An ally for cyber security: Load Balancing

Having a fast, high-performance and reliable website is a non-negligible aspect for those who have an online business. Busy sites, which require excessive consumption of resources, must be managed with care by those who deal with them. In addition to having quality content, a site must have noteworthy speed and the certainty of supporting a significant load of requests without burdening the server.
The load balancingor load sharing, is a technology designed to distribute the workload between different servers or applications. A process by which you assign multiple network requests to different machines or services. This practice contains a vast amount of techniques, models and strategies that make the difference between a smooth and uncertain streaming service and a limping one. The objective of this activity is to optimize the overall performance, throughput and capacity of the infrastructure.
And it’s not just about performance: for some years, load balancing has also played a role of primary importance in cyber security, for example for managing redundancy but also to guarantee sufficient performance during a DDoS attack (Distributed Denial-of-Service, a type of cyber attack that attempts to make a website or network resource unavailable by overloading them with malicious traffic and thus making them unusable).

Load balancing conceptually takes up the OSI model (Open Systems Interconnection, a conceptual model that defines the way in which networks send data from the sender to the recipient). Based on this seven-level scheme (physical, data link, network, transport, session, presentation, application), it identifies the transmission of data in a network in one direction and the other. Load balancing can be performed at level 4 or level 7:

• In the first case it affects the protocols dedicated to the transport of information, trying to sort and optimize traffic by working on IP addresses and at most on network sockets;
• Layer7, on the other hand, represents a simple, fast and efficient type of load balancing. It involves the decoding of the data contained in the packets and, therefore, a refined optimization of the traffic, as it is possible to divert it depending on the type.

These configurations, although modern and versatile, are however potentially risky in terms of cyber security if the right precautions are not taken. For example, load balancing at level 7 poses security issues. Since data decoding involves sharing certificates with the load balancer, an attack on the latter gives direct access to the transmitted data.
There are, however, numerous techniques and measures to block attacks of this type in the bud, such as the generation of temporary certificates used only by the load balancer.

Once the foundations of the technology have been protected, it turns out that load balancing can provide various advantages from a security point of view.
The reasons for success of this practice in the field of cybersecurity they are rooted precisely in the level of optimization that technology is able to guarantee. Optimizing incoming traffic means optimizing the work of real-time monitoring systems. High traffic risks overloading an inadequate monitoring system. Scaling traffic according to needs is one of the most effective and economical methods for making the most of active monitoring systems. Both because, in this way, it is possible to maintain an adequate level of packet analysis, and because self-induced DDoS are avoided.

Through load balancing it is possible to: optimize traffic; increase security, as it physically creates an additional level of protection by interposing itself between the physical network and external applications; set compliance policies for data managed by the load balancer; convey particular network traffic, such as SSL or TLS encrypted traffic, to specific servers; relieve traffic from heavy decoding and encoding operations; concentrate security resources where they are most needed; control and mitigate DDoS attacks.
Load balancing is a very well-tested sector with continuous developments, but often ignored by small to medium-sized businesses, which see it as an oversized solution compared to their needs. It is therefore worth taking a look at it as an aid in an effective cyber security program.

In addition to learning to fully use the load balancing activity, entrepreneurs and professionals can safeguard their profession and their data by adopting a Cyber ​​Risk policy. This coverage allows the insured to protect himself from cyber attacks and the resulting expenses and losses of data and confidential information. Furthermore, this coverage provides expert intervention for the recovery of lost data and decontamination from any malware. All these are services included in the Smart version, which has a maximum limit of up to €25 thousand. Lokky also offers its customers the possibility of taking out a Top version of the policy, which provides for an increase in the limit up to €250 thousand and the inclusion of numerous additional guarantees, including a daily allowance for business interruption and coverage of expenses for restoring the company’s image.