The cloud is perhaps the fastest growing technology trend of the last decade. When the world was dealing with the aftermath of the credit crunch and reeling with the blows from The Great Recession, businesses still needed the latest technology tools to ensure they could be competitive.
The vast majority of computer users routinely use cloud services of some description. Whether it’s a Gmail account or a file transfer service, almost all of us use free cloud-based tools. This might be OK for personal use, however, in a business context, such an approach is highly questionable. Why?
The issue of passwords is something of an evergreen problem for technology users. People often choose obvious, simple passwords that are easy to remember. Research has shown that a group of 10,000 words are used by 98.8% of people as passwords. This means that a hacker with software written for the purpose could automate the process of trying every one of these, something known as a ‘brute force’ attack, and would be certain of being able to hack into almost 99 out of every 100 accounts.
A lot has been said and written about cloud computing. Some is true, and some is not. Here we help to provide clarity about the subject by dispelling 5 myths about the cloud.
The myth persists that the cloud is somehow insecure. In fact, the cloud is more secure because security measures in place at properly secured cloud data centres exceed those found in the vast majority of ordinary business premises.
IT security is a topic of conversation that is likely to be a cause for concern for companies of all sizes. There is a perception that larger businesses have superior security, but this isn’t always true. Just ask telecoms giant TalkTalk who were hacked in 2015 and had significant amounts of data stolen, leading to some customers falling victim to fraud.
This shows that it isn’t necessarily size that determines the vulnerability of a company to an IT security breach. It’s the perceived risk, the culture of the business and the security measures that are in place. Big businesses may be at least as vulnerable as their mid-market and SMB counterparts when they don’t have the right safeguards in place.
Disagreement over the Safe Harbour, which let American companies use a single standard for consumer privacy and data storage in both the US and Europe, appears to have finally ended. Safe Harbour was rejected by the EU following leaks by Edward Snowden which discredited it because US Government security agencies were revealed to have flouted the rules.
Safe Harbour let US companies self-certify they protected data about EU citizens appropriately; however, the US National Security Agency practiced widespread surveillance through accessing data which was supposedly protected by Safe Harbour.
The cloud and managed services space have mushroomed in recent years. Some of the main reasons the cloud has boomed include:
Last year saw no let-up in the anxieties over cyber security. Criminal enterprises seem able to distribute malware via email to steal identities unimpeded by the international cyber law enforcement authorities; hackers continue to crack open customer databases of businesses as diverse as TalkTalk and Ashley Madison. It is a necessity for any business on the internet to be able to effectively defend against today’s agile threat environment.
Following the EU ruling that rendered the Safe Harbour agreement invalid last October 2015, in November Sataya Nadella (the current wearer of Bill Gates’ big Microsoft CEO shoes), announced investment in UK data centres as part of a $2bn European cloud infrastructure development plan.
The Safe Harbour agreement, which lets American companies use a single standard for consumer privacy and data storage in both the US and Europe, has been ruled invalid. The agreement, which would have provided clarity and certainty over complex sovereignty issues of data stored in the cloud, seems to have floundered as a result of the whistleblowing activities of Edward Snowden.