Category Archives: Cloud Storage
What is Zoom and how does it work? Plus tips and tricks – Pocket-lint
If you work from home, you've probably heard about Zoom, one of the leading video conferencing software apps on the market.
It allows you to virtually interact with co-workers or employers when in-person meetings aren't possible. This makes telecommuting seem much more human, as it helps you feel connected. With the COVID-19 coronavirus wreaking havoc across the world, for instance, Zoom has become an essential tool for small-, medium-, and large-sized teams that want to keep in touch and continue their daily workflows with minimal disruption.
Zoom is a cloud-based video conferencing service you can use to virtually meet with others - either by video or audio-only or both, all while conducting live chats - and it lets you record those sessions to view later. Over half of Fortune 500 companies reportedly used Zoom in 2019.
When people are talking about Zoom, you'll usually hear the following phrases: Zoom Meeting and Zoom Room. A Zoom Meeting refers to a video conferencing meeting that's hosted using Zoom. You can join these meetings via a webcam or phone. Meanwhile, a Zoom Room is the physical hardware setup that lets companies schedule and launch Zoom Meetings from their conference rooms.
Zoom Rooms require an additional subscription on top of a Zoom subscription and are an ideal solution for larger companies.
Here are Zoom's core features:
Zoom allows one-to-one chat sessions that can grow into group calls, training sessions and webinars for internal and external audiences, and global video meetings with up to 1,000 participants and as many as 49 on-screen videos. The free tier allows unlimited one-on-one meetings but limits group sessions to 40 minutes and 100 participants. Paid plans start at $15 per month per host.
Zoom offers four pricing tiers (not including a Zoom Room subscription):
The desktop app is available for Windows and macOS, while the mobile app is available for Android and iOS.
All the apps let you join a meeting without signing in, but also let you sign in using a Zoom account, Google, Facebook, or SSO. From there, you can start a meeting, join a meeting, share your screen in a Zoom Room by entering the meeting ID, start Zoom Meetings, mute/unmute your mic, start/stop the video, invite others to the meeting, change your screen name, do in-meeting chat, and start a cloud recording.
If you're a desktop user, you can also start a local recording, create polls, broadcast your Facebook live on Facebook, and more. In other words, the desktop app is more fully featured, although, if you're a free user, you can still get a lot of mileage from the mobile app.
You can download the Zoom app on your computer or phone and join any meeting with a supplied meeting ID. You can choose to disable audio or video before joining, too. You could even create your free Zoom account, like by linking your Google account, and from there you can create a new meeting, schedule one, join a meeting, share a screen, add contacts, and so on.
Just keep in mind you can only be signed in to Zoom on one computer, one tablet, and one phone at a time. If you sign in to an additional device while logged into another device of the same type, Zoom said you will be logged out automatically on the first device.
You can sign up and download Zoom onto your computer using your work email if your system administrator has a Pro, Business, or Enterprise account. You'll then want to sync Zoom to your calendar so you can schedule Zoom meetings and invite remote participants to join.
If you're setting up a Zoom Room, you'll need a computer to sync and run Zoom Meetings and a tablet for attendees to launch the Zoom Meetings. You'll also need a mic, camera, and speaker, at least one HDTV monitors to display remote meeting participants, and an HDMI cable to share computer screens on a display, as well as an internet cable for your connection
You'll also need to download "Zoom Rooms for Conference Room" on the in-room computer and "Zoom Room Controller" for the tablet in the meeting room. You can then sync those rooms to your company's shared calendar so employees can see which meeting rooms are available.
Zoom lets you create recurring meetings. You can set the call settings you want once and have them be in there every time you plan to meet, and you can join calls using the same URL each time. In the Zoom mobile app, just log in, click schedule, tap the Repeat option, and select a recurrence. For more info on scheduling meetings in general and all of the meeting settings, see Zoom's FAQ on scheduling meetings.
Zoom lets you record calls as videos. You must choose whether to use the local or cloud option.
Local means you store the video file yourself on your computer or in another storage area. With Cloud, which is for paid subscribers only, Zoom stores the video for you in its cloud storage. But, to record videos, you need Zoom on macOS, Windows, or Linux. When you record a meeting and choose Record to the Cloud, the video, audio, and chat text is recorded in the Zoom cloud.
If you don't see the option to record, check your settings in the web app (under My Meeting Settings) or have your account admin enable it. The recording files can be downloaded to a computer or streamed from a browser. To manage your recorded meetings or share a recording with others, log in to your account and navigate to the My Recordings page.
You can upload an image of anything you want to customise your background. Its available for both iPhone and desktops
On a Mac or PC, for instance, just open up your Zoom client, click on the Setup icon on the corner, and select Virtual Background in the side menu. Zoom provides a few backgrounds. Click on the one youd like to use. If you would like your own background, click on the plus sign above and to the left of the sample backgrounds, choose an image from your computer, and add it.
You can also add a virtual background during a meeting. In your Zoom client, click on the arrow next to the video symbol on the left, select Choose a virtual background..., and you will see the same Virtual Background page.
Use a filter to subtly smooth fine lines. It's meant to lookvery natural. Go to Settings, and under the Video tab, check the box next to Touch up.
You can automatically transcribe the audio of a meeting that you record to the cloud. And, as the meeting host, you can edit your transcript, scan the transcript text for keywords to access the video at that moment, and share the recording.
To enable the Audio Transcript feature for your own use, sign into the Zoom web portal and navigate to My Meeting Settings, then go to the Cloud recording option on the Recording tab, and verify that the setting is enabled. Choose Turn On, if need be. If the option is greyed out, it has been locked at either the Group or Account level, and you will need to contact your Zoom admin.
With gallery view, you see up to 49 meeting participants at once, rather than the default 25, depending on your device.
With the Zoom mobile app on Android and iOS, you can start or join a meeting. By default, the Zoom mobile app displays the active speaker view. If one or more participants join the meeting, you will see a video thumbnail in the bottom-right corner. You can view up to four participants' video at the same time.
If you want to view 49 people, you will need the Zoom desktop client for macOS or Windows. Once you have the desktop app installed on your computer, you must go to Settings and click Video to display the video settings page. Then, enable the option "Display up to 49 participants per screen in Gallery View".
Did you know that you can not only share your screen (smartphone and desktop) but also pause your screen sharing? Simply press Pause Share when you dont want your meeting participants to watch you mess around your presentation slides. Learn more here.
You can share files directly from your phone while in the meeting and use the whiteboarding feature on your phone by writing comments with your finger. To annotate while viewing someone else's shared screen, select View Options from the top of the Zoom window, and then choose Annotate. A toolbar will appear with all your options for annotating - such as text, draw, arrow, and so on.
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What is Zoom and how does it work? Plus tips and tricks - Pocket-lint
Working from Home during COVID-19 – Things to Consider – tripwire.com
Working from Home during COVID-19 - Things to Consider
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First and foremost, our hearts go out to those around the world impacted by the COVID-19 virus. The director of the U.S. Center for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), who advises the country on public health, has indicated that the risk to the generalpublic remains low and encourages Americans to go about their lives. Businesses and local communities are taking a much more personal approach. Many business, schools, and other organizations are advising their employees to work from home and students to stay home or use online learning.
We are seeing an unprecedented number of remote users on home and public internet services accessing their employer and school resources. This opens up these organizations to more risk from all of the remote users. IT departments are monitoring network bandwidth, VPNs, and access controls to make sure employees can still do their jobs. It is putting a strain on the organization infrastructure and the various internet providers.
Security departments need to be on high alert. With the larger remote workforce, there is a much greater risk that someone will get breached or pwned. If security controls and updates only work when connected to the internal network or via VPN, then encourage employees to leave laptops connected overnight and change update and scan schedules to reflect the new hours. Enable captive portals to validate the security and policy compliance of a system before it is granted access to the network. And wash your hands!
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Working from Home during COVID-19 - Things to Consider - tripwire.com
Our Favorite Apps That Work Without Internet Connection – Dignited
How useful is your smartphone when you run out of data or have no internet access? Not very useful, right? These things are unavoidable sometimes; you might experience difficulties accessing the internet on a plane, or in areas with a poor internet connection.
While youre off the grid, here are some of our favorite apps you can trust to still get the job done.
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Google Drive is one of the biggest, if not the biggest cloud storage platforms around. It lets you save a file(s) offline, so you can work on them even without internet access.
To do this, click on the 3-dot icon at the top-right of the document you want to access offline, then select Make available offline. Do this for every file you want to access offline.
Related Article: How to use Google Drive offline
If you make use of an Android phone, you definitely have the Google Maps app on your smartphone, and youve most likely been using it to find hotels, restaurants, offices, or even find your way out of an unfamiliar location.
So, if you need directions to a particular location, and youre not sure of the quality of the internet when you get close to the area, you can simply download the map before leaving home.
To download the offline Google Maps, launch the app on your smartphone, type in the location and search. Tap the More info card that comes up and then select Download. Select the area you want to view offline and hit Download again.
Arguably the most visited music streaming platform, Spotify lets you save your favorite songs, albums, playlists, and podcasts for offline listening. Although it is only available to premium subscribers, Spotify lets you save up to 10,000 songs in your library.
To download, go to the playlist, album, or podcast you want to download, and tapto Download (On Android, toggle on the Download button to download an album or playlist).
Once youve downloaded the songs you want to listen to offline, the next thing to do is to enable Offline mode. From Settings on the app, tap Playback and switch on Offline.
Netflix is one of the most popular movies streaming platforms we have around, and it allows users to download select TV shows and movies because not every content on the app is available for download via its app (Android and IOS).
Before attempting to download, make sure your smartphone is running iOS12 or later, or Android 4.4.2 or later. Also, ensure that the Netflix app installed on your device is up-to-date.
To download on Netflix for offline viewing, see: Netflix now allows downloading of videos for offline viewing: Heres how to do it
YouTube is a perfect option to keep yourself entertained on planes, trains, and trips to places with unreliable internet access, as it lets you download content for offline viewing.
To do this, openYouTubefrom your smartphone, tap on the videoyou want to download for offline viewing and select Download, and the content would be downloaded to the Library section of the app.
You should also know that Google only made this feature available to users in developing countries in Africa, Asia, the Caribbeans, and the middle-east. In countries outside these regions, you have to be a premium member to enjoy this feature.
There you have it; our favorite apps that work even without an internet connection. Do you have other favorites apps that work without the internet? Or any app you wished had offline mode? Share with us in the comment section.
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Our Favorite Apps That Work Without Internet Connection - Dignited
Whats a reliable way to store photos for the long term? – Seattle Times
Q:Can you explore the best way to store digital photos for the long term? I am currently downloading from our iPhone XR by connecting them to a 2017 HP laptop with a Seagate 2 TD SSD.
Also, can you recommend photo management software that can remove duplicate photos? I do most of my editing on my iPad and also backup to Google Photos.
Don Pappe
A:There are no surefire means of storing anything digital for the long term, but it sounds like youre on a right track. First, I like solid-state drives for longer-term storage simply because they have no moving parts and are accordingly less susceptible to failure. Still, SSDs can fail so if you really want to play it safe youll want to make more than one backup.
And dont make the mistake of keeping your drive in the same place as your computer. If theres a fire or a flood you could lose both. In short, for things you really dont want to lose, keep two backups in different locations.
My strategy is the same as yours: to back up both to an SSD drive and to cloud storage. The SSD drive is faster for uploading and downloading and the cloud storage is safe from any physical catastrophes that may strike my home or office.
As for your second question, I havent tried programs that remove duplicate photos but I do know that there are quite a few on the market and some of them are free or at least free to try. You can find an extensive list here: st.news/marshall0314 .
Q:About twice a year I need a phone number of someone. I dont need a monthly subscription to a service. Every time I search for a White Page service for a one-time look up, I get a service that will allow you to look up one number but you have to sign up for a $15-a-month service, which you can cancel if you call a certain number. We all know how that goes. You call a number which never answers or gives you a runaround. I refuse to get bogged down in that spiral.
Is there a legitimate site where you can look up one number for a price and not have to sign up for a subscription that you dont need.?
Richard Hawes
A:I wish there was a good answer to your question! I have not been able to find a free service for locating phone numbers. And I havent been able to find a simple way to pay for a single search. The closest Ive come is some services that offer to do your first search for one dollar and then you pay a monthly subscription that you can cancel at any time. Yes, I do know how that goes
So Ill pitch this one out to the readership: Anyone know of a better way to find phone numbers?
Q:I have Oracle Virtual Box running on an old Compaq laptop with Windows 7. On Virtual Box I have virtual machines running Debian and Ubuntu. If I connect to the internet using the Linux virtual machines, is there any way for malware to propagate from the VM environment to the Windows 7 environment? I am wondering if this configuration isolates my laptop from internet malware designed to attack Windows 7 vulnerabilities.
Brian, Sammamish
A:Computer security is all about degrees of safety. Is it possible to a hacker to gain access to your laptop running Windows 7 if youre connected to the internet via a Linux virtual machine? Yes. Is it likely? No, it is relatively unlikely.
There are viruses and malware out there that can affect Linux, so as soon as you connect to the internet you are potentially exposed. As a result, there are antivirus and antimalware programs for Linux that you can install to provide additional security.
At the same time, its no surprise that there is a lot more malware out there designed to attack vulnerabilities in the more popular Windows operating systems. So yes, any layers you can put between Windows 7 and the internet will provide extra protection. Thats especially important since Microsoft is no longer updating Windows 7 with security patches.
Again, 100 percent security is not possible. So the question is how much do you want to spend in time and money to attain a given level of security?
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Whats a reliable way to store photos for the long term? - Seattle Times
Google Cloud ushers in the rise of the machine… images. You know, to capture and recreate VM snapshots? – The Register
Google Cloud Platform already has the ability to store custom images, which you can configure with pre-installed applications. A custom image is just a disk image, though, whereas its new Machine Images - a feature now in beta - also include all the configuration metadata including permissions.
Machine images can also include multiple disks.
There are two reasons for the introduction of machine images. One is for backup. Machine images support differential disk backup so you can keep a snapshot of a VM instance with efficient use of disk space and better performance.
The second purpose is for uses as a master image for creating new VMs. You can override specific properties of the image in order to customise each new instance.
If you want to create a golden image, the idea is that you first shut down your source VM. If you are using the service for backup, you can keep the VM running. Google said: "Compute Engine guarantees that the data across disks is captured in a crash-consistent manner at a given time. Compute Engine uses globally consistent timestamps to ensure this guarantee."
This guarantee, Google noted, is not applied at the application level since applications are not aware that a backup is being taken and might be in an inconsistent state.
A limitation is that the machine image does not capture the content of local SSDs. This makes sense, in that local SSDs are only intended for temporary storage. "The data that you store on a local SSD persists only until the instance is stopped or deleted," according to the docs.
Local SSDs are a useful feature on GCP VMs 375GB of fast, encrypted storage but need careful use since there are a number of scenarios in which data will be lost. Data on a local SSD will normally survive a reboot, but in the event of a host error, for example, there is a "best effort" to recover the data, and only within the first 60 minutes.
Users have to take advantage of local SSDs in such as way that losing the data on them does not matter.
Google Cloud machine images backup metadata as well as disk
Managing machine instances can be done from the cloud console, from the gcloud command line, or using the Compute Engine API. The price is $0.05 per GB/month, so $10 per month for a VM with 200GB storage plus a bit more to allow for snapshots, plus network charges if you store the image in a different region.
When it comes to restoring the machine image, the documentation says that "a machine image is unchangeable." This implies that despite the differential backup technology, you cannot go back in time to an earlier snapshot. This makes it less useful than persistent disk snapshots, since restoring to an earlier version is useful to cover events like data corruption. It is a beta service, so perhaps this aspect will be improved.
Sponsored: Webcast: Why you need managed detection and response
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Google Cloud ushers in the rise of the machine... images. You know, to capture and recreate VM snapshots? - The Register
Here’s the biggest free cloud storage right now, 200GB exclusive to TechRadar readers – TechRadar India
Cloud storage company Degoo may not be a household name, but it has managed to carve out a niche in the competitive cloud storage market, with its offerings attracting more than 15 million users over the past eight years.
The Swedish company has teamed up with TechRadar to deliver an even better package than usual - get 200GB free cloud storage for a year with no strings attached.
After 12 months, this will revert back to the regular 100GB package, which is still plenty for most.
You can also get a staggering 10TB for two years at just $99.99 (about 77 / AU$152) exclusive to TechRadar. Thats 58% off the standard price of $9.99 per month (that's around 8 / AU$15) - blowing the cloud storage competition out of the water.
Unlike some rival services, there are no file size limits and you dont need another Degoo account to receive files.
Uploaded files are encrypted in chunks (zero knowledge encryption) and spread out to data centres on four continents to eliminate the risk of account compromise.
Carl Hasselkog, CEO of Degoo, told TechRadar its infrastructure is five times more efficient than Dropbox per stored byte.
It's worth noting the free version has basic storage replication and no zero knowledge encryption, plus a 90-day account inactivity limit. It also carries adverts in the feed on Android.
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Here's the biggest free cloud storage right now, 200GB exclusive to TechRadar readers - TechRadar India
Top 5 cloud-based storage apps that you can use – Hindustan Times
Cloud storage enables the storing of data in a remote location which can be accessed from any device. What makes cloud storage special is the security and the ability to store large amounts of data without needing to invest in any other memory devices.
Cloud storage has made sharing and collaboration between users easier and many businesses prefer using cloud storage to a local device.
Here are the top cloud-based storage apps that you can use:
Dropbox: This app is available both on Android and on iOS. Users can use it to store documents, videos and other files. The best thing about this app is that users can access it even when there is no internet connectivity.
Google Drive: Users can store up to 15GB of data in Google Drive without spending a dime. It is integrated with the companys other apps such as Docs, Sheets and Slides, which makes it easier for users to view and edit documents on the go. Apart from documents and spreadsheets, users can also store photos and videos in Google Drive.
Mega: This cloud solution can house up to 50GB of data. It comes with a drag and drop interface, which makes it easy for users to upload files, pictures and videos.
IDrive: This app is accessible through mobile, desktop, and web-based platform. It is available on both Android and iOS-based smartphones. IDrive also allows users to save a backup of their Instagram and Facebook data. It comes with 5GB of free storage. Users can use an additional 1TB of storage at a price.
Microsoft OneDrive: This one comes with Windows 10 does. It is similar to Google Drive. It has an automatic tagging feature that lets users sort photos easily. It also notifies users as soon as a document is edited or shared by others. Additionally, users can access data stored even when they are offline.
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Top 5 cloud-based storage apps that you can use - Hindustan Times
Virgin Media breach: unprotected database was stored in the cloud, telco confirms – NS Tech
Virgin Media revealed last night (5 March) that the misconfiguration of a marketing database had led to around 900,000 customers contact details being breached.
Now, a spokesperson for the telecoms giant has confirmed to NS Tech that, as many security pros suspected, the data had been stored in a cloud-based server.
The incident makes the firm just the latest in a long line of businesses to have leaked customers contact details after failing to properly protect a cloud database.
The data, which was left in the unprotected database for ten months, included the names, home and email addresses and phone numbers of customers and potential customers. It was accessed by an unauthorised individual at least once over that period, according to the company, which said the extent of the access was unknown.
Security experts have warned that while the data does not include financial information, if it is sold on to scammers, it could be used in phishing attacks. Coupled up with Virgins broadband outage in the week, this could be a particularly good target for malicious actors to prey on, said Jake Moore, a security specialist at ESET.
A number of similar breaches have involved misconfigured Amazon Web Services S3 buckets in recent months and the company has said that, if it could, it would go back in time and redesign its security setup. Virgin refused to disclose the name of its cloud provider, citing security concerns.
Marco Essomba, founder of iCyber-Security, said he suspected the misconfiguration was related to inadequate access control or authentication permission. Its amazing how many of these flaws you can find if you dig on the internet using automated tools, he told NS Tech. This owes to the perception that cloud infrastructures are secure by default, which is simply not true. Access control for cloud storage systems are often left on default settings and completely forgotten once deployed in production.
Virgin Media said it had informed the Information Commissioners Office. Ryan Dunleavy, head of media disputes at the law firm Stewarts, said fines can be eye-wateringly high under the GDPR, even for an incident which doesnt involve passwords or financial details of consumers.
He added: Virgin could be facing a fine of multiples of millions of pounds. This is an opportunity for the ICO to put down another benchmark in terms of the value of fine for a breach of this nature in the UK.
Virgin Medias chief executive, Lutz Schler, said: We immediately solved the issue by shutting down access to this database, which contained some contact details of approximately 900,000 people, including fixed line customers representing approximately 15% of that customer base. Protecting our customers data is a top priority and we sincerely apologise.
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Virgin Media breach: unprotected database was stored in the cloud, telco confirms - NS Tech
The ideal cloud security solution – Education Technology
While colleges and universities seem to be embracing cloud solutions especially when it comes to reducing data storage costs schools seem more reluctant. By 2019, over two thirds of universities had moved to cloud-based email systems, with 50% also adopting cloud collaboration systems. But what makes for the ideal cloud security solution in education, and why is it so important?
If theres one major difference between the education sector and its counterparts, its the particular need for a good deal. The ideal cloud security solution would inevitably be one of great value. Veniamin Simonov, director of product management at data protection at site recovery software company NAKIVO, says, Education providers tend to have a limited IT budget, yet they have vast amounts of data to protect and its a challenge to find and implement a suitable solution. Universities and schools are cost sensitive and they are looking for products that can help them back up their data without breaking the bank. Nevertheless, he points out that many providers have specific academic pricing to ease the accounts of their education customers. Whats more, cloud-based systems are often cheaper than on-site systems overall.
Jose Kingsley agrees that budget is a factor. He is head of the charity LGfLs SuperCloud. The charity invests in services which support the acceleration of cloud technology and provide the necessary resilience and high bandwidth schools need to embrace it. This ultimately saves them money by moving services into a secure, shared location. But Kingsley sees that a lack of working knowledge about current IT practices may also be to blame for a certain reticence: Educators are forever on a quest to find smarter ways to tackle their workload, meet the demands of curriculum objectives and find the right work-life balance. On top of all this, they are presented with the phrase cloud technology and asked its purpose, along with how sustainable it is to integrate into their daily practice. For many teachers, there is an immediate reaction of fear, along with the question Do we have the budget for that?
While small budgets are one issue, size can also be a challenge when it comes to the staff and student body. Mick Bradley is vice president at Arcserve, a company that provides data protection, replication and recovery solutions. He says, Education providers frequently have a large number of access points, with tens of thousands of different students and teachers accessing applications and systems from various geographical locations, with many institutions still holding a great deal of legacy software and hardware. This puts them at increased risk of ransomware attacks, as there are a higher number of points where criminals can potentially infiltrate the system. Its hard to ensure that an entire user base of that scale can stay clear of phishing emails and to entirely avoid the threat of human error that can open the door to ransomware.
Universities, schools and colleges therefore need watertight ransomware protection to ensure there is no risk to critical data. Thats where the cloud comes in. Bradley says, Multi-cloud options and hybrid cloud options are extremely beneficial here, as these types of infrastructure provide adequate protection even if any one of your physical sites is compromised, as there is an offsite backup stored safely in the cloud. Using some on-premise storage ensures that your data is also protected in case your public cloud providers data centre experiences an outage as a result of a natural disaster or an unforeseen event.
Richard Harley, CEO of ScholarPack, a cloud-based management information system designed specifically for schools, agrees: Cloud-based systems are more secure as access can only be granted over an encrypted browser connection. Its your cloud suppliers job to keep data safe and secure. We heard of a school who lost all of their MIS data when their server room was flooded and backups failed. With a cloud-based MIS, recovering from a natural disaster would be as simple as logging in from another device.
Whats more, updates and fixes are constantly being rolled out across cloud systems, eliminating the need to be manually applied to each organisation, and the systems themselves are always up to date. Harley comments that with cloud, Integrations with other software are also easier to set up and dont require any further software installed on the server. Being cloud-based means you dont have to pay for costly repairs, maintenance and upgrades to the server or physical hardware. The economies of scale that come with cloud hosting mean up-front costs are usually smaller too because theres no installation required.
For universities in particular, the ability to manage large volumes of data securely starts with having a stable network connection to support its safe transfer. This is a very real concern for researchers, although they may not necessarily be the ones with the buying power. By way of example, a team at the University of Bristol is working on a new class of synthetic vaccinations for highly contagious diseases. To do this, they need to produce sophisticated 3D images of the target particles, only possible through fast, high-volume cloud computing. Dr. Matt Williams, research software engineer at the University of Bristol, explained to the technology charity Jisc that, You need lots and lots of images because each image is quite fuzzy and noisy but by using very advanced reconstruction software packages to align, classify and then reconstruct, we were able to get a full 3D model of the particle at a far higher resolution than was ever available previously. They use cluster in the cloud technology to recreate the images. As Williams explains, It allows anyone with access to cloud resources to create a very familiar software environment but fully based in the cloud, making the best use of cloud facilities and cloud technologies. If we hadnt had access to the high-speed Janet Network, I think the real constraint it would put on us is that we would have to use smaller amounts of data in our analysis, which would have resulted in a lower resolution. We wouldnt be able to do our jobs.
So, for education providers looking for the optimum security solution, are there any tips on how to get it right? Bradley says that education providers must be realistic about the staff time needed to run security systems: Education providers IT teams are often less well-staffed and under-resourced in comparison to larger corporate organisations, without the benefit of having specialist staff handling roles in cybersecurity or storage. Due to limited resources, providers will be seeking all-in-one solutions which provide cloud security. Meanwhile, Kingsley recommends planning. He says, From experience, starting with a clear end point allows schools to carefully plan those small, tangible steps on their journey to successfully utilise cloud technology and make teaching and learning more simple, effective and impactful. For successful cloud adoption, there must be a clear transformational plan in place where all stakeholders are invited to be part of the process. He also says that whole organisation buy-in is needed for a new cloud system to work: Only when there is engagement on all levels can the ambition to aim high and drive adoption forward be achieved.
You might also like: The rise of personalised learning
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The ideal cloud security solution - Education Technology
6 Cybersecurity Trends Worth Looking at in 2020: Blockchain Is on the List – The Daily Hodl
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If 2019 has taught us anything about cybersecurity, it is that cyber-attacks are the reality of our times, hardware is still vulnerable and high-profile data leaks are becoming frighteningly more common.
The cybersecurity market is booming as recent data from MarketsandMarkets reveals that investments in cybersecurity can reach $250 billion by 2023 with spending already rising higher in 2019 than in any other industry sector.
The forces driving growth are increasingly strict measures and requirements on data protection imposed by the European Union and the growing threat of cyberterrorism. Cybercrime is forecasted to inflict damages of up to $6 trillion yearly by 2021, bellowing demand for security solutions both on the individual and corporate levels.
Growing threats mean growing demand
2019 has seen a number of IPOs in the cybersecurity industry as CrowdStrike, a California-based cybersecurity company, announced that was going public with an IPO, raised $700 million, and is valued at $6.8 billion.
The American Cloudflare web-infrastructure and website-security company, providing content-delivery-network services, also went through an IPO and added a whopping 20% to its market price on the first day. And KnowBe4 announced that it received a staggering $300 million investment from private equity firm KKR. A number of other cybersecurity companies like Palo Alto Networks, Proofpoint, and Zscaler also enjoyed bullish rounds in stocks making the cybersecurity market attractive for investors.
Its evident that the B2B security industry is experiencing a renaissance. While the market is stronger than ever, there is a massive market cap shift from legacy security vendors like Splunk, McAfee, Symantec, and Check Pointto the new breed of leaders, as stated by Jeb Miller, general partner at Icon Ventures.
Given that 90% of all data available online was generated over the last few years and the fact that cloud, mobile, API and other services are being increasingly integrated into the frameworks of corporations, the enticement of cybercriminals to tap into the wealth of information is simply irresistible. According to Juniper Research, overcall cybercrime costs have reached $2 trillion at the end of 2019 making companies increase their spendings on cybersecurity.
The growing demand for confidentiality caused by data leaks, as well as the needs of companies and organizations to comply with the new European General Data Protection Rules (GDPR), are attracting entrepreneurs and investors to next-generation solutions, including blockchain, artificial intelligence-based data management solutions, and advanced cryptography.
Cybersecurity as a Service
Cybersecurity as a service is part of the global trend towards the transition to the sharing economy model. In 2020, companies are not willing to overpay for tools, so they will be switching to using the required services for the period of time needed. The IT startups that started offering the given model have already become unicorns. Among such firms are McAfee Inc. and NortonLifeLock. Other alternative endpoint security providers include Carbon Black, Cylance, Palo Alto Networks, FireEye, and others.
New and promising providers are also emerging with viable solutions, such as Cloudstrike with its Falcon the first Software-as-a-Service multi-tenant, cloud-native, intelligent security platform. A competitor Infoblox is offering security coupled with simplicity and automation via SD-WAN, hybrid cloud and IoT, reducing manual tasks by 70% and increasing productivity by 300%. Their BloxOne Threat Defense allows for traffic monitoring, proactive threat identification, network breach protection and automation. With 52% of the DDI market in their grasp, InfoBlox is the industry leader gripping 59% of Fortune 1000 companies and 58% of the Forbes 2000.
Blockchain
Routing all business and personal data through a centralized server with one main point of contact poses an overwhelming number of threats for information security. In 2019, $2 trillion was the cost of cyber-crime for businesses.
A new promising category to solve this problem is blockchain technology that makes data near impossible to change, with decentralized end-to-end encryption data services replacing traditional encryption tools. In 2020, we can see the projects that managed to offer decentralized data storage.
A new way to store data privately in a decentralized way was found by Jeff Pulver, the US VoIP entrepreneur behind $3 billion Vonage, an early Twitter investor. In 2018, he co-founded a new company to develop a blockchain-enabled communication network offering clients new authentication layers and decentralized solutions.
The solution, called Debrief, is said to be the most secure end-to-end business communication network that no longer exposes user confidential information unlike existing services like Facebook, Skype, and Zoom. As claimed by Pulver, with data encryption used in the network, information cannot be edited or tampered with in any type of way once it is placed onto the network. Each recipient on that network receives the same piece of information as it is inputted in real-time. In order for a hacker to tamper or edit the information on one recipients computer, the other computers on the network would have to accept this as edited information, which they would immediately reject.
The data leaks that we witnessed in 2018-2019 had their causes and we believe that the best way of making high-security communications services universally available is through the use of blockchain technologies. By refraining from centralized control, we will be removing the weak link from the equation the third parties, Pulver explained.
Debrief consists of a decentralized storage system and secure blockchain authentication, making it impenetrable for hackers. The Debrief DApp, operating on the network to showcase its extensive functional capabilities, provides clients HD Video Conferencing, P2P audio and video calling, messaging, decentralized file storage, ensuring the confidentiality of all data. Its also a middleware for other mainstream blockchains and traditional communication applications to utilize and enable blockchain communication features.
Demand for blockchain solutions capable of tracking vulnerabilities and suspicious transactions will continue to grow. Solutions like CipherTrace and Chainalysis, which managed to enter the market first, are now being used not only by large organizations, but also by government organizations, even the Interpol.
Employee training
The need for proper staff training will rise as cybercriminals become more devious. The new breed of employees will need to understand social engineering, phishing schemes, malware, ransomware and much else. Proper investments in people-oriented security systems will reduce losses.
AI and ML
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are set to take the lead in security in 2020 as Richard Cassidy, senior director security strategy at Exabeam predicts,
2020 should herald a truly golden age of deep learning, which will see a resurgence of artificial intelligence embedded into the fabric of our security frameworks. Expect to see some exciting machine learning developments in the seemingly ad infinitum war on cyberthreats and bad actor group attack circuits.
Cassidys words are backed by numbers. A Capgemini study shows that 69% of senior executives believe that AI and ML are inseparable from cybersecurity. An example is Kounts Omniscore, which employs AI and ML to provide fraud analysts with necessary data for improving customer experiences and reducing fraud.
In 2020, the amount of ransomware attacks will increase, as it is easier for the attackers to find a security breach using new AI and machine learning technologies, since temporary data blocking is a quick way to make a buck. By 2022 , 50% of servers will encrypt all data, over 50% of security alerts will be handled by automatic AI-based mechanisms, and 150 million people will receive blockchain-based digital identifiers. New technologies, such as encryption, blockchain, machine learning and analytics will be used to improve security measures, as state-sponsored hackers and cybersecurity firms are both using artificial intelligence to get an edge.
SECURITI.ai is one company to watch out for as it enables enterprises to issue data rights and complies with global privacy regulations to improve the brands image. Another company is Tel Aviv-based Deep Instinct, which uses AI and deep learning to safeguard enterprise endpoints, both mobile and stationary. Deep Instinct is revolutionary in that it offers real-time cyberthreat identification and blocking.
Cloud
Cloud storage is on the rise as businesses shift their operations to cloud computing provided by the likes of Amazon Web Services. The company will be competing with mainstays like Fortinet, Palo Alto Networks and others as software-defined wide area networks (SD-WAN) technologies start taking over the cloud storage security frontier. But the giants have more competition coming up, as Netskope and Menlo Security are among the cloud security startups going public in 2020 that investors will be looking out for.
ID management
Identity management is another key area in the cybersecurity domain. Email and data-loss protection are being offered by a number of companies like Proofpoint, Okta, Qualys, Mimecast, Rapid7. Hackers know that targeting key employee or management emails is the easiest way of gaining access to corporate data management and storage systems.
Cyberark offers privileged accounts, Okta provides advanced identity management, while other companies are focusing on Zero Trust approaches. Cisco Systems, which recently acquired Duo Security for $2.35 billion, is fully vesting in the Zero Trust sector as it conducts full identity checks of all users and device health analysis before granting device access.
Gartner Research states that approximately 75% of all large companies will be employing selective access management systems by 2021, which is a 25% increase from their previous 2018 report. Forrester Research indicates that 80% of all security breaches are caused by compromised credentials. Among the most prominent victims of such attacks were Quest Diagnostics, Marriott International, Equifax, Yahoo Anthem, Target and others.
Tightening the rivets
Unlike generalized world-scale problems, digital threats pose a greater risk to the cornerstone of the global economy data. As criminals are becoming ever more devious and sophisticated in their approaches to milking money from individuals and enterprises, the challenge is up to cybersecurity firms to step up and take on the mantle of viable solution providers.
2020 is set to become a make-or-break year in the cybersecurity industry as new approaches to handling threats are coming to the forefront. Whether it be AI, ML, blockchain, Zero Trust or any other technology, the aim is the same safeguarding data and reducing economic damages that are so far showing signs of abating.
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6 Cybersecurity Trends Worth Looking at in 2020: Blockchain Is on the List - The Daily Hodl