8 out of 10 employees turn to ‘stealth cloud’ for quick IT fix, putting company data in danger

November 1, 2012

84 per cent of employees are putting company data at risk as they secretly access consumer cloud solutions such as DropBox and SkyDrive in the workplace, says Computacenter research, Europe’s leading independent provider of IT infrastructure services. With no visibility of files available to IT managers, employees are opening networks up to potential security threats.

The research, conducted amongst 150 IT decision makers highlights that employees are being forced to turn to consumer cloud products to share files as current business systems simply cannot offer the same level of service.

“Stealth cloud is a major issue for organisations,” says Paul Casey, Cloud Practice Leader Computacenter. “These cloud products are very convenient, easy to access, simple to use and perfect for remote working. Unfortunately, most IT departments don’t offer similar file sharing tools which are secure and as a result are losing the battle to keep company data on the office network.

“The second an employee stores files and data using a solution such as DropBox, IT managers lose all visibility of what is going on and potentially confidential information and intellectual property is open to security threats and breaches.”

These threats are understandably keeping IT managers awake at night with 56 per cent worried about possible security breaches and a further half wishing they had full visibility of what data is stored within the cloud.

Casey concludes: “It is imperative that businesses address this problem now. It is clear that everyone knows the risks of consumer cloud products, but until the correct solutions are put in place or alternative sanctioned solutions, employees will continue to turn to consumer clouds to get the job done – no matter what the consequence might be.”

If you would like advice on the creation of private ‘dropbox’ type technology please contact http://www.c24.co.uk for more details

Thanks to http://www.cloudcomputing-365.info/news_full.php?id=23373#

 

 

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My Grandmother Uses Dropbox — Why can’t I?

August 14, 2012

My first involvement with tech occurred in the early 80s. I recall the days of modems, time division multiplexors, acoustic couplers, and dipswitches. Most people don’t realize it, but cloud based file sharing existed in the 80s, but required an account with a major X.25 “cloud” service provider, such as Tymnet or Telenet.

At the risk of sounding nostalgic, back in the day, only people who had a keen interest in electronics (mainly, those of us under 30) were exposed to these esoteric products. Neither my grandmother nor my mother understood technology and, frankly, I never tried to explain it to them. It was a language that only a privileged few could understand. That has certainly changed.

Today, grandma owns an iPad, has a Twitter account, does her banking online, and knows what megapixels are. She texts, tweets, and takes pictures…lots of pictures. She happily uses the modern cloud to post pictures on Dropbox so her niece—who is going to school for archeology in the Middle East—can see the scarf grandma is knitting her for Christmas.

So, if grandma can use Dropbox, WHY…CAN’T…I?

That’s a question that business areas are asking IT professionals on a daily basis.

In order to answer the question, we need to examine why grandma is using Dropbox. Simply speaking – it’s easy to use. Grandma logs in with her username and password, drags and drops her scarf photo, and voila, her niece can download and view the picture almost instantly.

Unlike previous X.25 cloud services like Tymnet and Telnet, current cloud-based file sharing services, including Dropbox, have done a fantastic job adhering to the mantra – “Simplicity as a Design Goal.” Many other consumer-oriented services and products also have gained widespread adoption following the same blueprint – e.g., the iPod.

So, when the person who runs the HR Department comes to you and tells you that she’ll be using Dropbox to share employee information with a vendor (just as easily as she shares her family photos), what do you tell her? And, more importantly, what alternative can you provide her for sharing sensitive information with third parties?

Here’s a list of 5 tactics you can use:

1. Explain that consumer-oriented web sites don’t provide the same level of protection as modern enterprise IT systems.

2. Explain that while protecting pictures of a scarf with a username and password may be appropriate, protecting data which contains an employee’s social security number, home address, and medical information deserve more than password protection.

3. Explain that data breaches occur on a regular basis on cloud based services and losing data can cause irreparable harm to a corporation.

4. Explain that regulatory requirements force many companies to review entitlement on an ongoing basis, to verify access by auditing data use, and to encrypt certain types of data. Most cloud-based file sharing services do not allow for these types of controls.

5. Explain that there are alternatives! Specifically, there are products that can provide similar functionality, that are easy to use, that can be used to share both employee records and pictures of a scarf, without sacrificing security.

http://www.varonis.com

 

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Top 5 Reasons Why Organizations Want a Dropbox Alternative

July 12, 2012

During a recent visit to Brazil, I encountered many customers and partners who faced a similar challenge – providing their clients with a safe, secure and genuinely easy way to share files and collaborate with data.  All faced a number of barriers and none were happy with the current offerings of cloud based file sharing solutions.  Generally speaking:

  • All required a secure way to share files with internal and external people– partners, vendors and employees
  • All tried to block access to file sharing sites and no one thought they were successful in doing so
  • All were concerned about the additional resource requirements to manage and control cloud file shares
  • Many wanted the same user experience and processes  for internal  and external collaboration
  • Not one had a plan to fulfill these requirements
  • All were required by the business areas to provide a solution in the near term

The following 5 criteria summarize their requirements, which are not currently fulfilled by cloud based file sharing solutions:

1. Ongoing guarantee of rightful access

Customers clearly state that the security of cloud based file sharing solutions is a primary concern.  They require a comprehensive audit trail of all usage activity, the ability to ensure permissions are granted and revoked at the appropriate times by the appropriate people, and the ability to develop different profiles for different data and people based on data sensitivity, customer location, and role.

2. Ability to leverage existing infrastructure and processes

Customers want to leverage their existing infrastructure and processes instead of purchasing a new solution, and have no wish to reinvent their processes for managing data on a third-party cloud solution.  Customers have processes and applications to perform backup, archival, provisioning and management of existing infrastructure, and they are confused about how to perform these functions within a cloud-base file sharing solution.

3. Ensuring Reliability with Accountability

IT organizations have defined service levels for their internal clients,  and are accountable for the delivery of each service. If they don’t deliver, there is no question about whose responsibility it is.  Service levels associated with cloud based file sharing must be negotiated like other third party services – there are typically few guarantees of performance and remedies for non-performance are limited.

4. Providing an intuitively simple user experience

Regardless of the solution, IT Managers are very concerned about a new user experience for their clients.  Most indicate that a different user experience will require training, impact the number of calls for support, and reduce productivity at least temporarily.  Ultimately, IT Managers would like leverage the user experience that their user population has already mastered.

5. Predictable expense

Typical cloud based file sharing solutions are priced based on amount of storage— storage requirements often grow at a surprising rate. Customers may need to negotiate storage costs with cloud providers on an ongoing basis.

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Who Is The Custodian Of Your data?

June 25, 2012

We’ve all had it happen – a hard drive crashes, or a lap top dies and valuable information is gone. Some people take the precaution of storing important information on another device, such as an external drive, or put it in the cloud by sending it to Google Drive or Dropbox. A common assumption among people who do this is that their data is safe and secure.

This assumption turns out to be wrong, as an individual found out when his Apple Time Capsule died. He was using the device to store important information, including photos of his child, and when the device failed he was unable to retrieve any of the files. Losing that information spurned him to bring a lawsuit against Apple for just over $25,000 to replace the hardware and for compensation for the lost memories. A lawyer by profession, this individual argues in his claim that the defect in the Time Capsule amounts to a breach of contract, and that it was Apple’s responsibility to protect and keep the information secure.

If he had read the service agreement closely, (but honestly, who does?) he might have realized before it was too late that Apple places the burden of backing up the data stored on a Time Capsule on the user’s shoulders. The Time Capsule is intended as a storage device, not a backup device, but the difference between the two is lost on most people, as the thinking goes that if you are storing your data somewhere other than your computer, you are in effect, backing up your data.

People think the same way about storing information on cloud services. Most people think that if you upload a document to Google Drive, it is safe and protected. However, as with Apple, Google places the responsibility of backing up that data on the user, so if a document were to go missing, it’s not Google’s responsibility to restore it for you. Last week Amazon suffered a power outage that made people unable to access certain cloud services for a period of a few hours. No data was reported lost, but if you were running a business and were unable to access some important information, it could have had serious consequences. A recent reportpublished by the International Working Group on Cloud Computing Resiliency (IWGCR) states that a total of 568 hours of downtime at 13 well-known cloud services since 2007 had an economic impact of more than $71.7 million US dollars.

What this all means is that you need to have a backup and recovery plan in place. Losing photos can be devastating, and for a business losing information can mean the end of the business. Instead of relying on devices that eventually fail and cloud services that can be interrupted, you need to use a reliable backup solution that will keep your data safe and also allow you to restore missing information easily. Click here to connect with a Powered by Asigra Service Provider who can provide you with information on the best way to backup and recover your data.

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The Dropbox Explosion: How to Get Control of File Sync Services

June 14, 2012

Cloud-based, file synchronization services like Dropbox, Sugarsync, and Google Drive have exploded over the past few years. While these platforms are compelling for consumers, they can be unsettling for organizations because of the new data protection and management ramifications they carry.

Based on Gartner’s assessment that “Huge Amounts of Proprietary and Regulated Data Are Leaking Onto NoncorporateDevices, Outside of Enterprise Controls and Audit Trails,”1 here are three conclusions that can be drawn about current state of file sharing for organizations:

  1. Cloud-based file synchronization services have become so popular that they threaten to scatter organizational assets.
  2. Organizations must offer sanctioned file synchronization services and device interoperability, or they run the risk of losing control of digital assets outside the corporate LAN.
  3. Today’s cloud based file synchronization services sacrifice a level of control and do not fully integrate with existing infrastructure.

Read the full white paper here to learn how organizations can take back control of their data assets.

[1] “How to Control File Synchronization Services and Prevent Corporate Data Leakage,” by Jay Heiser, and Lawrence Pingree, Published 31 January 2012

by David Gibson

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In Data Security, You’re Only As Strong As Your Weakest Link

March 27, 2012

Reporter: “Why do you rob banks?”

Willie Sutton (bank robber): “Because that’s where the money is.”

That’s Sutton’s law. It seems obvious, but it’s so very true. The law also holds true for hackers– they will attack systems that store valuable data.

So where might that be? My first guess would be the iron-clad data centers of the world’s largest banks, pharmaceutical companies, defense contractors, governments, and Fortune 500 corporations. They are the big juicy targets, right? But attractive targets aren’t necessarily easy targets.

Today, banks and other high profile institutions have state-of-the-art data protection in the form of firewalls, two-factor authentication, sophisticated encryption, and Varonis. Hence the term “bank-level security.” As a result, hackers have to weigh the value of a successful attack against the difficulty of breaching the target.

What if there were a way to seize a corporation’s digital secrets without having to penetrate their heavily fortified walls? A group of Chinese hackers figured out a rather cunning way to do it – infiltrate the company’s much more vulnerable law firm instead!

According to Mandiant, a Virginia-based security firm, 80 major US law firms were hacked last year. Clearly, law firms are becoming a primary back door that hackers are using to gain access to valuable corporate data. But it’s not just law firms we have to worry about, unfortunately.

Any time you send an email to another party—e.g., law firms, accountants, consultants—or transfer confidential documents to DropBox or Google Docs, you’re implicitly trusting that they take security as seriously as your own security admins do, and that they can determine, at all times, who can access your data and who is accessing your data.

The fact is that many organizations, including the growing number of cloud service vendors, haven’t even scratched the surface when it comes to serious data protection and security. The message is clear: start now. Your customers will demand it.

by Rob Sobers

Thanks to www.varonis.com

 

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The best design tools in the market

November 23, 2011

Designers, in many ways, are quintessential first adopters and ideal test customers: They’re technically savvy and demanding, with an extreme attention to detail and polish. Please them, and it’s pretty certain that you’ve got a great product on your hands.

All of which makes this infographic commissioned by Best Vendor particularly interesting: Drawn from a survey of 180 design pros, it shows the favored apps in their toolkits. At the very least, these charts will show you a few apps that you might consider:

 
Maybe the most striking thing here is how little Microsoft you see–Word, for example, is barely an afterthought. The areas ripe for some real disruption though are generally those where one single app is dominating the scene–surely there’s something better out there than Dropbox, a web app for sharing files on the cloud, great as it is? Evernote, a program for writing reminders and clipping important notes, is likewise something that people love, but I wonder how you could improve something like that.
 
thanks to: http://www.fastcodesign.com/1665487/infographic-of-the-day-whats-in-the-toolkit-of-todays-designers
 

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