Introducing a new standard in site protection, security and reliability
Overview
As a business that thrives on setting a standard nothing less than exceptional, we are introducing an upgrade to our security solution by implementing Imunify360. This brings a wealth of benefits and improvements to your hosting service, completely free of charge.
Cloudlinux has been a long-standing partner of ours – the developers of the most robust operating system available for the shared hosting industry. A number of years back Imunify360 was launched to market, however rigorous testing in the earlier stages proved our pre-existing solution, BitNinja to be superior in a number of areas.
However, these last few years have allowed us time to watch the Imunify360 product mature at an incredible pace. So much so, we are confident in its ability to not only ‘match’ the functionality we have been provided by BitNinja, but also to improve some key areas of our platforms security, reputation and reliability.
The benefits of the change are outlined below along with a comparison between the two solutions. The core introductions would be improved security, stability, protection for WordPress and other CMS based sites and a drastically reduced false-positive rate on WAF protection and malware detection. In addition, reduced ‘complexities’ surrounding SSL termination, WAF management and malware scanning – not to mention the welcome introduction of ‘malware cleanup’ as opposed to the existing ‘quarantine / removal’ process.
We have already been running Imunify360 in place of BitNinja on a small number of servers spanning the past few weeks, and have so far received no interruption to service, and nothing but an improvement in RBL status, performance and security – we are incredibly pleased to confirm that we have yet to receive a single support ticket relating to the change, which is particularly indicative of a fantastic solution Of course, if you have any questions or concerns, you are welcome to reach out to our support team for assistance.
Today, we are happy to announce that we have officially formed a partnership with the team at Imunify360 and will be beginning a more definitive rollout phase of the product to replace our existing security solution.
WHAT BENEFITS ARE BEING INTRODUCED?
Cloudlinux OS Developers
Imunify360 has been built by the endlessly reliable and intuitive team at Cloudlinux – our operating system of choice which powers our entire fleet. Cloudlinux have developed an incredibly robust security platform in Imunify360.
Reduced False-Positives
With Imunify360 we will be introducing CMS and application specific WAF rules, as opposed to ‘generic’ rules that should apply to any site or application. This introduces more granular application of security rules to your sites.
Clean-Up of Malware
One of Imunify360’s most powerful features – files which are detected to contain malware are now automatically cleaned, removing the injected code rather than the file simply being ‘quarantined’.
Improved Performance
Malware consumes resources – lots of resources! With the improved malware protection, real-time scanning and auto-cleanup facilities, the resources previously consumed by malware would be available for your sites.
Zero-Day Exploit Mitigation
Imunify360 implements a unique solution to zero-day exploits and attacks called ‘Proactive Defence’, which stops PHP execution of malicious or suspicious activity in its tracks.
Fully Inclusive Protection
No hidden costs and no per-client pricing – Imunify360 is a server-level protection facility that provides extensive and granular protection for all of your clients, completely free of charge.
Why the Change from BitNinja?
Before we go into any technical details of the new service, let us introduce to you the reasons we decided to make the change.
For those of you who may not be familiar with our hosting platform, we have been using BitNinja to protect our servers for the past two years. BitNinja is an integrated set of modules, each of which provide protection against particular services or attack vectors.
We have seen fantastic success in its implementation, and have since seen fantastic results in its ability to provide protection to over 150,000 sites across our network. BitNinja’s primary facility is its IP reputation, which prevents access from malicious traffic based on a ‘greylist’ / ‘whitelist’ process, intelligently gathered from thousands of other users of the BitNinja suite.
BitNinja has protected us from countless potential exploits, unwanted bot traffic and malicious attacks. In addition, server load was reduced as part of its introduction, which was possible due to its extensive IP protection capabilities.
This without doubt will raise the question of ‘why change?‘
It’s our responsibility as a hosting provider to ensure that we don’t just ‘settle’ for a solution that works, but to ensure that we are at the forefront of any emerging technologies, and likewise, any threats that impose risks to our clients, or the servers for where our clients websites are located. As such, whilst any solution seems ‘adequate’ at fulfilling its role, we are always on the lookout for ways to improve service, protection, security or performance – even if a potential change comes at an expense.
We have looked at the Imunify360 product since its infancy, carrying out tests since its very first ‘beta’ release. However, we had always found the performance of BitNinja unmatched. From a ‘cosmetic’ point of view, Imunify360 had this nailed since day one, making a beautiful, intuitive and powerful UI to control a servers underlying security – however, the performance impacts were always a real concern.
In the past 12 months or so however, we have seen continual and very significant performance improvements to the Imunify360 solution, which are now in our opinion ‘parallel’ with the BitNinja solution we have come to love over the years.
More importantly however, is that we have seen both businesses grow and adapt to changes in the industry in very different ways. Imunify360 have been at the forefront of developing new ways to protect against ever complexing ‘0-day’ attacks, outbound attack prevention and a vastly improved malware detection and clean-up facility, whilst BitNinja appear to have taken a more ‘commercial’ turn with the recent introduction of ‘Site Protection’ – a paid facility that provides an additional layer of protection to those willing to pay for direct support from their team. Whilst an innovative concept, this wasn’t something I felt particularly comfortable with, and would have instead preferred see some drive behind the core security features of the underlying protection facility.
Its here, where we have seen Imunify360 surpass the underlying capabilities of BitNinja – something which has excelled over the past 6 months or so, and is the reason we believe Imunify360 is our solid choice moving forward.
We have been testing Imunify360 on a fleet of around 15-20 servers spanning the past few months (some of which are already running the new solution) and have been overwhelmed with the results. We have provided an outline of some of those benefits below.
We will continue to hold and maintain a strong relationship with the team at BitNinja, and will be ever thankful for the fantastic solution, support and commitment we have received so far. We will also continue to offer BitNinja on VPS servers and Dedicated Servers if required.
Security without Complexity
Powerful Security and Protection
Imunify360 is the multilayer next-generation security suite for proactive real-time website protection and security for Linux web servers developed specifically by CloudLinux. It’s not just antivirus or WAF.
It utilizes a six-layer sophisticated approach to provide total protection against threats, including distributed brute force attacks and zero-day attacks. Imunify360 combines an Intrusion Prevention and Detection system, a Web Application Firewall, Real-time Antivirus protection, a Network Firewall, and Patch Management components.
Proactive Malware Defence
Protection from outbound attacks and zero-day exploits.
Intrusion Prevention
Intelligent intrusion protection for your sites and applications.
Web Application Firewall
Application specific WAF rules to protect from common attacks.
Malware Database Scanner
Imunify360 is capable of scanning MySQL databases for malware.
