Security

1. Availability

Will NextFluent AssessFluence be available all the time?

NextFluent strives to maintain an uptime of 99.9%, and we use several services to monitor uptime and site availability. In case of downtime or emergency, our team receives real-time notifications, allowing us to act swiftly.

What if something isn’t working?

In the rare case that issues do arise, we’ll keep you updated at all times via email. We’ll do everything within our power to resolve the issue as soon as we can.

2. Security measures

Encrypting data in transit

All traffic to NextFluent AssessFluence passes through an SSL-encrypted connection, and we only accept traffic through port 443.
During a first web application visit, NextFluent AssessFluence sends a Strict Transport Security Header (HSTS) to the user agent, ensuring that all future requests will be made via HTTPS. Even if a link to NextFluent AssessFluence is specified as HTTP.

Encrypting data at rest

All data stored on NextFluent’s systems is encrypted at rest. Information stored in our database systems or on our file systems is encrypted using the industry standard AES-256 encryption algorithm. Google Cloud stores and manages data cryptography keys in its redundant and globally distributed Key Management Service.
This means that even if an intruder were ever able to access any of the physical storage devices, the data contained therein would still be impossible to decrypt without the keys, rendering the information useless.

Google Cloud security practices
NextFluent AssessFluence uses Google Cloud (GCP) to store user data. These servers undergo recurring assessment to ensure compliance with the latest industry standards, and continually manage risk. By using GCP as our data center, our infrastructure is accredited by:

• ISO 27001
• SOC 1 and SOC 2/SSAE 16/ISAE 3402 (Previously SAS 70 Type II)
• PCI Level 1
• FedRAMP
• HIPAA

More information about Google Cloud security can be found here.

Password policy and storage

To access NextFluent AssessFluence, you need to provide a strong password of at least 6 characters. We do not store these user passwords in plain text, we only store one-way encrypted password hashes, including a per-user-random-salt. This protects users against rainbow table attacks and encrypted password matching.
If users enter incorrect passwords multiple times in a row, the account will be temporarily locked to prevent brute-force attacks.

Request throttling and tracking

We block requests originating from known, vulnerable IP addresses or ranges.
Requests that originate from the same IP are throttled and rate-limited to avoid potential misuse.

XSS and CSRF Protection

To block Cross-Site Scripting Attacks (XSS), all output is escaped by default in our back-end application before hitting the browser potentially causing XSS attacks. We avoid using returning raw data, as this could potentially cause unwanted data to be sent to the browser.

Our application blocks requests that do not originate from our own domain(s), to help reduce the risk of Cross Site Request Forgery (CSRF) attacks; For important actions, we also use CSRF-tokens.

Lastly, we’ve implemented the Content Security Policy (CSP) HTTP header, which whitelists which assets (javascripts, images, stylesheets, etc.) the user’s browser should allow to load and execute. A correctly implemented CSP header eliminates any malicious javascript (XSS attacks), crafted files disguised as images, and similar attacks based on the browser’s trust of the assets served.

Organization

Our team uses strong, unique passwords for NextFluent AssessFluence accounts and has set up Two-Factor Authentication for each device and service they use. All NextFluent employees are encouraged to use password manager software (1Password, …) to generate and store strong passwords.
We also make sure to encrypt local hard drives and enable automatic screen locking. All access to application admin functionalities is restricted to a select group of people.

3. Quality assurance

Code review

We introduced strict code reviews for any change to our code base, to ensure development best practices are used across all our code pushes.
Vulnerability disclosure
Since the launch of NextFluent AssessFluence, we’ve invited everyone to notify us of issues they find in our application, to continuously make our platform more secure and reliable. All vulnerability report submissions are read, handled and responded to in the shortest possible time frame.