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, and 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 number of servers spanning the past few months, 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.
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 has 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 a 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 Protection
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 provides 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 a 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 client's 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 servers underlying security – however, the performance impacts were always a real concern.
In the past 12 months or so, 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 has 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 appears 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 to 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 and have been overwhelmed with the results.
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.
What about Site Protection?
If you are currently making use of Site Protection, you may have a paid subscription with BitNinja directly, as opposed to ourselves. However, as we are removing the BitNInja solution, we would be happy to add funds to your account equating to your most recent bill / invoice with BitNinja specifically for the Site Protection solution.
How will this affect me?
In all honesty, you likely won't even notice the change (as mentioned above, Imunify360 has been running on a number of servers already, and so far we have received no interruption at all).
However, the benefits long term would be a more robust, secure home for your websites including the benefits outlined above.
We are already making changes to our client area that would allow you to manage IP address whitelists and malware reporting / monitoring as before.
Post a Comment (0)