/fill a form/do an Ajax reque

4 min Exploits

You have no SQL inj--... sorry, NoSQL injections in your application

Everyone knows about SQL injections. They are classic, first widely publicized by Rain Forest Puppy, and still widely prevalent today (hint: don't interpolate query string params with SQL). But who cares? SQL injections are so ten years ago. I want to talk about a vulnerability I hadn't run into before that I recently had a lot of fun exploiting. It was a NoSQL injection. The PHP application was using MongoDB, and MongoDB has a great feature

2 min Microsoft

Patch Tuesday, June 2014

Patch Tuesday, June 2014 delivers seven advisories, of them, two critical, five important – one of which is the seldom seen “tampering” type. The remarkable item in this month's advisories is MS14-035, the Internet Explorer patch affecting all supported versions.  That in itself is not unique, we see one of these almost every month, but this time the patch addresses 59 CVEs, that is 59 distinct vulnerabilities in one patch! Microsoft asserts that while two of the vulnerabilities (CVE-2014-1770

2 min

Kali-lujah! Nexpose now supports Kali Linux

2017 Update: Our Kali support in Nexpose was deprecated some time ago. For information on supported operating systems and all things Nexpose, see our help site or reach out to your CSM. Pen testers and Kali Linux lovers, get your Nexpose on! Now you can install Nexpose on the same platform you use for everything else! As of the Nexpose 5.9.13 release, Kali Linux is now an officially supported operating system. You can now install Nexpose on Kali Linux 64-b

2 min IT Ops

Collecting and Analyzing Logs from Your Java Application

le_java is one of several libraries that allow you to send log data directly to your Logentries account from your application.  le_java supports both the log4j and logback logging libraries in java, and can be configured to work with either – in just a few steps!  (Check out: github.com/logentries/le_java/blob/master/README.md for our complete tutorial.) Once you have your application send

1 min Metasploit

Top 3 Takeaways from "7 Ways to Make Your Penetration Tests More Productive" Webcast

Earlier this week we heard from ckirsch , Senior Product Marketing Manager for Metasploit at Rapid7, on the pressure penetration testers are facing. (Hint: it's a lot!). With the increase in high profile breaches and their costs, more and more emphasis is being put on the pen tester and security in general. Read on if you'd like to get the top takeaways from this week's webcast so that you aren't left in the dark about, "7 Ways to Make Your Penetratio

2 min

Joining the Rapid7 Team!

If I was asked to pick one word that encompasses the reason I decided to join Rapid7 as a Security Consultant and Researcher it would be community.  After seeing two of my colleagues, Trey Ford and Nick Percoco, join the ranks of Rapid7 over the last several months I knew that something special was happening, and curiosity being what it is, I started to do some research into what Rapid7 was about. Sure, there are all the wonderful technology they provide and the range of security products they o