Introducing Imunify360: Your New, Intelligent Firewall

Web Hosting Canada is proud to announce that Canadian Web Hosting and Reseller Hosting now include Imunify360, an intelligent firewall that takes your website’s security to the next level (or next six levels, even)!

As technology evolves so do the schemes of hackers, spammers and scammers. Old scams like loaning money to a foreign prince are pretty well known, so criminals have to resort to more ingenious ways to con you. This not only applies to email scams, but also server and application attacks.

With new threats appearing online every day, Imunify360 deploys 6 layers of defense, including Artificial intelligence that can stop problems before they occur.

What is Imunify360?

Imunify360 is part of CloudLinux, creators of the world's most popular operating system for hosting companies. Cloudlinux has leveraged its vast experience managing the operating systems of millions of websites to create one of the world’s most powerful server-side security platforms.

One of the most exciting feature of this security program is the artificial intelligence (currently in Beta, but due out soon). The AI analyses worldwide attacks and creates safety protocols in real-time. The program also offers “proactive defense”. By looking at scripts and understanding what they are supposed to do, rather than only analysing the code, Proactive Defense is able to protect against both known and unknown security risks.

After extensively testing proactive defense, we're confident that it will stop almost all malware in real-time. Combined with the other features of Imunify360, there is nothing else on the market that offers such a high level of security.– Patrick William, Rack911 Labs

Imunify360’s Six-Layer Security

Imunify360 protects the server your website and emails are hosted on with six security layers.

1. Advanced firewall

   Imunify360 is not trying to reinvent the wheel but rather making giant security improvements to firewall protection. That is why Imunify360 integrates perfectly with ModSecurity, a leading web application firewall (WAF). The AI and other features bolster the existing structure to stop most attacks before they start.

2. Intrusion detection and protection

   When suspicious activity occurs Imunify360 is ready with a detection system that extensively scans logs for signs of malicious behaviour. If concerns are found, the protection system steps in to deny access to the potential threat and logging the event.

3. Malware detection

   An advanced malware scanner receives continuous up-to-the-minute updates on current security threats and performs regular scans to ensure a safe server environment.

4. Proactive defense

   AI looks at what actions scripts are meant to perform, which goes beyond mere code analysis, and learns how to detect threats even before they are known to the online security community.

5. Patch manager

   To install a patch or update to a server it is often necessary to reboot the system, which means downtime. Patch Manager automatically patches kernels, the central component of a computer operating system, and PHP, the scripting language of the server, to ensure up-to-date security protocols without having to perform a reboot.

6. Reputation manager

   On a shared server, if one account is blacklisted, then every account on the server shares the bad reputation, which can devastate your business. Imunify360 monitors a server’s online reputation so that any negative activity is discovered and immediately brought to the attention of the hosting provider.

Reduced False Positives with Intelligent Captcha

One problem with powerful security measures is they sometimes block the good guys too. This is commonly referred to as false positives, i.e. the system ‘falsely’ believes that a valid visitor is a bot or threat (the ‘positive’ condition it is designed to detect).

Prior to Imunify360, legitimate visitors triggering too many security rules would be assumed to be bots and automatically blocked by the firewall, requiring them to contact our support team and request a manual removal from our block list. This could result in frustrations and delays. With the new intelligent system, if security rules get triggered, the offending visitor (as identified by their IP address) is placed in a greylist and can confirm they are human by completing a visual “challenge” on their screen, called a CAPTCHA (an acronym for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart").

Imunify360 makes use of Google’s reCAPTCHA technology, which streamlines the process by using a combination of AI and proprietary Advanced Risk Technology Analysis software to tell who is a bot and who is not. In the event that a valid visitor enters an incorrect password the system will allow them to make further attempts without needing to verify their humanity with a CAPTCHA.

Instead, all that is needed is to check a box.

A bot, on the other hand, will be directed to Google’s reCAPTCHA which will deny it access to the account it is attempting to invade. Imunify360 takes things even a step further, now making use of Google’s invisible reCAPTCHA security, which confirms you’re a human directly through your browser, without even asking you to click on anything!

Web Hosting Clients are Automatically Protected!

WHC clients using our web hosting or reseller hosting solutions are now automatically protected using Imunify360. No additional action is required. You’ll notice a new Immunify360 button available in your cPanel, allowing you to view any quarantined threats that were detected.

For Cloud and Dedicated Servers, Imunify360 will soon be available either as an optional addon or included with any Advanced Management plan (up to 30 sites), so stay tuned.

As with any new system rollout, we’re excited to bring the added features to you as they are made available, so expect continued improvements to be made over the next few months. Should you encounter any type of issue with your website’s access or security, please let us know! Our customer service team remains available 24/7 to assist you with all your website and web hosting needs.

Happy Hosting,