Maria Korolov » Archive
Cyber Security Review
As threats proliferate, here are five areas where companies need to strengthen and update their policies and practices. It’s particularly galling when a company specializing in security issues gets monumentally hacked. That was the case for Stratfor, which suffered a massive data breach just before the holidays that exposed thousands of … Read more »
Manage Those User Privileges
In most companies, too many employees have too many privileges. After all, they are quick to speak up when they need access to data or applications, but they tend not to be as quick to speak up when they no longer need that access. As a result, most companies see privilege creep. Employees are collecting access credentials and hoarding them, just in case they need them later. This can have serious consequences for a company. For example, employees who move to different jobs within the company may retain access rights associated with their previous role. This may allow them to bypass the company’s checks-and-balances system. Or an … Read more »
Fail-Safe for Clouds
Companies with backup systems in place kept their businesses running when a major outage at Amazon shut down websites. The Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) outage that brought down a number of major Websites in mid-April, including social network sites Foursquare, HootSuite and Reddit, underscores the value of backup for cloud … Read more »
When Employees Sneak Into Consumer Clouds
Many companies, both small and large, are wary of doing business with cloud providers because of concerns about outages, data loss, and privacy issues. These are all serious concerns, but addressing them is a straightforward process. For example, many cloud providers undergo security audits (the most famous of these is SAS 70), and many are compliant with SEC, HIPAA, and other regulations. Since cloud applications providers such as Salesforce.com focus on just one thing — providing that one application in a Web-based environment — they can typically focus many more resources on solving associated security problems than their typical customers. Few small and medium-sized firms, however, can … Read more »
Putting IPads to Work
Spurred by enthusiastic senior executives and rank-and-file employees, companies are starting to roll out iPads in the enterprise, especially for board meetings and sales staff. New security features from Apple and additional security and management tools from third-party vendors are boosting that effort, but companies are wary of employees’ using … Read more »
Cloud Containment
As cloud vendors mature, Web-based delivery of applications, storage and infrastructure is getting more secure and trustworthy. That doesn’t mean that the risks are gone–they’ve just migrated to a more difficult-to-manage form. Today, big-name cloud providers like Salesforce.com offer top-notch security, auditability and compliance. Even Google provides a compliant e-mail … Read more »
Four Keys to Locking Down Your iPad
Even though the iPad is designed primarily as a consumer device, salespeople are increasingly adopting it because of its ease of use, convenience, and coolness factor. Mobile security firm Good Technology Inc. reports that the iPad’s share of enterprise deployments went up 64 percent in the last quarter. According to Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL), more than 80 percent of the Fortune 100 have already deployed the iPad in the enterprise or are piloting it. Read full article at Internet Evolution. … Read more »
Watch Your Avatars
Enterprise software helps set rules for virtual worlds Consumer-friendly technologies like Web-based e-mail and instant messaging, Twitter and Facebook have all brought compliance challenges, with companies typically reacting after something has gone wrong. With virtual environments and meetings, however, companies can get ahead of the trend, setting guidelines and preferred platforms … Read more »
How to Keep Corporate Avatars Safe
Immersive virtual environments — the kind where you have an avatar walking around that looks like a cartoon version of you — are increasingly being used by companies for virtual meetings, training, and collaboration. The idea is that a virtual immersive meeting gives you the same sense of presence that you get with a telepresence setup, but without the six-figure price tag — or the airplane tickets and hotel bills of a face-to-face meeting. Read full article at Internet Evolution. … Read more »
Six Steps to Better IT GRC
Securing corporate IT systems is crucial, but there are ways to make that effort more productive and less costly. Companies have spent years beefing up their information technology governance, risk and compliance systems. With cutting costs now top of mind in corporate America, here are six ways to make IT GRC … Read more »