Peace of mind: Cloud is key in scaling systems to your business needs
Meeting the demands of the modern-day SMB is one of the challenges facing many business leaders and IT operators today. Traditional, office-based infrastructure was fine up until the point where greater capacity was needed than those servers could deliver, vendor support became an issue, or the needs of a hybrid workforce weren’t being met. In the highly competitive SMB space, maintaining and investing in a robust and efficient IT infrastructure can be one of the ways to stay ahead of competitors.
Thankfully, with the advent of cloud offerings, a new scalable model has entered the landscape; whether it be 20 or 20,000 users, the cloud will fit all and with it comes a much simpler, per user cost model. This facility to integrate modern computing environments in the day-to-day workplace, means businesses can now stop rushing to catch up and with this comes the invaluable peace of mind that these operations will scale up or down as required. Added to which, the potential cost savings and added value will better serve each business and help to future-proof the organization, even when on a tight budget. Cloud service solutions are almost infinitely flexible, rather than traditional on-premises options and won’t require in-house maintenance.
Biometrics trust is in crisis -- is there a path forward for the technology's adoption?
Biometrics’ promise of security and convenience has unfortunately given way to widespread distrust and legitimate security concerns. If you’re unfamiliar with biometrics, think of the last time a customer service call offered you voice authentication or when you used Face ID to unlock your phone -- these are examples of collecting and storing your biometric data.
The rise of AI has undoubtedly made an impact on consumer trust in consumer biometrics, as it’s able to piece together all your biometric data for more nefarious purposes such as identity theft. This should come as no surprise as social feeds are littered with convincing deep fake videos of politicians during this election season.
Transforming pain into profit -- modern end-user computing
In the era of end-user computing, the terms ‘next gen’ and ‘revolutionary’ are commonly used to refer to the shift away from outdated legacy Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) systems to a modern, cloud-first approach that combines on-premises and cloud environments. End-user computing (EUC) has historically been a costly IT expense, but this hybrid multi-cloud approach is a cost-effective performance booster. Contemporary solutions and strategies, including cloud-first VDI implementation, enable these systems to vastly simplify the construction, operation, and management of EUC environments, and revolutionize end-user computing.
IT leaders often face significant challenges when adopting a hybrid multi-cloud strategy, primarily due to the intricate nature of managing different private and public clouds. These complexities are further exacerbated by ongoing issues stemming from legacy VDI systems. In order to turn this source of frustration into a source of proficiency and profit, CIOs and IT leaders must look to modernize their approach.
How will Apple's sideloaded apps impact corporate IT? Analyzing the critical risks
Apple is known for maintaining high standards when it comes to the App Store. It has put strict developer guidelines in place, runs a thorough review process on new apps that are submitted to the marketplace, and monitors apps to ensure they deliver what developers promise.
This tightly controlled environment has been established to maintain a great user experience, preserve end-user privacy, and protect the platform from bad actors, all while allowing third-party developers to create compelling experiences on Apple’s mobile platforms. Apple’s operating system design, coupled with these protective policies, has helped to keep the iPhone and the applications that run on it generally immune from widespread threats for almost two decades now.
Gen AI's pitfalls and why the business impact remains stagnant
No technology, especially in its early adoption phase, is without fault. Even with the popularity generative AI has gained in both the eyes of businesses and consumers alike, its imperfections cannot be glossed over. Hallucinations and biases in training data, among other issues, are leading business owners to hesitate when considering adoption.
While some early adopters have found ways to adopt large language models (LLMs) as they exist today, many feel they are left with essentially two options. Wait until improvements come or governmental guidelines are put in place to ensure the safe use of the technology, potentially being left behind, or adopt now and without letting AI touch business-critical systems. Neither of these options is truly viable, so where can businesses go from here? Diving below the surface coverage of gen AI to understand both its pros and cons will help modern businesses to determine where they can safely implement LLMs tomorrow.
Innovation and security: The challenges of Generative AI for enterprises
Despite what some might think, no, bots probably won't come looking for your job, but they may well attack your intellectual property. Generative AI (GenAI) has become a transformative technology for businesses in more ways than one.
In 2024, its widespread adoption will undoubtedly have an impact on organizations across all industries, resulting in increased productivity and efficiency. However, GenAI can be a double-edged sword. Organizations need to tread carefully when assessing organization security risk, especially when it comes to data protection.
Navigating growth: How distributors empower MSPs in today's business landscape
As an IT solutions provider or Managed Service Provider (MSP), the industry landscape can be daunting, with demands for services continually on the rise and client preferences constantly evolving. In fact, according to recent projections, one in four MSPs anticipates revenue growth exceeding 20 percent in 2024, while 30 percent expect growth between 11 percent and 30 percent.
Amidst this rapid growth, MSPs are actively seeking ways to efficiently manage operations while meeting changing client expectations, taking into consideration different types of partners and vendors that can support them as they work to keep pace with the rapidly changing market.
Companies turn to communities to bolster in-house test automation
Under increasing pressure to release new digital services, apps, and features faster, many companies are resorting to automating their entire quality assurance process. While this approach is by no means new, not many companies can claim that their test automation keeps pace with the rate of development of new features. This is because software testing by nature is reactive. Despite development methodologies like test-driven development (TDD), testing still hinges on the readiness of products and components. This has made the life of automation engineers quite difficult. Often pressed for time, components are often only ready towards the end of the sprint.
In-house engineers have become so overwhelmed that organizations are turning to a community-based model to access qualified test automation engineers. Fully qualified professionals can quickly supplement the work of in-house teams to ensure that releases stay on track. It is a way of ensuring quality is assured at speed that the market demands.
Five ways AI can boost your data backups
In the event of a data emergency -- say, a cyber attack or a natural disaster shutting down a data center -- no organization wants to worry about whether they have secure, up-to-date backups, and whether they can be easily recovered.
But without the help of artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning (ML), fewer organizations are able to protect their backups against attacks, meet the necessary backup workload, or meet the defined service level agreements (SLAs) for the availability of information, applications, and infrastructures (or do so quickly and recover efficiently).
Through green IT, businesses can do their part
Whether at an individual level or enterprise scale, we now know that it’s important for us all to make an effort when it comes to protecting our planet. When we think of effective sustainability measures, we likely think of practices like recycling, reducing plastic consumption, and minimizing food waste.
One potentially overlooked area for sustainability improvements is the world of technology -- which, as we know, continues to expand and advance at a breathtaking rate. In the United States alone, data centers are responsible for 0.3 percent of our planet’s carbon dioxide emissions, a bigger carbon footprint than some countries. While there do exist programs for responsible recycling of technology materials like old laptops and dead batteries, there are still far too many of these items taking up valuable space in landfills.
Security vendor consolidation or best of breed? Why you must do both
Trends in cybersecurity (like many areas of technology and life) tend to make pendulum-like swings over time. One such shifting debate is around security tool philosophy: is it best to use an array of best-in-class tools or consolidate to a single, “do it all” security platform?
I argue that it is essential to planfully and strategically implement a hybrid approach. By combining some best-of-class tools with integrated platforms, you can eliminate the chaos of countless single tools and embrace the advanced benefits of today’s platforms, while still having some high-value, niche solutions to provide the necessary layers of protection for the security armor. It’s important to avoid dependence on a single vendor to also avoid implementing that vendor’s weaknesses/blind spots across the enterprise; yet these solutions offer many advantages.
Shielding the lifelines: Protecting energy and infrastructure from cyber threats
The energy and infrastructure sectors serve as the backbone of global stability and economic health, underpinning nearly all facets of modern society. As such, the integrity and reliability of these systems are paramount, and failure to maintain their uptime could lead to unprecedented disruptions in daily life. This reality underscores the pressing need to safeguard these sectors from evolving cybersecurity threats.
However, the very importance of energy and infrastructure makes them prime targets for cybercriminals. The surge in sophisticated email-based attacks, such as business email compromise (BEC) and vendor email compromise (VEC), poses a significant risk. These cyber tactics, often characterized by deceptive social engineering and the absence of traditional threat indicators, allow attackers to bypass conventional security measures easily. Understanding these attacks is the first step towards developing robust defenses against them.
Microsoft is great, but not enough for email security
Microsoft 365 is the default software in SMEs, and understandably. The software offers a comprehensive set of productivity tools; flexible, scalable, and affordable licensing options, and compliance and security capabilities. However, given the ever-growing and persistent threat of cyberattacks, for email security, the standard security safeguards offered are insufficient.
Analysis of over 1 billion emails worldwide shows that emails are the preferred vehicle of cybercriminals. Email-delivered malware remains a favorite, increasing by 276 percent between January and December of last year. Additionally, attachments are growing as a threat. In Q4 of 2023, EML attachments increased 10-fold. Criminals are sending malicious payloads via EML files because they get overlooked when attached to the actual phishing email, which comes out clean.
World Backup Day -- We need to change the name
It remains essential to make copies of the most important data, World Backup Day has rightly been calling for this for years. But today the biggest risk to our data isn’t the traditional business continuity and disaster recovery scenarios for which World Backup Day was originally envisioned to cater for. The biggest threat to data today is destructive cyber attacks in the form of ransomware and wipers.
Tackling these threats by simply making copies and recovering the data after an incident is not enough, instead we need a World Resilience Day, where cyber incidents are investigated, the threats mitigated and systems hardened before being recovered to prevent recurrence and further impact.
Why deploying infrastructure without backup is always a risky gamble
In today's digital landscape, where data is omnipresent across various platforms and devices, maintaining efficient backup processes has become increasingly critical. Yet, despite the inherent risks, a surprising number of organizations continue to deploy their infrastructure without adequate backup measures in place.
According to a poll conducted among IT professionals, only a mere 25 percent of them adhere to industry best practices concerning data backup, creating potentially dangerous data gaps in production and employee risk management. Initially enticed by the allure of cost-saving, many companies overlook the necessity of investing in backup solutions, only to face dire consequences in the long run.
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