BetaNews Staff

Technology has changed the way that companies in most industries do business. From internal communications to external marketing and PR, market research to customer engagement, and decision-making through to execution, virtually every facet of modern business leans on technology or data in a significant way. Because of this reality, the average company’s IT infrastructure is the beating heart of the organization. Without workable IT, the average business won’t just be slowed down; it will be unable to function.

Most businesses have workable IT. However, many companies could be doing more with technology if they learned how to avoid these five common pitfalls of IT infrastructure design, operation, and maintenance.

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We live in a digital era, where digital adoption is critical for every business. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, your customers expect to be able to do everything online, and preferably from their phones. Digital adoption cuts right across the B2B and B2C divide.

It’s not just your customers, either; your employees demand it too. Your employees are increasingly born in the digital age. They look for smooth, smart, intuitive digital tools to assist and support them in every corner of their working life. Despite the importance of digital adoption, not every enterprise succeeds in introducing it. There are a number of obstacles to successful digital adoption, including employees and users who are resistant to change, interfaces that are complex to master, and a sense of overwhelm at the number of digital tools before us.

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Traditionally, network architectures were designed and secured according to the "castle-and-moat" model. Like a medieval fortress, an enterprise data center was imagined to have impregnable and unbreachable walls. All traffic entering or exiting would pass through a single access point, where a security gateway appliance would sit, like a knight in shining armor. This device would police the network traffic on a packet-by-packet basis, allowing traffic it deemed ‘safe’ unrestricted access to the network’s trusted interior.

Although this model is as outdated as chain mail is for 21st-century military combat, its legacy endures in assumptions and presuppositions that can prevent business decision makers from choosing the most effective cybersecurity tools and solutions for today’s complex threat landscape.

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Let's face it, most of us don’t lose data that often, but when you do, it takes time to scurry around and find a tool to attempt recovery. Time is important for finding deleted files. The more often your computer writes to the drive, the less likely you’ll be able to recover data.

Although it’s rare for a hard drive to fail or for an individual to 'accidentally' delete important data you need in the future, once it happens, you’ll want software to help you recover, swiftly.

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Backing up your data is hugely important. You could just rely on the cloud, but this means you need to remember to keep the files synchronized and you might not want to store your most important personal information there. Would you want your accounts and tax records in the cloud?

The solution is a backup tool where you can configure the data you want to back up, when you want to perform the backup, and the location. You can then simply leave the tool to action your request.

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In 2019, cyber threats are occurring at a rapid pace. In fact, cyber attacks are the fastest growing crime globally and are continuously increasing in sophistication, size, and impact. At the same time, the number of qualified cybersecurity professionals is dwindling. In a recent blog post, Ann Johnson, the head of Microsoft’s cybersecurity solutions group, used estimated data from the research firm Cybersecurity Ventures to project a shortage of about 3.5 million qualified cybersecurity workers by 2022.

Artificial intelligence (AI) can serve as a helpful tool in cybersecurity. AI can help businesses of all sizes and across many industries better prepare for impending security threats. Here are three of the most impactful benefits of AI in online security:

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Every company these days is on a path to digital transformation, using technology to rise above the competition and show customers it is modern, efficient and optimized for success.

But as companies work through this transformation, they often uncover processes that have fallen behind the times and seem impossible to fix -- either because these processes are tightly interwoven with other core business processes, or because it’s not clear where to even begin.

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The introduction of blockchain technology has made revolutionary changes to finance sectors across the world -- most commonly through the use of cryptocurrency. Now however the platform is increasingly finding new uses by businesses to help enhance and customize the services they are already offering. Those businesses that have already begun to incorporate blockchain into their day-to-day are creating new opportunities for both themselves and the end customer.

Most people will be familiar with blockchain for its use in cryptocurrency as a secure transaction system. By using a blockchain-based platform, businesses can process crypto payments locally or across borders payments as well as making micro-payments, and add expanded options for customers to suit a greater variety of needs. Blockchain also digitally records all processes, which can make supply chain and return/refund processes more streamlined, with payments and refunds being made automatically.

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One of the challenges IT and database administrators confront when implementing disaster recovery provisions is choosing from among the myriad options available. Existing high availability configurations designed to minimize downtime for critical applications may not be adequate for recovering fully from a widespread disaster. And existing disaster recovery provisions may not be as comprehensive or cost-effective as they could be. This article provides practical guidance to help administrators optimize disaster recovery plans for SQL Server, beginning with the disaster recovery plan.

A good disaster recovery plan builds on the organization’s Business Continuity Plan. BCPs generally cover the entire organization, and in most organizations, IT is one of the most if not the most critical department. There are two aspects of the BCP that are fundamental to DR planning: the business impact analysis and the threat assessment. The former determines which applications are mission-critical and the latter identifies those disasters the organization is most likely to experience.

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Market data firm Statista projects that by 2025, there will be 75 billion IoT devices in use. Smart devices are now found throughout most commercial offices, yet a lack of security could make them ticking time bombs. IoT devices often come with security shortcomings, and it can be difficult to detect when someone has exploited one of their vulnerabilities.

Why are IoT devices dangerous? It's not a single issue; rather, it's intrinsic to the way that the technology itself works.

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In May of 2018, companies raced to the finish line to accomplish GDPR compliance. Given that it was the first year of GDPR, many industry experts expected to not see any companies fined. That is all going to change in the year ahead. In January 2019, Google was hit with the first major GDPR fine of $57 million, putting an end to the unspoken grace period. Companies should recognize this as a warning: get compliant or risk massive fines. This is especially important as only 59 percent of organizations report meeting all or most GDPR requirements, 29 percent expect to do so within a year, and nine percent will take more than a year.

With the stress of GDPR and potential increase in consumer privacy legislation looming on the horizon, CISOs need help. Rather than continuing to spin their wheels, CISOs should consider governance, risk and compliance (GRC) solutions that simplify GDPR compliance by streamlining operations to avoid fines and penalties altogether. Below I put together three ways that a GRC solution can help.

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Bad actors have been seeking opportunities to take advantage of unsophisticated netizens or unprotected organizations since the dawn of the World Wide Web, but today’s bad actors are in a class by themselves. Nation-state actors, often operating through a vast network of well-funded proxies, strive to exert influence, threaten stability, and sow discord through the mechanisms of cyberspace. Hacktivist organizations seek to undermine, damage or discredit organizations whose agendas and politics they oppose.

They may not be as well funded as nation-state actors, but they are populated by technically sophisticated people who have bought into a cause -- and when these people work together, they can pose serious threats to those with whom they disagree.

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When we think about streaming a movie, our first thought is Apple iTunes, Netflix or Amazon Prime. We rush to sign up to these services, pay our monthly fee, and then search through old movies to keep ourselves entertained on a rainy public holiday.

But what did you do with all those old DVDs you had (or have) lying around? One solution would be to set up your own network-based media server, rip your old discs and watch on demand. Better still, as DVDs are increasingly unpopular, even movies released a few months ago are available at seriously discounted prices, meaning you can pick up quality movies for a fraction of the original price.

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When you imagine the role of a coder there’s a good chance that what comes to mind are pop culture tropes; the eccentric loner, the rogue prodigy, or the cloistered IT guru who saves the company with a brilliant solution hatched from behind a stack of pizza boxes in some windowless basement office.

The reality is that coders represent a much more ubiquitous, everyday-problem-solving task force deployed throughout organizations and their skills are increasingly being utilized across many industries to address a variety of business challenges within their organizations.

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Enterprise cloud adoption has largely been driven by developers eager to take advantage of its agility. These developers are often moving very quickly and are under pressure to bring new products to market that provide competitive advantages. The speed of development combined with a lack of cloud security expertise often results in engineers and developers bypassing certain security and compliance policies. The result is a chaotic, "Wild, Wild West" cloud environment.

Alongside innovative apps and services, a common byproduct of this "free for all" mentality is data breaches, thanks to misconfigurations and other security glitches. This article shares advice on how organizations can empower their developers and engineers by providing a safe framework within which to operate, so they can stay agile and innovative, without inadvertently compromising security.

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