5 ways to optimize your IT environment for the long haul
The widespread shift to working from home in 2020 forced many companies to rapidly adopt cloud technologies to enable remote workforces and customer connections. However, some important IT planning may have been overlooked amid the urgency to transition to the cloud. A long-term plan around data governance -- the approach to managing and using data securely in enterprise systems -- may not have been implemented when moving to the cloud.
Understandably, data governance may not have been a top priority for companies in the pandemic’s early days. But now, as companies review their cloud strategies and contemplate the next steps for maximizing value from the cloud, data governance plays a critical role in cloud optimization. This is especially true as the pace of data creation has rapidly accelerated since 2020. If not kept in check, the rapid creation of data can result in data sprawl, a staggering amount of unorganized data that leaves your IT environment in disarray.
Revamped Bitdefender Antivirus Free for Windows has a brand-new security architecture
While security apps may not be the software that everyone gets excited about, there is no getting away from their importance. Despite this, there are a couple of things that stop many people from investigating security solutions. Firstly, modern version of Windows include protective features, and secondly there is the concern about additional cost.
With the newly updated Bitdefender Antivirus Free for Windows, both of these concerns are rendered moot. Not only is the software completely free of charge, the features and options it offers go far beyond anything Microsoft has provided with Windows. This latest version is notable for various reasons, not least of which is the fact that it has been completely re-engineered and re-architectured.
Extending detection and response -- why context is needed for security
The threat landscape is becoming more challenging from every angle. Security teams are understaffed and overworked and are still catching up after the wide-ranging effects of the pandemic. There’s unfortunately no end in sight as the skills gap widens and the complexity around IT management continues to grow with remote work programs going from sticking plaster to get through the initial lockdown to 'business as usual.' Bad actors are becoming more sophisticated each day. It has never before been this hard to keep your organization secure.
It’s no wonder that many security professionals fall into the trap of adopting numerous security tools to help them cope with these problems. In the hope of using the latest and seemingly greatest technology, CISOs think adding another security layer will reduce their risk exposure. If only it were that easy. Adding more technology can solve some of the issues, but it can also dilute team attention spans further, leading to more problems over time.
Hard truths from Ukraine: The government cannot save us in cyberwar
Amid our first global, multilateral, wholly unpredictable cyberwar, it is up to each of us to defend ourselves. No intelligence agency is certain how the cyber dimension of the Ukraine conflict will evolve; no military can stop a cyberattack. The situation catapults every digital organization into unknown territory.
If you think the battles on air, land and sea so far have defied expectations, consider the parallel cyber conflict. Three sober truths make this a perilous moment for us all -- especially as the Russian army’s logistical setbacks may make heightened cyber aggression against private interests more enticing.
Five steps for controlling cloud costs
With cloud costs accounting for nearly a third of IT budgets in 2021 and predicted to dramatically increase in the coming years as more companies undergo cloud migration efforts, the need for organizations to get the highest possible value out of their cloud spend is fairly obvious. Actually doing so, however, is an increasingly challenging endeavor due to the complex nature of public cloud environments, as well as the increasing reliance on containers and microservices.
When it comes down to it, the cloud promises speed, but it doesn’t necessarily guarantee that speed at a lower cost than traditional data centers. Maximizing the efficiency of your cloud spend requires buy-in from the entire organization, from the company leadership that makes buying decisions, to the finance teams that track and monitor that spend, all the way down to the developers, engineers and architects responsible for building and implementing those solutions. While there are those who believe that this is just not possible in the world of the public cloud, more modern and diligent approaches have proved that it most certainly is.
Ukraine conflict puts organizations’ cyber-resilience to the test
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has provoked a massive rally of hackers to join both sides of the conflict and take up arms in the cyber-war. As has been the case in cyberattacks of recent years, the consequences of this will affect organizations way beyond the initial intended target. For example, in June 2017 French company Saint-Gobain was forced to halt its operations as a result of the NotPetya attack, a Russian cyberattack targeting Ukraine that resulted in over €80 million of losses in company revenue.
As a result of a sharp increase of cyber-attacks since the beginning of the conflict, from DDoS, new data wipers, phishing campaigns and malware, organizations worldwide should take immediate action to improve their cyber-resilience and limit the damages that any spillover could have on their business.
Accelerating the path to sustainability with digital transformation
Digital transformation has been one of the key industry themes for several years, but recently it has become a major strategic priority for most organizations.
As an impact of the pandemic, and the operational and IT weaknesses that were brought into sharp relief as a result, digital transformation of legacy systems and processes is now seen as a critical and urgent requirement. Indeed, many industry analysts and pundits suggest that we may see decades of innovation in this area occur over the next five years. But what is the situation like currently and what does the future hold?
Data protection: You don't get a pass with SaaS
Software as a Service (SaaS) is increasingly taking the place of traditional, on-premises software. In an analysis of the 2021 SaaS market, Gartner estimated that global end-user spending on public cloud services grew 23.1 percent to $332.3 billion. SaaS alone accounted for $122.6 billion and is projected to top $145 billion in 2022.
The drivers behind the success of SaaS are clear. There’s no on-premises equipment or software to buy or manage, pricing is lower and is more flexible than perpetual licenses. Less cost, less complexity, less aggravation for IT -- that’s a pretty convincing proposition.
Emerging challenges and trends in the business process management
Business process management (BPM) ensures the ability to extend clean execution and delivery for all organizational outcomes. With more clearly defined and precise processes in place across the board, businesses are given tighter control over all value-added internal and external activities. When processes are streamlined and a company has solid management over them, it creates an opportunity to implement technology and make certain that all business methods are tech-enabled and strategically aligned to the respective marketplace.
BPM also lends itself to the speed of the business. In the past, big companies had a major leg up over small businesses and could easily gobble them up entirely due to size and reach alone. However, in today’s fast and dynamic business landscape, it’s the quick and nimble organizations that beat out companies that are slow-moving and inept to change, regardless of bandwidth.
Rolling out IoT to address county council challenges in the UK
As the UK recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic, 2022 will be a year of recovery, and local authorities have a crucial role to play in leading this process. However, pressures continue to increase from the government to meet targets on climate change, improve health and social care and ensure that local infrastructure continues to meet increasing demand after the pandemic -- all with restricted financial support.
So how can technology help councils to address and meet these challenges?
WebRTC: What it is and why it's useful
If you’re an internet user -- and you clearly are, seeing as how you’re reading this on the internet -- you’ve probably already used WebRTC, but weren't aware of it.
What’s more, you were probably also unaware of WebRTC's leakage issues. Nonetheless, WebRTC is everywhere, as an answer to the age-old question: "How do I teleconference online?"
Why 'ghost assets' are killing your GDPR compliance
Ensuring Data protection and privacy is a critical function of IT in any organization, particularly as the number of data breaches occurring in organizations continues to skyrocket, increasing by 17 percent in 2021 compared to 2020.
From data destruction and reputational damage to identity and intellectual property theft, the consequences of a breach can be severe. Worst-case scenario, it can put you out of business, with the average company share price dipping more than 7 percent in the days after a breach.
How to keep customers safe with the correct print security strategy
Today’s Wi-Fi printers possess an array of features that make printing easy, which are especially useful in a world where remote working is commonplace and employees use a range of different devices for producing documents. Despite their advantages, there remain some serious security gaps that hackers can easily exploit if an organization doesn’t have a robust print security strategy in place.
While most businesses do well when it comes to protecting core IT infrastructure including computers, servers and applications, they do often fall short when it comes to secondary assets such as multifunction printers (MFPs). With cybercriminals constantly circling and searching for different ways to infiltrate a company’s network, unsecured connected printers can be a key point of weakness leading to a major breach.
The journey to intelligent office automation
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) has been around longer than you might realize. At its core, RPA simply means the automation of any manually intensive IT or administrative task. For instance, scheduling an email is one early example of RPA. But over the last two years, RPA has become much easier to use and the tools have been democratized out to the business units so arduous daily tasks may now be automated easily. Think of it as a highly evolved Excel macro, created by someone in the business that automatically logs into and out of applications to make the enterprise more effective and efficient.
What's more, due to the lack of resources available, automating enterprise processes traditionally caused friction between business units and IT. Today, IT teams may focus on large, transformative automation (e.g., new ERP Systems, new services) and push everything else back over to other business units. Transforming an organization by allowing business units to accomplish more on their own -- while freeing up IT to focus on more complex and important tasks is a far more effective use of all resources.
Three recommendations for surviving (and thriving) in the post-pandemic IT wilderness
With COVID-19 as the backdrop, the last two years have been both scary and exhilarating for IT teams as they delivered innovation at previously unimaginable speeds.
During this time, CIOs have overseen the enablement of remote working for millions of employees and shifted numerous legacy systems to the cloud. But as we emerge from the IT battlefield of COVID-19, what does the post-pandemic landscape look like? What new challenges will the coming months pose, and how can IT departments prepare themselves for the next wave of disruption? Below are three recommendations for where to focus IT efforts in the near term while continuing to drive business value by leveraging the speed and power of modern innovations. Let’s begin by looking backwards.
© 1998-2024 BetaNews, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy - Cookie Policy.