Category: Technical
The Secret to an Effective VPN
Secure, remote access to mission-critical applications and data is one of the most sought-after capabilities organizations in every sector need. Recently, within the oil and gas sector, for example, massive reserves of liquid natural gas were found off the coast of Tanzania. The ability for third-party vendors to securely and remotely access operational data is often crucial to the speed of a discovery like that.
Another example where VPN technology is critical is in telemedicine, a budding sub-sector within healthcare. Telemedicine enables doctors to remotely assist patients regardless of where either are located, and thus relies heavily on secure access to remote networks and data. Not life-saving, but still important, within post-graduate education classes, the ability for select students and faculty to remotely access sensitive experimental data via a virtual private network is fueling the innovations that may change the landscape of tomorrow.
This demand for virtual private network technology is evident in recent quarterly reports estimating that VPN product demands are experiencing a 120% increase over the year before. Jeff Wilson, who wrote the report for Infonetics, says the numbers indicate that VPN technology is poised to “easily outperform expectations because they are ideal for both end-users and service providers in the middle of IT spending.”
The greatest factor in all of these examples is secure accessibility. In many ways it’s a significant portion of the digital transformation that requires all of us to have unfettered, unrestricted access to the data we need, and for that data to be secure and granular.
The Top 3 Corporate IT Security Mistakes
The IT security group within every corporation is under file. Relentless cyber-attacks, user errors and improperly designed and implemented processes and procedures contribute to a maelstrom of problems that executives expect to be instantly solved.
The news for IT departments continues to sound dire. Companies like Symantec estimate that 56% of employees believe it is appropriate to take information with them when they leave a job site. Exacerbating the urgency for companies to implement stronger security measures are statistics from the Carnegie Mellon US CERT team estimating that 75% of cyber incidents go unreported.
Surprisingly, a vast majority of the problems faced by IT on a daily basis can be traced back to three key mistakes. These missteps endanger organizations every day, yet all can be fixed or at least worked on to mitigate the problems they cause. But before we talk about solutions, let’s first identify the terrible three.
Mistake 1: Insufficient vendor access monitoring
Regardless of sector or industry, or of the size of an organization, the need for third-party vendors and outside companies to have access to a client’s proprietary network, data and intellectual property is a given.