Surviving Shellshock: Automating Security Compliance for Norwegian Enterprise Infrastructure

If you have been managing servers this past week, you haven't slept. The disclosure of CVE-2014-6271—better known as Shellshock—has turned the systems administration world upside down. We are looking at a vulnerability in GNU Bash that has existed for decades, allowing remote code execution via environment variables. It is nasty, it is widespread, and it is a wake-up call.

I spoke with a SysAdmin in Oslo yesterday who manages 500+ VPS instances manually. He was logging into each one, one by one, running yum update bash. That is not engineering; that is masochism. In a landscape where the Norwegian Data Protection Authority (Datatilsynet) is scrutinizing how we handle personal data under the Personopplysningsloven, manual patching is a liability you cannot afford.

We need to stop treating servers like pets and start treating them like cattle. Today, I’m going to show you how to automate security compliance using Puppet, ensuring your infrastructure is patched, compliant, and robust enough to handle the next big vulnerability disclosure.

The Reality Check: Are You Vulnerable?

Before we talk automation, let’s verify the damage. If you haven't patched your systems since September 24th, 2014, run this command immediately:

env x='() { :;}; echo vulnerable' bash -c "echo this is a test"

If you see the word vulnerable in your output, your server is wide open. Hackers are currently scanning IP ranges across Europe, injecting malicious scripts into CGI headers. If you are hosting critical data, you are already a target.

Automating the Fix with Puppet

The pragmatic solution to Shellshock isn't typing fast; it's Infrastructure as Code (IaC). We need a manifest that ensures the bash package is always at the latest version. Here is how we handle this at scale using Puppet on CentOS 6/7 nodes.

1. Define the Security Class

Create a class specifically for critical security updates. This ensures that no matter what the application server does, the base security layer is enforced.

class security::critical_patches {

  # Ensure Bash is always the latest version to mitigate Shellshock
  package { 'bash':
    ensure => 'latest',
  }

  # Ensure OpenSSL is updated (don't forget Heartbleed from April)
  package { 'openssl':
    ensure => 'latest',
    notify => Service['httpd'],
  }

  # Restart Apache if OpenSSL changes
  service { 'httpd':
    ensure => running,
    enable => true,
  }
}

2. Enforce Firewall Rules (iptables)

While patching fixes the hole, strict firewalling limits the blast radius. Many developers leave port 22 open to the world. This is negligent. Use Puppet to enforce iptables rules that only allow access from your VPN or management IP.

firewall { '100 allow ssh from mgmt':
  proto  => 'tcp',
  dport  => '22',
  source => '192.168.10.0/24',
  action => 'accept',
}

firewall { '999 drop all':
  proto  => 'all',
  action => 'drop',
  before => undef,
}

Pro Tip: Never rely solely on the hypervisor firewall. Host-level iptables (or the new firewalld in CentOS 7) provides the granularity needed to stop lateral movement if a neighbor in a shared hosting environment gets compromised. This is why we prefer KVM virtualization over OpenVZ; the kernel isolation prevents a lot of the "noisy neighbor" security issues.

Compliance & Data Sovereignty in Norway

Security is not just technical; it is legal. Under the Personal Data Act (Personopplysningsloven), you are responsible for securing the processing of personal data. With the recent revelations about NSA surveillance (Snowden, 2013), reliance on the US-EU Safe Harbor framework is becoming increasingly risky for Norwegian businesses.

If you are hosting sensitive customer data on US-controlled clouds, you are in a grey area. Datatilsynet recommends strict data processor agreements and ensuring data stays within the EEA where possible.

This is where infrastructure choice matters. CoolVDS operates out of datacenters in Oslo with strict adherence to Norwegian law. We provide low latency connectivity to the NIX (Norwegian Internet Exchange), but more importantly, we offer data sovereignty. Your bits physically reside here, protected by Norwegian privacy laws, not in a massive generic cloud subject to the US Patriot Act.

Performance: The Hidden Security Feature

You might ask, "What does performance have to do with security?" Everything. A server under DDoS attack is essentially a resource exhaustion problem. If your disk I/O chokes during log rotation or your CPU steals cycles, your security monitoring tools (like OSSEC or Snort) might fail to trigger.

We are seeing a massive shift towards SSD-based storage. While standard spinning rust (HDD) gives you 100-150 IOPS, enterprise SSDs push 50,000+ IOPS. We are even experimenting with early NVMe storage technology in our labs to reduce I/O latency to near zero.

Here is a quick benchmark comparing a standard VPS vs. a CoolVDS High-Performance instance running a MySQL stress test:

When you run a vulnerability scan (using OpenVAS or Nessus), it hammers the disk. On a slow VPS, this scan can take hours or crash the server. On high-performance storage, it finishes in minutes. Fast infrastructure allows for continuous compliance monitoring without degrading production performance.

The "CoolVDS" Factor: Built for Ops

We built CoolVDS because we were tired of "managed" hosting that wouldn't let us touch the kernel. We need tun/tap devices for VPNs. We need custom sysctl.conf tuning for high-traffic Nginx buffers. We need raw performance without the noisy neighbor effect.

If you are still patching manually, stop. Take the script above, deploy a Puppet master, and start automating. And if you are tired of wondering if your data is safe across the Atlantic, bring it home.

Don't wait for the next Heartbleed or Shellshock. Deploy a secure, compliance-ready KVM instance on CoolVDS today and sleep better tonight.