IT Navigator - Daymark Solutions Blog

Don’t Click that Link! Why Phishing Continues to Work

Cybercriminals continue to use phishing attacks on individuals within enterprises. With increased sophistication and multiple attack vectors, businesses must be vigilant at every step of the way to prevent infiltration. Let me share a recent example-

Today I received an email from a recruiter. It’s not out of the ordinary for recruiters to ping us with resumes hoping that we will see a fit for their candidate. This one was well written, had a company logo, and a picture of the sender. Including pictures is a growing trend with recruiters

Handsome businessman cheering with arms up against low angle view of skyscrapers.jpeg

When making a decision to move production workloads to the cloud, one of the first things that is considered is cost. However, there are frequently many hidden costs that are not factored into the cloud decision until they appear in the real world. For instance, what is the cost to end users’ productivity if they don’t have the correct access to the application or system that now resides in the cloud? What new burdens are placed on the IT team if end users, now managing identities in two places, constantly require assistance to access their work? What costs are associated with securely authenticating end users to the workload?

Is that light you see at the end of the proverbial tunnel, or is it the headlight of an oncoming train?

The future of your professional career just might depend on your ability to successfully lead your company to the cloud. So many things to consider…

Yes, the cloud offers many advantages to your business including agility and high levels of fault tolerance, but in and of itself, the cloud does not release you from backing up your data in order to protect yourself from user error, data corruption, or data loss.

Just like provisioning new applications or scaling current applications, you need to consider every angle when protecting your data that lives in cloud.

By now, many of you are probably aware of the most recent cloud breach where a large cache of celebrity nude photos was released on a forum board on 4chan. Though details are still emerging, the prevalent theory is that the hackers managed to gain access to the pictures by accessing the celebrity’s Apple iCloud accounts.

This is but the most recent security breach in a long string of security breaches, affecting major enterprises like; Sony, Twitter, Target, and even the Department of Homeland Security. It’s not your company data necessarily that these data thieves are interested in. Rather, it’s your contact data – the personal data you compile on each contact in your data base such as social security number, credit card number, and email address. This naturally raises the question; just how secure is your corporate data in the cloud? The hard truth is - “it depends”. Fact is, the only surefire way to guarantee your cloud data is 100% secure is to disconnect it from the cloud.

The Importance of SOC 2 and SOC 3 Validation

By Bruce Hall, Director of Managed Services

Have you heard about SOC 2 and SOC 3 validation? If you’re storing data in the cloud (or considering it) it’s a business imperative. We’ve recently completed a Service Organization Control 2 (SOC 2) and Control 3 (SOC 3) validation process. While we’re proud of our achievement, it’s important to explain what this means for our customers. When researching an enterprise cloud or managed service solution, it’s essential to not only check for compliance with SOC 2 and SOC 3, but also to review the actual report. Prospective service providers should be more than willing to share their report.

By Matthew Brady, Daymark Consultant

How easily can you restore your data from cloud? What is your provider doing to protect your data once it has been stored in the cloud? Can you backup or restore your data at any time? These questions address availability.

Secure Cloud Backup – Part 3: Ensuring Integrity

By Matthew Brady, Daymark Consultant

How do you know the data you backed up is the data that can be restored? That question is at the heart of integrity as it relates to secure cloud backup.

Ensuring integrity can be a tough task. It definitely requires a leap of faith as you put your data into the cloud. The way to transform that leap of faith into a sense of assurance is through logging, restore validations, and continuous corruption detection and repair processes.

Detailed Logging

Secure Cloud Backup – Part 2: Confidentiality - Ask the Right Questions

By Matthew Brady, Daymark Consultant

Ensuring data confidentiality means that only authorized users have access to the data. Simply put, eyes that should not be viewing the data can’t see it.

On physical media, this can mean several things: ensuring no physical access to the media, password authentication for disk drives, or encrypting media. However, cloud backup introduces a major paradigm shift. There are no doors to lock. Do passwords mean anything when your data is being transmitted over the Internet?

What Does Secure Cloud Backup Mean?

By Matthew Brady, Daymark Consultant

With so many pieces of modern business moving to the cloud, sometimes it’s hard to know where to start. Backup has quickly found its way to the top of the list of processes, and perhaps headaches, that are driving companies to the cloud. The advantages are vast. Data is backed up offsite. Backups are managed and monitored which frees up IT staff to focus on other tasks. And backup services can be coupled with DR services. It makes sense.

Cloud Security Common Sense

By Tim Donovan, President

Information Technology Navigator

Tips, Advice & Insights from Technology Pros

Don’t Click that Link! Why Phishing Continues to Work

Make “Identity Utopia” a Reality in Active Directory

Moving Your Data to the Cloud? - 5 Tips to Ensure It’s Safe and Secure

4 Cloud Strategies to Secure your Corporate Data

The Importance of SOC 2 and SOC 3 Validation

Secure Cloud Backup Part 4: Availability

Secure Cloud Backup – Part 3: Ensuring Integrity

Secure Cloud Backup – Part 2: Confidentiality - Ask the Right Questions

What Does Secure Cloud Backup Mean?

Cloud Security Common Sense

Subscribe to the Daymark Blog

Latest Posts

Browse by Tag

How Can We Help?

About

Connect

Links

Contact