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Digital transformation: The long-term revenue opportunity

 960 640 Stuart O'Brien
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At the start of the pandemic many people would have been mistaken for thinking that work-from-home and stay at home orders were going to be short-lived. After the Prime Minister introduced these initial instructions to the nation, many IT teams rushed like mad to maintain business continuity and productivity for their organisations. Since then, society’s behaviour has changed; and so has the way in which people work, seeing the rise of remote working. 

During that time cloud application usage skyrocketed too. Digital transformation initiatives sped up almost overnight. And, while the initial scramble focused on business continuity and technology upgrades; across the board, the cloud evolution has not ceased and neither will digital transformation. Especially since the UK is encouraging investments in connectivity and digitising Britain. Rob Hancock, Head of Platform, Giacom reflects on the last year and provides the channel with an outlook on where the opportunity to generate revenue lies through the rest of 2021.

Changing the shape of organisations 

Initially, during the pandemic, homeworking was considered temporary. But, through 2020 many organisations came to accept the longevity of the situation and changed their working policies. Today, we see more firms opt for continued remote working and / or hybrid working policies, offering a blend of office-based and remote working options to employees.

But, where does the opportunity to sell ‘remote working’ truly lie for the channel in this scenario? Research shows that in 2020 there were 6.0 million SMEs in the UK; which was over 99% of all businesses. Clearly, there is vast revenue potential available here.

Another driver of organisational change across enterprise and SMB markets is cloud adoption. Research points out that 88 per cent of organisations expect the adoption of cloud services to increase in the next 12 months. This underpins the importance of cloud within wider future technology strategies; which will, no doubt, improve organisational operations too.

Business-grade and secure

Through the pandemic we’ve seen many people work from their kitchen tables, for instance. Often employees have used their personal broadband and, in some cases, own mobile devices and laptops. While this workforce’s diligence is worth applauding, the use of their own personal technology is often not business grade or secure. At first, these temporary solutions may have been sufficient; but they are not sustainable long-term.

This is where the ongoing opportunity lies for the channel. As organisations make committed strides towards remote or hybrid-working, they will require the right blend of technology and equipment to enable employees to be productive. This means, kitting out employees with fast, efficient, robust and secure internet and voice connectivity that is suitable for their jobs. Moreover, they need to offer staff access to feature-rich communication applications, like Microsoft Teams, for unified communications and collaboration (UC&C), so that productivity can be maintained.

At a practical and physical level, organisations need to supply employees with reliable equipment to do their jobs. We’ve talked about business grade laptops and phones. But what about support with setting up ergonomic home working stations for staff, as they provide people with voice, data and cloud applications to enable them to work.

Collaboration and brainstorming applications

Before the pandemic, Microsoft Teams wasn’t used effectively by many firms. However, since last March, Microsoft Teams usage for video calls increased by 1000%. And, it is also reasonable to say that many firms have become adept at driving productivity with UC&C technology; and that they derive substantial return on investment from these applications.

The need for UC&C is not going to go away anytime soon. Meaning the revenue opportunity will remain available for a long time yet – especially in the SMB market. What will change over time is the need for richer features that enable people to do aspects of their job better, since they no longer meet as often in person. This might, for example, mean employees seek out features from technologies that enable them to brainstorm more effectively, such as digital whiteboarding – or, more accurate meeting transcription services. Therefore, CSPs and MSPs will need to work more closely to match client needs against partner technologies.

The data security opportunity

And, while remote and hybrid-working will likely remain standard for many organisations in the future, it does raise security concerns for IT teams. As various pandemic lockdowns ease over time, many people will likely be eager to change their work scenery and work in different locations. Some might want to take a week away and work remotely. Some might want to work in a local coffee shop. Regardless of their choice, organisations will have to assess if their IT security strategies are robust enough to accommodate these sorts of situations.

In these kinds of scenarios, are MSPs then equipped to help organisations with these new data security needs? Do they offer multi-factor (MFA) and single sign-on (SSO) security? What about the on-boarding of new employees at the SMB level when new staff join? Has cyber security awareness training been offered to employees – is training ongoing in order to protect data?

Line of business moves to the cloud

Aside from offering voice, data, UC&C and security technologies, many organisations are shifting entire business applications into the cloud. This was a large focus for many organisations in 2020 and will continue to be the case for the foreseeable future. This presents further opportunity for MSPs as they consult with clients. They may already be speaking with customers about these aforementioned technologies – but, since they have their clients’ ears, there is opportunity to become more deeply embedded within client organisations by supporting wider initiatives to move business applications into the cloud.  It then also means MSPs will be able to offer a great deal of value-add off the back of existing contracts and generate incremental revenue.

Conclusion

During the pandemic the channel demonstrated how adaptable it is to step up and meet customer needs fast. Strong relationships between CSPs and MSPs were at the heart of this success. But, it can’t stop there. Digital transformation is a long-term destination and the use of the cloud to support organisations is here to stay: be it for collaboration; data security; or to enable business applications to shift to the cloud. The opportunity is almost endless.

To capitalise further, though, means MSPs need to align with CSPs that can provide the strong foundations they need to support their customers with their cloud journeys. Can their preferred CSP offer collaborative consultancy and work with them to solve any technology challenges? Do they support with training and marketing? Can they bring value to the MSP’s proposition by offering a breadth of technologies that enables them to expand their portfolio of products that they offer to customers? What is their long-term technology roadmap? The right CSP partner will have all these bases covered.

What is more, the future is promising in 2021 for the channel – especially when you consider the revenue generation opportunity across that 6-million strong UK SMB market. It just begs the question about whether the channel has the right partnerships in place to succeed.

Multi-cloud environments ‘pose greater security challenges’

 960 640 Stuart O'Brien
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73% of organisations currently operate in a multi-cloud environment, but those responsible for these types of complex environments overwhelmingly (98%) report that relying on multiple cloud providers creates additional security challenges.

That’s according to the research conducted by Tripwire that evaluated cloud security practices across enterprise environments in 2021.

Conducted by Dimensional Research in June, the survey evaluated the opinions of 314 security professionals with direct responsibility for the security of public cloud infrastructure within their organisation.

Organizations have a wide range of reasons for going multi-cloud, including meeting varying business needs, running certain applications, distributing risk, taking advantage of cost savings, and to provide redundancy in the event of downtime. In the industrial space specifically, organizations are twice as likely to use a multi-cloud approach to manage risk.

“We’ve seen a massive shift to cloud in response to the growing business need to manage more data and have greater accessibility,” said Tim Erlin, vice president of product management and strategy at Tripwire. “Given the growing complexity of systems and threats that come with moving to a cloud environment, and security policies that are unique to each provider, it makes sense that organizations are finding it increasingly difficult to secure the perimeter.”

The majority (59%) have configuration standards for their public cloud and use best practice security frameworks (78%), but only 38% of framework users apply them consistently across their cloud environment. Not to mention, only 21% have a centralized view of their organization’s security posture and policy compliance across all cloud accounts. Most also noted that shared responsibility models for security between cloud service providers and their customers are not always clear – three quarters rely on third-party tools or expertise to secure their cloud environment.

Additionally, the survey examined ongoing concerns of security professionals responsible for cloud infrastructure:

  • When it comes to managing their cloud environment, most organizations rely/relied on existing security teams to complete training or self-teach, but only 9% of those surveyed would categorize their internal teams as experts.
  • Overall, customers want cloud providers to increase security efforts. Most (98%) would like to see specific security improvements, including communicating security issues faster and following consistent security frameworks.
  • And 77% prefer their existing security service extends into the cloud rather than finding a separate cloud-only solution.

“For most security professionals, managing a multi-cloud environment is a fairly new and somewhat ambiguous part of their day to day,” added Erlin. “Fortunately, there are well established frameworks and solutions that exist to help fill in the gaps and ensure organizations don’t have to rely solely on their cloud providers to secure their environment.”

Organizations have come to realize that cloud providers don’t offer the tools they need to fully secure their systems, and as a result, are taking matters into their own hands. In the last year, Tripwire says it has seen an increase in the number of companies doing real-time assessments of their cloud security posture and a slight increase in the level of enforcement automation, both positive indications that companies are taking the necessary steps to harden their cloud environments.

The cloud security challenge every CISO must overcome

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By Keith Glancey, Systems Engineering Manager at Infoblox 

Cloud adoption has never been higher. Whether it’s public, private, multi- or even hybrid-cloud environments, organisations of all sizes, across all sectors are benefiting from the enhanced flexibility, reduced cost and greater stability that cloud can bring. 

However, whilst cloud can be an enabler in many areas, it can also cause complications for both security and compliance. In fact, recent research revealed that over half of UK businesses cite security concerns as the biggest barrier to public cloud adoption. To add to this, over a third of business leaders (35%) who have adopted cloud aren’t completely confident that it is secure. 

Cloud environments present some unique security challenges. One such challenge is achieving visibility across an entire organisation. When a business uses multiple providers – and stores data in different locations across on-premise and cloud environments – total visibility can become almost impossible to achieve. But, without it, businesses leave themselves vulnerable to attack. For the modern CISO, visibility has become a huge headache in recent years. 

Ensuring everyone is on the same page 

The average CISO will probably have a snapshot view of the ‘bigger picture’ in terms of the security of their cloud providers. However, when it comes to the day-to-day details – such as relatively minor changes to the identities of and contracts with external partners, for example – it can be very difficult to keep track. Add to this that many organisations will have multiple cloud systems running side by side, as well as on-premise infrastructure that is typically full of legacy applications, and it’s easy to see how certain information can get lost in the ether. 

Although most cloud providers have security measures in place that are more than adequate, there is a tendency for them to focus on their own platform. This method totally ignores the user’s unique ecosystem. This one-size-fits-all security method does not always work to the advantage of an individual organisation, which is why it’s important for CISOs to remain in the driver’s seat. 

CISOs looking to increase visibility could start with an analysis of their key partners. This can help them to determine the best course of action on a case-by-case basis. For example, when a business relies on external server services, it can be difficult for the network team to obtain a 360-degree view across the entire critical infrastructure. This can lead to certain oversights and a lack of understanding in terms of the overall network security posture, especially when you throw IoT devices into the mix. In this case, instead of monitoring all used platforms separately, it is more effective to add a layer to the network that provides centralised insight into the entire ecosystem.  

This is where modern technologies – such as cloud DDI (DNS, DHCP, and IPAM) – come in. By giving CISOs and network teams the ability to automate and consolidate critical aspects of cloud network management, respond quickly to business needs and integrate cloud service platforms across a business, DDI augments visibility into network activities and increases control. It grants visibility into networking activities, no matter where devices might be connected from – including remote locations. 90% of malware touches DNS – the first D in DDI – when entering or leaving the network, making DNS a critical detection tool that, when connected to the security stack, can enable stronger threat remediation. Ultimately, DDI enables the network team to quickly detect and fix any vulnerabilities, no matter where they originate. 

Solving compliance complexity 

Navigating a myriad of different cloud providers also makes compliance more difficult than it should be. Suppose a business is legally obliged to store data on European servers – what happens if a supplier has this order, but its partners don’t follow the same policy? The same applies to subpoenas; a third party abroad could simply reveal sensitive data, even if this is in violation of European law. 

When it comes to compliance, it’s not enough to simply rely upon a supplier’s word. In order to avoid potentially the devastating fines and reputational damage associated with failure to comply, CISOs need to enforce a certain level of visibility across all third parties and ensure that everyone is following the same rules. 

CISOs can take some simple steps to monitor the situation and ensure compliance in the cloud. For example, when it comes to meeting guidelines such as the EU’s Security of Networks & Information Systems (NIS) – which is intended to establish a common level of security for network and information systems – adding a layer to an organisation’s infrastructure can help to boost visibility and reduce complexity. This can also help to automate processes that enable a network team to make their entire security stack work together and thus better anticipate vulnerabilities. 

As cloud becomes an increasingly important part of IT infrastructure, CISOs will continue to face many different security and compliance challenges. In order to get ahead and keep both employees and customers safe, they will need to focus on establishing total visibility across the network of providers and partners. Only then will CISOs be able to take back control and the wider business reap the rewards associated with cloud adoption. 

Giving resellers the key to unlocking end user continuity, productivity and flexibility

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By Dave Manning, Operations Director, Giacom

Until recently, the transition to working from home was unfolding at a gradual pace for many businesses. Although there is much research to back up the benefits of flexible and remote working, many business leaders remained sceptical, believing that office working remained the setup that would be most productive and beneficial from a cultural perspective. 

But the current crisis delivered an ultimatum for many businesses – cease operations or deploy technology to enable employees to work from home for the foreseeable future. There are, of course, several industries where working from home is not an option, but for the majority, there are ways to simply facilitate it – demonstrated by the fact that more than 39% of adults in employment are now working from home, compared to around 12% last year. 

Many employees are thriving working from home. And the hours they have gained back while working from home are not going to be something they will want to give up easily –  two-thirds (63%) of workers said they are open to full time remote working and never going back to the physical office once the crisis is over. It’s becoming clear that the future will not be a permanent office-based workforce, but will shift to a hybrid model combining both remote and office working, allowing for a larger degree of flexibility. This approach of working fuelled by the pandemic is clearly favoured, as 77% of UK employees believe a mix of office-based and remote working is the best way forward post Covid-19. 

For those companies set up to work from home, it’s clear that if business continuity and productivity are maintained – or even improved – during a crisis, they will long term as well. But companies that aren’t properly set up to support remote working are missing out on significant business value gains. To facilitate hybrid working long term, employees must be equipped not only to survive, but to thrive. So how can resellers support end user organisations in transitioning to this new way of operating in the future?

A cloudy future

The lockdown enforcement saw the need for businesses to adapt to this new way of working almost overnight, resulting in a huge surge of enquiries to resellers to get employees working remotely as quickly as possible. Even with cloud-based solutions gaining popularity over the years, a lot of business infrastructure remain on-premises. Businesses need to be moving to a cloud-based infrastructure where the technology they deploy allows for the flexibility to work remotely and on-premises if required. For IT companies supporting SMBs who want to future-proof their businesses and replace outdated on site servers, the cloud offers a fixed cost server solution to IT companies supporting SMBs, while delivering secure storage and easy provisioning as well as scalability – ensuring a futureproof solution for end users. 

Productivity tools

Collaboration tools have come of age and the race is on to both develop and implement smoother integrated IT communications, video, voice strategies so that business can perform at an even higher level whilst working from home. Similar to the transition from letter writing to email, businesses are realising they can actually get more achieved in the same time with cloud-based tools and people not having to travel miles around the country on public transport, in cars or internationally by plane.

And as virtual collaboration tools develop even further to deliver advanced capabilities, employee productivity will only increase. Resellers will be the crucial advisors to companies in order to facilitate their needs, backed up with support from CSPs to help navigate through the most relevant and valuable cloud solutions for their end users. 

Secure setup

Resellers have undoubtedly already experienced the surge of businesses looking to get staff up and running with remote collaboration tools, such as Microsoft Teams etc.. But in the rush to get everyone online and maintain business continuity, security considerations likely slipped much further down the list. Given the continued increase in frequency and sophistication of cyber attacks, especially those capitalising on the current crisis through phishing scams, ‘Zoom-bombing’ incidents and the like, it’s never been more important to prioritise cyber security. 

This is especially true for those organisations that are new to the concept of remote working. While they may have had a solution in place for keeping the corporate network secure within the physical office, a virtual business requires different tools and techniques. This is where resellers can play a crucial role as key consultants to end-users on how they can keep their data secure and deploy reliable, cloud-based backup solutions to safeguard their sensitive information even further. 

A hybrid and flexible infrastructure

While we are all looking forward to this crisis being over, given the nature of the pandemic it’s unlikely that there will be a hard stop to lockdown. Even with the government now lifting some of the restrictions, we can expect a combination of working from home and office working with social distancing and other measures still in place for some time to come. And research has found that 74% of business leaders intend to shift some employees to remote working permanently. No one knows exactly what that journey will look like, so businesses require the toolkit and technology to enable a hybrid working infrastructure now and into the future. 

Moreover, lockdown measures may be starting to ease gradually, but if the UK is faced with a second wave of the virus, or we experience another crisis in the future, additional lockdown measures may have to be put back in place, as was the case in Singapore that struggled to contain a second wave. Flexibility is therefore crucial to safeguard business continuity and enable organisations to maintain optimum productivity levels even in the midst of another unprecedented event. 

The key will be for resellers to support end users in deploying tools that support this new way of working. From unified communications and collaboration software, to cloud-based backup and security tools that keep the corporate network safe no matter where the user is based, resellers hold the key to unlocking end user organisations’ continuity, productivity and flexibility. 

Financial services head to the cloud to escape security concerns

 960 640 Stuart O'Brien
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The financial services industry is accelerating its shift to the cloud, as it presses forward with digital transformation in the face of security concerns. 

That’s according to the Financial Services edition of F5’s 2020 State of Application Services (SOAS) report, which says 60% of surveyed organisations in the industry believe public cloud platforms will be strategically important for them in the next two to five years, up sharply from 49% in 2019.

It comes as 84% of financial services organisations execute on digital transformation plans, with three quarters saying the key driver is to increase the speed of new product and service deployment.

Cloud adoption is increasing even as security concerns remain widespread. While two-thirds of organisations are confident in their ability to withstand an application attack on premises, only 40% said the same when it comes to the public cloud. 

“The idea that financial services applications would be the slowest to move into the cloud has been clearly disproven,” said Lori MacVittie, Principal Technical Evangelist, Office of the CTO at F5.

“Instead we are seeing the industry go ‘all in’ on multi-cloud adoption as organisations seek to increase the pace of their digital transformation and more quickly deploy the applications that will deliver a high-quality customer experience. Ultimately, financial services organisations that face growing competition from digital challengers are turning to the cloud to meet the needs of customers who now expect a seamless fintech service.” 

As cloud adoption increases, the F5 research says financial services organisations are seeking to balance the innovation imperative with security needs.

Many are looking to open banking, which 47% of surveyed organisations (among the two-thirds of respondents who provide banking services) have either implemented or plan to do so. Within this subset, 68% are deploying API gateways to deliver innovation, allowing them to securely share data with partners and open APIs to public developer networks.

82% of organisations with open banking initiatives have published APIs to third parties, compared to 62% of those not engaged in open banking.

The reports says that in this context security remains a pressing concern, especially with 87% of organisations embracing multi-cloud environments, and 41% determining the type of cloud to support an application on a case-by-case basis.

Asked about the biggest challenges of managing applications in a multi-cloud environment, 59% of respondents highlighted the need to apply consistent security policies across all company applications, well ahead of migrating apps among clouds/data centers (32%), gaining visibility into application health, or optimising the performance of the application (both 26%).

Security clearly resonates as a priority for the entire industry. Over half of respondents named it as the most important characteristic of an application service, while financial services leaders ranked real-time threat analytics as their number two strategic trend, compared to number six across all industries. Three quarters of respondents said it is important to enforce the same security policies on premises and in the cloud.

Nevertheless, the industry fears that it lacks the capacity to effectively respond to threats, with 72% of respondents reporting that they face a security skills gap.

The importance of security is further underlined by the applications financial services organisations choose to prioritise. Among the industry’s top five app services deployed today, four are security-focused: common security services and SSL VPN (both deployed by 86%), WAF (81%, up from 77% in 2019) and DDoS protection (80%).

That is balanced by a focus on application services that underpin the effort to drive high-quality customer experiences: 80% of financial services respondents said they are deploying services such as load balancing, global server load balancing and DNS, compared to 75% globally. 

Looking forward, the industry is planning to deploy application services that will support greater adoption of public cloud and modern (cloud- or container-native) architectures. 42% expect to deploy SDN gateways or SDN WAN in 2020 (up from 34% in 2019) while 39% will deploy API gateways (up from 27%) and 35% Ingress control (up from 21%).

46% of financial services respondents identified Software-defined networking (SDN) as a strategically important trend for them in the next 2-5 years, up from 42% last year.

In case you missed ZIVVER at the Security IT Summit…

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By Zivver

Last month marked ZIVVER’s first appearance at the Security IT Summit and we had a great time meeting so many people (virtually).

If you took some time during the summit to connect with us, we look forward to staying in touch!

And if you missed your chance to meet with us at the summit, now’s a great time to get to know ZIVVER.

We’re a relatively new player in the UK, but our secure communication platform has already established us as a market leader in the Netherlands. In a few short years we’ve earned the trust of over 3000 organisations, including leading insurance companies, top healthcare institutions and the national judicial system, to safeguard their sensitive data. 

How ZIVVER works

Our smart technology platform is designed to prevent human errors, which is consistently cited as the top cause of data leaks (over 75%). With ZIVVER, users receive real-time awareness training when sending sensitive communications electronically, enabling them to prevent mistakes before hitting send.  

The service conveniently integrates with leading email clients such as Outlook and Gmail, so it’s easy to use and won’t impact existing workflows. Plus, with a generous 5TB limit, you’ll never have to worry about file size limits again when you need to transfer files safely. ZIVVER also helps organisations to improve their regulatory compliance as well as business performance. 

Many companies quickly see a positive business case with us. That’s why over 98% of our customers renew their service agreements, and our average rating on Gartner Peer Reviews is 4.7 out of 5. 

Curious to find out more?

Organisations usually concentrate their security efforts on preventing inbound threats such as spear phishing and anti-virus protection, but often overlook the need to properly safeguard their outbound communications. This can create additional risks since outbound communications typically cause more data breaches. 

Learn how to enhance your email security in our new Outbound Email Security Essentials white paper. 

You can easily download it by visiting this page.

Without automation, security gets harder during a business disruption

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FireMon’s 2020 State of Hybrid Cloud Security Survey found that 69.5 percent of respondents have a security team of just 10 people or fewer.  And  most manage both on-premise network security and cloud security.  

These teams are already bogged down with manual tasks at the best of times, so when a crisis  hits, it magnifies the risks of manual processes. Not only is it difficult to maintain essential network operations, but the number of misconfigurations that threaten compliance go up dramatically. 

Worse still, if unexpected interruptions to business continuity lead to team members being out of commission, security and compliance is further compromised because there’s not enough people to execute even the most basic steps of the business continuity plan — forget security configuration and compliance! An unexpected disaster scenario that already threatens data and compliance is further magnified, and so is the risk to the business, including the greater likelihood of lost revenues. 

IT’S ALREADY WAY TOO HARD TO KEEP UP ON A NORMAL DAY 

If you’re already short on people on a regular day, it’s going to be even harder to keep on top of everything that needs to be done when disaster strikes. Some of those manual tasks such as firewall rule updates may simply not get done, or if they do, they’re rushed and are more prone to human errors that lead to misconfigurations. Instead, the priority is to keep the business running and security teams must shift their focus to exceptional, specific user access issues that are cropping up, which are also being done in a hurry without enough attention to compliance because there’s no foundational best practices in place. 

Disruptions also mean some security team members are no longer available, so you’re even further short-staffed at a time when you need all hands on deck. Without automation and logs that provide insight into how and why things are done, you’re dependent on the knowledge of people who may no longer be available to share it.  

AUTOMATE WHAT YOU CAN SO YOU CAN MANAGE WHAT YOU CAN’T 

You can’t control everything, and it’s not a matter of if disaster strikes, it’s when.  Regardless of the cause, a “black swan” event tends to throw a lot of curve balls at security teams. However, if you’ve already automated most cloud configurations and global security policy, your team is in a much better position to deal with the expected.  

There are many things security teams can automate, including: 

  • Identity and access management, including cloud configuration 
  • Updates and patches 
  • Detection and monitoring 
  • Firewall rule updates 

Knowledge transfer through documentation also means you’re not dependent on specific team members to maintain compliance. 

You can’t automate everything at once, but if you start with low-hanging fruit, you’ll see immediate benefits. By establishing a global security policy and making it a baseline for any access configurations, including cloud services, you can be responsive to the lines of business change requests. Organizational knowledge is also quickly accessible, even when disaster strikes and if team members become unavailable. 

There are times when business isn’t as usual – it happens. However, it’s important to learn and adapt while things unfold during those times. In this case, many organizations will decide to lean into cloud migrations and automation to blunt the impacts of future black swan events. 

Visibility and control in the public cloud is possible – And it must be unified and contextual

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By Josh WIlliams, Senior Sales Engineer, Cloud and Automation Solutions at FireMon

Anyone who works in enterprise technology has heard the joke that the cloud is just someone else’s computer. But if we’re being serious, there’s some logic to letting security professionals see cloud instances as just another computer to be viewed as part of their growing network infrastructure. 

We also know the public cloud is different when it comes to security. A key theme from our annual State of Hybrid Cloud Security survey two years running is there’s a lack of clarity around shared security responsibility for public cloud platforms that are being rapidly adopted at the pace of business. Every platform, including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud, does security configuration differently, and every FireMon customer is unique when it comes to what they opt to put in the cloud — computing, storage and networking — and what they keep on-premise. 

For the foreseeable future, most enterprises are going to have a hybrid environment, and security professionals want to see any public cloud instance as a piece of the overall puzzle, not a separate puzzle, or worse yet, several puzzles. They need complete visibility, especially as hybrid clouds continue to scale, so they can keep a handle on complexity. 

Public cloud adds security pain points that must be solved 

Extending FireMon’s capabilities to the cloud is a necessary and inevitable next step for addressing the pain points security executives must address as organizations embrace cloud-first strategies and their own digital transformation agenda.  

Security professionals are tasked with applying controls and enforcing governance in public clouds to meet compliance obligations and mitigate risk just as they do with legacy and on-premise infrastructure. Security teams are also expected to enable access to cloud applications without becoming a barrier to the business while still maintaining network and security hygiene. The frequent and rapid changes that are today’s norm must also be managed and documented within budget and resources constraints, including staff that are often stretched too thin. 

These pain points impact several members of the C-suite, including CISOs and CIOs focused on security and compliance in the public cloud, CIOs focused on network infrastructure and operations, and the Chief Digital Officer driving digital transformation efforts. More broadly, the growing complexity and scale of hybrid clouds affect network operations leaders, DevOps, application teams and lines of business, who all face pressure to increase their speed of delivery. 

The proliferation of public cloud instances adds even more complexity and diversity to an infrastructure that now encompasses on-premise data centers, virtualized environments, software defined networks and the public cloud. Visibility across this dynamic environment is paramount if security teams are to enforce policy-driven control continuously across the entire hybrid environment as frequent changes are made. 

Right now, customers find themselves doing all this with multiple tools with no unified user interface for managing different deployments, and little to no automation. They are constantly having to find the right piece to a puzzle that’s always changing as workloads migrate to the public cloud, often quickly and without the proper guardrails in place because it’s so easy for business users to spin up a new application. Even with automation, checks and balances must be put in place to make sure the organization isn’t exposed to new security risks. Most of all, applying security can’t be an afterthought; customers are looking to automate their entire policy management workflow continuum, not just the last mile policy push. 

View public cloud security with context 

FireMon’s solution to the pain points amplified by the growing scale and complexity of hybrid cloud doesn’t mean we’re shifting our focus to cloud only, nor is it to introduce products specifically for cloud platforms. Rather, our strategy is to extend visibility to the commonly deployed public cloud platforms our customers need to see and manage. In all seriousness, a public cloud instance must be seen as just someone else’s computer on the network, but with the context security teams need. 

FireMon is essentially extending intelligent security automation so customers can see the cloud the way they’ve been able to see their on-premise infrastructure. But because each public cloud is different when it comes to configuring security, we’ve done the necessary remodeling work behind the scenes to give customers the visibility they want with the context they need. We support workload migrations to public cloud platforms such as Azure and AWS by normalizing and unifying security policies, so customers are compliant throughout any change process. 

FireMon didn’t need to become a cloud vendor to offer a single, infrastructure-agnostic platform to design, implement, and validate security policies across the environment. Not only does extending our security management platform for on-premises and the data center to public cloud make it unique, it also negates the need for customers to license multiple products for different deployment models.  

Hosted Security Landscape Report: Key insights for 2020

 960 640 Stuart O'Brien
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A new whitepaper has detailed market analysis of attitudes towards cloud adoption and purchasing behaviours behind hosted physical security from 1000 IT decision makers from across Europe.

The in-depth survey, undertaken by Morphean, a provider of hosted security solutions, illustrates a market that has overcome initial concerns about cyber-security, has understood the clear benefits and will be seeking to adopt such solutions at pace in 2020.

The independent survey of key decision makers within companies from UK, France and Germany with more than 50 employees clearly shows better security, cost benefit and better functionality to be the most influential factors and the most commonly realised benefits of hosted security solutions including video surveillance as-a-service (VSaaS) and access control as-a-service (ACaaS). These solutions are part of a cloud security market that is expected to grow from USD 4.1 billion in 2017 to USD 12.7 billion by 2022, at a CAGR of 25.5%.

The ‘2019 Landscape Report: Hosted Security adoption in Europe’ is the second study of its kind by Morphean, and facilitates a better understanding of market trends with comparative data from 2018. It revealed that 84% of IT managers are currently using (48%) or considering using (36%) a hosted security solution, which is broadly consistent with the 89% who said they would consider such a solution last year. It also shows that better security ranked #3 among the main benefits realised by the cloud (44%) compared to 27% in 2018; representing a 63% increase in the year and shift in perception around cyber security concerns.

2019 key survey findings include:

  • Better security, cost benefit and better functionality are viewed as the most influential factors AND the most commonly realized benefits of hosted security solutions 
  • Half of respondents cited better security as the #1 benefit of using VSaaS / ACaaS; better functionality (42%) and cost benefits (38%) placed #2 and #3 respectively
  • Half of IT managers have identified data / information security as a priority for improvement in the next 12 months
  • 84% of IT managers are currently using (48%) or considering using (36%) a cloud-based video surveillance or access control solution
  • Of those still considering VSaaS and ACaaS, 79% anticipate introducing these solutions to their business within 12 months
  • 77% of IT managers report that physical security is not optimized; 20% have identified physical security as a priority for improvement in the next 12 months

Rodrigue Zbinden, CEO, Morphean, said: “Our research clearly points to a market that is overcoming initial concerns about cybersecurity, understands the clear benefits of hosted services and reflects growing confidence and purchase intent for 2020. The increased appetite for hosted security presents an opportunity for us to work with businesses to help them improve their physical security, while also educating them on the potential business intelligence benefits offered by surveillance and access control solutions when integrated in the cloud.”

The growing confidence in cloud seems to translate into more positive purchasing intentions around hosted security solutions with 77% of IT managers reporting that physical security is not currently optimized and one in five identifying it as a priority for 2020. Of those considering hosted security solutions, 4 in 5 (79%) anticipate introducing them to their business within a year. While this clearly represents an opportunity for the IT reseller community to enhance its service offering, the report does highlight two trends that may inhibit growth; the first being the physical securityindustry’s ability to adopt the as-a-service business model; the second is system integration with emergent technology such as AI.

Alex Hilton, CEO of The Cloud Industry Forum, added: “With cloud technology we have a toolset that changes the way businesses think and act, ensuring a competitive landscape for years to come. Morphean’s latest research reveals that decision makers are seeing better security, cost benefits and improved functionality as a result of a switch to cloud-enabled security solutions. Cloud presents very real opportunities, but vendors need to hone their offerings and capabilities in order for its full potential to be realised across all markets and sectors.”

The Morphean survey also found that there has been a 5% drop in cloud investment over the past year. In 2018, 33% of the IT budget was spent on cloud services over the previous 24 months and this figure has dropped to 31.38% for 2019. This is in spite of the fact that the majority of respondents (78%) had said that they expected cloud related spending to increase due to the favourable benefits it presents. It’s not the only contradiction found in the report.

Cloud is key to driving operational performance, and yet 78% of IT managers felt that this area of the business was underperforming while only 36% identified it as a priority for improvement.

Cybersecurity’s biggest asset: Why use the cloud?

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The cloud is one of those hot buzzwords that gets thrown around a lot both in the tech world and in our daily lives.

No longer reserved for IT departments alone, the cloud has become something that we depend upon greatly, especially in the way companies go about their business. And it’s about to become even more important.

In fact research shows that companies are looking to drastically increase their investment in the cloud in the coming years. Morphean recently conducted an independent survey of more than 1500 IT decision makers across Europe to discover their views on cloud services. The survey reported:

  • 78% expect their spending on the cloud to increase in the next two to five years
  • 47% said their internal data would be cloud processed within the same time frame
  • 45% said they would definitely consider migrating their physical security systems, such as video surveillance, to the cloud

There’s no doubt that the cloud is becoming a more important part of everyday business dealings, but some people still have reservations about the safety of this storage system, and whether or not it is worth it. We believe it is, and let us tell you why. 

But what exactly is the cloud?

Short for ‘cloud computing’, the cloud is essentially a terrestrial home for your data. So instead of being stored on the computer in front of you, it’s stored somewhere else, or in multiple places, and it is up to a network of servers to take you to it.

Some everyday examples you may recognise include the Apple iCloud, Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, and even Netflix.

Is the cloud the future of cybersecurity?

Unfortunately, the cloud has received some negative press in the last few years in regards to security and safety. In fact, according to the Morphean survey, 45% of people cited security risks as being their biggest obstacle to instigating a full move across to the cloud. 

The only way to truly protect your information is to lock it up underground, but you can rest assured that the cloud is far safer than information stored on a local device. Cloud computing services have more complicated security methods in place than the average computer owner can come up with. Any wannabe hackers would then have to get past the cloud system’s first line of defence; encryption.

Encryption is the practice of using complex algorithms to protect your data. In order to get past these algorithms, the hackers would need something called an encryption key. 

But it’s not all down to these intricate and convoluted systems. In fact one of the biggest threats to cloud security is the barriers set by individual people. In other words, easy-to-guess password and security questions. 

Above we talked about negative press aimed at the cloud over the past few years, most notably the infamous Apple hack where celebrities had photos stolen and leaked. The media reported that the cloud had been hacked, which led to a drop in public confidence and has no doubt contributed to people’s existing fears. In reality the cloud itself wasn’t hacked, but rather the accounts of individuals who used the cloud to store their data.  

The truth is that the cloud is incredibly safe and secure, but it’s up to individual users to do their part. That means choosing strong passwords by adding letters, numbers and symbols, using different passwords for different accounts, and avoiding using passwords that relate to your personal life.

But if that’s not enough to convince you of the cloud’s excellent security systems, did you know that online retailing giant Amazon runs its entire business off of its own cloud service, AWS? 

Other benefits of using the cloud

It’s not only the increased security that comes along when you start using the cloud. Here’s a few more that you can expect for your business.

Continuity

No matter what kind of industry you are in, having a continuity plan in place is vital for protecting your sensitive data and systems. Disasters can strike at any time and for a whole multitude of reasons, ranging from the weather and natural disasters to power failures. By having your information stored off-site in the cloud, you can rest assured that it is backed up and protected in a secure and safe location. Even if you have to move office, you will be able to access and download your data from any location with internet, therefore minimising your downtime and avoiding loss of productivity.

Working flexibility

The world is getting smaller. Not literally of course but modern technology is drastically reducing businesses’ needs for a physical office with staff present 100% of the time. The cloud helps to make this even more possible by granting flexibility in staff’s working practices. Once employees are able to access their work from home, on their commute or even on holiday – anywhere with an internet connection – suddenly the whole world is your office.

Scalability

When it’s time to scale your business up, purchasing and installing upgrades to your storage needs can be both expensive and incredibly time consuming. But when you work with the cloud, everything can be done quickly to suit your exact needs. Whoever provides your cloud computer services will be able to handle all upgrades for you, leaving you free to get on with the important task of running your business.

It’s natural for any business owner to be concerned about the safety and security of their important data. Your business is your baby, and you of course want to protect it. The cloud is undoubtedly the best option and as research shows, more and more businesses will be placing their trust in this extraordinary technology, for more than its safety benefits, to further their growth and secure a strong future.

Image by Patricia Alexandre from Pixabay