What cybersecurity can learn from health and wellness
The current cyberthreat landscape can feel like a dark cloud hanging over the head of every organization, the same way Covid loomed over us for so long. But just as advances in health have offered light at the end of the tunnel for the pandemic, new approaches to cyber wellness can help us stay healthy and secure in the digital realm.
By taking proactive measures to ward off digital diseases like ransomware, and fighting off any infections that do occur through individually tailored therapies and treatments, we can go about our business with confidence, feeling and performing our best.
When is it time to adopt analytics?
Companies considering expansion strategize over multiple areas of their organization to see where, how, how much and at what cost this growth must occur. They’re looking at business ability, capacity, potential as well as longevity.
The organization will rely upon compiled proprietary data as it sorts through its business intelligence. What must also gain scrutiny during this time are the analytics tools being used to accomplish the assessment, and how long those instruments will be able to deliver at the scale that the business will demand.
A path towards end-to-end automation
Customer service bots, digital payroll workflows, fleet management and lest we forget the clever programmer who famously automated his own job -- the uses for and adoption of automation continues to expand. In fact, the automation market is expected to reach $136.5 billion by 2026 with a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.7 percent according to Industry ARC’s Automation Market Report.
But as growth and excitement build, confusion in the market also abounds. After all, the word "automation" is so overused and broad that it’s no longer descriptive.
Can low-code app development increase your company's competitiveness?
Automation has taken over the job market. So much so that many people are convinced that their skills will eventually be rendered obsolete. Estimates show that around 85 million jobs will be lost to automation by 2025, a statistic that will undoubtedly concern skilled workers across various industries. But, while tech might seem to be a hindrance to job progression for many, automation is also expected to create close to 100 million tech jobs within the same period, allowing employers to offer opportunities they never previously thought about.
These new tech jobs include low-code and no-code app development for people without highly technical training or the strongest expertise. Innovative, easy-to-use technology allows existing workers to fill roles without forcing employers to look elsewhere for talent. Current employees can develop or refine their AI, computing, and mobile design skills. Companies can increase their competitive advantage by using resourceful, innovative methods to improve productivity by creating the next-gen worker and leveraging new technologies. But, how does low-code app development, in particular, improve a company’s competitiveness?
Four ways leveraging open source provides a strategic edge
Technical architecture designs are among the most critical decisions an organization can make, particularly for any that build industry-leading software or face a digital transformation. Poor tech stack choices result in an accumulation of technical debt and switching costs that continue to get worse long after the decisions have been made. The tools your organization selects must be embraced by teams across your entire software development lifecycle to reduce friction, drive efficiencies, and support complex workflows.
The ideal tech stack is interoperable, automated, and flexible enough to limit adverse effects on productivity and profitability. That’s a lot for engineering leaders to keep in mind, especially in today’s environments where the ultimate goal is to enable developers and other technical teams to operate with the right level of agility while keeping pace with rapid change.
Meet the three amigos of data: Governance, privacy and security
The three slices of the data pie -- data governance, data privacy and data security -- are often lumped together -- but although they naturally overlap, there are crucial differences that are important to understand.
Let’s slice up the pie. First, there’s data governance. You can think of it as the cornerstone; the thing that holds everything together. If you have the right data governance in place for all your data assets then it's much easier to apply the right privacy and security controls.
5 cybersecurity myths that are compromising your data
As the importance of cybersecurity has increased, so has our awareness of it. Poor cybersecurity has been identified as the most pressing threat to businesses today. Issues with cybersecurity often stem from a lack of cybersecurity awareness. In fact, according to the 2020 Cyberthreat Defense Report, a lack of cybersecurity awareness was identified as the biggest detriment to an organization's cyber-defences.
The reasons for this lack of awareness include no training on cybersecurity and persistent misinformation. Despite more media attention than ever, there are still some common misconceptions about cybersecurity that put businesses at risk. Here, we bust the top myths around cybersecurity and how you can address them.
Moving to the cloud? Don't forget the mainframe
Over the past decade, cloud technology has become the IT infrastructure of choice for many organizations. When the COVID-19 pandemic forced businesses to send workers home, cloud adoption accelerated, ensuring teams stayed connected and productive while working remotely. But in the rush to capitalize on the agile capabilities offered by cloud, larger enterprises should be wary of neglecting a critical piece of technology: the mainframe.
A majority of the world’s top banks, airlines, and retailers are estimated to rely on mainframes -- trusting them as a reliable and secure part of their IT infrastructure. Market appetite for future growth of the technology is strong: IBM recently reported 49 percent YOY growth in its mainframe division for Q1 2021.
Ransomware: Even backups may not save you
When the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack became public in the first half of 2021, many were surprised that the company paid a $4.4 million ransom to recover its business systems. After all, it’s unthinkable that a company so large wouldn’t have backups in place. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, however, Colonial’s CEO "authorized the ransom payment of $4.4 million because executives were unsure how badly the cyberattack had breached its systems, and consequently, how long it would take to bring the pipeline back."
Colonial didn’t say much more than this about why they decided to pay the ransom, but, assuming the company had backups systems in place, there are two possible scenarios. The first is that the backups, themselves were hit by the ransomware malware. This seems unlikely, as a large organization like Colonial likely follows the 3-2-1 maxim for backup: three copies of data on two different forms of storage media with one offsite. Certainly, it’s possible that there was still a logical connection between all backups and the production network, which would have allowed the attack to access backups. But typically, offsite backups are well protected against this kind of attack and are often stored in a read-only format that cannot be encrypted or overwritten by malware.
No time like the present for running an ethical and effective phishing simulation
No organization in any industry is immune to a phishing attack. As organizations reduce their office footprints and the world of work has evolved into the now normal hybrid and remote models of working, organizations are wide open to cybersecurity attacks. This hybrid model of more flexible working is likely to be on the increase, and according to CIPD, 85 percent of employees want to split their hours between the office and home, while 40 percent of employers cite hybrid working as their new operational model.
Workplaces are reeling back in their employees as the pandemic eases up and over two-thirds of organizations are expected to adopt a hybrid working model, Amid the excitement of back to work, cyber vigilance may experience a lapse among users. The threat actors target chinks in an organization's security armor as new apps, devices and user touchpoints are added into the tech ecosystem, providing more surface points for attacks. This means, if you haven’t already started planning your security prevention, there is no better time to refresh security training.
Why it's essential to find a cloud hosting partner who serves you and your clients' needs
With so many competing providers advertising themselves as the best, it's essential to know how to find a cloud hosting partner who effectively serves you and your clients' needs. It can be enough of a headache managing your cloud services, let alone managing those of your customers, especially if you're in the UK.
Many businesses look for the infrastructure and the resources to avoid going over budget, but the options can be limited, leaving many companies struggling to host alone.
Sink or swim: Why your business resiliency depends on your Active Directory recovery strategy
Who could forget the infamous NotPetya attack of 2017? Within hours, malware crippled companies around the globe -- most notably shipping giant Maersk. Because while Maersk had backups of many of its mission-critical servers, no one at the company could locate a single backup of a domain controller. In other words, a backup of their Active Directory (AD) was all but lost -- leaving the company at a complete standstill. In total, the attack cost the shipping giant a whopping $300 million.
In today’s business world, as successful cyberattacks remain the norm, it’s imperative that organizations have backups in place for when a cyber incident inevitably occurs. And the best place to start mapping out your disaster recovery strategy is around your AD: the operations backbone of your organization.
Will our new edtech toys grow old quickly?
Universities in the UK and beyond have found themselves at the forefront of a revolution in digital teaching provision, driven by necessity and yet all but unplanned. There have been successes which will continue to form part of learning and teaching for the foreseeable future, such as the adoption of more flexible communications platforms and wider use of blended learning techniques. But there have also been challenges, not least with accessibility, but also with the management of student and postgraduate expectations.
This mixed picture has been reflected in disparate feedback from students. Jisc reported that two-thirds of students rated their online learning this year positively, but also found that only a third found the experience engaging, while many struggled to access newly-adopted platforms and resources.
How to prepare for and prevent a ransomware attack
There has been a lot of media attention lately in certain industries around a type of ransomware called DopplePaymer.
Using this ransomware, an adversary will gain access to an organization. From there, they will start infecting systems and will demand a payment and/or threaten to release the victim’s data if the ransom is not paid. This trend of additional extortion become increasingly common with ransomware operators in the past two years.
It's time for rail companies to get smarter with data
The rail network is awash with data. There are systems measuring everything you could possibly compute -- from ticket sales and toilet cleaning to punctuality and passenger satisfaction. Use this data smartly, and you have the power to transform your train operating company (TOC).
But here’s the catch; to use the data, you’ve first got to get your hands on it, and with the way many TOCs are organized, that’s not always as simple as it sounds.
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