Cloud Tech News

I for one have not decided whether I will move my personal information from the many US based providers that I use in my personal life to local alternatives thanks to PRISM. But in this blog I do want to share my (strictly personal) views and thinking on the topic and explore potential alternatives.

Over and over again, we are pummeled with statistics on how risk is growing in disproportion to security readiness. 91% of companies have experienced at least one IT security event from an external source. 90% of all cyber crime costs are those caused by web attacks, malicious code and malicious insiders. These are staggering numbers - but what is causing this universal security paralysis?

There is a lot of hype surrounding the cloud and its delivery of software, storage and infrastructure over the Internet, but many businesses still view the technology as being too disruptive to implement. And yet, by taking the time to understand this advanced technology, we can begin to learn that the benefits usually outweigh the negatives, and that the myths are most often grounded in fiction. For that reason, we are going to debunk 10 of those myths.

Enterprise security can be a labyrinthine, complex beast, but when we get down to the nitty gritty, security can be simplified by six simple questions: who is logging in, what are they accessing, where is the device from which that person logs in, when was any asset changed, how are they authorised, and what is the impact of the event?

Maintaining security that meets the risk and compliance requirements of the enterprise is a constant challenge. Systems and networks are becoming more open and accessible, but at the same time, threats have become more advanced, persistent, and complex.

Cloud computing, mobility, and the Internet of Things are leading us towards a more technology-driven world. In my last blog, I wrote about how the Internet of Things will change our everyday lives, but with these new technologies comes new risks to the organization.

Earlier this week I attended a local cloud developers group, and I met a gentleman who consults with companies to engage in deep dive forensic examinations of their networks. He looks for the virtual fingerprints of misdeeds, fraud, and misdoings that can be used for e-discovery in legal cases. He essentially gets down to the bits and bytes of how much information flows to certain IP addresses to ascertain whether or not proprietary data has been tampered or stolen.

If you've been around the block a few times, you're probably wondering why the title of this post isn't '50 reasons VPNs suck in the cloud'. VPNs have long been the bane of both administrators and users (and let's not forget support). They're clunky, complex, and costly, and the same is true when they're deployed to secure cloud access.