Wildfires, earthquakes, hurricanes, and massive cyberattacks—when we think of natural or man-made disasters, we often imagine major catastrophes. As we are reminded too often, these things really do happen, which is one reason I hope your organization has a Disaster Recovery preparedness plan
Cybersecurity is front-page news, and its impacts are considerable. Consider that NBC News recently called ransomware “a major national security issue.” The same story says that the cybersecurity industry is stretched thin, with a shortage of workers to help stem the damage. The FBI 2020 Internet Crime Report shows how big the problem is, with the bureau’s Internet Crime Complaint Center receiving a record 791,790 complaints last year, with reported losses exceeding $4.1 billion. And today’s headlines make it clear that it’s only getting worse.
Cybersecurity has become a core concern in recent years for any organization that deals with sensitive information. With large-scale cyber attacks in the news practically every month, more and more companies have determined that they require the services of a highly experienced security expert. This has resulted in a relatively new executive-level position: the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO). These are folks with enterprise-level experience who, as officers of the company, make certain that security is embedded into the mission and day-to-day operations
Web and mobile applications are everywhere, connecting us to our digital world. These applications drive just about everything we do online, from login pages to shopping carts, webmail to content management systems, and much more
If you are a business leader or an IT professional who has not yet begun the process of moving your organization to the cloud, it’s likely that you are considering doing so. The first thing you need to know is that cloud services are a different species of technology than traditional enterprise IT infrastructure. In most cases, that means a move to the cloud cannot be safely executed or supported by traditional IT organizations.
While all cybersecurity threats are on the rise, one form of attack has a long history of wreaking havoc. The first-ever distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack in 1974 was the work of a 13-year-old student. In 1996, DDoS was first used as a commercial weapon when New York-based internet service provider Panix was targeted by a hacker using a spoofed IP address to overwhelm the company’s servers with fake “synchronize” packages. These early DDoS attacks function much like the modern versions, shutting down your network, servers, or sites by sending vast amounts of data that overwhelm targeted systems.
