7 cost benefits of cloud computing
Both aspects of a list of cloud computing costs and benefits could be summed up with just two words: "Lots, potentially."
While hosting your application in the cloud does come with a tangible price tag, leveraging the power of the cloud can have a profound positive impact on your business. Fortunately, there are many ways in which cloud computing reduces costs. With careful planning, most companies, especially start-ups and small businesses, can scale their operations and continue building products much faster and more cost-effectively than with on premises hosting.
3 ways automation can enhance organizational security to overcome the cybersecurity skills shortage
In the race towards the Fourth Industrial Revolution, organizations are embracing technologies that enhance connectivity and streamline processes. While rapid digitalization has helped businesses thrive and stay afloat during a turbulent last few years, it has also opened the door to increased vulnerabilities that malicious actors can exploit.
This increased exposure comes at a time when cybersecurity threats worldwide continue to increase at an alarming rate. According to the latest Blackberry Global Threat Intelligence Report, the number of unique attacks using new malware samples skyrocketed by 50 percent from December 2022 to February 2023, with up to 12 attacks per-minute observed. In the UK, where cybersecurity has been identified as a Tier 1 threat alongside terrorism, war and natural disasters, 32 percent of businesses have reported a breach or attack during the last 12 months.
Securing applications: 4 common cyber attack types WAAP can prevent
Cyber threats are rapidly changing. And businesses need security solutions that can keep up. With traditional cybersecurity solutions, APIs and applications that are accessible to the public are often left vulnerable -- exposed to hackers.
Web Application and API Protection (or WAAP), on the other hand, uses machine learning and automation to close the gap in security that old tools have left behind. It protects the company from versatile cyber attacks that exploit flaws within applications. What are some of the common kinds of cyber threats that the WAAP solution can help you prevent?
Building customer communities to accelerate innovation and growth
Increasing customer loyalty in today’s difficult economic times might seem impossible, but the rewards are well worth the extra effort and commitment. According to Forbes, customer-centric companies are 60 percent more profitable than companies that don't focus on their customers. This statistic on its own is probably enough to bring customer satisfaction and retention to the forefront of most C-suite agendas, if it wasn’t a priority already. However, there’s much more value that happy customers can bring to a business than profit alone.
By creating an engaged customer community, companies can also become more innovative and competitive, speed up new product development, and grow their customer base through referrals. Building such a community requires planning and patience, and is a balancing act between efficiency and resources. Its success relies on defining the best communication channels, at the right cost, to connect with customers.
Guarding the digital generation: Enhancing online safety through age verification
With the influx of next-gen technologies like generative AI coupled with the rapid proliferation of interactive platforms and digital media, it’s becoming increasingly challenging to protect minors from harmful and explicit content. The sheer volume of information and digital functions today makes it extremely difficult to ensure children and young adults are only consuming age-appropriate content.
Regulating this colossal mass of internet content is a herculean task, which is often deemed impossible. Rather, the most effective and simple solution for creating a safe online landscape is age verification.
Countering the rise of AI criminals
As generative AI tools continue to expand, new doors are being opened for fraudsters to exploit weaknesses. Have you experimented with generative AI tools like ChatGPT yet? From beating writer’s block to composing ad copy, creating travel itineraries, and kickstarting code snippets, there’s something for everyone. Unfortunately, "everyone" includes criminals.
Cybercriminals are early adopters. If there’s a shiny new technology to try, you can bet that crooks will explore how to use it to commit crimes. The earlier they can exploit this technology, the better -- this will give them a head start on defenses being put in place to block their nefarious activities. If tech helps boost the scale or sophistication of criminal attacks, it’s extra attractive. It’s no wonder cybercriminals have been loving tools like ChatGPT.
Evolution of cloud data protection: Why your business needs a Data Command Center
Businesses face increasing hurdles when protecting sensitive data in today's complex digital, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments. The truth is that historically, data security has been the core challenge that enterprises have been aiming to tackle given the fact that data breaches have become increasingly common as attackers deploy more sophisticated techniques to cause extensive damage to companies, including monetary losses, reputational harm, and legal penalties.
In this context, deep and proactive data insights are required -- knowing where sensitive data resides or who has access to it is no longer a ‘nice-to-have,’ but a must. However, steps adopted to mitigate these challenges still have a lot to do with data security as a silo, while not necessarily as part of a broader understanding of how data is being used or how it needs to adhere to regulations across the entire organization, which usually comes as an afterthought.
Anomaly Detection: Four steps to avoiding unforeseen cloud costs
Data volumes are simultaneously exploding and migrating, making it difficult for businesses and their CIOs to both monitor and secure across their environments. With so many moving parts in the cloud, it can often run away with businesses because as it expands to handle the data that it’s given, so does its cost. This is both a blessing and a curse, as flexibility is a vital attribute of a successful business, but it means that unanticipated cloud costs are common and hard to track.
Anomalous, unexpected costs can crush businesses’ confidence in their budgets and forecasts, impact their burn rate and make it difficult to understand their wider spending patterns. Yet, despite this, many wait until their bill arrives before reacting. To avoid these unpleasant surprises, which can be caused by a repository error, crypto mining incident or simply because servers have been spun up and forgotten about, businesses can turn to Anomaly Detection tools with great success.
The future of identity is self-sovereignty
It’s no secret that Americans are becoming increasingly concerned about their digital identities.
Take the recent case in Louisiana, where a whopping 6 million public records were exposed as part of a global attack on third-party file transfer app MOVEit. The attack made users more wary of trusting their data to often-obscure third parties. A recent survey, conducted across 1,000 U.S. consumers by Thales found that 44 percent are afraid their identity will be stolen in a cyberattack, and a quarter have no confidence in the protection of their personal data.
The importance of work-life balance for mainframe professionals: Nurturing talent and supporting new starters
In today's fast-paced and 24-hour world, achieving a healthy work-life balance has become increasingly challenging for professionals across various industries. However, it is particularly crucial for individuals starting their careers in the mainframe technology field. Maintaining a good work-life balance is vital for new entrants in the mainframe industry, but equally important is the need to put robust support systems in place for new starters.
According to research from the mental wellbeing platform Yerbo, 40 percent of IT professionals are at high risk of burnout. Success in IT is often viewed through the prism of a ‘hustle culture’ that prizes long hours and an always-on mentality as the hallmarks of success. That is particularly true for the mainframe, given its criticality within businesses. In a field dominated by experts with decades of experience, new entrants can feel pressured to constantly go above and beyond, abandoning any work-life balance and striving to meet the standards of their more experienced peers. Unfortunately, this mindset can be detrimental to the well-being and productivity of new professionals entering the field.
Understanding how on-premises system costs compare to cloud-based solutions
In today’s uncertain economic environment, understandably every purchase decision needs to be thoroughly analyzed and the cost to the business clearly understood. With so many organizations migrating to the cloud, it is important to understand not only the cost of migrating systems but also the longer-term costs.
IT managers must understand the main business driver(s) for moving their organization to the cloud, and those drivers need to be reconciled with business application requirements. Some applications will be CPU-intensive, others memory-intensive, while others are cost-sensitive. Likewise, understanding whether this is the best short and long-term solution for the business as well as the total cost of ownership (TCO) and predicted return on investment (RoI) is important.
Building cyber resilience in an age of AI
Cybersecurity remains one of the most important business investments amid new threats, including those presented by Generative AI. However, as businesses invest in ways to mitigate cyber risk, many are uncertain if the increased spending is helping their organizations bolster their cyber stance -- often because they lack proof.
As new research highlights that fewer organizations feel confident that their business can withstand a cyber attack, how can businesses build and prove their organization-wide preparedness for threats?
Driving a people-first approach to digital adoption
There’s no doubt that change is stressful; it’s how organizations handle it that makes all the difference. The key to making it a success comes down to reducing as much friction as possible through understanding the customers day to day use cases, creating a sound communication plan, and providing a realistic timeline for delivery.
If you’re looking to implement new technologies, that’s where a robust user adoption strategy needs to come in. Its role is to lay the groundwork for a positive experience, while mitigating the negative connotations that come with change. In doing so, it will help employees to embrace new tools, use them to their full potential and ultimately improve working practices. A successful user adoption strategy starts with understanding the problem, the people, the processes and how the new ways of working are going to affect the user -- before the change happens. This helps to ensure that the roll-out is smooth, cohesive and everyone has the same expectations.
Mitigating the three types of non-malicious insider risk
Some people do not see the big picture, thinking there is only one type of insider risk (i.e. malicious). As a result, they often think that mitigating insider risks can be done with a one-size-fits-all approach. That is a fallacy. To counter that myth, let's shed a little light on the different types of non-malicious insider risks and what companies can do to prevent them from becoming an insider threat (i.e. malicious).
There are three different types of non-malicious insider risks, and each one requires a different approach to mitigation. According to MITRE, the three types of non-malicious insider risks are:
What is Software Asset Management? And why should you care?
So much software, so little oversight! That may be how many IT departments are feeling lately. According to MarketsAndMarkets, the global Software Asset Management (SAM) market size is expected to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 18.1 percent to $4.8 billion by 2026, up from $2 billion in 2021. Gartner also reported that enterprise spending on software is projected to increase by 9.3 percent in 2023.
The rapid growth of software in the enterprise has been spurred on by several factors:
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