A Half-Day To Better Security

a half-day to better security - grab hold of your network before the bad guys do

In previous articles we gave some introductory material on how to get started with the Assimilation software for security. In this article, we go into more depth and suggest a good way to improve your security by spending a half-day with the Assimilation software. We cover setting up email alerts for security changes, fixing your security issues, and setting up the Assimilation software on more systems.

Fifteen Minutes To Better Security

fifteen minutes to better security

Securing your systems is a daunting task – it feels like eating an elephant. When compared to hardening guidelines like the DISA/NIST STIGs, a single out-of-the-box system can have a hundred or more issues. When you multiply that by a large number of systems, despair and paralysis can easily set in. This article (fifteen minutes to better security) is first in a series which outline a process for efficiently measuring, triaging, and managing your journey towards a better security posture for your servers.

No matter your threat model, you need to understand what you have (“know yourself”). We help you begin this journey with activities which will teach you a surprising amount about your current status and the work ahead of you in 15 minutes. This article is not designed to teach you about security – I assume you know why you want to secure your servers, and have general background on system hardening.

Writing an Assimilation Discovery Agent

assimilation discovery agent image: grabbing cogs

One of the coolest things about the Assimilation System Management Suite is that it can discover nearly anything – and it’s easy to write your own Assimilation discovery agent and discover something new. Now, you can finally know it all! In this blog post, I’ll explain how to write a discovery agent, and how to fully integrate it into the suite.

Assimilation Monitoring Rules – Keys to Automated Monitoring

ruler with level - Assimilation Monitoring Rules - pun intended. No apologies ;-)

The Assimilation System Management Suite monitors servers and services automatically – which is way cool! This article explains how to create Assimilation monitoring rules which teach the Assimilation software when and how to use monitoring agents. These rules are the keys to fully automated monitoring. When your monitoring is fully automated, complexity goes down, and availability goes up.

Assimilation Event API Overview – Integrating it with your systems

Assimilation Event API

When you have a powerful discovery and monitoring system like the Assimilation Suite, it’s essential to connect it into your existing processes, so that people can be notified when interesting events occur. In this post, we walk through the Assimilation Event API with emphasis on the things you need to know to note a service or server going up or down.