Specific factors that distinguish people from one another, such as name, date of birth, height, weight, hair colour, and eye colour, are referred to as identity. Government-issued identification numbers, such as those on driver's licences, social security cards, or passports, are also regarded as components of our identity.Identity has traditionally been verified in person. People visited actual locations while carrying documentation, and staff members confirmed it. But nowadays, a lot of transactions and the accompanying verifications that go along with them take place online. Digital interactions have significantly risen, driven by pandemic pressures and supported by the growing prevalence of mobile devices.By enabling customers to authenticate themselves online using the information provided by the individual, signals from government lists and reports, and other methods, digital verification moves this procedure out of the real world.<h2>Identity Verification Infrastructure</h2>Customers may lose control of their accounts, have files submitted on their behalf, and even have money spent without their knowledge; if their identities are stolen. The repercussions of an ID breach might last for months or even years as victims come to understand the full extent of the issue. For instance, victims may receive calls from creditors or letters from the IRS warning them that they owe a lot of money and may be subjected to legal action. By making it simpler for businesses to identify fraud and thwart it before it gets out of control, dependable ID verification systems can help lower this risk.It can sometimes be challenging to determine an employee's identification. So even though identity fraud is so common today, this would cost $24 billion and affect 15 million consumers in 2021, according to Javelin Strategy &amp; Research. Traditional identity fraud losses, where fraudsters used a consumer's personal information to achieve illicit financial gain, cost $24 billion.Nevertheless, more companies are attempting to address the issue of fraud from the standpoint of businesses.Businesses can benefit from digital verification in five main areas:<ol><li>Ensures regulatory compliance</li><li>Increases consumer confidence</li><li>Boosts operational efficiency</li><li>Reduces total risk</li><li>Creates long-term relationships</li><li>&nbsp;</li></ol>It makes sense to look for solutions that can match present needs and adapt to future requirements regarding digital verification systems. This includes the capacity to combine and match verification choices, such as presenting a government ID, scanning a record, and using biometric identity, as well as automating crucial procedures and making prompt decisions. Companies can also profit from solutions that can stop known rogue actors, spot repeated efforts at verification, and unearth broader fraud rings using surface pattern analysis.<h2>Assuring Identity in a Remote World&nbsp;</h2>The joiner-mover-leaver cycle has become more complicated with a predominantly remote workforce; businesses that rely on physical borders or assets to help enforce access rights will no longer be able to do so. For instance, a staff member may need to utilize various programmes or need access to particular network resources as part of being in a new office if their new position at work compels them to change offices. These days, everything must be managed online; therefore, the more automation IT can provide, the better.It has long been anticipated that the remote workforce will increase. Few, though, would have predicted that a pandemic would be a part of its expansion. Although COVID-19 may have driven businesses further down this route, the route has been cemented for years and has been seeing increased traffic. Businesses will need to discover ways to balance cybersecurity with the capacity to foster higher productivity for all their employees as more people look for possibilities to work remotely.But as an honest employee, what can you do when you sense your or anyone at your workspace's personal information is being compromised? Here are a few things to do:<ul><li>Inform your company proactively and adhere to your workplace's privacy, data security, and emergency procedures.</li><li>Request and verify any recent updates from the business, and then take any instructions that are given.</li><li>Change your software and device login credentials for personal and work accounts immediately.</li><li>Enroll in two-factor authentication or two-step verification to add further security levels to your logins and accounts when it's feasible.</li><li>Make contact with the credit reporting agencies and your financial institutions. Keep an eye on your personal accounts and check your credit report frequently. Any new or unknown activity, including fraudulent purchases, should be reported.</li><li>Sign up for credit or identity monitoring services, and find out if your employer provides free credit monitoring services for anyone affected by the incident.</li><li>To create a legal platform for any future fraud challenges, get in touch with your local police precinct and inform them of your case. &nbsp;</li></ul><h2>Global Identity Verification Market&nbsp;</h2>Virtual ID verification is becoming more efficient and simple every day due to advancements in identity recognition technology and digital software. In the upcoming years, it is anticipated that increased awareness of the security and advantages of self-assessment identity verification will propel the market for identity verification globally.The market for identity verification is expected to expand at a strong 14.8% CAGR. The market is anticipated to grow from US$ 8.6Bn in 2021 to around US$ 40Bn by 2032.Virtual Sales of identity verification solutions are higher than services because identity verification is a dynamic process involving several user interfaces and record-keeping. Due to worries about data privacy issues in Europe and other areas of the world, the need for identity verification solutions has risen over the past ten years.Over time, the development and application of AML identity verification technologies have made them a vital component of many service industries in the current market. The largest demand for identity verification services is seen in businesses that provide banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI). The BFSI segment's CAGR was close to 14.7% during the projection period.Financial firms are searching for stronger security measures free from external vulnerabilities and hackers, which is expected to present a tremendous opportunity to develop new self-assessment identity verification software and further expand the global market.Due to the existence of significant remote identity verification companies, North America accounts for the largest revenue share in the worldwide identity verification market. In this region, there is a high need for identity verification products and services due to smart infrastructure development and cities.Among the major geographical areas, Asia Pacific is anticipated to experience the greatest CAGR in the identity verification market from 2022 to 2032. Together, China, Japan, and South Korea are the top three economies in the area of identity verification, making up about 16–17% of the global market.The appropriate combination of verification techniques will help you win over users' trust and entice them to return often. So why not think about trying live identity verification if you feel like your present authentication procedure may use an improvement? You could be amazed by the difference it can make for your company with the appropriate provider—and we may have an idea about it.

Soumya Sarkar

Identity Verification Infrastructure is a proven technology that prevents identity theft. Learn how it works and how it can help you protect yourself!

Identity Verification as a Service Solution to Combat Identity Theft | Techfastly

How Does Identity Verification Infrastructure As a Service Prevents Identity Theft?

Yash Modi

Cloud strategies are the key to reducing risk while enhancing cloud benefits! Here's how CIOs can maximize both.

How Can CIOs Help Implemet Better Cloud Strategies? | Techfastly

How Can CIOs Implement Better Cloud Strategies?

SaaS platforms are rapidly being employed for mission-critical applications by many enterprises. As a result, SaaS security is an important aspect of cybersecurity efforts.SaaS apps, on the other hand, are managed by a third party and are not under the authority of the business. How can companies control access and ensure that their applications and data are protected from cyber-attacks? Zero-trust is a viable option. It's a new security paradigm that, by default, limits access to everything and dynamically checks every connection based on the current security context, enforcing security regulations regardless of where users are or what application they're using.<h2 id="what-is-software-as-a-service-saas">What is Software as a Service (SaaS)?</h2>SaaS is a software delivery model that allows cloud providers to host programs and make them available to end-users via the Internet.Software companies usually use third-party cloud providers to host their apps. In some circumstances, cloud companies such as Microsoft or Amazon Web Services (AWS) offer SaaS directly. A software company that builds its own cloud infrastructure to host an application is a third option.A cloud-based distribution model is used for SaaS. The cloud provider (who may or may not be the application developer) hosts the application and related data on its servers, databases, network, and computational resources. Any device that is connected to the network can use the program. Web browsers are commonly used to access SaaS apps.As a result, businesses that use SaaS apps don't have to worry about installing and maintaining software. Users usually have to pay a monthly charge to use the software. Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) can be used to connect SaaS applications to other software.<h2 id="what-is-zero-trust">What is Zero Trust?</h2>Zero Trust is a theory that believes that a complex network's security is always in jeopardy from both external and internal threats. It aids in the organization and stratification of a comprehensive response to these threats. This is in sharp contrast to the classic perimeter security concept, which believes that bad actors are always on the untrustworthy side of the network and that trusted users are always on the trustworthy side. Zero Trust invalidates these assumptions, and all users are regarded as unreliable.<h2 id="how-does-zero-trust-security-work-and-protect-the-cloud-environment">How Does Zero Trust Security Work and Protect the Cloud Environment?</h2>A zero-trust architecture was created by John Kindervag in 2010 while working as a principal analyst at Forrester Research. It is a comprehensive framework that offers effective protection of an organization's most important assets. It operates on the assumption that every connection and endpoint is a potential danger. Even for those connections that are already inside, the framework defends against these dangers, whether external or internal. In a nutshell, a zero-trust network consists of the following components:<ul><li>All corporate network traffic is logged and inspected.</li><li>Access to the network is restricted and controlled.</li><li>It validates and protects network resources.</li></ul>To summarize, the zero-trust security model guarantees that data and resources are unreachable by default. Users can only have limited access to them under certain conditions, known as least privilege access. Every connection, such as when a user connects to a software or application to a data set via an API, is verified and authorized by a zero-trust security architecture (API). It guarantees that the interaction complies with the organization's security policy's conditional requirements. A zero-trust security strategy also uses context from as many data sources as feasible to verify and approve every device, network activity, and connection based on dynamic policies.Organizations must connect information from each security domain to successfully deploy a zero-trust architecture. Across the firm, security teams must agree on priorities and access regulations. They must safeguard all business connections, including data, users, and devices, as well as applications, workloads, and networks. This architecture necessitates a well-thought-out strategy and roadmap for implementing and integrating security measures to achieve certain business goals. Adopters must do the following to make a zero-trust model work:<ul><li>Commit from the top down.</li><li>All IT and data assets should be cataloged, and access privileges should be assigned based on responsibilities.</li><li>Fix some of the most common flaws.</li><li>For a data-centric strategy, classify the data.</li><li>Segment networks to avoid lateral movement, which is a common cause of data breaches.</li><li>During virtual machine and cloud server cross-movement, isolate and safeguard workloads.</li></ul>From the outside, it may appear to be a limiting process. However, a good deployment of a zero-trust model can help the security team get context and insight into a fast-evolving attack surface as well as improve the user experience.<h2 id="how-to-protect-saas-applications-using-saas-security-posture-management-sspm-and-zero-trust">How to Protect SaaS Applications Using SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) and Zero Trust?</h2>SSPM (SaaS Security Posture Management) is a new security category that can automatically assess a SaaS application's security posture, detect weaknesses, and assist administrators in implementing secure setups. SSPM's major purpose is to keep data safe and prevent unwanted access to SaaS services.Complex setups are common in SaaS services, and default settings are frequently insecure. A business can't rely on its users to remember to utilize secure configurations all of the time. Even if configurations may be applied centrally, administrators find it difficult to master each SaaS service's user interface and check configurations regularly. In a large company with hundreds of SaaS applications, this can be very difficult.Continuous monitoring and visibility into vulnerable setups across all SaaS applications utilized by a company are provided by SSPM technologies. They can also make recommendations for security improvements and, in some situations, automatically fix vulnerable configurations.Every user is verified and authenticated using a combination of authentication methods in the zero-trust security model (multi-factor authentication). Limiting and monitoring network traffic is made easier, and credentials are protected using layered and secure authentication. Devices remain password-protected, and only authorized individuals have access to them.IP allow-listing and location-based geofencing can also aid in tighter network access control. The flexibility and cost-effectiveness of zero-trust security in cloud-based architecture are greater. Organizations of all sizes can use a zero-trust approach to protect the cloud while avoiding the need for on-premise hardware.<h2 id="how-to-enforce-zero-trust-security-across-saas-applications">How to Enforce Zero Trust Security Across SaaS Applications?</h2>In a world with zero trust, access policies are often set by determining who is attempting to access a system (authentication) and what access and privileges they should be granted (authorization).Single sign-on is a practical approach to putting up this identity-centric security solution (SSO). In this sense, SSO refers to the process of maintaining identity across numerous platforms. For example, with a consistent authorization policy, a user can have only one user account and use it to access all of an organization's systems, both on-premises and in the cloud.<h3 id="using-single-sign-on-sso-to-guarantee-zero-trust">Using Single Sign-On (SSO) to Guarantee Zero Trust</h3>SSO integration is currently supported by the majority of SaaS providers, allowing enterprises to centralize identity management rather than build a separate store of identity data. When choosing a SaaS solution, make sure it supports SSO in a way that makes sense for your identity management system. Some SaaS suppliers charge for SSO integration, while others require costly bundle updates to enable particular functionalities.To be effective, an identity management system must take into account the enterprise's dynamic character. Employee access requirements fluctuate as jobs change and people come and go. Connecting your identity management system to an HR system that serves as a trustworthy source of employee roles and responsibilities is one method to overcome this challenge. Personnel changes in the HR system are automatically propagated to the SSO provider, and permission decisions are automatically implemented into the integrated SaaS application once the two systems are live.<h3 id="access-is-granted-based-on-the-security-context">Access is Granted Based On the Security Context</h3>The choice to give access depending on the status of a connected endpoint is another crucial component of a zero-trust architecture. The security team must take into account not only the identification of the user but also the larger security context, such as the device's health.Each connection request is analyzed in a zero-trust environment. The sort of data an individual accesses or the type of activity they want to perform is compared to the security policy via access control systems. The connection may be blocked or accepted depending on the context, such as the user's device, current location, time of day, and authorization policies.Integrating your SSO provider with your endpoint IT or secure proxy is one way to accomplish this. When a user attempts to log into an application, the provider verifies their identity and checks their level of access. Before providing access, it verifies with the endpoint agent to ensure that the device's health is acceptable.<h2 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h2>In this article, I covered the basics of zero trust and how it might help SaaS security:<ul><li>By offering a standard platform for remote user access and authorization, zero-trust can improve cloud security.</li><li>Security posture management (SSPM) systems for SaaS applications can help provide granular access control within apps, ensuring that users are not given excessive rights.</li><li>SSO integration, in particular, helps ensure that the same authentication and authorization policies are implemented across the hybrid environment with zero trust access control.</li></ul>I hope you find this information useful as you consider whether or not to employ zero trust in your cloud applications.

UMAR NABI

How Will Zero Trust Change SaaS Security?

In the beginning, it was a common practice for businesses to use a single public cloud to manage all of their needs for digital infrastructure. However, the majority of groundbreaking businesses today rely on multi-cloud solutions. These strategies use multiple cloud service providers to offer the firm a variety of alternatives and capabilities. Companies are beginning to understand that using a number of various cloud providers throughout the company is a clever move. In this article on security infrastructure and multi-cloud, we will examine the current significance of the multi-cloud approach for organizational security. <h2 style="color: rgb(14, 16, 26); background: transparent; margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt;">What is Multi-Cloud Security Infrastructure?</h2>Multi-cloud security is a complete cloud security solution that guards against sophisticated security threats and assaults on company and customer data, assets, and applications across numerous cloud infrastructures and environments. This makes it possible for businesses to benefit from the assets of each cloud provider while reducing the dangers usually connected with relying on a single cloud provider. Multi-cloud management of the underlying infrastructure is becoming more crucial as businesses modernize their applications, seamlessly manage and control deployment across environments, and grow across environments. <h2 style="color: rgb(14, 16, 26); background: transparent; margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt;">What are the Benefits of Multi-Cloud Infrastructure?</h2>Different applications may be optimized using cloud services that are specific to each provider as firms modernize their application stacks by creating new software or updating outdated ones (Artificial Intelligence best fit on Google Cloud). There may be business applications that are tailored to a particular cloud (Oracle Cloud). Applications using a certain Operating System (OS), like Microsoft Windows, may predominate and be the greatest fit for a particular cloud (Microsoft Azure). One cloud infrastructure platform may be a better fit than another for commercial reasons, such as data gravity, management tools that are only available in a few languages, or regional team preferences. If you need an example, you may compare it to the present cell phone service market. Cell phone service is provided by at least three or four large companies (and a few smaller ones, too), each of which has unique advantages and capabilities. Families and businesses frequently employ various service providers to give each customer access to the capabilities they want at a variety of price points. The use of many clouds is similar. It gives companies more chances to take full advantage of what the cloud has to offer.In the current market, multi-cloud is unquestionably one of the most popular approaches. Several factors motivate organizations to use this kind of structure, including: <h3><ul style="color: rgb(14, 16, 26); background: transparent; margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt;"><li style="background: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; list-style-type: disc;">Options</li></ul></h3>Everyone appreciates options. Additionally, you can select from a choice of cloud options when using a multi-cloud architecture. This encourages flexibility and keeps a company from getting locked into a particular supplier or contract.<h3><ul style="color: rgb(14, 16, 26); background: transparent; margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt;"><li style="background: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; list-style-type: disc;">Risk reduction</li></ul></h3>An interruption may be disastrous. Downtime of even a few minutes can cost your company thousands of dollars (not to mention a damaged reputation). Multiple cloud environments help you prevent downtime by ensuring you always have access to backup resources and data storage. A multi-cloud strategy isn't simple, though. The necessity for protection across numerous different cloud providers, or multi-cloud security, is one of the primary factors to be taken into account. <h2 style="color: rgb(14, 16, 26); background: transparent; margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt;">How Does Multi-Cloud Security Infrastructure Work?</h2>Organizations must reduce the complexity brought about by using numerous hyper-scale cloud providers in addition to on-premises infrastructure because multi-cloud is becoming more and more common. Each cloud provider has a unique architecture, set of guidelines, and specifications. Solutions for multi-cloud infrastructure must:<ul style="color: rgb(14, 16, 26); background: transparent; margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt;"><li style="background: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; list-style-type: disc;">Regardless of where they are installed, manage apps consistently.</li><li style="background: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; list-style-type: disc;">Make it possible to create, move, and run apps anywhere, including between public clouds, without refactoring.</li><li style="background: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; list-style-type: disc;">Maintain application security wherever they are used.</li><li style="background: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; list-style-type: disc;">Support IT and developers to make it easier for teams to work together.</li><li style="background: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; list-style-type: disc;">Give users a way to seamlessly transition to different cloud environments so that reworking is not required while adapting. </li></ul><h2 style="color: rgb(14, 16, 26); background: transparent; margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt;">Multi-cloud Security Challenges</h2>Deploying a multi-cloud system, meanwhile, is not without its difficulties, particularly in terms of security. Multicloud increases the risk of security breaches because there are more options for error. There are already many cases of organizations misconfiguring cloud environments to the point that private files are left exposed to the internet.Misconfiguration of a multi-cloud environment may consequently make it simpler for hackers and cybercriminals to target your company, but only if the environment is misconfigured.The IT and security teams can take significant steps toward fixing any mistakes if they can gain a hands-on understanding of the environment. That's if IT is aware of every service being used, which is not always the case as many business units and even specific employees are content to begin utilizing new cloud services without informing the IT department.The lack of developer and operator skills is one of the main barriers to embracing multi-cloud architecture. The installation of several clouds brings about new operational challenges. To take advantage of the innovation potential of each cloud environment, new skills must be learned if each cloud is operated as a separate, isolated silo with its own special operating and development model, taxonomy, and set of APIs. As a result, as firms start down the multi-cloud route, many see an increase in labour expenses and a decline in organizational effectiveness.It is more difficult for app development teams to swiftly resolve application performance issues as a result of differences between cloud infrastructures. Furthermore, the variations make it challenging to consistently implement thoroughly thought-out policies that guarantee programmes are always secure and in compliance wherever they are deployed. <h2 style="color: rgb(14, 16, 26); background: transparent; margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt;">Conclusion</h2>You require a complete security solution for dynamic cloud settings. Finding the best cloud security solution for your multi-cloud environment might feel like a genuine struggle, though, with so many options available.Being methodical and patient is crucial. Scrutinize each multi-cloud security solution before making a decision, and wait until you have all the facts you need to do so.

Utsav Mishra

Security Infrastructure and Multi-Cloud: An Overview

Aftab Alam

How to Improve SD-WAN Security?

The incorporation of the cloud has brought about a considerable transformation in data handling and storage. The cloud is essentially a huge network of remote servers worldwide connected together, operating as a single framework. These servers help run major applications, are used for data storage and management, video streaming, or delivering social media services. This consequently demands the need for a systematic approach that helps build and run applications across public, private, and hybrid clouds. This approach is referred to as ?cloud-native'.In a nutshell, when an application is said to be ?cloud-native', it means that it is designed to be developed and managed in a cloud environment. More and more companies are using the cloud-native approach to increase app development and delivery and accordingly meet user expectations.<h3 id="what-is-cloud-native-security">What is Cloud-native Security?</h3>The advent of cloud-native technologies has replaced conventional software development models but has also ushered in the critical challenge of cloud-native security. Cloud-native application security has become vital to ensuring that application architecture remains protected. This is challenging in itself on account of the highly dynamic nature of cloud-native application architectures. Cloud apps shift through multiple cloud platforms, move between on and off-premise frameworks, and expanding and shrinking, making this task rather challenging.To implement cloud-native security solutions, one must understand its key elements. Some of these include:<blockquote><ul><li>Data security</li><li>Workload security</li><li>Network security</li><li>Vulnerability management</li><li>Automated response</li><li>Inventory &amp; classification</li><li>IAM security</li><li>Compliance management </li></ul></blockquote>While working toward implementing cloud-native security, it is important to understand where responsibilities lie ? even more, important to know that responsibilities may be varied based on the services. Public exposure of cloud storage services, missing critical patches, accepting traffic from random sources, and compromising important accounts are problems in a cloud architecture that are relatively common.In order to combat these issues in consistently changing digital ecosystems, it is important for enterprises to adopt an all-inclusive cloud-native security platform which incorporates threat detection capability, data analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and automation. It is also vital to deploy the best of native cloud security tools to tackle diagnostic difficulties, lack of fixed perimeters, and similar problems.<h3 id="can-existing-security-approaches-work-for-cloud-native-architecture">Can Existing Security Approaches Work for Cloud-Native Architecture? </h3>Considerable cloud-native security controls exist to protect cloud-native architecture. This is basically a methodology that helps increase efficiency and productivity and builds better scalability with the help of cloud solutions. It is also quite highly collaborative. it helps sand off the rough edges as the finished app code is transferred into production. In order to ensure that cloud-native architecture continues to reign, several cloud-native security approaches are being used.Multilayered SecurityA cloud service comprises seven layers - network, OS, hardware, facility, user, middleware, and application. Using multilayered security, one can monitor each one of these layers to identify risks and eliminate them accordingly. Multiple native cloud security tools are used for this purpose, such as end-to-end encryption and cloud firewalls.Cloud-native Security PlatformsThis has seemingly come up as one of the most effective cloud-native security strategies in recent times. Using these platforms reduce cloud vendor lock-in and deliver visibility across ecosystems. Cloud-native security platforms also help establish tools and reminders for overburdened security teams.Shared Responsibility ModelsThese models dictate that cloud providers themselves will be responsible for some security parameters, while customers will be responsible for others. This concept basically provides a base for all the other cloud-native security approaches.Common cloud-native security tools include CWPP (Cloud Workload Protection Platforms) and CSPM (Cloud Security Posture Management). CSPM is a collection of security tools that helps enable risk assessment and visualization, DevOps integration, compliance monitoring, and incident response. CWPP on the other hand is a workload security protection technology and is used in hybrid data centers, where, with the help of an agent, it helps address the requirements of server workload protection. This also includes providing cloud-native container security.Although these approaches are good enough, they are not seamless. Managing cloud-native security tools, for example, can become rather inconvenient with time. In the shared responsibility model approach, it is likely that customers may be irresponsible. According to Gartner, a minimum of 99% of cloud failures is likely to be the customer's fault, by 2025.Lack of communication between security teams and business leaders is a major issue regarding cloud-native security. While stakeholders focus on cost, customer experience, and business needs, they neglect the infrastructure, which is observed by security leaders later on. Another problem with current security approaches is that perimeter security does not apply when the perimeter dissolves. Even certain scanner and firewall approaches lack the ability to provide adequate security that leads to the detection of false positives.Organizations will require more efficient and powerful tools in order to deal with the issues that crop up with conventional security approaches. To that end, cloud-native security companies are coming up with unique techniques to address the inconsistencies in the existing controls. They are working to shift from traditional approaches that depend on network-based tools. Instead, they are hoping to do some pioneering work in serverless and cloud-native technologies that will enhance security efficiency at reduced costs.One of the popular cloud-native security companies, PerimeterX Inc., is focusing on the same. It hopes to secure a serverless web application and make security smart, inexpensive, and portable. Although the perimeter dissolution issue may still persist with this one, it is a vital solution that may help introduce security into many environments.<h3 id="challenges-with-detecting-and-managing-vulnerabilities">Challenges with Detecting and Managing Vulnerabilities</h3>Despite the number of fairly good cloud-native security approaches, there persist a number of challenges in vulnerability detection and management.No fixed perimetersThe lack of fixed perimeters is a major problem in detecting vulnerabilities. With cloud-native applications, security personnel can no longer establish a static firewall surrounding an application across multiple clouds that is likely to scale a million workload instances at one time and mere hundreds at another.Less IT expertiseIt's surprising to know that many companies still haven't migrated to the cloud due to a lack of IT expertise. The 'Cloud Adoption Practices &amp; Priorities Survey Report', by the Cloud Security Alliance claims that around 34% of companies avoid the cloud as they believe their IT managers don't have the experience to handle the demands of cloud computing and management. What's more, even enterprises that are already on the cloud have apprehensions regarding their security due to a lack of experienced personnel.Insider threats and data breachesThe problem of data breaches and cyberattacks is well-known, but few companies are doing anything solid and concrete about it. Of course, there are security mechanisms to keep them at bay, but they are insufficient. Not dealing with data breaches on time leaves the business vulnerable to malicious threats and compliance risks.Insider threats are rather commonplace as well. In fact, a research report by Intel states that insider threats may be responsible for a shocking 43% of data breaches. The public cloud environment is also a highly appealing attack surface for hackers. If not secured with the highest possible techniques, enterprises are at risk of exposing their cloud data and workload to malicious threats. Despite effective strategies, this remains a major challenge in vulnerability management in the cloud-native security ecosystem.Difficulty in diagnostics and the presence of complex environmentsCloud-native application architecture can be rather complex, in the presence of which it can sometimes become rather challenging to quickly diagnose the reason for a security breach. There is a considerable lag between the threat occurrence and the time security teams take to diagnose and address the same. Complex cloud environments require specific tools to ensure seamless security and protection across private and public cloud providers and on-premise deployments - even for edge networks. However, it can get tedious at times when the cloud environment is too complex and layered, making vulnerability detection quite a challenge.DevOps and related complexitiesEnterprises that have adopted the DevOps ecosystem are required to deploy appropriate security controls at the beginning of the development phase. Implementing security tools later can severely cripple the organization's security mechanisms. Given that individual services can now be handled without having to disrupt other functions of the application, DevOps teams can expedite new updates and releases. However, this in itself may pose issues on account of outdated policy management processes and manual provisioning.Cloud Migration IssuesAlthough many enterprises are eager to move to the cloud, not all of them consider doing the same in an efficient, well-planned manner. Cloud migration has to be handled very carefully, or else the business is exposed to vulnerabilities even before its operations are shifted to the cloud. Using straightforward migration strategies that involve breaking down the process into stages may help achieve the transition efficiently without pressurizing IT personnel and reduce the risk of critical errors leading to vulnerabilities.Lack of VisibilityThe absence of visibility and tracking is commonplace in the IaaS model, where cloud providers refrain from exposing the infrastructure layer to customers. This is, however, being extended to the PaaS and SaaS models as well, preventing customers from identifying their cloud assets.Open SourceThis is rather obvious. indeed, using open-source software for app development is far more vulnerable than anything. Most hackers attack the well in the Git repo and wait for developers to use the packages. Soon enough, they use an attack vector to compromise the application.Cloud ComplianceOrganizations have to adhere to numerous federal regulations when migrating on the cloud. There are several international mandates that have to be addressed, such as HIPAA, PCI DSS, FERPA, FISMA, etc. Although enterprises do their best to comply with all the necessary regulations, this can still be a tedious process that can leave a business vulnerable to attacks. There has to be granular-level attention paid to the technical capacity needed to adhere to these mandates.Unsecured APIsThe cloud is a massive storage system with a fragmented surface attack area, and there are consequently many entry points for attacks to make their presence felt. While APIs are great, they have to be highly secured, as attackers can easily infiltrate the system by hacking into unsecured APIs.<h3 id="best-practices-for-cloud-native-security">Best Practices for Cloud-native Security</h3>In order to ensure that cloud-native security is as seamless as possible, security personnel must attempt to follow the best practices, some of which are outlined below:<ul><li>Ensure to start the security process early in the development phase - right at the container level.</li><li>Ensure consistencies while implementing security. Cloud-native security controls are not a one-time thing. They have to be periodically checked and rechecked and new policies have to be implemented to ensure that vulnerabilities haven?t been introduced.</li><li>Use as many helpful native cloud security tools and techniques. Stay updated with the latest in the industry.</li><li>Introduce multi-factor authentication and strong, zero-trust identification to ensure protection.</li><li>Educate stakeholders and liaison with DevOps stakeholders at the beginning of the security implementation cycle.</li><li>Encrypt data with top-of-the-line computing technologies and follow best security practices.</li><li>Enable threat detection for databases, IoT, and virtual machines. Integrate threat intelligence into the security platform to make faster decisions.</li><li>Enable an excellent firewall and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) protection.</li><li>Work to eliminate false positives during vulnerability detection. Also, prioritize vulnerabilities by risk.</li><li>Maintain transparency in shared responsibility.</li><li>Enable a cloud security solution that helps maintain the visibility of the entire ecosystem. Granular-level security strategies can be implemented level to mitigate risks.</li><li>Ensure to have a very strong password protection policy in place.</li></ul><h3 id="where-is-cloud-native-security-going">Where is Cloud-native Security Going?</h3>There are already several advanced strategies in place to make cloud-native security tight and seamless. In the future, cloud-native security is likely to be characterized by powerful API security, highly secure open source and ML, simplicity; rather, simplicity at scale, and adopting an excellent DevSecOps approach. Cloud-native security companies are making every effort to mitigate loopholes in existing security approaches and have been coming up with newer strategies to protect cloud-native architecture.Recently, for example, cloud security solutions provider Barracuda Networks, Inc. announced the launch of a SASE platform. This cloud-native security platform is designed to help businesses reign control over data access from anywhere, anytime. It will help achieve SASE convergence by bringing together Secure Web Gateway, Secure SD-WAN, Zero Trust Network Access, and Firewall-as-a-Service from Barracuda.Self-healing infrastructure is another doctrine that is expected to define the future of cloud-native security. Modern software teams will come to adopt Infrastructure-as-code (IaC) to enhance the security review process. In essence, IaC will help security teams to work on threat modelling and assessments even before the actual deployment, enabling DevOps teams to receive immediate feedback and troubleshoot accordingly.This, in turn, will require a self-healing infrastructure to be in place so that problems can be autonomously identified and fixed without the interference of manual effort. This infrastructure can be realized by embedding suitable security controls in the development process to eliminate common bottlenecks and increase the efficiency of cloud-native security.

Saipriya Iyer

Cloud-Native Security: Current Strategies, Challenges, and Best Practices

<h2>Look out for the trends in cybersecurity</h2>With the advancement of digital transformation and technologies like IoT, AI, Cloud, etc., the world is more connected than ever. Internet connectivity has become a major part of our day-to-day tasks ranging from business deals to entertainment. The rise in the number of hacking events and data breaches are a concern and often forces one to think about the price we might have to pay for this seamless connectivity with the world? As we enter this new decade, it is estimated that hacking would occur every 14 seconds; we must be prepared to protect our data and business. Let?s have a look at the trends of cybersecurity in 2020 and how to overcome it.1. Cloud-based SecurityAssuming cloud storage secure, most of the organizations are using them to perform their daily business and storing data and files. As more and more organizations are moving towards the use of cloud, data leakage, data loss, data privacy, and security are a growing concern. Cloud providers are implementing more security protocols, although the organizations must invest in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB?s) to ensure data safety.2. PhishingEmails remain the first choice for phishing attacks, although there is a rise in similar attacks through text messages and voice calls. In 2019, the rate of these attacks had increased by 290 percent. It has become one of the sophisticated ways for cyber attackers. There is a need for organizations to implement Continuous Monitoring Systems apart for the regular anti-spam and anti-virus tools to keep a close eye on these attacks.3. Mobile DevicesThe number of mobile users has increased tremendously in recent years years, and so has the data stored in them. Mobile devices would be the number one option for hackers to attack. The attempted attacks may steal your personal or business data, credentials, and funds through a mobile app, social media platforms, or emails. We may see an increase in authentication technologies like multi-factor authentication or biometric.4. 5G and IoT5G networks are already in talk. The high-speed mobile networks will eventually make us stay connected to mobile data rather than a WiFi router, making the data more vulnerable to IoT attacks. 5G architecture is complex, and there are chances for hackers to gain access to the network and stealing the data. For security reasons, we believe it would require a combination of traditional methods and the upcoming protocols.5. AI and Machine LearningAI advances have helped develop deep learning algorithms making it easy to detect the attacks. Most of the security solutions are based on AI and ML algorithms to identify the attacks timely and reduce human error. Though, the same technology does attract hackers to figure out a weak spot and attack the network.

Techfastly Team

Protect Your Organization From The Cyber-attacks

Cloud security is the crucial thing you want to ensure your data hosted on cloud platforms are secured. The high number of hacking cases on cloud storage of companies and personal data has increased the need for a highly secured cloud security option. Many business owners and self-employed professionals are now willing to use the ideal cloud storage that provides high-level security. And now, it has become one of the critical things in today's cloud storage services.<h3 id="what-is-cloud-security">What Is Cloud Security?</h3>Cloud security is the set of technologies, theories, guidelines, methodologies, and other essential things developed to ensure and control the cloud environment for its users and their crucial data. It conducts a strict system audit, implements the global security guidelines and frameworks and robust access controls. It also measures other things to prevent any cyber attack and loss of essential data or access to users.Currently, leading companies like Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services, and Microsoft Azure provide cloud service. And when you go for their cloud service, it is less about setting your profile but more about using such service safely for your requirements. These companies have invested millions of dollars in building their platform and keeping it secure. There might be only a thin layer of the loophole with their highly encrypted, protected infrastructure, disaster backup, connection, and many other features. That can affect your stored data and become the reason for unauthorized access. Thus, in this case, cloud security technology helps you to keep your data secure by implementing internationally regulated security guidelines like GDPR.<h2 id="why-is-cloud-security-important">Why Is Cloud Security Important?</h2>In a report presented by Cisco, it was mentioned that almost <a href="https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/executive-perspectives/annual-internet-report/index.html">94%</a> of the workload is dependent on the company's cloud storage. That's why companies stay more curious to find the methods to secure their virtual databases or cloud storage. It is essential to look for because Statista showed in its report that the hackers attack the company's databases <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/273550/data-breaches-recorded-in-the-united-states-by-number-of-breaches-and-records-exposed/">every 39 seconds</a> in the USA.Below are some key points that will highlight the need for an ideal cloud security solution.<h3 id="1-centralized-security-control">#1. Centralized Security Control</h3>By using the cloud security solution, the company can centralize the security control and ensure high-level protection. Most of the businesses that use cloud systems have various sources and devices to use. And it creates difficulty to manage the platform and its crucial data. However, with a cloud-based security system, these processes can become centralized and easy to manage for various purposes. It also increases the efficiency to filter the traffic analysis process and streamline the same for better output.<h3 id="2-cost-efficient">#2. Cost-Efficient</h3>Many businesses look for solid reasons to implement any of the technology. These reasons mostly run around the cost of acquiring such technology. Implementing cloud security is a cost-efficient decision for the management to ensure security about the company's crucial data. It does not require a heavy investment and also reduces the cost involved in placing physical hardware components. These technologies reduce the company's capital expenses and save a considerable amount from the other overheads. Here you get a 24/7 cloud security service that does not require human attention. You save capital expenditure that can be spent on paying IT professionals.<h3 id="3-disaster-recovery-facility">#3. Disaster Recovery Facility</h3>Disaster can not be controlled; however, you can minimize its effects on your business. Hence by looking for the perfect cloud-based security provider, you can ensure that your customers' stored data and other essential business insights stay with you. And it does not move anywhere with flooding, fire, or unwanted strikes in your organization. Hence if you want to keep retaining the trust and confidence of your customers, then it is always better to use a cloud security system.<h3 id="4-a-reliable-approach-to-implement">#4. A Reliable Approach To Implement</h3>As cloud technology holds 94% of the work of businesses hence it needs to be secure. And by ensuring the security for the same, the cloud security solutions are the option on which the company can rely entirely. It ensures only authorized persons get access to the information and users can use the available data safely without any data breach.<h3 id="5-minimize-the-administrative-workload">#5. Minimize The Administrative Workload</h3>Once the company finds a reliable and reputable cloud service provider, it can help minimize its administrative work. Now they do not need to look for the manual security configurations and do not require updating their system quickly. The physical hardware store also has a massive drain that can be reduced by taking it to the cloud. Because this security administration can be done on behalf of the company without putting hard effort into the physical storage devices. Moreover, it also ensures to keep the cloud-based data access activity with the strict security process.<h3 id="how-remote-work-needs-an-increase-to-the-cloud-security-system">How Remote Work Needs An Increase To The Cloud Security System?</h3>Nowadays, most businesses are trying to implement the work from home or remote work culture in their organization. As it saves their capital expenditure and other overheads that they need to pay to a regular employee. But on the other hand, it also has increased the importance of using cyber security solutions.<h3 id="1-the-massive-increase-in-cyber-attacks">#1. The Massive Increase In Cyber Attacks</h3>As per the report, hackers attack a company's database every 39 seconds only in America. And hence the organizations need to ensure their data security, moreover with the remote worker, the risk of data the chances of hacking increases. Thus, these days the businesses also need to secure the endpoints from where their remote workers have access to such crucial data.<h3 id="2-seamless-accessibility">#2. Seamless Accessibility</h3>With the cloud-based solution, businesses can keep their data in a virtual database. And hence even if they are online, their remote workers can also access the data and execute the assigned work. Moreover, if the company has its physical database, it may need to stop the working process from monitoring the stored data. But if they have stored data in virtual form, it will not require any physical audit, and hence the workers can smoothly perform the assigned task.<h3 id="3-it-solves-the-data-leaking-issues">#3. It Solves The Data Leaking Issues</h3>Generally, the cloud-based storage of the companies holds the vast data of targeted customers, data-driven solutions, and much other essential information. And if it gets continuous access by another professional, it can become the reason for leaking crucial data. At remote work, the professional may be using an unorganized structure to perform the work. And hence the malware or other harmful tools can access the same data from their devices. But cloud security adds an added layer of data security to the company's data.<h3 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h3>Cyber security is one of the crucial aspects needed for every business with an online presence and holds essential data. By using cyber security solutions, businesses can save much time and prompt the working process. Hence they can stay competitive, and also their remote workers can safely execute the given task.

Suraj

Cloud Security: Why Is Cloud Security Important? How Does Remote Work Need Cloud Security?

Cloud has been one of the most revolutionary discoveries for a while now. Everyone is talking about how migrating your business to the cloud is the only way to ensure a digital future for the business. On paper, it may seem an ideal solution compared to having a data center. But things are not always that simple. Simply, just switching your data to the cloud does not mean that every problem will be solved by itself. Cloud computing has many advantages. But there are a few things to know if you are thinking of switching to the cloud.We are going to talk about seven reasons why shifting to the cloud could be a very bad idea for you in this article.<h3 id="security-hazards">Security Hazards</h3>When you are using a cloud-based system, you are entrusting the security of your data to a third party. It's like sharing your secrets with someone and expecting them to not break your trust. Now, this depends on how good is the person at keeping secrets. Similarly, in the case of clouds, the best provider will always use the latest encryption techniques to ensure the safety of the client?s data. However, such a reliable system also fails sometimes. We have all witnessed such things happening in the past. One of the examples of this lack of security is when images of celebrities get leaked from Apple?s iCloud. You risk having all of your vital information damaged, lost, or stolen if you hire an inexperienced provider.Common risks involved are data loss/theft, data leakage, account hijacking, technology vulnerabilities, etc.<h3 id="applications">Applications</h3>Cloud storage is taking off, and the majority of the applications that were already in the market were not designed with the feature of the cloud in mind. Even if these applications have been virtualized, this does not imply that they are ready for the cloud or can provide the same level of service as before.Productive pieces of software, say like Photoshop, are not designed to run on the cloud and thus have limited functionalities over the cloud. Also, such heavy software programs if used on the cloud deals with a lot of ups and downs of data. Thus, if you have a slow internet connection and your productivity will decrease.<h3 id="internet-issues">Internet Issues</h3>When working on a cloud, you access the server and then do your work. There may be times when the cloud server is down. This is will lead to zero productivity in your business. Cloud often faces reliability issues, and even the best vendors experience it once in a while. So if you are thinking of switching to the cloud, you may want to think of a backup plan for days when the server is down.A strong, capable network will be required to use the cloud. Businesses must ensure that they have the bandwidth and capacity to manage increased server demands. Otherwise, operating your program and accessing documents, as well as other online services such as internet browsing and video streaming, will bog down the entire system.<h3 id="lifetime-costs">Lifetime Costs</h3>People believe cloud storage to be cheaper, which is not completely correct. It's like buying and renting a house. Renting a house is obviously cheaper than buying one. But only for the start, as time passes, and you pay the recurring rent, you realize you could have just bought the house. Similarly, the cloud may seem cheaper because you don't have to spend money on building your own data center, but in the long run, it will cost you more. Those recurring cloud charges, which are increasing as the providers provide new features and stability. A reliable one will cost you more. Also, do not forget the high-speed internet, which will be needed to efficiently utilize the cloud. So, the recurring Cloud and internet bills will be more than building your own data center.<h3 id="lack-of-support">Lack of Support</h3>Lack of support from your provider is something that you might often face, as a cloud user. Some do have good customer support, but others could just leave into the cold. Again, a cloud that has good customer support will charge you more than someone with bad customer support. You cannot risk choosing a cheaper provider. Imagine that tomorrow is a big day for your business, and then your server does not respond. You cannot do anything about it. That?s the worst part about the cloud. Nothing is under your control. You would just have to sit back and wait for the provider to fix it.<h3 id="limited-control">Limited Control</h3>Whichever cloud provider you choose will own and manage the cloud environment for you. You being the customer will have minimal control. You will have control only over the applications and the services operated on the cloud. You will not be able to access anything on the server end. Say, for example: updating or managing the firmware.<h3 id="choosing-the-right-vendor">Choosing the Right Vendor</h3>This will have a great impact on the quality of your cloud experience. The right vendor will have overall good cloud service, such as - good cloud server, meaning less server downtime. Also, excellent phone customer support. Now, I am emphasizing the word ?phone? because most of the providers do not provide support over the phone for basic packages. Also, the provider shouldn?t have a reputation for leaking customer data. There are many more points to consider before picking up a vendor.Remember, all the above issues are directly related to the vendor. Some of which the vendor has no control over. And for some, they charge extra. But your experience will greatly depend on the provider you choose.<h3 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h3>The biggest setback of the cloud is you never know what problem you are going to face. If it's just the server or hackers playing with your data. Hackers have always been there, and they are not going anywhere. With the cloud still an emerging technology, new advances will be made, and new loopholes will keep on appearing. Keep in mind that cloud computing is not something all bad. It has a lot of advantages too, but not everything is meant for everyone. One needs to go through the positives and negatives before choosing the right option for their business. No one should believe that just switching to the cloud will give their business a boost, there are many things that should be considered before choosing cloud or going with non-cloud.

Bhumika Dutta

Why Moving To The Cloud is a Bad Idea?

<h3 id="introduction">Introduction</h3>The perception of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and cloud computing among enterprises has changed today. Businesses acknowledge the need for cloud migration in all aspects. Decades ago, IT managers were not so confident about utilizing cloud solutions, but today they prefer moving to the cloud in all possible ways.Conventionally, ERP solutions played a significant part in increasing the organization's business. Even though they were very costly, complicated, and more extensive, they impacted its core business. Fortunately, the IT people considered the cloud as a creative mission from this flexible software. This makes sure the company is running smoothly without any discrepancies. But, nowadays, the perspective has moved towards cloud-based ERP solutions because of their unique methodology. The cloud solutions take care of every business requirement.As ERP providers move their concentration towards cloud-based software as a service model, many companies validate their present ERP solutions. They started to think about whether this is the right time to move from traditional on-premise solutions to the cloud. Organizations began to consider shifting to the cloud to deliver new functionalities, reduce operating costs, enhance the robustness and accelerate the process.<h3 id="cloud-is-the-best-option">Cloud is the Best Option</h3>Enterprise understood the migration methodologies in their ERP systems to the cloud that eliminate the significant hurdles they face with on-premise solutions. Cloud-based ERP solutions not only reduce the hardware costs they also lessen the operational costs. The need for an extra IT support team is nearly 0%. In addition to that, a cloud-based ERP solution assists people to collaborate parallelly on a bug in real-time. Teams can now solve anything from an inventory problem to a customer issue with just a click.The demand for considerable organizational change management across process, technology, and people impact cloud migration strategically. Adopting a unique and successful approach leads the migration journey efficient and straightforward. Enterprises need to create a checklist for successful cloud migration. The checklist should include the understanding of business benefits, efficiency, scalability upon migrating to the cloud. Shifting from an on-premise environment to the cloud needs execution planning, processes, and the right approach. The migration process is neither complicated nor easy.Upon completion, the shift from an on-premise system makes a perfect cloud foundation that makes future efforts easier and stay up-to-date. Moreover, Lift and Shift needs deep expertise, excellent knowledge, and confidence.<h3 id="factors-you-need-to-consider-before-migration">Factors You Need to Consider Before Migration</h3>Enterprises have their approach or strategy that are modeled by the team or individual within their premise. Migrating to the cloud is finding processes vital to your company and delivering proper guidelines to map the required configurations.Planning plays a vital role in achieving a better Return on Investment. Regardless of the size of the enterprise or organization, if they are about to shift their workloads to the cloud, the right cloud migration approach induces successful performance. This enables them to get business benefits that include security to the cloud infrastructure and enhanced customer experience.<ol><li>Prioritize, Analyze, and Plan The secured services cloud data centers compete on security, reliability, and performance. Initially, you need to prioritize the data you want to move to the cloud. Realizing the digital business services entirely and the cloud benefits helps you think out of the box from customer's aspects. Once you have prioritized all your data, analyze other requirements and plan to build a successful migration model.</li><li>Get Ready Get ready to make a move. Check your application &amp; its infrastructure for the migration. The right data backup is required before proceeding further. The migration team should take care of the impact, downtime, and potential downtime. Make sure all your complex applications, functionalities, elements are up before migrating to the cloud. You must know what's going on in the cloud during and migration.</li><li>Implementation Ensure the physical security of the IT operation center. The cloud service provider mainly concentrates on scalability to meet service level agreements and deliver the best quality. The migration process to the cloud partially relies on the complex functionalities and framework of your applications. You can take a one after another approach, gradually moving data over, verifying, and then continue with this process till all the data is shifted to the cloud.</li><li>Maintain Regular monitoring is required to validate the efficiency with which you use the cloud. Understand the process thoroughly, keep observation and analyze the business benefits. Monitor your new cloud always to ensure better user experience, scalability, agility, and efficiency. Spot the bugs or issues and fix them immediately to enhance the performance</li><li>Optimization Enterprises need to spend quality time on the post-migration process and check for more modernization approaches to enhance the speed and performance. Optimize data, functionalities, and methods to get a better ROI since shifting a few applications may reduce ROI.</li></ol><h3 id="benefits">Benefits</h3><ol><li>Reduced hosting costs You are free from physical server costs. A third-party data center handles the servers that reduce the capital expenses significantly.</li><li>Flexibility, Agility, and scalability According to Gartner," <a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/information-technology/insights/cloud-strategy">CIOs rank operational Agility as a top driver for cloud adoption.</a>? Cloud-based services scale up the capacity and enable the team to collaborate on application updates or problems from anywhere, anytime. Businesses can get more significant ROI and a real competitive edge.</li><li>Reduced footprint Because server capacity augments and fits your cloud requirements, you only spend the energy and resources you require.</li><li>Disaster recovery Disaster recovery is crucial for small to large scale industries, but it is expensive for smaller businesses. The cloud solutions help more enterprises execute backup and recovery solutions that take very feeble time and upfront investment.</li><li>Security The cloud delivers greater security than data centers. It stores your critical data and apps centrally.</li></ol><h3 id="summary">Summary</h3>The framework of the ERP system is an essential factor to consider to deal with business change. If the enterprise cannot adjust the system to meet change requirements, it is making itself a risk in terms of the cost related to business. As enterprises move to the cloud and go digital, cloud migration is essential for an agile and scalable business model?organizations are required to analyze the advantages and disadvantages of their migration strategies. A step-by-step process will ensure more significant ROI and business benefits with the right cloud migration strategy.

Ashlin Jenifa A L

Different Stages of Migrating ERP from On-premise to Cloud

As the coronavirus pandemic increasingly continues to sweep across states globally, researchers have taken a crucial step in developing vaccine for the disease. But unfortunately, as the COVID researchers rush to invent the vaccines, some secretive state-sponsored hackers and cyber mercenaries are quietly watching them.Recently, the European Medicine Agency (EMA), the European Union agency tasked with authorizing the use of medicines across states, was the target. This agency has confidential documents concerning the Pfizer vaccine stored on its servers. Although the attack wasn't clear on how and when it occurred or who was behind it, it was partly successful, and some documents were unlawfully accessed. According to a <a href="https://investors.biontech.de/news-releases/news-release-details/statement-regarding-cyber-attack-european-medicines-agency">statement by the BioNTech</a> pharmaceutical company, they claimed that the accessed documents during the cyber attack were related to the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID vaccine's inventory.During the<a href="https://healthitsecurity.com/news/pfizer-biontech-covid-19-vaccine-data-breached-in-eu-regulator-hack"> incident</a>, no Pfizer or BioNTech systems were breached, although they are unaware of any study participants who might have been identified through the accessed data.The European Medicines Agency confirmed the cyber attack they were subjected to and said they launched a full investigation of that particular breach. On the other hand, the two companies claimed that they would wait for further information concerning the EMA investigations and appropriately respond in compliance with the EU law.The EMA also assured that the attack would have no impact on the timeline for its review.<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://iaxds62ruoojbg1k4180.cleaver.rocks/images/posts/4b4e2cfc90fad366831cdc436866bde2.jpg" class="kg-image" alt loading="lazy" width="2000" height="3113" srcset="https://techfastly.com/content/images/size/w600/2021/01/hakan-nural-gQd4SRfKs40-unsplash.jpg 600w, https://techfastly.com/content/images/size/w1000/2021/01/hakan-nural-gQd4SRfKs40-unsplash.jpg 1000w, https://techfastly.com/content/images/size/w1600/2021/01/hakan-nural-gQd4SRfKs40-unsplash.jpg 1600w, https://techfastly.com/content/images/size/w2400/2021/01/hakan-nural-gQd4SRfKs40-unsplash.jpg 2400w" sizes="(min-width: 720px) 720px"></figure>The UK suspects Russian hackers while the United States and Spain accuse China. Others have pointed fingers at Iran, Vietnam, and North Korea. It?s even more devastating how the cybersecurity companies are also being hacked. For instance, the FireEye was previously attacked when ABC was interviewing Mr. Tim Wellsmore.There is currently much attention on the hackers targeting the vaccine researchers, but there is very little evidence that most of the attacks have been a success. The EMA attack was one of the first after Pfizer, the target, admitted that their documents had been accessed.These attacks can compromise the development of the COVID-19 vaccine; however, the UK still announced rolling out of the Pfizer vaccines soon.<h2 id="data-protection">Data Protection</h2>There is critical intellectual property and data about different vaccines, but other nations are trying very hard to steal the formulae and disrupt the vaccine supply operations. Many companies and governments don?t go overboard to report breaches for fear of reputational damages, and in other times, the hackers tend to be too intelligent to be detected.CEOs and Board Members should implement some severe measures to prevent the success of such attacks. Is the executive team taking the necessary steps to protect data from cyber-attacks? Here are some of the possible techniques that can be employed to enhance data protection.? Understand the evolving threats from nation-states and risks to the COVID vaccine development and vaccine supply chain. Attackers tend to be persistent, sophisticated, patient, and well funded and have the ability to disrupt the vaccine development through IP theft at the research stage, manufacturing disruptions, and reputational damage.? Have strategies to defend against threats such as managing third parties, segmenting the network access, identifying potential attackers and their tactics, and taking care of the system vulnerabilities.? Establish a response plan for the companies involved with vaccine research, manufacturing, trials, and distribution for remediation in case of a successful attack. A good response plan is formal and clearly defines how they will engage with governmental and law enforcement agencies.It's time hackers are treated as terrorists; they should be hunted and locked for decades, so they understand human life's value. Hacking the regular companies is a different thing from hacking healthcare systems. It's willfully and directly killing individuals globally, so investing significant efforts in identifying these attackers is worth it. If a given country is behind it or is sponsoring cyberattacks, it should be immediately dropped from the global internet to protect critical data.But how do these cyber attackers gain access to the data?<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://iaxds62ruoojbg1k4180.cleaver.rocks/images/posts/f454862246e2c8de3718af1e64e493a1.jpg" class="kg-image" alt loading="lazy" width="2000" height="3556" srcset="https://techfastly.com/content/images/size/w600/2021/01/pexels-artem-podrez-5878501.jpg 600w, https://techfastly.com/content/images/size/w1000/2021/01/pexels-artem-podrez-5878501.jpg 1000w, https://techfastly.com/content/images/size/w1600/2021/01/pexels-artem-podrez-5878501.jpg 1600w, https://iaxds62ruoojbg1k4180.cleaver.rocks/images/posts/f454862246e2c8de3718af1e64e493a1.jpg 2160w" sizes="(min-width: 720px) 720px"></figure>Several hackers from Russia, North Korea, China, and Iran are engaged in cyber attacks trying to steal the COVID vaccine secret, which is referred to as ?intellectual property war? by security experts.The US company Pfizer and its Germany-based partner BioNTech say their data about the COVID-19 vaccine was accessed unlawfully when the cyber attack on the EMA?s servers occurred. This wasn't the first attempt of cybercriminals to attack an entity associated with coronavirus vaccines.These cyber gangs employ tactics such as ?password spraying? where passwords are tried out on many accounts and ?spear phishing' where targeted emails are designed, inviting an individual to click a link that will eventually install malware into their system. They also use fake emails to trick individuals into providing sensitive information about the company.In another instance, IBM detected a hacking ploy targeted to COVID-19 vaccine distribution to the developing countries, which appeared like a nation-state was involved. The hackers were most likely sponsored by an unknown government <a href="https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/12/covid-vaccine-supply-chain-targeted-by-hackers-say-security-experts/">targeting the cold vaccine chain</a>, which encompasses companies that keep the vaccine at low temperatures to stay effective and stable.In this case, the attackers had designed booby-trapped emails sent in the name of an executive at Haier Biomedical, a Chinese firm that deals with the <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/the-last-ultra-cold-mile-for-covid-19-vaccines/">cold storage supply chain</a> essential in the transportation of viable vaccines. These attackers had already researched the right make, price, and model of different refrigeration units for the message to appear authentic.This IBM research has prompted many organizations to guard themselves against hacking.The development and progress of vaccine research have led to increased cyber attacks on COVID researchers, who are the primary targets. During the past several months, there have been numerous reports of hackers trying to steal data and disrupt vaccine development. Although cybersecurity teams are working tirelessly to identify the criminals and find solutions to data breaches, they say it?s a challenge to stop them as it?s a never-ending and ongoing arms race!

Geoffrey M.

COVID-19 Vaccine Data Hacked

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