In 2016, the number of ransomware attacks increased 300 percent from 2015, with over 4,000 attacks detected per day, according to US government statistics. Ransomware is among the worst types of infection, as it not only encrypts network data, but in the end may cost victims all their data – even if they pay the ransom. It should be a priority for all businesses and organizations in 2017.
Despite obvious supply chain differences between organizations in different industries, IT architects should consider their generic similarities when integrating various solutions. Quite often, the complexity of the supply chain depends on the entities working together – manufacturers, logistic providers, repackages, retail stores – meaning that security and infrastructures become complex and cumbersome to manage.
When talking about artificial intelligence, people typically envision a Sci-Fi world where robots dominate. But artificial intelligence is already improving everyday technologies such as ecommerce, surveillance systems and many others.
It seems there’s no shortage of enterprises that fall short when it comes to protecting their information and digital assets. Most of the time you will see this blamed on new attack techniques, advanced forms of custom malware, and the rise in recent years of state-sponsored snoops and criminals. Security professionals have it tough, as their adversaries are always improving their tactics, no doubt. And the technologies their organization uses to boost productivity and provide new services are always advancing in areas such as mobility, cloud, data analytics, and soon the Internet of Things.
One of the hottest topics in IT these days is the Internet of Things (IoT). This is partly hype for sure, but IoT is nevertheless something all IT and security executives should be learning about, if not actually focusing on as a corporate strategy.
The definition of corporate “endpoints” is constantly evolving, and securing those endpoints is becoming increasingly complex for enterprises. As the SANS Institute points out in its March 2016 Endpoint Security Survey, endpoints now include non-traditional computing devices or "things," and IT professionals are becoming aware of the fact that those endpoints require different thinking around security.
Cybersecurity has become a major topic of discussion for businesses and organizations of all sizes, as the number of security incidents has spiked, capturing headlines worldwide.
It’s been 38 years since the invention of email and today, it is still the number one communication tool in and out of enterprises. While technology, hardware, infrastructure and the internet itself evolved tremendously in the past almost 4 decades, email is the spoiled child of the family that declines to grow up.
Online extortion is on the rise.
Not only have recent months seen an increase in distributed denial-of-service attacks with demands that companies pay up to have their website returned to normal working order, and even the theft of confidential data with threats that it will be released to the public if financial demands are not met, but there has been a noticeable increase in ransomware attacks too.
This is the second post from a series we thought necessary to dedicate to APTs (Advanced Persistent Threats) and the new wave of security technologies claiming that they replace or complement antimalware solutions to help organizations defeat this new threat.
In the endpoint security world, specifically antimalware (or antivirus, depending on your definition, but more on that in another post) vendors are offering different features and architectures to address performance in virtualized datacenters. A simple question that organizations have is, “When, where, and why do I need this stuff?” Of course, as a vendor, the tempting answer is, “Always, everywhere, and just because”. However, reality is always more nuanced than the average PowerPoint presentation.
The driver behind server virtualization is clearly cost savings, while agility and flexibility also have value. This well-known return on investment is achievable because servers have fairly predictable workloads, tend to be rather static in their workloads (an Exchange server tends to stay an Exchange server).
Also, the number of servers that can be run on each CPU across a datacenter tends to be low because, generally speaking, they need more horsepower than an end-user system.
Virtualized desktops are quite different. The number of desktops per-CPU across a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is much higher than with servers. The environments tend to be highly dynamic, with instance being instantiated and destroyed at a high rate.
Naturally, trying to lead with cost savings as a primary goal of a VDI deployment is problematic. Instead, agility and flexibility are key.
