Cloud Computing - Network Security Practices

This blog post gives a basic idea about the best practices of Network security for Cloud Computing.

Good security practices cover every aspect of system design, implementation and deployment. Applications should secure by design. That is interfaces should only contain the appropriate data to authorized users. When concerning the Implementation developers should avoid using coding which could result in vulnerability to techniques such as buffer overflow or SQL injection. When deployed, operating systems should be hardened and every layer of software should kept up to date with the most recent security patches.

When concerning about Cloud Computing all applications are deployed in a shared network environment and there are security techniques such as VLANs and port filtering. These techniques help to protect various layers of application deployment architecture.

There are some approaches available to Network Security. Using a security domain is one of them. Security domains can be use to group virtual machines together and then can control access to the domain through the cloud provider’s port filtering capabilities. For an example create a security domain for front-end Web Servers and open only the HTTP and HTTPS ports to the outside world and then filter traffic from the Web server security domain to the one containing back-end data base.  

Another approach is control the traffic using the cloud provider’s port-based filtering or using more stateful packet filtering by inserting content switches or firewall appliances. The concept of Immutable Service Containers (ISCs) can be used to have more fine-grained control over traffic. This allows multiple layers of software to be deployed in a single virtual machine and there is a network which is internal to the virtual machine. This technology uses Solaris Zones to support multiple secure virtual environments on a shared OS platform and this is available in both the Solaris and Open Solaris Operating Systems.

Wireless Security - Be Safe...

This post is about how to be safe when dealing with wireless technologies.

If you are on an open wireless network, anyone with the right equipment can read what you are sending to the Wireless Access Point (WAP). Some websites allow encrypted connections which protect your data, but this is not enough when you are sending sensitive information by email or working with important documents. So you should concern about wireless security seriously and take actions to connect through Wi-Fi safely.

Virtual Private Network (VPN) encrypts all the data that passes to and from your computer. Let’s assume that a hacker is trying to capture the data and in that case even they will not be able to read the data if you have a VPN. If someone has a 3G access point, you can always trust the connection through the cellular network.

You should always keep in mind that you need to protect your physical computer from theft and malicious intents. Remember to use a good physical security. Encrypt your important data and documents, by doing so you can save valuables against others who tries to access even if they manage to crack your login password. Another method is installing a PC Tracker to track down your missing hardware in the event that it’s stolen.

SharePoint 2010 Lists - Add, Edit, Delete Items using c#

This post describes how to add items, edit items and delete items from a SharePoint list.

Adding an Item

According to my example there should be a List called "Tasks" which was created using the Tasks template.
If not you can create a List.

After that you have to open a SharePoint Console Application and insert the below code inside the main method.
Make sure that you have added the correct Site Name.

 using (SPSite site = new SPSite("http://sp-sohani:8118/sites/Gouri_Sohani/Team_GSSD/"))
            {
 
                using (SPWeb web = site.OpenWeb())
                {
 
                    SPList list = web.Lists["Tasks"];
 
                    SPListItem item = list.Items.Add();
 
                    item["Title"] = "New Task";
 
                    item["Description"] = "Description of Task";
 
                    item.Update();
 
                }
 
            }

Then run the program and you will see a new item called 'New Task" has added to the 'Tasks' List

Editing an Item

In this example I have edited the first Task of the Tasks List. (If you want to edit the second item
eg: list.Items[1];)

I have changed the Title and the Description of the first item.

using (SPSite site = new SPSite("http://sp-sohani:8118/sites/Gouri_Sohani/Team_GSSD/"))
            {
 
                using (SPWeb web = site.OpenWeb())
                {
 
                    SPList list = web.Lists["Tasks"];
 
                    SPListItem item = list.Items[0];
 
                    item["Title"] = "Edited Task";
 
                    item["Description"] = "Description of Task (edited)";
 
                    item.Update();
 
                }
 
 
 
            }

Now you can see the Title of the task has changed to "Edited Task".

Deleting an Item

In this example I have deleted the first Item of the 'Tasks' List.

      using (SPSite site = new SPSite("http://sp-sohani:8118/sites/Gouri_Sohani/Team_GSSD/"))
            {
 
                using (SPWeb web = site.OpenWeb())
                {
 
                    SPList list = web.Lists["Tasks"];
 
                    SPListItem item = list.Items[0];
 
                    item.Delete();
 
                }
 
            }


After you run the program you will see that the first item has deleted from the 'Tasks' List.