Organisations should prioritise security against cyber threats due to increasing reliance on digital technology. This is where Australia’s Information Security Registered Assessors Program (IRAP), an initiative designed to enhance cyber security best practices, emerges.
IRAP, an initiative of the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) by the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC), aids Australian government agencies in system evaluations for top data security standards. LogicMonitor is pleased to start the IRAP assessment to enhance customer trust and security, aiming for the highest compliance and reinforcing its status as a trusted hybrid observability solution.
The IRAP assessment process
The IRAP assessment is a structured evaluation that LogicMonitor will undertake to enhance security and meet Australian government standards. It includes engaging accredited IRAP assessors to review and validate IT security against government criteria. These assessors will evaluate LogicMonitor’s security, examining data handling processes, cyber security infrastructure integrity, and compliance with policies and protocols. This aims to identify vulnerabilities and ensure effective security practices.
The IRAP assessment will take several months, during which LogicMonitor will ensure organisational excellence and transparency. As part of the process, the LogicMonitor team will work closely with assessors and adjust security as needed for a successful outcome, reflecting our commitment to security and excellence.
Understanding the need for IRAP assessment
Companies in Australia often undergo IRAP assessments to secure IT systems and protect sensitive data, a vital practice for many reasons:
- Regulatory compliance: The Australian government mandates IRAP for businesses dealing with government data to ensure compliance with national security policies for public sector engagements.
- Robust cybersecurity measures: The IRAP framework evaluates and strengthens a business’s cyber security to reduce risks and boost resilience against cyber threats.
- Demonstrating commitment to data security and privacy: Aligning with IRAP standards demonstrates a strong commitment to data security, enhancing customer and partner trust in the digital ecosystem.
The benefits for customers
The IRAP assessment boosts customer data security by analysing and enhancing security controls across the technology stack to meet rigorous standards. This process addresses vulnerabilities and strengthens controls, creating a fortified environment that protects customer data against evolving cyber threats.
The protection of customer data comes first in this era of digitalisation. With the shift to cloud-based platforms and data-driven decision-making, the need for strong security measures like IRAP is evident. IRAP ensures the secure management of sensitive information, crucial for maintaining confidentiality and operational integrity.
LogicMonitor’s commitment to security and compliance
Navigating the complex regulatory landscape in Australia is crucial for businesses that are serious about long-term sustainability and growth. LogicMonitor meets the required legal and ethical standards and enhances its organisational resilience by adhering to these stringent compliance standards.
This commitment to security and compliance also serves as a key differentiator in the hybrid observability space. LogicMonitor stands out as a forward-thinking leader, prioritising comprehensive security measures. Our comprehensive, multi-layered security strategy is built into all aspects of our cloud-centric products and operations.
Learn more about how LogicMonitor approaches cyber security.
LogicMonitor: Your partner for secure observability
The initiation of the IRAP assessment underscores LogicMonitor’s dedication to top-tier data security, enhancing client trust. This strategic move strengthens our security posture, reinforces customer confidence, and positions LogicMonitor as a leader in hybrid observability, catering to demands for security, privacy, and operational resiliency.
We invite you to stay updated on our progress via the LogicMonitor press page and across our social channels. For more information on our IRAP assessment or collaboration opportunities, please contact the LogicMonitor team.
In addition to being somewhat penurious, our founder Steve has a well-known penchant for being pedantic. If he bursts into the development area and starts grilling people, even seasoned engineers are frequently befuddled when first posed the question: “Kilobytes, or kibibytes?”.
Even if you haven’t heard the term, you’re probably at least familiar with the concept. A “kibibyte” is equal to 1024, or 2^10, bytes. Simple enough, but isn’t a “kilobyte” also 1024 bytes? Well, it is, sometimes. As defined by the International System of Units, the prefix “kilo” refers to 1000, or 10^3. Most storage manufacturers measure and label capacity in base 10 (1 kilobyte = 1000 bytes; 1 megabyte = 1000 kilobytes; 1 gigabyte = 1000 megabytes; 1 terabyte = 1000 gigabytes). RAM vendors and most operating systems, however, use base 2 (1 kilobyte = 1024 bytes; 1 megabyte = 1024 kilobytes; 1 gigabyte = 1024 megabytes; 1 terabyte = 1024 gigabytes). (A notable exception to this is macOS, which has used base 10 since OS X 10.6.) So in order to know what exactly is meant by “gigabyte”, you need to know the context in which the word is being used. If you are talking about raw hard drive capacity, a gigabyte is 1000000000 bytes. If you are talking about the file system on top of that hard drive, then gigabyte means 1073741824 bytes.
Confused yet? This is why the “kibibyte” is important; “kilo” (and “giga”, etc) is ambiguous when it’s used to mean both 1000 and 1024, so a new set of binary prefixes were established by the IEC in 1998 to curtail the confusion. Other prefixes include “mebi”, “gibi”, “tebi” and “pebi” to replace “mega”, “giga”, “tera” and “peta” respectively. (There are more prefixes for larger quantities, but if you really think you need them you can go look them up yourself.)
So, that’s all fine and dandy, but is it really that big of a deal? Does a difference of 24 bytes per kilobyte really matter? Let’s consider a drive advertised as having 2 terabytes (2 x 10^12 bytes) of capacity. I’ve got one formatted as a VMFS volume in my VMware lab. After formatting, VMware reports 2000112582656 bytes of capacity (curiously more than 2 terabytes, but I’m not going to complain about getting more bytes than advertised). Let’s see how this differs when displayed by LogicMonitor as terabytes (as the term is used by storage vendors) and tebibytes:
2000112582656 / 1000 / 1000 / 1000 / 1000 = 2.00 terabytes
2000112582656 / 1024 / 1024 / 1024 / 1024 = 1.82 tebibytes
The astute reader might observe that there actually is no difference between 2.000 terabytes and 1.819 tebibytes, and they’d be correct. However, unless you’re on a Mac, your OS and file manager are likely reporting capacity and file size in tebibytes. The notation won’t necessarily make it obvious. For example, the df command on linux would report 1.8T, whereas Windows Explorer would report 1.82TB. Windows uses the JEDEC standard instead of IEC, so while the value is equal to tebibytes, it would still be labelled as “terabytes”. The JEDEC standard considers 1 kilobyte to equal 1024 bytes. In this case, there is a ~180 gigabyte or gibibyte discrepancy. If you plug in your shiny new 2 terabyte drive, you may be disappointed when your operating system reports it as just 1.8 terabytes. Same word, but different meaning in the different contexts.
What does this all have to do with LogicMonitor? Well, if you define a graph in LogicMonitor, by default it will scale your graphed values using base 10 kilobytes. If you graph 2000112582656 bytes, your graph in LogicMonitor will display 2.00T when you mouseover the line. This isn’t ideal though, as you want your monitoring tool to display it the same way your OS does, using base 2 kibibytes (1.82T). Lucky for you (and us), that is an option! Every graph definition in LogicMonitor has the option to Scale by units of 1024; all you have to do is check the box and make sure to convert your values to bytes. LogicMonitor will handle the rest.
One final issue might be bothering you; why does LogicMonitor default to scaling by units of 1000 if most OSes scale storage units by 1024? The answer is that, despite what your storage administrator may tell you, monitoring is not just storage and server monitoring. Almost everything else – network bits per second, HTTP requests per second, latency, the depth of SQS queues, the number of objects in a cache – scales using base 10. It’s only for file systems and memory that you should check the “scale by 1024” option.
If all operating systems adopted the standard of reporting in tebibytes and gibibytes, it would remove the confusion. But until then, remember that the prefix “giga” means one thing when talking about memory and file systems, and another thing when talking about everything else.
Think you got an odd look from your sysadmin colleagues when mentioning “kibibyte”? Try asking your network team about “gibibits”.