The more workloads that you migrate to the cloud, the more difficult it becomes to predict monthly cloud costs. Cloud services vendors such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft can help organizations avoid capital costs for new hardware, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you have made the most cost-effective decisions about the particular services that these and other cloud vendors offer.And while it is great that you’re only paying for the services you need, trying to parse your monthly bill requires the skills of a CPA, a software engineer, a commodities trader and a sharp eye for the details.To read this article in full, please click here
The pandemic has accelerated the development of better ways to serve and secure remote workers, which make it a good time to rexamine VPNS.Recently VPNs have received technical boosts with the addition of protocol options that improve functionality far ahead of where they were when first invented. At the same time, new security architectures zero trust network access (ZTNA), secure access service edge (SASE), and security service edge (SSE) are making inroads into what had been the domain of remote-access VPNs.To read this article in full, please click here
The pandemic has accelerated the development of better ways to serve and secure remote workers, which make it a good time to rexamine VPNS.Recently VPNs have received technical boosts with the addition of protocol options that improve functionality far ahead of where they were when first invented. At the same time, new security architectures zero trust network access (ZTNA), secure access service edge (SASE), and security service edge (SSE) are making inroads into what had been the domain of remote-access VPNs.To read this article in full, please click here
Last month, software tools vendor Atlassian suffered a major network outage that lasted two weeks and affected more than 400 of their over 200,000 customers. The outage took down several of their products, including Jira, Confluence, Atlassian Access, Opsgenie, and Statuspage. While only a few customers were affected for the full two weeks, the outage was significant in terms of the depth of problems uncovered by the company’s engineers and the lengths they had to go to find and fix the problems.The outage was the result of a series of unfortunate internal errors by Atlassian’s own staff, and not the result of a cyberattack or malware. In the end, no customer lost more than a few minutes’ worth of data transactions, and the vast majority of customers didn’t see any downtime whatsoever.To read this article in full, please click here
Last month, software tools vendor Atlassian suffered a major network outage that lasted two weeks and affected more than 400 of their over 200,000 customers. The outage took down several of their products, including Jira, Confluence, Atlassian Access, Opsgenie, and Statuspage. While only a few customers were affected for the full two weeks, the outage was significant in terms of the depth of problems uncovered by the company’s engineers and the lengths they had to go to find and fix the problems.The outage was the result of a series of unfortunate internal errors by Atlassian’s own staff, and not the result of a cyberattack or malware. In the end, no customer lost more than a few minutes’ worth of data transactions, and the vast majority of customers didn’t see any downtime whatsoever.To read this article in full, please click here
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the third in a series on smart home networking: Our introductory article set the decor for this series, and the second one focuses on home hubs.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
(Editor’s Note: Second in a series of articles on how to successfully and securely deploy smart home technology. See the introduction to this series.)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Editor’s Note: First in a series of articles on the best ways to deploy and secure smart home technologyLast fall, we saw the rise of the weaponized smart device as the Mirai botnet compromised webcams and other Internet-connected things. Then in February, VIZIO agreed to pay a $2.2 million fine to the FTC for collecting the viewing histories of 11 million smart TV users without their knowledge or consent.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Editor’s Note: First in a series of articles on the best ways to deploy and secure smart home technologyTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Email encryption products have made major strides since we last looked at them nearly two years ago. They have gotten easier to use and deploy, thanks to a combination of user interface and encryption key management improvements, and are at the point where encryption can almost be called effortless on the part of the end user.Our biggest criticism in 2015 was that the products couldn’t cover multiple use cases, such as when a user switches from reading emails on their smartphone to moving to a webmailer to composing messages on their Outlook desktop client. Fortunately, the products are all doing a better job handling multi-modal email.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Email encryption products have made major strides since we last looked at them nearly two years ago. They have gotten easier to use and deploy, thanks to a combination of user interface and encryption key management improvements, and are at the point where encryption can almost be called effortless on the part of the end user.Our biggest criticism in 2015 was that the products couldn’t cover multiple use cases, such as when a user switches from reading emails on their smartphone to moving to a webmailer to composing messages on their Outlook desktop client. Fortunately, the products are all doing a better job handling multi-modal email.To read this article in full, please click here(Insider Story)
Email encryption products have made major strides since we last looked at them nearly two years ago. They have gotten easier to use and deploy, thanks to a combination of user interface and encryption key management improvements, and are at the point where encryption can almost be called effortless on the part of the end user.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Email encryption products have made major strides since we last looked at them nearly two years ago. They have gotten easier to use and deploy, thanks to a combination of user interface and encryption key management improvements, and are at the point where encryption can almost be called effortless on the part of the end user.
Our biggest criticism in 2015 was that the products couldn’t cover multiple use cases, such as when a user switches from reading emails on their smartphone to moving to a webmailer to composing messages on their Outlook desktop client. Fortunately, the products are all doing a better job handling multi-modal email.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Microsoft’s latest version of its anti-malware tool, Windows Defender, is a frustrating product to evaluate. Yes, it is perhaps the best antivirus tool to come from Microsoft, with a series of noteworthy improvements. Yes, it provides good enough protection for your family’s PCs. And yes, it could be your PC’s sole antivirus utility, if you are willing to accept its limitations.However, once you examine the product in more detail, you will see why we cannot recommend it for enterprise use. And that is the frustration of this product: Microsoft is trying to do the right thing and offers a tempting feast, but ultimately offers an incomplete meal that is tough to digest.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Microsoft’s latest version of its anti-malware tool, Windows Defender, is a frustrating product to evaluate. Yes, it is perhaps the best antivirus tool to come from Microsoft, with a series of noteworthy improvements. Yes, it provides good enough protection for your family’s PCs. And yes, it could be your PC’s sole antivirus utility, if you are willing to accept its limitations.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Check Point has long been known as a firewall company but it is reaching beyond its roots with a new series of protective technologies under its SandBlast line.SandBlast has been around for several years, but received several significant updates over the past year to make it a truly effective endpoint protection product that can handle a wide variety of zero-day exploits across your entire enterprise.The goal behind SandBlast is simply stated: you want to lock down as many entry points for malware as possible, and make your network less of a target for hackers to establish a beachhead and run these exploits.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Check Point has long been known as a firewall company but it is reaching beyond its roots with a new series of protective technologies under its SandBlast line.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
In our testing of 10 endpoint security products, we found that no one product does everything. You will have to make compromises, depending on what other security tools you already have installed and the skill levels of your staff. While there is no single product that can suit all situations, endpoint configurations and IT requirements, there are a few key things to consider in your purchase:1. Going agent or agentless. A few of the products we tested don’t require endpoint agents, but the trade off is that you will need to setup LDAP or clean up your Active Directory domain and make use of network switch SNMP management and other connections to your network fabric.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Endpoint protectionThe days of simple endpoint protection based on traditional anti-malware tools are over. There are now advanced endpoint detection and response (EDR) tools that go beyond proactive monitoring and endpoint protection. They evaluate threats in a larger ecosystem, combining the best aspects from network intrusion detection and examining the individual process level on each computer. That is a tall order, and the 10 products tested are all very capable. However, no one product does everything. You will have to make compromises, depending on what other security tools you already have installed and the skill levels of your staff. Here are capsule reviews of 10 advanced endpoint protection products (see the full review):To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Endpoint protectionThe days of simple endpoint protection based on traditional anti-malware tools are over. There are now advanced endpoint detection and response (EDR) tools that go beyond proactive monitoring and endpoint protection. They evaluate threats in a larger ecosystem, combining the best aspects from network intrusion detection and examining the individual process level on each computer. That is a tall order, and the 10 products tested are all very capable. However, no one product does everything. You will have to make compromises, depending on what other security tools you already have installed and the skill levels of your staff. Here are capsule reviews of 10 advanced endpoint protection products (see the full review):To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
David Strom