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Eighty Percent of IT and Security Professionals List Zero Trust as a Priority, According to New Cloud Security Alliance Survey – Business Wire

June 6, 2022 | Author: admin

SEATTLE & SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--RSA Conference The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), the worlds leading organization dedicated to defining standards, certifications and best practices to help ensure a secure cloud computing environment, today released the findings of its latest survey, CISO Perspectives and Progress in Deploying Zero Trust. Conducted by the Zero Trust Advancement Center (ZTAC), the exploratory survey polled more than 800 IT and security professionals to determine where Zero Trust falls as a priority within their organization and the top business and technical challenges they have encountered over the course of its implementation.

Among the reports key findings:

The philosophy of Zero Trust has the potential to fundamentally reshape our approach to securing the technology we use across the board over the course of the next few years. Arriving at this destination requires greater clarity and a common understanding of Zero Trust principles as well as articulating concise strategies and adopting the appropriate frameworks. This survey is data rich and should be carefully contemplated by the industry to identify the roadblocks and opportunities for pervasive Zero Trust. CSA is aggressively producing valuable research such as this within our Zero Trust Advancement Center to bring the topic in focus for our community, said Jim Reavis, CEO, Cloud Security Alliance.

The goal of the survey was to shed light on where C-level executives stand in terms of their Zero-Trust strategies, pain points, vendor needs, management requirements/oversight, technical considerations, legacy challenges, adoption rates, and stakeholder involvement. Specifically, respondents were asked to evaluate the:

The survey received 823 responses from IT and security professionals, including 219 C-level executives, from various organization sizes and locations. It is the first installment of a multi-part survey that will be conducted this year. Additional activities being undertaken by the ZTAC in the next 18 months include courses in Zero Trust architecture and strategy, a CloudBytes webinar series, several research whitepapers, an annual Zero Trust Summit to be initiated in Q4 2022, and a new professional credential, the Certificate of Zero Trust Knowledge (CZTK).

The Zero Trust Advancement Center builds upon several existing CSA projects, including the groundbreaking Software-Defined Perimeter research series, Cloud Controls Matrix, Enterprise Architecture and other related virtualized security models. Organizations can register their interest and participate in the program by navigating to cloudsecurityalliance.org/ZT.

About Cloud Security Alliance

The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) is the worlds leading organization dedicated to defining and raising awareness of best practices to help ensure a secure cloud computing environment. CSA harnesses the subject matter expertise of industry practitioners, associations, governments, and its corporate and individual members to offer cloud security-specific research, education, training, certification, events, and products. CSA's activities, knowledge, and extensive network benefit the entire community impacted by cloud from providers and customers to governments, entrepreneurs, and the assurance industry and provide a forum through which different parties can work together to create and maintain a trusted cloud ecosystem. For further information, visit us at http://www.cloudsecurityalliance.org, and follow us on Twitter @cloudsa.

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Infrastructure as a Service grew 41% in 2021 to $90 billion Gartner – RCR Wireless News

June 6, 2022 | Author: admin

Gartner Inc.slatest pollof the public cloudInfrastructure as a Service(IaaS) market shows the segment grew 41.4% in 2021, totally $90.9 billion, up from $64.3 billion year-over-year. Amazon is still the premiere IaaS provider in the survey, followed by Microsoft and Alibaba. Google and Huawei are fourth and fifth, respectively. Together, the top five IaaS providers account for more than 80% of the entire market, Gartner reports.

IaaS enables enterprise IT to outsource cloud computing network infrastructure like physical computing resources, scaling, and security. Examples of IaaS include Amazon EC2, Microsoft Azure Virtual Machines and Google Compute Engine. IaaS spending has increased dramatically year-over-year, driven by new trends in hybrid cloud and hybrid workforce solutions. As enterprises digitalize their operations into the cloud, IaaS sales are expected to increase.

The numbers reinforce Amazons IaaS dominance: the company had 38.9% of the worldwide 2021 public cloud IaaS market share, or about $35.58 billion in revenue. Microsoft followed with $19.153 billion, or 21.1%, while Alibaba reported $8.679 billion revenue for about 9.5% precent of the market. Google and Huawei rounded out the top five with 6.436 7.1 and 4.6% share respectively.

Gartner said that Microsofts primacy in enterprise IT provides it with leverage to capture growth for its Azure platform in new vertical markets. Alibaba, meanwhile, leads the burgeoning Chinese cloud market the report says that will help to give Alibaba footing for dominance in emerging Pacific Rim cloud markets in Indonesia, Malaysia and elsewhere.

Google Cloud, however, took the prize for highest growth rate, growing 63.7% in 2021, or $6.4 billion in revenue.

This growth was driven by steadily increased adoption for traditional enterprise workloads as well as Googles innovation in more cutting-edge capabilities such as artificial intelligence and Kubernetes container technologies, supported by an expansion of their partner ecosystem to reach a wider customer base, said Gartner.

Gartner also singled out Huawei for plaudits, pointing to the Chinese manufacturers focus on open hardware, open-source software and strategic partnerships.

Sid Nag, VP analyst at Gartner, said the continued growth underscores the continuation of cloud-native workloads as the primary modern IT architecture.

Cloud supports the scalability and composability that advanced technologies and applications require, while also enabling enterprises to address emerging needs such as sovereignty, data integration and enhanced customer experience, said Nag.

Gartner continues to beat the composability drum as a key cloud service differentiator for businesses. In Gartners parlance, enterprise composability is the mindset, technologies, and set of operating capabilities that enable organizations to innovate and adapt quickly to changing business needs. It is built on applying the key principle of modularity to business assets to achieve the scale and pace required of business ambition.

Nag claims the next phase of public cloud IaaS growth will be focused on improving customer experience and achieving business-driven digital outcomes. Oh, and the metaverse too. Thats also important.

Emerging technologies that can help businesses bring experiences closer to their customers, such as the metaverse, chatbots and digital twins, will require hyperscale infrastructure to meet growing demands for compute and storage power, said Nag.

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Scalability and security with industry-leading Government cloud – Part 2 – Federal News Network

June 6, 2022 | Author: admin

In the never-ending work of information technology modernization, federal agencies have been working on three tracks when it comes to cloud computing. Theyve moved at least some legacy applications to the cloud in whats commonly called lift-and-shift. Theyve adopted commercial software-as-a-service offerings for applications like email and productivity suites. And theyve developed their own cloud-native applications, typically using the DevSecOps approach.

What comes next? That was the topic of a panel discussion of federal IT...

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In the never-ending work of information technology modernization, federal agencies have been working on three tracks when it comes to cloud computing. Theyve moved at least some legacy applications to the cloud in whats commonly called lift-and-shift. Theyve adopted commercial software-as-a-service offerings for applications like email and productivity suites. And theyve developed their own cloud-native applications, typically using the DevSecOps approach.

What comes next? That was the topic of a panel discussion of federal IT practitioners hosted by Federal News Network and Appian. Panelists agreed, even custom-developed applications age and become legacy. Thats the case for Ravyn Manuel, senior application developer, architect, and DevOps engineer at the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

The museum opened five years ago. Referring to interactive customer experience applications developed then, Manuel said, Our stuff is becoming legacy. So we have to figure out how to deal with legacy. A key concern is for updated versions is cybersecurity, she added, because theyll be commercially cloud hosted, rather than on internal servers. And theyll be usable via visitors mobile devices, which brings an additional potential theat.

A modernization trend noted by Ray Wulff, the industry lead for global defense and intel programs at Appian, concerns the integration of applications to create new services. This occurs, Wulff said, using what he called an agility layer that lets developers tap the new systems, the new applications and the legacy systems at the same time. Such integration extends to the data connected with various applications, and also to the required cybersecurity and compliance controls, he added.

Wulff said agencies take a variety of approaches to legacy applications besides simply running them in a cloud-hosted mainframe emulator. They may refactor Cobol code, say into Java, or they might use a low-code logic extractor such as offered by Appian. In all cases, he said, IT staffs must figure out, okay, what are the storage and security concerns in the cloud with a refactored application?

Such work offers a chance for agencies to exchange best practices, rather than learning the same ground separately.

Steven Hernandez, the chief information security officer at the Education Department, said, Shared services is driving just an incredible opportunity, both from say, a cybersecurity and security services consumption perspective, but also that user experience. He added, When were thinking about our cloud applications and our workloads in the cloud, a big part of that conversation is, where are those shared service sweet spots that I ought to be consuming? Not just because its fast, its already stood up, the pricing is good. But also because its going to drive a better citizen experience.

A source for shared services is the cloud.gov program office within the Technology Transformation Service at the General Services Administration. One example, said Bret Mogilefsky, an information technology specialist with cloud.gov, is api.data.gov, a service if youre looking to secure and hand out keys for an application programming interface.

API security is a concern at the museum, Manuel said. She cited a project to create an online, searchable exhibit concerning slavery and freedom that can display items drawn from siloed systems housing images of the collections of three other museums, some hosted on premise by the Smithsonians office of the CIO.

I am doing things right now with APIs. Our legacy systems are at OCIO, and I have to work with them. The security piece is very big for them, Manuel said.

Panelists agreed the lift-and-shift era is over. Mogilefsky said that while a bulk cloud move certainly helped energy consumption and security, it doesnt help us with the agility of really being able to do new things in new ways. And also to collaborate between agency silos, he said. He advised to shoot high in the stack with services such as container orchestration to ease what he called the bespoke nightmares of earlier systems integrations.

Whether updating applications or combining components into new applications, Wulff said a number of Defense agencies are turning to the low-code approach. Security and speed of deployments are big reasons.

Theres a reason why youre seeing such an explosion in low code platforms, Wulff said, because the platform itself to develop the applications is getting the ATO (authority to operate). So then you really dont have to go through the ATO process.

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Scalability and security with industry-leading Government cloud - Part 2 - Federal News Network

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Atos, UCL and Arm team up to offer wider cloud computing possibilities for life sciences applications – B – Benzinga

June 6, 2022 | Author: admin

Atos and UCLannounced having successfully run the virus sequencing tool, Viridian, which is used to detect mutation of the SARS-Cov-2 strain of the coronavirus, using an Arm-based Ampere Altra processor in a cloud native environment with Atos' integration expertise. This proof of concept (PoC) was coordinated byAtos' Life Sciences Center of Excellencewhich aims to foster a culture of exploration, discovery and co-creation to harness the power of digital technologies in order to advance precision health and accelerate the discovery and development of drugs.

With data growing exponentially and becoming more difficult to process for life sciences applications, data, scientists rely on high-performance computing and parallel computing to quickly process and analyse massive amounts of data.

The Arm Neoverse-based platform, the Ampere Altra, is dedicated to cloud native workloads, meaning the simulation and the results can be achieved not only on-premises but directly on the cloud, on any type of HPC platforms and from anywhere.

This will be even easier with the use of Atos'Nimbix Supercomputing Suite; offering researchers and scientists flexible, scalable, and easy-to-use cloud solutions for compute-intensive workflows.

With more and more laboratories using Arm-based solutions, this successful PoC means that they will now be able to run Viridian on their systems, enabling them to study life science workflows and to detect various mutations in the SARS-CoV-2 genome, in order to ultimately help combat COVID-19.

This work has combined expertise skills from a team of Atos and Arm experts focusing on hardware and software optimizations, together with a scientific team from UCL dedicated to scientific applications for these specific use cases. This collaboration has enabled the optimization of both software and hardware in this co-designing effort to meet the demands of impactful and cutting-edge genomics workflows, which are already deployed in clinical settings.

Emmanuel Le Roux, Group SVP, Global Head of HPC, AI & Quantum at Atos,commentedBeing the undisputed European leader in HPC is not only about delivering the most systems to European HPC centers in terms of PetaFlops but also about working closely with numerous European research and scientific institutions to empower various crucial data productions and simulations daily. This work, under the umbrella of theAtos Life Sciences Center of Excellence, demonstrates that collaboration between academia and industry through the power of supercomputing is creating new avenues for scientific breakthroughs. Today, we have once again shown the importance of hybrid computing to foster innovation and provide scientists with tangible life sciences applications.

Alex Wade, Research Associate at UCL,said: This codesign effort between Arm, Atos and UCL has allowed for the optimization of both new Arm hardware and cutting-edge genomics software, fortifying both for real world life science applications. Collaborating with industry partners has demonstrated a key idea for the future of HPC applications whereby hardware and software are tuned for performance in tandem, as opposed to the typical story of software continuously being updated to match new hardware releases. This work has been performed as part of the Centre of Excellence in Computational Biomedicine (CompBioMed) and was possible because of CompBioMed's wide interdisciplinary expertise. Arm and Atos were valuable partners in this work and we hope this work leads to future collaborations and can act as a template for other codesign activities.

***

About Atos

Atos is a global leader in digital transformation with 111,000 employees and annual revenue of c. 11 billion. European number one in cybersecurity, cloud and high performance computing, the Group provides tailored end-to-end solutions for all industries in 71 countries. A pioneer in decarbonization services and products, Atos is committed to a secure and decarbonized digital for its clients. Atos is a SE (Societas Europaea), listed on Euronext Paris and included in the CAC 40 ESG and Next 20 Paris Stock indexes.

Thepurpose of Atosis to help design the future of the information space. Its expertise and services support the development of knowledge, education and research in a multicultural approach and contribute to the development of scientific and technological excellence. Across the world, the Group enables its customers and employees, and members of societies at large to live, work and develop sustainably, in a safe and secure information space.

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Zero Trust Edge Cloud Security Leader iboss Named Winner of The Coveted Global InfoSec Awards During RSA Conference 2022 – PR Web

June 6, 2022 | Author: admin

iboss is absolutely worthy of this coveted award and consideration for deployment in your environment

BOSTON (PRWEB) June 06, 2022

iboss, the leading Zero Trust Edge cloud security provider, is proud to announce it has been named Most Innovative Cloud Security & Best Product SaaS/Cloud Security by Cyber Defense Magazine (CDM), the industrys leading electronic information security magazine:

Were thrilled to be recognized as an innovator and leader by Cyber Defense Magazine, said Paul Martini, CEO and co-founder of iboss. Our best-in-class Zero Trust Edge platform is designed to meet the security and productivity challenges posed by todays highly-distributed modern workforces by making sensitive resources completely inaccessible to attackers while ensuring fast, direct connections for trusted users.

The iboss Zero Trust platform is a purpose-built, patented, cloud delivered security platform and has more than 100 points of presence globally. A Zero Trust Architecture built on iboss consolidates network security technologies (SWG, CASB, DLP, IPS, malware defense, browser isolation, firewall) into a single unified cloud platform and eliminates the need for a VPN while securing any device, regardless of location. By making all applications private, iboss eliminates the top three initial ransomware infection vectors as identified by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). With applications, data and services made accessible only through the iboss Zero Trust Edge, cyber risk is greatly reduced, breaches and data loss are prevented, and visibility and security are delivered consistently throughout an organization.

We scoured the globe looking for cybersecurity innovators that could make a huge difference and potentially help turn the tide against the exponential growth in cyber crime. iboss is absolutely worthy of this coveted award and consideration for deployment in your environment, said Yan Ross, Editor of Cyber Defense Magazine.

Visit iboss at the RSA Conference in the South Hall, booth 455. At the iboss theater, you will learn how to implement Zero Trust as defined by NIST, iboss integrations with identity partners and integrations with Microsofts security portfolio.

About iboss, Inc.ibossis a cloud security company that enables organizations to reduce cyber risk by delivering a Zero Trust service designed to protect resources and users in the modern distributed world. Applications, data and services have moved to the cloud and are located everywhere while users needing access to those resources are working from anywhere. Built on a containerized cloud architecture, iboss delivers security capabilities such as SWG, malware defense, browser isolation, CASB and data loss prevention to protect all resources, via the cloud, instantaneously and at scale. This shifts the focus from protecting buildings to protecting people and resources wherever they are located. Leveraging a purpose-built cloud architecture backed by 230+ issued and pending patents and more than 100 points of presence globally,ibossprocesses over 150 billion transactions daily, blocking 4 billion threats per day. More than 4,000 global enterprises trust the iboss Cloud Platform to support their modern workforces, including a large number of Fortune 50 companies. iboss was named one of the Top 25 Cybersecurity Companies by The Software Report, one of the 25 highest-rated Private Cloud Computing Companies to work for by Battery Ventures, and CRNs Top 20 Coolest Cloud Security Companies of 2022. To learn more, visit https://www.iboss.com/

About Cyber Defense MagazineCyber Defense Magazine is the premier source of cyber security news and information for InfoSec professions in business and government. We are managed and published by and for ethical, honest, passionate information security professionals. Our mission is to share cutting-edge knowledge, real-world stories and awards on the best ideas, products and services in the information technology industry. We deliver electronic magazines every month online for free, and special editions exclusively for the RSA Conferences. CDM is a proud member of the Cyber Defense Media Group. Learn more about us at https://www.cyberdefensemagazine.com and visit https://www.cyberdefensetv.com and https://www.cyberdefenseradio.com to see and hear some of the most informative interviews of many of these winning company executives. Join a webinar at https://www.cyberdefensewebinars.com and realize that infosec knowledge is power.

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CloudSigma and Super Protocol Partnership Is about to Bring Confidential Cloud to Web3 – GlobeNewswire

June 6, 2022 | Author: admin

New York, June 06, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- CloudSigma and Super Protocol are partnering to open up a new potential market with a win-win situation for each party involved. This is the next step for Super Protocol towards creating a marketplace where customers can work with solution providers, such as CloudSigma.

Super Protocol aims to bring confidential cloud computing to Web3 by providing end-to-end data protection across all of its three states: at rest (in storage), in transit (being transferred), and in use (being processed). While there are existing solutions capable of providing confidentiality for the first two states, the latter remains a gap that requires a more sophisticated approach. Super Protocol is designed to close this gap without sacrificing decentralization along the way.

CloudSigma brings its thirteen years of expertise and infrastructure distributed between fifteen locations to the table as a reputable and easy-to-use provider, capable of supporting Trusted Execution Environment technology.

With its Swiss background, CloudSigma has a perfect understanding of privacy, which is why theyre such a successful cloud service provider. Them working with us is another solid step towards creating a decentralized super cloud. said Nukri Basharuli, founder and CEO of Super Protocol.

The cloud services market is worth tens of billions of dollars and Web3 is in desperate need for a decentralized cloud solution. In addition, a virtually unlimited number of potential providers is one of the big advantages over centralized cloud vendors. You just need someone to bring it all together in a frictionless and secure way, and Super Protocol has everything it takes to be that someone.

Super Protocol leverages the industry-leading security delivered by Intel Software Guard Extensions (Intel SGX) through a key infrastructural partner that can provide access to the necessary Intel-certified hardware supporting this breakthrough technology. Intel SGX consists of a set of security capabilities built into 3rd generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors. Designed specifically to support trusted computation and based on the principle of application and data isolation, Intel SGX enables developers to partition code into hardened enclaves. Data processed inside an enclave is invisible to other applications, the operating system or hypervisor, and even rogue employees with credential-protected access.

We are excited to be supporting Super Protocol and their blockchain services, said Robert Jenkin, CEO of CloudSigma. Our uncorrelated infrastructure network provides blockchain companies with resilient infrastructure differentiated from much of the blockchain backbone that is concentrated in the hyperscalers. Add Intels confidential computing and you have a highly secure platform for blockchain service delivery.

CloudSigma infrastructure will be available on the Super Protocol testnet (exact launch date to be announced later this month - stay tuned for the updates).

About Super Protocol

Super Protocol combines blockchain with the most advanced confidential computing technologies on the market to create a universal decentralized cloud computing platform. Super Protocol offers a Web3 alternative to traditional cloud service providers and makes it possible for anyone to contribute to the development of innovative technologies for the Internet of the future.Website |Twitter|Telegram | Discord |LinkedIn

About CloudSigma

CloudSigma is a pure-cloud infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) provider thats enabling the digital industrial economy through its highly-available, flexible, enterprise-class hybrid cloud servers and cloud hosting solutions in Europe, the U.S., Asia, and Australia. CloudSigma is the most customizable cloud provider on the market, giving customers full control over their cloud and eliminating restrictions on how users deploy their computing resources.

For more information, please visit http://www.CloudSigma.com or find the company on Twitter, Facebook, andLinkedIn. For general inquiries contact: info@cloudsigma.com.

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Benefits and Drawbacks of Infrastructure as Code (IaC) – EnterpriseNetworkingPlanet

June 6, 2022 | Author: admin

With infrastructure as code, you can simply write a script that will automatically handle many infrastructure tasks for you. This not only saves time but also reduces the potential for human error.

You may remember the days when you bought and maintained your own servers and machines. We evolved from this Iron age of IT beginning around 2006 with the widespread adoption of virtualization. With virtualization, a single physical server could run multiple virtual machines.

This approach created an infrastructure that was more efficient and easier to manage. It also allowed for the development of new technologies, such as cloud computing.

However, organizations soon found themselves dealing with scaling problems. This problem necessitated the development of Infrastructure as Code. With IaC, businesses can provision and manage their infrastructure using code instead of manual processes. This allows for greater speed and agility when provisioning infrastructure. For example, consider a situation where you need to provision a new server. In the past, this might have involved logging into a server, downloading an ISO image, installing an operating system, and configuring networking settings all manually.

infrastructure as code speeds up this process exponentially.

Also see: Cloud is Down: Protecting Your Organization against Outages

IaC is often confused with IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service). IaaS is a type of cloud computing that provides infrastructure servers, storage, networking, and data center space on a pay-as-you-go basis. IaaS providers typically offer a self-service portal that allows users to provision and manage cloud infrastructure on demand. IaaS is often used by businesses that want to outsource the management of their infrastructure.

In contrast, IaC refers to the process of managing and provisioning infrastructure using code. You can do this in either a public cloud, private cloud, or on-premises environment. IaC allows for greater control over infrastructure and makes it easier to automate the provisioning and management of infrastructure.

There are many benefits to using infrastructure as code; they include:

One of the main benefits of infrastructure as code is that it can automate repetitive tasks. Provisioning a new server using infrastructure as code to automate the process is the most straightforward example. As a result, enterprises can scale up infrastructure management without increasing operational expenditure.

Another benefit of infrastructure as code is that it can help organizations scale their infrastructure more quickly. With IaC, businesses can define infrastructure as code templates (or blueprints) that they can use to provision new resources when needed quickly. This allows companies to be more agile and respond rapidly to changes in demand. In addition, infrastructure as code can help businesses standardize their infrastructure, improving efficiency and further reducing costs.

Infrastructure as code can help improve security by providing a way to track and audit infrastructure changes and ensure all changes comply with security standards. With IaC, businesses can track who made changes to infrastructure and when which can help identify potential security issues. In addition, IaC can provide documentation of an infrastructure, which can be valuable for troubleshooting or compliance purposes.

One of the challenges of managing infrastructure is that it can be challenging to track all the changes made to it. This can lead to what is known as shadow IT, where unauthorized modifications are made to infrastructure without proper approval. Infrastructure as code can help reduce shadow IT by providing a way to track all changes that are made to the infrastructure.

With IaC, businesses can define infrastructure configurations and then use these configurations to provide new infrastructure in a disaster. This can help reduce downtime and minimize the impact of disasters on businesses.

Also see:Top Managed Service Providers

While infrastructure as code provides many benefits, there are also some challenges that businesses need to understand. These challenges include:

One of the challenges of infrastructure as code is that it can be complex to define infrastructure configurations. This complexity can make it difficult for businesses to understand and maintain their infrastructure as code.

In addition, there are often conventions and standards that need to be followed when defining infrastructure as code, which can add to the complexity and a steep learning curve. In addition, skill staffers can be challenging to find. Businesses that do not have experience with IaC may not even know where to start and how to interview. Enterprises can remedy this by investing in IaC training and implementing continuous training programs for their staff.

One of the challenges of infrastructure as code is that there are often tooling gaps and feature lag. This means that there are often infrastructure as code tools that do not have all the features that businesses need.

Infrastructure as code tooling can lag in terms of new features and functionality. Therefore, you have no choice but to wait for the vendor to provide coverage; otherwise, you have to extend the functionality yourself or introduce new dependencies. The solution to this is investing in infrastructure as code tooling that is constantly updated and improved.

Configuration drift is another challenge of infrastructure as code. This occurs when there are differences between the infrastructure as code configuration and the actual infrastructure, such as manual or external updates to security patches. This can lead to non-compliance or even service failure over time.

Such differences can lead to unexpected behavior and can be difficult to debug. The solution to this is to use infrastructure as code tooling that can help identify and prevent configuration drift.

One of the challenges of infrastructure as code is that it can be challenging to manage role-based access control (RBAC). This is because infrastructure as code often needs to be stored in a central repository such as GitHub. Without proper RBAC management, this can lead to security issues.

The future of infrastructure as code is bright. As businesses move to the cloud, infrastructure as code will become even more important. As a result, IaC will continue to develop and grow in popularity.

However, the biggest issue is the need for IT personnel to fully grasp IaC language and tooling concepts for enterprises to operationalize IaC fully. This issue has created a mostly unsolved divide between Ops and Dev in most organizations. Ops try to optimize their setups as much as possible, while Devs fear touching IaC scripts out of concern about introducing problems. This situation leads to stagnation and inefficiency. Enterprises have two possible routes to deal with this: execute IaC on a case-by-case basis or bake execution of the IaC setup into a pipeline.

The next logical step for IaC is Internal Developer Platforms. In the future, Internal Developer Platforms (IDPs) may provide a middle ground between developers and IaC scripts. Internal Developer Platforms will enable developers to quickly self-serve infrastructure through a UI or CLI provisioned by IaC scripts behind the scenes.

Developers need only concern themselves with the resources (such as a database, DNS, and storage) they will require to deploy and run their applications. The IDP, on the other hand, will handle calling IaC scripts via specialized drivers to provide the appropriate infrastructure back to engineers.

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Cloudways Demonstrates Growth Ambitions with Customer Momentum, New Features, and Key Executive Hires – Business Wire

June 6, 2022 | Author: admin

PORTO, Portugal--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Cloudways (cloudways.com), the leading cloud hosting provider focused on simplicity, flexibility, and performance, announces significant customer momentum ahead of their presence at WordCamp Europe. Cloudways announcements at WordCamp Europe include SafeUpdates (in beta), new automations that manage WordPress updates at scale, and partnership with Astra Pro, a collaboration allowing users to build websites faster and easier than ever before.

Cloudways supports over 70k customers and 500K+ websites and was recently rated by G2 as the best cloud hosting company for SMBs with a rating of 4.8 out of 5. Additionally, Cloudways has strengthened its executive team with the hire of ex-Microsoft executive Paul Haverstock as VP of Engineering, Bluehost executive Suhaib Zaheer as COO, and AWS executive Tom Erskine as CMO. Cloudways has significantly grown in size to more than 280 employees, with its global mindset reflected in an employee base coming from 20+ countries.

Cloudways focuses on giving agencies, SMBs, e-commerce providers, and individuals a hassle-free, premium experience to help them grow their business with both peace of mind and improved productivity. The Cloudways platform features >99.9% uptime, fast page load times, pro-active app monitoring, dedicated workflows, leading security with add-ons from Cloudflare, and 24/7 premium support. Great value and flexibility are also key platform features with pay-as-you-go plans offered from cloud providers including AWS, Google Cloud, Linode, Vultur, and Digital Ocean and a choice of 65+ Data Center locations.

SafeUpdates, which is being launched in beta, is Cloudways newest feature and will enable agencies and developers to update their WordPress websites both automatically and on demand. The workflow secures a backup, performs advanced visual regression testing and performance checks on both staging and live, and then deploys selected updates to production or automatically rolls back the changes in case of any issues. SafeUpdates allows agencies and developers to automate their work, focus on their business, and upsell maintenance services with confidence.

Cloudways partnership with Astra Pro is part of a series of collaborations the company has made in recent months to enhance WordPress simplicity and ensure maximum performance and security on its platform. Cloudways has worked closely with Cloudflare, OceanWP, Divi, and OCP among others to offer a seamless, no-code digital experience for agencies and developers to build and secure WordPress websites.

Cloudways is both growing as a company and building significant momentum in the cloud hosting industry, said Aaqib Gadit, Co-Founder and CEO of Cloudways. The recent addition of Suhaib, Tom, and Paul to our leadership team shows the growth plans and ambition we have for Cloudways. At Cloudways, we are deeply focused on being a trusted partner to our customers and are continually innovating to save them both time and money while delivering a great user experience.

To learn more, visit Cloudways booth at WordCamp Europe at https://www.cloudways.com/en/wordcamp-europe.php

About Cloudways:

Founded in 2012, Cloudways is an intuitive, one-click managed cloud hosting platform that hosts over 50,000 servers globally. G2s Best Managed Hosting Provider for 2021, the platform lets users host WordPress and WooCommerce websites on top of a variety of cloud-hosting providers, including Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services, DigitalOcean, Vultr, and Linode. The platform features a web app management function that easily launches cloud servers for the deployment of WordPress, Magento, and PHP. Visit the company website at https://www.cloudways.com/en/about_us.php

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Defying competition, Mozilla brings offline translation to the Firefox browser, excluding uploading text to cloud servers – Royals Blue

June 6, 2022 | Author: admin

Historically, the Firefox browser was one of the solutions you could rely on, no matter what the circumstances.

Mozilla has added an official translation tool to Firefox that does not rely on cloud processing to do its job, all processing being done automatically, using software present on your own computer. For comparison, the competition between Google and Microsoft provides these services only through cloud servers, meaning that the text selected for translation is first transmitted using the internet connection, and finally received in translated form.

The translation tool, called Firefox Translations, can be like a simple extension for your web browser. Following the initial download of the installation files, their subsequent use is not limited by the presence of an internet connection. Most importantly, the content of the text sent for translation is not disclosed outside your own PC, the processing being done exclusively locally.

The bad news is that the list of supported languages currently includes Spanish, Bulgarian, Czech, Estonian, German, Icelandic, Italian, Persian and two Norwegian dialects. But not the Romanian language, which will be added at a later date. The fact is that the offline translation option is not automatically useful, as its availability depends largely on the software support provided in advance. Even if officially implemented, it remains to be seen whether the offline translation function will be able to be really useful, its need remaining to be demonstrated in real use.

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Defying competition, Mozilla brings offline translation to the Firefox browser, excluding uploading text to cloud servers - Royals Blue

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Why cloud security matters and why you can’t ignore it – ZDNet

June 6, 2022 | Author: admin

Image: Getty

As convenient as cloud computing has become, it isn't without problems. Poor cybersecurity planning for cloud applications, such as allowing users to rely on simple passwords, failing to use multi-factor authentication or not applying patches and updates, can leave you vulnerable to attacks.

Managing cybersecurity was already a challenge for many organisations and their boardrooms: adding the cloud just widens the potential threat surface and increases the complexity for many.

That's especially the case for firms that might not even be aware of their cybersecurity responsibilities when it comes to cloud services.

"Sometimes we still have a perception by organisations that it's a set-and-forget-it mentality," says Jason Nurse, associate professor in cybersecurity at the University of Kent.

"The reality is that, for many organisations, they view using the cloud as sort of handing over all responsibility on security and data protection," he adds.

SEE:Cloud computing security: New guidance aims to keep your data safe from cyberattacks and breaches

But, he points out, a lot of responsibility still falls on these organisations to do things to ensure that they have the right setup, to ensure that they have the cloud configured correctly and that they don't have data "hanging around" that's not appropriately protected.

The lack of understanding around configuring and securing cloud services can leave sensitive information exposed potentially even directly to the open internet where anyone, including malicious cyber criminals, can see it.

This isn't just a theoretical problem, as cases of misconfigured cloud environments exposing sensitive information are regularly uncovered.

"Organisations do not completely understand the cloud environment and a lack of expertise and skill set makes it difficult for businesses to identify and implement the right set of security controls to protect their cloud operations," says Prakash Venkata, principal within PwC's cybersecurity, risk and regulatory practice.

"Companies that seem to be ignoring cloud security altogether may be doing so due to a lack of understanding, a lack of skills and expertise, limited time due to competing corporate initiatives, or limited budget to invest in leading tools," he adds.

But cloud security isn't something that can just be ignored if your organisation is using cloud applications or servers, securing it is a must, particularly as cyber criminals and other malicious hackers are on the lookout for insecure services they can exploit to gain access to networks with relatively low effort.

For example, there's been a big rise in enterprises and employees using cloud application suites for emails, managing documents and other daily tasks. It's beneficial for employees, but if those accounts aren't secured properly, they can provide an easy backdoor for attackers.

If your organisation isn't on top of its cloud security strategy, it could be easy for the information security team to miss early signs of suspicious activity, only to finally notice when it's too late, once information has been stolen or ransomware has encrypted the network.

There are also additional steps that information security teams can take to bolster cybersecurity defences of cloud services, such as rolling out multi-factor authentication to all users. This provides an opportunity to stop and detect malicious intrusions before they happen, because even if the attacker has the correct password, the user has to confirm that it's a legitimate login attempt.

"Identity access management, the ability to ensure that networks' data system services can only be accessed by by authorized parties, that's really the essential bit," says Nurse.

"Even considering the basic stuff, such as multi-factor authentication on key accounts and key services, I think those are the things that are more and more required broadly," he adds.

And just because software is cloud-based, that doesn't mean it doesn't require security patches and updates. If there's a security update available for cloud software, it's best to apply it as soon as possible, particularly as cyber criminals also know about the vulnerabilities and will do their best to exploit them. For this, it's important to select the right cloud vendor.

SEE:Terrible cloud security is leaving the door open for hackers. Here's what you're doing wrong

A good cloud service provider that becomes aware of security vulnerabilities in their products will roll out those patches to customers as soon as possible, providing the customer with the greatest opportunity to stay protected from attacks, using the exploit as long as they apply the update on time.

However, your choice of cloud service provider could make a significant difference to your overall cloud security strategy. Many vendors will be responsive, quickly supplying updates and fixes for cloud software issues but some aren't, and it's important to learn which these are before signing a contract.

"There's no point choosing a cloud provider that has really cheap services, but then that cloud provider doesn't patch regularly or doesn't monitor its own attack surface, because at the end of the day, it's still the organisation's data that could be breached," says Nurse.

Even when you have a cybersecurity strategy around cloud in place, that's not the end of the journey and much like when you first start using cloud services, you can't just ignore it and hope for the best. Cybersecurity is always evolving, new threats emerge, and new strategies need to be applied to help keep networks and users as safe and secure as possible.

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Why cloud security matters and why you can't ignore it - ZDNet

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