January 2025 - Newsletter

The Latest Red Piranha News

Happy New Year!

We are thrilled to step into 2025 with renewed energy and commitment to protecting what matters most—your digital assets.

The past year brought its share of challenges, but it also showcased the resilience of businesses like yours and the critical role of robust cybersecurity measures. At Red Piranha, we work tirelessly to innovate, adapt, and stay ahead of the curve, ensuring our solutions remain at the forefront of the industry.

In 2025, our focus remains steadfast: empowering organisations with unparalleled security, actionable insights, and cutting-edge technology.

Here’s to a prosperous and secure new year!

Crystal Eye Platform Update

As you will see later in this newsletter, we already support WireGuard VPN but we have something really exciting in the pipeline that will be released with 5.5 in the coming months, and we are putting in related improvements to prepare for this new feature.

This includes a significant number of updates to:

Advanced Firewall
Advanced Firewall has had improvements for particular rules to support SSO-enabled environments better.

Database Engine
The Database Engine will have improved status monitoring and health management for smoother field upgrades.

M365 Policy Manager
Managing extensive Entra environments is now more efficient. The M365 Policy Manager supports environments with over 100 users and groups in Entra ID, while also fetching user active/inactive states. This allows your Crystal Eye appliance to scale seamlessly with your Entra environment and automatically enforce updated access policies.

Time and Date
Gets a bugfix for error handling of NTP sync messaging.

Executive Reporting
UI updates to mandatory fields.

Hosts and Groups
Increases in handling capacity of large user and group counts when synchronising with Entra.

Incident and Event Services
Improved handling of multiple profile configurations.

M365 Policy Manager, Microsoft Graph Connector
Capacity for large environments has received an additional increase to handle up to 10,000 elements from Entra.

Network Settings, Wireless Access Point
Support for less secure encryption protocols has been deprecated making sure you are not exposing your network with outdated wireless encryption methods.

SSL VPN
Updates to improve NAT handling, corrected routes being pushed to clients, updated support for MultiWAN deployments.

WireGuard
Big updates including UI enhancements, better integration with firewall rules, improved performance, tunnel and peer management and of course continued refinement of SSO support.

For more information, you can visit the forum to read the release notes (https://forum.redpiranha.net/t/software-release-notes-crystal-eye-5-0-build-30/).

To prepare your appliance for the features coming in 5.5 you need to perform your field upgrades to 5.0. This pre-requisite is all that is needed to take advantage of these new features that come with all Crystal Eye Appliances running Crystal Eye OS 5.5. There is no cost to upgrade apart from a few minutes of your time.

To find out more about how to upgrade your appliance to the latest version of Crystal Eye, just contact support@redpiranha.net or contact your account manager.

To find out more about the 5.0 update, visit link here in the forum. (https://forum.redpiranha.net/t/important-information-crystal-eye-5-0)

WireGuard VPN: Upgrade to a secure future

With cyberattacks growing more sophisticated and widespread, legacy VPN solutions often fall short due to complexity, slower performance, and outdated encryption methods. Crystal Eye WireGuard rises to meet these challenges by offering:

• Simplicity for easier deployment and maintenance.
• Speed and efficiency to support modern workflows.
• Robust security features to counter advanced cyber threats.

Introducing WireGuard VPN with Crystal Eye
Red Piranha's WireGuard VPN, strategically integrated within the Crystal Eye platform, represents a sophisticated solution that transcends traditional networking paradigms. By delivering superior performance, robust security protocols, and streamlined operational complexity, this advanced solution empowers businesses to maintain a competitive technological edge.

The solution provides a comprehensive approach to network security, ensuring that organisations can effectively protect their digital assets while maintaining optimal network performance and connectivity. With WireGuard, businesses can confidently navigate the intricate challenges of contemporary cybersecurity threats.

What Are the Limitations of Traditional VPNs?
Legacy VPN protocols were developed for an era with lower internet speeds and simpler usage demands. These systems rely on extensive codebases, increasing vulnerabilities and inefficiencies. They often struggle to handle high bandwidth, resulting in latency issues that hinder productivity. Additionally, their reliance on TCP-based communication is slower and less reliable compared to modern alternatives like UDP.

Security Vulnerabilities
Traditional VPNs present significant security challenges. Their large attack surfaces stem from overly complex implementations, making them attractive targets for attackers. Many still use outdated cryptographic algorithms, leaving them susceptible to modern attack techniques. Misconfigurations further exacerbate security risks, creating gaps in the overall security posture.

High Administrative Overhead
Managing traditional VPNs demands considerable administrative effort. Tasks like configuring certificates or pre-shared keys for authentication complicate setup and maintenance. Individualised configurations for users or offices increase the likelihood of errors. Furthermore, scaling these systems to accommodate workforce growth requires extensive manual intervention, adding to operational challenges.

Why Crystal Eye WireGuard?
Crystal Eye WireGuard redefines VPN technology with a lightweight, high-performance, and secure design. Let’s explore how it addresses the limitations of legacy systems.

1. Performance Redefined with Minimalist Design
Crystal Eye WireGuard operates on a minimalist codebase of approximately 4,000 lines, which:

• Reduces potential vulnerabilities compared to legacy systems.
• Optimises performance, ensuring higher throughput and lower latency.
• Allows seamless operation even under heavy bandwidth demands.

• ChaCha20 for fast and secure encryption, outperforming AES on mobile devices.
• Poly1305 for message authentication, ensuring data integrity.
• Curve25519 for secure key exchange, resistant to cryptographic attacks.

• Split-Tunnel Mode: Routes only specific traffic through the VPN, reducing bandwidth consumption for non-critical activities like internet browsing.
• Full-Tunnel Mode: Ensures that all traffic passes through the VPN for maximum security, ideal for sensitive environments.

• Automated key-pair generation, simplifying setup for VPN servers and clients.
• Audit trails to track access and usage for compliance and security monitoring.
• Connection monitoring for real-time visibility into VPN activity.

• Low-power devices such as IoT gateways.
• Cloud infrastructures where efficient resource usage reduces costs.

Webinar: Secure Your Future: Transition to WireGuard VPN with Red Piranha

Red Piranha proudly introduces WireGuard VPN seamlessly integrated into our Crystal Eye platform to deliver unparalleled speed, security, and simplicity. Boost your network performance with Entra ID Single Sign-On (SSO) and WireGuard via Crystal Eye. Enjoy up to 5x faster speeds than traditional VPNs, alongside enhanced security and ease of use.

Watch our latest Knowledge Sprint episode on YouTube and learn how to seamlessly transition to a resilient, scalable VPN solution that supports your hybrid workforce and future-ready infrastructure.

BlackSuit Ransomware - All you need to know

A rebranded Royal ransomware, BlackSuit hit the scene in early 2023, bringing double extortion tactics and dark web leaks to the table.

Red Piranha’s award-winning Crystal Eye TDIR platform leverages a multi-layered defence approach to counter the TTPs used by BlackSuit ransomware. With integrated Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) and machine learning-driven anomaly detection, Crystal Eye enhances visibility to detect suspicious activities early in the attack.

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Get in touch. If you have any questions, comments or feedback regarding our ongoing programs, products or services, please submit them to support@redpiranha.net or head to our forum at https://forum.redpiranha.net/.

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Contact your business development manager to receive a copy of the terms and conditions. Prices are correct as of 13/01/2021, subject to change.