What are the types of clouds? Which one’s best for your business?

When you think of cloud technology, the first thing that comes to mind is big companies like Google and Amazon using it to run their massive online operations. But the truth is, this type of software has many small-time entrepreneurs using it to run their businesses. And if you’re not sure which kind of cloud computing service is right for your business, here’s a brief explanation about the different types of clouds and why you should choose one over the other.

What is a Hybrid Cloud?

The hybrid cloud integrates private cloud services, public cloud services, and on-premises infrastructure. It provides management, orchestration, and application portability over all three cloud services. As a result, a unified, single, and flexible distributed computing environment is formed. An organization can deploy and scale its cloud-native or traditional workloads on the appropriate cloud model.

The hybrid cloud includes the public cloud services from multiple cloud service providers. It enables organizations to

• Choose the optimized cloud environment for each workload
• Combine the best cloud services and functionality from multiple cloud vendors.
• Move workloads between private and public cloud as circumstances change.

A hybrid cloud helps organizations achieve their business and technical objectives cost-efficiently and more effectively than the private or public cloud alone.

Hybrid Cloud Architecture

Hybrid cloud architecture focuses on transforming the mechanics of an organization’s on-premises data center into the private cloud infrastructure and then connecting it to the public cloud environments hosted by a public cloud provider. Uniform management of private and public cloud resources is preferable to managing cloud environments individually because it minimizes the risk of process redundancies.

The hybrid cloud architecture has the following characteristics.

1. Scalability and resilience

Use public cloud resources to scale up and down automatically, quickly, and inexpensively to increase traffic spikes without affecting private cloud workloads.

2. Security and regulatory compliance

Use private cloud resources for highly regulated workloads and sensitive data, and use economic public cloud resources for less-sensitive data and workloads.

3. Enhancing legacy application

Use public cloud resources to improve the user experience of existing applications and extend them to new devices.

4. The rapid adoption of advanced technology

You can switch to cutting-edge solutions and integrate them into existing apps without provisioning new on-premises infrastructure.

5. VMware migration

Shift existing on-premises infrastructure and workloads to virtual public cloud infrastructure to reduce on-premises data center footprint and scale according to requirements without additional cost.

6. Resource optimization and cost savings

Execute workloads with predictable capacity on the private cloud and move variable workloads to the public cloud.

Hybrid cloud advantages

The main advantages of a hybrid cloud include the following.

• Cost management_ Organizations operate the data center infrastructure with a private cloud. It requires a significant expense and fixed cost. However, a public cloud provides services and resources accounted for as operational and variable expenses.
• Flexibility_ An organization can build a hybrid cloud environment that works for its requirements using traditional systems and the latest cloud technology. A hybrid setup allows organizations to migrate their workloads to and from the traditional infrastructure to the vendor’s public cloud.
• Agility and scalability_ Hybrid cloud provides more resources than a public cloud provider. This makes it easier to create, deploy, manage, and scale resources to meet demand spikes. Organizations can burst the application to a public cloud when demand exceeds the capacity of a local data center to access extra power and scale.
• Interoperability and resilience_ A business can run workloads in public and private environments to increase resiliency. Components of one workload can run in both environments and interoperate.

Reference Link

https://www.ibm.com/cloud/learn/hybrid-cloud

What is a Public Cloud?

A public cloud is a computing service provided by third-party service providers across the public Internet. It is available to anyone who wants to use these services or purchase them. These services may be free or sold on-demand, allowing users to pay per usage for the storage, bandwidth, or CPU cycles they consume. Public clouds can save organizations from the cost of buying, maintaining, and managing on-premises infrastructure.

The public cloud can be deployed faster than on-premises and is an infinitely scalable platform. Each employee of an organization can use the same application from any branch through their device of choice using the Internet. Moreover, they run in multi-tenant environments where customers share a pool of resources provisioned automatically and allocated to individual users via a self-service interface. Each user’s data is isolated from others.

Public cloud architecture

A public cloud is a completely virtualized environment that relies on a high-bandwidth network to transmit data. Its multi-tenant architecture lets users run the workload on shared infrastructure. Cloud resources can be duplicated over multiple availability zones for protection against outages and redundancy.

Cloud service models categorize public cloud architecture. Here are the three most common service models.

• Infrastructure-as-a-Service_ in which third-party providers host infrastructure resources, such as storage and servers, and virtualization layer. They offer virtualized computing resources, such as virtual machines, over the Internet.
• Software-as-a-Service_ in which third-party service providers host applications and software and make them available to customers across the Internet.
• Platform-as-a-Service_ in which third-party service providers deliver software and hardware tools for application development, such as operating systems.

Advantages of Public Cloud

The public cloud has the following advantages

1. Scalability

Cloud resources can be expanded rapidly to meet traffic spikes and user demand. Public cloud users can gain high availability and greater redundancy in separated cloud locations. Apart from the availability and redundancy, public cloud customers get faster connectivity between the end-users and cloud services using the network interfaces. However, latency and bandwidth issues are still common.

2. Access to advanced technologies

Organizations using cloud service providers can get instant access to the latest technologies, ranging from automatic updates to AI and machine learning.

3. Analytics

Organizations should collect useful data metrics they store and the resources they use. Public cloud services perform analytics on high-volume data and accommodate several data types to give business insights.

4. Flexibility

The scalable and flexible nature of the public cloud allows customers to store high-volume data. Many organizations depend on the cloud for disaster recovery to back up applications and data during an outage or in an emergency. However, it’s tempting to store all data, but users must set up a data retention policy to delete data from storage to reduce the storage cost and maintain privacy.

Limitations or challenges of Public cloud

• Runway costs_ Increasingly complex pricing models and cloud costs make it difficult for companies to track IT spending. It is cheaper than on-premises infrastructure, but sometimes organizations pay more for the cloud.
• Limited controls_ Public cloud customers face the tradeoff of restricted control over the IT stack. Moreover, data separation problems arise due to multi-tenancy and latency issues for remote end-users.
• Scarce cloud expertise_ The skill gap among IT experts in the cloud is another challenge. Without expertise, companies can’t handle the complexities of advanced IT demands.

What is a Private Cloud?

A private cloud is defined as computing services provided over a private internal network or the Internet, only to specific users rather than the general public. It is also known as a corporate or internal cloud. The private cloud provides many benefits to businesses, such as scalability, self-service, and elasticity to a public cloud. In addition, it gives extended, virtualized computing resources through physical components stored at a vendor’s data center or on-premises.

One of the main advantages of the private cloud is that it provides an enhanced degree of control to organizations. As it is accessible to a single organization, it enables them to configure the environment and manage it in a unique way tailored to the particular computing needs of a company.

A private cloud can deliver two models for cloud services. Infrastructure-as-a-Service enables a company to use resources, such as network, storage, and computing resources. And platform as a service that allows a company to deliver everything from cloud-based applications to sophisticated enterprise applications.

Private Cloud Architecture

A private cloud with a single-tenant design is based on the same technologies as other clouds. Technologies that allow customers to configure computing resources and virtual servers on demand. These technologies include

1. Management software

It provides administrators with centralized control over the applications running on it, making it possible to optimize availability, resource utilization, and security in the private cloud environment.

2. Automation

It automates the tasks, such as server integrations and provisioning, which must be performed repeatedly and manually. Automation minimizes the need for human intervention and gives self-service resources.

3. Virtualization

It provides an abstraction to IT resources from their underlying infrastructure and then pooled into the unbounded resource pools of storage, computing, networking, and memory capacity divided across multiple virtual machines. Virtualization allows maximum hardware utilization by removing the physical hardware constraints and sharing it across various applications and users.

Moreover, private cloud customers can leverage cloud-native application practices and architecture, such as containers, DevOps, and microservices, to bring greater flexibility and efficiency.

Benefits of private cloud

Advantages of private cloud include

• Freedom to customize software and hardware_ Private cloud users can customize software as needed with add-ons via custom development. They can also customize servers in any way they want.
• Full control over software and hardware choices_ Private cloud users are free to buy the software and hardware they prefer or services provided by the cloud service providers.
• Fully enforced compliance_ Private cloud users are not forced to rely on the regulatory compliance provided by the service providers.
• Greater visibility and insights into access control and security because all workloads execute behind the user’s firewalls.

Challenges or Limitations of private cloud

Here are some considerations that IT stakeholders must review before using the private cloud.

• Capacity utilization_ Organizations are fully responsible for enhancing capacity utilization under the private cloud. An under-utilized deployment can cost significantly to a business.
• Up-front costs_ The cost of required hardware to run a private cloud can be high, and it will need an expert to set up, maintain and handle the environment.
• Scalability_It may take extra cost and time to scale up the resources if a business needs additional computing power from a private cloud.

Is hybrid cloud the best option for you?

Because not everything belongs in the public cloud, many forward-thinking businesses opt for a hybrid cloud solution. Hybrid clouds combine the advantages of both public and private clouds while utilizing existing data center infrastructure.

Cloud computing is becoming more and more popular, but many businesses are still unsure which type of cloud is right for them. This article explored the pros and cons of hybrid, public, and private clouds and provided advice on which type of cloud is best for your organization. Protected Harbor offers a wide range of cloud computing services to help businesses reduce costs and increase efficiency by outsourcing data storage or remote office functions. It can host a wide range of applications, including e-mail, video conferencing, online training, backups, software development, and much more. Protected Harbor is the right choice for businesses of all sizes. We are providing a free IT Audit for a limited time. Get a free IT consultation for your business today.

The Importance of Encryption in Data Security

Data security has become a point for convergence with the widespread use of the Internet and the adoption of network applications. The information and data transmitted over the Internet should ensure its integrity, confidentiality, and authenticity. One of the most effective ways to resolve this issue is to leverage advanced encryption techniques. Encryption is one of the most crucial methods to secure data online. It’s a process of converting plain text into ciphertext that is not understood or transformed by unauthorized users. Encryption is a cybersecurity measure protecting sensitive data using unique codes that encrypt data and make it unreadable to intruders. This article will discuss fast-speed symmetric encryption, secure asymmetric encryption, and hash functions. Then we’ll figure out the importance of encryption and how can end-to-end data encryption prohibit data breaches and security attacks.

What is Encryption?

To get secure in this digital world, the fundamental necessity is to hide sensitive data and information from unauthorized users or malicious actors. Encryption is the best way to protect data from being hacked. It’s a process of making data and files unreadable using an encryption key, so if somebody tries to gain access to sensitive data, they only see gibberish. Encryption provides security and privacy by hiding information from being shared or hacked by malicious actors. To preserve the integrity and confidentiality of data, encryption is an essential tool whose value can’t be overstated.

The encryption takes place through a proper process. The data that needs to be encrypted is known as plaintext. This plaintext is passed through some encryption algorithms. Apart from it, an encryption key is required to convert the plaintext into ciphertext. When the data is encrypted, the ciphertext is sent over the Internet instead of plaintext. Once it is reached the receiver, they use a decryption key to convert ciphertext into the original readable format.

The need for data security has given birth to various encryption techniques, such as symmetric, asymmetric, hash functions, message authentication codes, digital signatures, and more. But in this report, we highlight symmetric and asymmetric encryption techniques and hash functions to secure data.

Symmetric Encryption

In symmetric encryption, also known as private-key encryption, a secret key is held by one person only and exchanged between the sender and receiver of data. Both the sender and receiver should have a copy of a secret key to transfer data. The recipient should have the same key as the sender before the message is decrypted. The standard symmetric encryption algorithms include RC2, AES, DES, RC6, 3DE, and Blowfish. The positive aspect of symmetric encryption is that it is faster. However, symmetric encryption is not much robust technique for protecting data. It can be easily decrypted, hacked, and prone to attacks. But if planned and executed carefully, the risk of decoding can be reduced. Symmetric encryption is suitable for closed systems having fewer risks of a third-party intrusion.

Asymmetric Encryption

Asymmetric encryption, also known as public-key encryption, is a two-key system with a public and a private key. As the name suggested, the public key is available to anyone, but the private key remains with the recipient intended to decode data. The user sends an encrypted message using a private key not shared with the recipient. If a user or sending system first encrypts data with the intended recipient’s public key and then with the sender’s private key, the recipient can decrypt data first using the secret or private key and then the sender’s public key. Using the asymmetric encryption method, the sender and recipient can authenticate each other and protect the data’s secrecy. The asymmetric algorithm includes RSA, Diffie Hellman, XTR, ECC, and EES. The positive aspect of asymmetric encryption is that it is relatively safe and secure than symmetric encryption. However, it is slower than symmetric encryption.

Hash Functions

A hash function is a unique identifier for a set of data or information. It’s a process that takes plaintext data and converts it into unique ciphertext. Hash functions generate unique signatures of fixed length for a data set. There is a unique hash for each data set or a message that makes minor changes to the data or information that is easily traceable. Data encryption using hash functions can’t be decoded or reversed back into the original format. Therefore, hashing is used only as a technique for verifying data. Hash functions ensure data integrity, protect stored passwords, and operate at different speeds to suit other processes.

Importance of Encryption

There are a lot of reasons for using encryption techniques. The following points can define its importance. Encryption is essential for data security because it provides

• Confidentiality_ This is critical because it ensures that no unauthorized user can understand the shared information except one having the decipher key.
• Data Integrity_ It ensures that the received information or data has not been modified from its original format. While transferring data online, it may get changed by malicious actors. However, data integrity confirms that data is not intact by an unauthorized user. It can be achieved by using hash functions at both sender and the receiver end to create a unique message.
• Authentication_ It’s ensuring the intended recipient’s identity. The user has to prove their identity to access the information.
• Access Control_ It’s a process of restricting unauthorized users from accessing data. This process controls who can access resources and prevent data from malicious actors.

Conclusion

Today most of us communicate or send information and data in cyberspace, putting security at risk. Users transmit their private information and data that malicious actors can hack into over the Internet. As a result of the widespread adoption of advanced technologies and the Internet, there is a need to implement robust security measures, and data encryption is one of them. This article has learned a lot about data encryption and its various methods, including symmetric, asymmetric, and hash functions. Moreover, we have seen how encryption provides data security, integrity, and confidentiality value.

Protecting your network against cyber threats requires an integrated approach with solid security infrastructure. Encrypt your data on site-level and at the cloud level to keep your information safe from hackers. If a hacker breaks into your data center, you’d want to know right away. The best way to do this is to monitor your data 24/7/365. You can do this by hiring a data security specialist such as Protected Harbor.

Protected Harbor’s suite of services includes remote monitoring and support, software updates, anti-virus, anti-malware, data backup, encryption, and much more. We are providing a free IT Audit to the business looking to safeguard themselves. Contact us for an audit today.

Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA)

Introduction
A Privacy Impact Assessment, or PIA, determines whether or not a user’s privacy or personal information is protected. Privacy for IT systems should be addressed in addition to financial loss. Some federal agencies have IT systems and databases that store sensitive citizen data. The Privacy Act requires these agencies to adopt adequate technical, administrative, and physical safeguards to defend against cyber intrusions. The E-Government Act requires the Privacy Impact Assessment for stored information of 2002. It’s a way of evaluating the privacy of information systems and databases that are easy to use. Let’s look at the Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA).

What is Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA)

Privacy is a fit, basic human right essential for protecting human dignity. It helps people make boundaries to restrict who can access data, information, places, things, and communications. Privacy is also referred to as the right to be left alone and not disclose or publicize one’s personal information.  In Constitutional law, privacy is referred to as the right of people to make decisions concerning intimate matters. However, under the Common Law, it is about people’s right to lead their lives in a way secluded reasonably from the public scrutiny that either comes from a scrutineer eavesdropping ears or a neighbor’s prying eyes. [1][2]

Privacy Risk Assessment provides an early warning to detect privacy issues, avoid costly mistakes in privacy compliance, and increase the information available to make informed decisions. Moreover, Federal agencies are responsible for performing privacy impact assessments for government systems and programs collecting personal data under the E-Government Act of 2002. Federal agency’s CIOs ensure that the PIAs are completed and reviewed for pertinent IT systems.

The US passed a legal reform in 1970, known as the Privacy Act of 1974. It helps to make new expectations of how the federal government collects and manages information. The Privacy Act strengthened over time, and other laws with privacy concerns were added. Several best practices are established for comprehensive federal privacy programs. Leadership is essential for the success of an organization’s privacy. The selection of senior officers with privacy expertise and direct support from the organization’s head is necessary.

The responsibilities of SAOP/CPO include evaluating advanced technologies, online activities, programs, contracts, legislation, and regulations for potential privacy impacts. The formation of Privacy risk management and compliance documentation is one of the best practices recommended for ensuring the privacy of information stored by federal organizations’ IT systems. The SAOP/CPO must make and implement tools and techniques for evaluating the privacy impacts of all systems and programs. Moreover, robust security and privacy programs are vital for protecting Personally Identifiable Information (PII) used, collected, retained, shared, or disclosed by the organization. Federal organizations must implement privacy and security risk mitigation in the initial phases of the project. [3]

E-Government Act Section 208 helps government agencies to put in place enough protection for the privacy of PII. It requires organizations to perform a Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) for IT systems to collect, maintain, or disseminate information. Moreover, the PIA procedure requires federal agencies to review the collected data, how they can use it, and develop new IT systems for handling PII collection. Implementing a PIA is necessary because it lets you ask individuals different questions and discuss best practices to implement security and privacy. A Privacy Impact Assessment is a recommended action by several authoritative sources. It satisfies legal requirements and helps agencies identify and manage risks and avoid unnecessary costs and loss of trust and reputation. [4][5]

Cities can develop a consistent method to identify, evaluate, and address privacy risks by implementing the Privacy Impact Assessment process. It helps to balance collecting data to provide services and protect citizens’ privacy, particularly while developing innovative smart city technologies. Conducting a Privacy Impact Assessment before leveraging technologies in a smart city will enhance accountability and transparency, mitigate potential harms regarding privacy, reduce legal risks, and improve compliance. Additionally, it lets people make more confident and consistent decisions about technology and data. [6]

Final Words

The elements discussed here provide a roadmap for the agencies to implement a robust privacy program. Privacy issues regarding the protection of personally identifiable information continue to be a factor for these agencies as advanced technologies and programs require usage, collection, storage, and destruction of PII keep on increasing. Therefore, the organizations must conduct PIA to identify and implement robust privacy measures effectively and quickly.

Privacy Impact Assessments are essential for protecting your data. By understanding the risks and impacts associated with data collection and use, you can mitigate potential harm to individuals and organizations. Protected Harbor is a company that specializes in privacy and cybersecurity. We can help you conduct a risk and impact assessment, and customize your infrastructure to fill any gaps. Contact us today for more information.

Network Penetration Testing 101

In an ever-changing cybersecurity landscape, new threats develop regularly. Regular network penetration testing is the most effective technique to prevent thieves from accessing your mission-critical data and systems. Protected Harbor’s penetration testing services simulate a cyber attack on your current infrastructure, identifying vulnerabilities and revealing holes or entry points that hackers could exploit during a cyber attack.

Our network penetration testing services don’t only tell you where and how cybercriminals might get into your network; it also tells you how they might act or behave once they are in. Penetration testing is necessary to ensure that you are on the same page as malicious actors. Condition Zebra’s network penetration testing services put you inside the heads of cybercriminals, so you are one step ahead of them. Let’s first discuss network penetration testing.

What is network penetration testing?

Network penetration testing is a way to stimulate the processes cybercriminals use to attack your business network, network applications, and attached devices. This simulation is used to identify security issues before attackers can find and exploit them. Penetration tests go beyond stopping malicious actors from unlawful access to an organization’s data and network. It helps create real-world scenarios to show organizations how efficiently their current security defenses would face cyber-attacks. Read why cybersecurity awareness for employees is important.

Network penetration testing is generally used to:

• understand the network baseline
• prevent network and data breaches
• test your security controls and postures
• ensure system and network security

A network penetration test is generally performed when an organization has a mature security posture or effective security measures.

Three steps of a network penetration testing

Planning or Pre-attack phase

• Define the intruder model (internal or external), enabled rights, and privileges.
• Determine the scope of the targeted environment.
• Define the goals, scope of work, source data, and testing targets.
• Define interaction and communication procedures.
• Develop the testing methodology.

Testing or attack phase

• Fieldwork and service identification.
• Intrusion tools and custom scanning are developed if required.
• Vulnerabilities scanning and detection, and elimination of false positives.
• Utilization of compromised systems as a starting line for further intrusions.
• Exploit vulnerabilities and gain unauthorized access.

Reporting or post-attack phase

• Result analysis and reporting with the recommendations to reduce risks.
• Visual demonstration of damage an intruder can inflict on the system.

Types of network penetration testing

Network penetration testing can be performed from two perspectives, inside and outside your company’s network perimeter/

Internal network penetration testing

An internal network penetration testing is performed to help simulate what a hacker could get with the initial access to a network. It can mirror inside threats, such as workers intentionally or unintentionally performing malicious actions. Internal pen testing is an authorized hacking attempt used to identify and exploit vulnerabilities within an organization’s perimeter defenses. Onsite access is given to testers via an ethernet cable. They then gain access to critical information.

Benefits of internal penetration testing

• Minimize risks to business continuity and the cost of being non-compliant.
• Harden the network against information leakage using current or terminated employees or online data.
• Ensure compliance with PCI DSS and other security standards.
• Provide management with exploit proof outlining the assets that an attack can compromise.
• Detects installations that are non-compliant with an organization’s internal policies. It may act as a pivot for external attackers.
• Do not add unnecessary security layers before getting an independent attestation on the effectiveness of current systems.
• Audit security monitoring processes and test your incident response tactics.
• Detects vulnerabilities that may be exploited to access privileged information.

External network penetration testing

An external penetration testing is performed to test the effectiveness of the perimeter security controls to detect and prevent attacks and identify the weaknesses in the Internet-facing assets, such as mail, web, and FTP servers. It’s an authorized hacking attempt that aims at hardening the external-facing network against hackers attempting to compromise the vulnerable hosts from outside the company’s perimeter.

Benefits of external penetration testing

• Reduce the risk to business continuity and non-compliant costs.
• Avoid the cost of adding extra security layers before getting an independent attestation of current systems.
• Provide management with exploitation proof that outlines the assets compromised by an attack.
• Detects vulnerabilities that can be exploited to access privileged information.
• Detects installations that are non-compliant with your internal policy.
• Audit external security monitoring procedures and test incident response tactics.
• Get independent security verification of your company’s internet-facing presence.
• Harden network and systems against host compromise.

Penetration testing methods

1. Black box testing_ We work in life-like scenarios having limited knowledge of your network and no information on the network structure, security policies, and network protection.
2. Gray box testing_ We analyze your system with some knowledge of your networks, such as architecture diagrams, user login details, or the network overview.
3. White box testing_ We detect the potential points of weakness by leveraging admin rights and access to database encryption principles, server configuration files, architecture documentation, or architecture documentation.

Final words

Cybercriminals can target your internal and external network through various sites, ranging from systems and hosts to multiple networking devices. Protected Harbor’s audits identify your current network architecture’s noticeable strengths and weaknesses. Our penetration testing report explains how your security mechanisms respond to various cyberattacks.

We develop a comprehensive and tailored remediation strategy to mitigate cyber threats using these findings. Our skilled staff is ready to execute a network penetration test for your firm, whether you wish to optimize your security processes following a data breach or structural changes or fulfill tight information security compliance standards. Contact us today for a free IT Audit.

5 ways to secure your enterprise mobile app

Nowadays, there is a substantial increase in the usage of mobile applications and the exponential growth of internet-connected devices in enterprises. Generally, Enterprise mobile applications foster workers and processes by allowing mobile computing across wireless networks and mobile devices. Enterprise mobile applications are considered emerging technology but can be challenging for organizations.

With the advancement in digital technologies, cyber threats have also increased. Cybercriminals are constantly searching to find vulnerabilities in a company’s IT infrastructure. There can be some loopholes within an application that may lead to the infiltration of hackers. To protect your business, it’s necessary to have the top-notch security of your mobile application. This article will discuss ways to secure your enterprise mobile application.

What is an enterprise mobile application?

An enterprise application is a program that can help to improve certain aspects of an enterprise. For instance, it can help to automate the company’s repetitive tasks and with the company’s communication. These applications are used in the context of mobile apps brought/created by individual organizations for their employees to carry out operations required to run the organization. An enterprise application is expected to be used by the employees of that organization only.

If you have been keeping up with the news, you must hear about the ongoing issues regarding cyber threats. It includes hackers and malicious individuals who steal or exploit sensitive information from enterprises for their profit. They perform this by infiltrating the system through the entry point and Enterprise mobile applications. We’ll see how an organization can protect these Enterprise mobile applications. But first, let’s see some of the common reasons that can compromise security.

Common reasons that can compromise mobile app security

Many reasons can compromise security in enterprise mobile applications. Hackers can find loopholes in your application due to the lack of security knowledge in a new language or technology and a small security budget. Here are some common reasons that could allow hackers to get into the application and insecure your organization and your user’s data.

• Lack of secure data storage
• Missing authentication
• Bad encryption
• Weak server-side security controls
• Absence of binary protection techniques
• Malicious code on the client-side
• Weak implementation of hidden fields

As advanced technologies exist, attackers try to invent new ways to breach. The critical aspect is creating, using, and implementing a secure environment for applications. Let’s discuss some tips to secure enterprise mobile applications.

5 ways to secure your enterprise mobile application

Here are the approaches that you can use as best practices to protect your mobile applications and sensitive enterprise data.

1. Harden the endpoint- Mobile application security starts with the device, and every mobile operating system from Android to iOS requires a different approach to harden the device. Recent iOS and Android vulnerabilities have exposed mobile users to attacks, such as XcodeGhost and Stagefright. Apart from mobile OS flaws, IT must take on a never-ending succession of app fixes and updates. IT administrators should check mobile devices and applications and ensure that the latest updates and patches have been applied to protect mobile applications from hackers.

The most effective method to manage iOS devices is through an enterprise mobile management (EMM) or mobile device management (MDM) product or devices. The relatively lower prices of Android devices make them critical to global organizations. The Android version you should use in an enterprise is Android for Work (A4W). It encrypts the device and separates professional and personal applications into two different profiles.

2. App authentication

Implement multi-factor authentication to prevent unauthorized access and malware attacks. The three essential factors for authentication are

• something a user knows, such as a PIN or a password.
• something a user has, such as a smart device.
• something a user is, such as a fingerprint.

The proper authorization and authentication measures can help the application know who the user is and validate them before sharing the data. It adds a security layer within the application along the login process. Apart from using strong authentication processes, it’s recommended to use Single Sign-On (SSO) to protect your applications. This technique helps users sign in to different applications using a single password.

3. App Wrapping

It’s a mobile application management strategy allowing developers to add an extra security layer to applications. Adding the extra security layer doesn’t change the application’s core functionality. It helps to protect business data without changing the functionality and look of the application. The app wrapping procedure requires a thorough knowledge of application SDK so that the admin can deploy an API using which the policies can be set. The elements that ensure the security of an application include copy/paste protection, corporate authentication, data wipe, jailbreak detection, and application-level VPN runtime integrity check.

4. Strengthening the operating system

During the development phase, strengthening the operating system can reduce security-related issues. Application developers should understand how apps can be deployed and updated for each mobile operating system and the distribution rules imposed by each app store and manufacturer. These rules have mobile data security implications; all mobile operating systems require apps to be signed but differ based on who issues the signing certificate and how that impacts the application permissions. The best practice is to educate developers. For an app development company, it is required to consider and follow robust security guidelines.

5. Encrypt mobile applications and servers

With threats like man-in-the-middle attacks and snooping attacks over cellular or WiFi networks, IT administrators should ensure that all communication between app servers and mobile applications is encrypted. Robust encryption that uses 4096-bit SSL and session-based key exchanges can prevent the most determined attackers from decrypting communications.

Moreover, OT should confirm that data at rest is also encrypted. Network and device encryption prevents data and security breaches and eventually improves applications’ security. There is a need to ensure that the application goes through two security checks, Static Application Security Test (SAST) and Dynamic Application Security Test (DAST).

Final Words

This article has discussed a few best practices to secure enterprise mobile applications. Therefore, an organization should understand the evolving state of cybersecurity and mobility while implementing security tips to protect their applications and data. If you are looking for the best solution to protect your application and data, Protected Harbor is highly recommended to bring value to your business. With our expert tech team, we strive to satisfy our clients. Modern-age solutions include 99.99% downtime, remote monitoring, protected phones, desktops, and cybersecurity. Take the step forward and move towards a safer future with Protected Harbor today!

Various ways to detect malicious activities in a network

Businesses are not reacting promptly to malicious activities. Technology is constantly and rapidly evolving and expanding the attack surface in multiple ways. At the same time, cybercriminals are adapting advanced courses and escalating the threat landscape. They are adopting sophisticated ways to attack, and the struggle to deal with the changes is real. Malicious or unauthorized activities occurring inside your network are causing damage without even you knowing that. How can you detect those malicious network activities inside your network as quickly as possible and respond efficiently to avoid or reduce the potential damage?

There are a variety of network protection tools available for this purpose. Some are enhancements or evolutions of others, and some are mainly focused on certain types of malicious activities. However, all network intrusion detection systems are intended to detect malicious or suspicious activities on your network and enable you to act promptly against them. This article will discuss these tools to see malicious activities on your network. But before that, let’s discuss the malicious activities.

What is a malicious activity?

Malicious activity is an unauthorized breach of network traffic or processes on any connected device or system. Malicious threat actors perform these suspicious activities using various attack vectors and looking for financial gain. These actors differ widely in attack techniques, sophistication, and whether they are linked to a cybercriminal group or not. There are multiple types of malicious software, and cybercriminals use many of them.  Therefore, it is essential to find out how to detect malicious activities on various platforms for different uses. Evidence of what an antagonistic activity on a network can do is everywhere.

For all organizations connected to the Internet, using it to store a company’s data or communicate with the employees, it is necessary to understand what a malicious activity can do. As digital transformation is in full rage, cybercriminals know how to use this digital shift to mold and escalate the threat landscape they create.

Malicious activities can come in various forms, particularly from an organizational point of view. It includes

• Network anomalies
• Strange network behavior
• Problem with the network traffic flow
• System downtime
• Vulnerabilities exploitation in the system
• Data breach and compromised system
• DDoS (Denial of service) attacks

There are several tools and best practices to avoid malicious activities. Let’s discuss some of them.

Network Security Tools

Here is a list of tools you can use to detect malicious activities in a network.

1. Intrusion Detection System (IDS)

An Intrusion Detection System analyzes activities on a network and vulnerabilities in a system to search for patterns and reasons for known threats. Here are two main types of IDS, Host Intrusion Detection System (HIDS) protects an individual host system, and Network Intrusion Detection System (NIDS) monitors an entire subnet at a network level. IDS raises flags for malicious or suspicious activities or any intrusion detected and sends notifications to the IT team. It does not take action to prevent or avoid that activity.

2. Intrusion Prevention System (IPS)

An Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) is an evolution of IDS. The capabilities and functions of an IPS are similar to an IDS. However, there is a difference that an IPS can take action to prevent or avoid malicious or suspicious activities. IP can also be referred to as an Intrusion Detection Prevention System (IDPS).

3. Security Incident and Event Management (SIEM)

A Security Incident and Event Management (SIEM) tool are designed to help companies manage the massive volume of data and signals and tie up threat information for a centralized view of IT infrastructure. SIEM comes in various sizes and shapes, but it is promising to monitor, analyze, and record network activities to detect potential security events or incidents in real-time and send alerts to IT teams. So they can take appropriate actions.

4. Data Loss Prevention (DLP)

Data protection is the most important thing for most organizations. It is the primary target of most cyberattacks, whether sensitive data of employees or customers, bank or credit card information, corporate data, or confidential intellectual property. Data loss prevention, also referred to as Data Leak Prevention or Data Loss Protection protects data and ensures that personal or sensitive data is secured and not exposed or compromised. DLP often enforces data handling policies based on how information is classified. In most cases, it can automatically detect things like Social Security numbers or credit card numbers depending on the data format to alert the IT team and avoid unauthorized disclosure.

5. Network Behavior Anomaly Detection (NBAD)

A simple way to identify suspicious or malicious activities is to detect a move out of the ordinary. NBAD, also termed as network detective establishes a baseline of normal activities on a network and gives real-time monitoring of activities and traffic to see unusual events, trends, or activities. Anomaly detection can identify emerging threats, such as zero-day attacks, because it looks for unusual activity instead of relying on indicators of compromise of specific threats.

Best practices to prevent malicious activities in a network

Apart from these tools, you can follow these best practices to avoid malicious network activity.

• Identify malicious emails_ Malicious actors use phishing emails to access sensitive data. It’s a growing trend in cyberspace, and employees should practice safe email protocol and must be careful while clicking on the links from unknown resources. It’s also important to have network security protection in place.
• Report a slower-than-normal network_ A malware outbreak or hacking attempt often results in a slower network. Employees should quickly inform the IT security department when they face slower than typical network speed.
• Identify suspicious pop-ups_ Increased security in a business environment means safe web browsing. Employees should not click on the pop-up windows appearing on the websites. Unknown pop-ups can be infected with spyware or malware that compromise a network.
• Note abnormal password activity_ If an employee is locked out of their system and gets an email saying that a password has been changed, it can signify that the password is compromised. The best practice is to ensure that all employees use strong and unique passwords for all accounts and update the network every six months.

Educate Yourself On Different Threats

In the realm of cybersecurity, understanding and identifying various threats is paramount. Here’s a brief primer on key threats and how to spot them:

• DDoS Attacks: These attacks flood networks with an overwhelming volume of traffic, rendering them inaccessible. Signs include sudden traffic surges, sluggish performance, and unresponsive servers. Mitigate by employing DDoS mitigation strategies and traffic analysis tools.
• Data Protection and Secure Email: Protect sensitive information with secure email protocols, encryption, and robust authentication mechanisms. Educate users on email security best practices to mitigate the risk of phishing attacks.
• Cyber Threats and Phishing: Cyber threats encompass phishing, malware, and Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) attacks. Phishing attempts to deceive users into revealing sensitive information. Types include spear phishing, whaling, and vishing. Implement robust email filtering solutions and educate users to identify phishing attempts.
• MITM Attacks (Man-in-the-Middle): In these attacks, an interceptor eavesdrops on communication between two parties, potentially manipulating data. Signs include unusual network behavior and unexpected SSL certificate warnings. Mitigate by employing strong encryption protocols, digital certificates, and intrusion detection systems.

By understanding these threats and implementing proactive security measures, you can fortify your network defenses and mitigate risks effectively. Stay informed, stay vigilant, and empower yourself with the knowledge needed to safeguard your digital assets against evolving cyber threats.

Learn To Identify Phishing Emails

Master the art of spotting phishing emails to safeguard against cyber threats and protect your data with secure email practices. Learn the red flags, from suspicious URLs to unexpected attachments, guarding against potential DDoS attacks and MITM threats. Prioritize email security to fortify your defenses, ensuring robust data protection. Stay vigilant, empower your team with awareness training, and implement encryption measures to thwart phishing attempts. By staying informed and proactive, you can mitigate risks, bolster security, and keep your organization safe from the perils of cybercrime.

Keep Your Software And Hardware Up-To-Date

Ensure Data and Privacy Protection by Keeping Your Software and Hardware Up-to-Date. Maintaining up-to-date software and hardware is paramount for safeguarding your organization’s cyber infrastructure against potential threats. Using outdated technology exposes vulnerabilities to cyber attacks exploiting known security issues. Upgraded devices offer advanced security tools, bolstering your defense against digital threats.

In addition to hardware updates, regularly patching software is equally essential. Promptly installing the latest patches ensures your team’s devices remain protected. These updates often contain critical security enhancements, thwarting hackers’ attempts to exploit software vulnerabilities.

For added data and privacy protection, consider utilizing Encrypted Email Services to safeguard sensitive information against unauthorized access.

Control Privileges and Permissions on Your Systems

One of the most effective techniques for spotting cyber threats is to control privileges and permissions on your systems. By carefully managing who has access to what resources, you can significantly reduce the risk of unauthorized activities. This approach is crucial for detecting insider threats, as it limits the ability of potentially malicious insiders to access sensitive data or systems. Implementing role-based access control (RBAC) ensures that users only have the minimum level of access necessary for their roles, thereby minimizing the risk of privilege abuse. Additionally, regular audits of permissions can help identify any unusual access patterns or unauthorized changes, aiding in the early identification of malicious activity in networks. Organizations can create a more secure environment by continuously monitoring and adjusting privileges and permissions, making it easier to spot and respond to potential threats before they escalate.

Conclusion

The threat of a cyberattack on your organization is real. Protecting your business network comes down to ensuring that security controls exist across the organization. The security tools and best practices mentioned in the article are simple and allow organizations to focus on their core business activities. It lets them take advantage of a modern world of digital business opportunities. Adequately configured network security tools are helpful for monitoring and analyzing overwhelming network traffic in a rapidly changing, dynamic environment and detecting potentially malicious activities.

Malicious activities can often go undetected in a network because they are disguised as regular traffic. By properly configuring your security tools, you can monitor and analyze network traffic to detect any activities that may be malicious. Protected Harbor provides 360-degree security protection from most threats and malicious activities. Our expert tech team is a step ahead of phishing and malware attacks with a proactive approach. Partner with us today and be secured from malicious activities.

What is a denial of service attack? How to prevent denial of service attacks?

Denial of service (DoS) attacks can disrupt organizations’ networks and websites, resulting in the loss of businesses. These attacks can be catastrophic for any organization, business, or institution. DoS attacks can force a company into downtime for almost 12 hours, resulting in immense loss of revenue. The Information Technology (IT) industry has seen a rapid increase in denial of service attacks. Years ago, these attacks were perceived as minor attacks by novice hackers who did it for fun, and it was not so difficult to mitigate them. But now, the DoS attack is a sophisticated activity cybercriminals use to target businesses.

This article will discuss the denial of service attacks in detail, how it works, the types and impacts of DoS attacks, and how to prevent them. Let’s get started.

What is a denial of service (DoS) attack?

A denial of service (DoS) attack is designed to slow down networks or systems, making them inaccessible to users. Devices, information systems, or other resources on a machine or network, such as online accounts, email, e-commerce websites, and more, become unusable during a denial of service attack. Data loss or direct theft may not be the primary goal of a DoS attack. However, it can potentially damage the targeted organization financially because it spends a lot of time and money to get back to its position. Loss of business, reputational harm, and frustrated customers are additional costs to a targeted organization.

Victims of denial of service attacks often include web servers of high-profile enterprises, such as media companies, banks, government, or trade organizations. During a DoS attack, the targeted organization experiences an interruption in one or more services because the attack has flooded their resources through HTTP traffic and requests, denying access to authorized users. It’s among the top four security threats of recent times, including ransomware, social engineering, and supply chain attacks.

How does a denial of service attack work?

Unlike a malware or a virus attack, a denial of service attack does not need a social program to execute. However, it takes advantage of an inherent vulnerability in the system and how a computer network communicates. In denial of service attacks, a system is triggered to send malicious code to hundreds and thousands of servers. This action is usually performed using tools, such as a botnet.

A botnet can be a network of private systems infected with the malicious code controlled as a group, without the individuals knowing it. The server that can’t tell that the requests are fake sends back its response and waits up to a minute to get a reply in each case. And after not getting any response, the server shuts down the connection, and the system executing the attack again sends a new batch of fake requests. A DoS attack mainly affects enterprises and how they run in an interconnected world. The attack hinders access to information and services on their systems for customers.

Types of denial of service attacks

Here are some common types of denial of service (DoS) attacks.

1. Volumetric attacks

It is a type of DoS attack where the entire network bandwidth is consumed so the authorized users can’t get the resources. It is achieved by flooding the network devices, such as switches or hubs, with various ICMP echo requests or reply packets, so the complete bandwidth is utilized, and no other user can connect with the target network.

2. SYN Flooding

It’s an attack where the hacker compromises multiple zombies and floods the target through various SYN packets simultaneously. The target will be inundated with the SYN requests, causing the server to go down or the performance to be reduced drastically.

3. DNS amplification

In this type of DoS attack, an attacker generates DNS requests appearing to originate from an IP address in the targeted network and sends requests to misconfigured DNS servers managed by a third party. The amplification occurs due to intermediate servers responding to the fake submissions. The responses generated from the intermediate DNS servers may contain more data, requiring more resources to process. It can result in authorized users facing denied access issues.

4. Application layer

This DoS attack generates fake traffic to internet application servers, particularly Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) or domain name system (DNS). Some application layer attacks flood the target server with the network data, and others target the victim’s application protocol or server, searching for vulnerabilities.

Impact of denial of service attacks

It can be difficult to distinguish an attack from heavy bandwidth consumption or other network connectivity. However, some common effects of denial of service attacks are as follows.

1. Inability to load a particular website due to heavy flow of traffic
2. A typically slow network performance, such as a long loading time for websites or files
3. A sudden connectivity loss across multiple devices on the same network.
4. Legitimate users can’t access resources and cannot find the information required to act.
5. Repairing a website targeted by a denial of service attack takes time and money.

How to prevent denial of service attacks?

Here are some practical ways to prevent a DoS attack.

• Limit broadcasting_ A DoS attack often sends requests to all devices on the network that amplify the attack. Limiting the broadcast forwarding can disrupt attacks. Moreover, users can also disable echo services where possible.
• Prevent spoofing_ Check that the traffic has a consistent source address with the set of lessons and use filters to stop the dial-up connection from copying.
• Protect endpoints_ Make sure that all endpoints are updated and patched to eliminate the known vulnerabilities.
• Streamline incident response_ Honing the incident response can help the security team respond to the denial of service attacks quickly and efficiently.
• Configure firewall and routers_ Routers and firewalls must be configured to reject the bogus traffic. Keep your firewalls and routers updated with the latest security patches.
• Enroll in a DoS protection service_ detecting the abnormal traffic flows and redirecting them away from the network. Thus the DoS traffic is filtered out, and the clean traffic is passed on to the network.
• Create a disaster recovery plan_ to ensure efficient and successful communication, mitigation, and recovery if an attack occurs, having a disaster recovery plan is important.

Conclusion

This article has looked at the denial of service attacks and how to prevent them. A DoS attack is designed to make networks or systems inaccessible to users. The most effective way to be safe from these attacks is to be proactive. Protected Harbor’s complete security control offers 99.99% uptime, remote monitoring, 24×7 available tech-team, remote backup, and recovery, ensuring no DoS attack on your organization. Protected Harbor is providing a free IT and cybersecurity audit for a limited time. Contact us today and get secured.

The Rapid Adoption of Native Enterprise Application Development

In today’s modern era, enterprises need to optimize the application cycle. It helps them keep up with consumer expectations, speed the pace of innovation, and keep business operations agile. Cloud-native application development enables organizations to take advantage of the cloud by delivering faster time to market, improved flexibility, increased scalability, and better consumer experience while reducing cost.

With hybrid app development, developers can promptly augment applications without disrupting functionality or delaying delivery by leveraging independent components, known as microservices, that break down large monolithic apps into smaller ones. However, getting started with cloud-native applications requires a few strategies. We’ll discuss those strategies in this article, but let’s first learn about enterprise app development.

Enterprise app development

Enterprise app development is defined as a complex procedure of creating business applications. These procedures are customized for crucial business requirements. Enterprise applications can be deployed on the cloud on different platforms across the intranet and corporate networks. These applications make employees more productive by streamlining or automating low-level manual tasks. It will allow your staff to focus on higher value and more fulfilling work.

Cloud-native enterprise application development

Cloud-native applications are deployed and hosted in the cloud and are designed to take advantage of the inherent characteristics of the cloud computing software delivery model. A native application is a software developed to be used on a particular platform or device. Native enterprise applications use a microservice architecture. This architecture efficiently allocates resources to all services used by the application, making it adaptable and flexible to a cloud architecture.

Strategies for application development

While creating a cloud-native application, developers should follow these strategies.

1. Follow the microservices architecture method

Break down your application into microservices allowing automated, incremental, and continuous improvement without causing any downtime.

2. Rely on containers for maximum scalability and flexibility

Containers package software with all the dependencies and code in one place, allowing software to run anywhere. It enables maximum portability and flexibility in a hybrid-multi cloud environment. Containers enable fast scaling with the Kubernetes container defined by the user.

3. Adopt an agile methodology

The agile approach speeds up the creation and optimization process. Developers can instantly iterate updates depending on the user feedback, enabling the working application version to match users’ expectations.

Best practices to implement cloud-native application development

Enterprises can reap the full advantage of cloud-native application development by executing the following best practices.

1. Achieve workflow and infrastructure automation
2. Segregate monolithic apps into loosely coupled microservices
3. Store infrastructure as a code in an efficient version control system
4. Implement efficient CI/CD pipelines
5. Implement DevOps approaches and processes.

Challenges with the rapid adoption of cloud-native application development

Where cloud technology has a lot of benefits, it also comes with some challenges. Here are some of the challenges enterprises can face while rapidly adopting cloud-native application development.

• Due to the intense competition and market pressure, enterprises may face significant challenges in adopting new initiatives while achieving incredible business velocity.
• Most open-source technologies are not built to ensure interoperability right from the beginning, and efforts to bring together various disparate solutions from the cloud-native environment can be complex and full of challenges.
• Most open-source technologies don’t have well-defined architecture standards or best practices. Therefore, implementing these solutions and technologies for enterprise application development can be a considerable business risk. Cloud cost optimization is also a challenge for small to medium-scale companies.
• These technologies may have a minimal pool of resources, while organizations require the right technical services and support to operate effectively. However, with limited options, the complexities of long-term success can become a huge barrier.

Final words

Cloud-native enterprise application development is essential for digital transformation and innovation. Companies adopting cloud-native application development observe a remarkable increase in scalability, productivity, and efficiency while improving user experience.

Native enterprise application development is quickly becoming the go-to solution for businesses. By developing applications in-house, companies can ensure that they meet all of their specific needs. However, businesses need a reliable and scalable cloud infrastructure to develop applications in-house. The top cloud service providers can only offer enterprises a fraction of what they need. Compromise on nothing, partner with Protected Harbor today, ensuring 99.99% uptime, remote monitoring, 24×7 tech support, data backup, recovery, etc.

Office 365 Backup – Does Office 365 backup your data?

If you think that Microsoft Office 365 backs up your data, it is not more than a misconception. It is a secure platform but does not provide backup. Microsoft has built-in backup features and redundancy, but that is only within their internal data centers for recovery, not for the customers to back up their data.

If you read their service agreement, they mentioned storing your data using third-party services. You can keep the files somewhere else on your system following the cardinal 3-2-1 backup rule. Office 365 does not meet the backup criteria.

Office 365 redundancy VS Backup

Backup of data means duplicating the files and storing them in different locations. If a disaster happens and your data gets lost, a copy of the missing or lost file is available in another place. For example, if you delete a file intentionally or unintentionally and want it back, you should have the option to back up and restore it.

Although Microsoft offers the security of your data, there are several cases when critical data can be compromised. It is crucial to have a backup from a third party in such cases.

Microsoft offers redundancy, which means if a disaster happens to one data center and fails to manage the data, another data center is located in other geographical regions to back up your data. They can execute such redirects without realizing the end-users. But if you or someone in your organization deletes a file or an email intentionally or accidentally, office 365 will simultaneously delete the data from all the regions and data centers.

So, that’s why one should regularly back up their data as Microsoft recommends to its users. It is a shared responsibility to secure and protect the data because it’s your data, and you should take steps to protect it.

Reasons for the Data Loss in Office 365

As businesses increasingly rely on Office 365 to manage their data, it’s essential to understand the risks of data loss and how to prevent it. One of the most significant factors contributing to data loss is the sheer amount of data that companies generate. Without proper backup options, losing important information during a system failure or data corruption is easy.

Ransomware infections are also a major threat. They can encrypt files and demand payment to release them, leaving businesses with few options but to pay the ransom or suffer significant data loss. Incremental and differential backups are crucial for ensuring business continuity, as they allow companies to quickly recover data from a backup without restoring an entire system.

Using backup software and external hard drives for backup storage can provide an extra layer of protection against data loss. Storing backups in a remote location can help protect against physical disasters like fires or floods.

A reliable backup service can provide 24-hour protection and ensure that backups are always up-to-date. It’s also important to have a disaster recovery plan in place to minimize the impact of data loss on business operations and ensure that full backups and disaster recovery (DR) solutions are available when needed.

There are rare chances that Microsoft loses the data, but data loss from the end-user is widespread. Microsoft tries its best to protect the user’s data, but the most common reason is human error. Data loss has become a new normal, whether an email or a company document.

From human error to malicious attacks, there could be a lot of reasons that can result in data loss. Here, we will discuss them in detail and illustrate the benefit of backing up data using a third-party service.

Human Error

Accidental deletion is the primary human error due to which data can get lost. One can accidentally delete important emails, files, documents, or any critical data in office 365. Human error falls into two categories, one is accidental, and the other is intentional.

Sometimes, people delete the file or data by thinking that there is no need for it anymore, but after some time, they are suddenly in need of it. In most cases, the platforms have a retention policy through which you can restore the files from the trash. But for some of them, like contact entries and calendar events, there is no option of recovery from the recycle bin.

In such a situation, Microsoft does not provide you the facility to recover the lost files as they delete them for their data centers. They have no authority to protect you from yourself. If you want to overcome such difficult situations, you must have a backup at your side.

Malware or Software Corruption

Malware and virus attacks affect the organization globally, and office 365 is also susceptible to malicious attacks. The primary cause behind such attacks is opening or downloading the infected files. Ransomware attacks are the reason for data loss, office 365 has protection features against these attacks, but there is no guarantee that it will detect the infections every time.

Moreover, software corruption is another reason for data loss. For example, a user wants to update or install office 365, and then suddenly, a problem arises that can also cause damage.

Internal and External Security Threats

Organizations face many security threats that can either be internal or external. Internal security threats mean that sometimes a terminated employee knowing the company’s assets, threatens the organization or deletes the data. It can bring a lot of harm to an organization, and Microsoft, without knowing the reason, deletes the file from their data centers.

And by external security threats, we mean malicious and ransomware attacks through which companies and organizations suffer colossal damage. It damages the reputation of the company and breaks the customer’s trust.

Do you need an Office 365 backup solution?

As discussed in this article, Microsoft does not provide a backup for deleted data. However, if data loss occurs at their end, they offer redundancy by keeping the data in multiple regions. Third-party backup is necessary to protect the data against accidental or intentional loss and malicious attacks.

You can back up the data by placing it independently from your system and Microsoft servers. Since we are talking about Microsoft products here are some common vulnerabilities of Microsoft’s products.

Office 365 backup is a great way to ensure that your data is safe in the event of a disaster. However, many small to medium-sized companies don’t have the resources or infrastructure to back up their data independently.

That’s when Protected Harbor comes in; we are the experts in the industry, creating flexible solutions for your needs, including data backup and disaster recovery, remote monitoring, cybersecurity, etc. The top brands are serving customers with one-size-fits-all solutions; we don’t. Contact us today to make your data safer.

Top 5 Questions every CEO must ask their IT team

CEOs and company executives are ultimately accountable for safeguarding their organization’s long-term security, which helps mitigate cyber risks. As executives become more aware of risk and security management, they ask increasingly nuanced and complicated leaders questions. At the board level, interest in security and risk management (SRM) is at an all-time high. In Gartner’s security and risk survey in 2019, four out of five respondents stated that security risk influences board decisions.

The Gartner research assists security and risk management leaders analyze five types of questions that they should be prepared to answer at any executive or board-level meeting. Here are those questions.

• The Trade-Off Question
• The Landscape Question
• The Risk Question
• The Performance Question
• The Incident Question
• Decipher Complex Board Questions

Let’s discuss each of these in detail.

1. The Trade-Off Question_ Are we 100% secure? 

The trade-off question is that the security and management risk leaders struggle greatly. The question “Are we secure?” needs improvising and is generally asked by the executives who are uneducated and unaware of the impact of security risks on the business. It is impossible to prohibit 100% of the incidents in this scenario. The CISO’s responsibility is to help identify and evaluate the potential risks for an organization and allocate resources to manage them.

According to Gartner’s report, a security and risk management leader, in response to this question, might say, “It is impossible to remove all resources of the information risk considering the evolving nature of the cyber threat landscape. My responsibility is to work with other aspects of the business to execute controls for managing security risks that can prevent us from improving operational efficiency and brand image. There is no such thing as ‘perfect protection’ in security. We have to reassess continually how much risk is appropriate as the business grows. We aim to develop a sustainable program to balance the requirements to protect against the needs to run a business”.

2. The Landscape Question_ How bad is it out there?

Most executives want to know their security compared to peer organizations. They read threat reports and blogs, listen to the broadcast, and even are forced by the regulation to understand such things. Gartner recognizes the need to discuss this landscape. Leaders need to avoid trying to quantify risks and attach specific budget figures to the mitigation cost depending on something external. Moreover, when benchmarks give some material for conversation, they must be a negligible factor in the decision-making process.

Here are some responses that security and risk management leaders can give while discussing the broader security landscape.

3. The Risk Question_ Do we know what our risks are?

A risk outside the tolerance needs an antidote to bring it within tolerance. It does not require dramatic changes in a short time, so beware of overreacting. The Gartner report presents a way to defend the risk management decision, and you can change it according to your organization’s risk tolerance.

One of the most common issues encountered in the report is that the evaluations are subjective and depend on flawed methodology. Security leaders must have evidence to support the evaluation, even when they are not called to present it. Another aspect that needs to be considered is whether to depict the typical outcome or the worst. For instance, most incidents in favorable outcomes are within the ability of most companies to absorb. However, there is an infrequent incident that can result in a catastrophic effect.

4. The Performance Question_ Are we appropriately allocating resources?

Security is always a moving target. The security team must demonstrate their behavior to ensure the organization stays safe. It is essential to figure out if the resources are allocated appropriately and where the money is spent. The original strategy proposal should have margins for errors concerning the deadline and the budget. As far as there are overruns within these margins, they must be noncontroversial.

There may be valid reasons even if the overruns are outside the margins. The balanced scorecard approach is a way to understand how security contributes to business performance. In this approach, the top layer defines the business aspiration, and organization performance against those aspirations is expressed using a traffic light mechanism. However, it’s not the only way. Some organizations have different types of dashboards to discuss business performance.

5. The Incident Question_ How did this happen?

An incident is unavoidable, and treatment is a blessing in disguise. Security and risk management leaders should be aware that incident details may have been tightly controlled (such as sensitivities associated with the incident). Using the fact-based approach and explaining your knowledge will eliminate the mystery and give confidence that you have control over the incident. Acknowledging the incident provides details on the business impact, outlines the flaws or gaps needed to work out, and offers a mitigation plan.

Decipher Complex Board Question

There are usually no deterministic answers to the board question, and responses are generally more about showing options for sponsorship instead of a definitive course of action. The options can vary based on the context of the discussion, the board’s maturity, the SRM leader’s communication skills, and reporting frequency. However, understanding and answering board questions require everyone to understand their roles. Therefore, the SRM leader should know that the board is interested in facilitating the business goal.  Any query that may seem immature, ignorant, or complicated has a purpose. Here’s why every executive should understand the basics of cybersecurity.

As we move further into this Digital Age, it’s important for security and risk management leaders to be at the forefront of protection. Unfortunately, there will always be new threats that emerge and risks to manage. However, there are a variety of technologies and strategies that can help reduce the number of incidents and their severity. These include: reviewing third-party vendors, dual-authorization systems, unstructured data protectors, and big data analytics. As long as companies take a proactive approach to their cybersecurity efforts, they will be prepared when potential threats arise, making the job of SRMs much easier.

Ultimately, the complexity of risk management systems makes it impractical for organizations of every size to create their own. Instead, a renowned solution like Protected Harbor is needed. One that can provide the solutions necessary to resolve your company’s unique needs, with a broad suite of capabilities and an intuitive platform that provides users with the tools needed to respond effectively when crises strike. Because we understand your business and what executives desire, we’ve been assisting several executives with their day-to-day operations. Contact us today for a free IT and cybersecurity audit, take charge of your future, and be cybersecured.