1. As most cloud providers are breached all your data has already leaked so as long as you have a backup for ransomware there is no need to worry about security--you already have none.
2. Your employees will be happy because if your internet goes down they get some time off.
3. The IRS will be happy because the sluggish nature of cloud-based applications will require your staff to work more hours and therefore will increase your tax burden.
4. You don't have to create a ransomware plan as cloud can raise prices--which is effectively ransomware.
5. You will help our major "big-tech-overlords" as they will mine your data and replace you. They are benevolent and we are their property. You owe them your intellectual property afterall.

Manufacturing should have never moved away from provable security architecture. The assumption that a breach is inevitable, performed with little creative and technical effort, is simply too bleak. Maybe it can be prevented with a more digestible and practical guide, but it's always been possible for businesses to have multiple networks like internally facing and isolated OT, and externally facing IT. Furthermore, factories always have staff on site – remote access is unnecessary and dangerous. Imagine for a moment an alternate reality where OT remained isolated. Theoretically, those capable of developing 0day exploits would have to focus on very large enterprises with the ROI to justify their effort, and cyber criminals that rely on crude, pre-programmed ransomware would have to focus on other industries. Instead, businesses are justifying RMM and cloud because they either don't understand the risks and the tech, or they are big enough to weather an attack.

If square one was starting with physically segmented OT, located in a secure facility, then a breach would require "0day" exploitation. However, maintaining true physical and logical segmentation is easier said than done. Without additional staff or automation to manage that segmentation, maintaining an air-gap is burdensome, impractical, or even impossible for SMMs. Stakeholders don't want to deal with or understand the tech – they just want things to work. Now, manufacturers can take advantage of NetThunder's technology to automate IT and OT infrastructure, dramatically reducing their attack surface by enabling them to easily manage physically segmented networks.

The implicit trust of downstream users was exploited and highlighted by the supply-chain attack, exposing security failures and bad data responsibility of these organizations. Attention on upstream vendors and service companies, in particular those with broad access like Kaseya and SolarWinds, through the lens of compliance would dictate that the supply chain must be overhauled – the damage is too widespread to tolerate. These two companies were in "good faith compliance," yet they were still able to pass along compromised software. So ultimately, it is the responsibility of the State to protect the economy by hardening compliance regulations and audits, and the responsibility of the High tech industry to simplify compliance with innovative tech.

As the world grows increasingly interconnected, interdependent, and interoperable, and as more business-critical networks are exposed, the possibility of those networks being accessed never goes away in any reliable or provable way. Deploying NetThunder's autonomous private cloud will ensure valuable production and compute cycles are protected with provable security of the air gap.

Consider: how many trillions will be lost due to cybercrime between now and whenever a second penetration is documented?

But, many have not see Stuxnet as an affirmation of the security of the air gap, after all why go through the trouble of disconnecting a network if it isn't perfectly immutable? They also willfully ignore the trillions of dollars of cybercrime damage caused annually. Stuxnet is be a teachable moment for the High tech industry, projected to transfer US$753 billion over the next five years as a result of cybercrime – a stark contrast of success and failure in the two security methodologies. The solution is clear for those with sensitive networks – air gap and restrict access.

But a true air gap means manually configuring the network, no trivial feat, and many organizations are allergic to firing their MSP and CSP support – a flexible solution must be able to integrate, not replace.

As such, public clouds are very flexible as long as the customer has an internet connection; automation and feature-rich environments are easy to use and powerful, but ultimately it is vulnerable to attack. Organizations are routinely exploited, global cybercrime damage in 2021 was US$6 trillion, an evolution of cloud tech must offer the same utility but with better security. Each dollar taken represents a lost opportunity to futureproof sensitive networks from a chronic problem.

As White Hats have constantly been outpaced by Black Hats, as consumer demands have forced veteran businesses to go digital and others are born into the digital age, and as computers have transformed from fancy calculators the size of buildings into little world brains that fit in our pockets... so too must cloud IT infrastructure. No one can carry around a CSP datacenter, but NetThunder's private cloud can fit on a 1U server, a portable appliance deployable anywhere.

What is clear is the status quo shouldn't be sustained. Taking a hint from the military, securing the nuclear launch network with an air gap, many organizations may reconsider self-hosting as the multi-trillion dollar cyberthreat industry looms. Bridging the air gap for organizations, NetThunder's autonomous private cloud platform defends business- and workflow-critical networks by removing the burden of manual network configuration – deploying and maintaining a true air gap was once a complex and uncertain process. Now organizations have the option to deploy NetThunder's autonomous private clouds for a flexible network, keeping data secure with an air gap.

However, not all organizations monetize privacy invasion, and HPC assets demonstrate strong ROI across verticals. Their proliferation can be contextualized by this feedback loop: HPC assets are initially invested in because AI/ML drives novel and unique insight; business value and profitability grow from improved efficiency; excess revenue pays for neural networks to be tweaked, trained, and upgraded for better insights faster; and the process repeats ad infinitum.

Neural net analysis is broadly useful, so much so that even middlingly large organizations want to employ their use immediately, even with little or no relevant technical expertise. This is why cloud providers are so attractive, their automated platforms and compute resource pools make it easier and cheaper, initially, for an organization to take the first step towards AI/ML. Depoloying air gapped HPC to bare metal is not trivial. They are manually configured, hand-built instances which are uniquely configured to suit the needs of each individual organization.

Unfortunately, human error is endemic to manual configuration – complex neural network applications with equally formidable infrastructural substrates could take months of configuration for an internal team or worse, expensive consultants, to implement. For example; what if there are poor, confusing, or missing comments describing configuration changes; what if something breaks and another reconfiguration is needed; what if other inefficiencies or poor configurations are discovered that need to be addressed before the project can be completed; what if the scope of reconfiguration grows outside of projected tolerances; or what if critical team members leave? Justifying the interruption of valuable compute cycles to push new configurations is difficult; organizations must focus on identifying an air gapped infrastructure streamlining configuration and change-management capabilities so security can be made practical.

For companies trying to glean beneficial insights from existing HPC, instead of focusing solely on an arms-race defined by compute power, consider the underlying programmatic infrastructure of leading-edge networks. The powerful automation and system integration of cloud technology is key to providing convenience to customers. On premises enterprise configuration in general is an expensive and delicate task requiring support from IT staff or consultants, and more specifically for HPC and manufacturing, misconfiguration cuts into valuable compute and production cycles. Replacing the bespoke, manual configuration of an air gapped HPC with NetThunder's automated private cloud infrastructure removes the programmatic burdens of change management and deployment. In response to the off premises IT support model, with concerns over the growing frequency and damages caused by threat actors, NetThunder has developed a private cloud module with all the creature comforts of automation.

These gains in efficiency are so substantial and pervasive it has caused a global paradigm shift of budgeting and data strategy as organizations and businesses across all verticals look to modernize. According to Hyperion Research, for every $1 invested in HPC, $44 is returned in profit on average, opening the floodgates of IT investment. This rapid growth comes with rapidly changing environments, and predators.

The growth of HPC has been so prolific it has substantially affected supportive industries within the IT vertical; climate change, chip and hardware manufacturing supply chains, and cyber warfare/crime have all emerged as challenges borne from geopolitics. Data analysis is the weapon of choice for the tech market cap arms-race. Like prying open an oyster to find a pearl, what was once unassailable complexity has been rendered defenseless against data scientists armed with HPC. Everyone wants their oyster, but what else is lurking below?

The convenience of a public cloud comes with exploitable threat surfaces, a non-starter for those with robust security compliance postures. For those security-minded clients, is there a good alternative that offers cloud functionality but without the risk of exposing sensitive data to threat actors? How do air gapped HPC applications modernize their infrastructure without compromising their data?

The tedious and delicate process of manually configuring HPC infrastructure makes cloud automation an attractive solution for those precise reasons, but data security concerns, sticky dev environments, and bandwidth fees make that a pipe dream for sensitive HPC endeavors. As HPC applications need tweaks and tunes, the value-add of new functionality is measured in contrast with quantitative analysis of downtime and implementation costs. Now, organizations must consider how much risk they really want to assume if they fall within the parameters of an ideal victim profile for RaaS.

The market pressure to streamline maneuverability of on premises HPC infrastructure without sacrificing security and confidentiality is relieved by the emergence of NetThunder’s private cloud platform. Autonomous deployment happens within calendar minutes, and recovery is performed easily with deterministically calculated configuration, meaning it can reproduce exact replicas of an infrastructure – ultimately, flexible infrastructure like that of a CSP.

NetThunder provides a solution for on premises HPC where strategic and financial discussions have centered around concerns of configuration timelines, change-management challenges, and/or generally looking for practical network solutions for maintaining a secure air gap. As NetThunder's modules are deployed to streamline configuration of on premises infrastructure, those organizations can breathe a sigh of relief as their sensitive networks get placed behind air gaps, and can look to the future as network flexibility becomes automated, freeing IT teams to focus on other projects.

The Storm module, an on premises private cloud platform aimed at HPC-scale deployment, transforms network agility with its proprietary out-of-band autointegration orchestration. Through deployment onto bare-metal, the controller is able to track all resources in the database and identify all dependencies. Infrastructure can be built, torn down, and rebuilt at a whim and within minutes instead of months through dependency-resolution. Instances of HPC applications requiring or desiring an air gap need look no further than Storm, designed to deploy itself autonomously without connection to the internet. It has the same change-management and flexibility as cloud but without the risk of cloud threat surfaces. Empowered by automation, infrastructure can be recomposed with a button-press for powerful change-management capabilities. Protected by the air gap, monitoring the electronic perimeter and securing sensitive networks is simplified – removing the headaches of security audits.

The lack of accurate threat modeling in the cyber insurance industry means coverage isn't perfect, or even adequate.  While they may be able to cover some damage, they are reticent to assume all risk. Furthermore, there are some consequences that an insurer intrinsically can not provide coverage for; a loss of consumer confidence and/or data, viability after an IP leak, reputational hits, or any number of unpredictable outcomes surrounding ransomware payouts — there are catastrophic downsides to weak InfoSec strategy. This should be untenable, but many organizations feel confident in cloud security and their insurance policies and are curtailing security innovation — it is a false sense of security. The cloud infrastructure is ultimately what gets exploited, organizations are required to connect sensitive networks to the internet, and yet the businesses renting resources receive the most scrutiny.

As long as networks holding sensitive data are connected to the internet, they are potential targets. Insureds may not have any choice but to use public cloud, perhaps why they carry insurance, but they must accept they are exposing themselves to data breaches and ransomware with increased threat surfaces. Additionally, auto-design IP grows increasingly valuable as global automotive innovation is driven by changing consumer tastes; protecting novel engineering projects for EV and prototype designs is critical as the market trends away from combustion engines. Most pressing, however, is losing control of production. Instead of having to call an insurer to come do damage control or negotiate with threat actors, protect the data so no call has to be made in the first place.

Despite growth, several factors have caused some insurers to pull out of the market, including but not limited to: a general inability to accurately assess threat volatility, a dwindling pool of capital to fund losses, systemic risk potential which could affect multiple policyholders simultaneously, and a loss environment caused by substantial ransomware payouts – a confluence of events affecting profitability. What could be more frightening to insurers than poor predictive ability? The bad actors who get access to their databases, focusing their attention on specific businesses carrying the largest cyber insurance policies, increasing the value and likelihood of payouts after gaining access. As the digital landscape undergoes rapid changes, predators evolve new weapons and hunting tactics. In response, global InfoSec strategy must grow a thicker hide. Data and business execution must be treated with utmost security across all business verticals.

The consequences of insufficient security vision, relaxing posture, can lead to debilitating events the scope of which could greatly outstrip a liability policy. No insurer can provide coverage for: a loss of reputation within the industry, the intangible loss of consumer confidence and their data, or viability after an IP leak — there are catastrophic downsides to weak InfoSec strategy. Evolving risk vectors demand agile and innovative change; with thoughtful and thorough cybersecurity reinforced by solid ethical, financial, and technological vision, the growing sophistication of cyberthreats can be mitigated. This should be untenable given the inadequate coverage offered at the moment by insurers — it is a false sense of security. The best way to truly protect business-critical networks – put them inside of an air gap.

By segmenting, internal servers holding sensitive data separately from external collaboration servers connected to the internet, security compliance audits are much more simply performed. Insurers should be able to generate an easily underwritten policy, because regardless of the scale and value of the IT asset, it is isolated. If there is no threat surface, accounting for risk is simple. Despite this, only some insurers have been able to overcome methodological and informational gaps to assess cyberthreat risk. As a result, some are able to tailor a policy while others still have more rudimentary modeling and pricing structures. As threat modeling methodology becomes more sophisticated, hopefully insurers design premiums to positively reinforce the costs, expertise, and care taken to deploy secure infrastructure. In the future it would not be surprising to see insurers championing on premise private clouds as best practice to secure IT assets.

For critically sensitive HPC projects, with leadership intractably opposed to remote resources, infrastructure square-one is the air gap; leaders must prioritize security and replacing hand built infrastructure configuration with automation. For a truly flexible infrastructure, a platform needs to: be portable for physical deploy anywhere, automate what was manually configured, and allow sensitive networks to be truly secured behind an air gap. By offering the same flexibility and ease of deployment, but without any cyberthreat risk, businesses can continue operations uninterrupted with the secure, provable security of an air gap. NetThunder’s Storm module is aimed at decoupling liminal HPC instances from the cloud by providing an easy, practical solution for air gapping.

First, set up your Minio service using the Net-Thunder platform by selecting "Add New Service".

Set the hostname, starting size, and secret/access keys (if you want).

Wait just a few seconds, and Minio will start up.

Get the IP address on the local network and set up an HTTP proxy. If DNS isn't already configured, add a record for that, too.

Download the minio client using the following commands (on Linux):

wget https://dl.min.io/client/mc/release/linux-amd64/mc
chmod +x mc

You can also get the Windows version at https://dl.min.io/client/mc/release/windows-amd64/mc.exe

After downloading mc, you have almost everything that's needed to migrate from S3.

All you need now is your Amazon S3 API Access and Secret keys. The easiest way, if you want to migrate everything, is to just use a root access key. To do so, use the dropdown box on Amazon Web Services to select your username, then "Security Credentials".

Open the "Access Keys" dropdown and select "Create New Access Key". A box will pop up with the access and secret key that you will need in the next step.

mc config host add s3 https://s3.amazonaws.com EXAMPLE_ACCESS_KEY EXAMPLE_SECRET_KEY --api S3v4

To test that it worked, try listing your S3 buckets:

$ mc ls s3
[2020-02-16 20:40:32 EST]    0B  testbucket/

Next, add your NetThunder minio instance as another data source using the keys you configured earlier:

mc config host add myminio https://myminio.thunder16.xyz minioAdmin my_minio_secret

Finally, use the mirror command to migrate your data from S3 to Minio on NetThunder.

$ mc mirror s3 myminio
.../test.png:  1.40 MiB / 1.40 MiB ┃▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓┃ 1.72 MiB/s 0s

...and it's done! You have successfully migrated your S3 data to NetThunder!

First, you need to have a working SuiteCRM installation. Our NetThunder platform provides an easy way to deploy SuiteCRM with one-click, but this is core SuiteCRM functionality, so it should be present on all installations.

After you have SuiteCRM running, log in as a user with access to campaigns. Navigate to the campaigns selection under the "Marketing" tab.

Then, click "Create Person Form" on the left-hand side of the page.

A prompt will appear with three columns: "Available Fields", "First Form Column", and "Second Form Column". This is to customize the HTML form that SuiteCRM is going to generate. Drag-and-drop the fields that you want to collect for your inbound leads, then press "next" to proceed.

SuiteCRM will prompt you for more information about the form. Here you can customize the header, the description, the label, and the POST URL. Double-check the domain (and protocol) in the POST URL, as it may not be correct. Make sure it matches the URL of your SuiteCRM installation. If this is the case, check the "Edit Post URL" checkbox and update the URL to be correct. You will also need to select an associated campaign and user through the "Select" dialogs.

After choosing your campaign and proceeding onward, a form editor will appear. Here, you can further customize the appearance of the HTML form. Select "Save Web Form" when you are done.

On the final page of the form generator wizard, you can see the HTML/CSS/JS code that was generated. You can copy it all as-is, or just copy the <form> section and integrate it into your own website or app. Just remember to include the hidden campaign_id, assigned_user_id, and moduleDir fields that the wizard generates for you. Now you can receive leads directly into SuiteCRM from a web form!

Organizations in the healthcare industry will be in violation of HIPAA if their affected servers aren't updated by the deadline, and may be subject to fines and fees. Other regulated industries may also face similar compliance issues. As a result they may end up exposed to not only malicious actors, but regulatory sanctions as well.

Often businesses and IT departments choose to make infrastructure changes when a server's operating system reaches its EOL point. And that makes a lot of sense since server changes are a very large project. For several years the trend has been to move servers and services into the public cloud. But the public cloud is a prime target for hackers. And you have to be okay with your data sitting out there on a machine owned by someone else.

At NetThunder we believe there's a much better way. Our on-premise cloud solution smoothly replaces small business server services and operations. All while being more secure than public cloud solutions. And much faster to roll out than a traditional small business server.

As you begin the changeover from Server 2011, we invite you to explore the all of the benefits of NetThunder and our robust on-premise cloud solution.

Many times companies, often unknowingly, will entrust their data to a third party through cloud-based services. Many times these cloud-based services become major targets for attackers (since if they are breached it's worth thousands of data-breaches to the attackers) or sometimes worse they monitize your data. Sometimes this is a fair exchange and some data is not private but it seems that, these days, many companies are stuck using "cloud-based" services as there are few alternatives and many of these companies lack the resources to implement solutions on premise.

Often times open source tools are hostable on premise however, as many business owners I have talked to have said, open source can be a blackhole of time; implementation takes time and every configuration seems to be different (that is until they switched to a NetThunder system which self configures these applications).  Even with these costs hosting your own applications on open source software (even paid-open source) gives you an outstanding level of freedom and control. You control where your data sits on computers you can physically see and you are never locked in.

At NetThunder we designed our application marketplace for OneClickEnterprise to have a suite of applications to rid ourselves and our customers from all dependencies on the cloud or cloud based services. I have jokingly called us "off the grid but still part of and connected to the modern world." (We aren't really off the grid but our data and our customers' data is off the grid/cloud).

It is fun telling our customers that when they use our platform on premise we physically have no access to their data and we don't mind. We don't want their data and we don't need them to phone home.