5 Ways to Protect Your IoT Devices

The internet of things (IoT) is undoubtedly growing rapidly. According to Gartner the typical CIO will be looking after triple the number of IoT devices in 2023, compared to the number of IoT devices under their security remit in 2018.

This influx is caused by a mix of repurposed consumer devices, IoT devices that support infrastructure and business-specific IoT devices. Dodging the explosion of IoT devices is impossible, and yes, IoT does deliver a lot of advantages – but the security implications can be serious.

Artificial intelligence is slowly but steadily improving many of the technologies we use every day. It’s not always all that obvious that artificial intelligence is involved, and to be fair, the definition of AI is fairly broad. However intelligent computing tools are clearly here to stay – and business communications is all the better for it.

Cloud solutions have revolutionised the IT industry, because they offer a lot of advantages over locally-hosted computing infrastructures. Therefore, it is no surprise that businesses have evolved their systems to allow them to migrate to a cloud environment.

A cloud-based strategy is far from perfect, however. All cloud computing vendors have, at some point failed, experienced major downtime and/or been subject to massive DDoS attacks. Dealing with any of these scenarios would have a significant negative impact on any organisation. That’s why it’s time to consider a multi-cloud strategy.

VPN use is widespread and for good reason: it brings large security and privacy benefits to end-users as it shields internet usage from prying eyes. But what if the VPN provider you’re using is susceptible to foreign government interference?

What if your VPN provider’s host country provides little in the way of data protection legislation? Have you considered whether the owner of your VPN service takes data security seriously at all? VPN users don’t always ask these questions – but they certainly should.

It seems like only yesterday that cloud computing was deemed the next big thing in the business and IT landscape. Service providers scrambled to offer the best cloud services available, while organisations carefully planned how they could best make a smooth transition into the cloud environment.

Now fast forward about a decade. Cloud computing remains a game-changing technology which initiated a paradigm shift in many companies, not only in how they set up their network infrastructure, but also in how they run their operations. Over time though, provisioning resources in the cloud may become a tedious and complex task for IT administrators, especially if the primary aim of a business is faster time to market their product.

This is where serverless computing comes in.

A rapidly growing pool of productivity data is aggregated by Microsoft thanks to the broad adoption of cloud productivity suites. Indeed, Office 365 is leading the field with triple the market share of its closest competitor, G Suite.

Office 365 and the Azure cloud platform is therefore a rich source of information detailing how employees conduct their daily work routine, and this has led Microsoft to launch Workplace Analytics. But who gets access to Workplace Analytics, and can it provide real insights for your business?

The World Wide Web has always been a valuable source of information and a reliable means of communication to masses of users across the globe. With more than 5 billion Google searches made every day and a projected $3.5 trillion online retail sales for 2019, you’d think that the internet as we know it is already as vast as it can be.

Unknown to most people, however, is that the surface or visible web—the part of the internet which the average user can access through search engines—comprises only about 4% of the entire web. The rest is composed of the deep web, a small part of which is the oh-so-mysterious (for the curious) but essentially shady, dark web.

We all love comparisons. One of the oldest comparisons or debates in the history of IT is that which pits Windows against Linux. It’s a subplot of another debate with a much wider scope: proprietary vs open source, but just as relevant for businesses.

For as long as we can recall, Windows has been the OS of choice for most businesses, especially for their PCs and laptops. Linux usage, on the other hand, has been limited to servers and a few departments in certain organisations like research agencies, startups and universities. Does this still hold true in 2019? Let’s talk about it.

When it comes to IT services, many businesses still go for the fix-it-when-it-breaks approach. And why not? They think that getting the services of an IT support company only when a problem actually arises will save them money. But does it really?

If you also think that saving your financial resources for a time when something breaks down is the right way to manage your organisation's IT ecosystem, then it's time for you to know all about reactive and proactive IT support. This should help you to determine which would work best for your business. But first, on to the definitions.

For many businesses, the adoption of cloud-hosted services is no longer a question, cloud provisioning is an accepted fact. As a result, Software as a Service (SaaS) has grown enormously and is now adopted widely, even at enterprise level. That said, some businesses are still operating via the traditional licencing model.

The reason for the shift to the cloud and Software as a Service is simple: the benefits of the SaaS model greatly outweigh the disadvantages. We’ve written this article to remind readers that adopting SaaS was the right choice, and to encourage businesses operating a traditional model to finally make the switch.