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Internet security and data security has become less protected due to the varying data retention laws. People looking to maintain their online privacy are opting for online services to ensure their data is secured. There are various services offered such as VPN, antivirus, password manager services, and email protection. There are several providers are in the market and it is important to get these services from trusted providers. Websites likePrivacy Sharksoffer reviews on the top and best providers for anything to do with online security.

A virtual private network is a means of ensuring that ones mobile, computer or laptop is secured. It works by protecting the users identity and allowing them to roam the internet freely. VPN tricks the device to believe it is in another location and encrypting the users internet activity hence allowing them to access geo-restricted content. People who use devices to work at home require protection from hackers and cyber threats. Some users use these services to keep their information away from their internet provider or the state government. Most people use VPN to ensure online anonymity and online privacy. It helps to keep the users location data untraceable by showing a different region.

Internet browsing through unsecured networks exposes ones private information to the public. Public Wi-Fi networks make passwords and data accessed by a browser vulnerable to access by unauthorized persons. VPN keeps the online activity and IP address private by scrambling data sent over a public network. Search history from someones online activity and web surfing can be accessed by various people and used to locate the user. This is why people get targeted ads and pages as per their search content. Service providers and web browsers can access someones information anytime without a VPN. The best VPN services should be able to provide privacy and anonymity by hiding the IP address, protect user private information from the public, and allow one to access and watch their favourite shows at whatever location they are when traveling.

Antivirus software is installed on user devices to protect them from known internet threats such as viruses and malware. The software should be frequently updated to ensure that it remains effective since it can also harm the device. A universal antivirus is best preferred for information security since cyber threats that involved a maliciously cooked code may fail to be detected by some antivirus programs. Some antivirus software has the capability of running predictive analysis and are also equipped with artificial intelligence and can therefore detect any malicious software depending on what it does to the users device. Users should be keen when selecting the type of antivirus software to install. The weaknesses and strengths of the software should be identified before settling on an antivirus company. An antivirus with frequent scanning and updates helps ensure the users cybersecurity hygiene is taken care of and that they are free from threats.

Email security ensures that a users email communication and accounts are safe from unauthorized access, loss, or compromised by other persons. Email threats include malware, spam, deceptive messages that confuse users to expose sensitive information, hyperlinked malware, and phishing attacks. Email security is essential for both individual and business email accounts. Enterprise and company valuable data should be protected from cyberthreats. There are several ways in which one can secure their email and information. Some of them include strong passwords, secure logins and encryption, email encryption, data scanners, and data protection solutions to protect sensitive information. For companies, it is key to train employees and make them aware of the various types of threats around them. Avoiding risky behaviours such as opening emails and clicking unverified links should also be avoided since malware can cause massive destruction when installed on a device. Email attackers have skills and methods of luring the user to believe that they are supposed to share with them certain information. It is important to select the best email security services to ensure the security of data and private information in personal emails, business emails, or company emails.

Password managers help maintain online security and privacy by offering services that enable users to create strong and unique passwords that are not easy to guess or recreate. It is advisable to avoid repeating and reusing passwords and for most people, it is a challenge to remember every one of them. Password managers also ensure that the generated password is stored in a safe and encrypted location and the user needs to remember only one major password to access the others. the user has to decide on what place they prefer their password saved in. The passwords can be saved on their personal computer, in the cloud, or on someone else server.

Device stored passwords are hard to be accessed by hackers since they will need advanced tools and keyloggers to access the passwords. The user has control over the password access and security. However, when the device is lost, all the passwords can be compromised especially if the device is stolen by someone targeting the user. Cloud storage of passwords makes them easily accessible to the user as well as synchronizes all the passwords on several other devices through cloud servers. The passwords saved on cloud servers can also be recovered when forgotten by the user or in the case of a stolen device. The only threat of saving passwords on the cloud is that they can be breached hence do not provide total security to user data.

Conclusion

Internet security requires the use of various technologies and products to ensure data and information safe from unauthorized personnel and cyber-attack. There are several solutions and products to choose from and they all have different pros and cons on the devices and to the user. It is key to select the right product and package that serves the purpose of ensuring that the device is free from any type of online insecurity. Various sophisticated threats are surrounding online users especially for companies or persons who strive to protect sensitive and private information from target groups.

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Cloud costs can prove to be a tricky if not monitored carefully. This makes it important for organisations to reduce their overall cloud costs. All these techniques and strategies can be implemented quickly and can help users tremendously with their cloud costs.

But before finding out how you can reduce your organisation's cloud costs, let's take a brief look at cloud computing services.

Cloud services are specialised IT services offered to companies to reduce their burden and ease their workflow. Maintaining IT infrastructure within a company can be expensive due to the high costs involved in purchasing and maintaining these servers. Usually, an entire department is needed to run these big server rooms, which is why companies prefer to outsource these services.

The number of organisations using cloud services has gone up exponentially. According to studies, the average use of cloud services in an organisation has gone up from 5 percent to 30 percent in just a few years, and it's set to increase even more.

The increase in usage of cloud services can greatly burden a companys finances. But these five ways can help an organisation can reduce its cloud services costs and keep them under control.

The first and foremost step is to understand the need for cloud services in your organization. For that, IT professionals must be brought into the picture and asked how the company can benefit from using cloud services. Going back to the whiteboard and understanding your needs will allow you to assess the extent to which you require the services.

Do you need to improve your workflow or strengthen security? Or do you need to increase flexibility or facilitate work distribution among team members? Do you need private cloud services or public cloud services? Do you need SaaS (software as a service), IaaS (infrastructure as a service), or PaaS (platform as a service)?

Answers to these questions will improve your understanding of cloud services, which translates into better budgeted and managed services.

After gaining a better understanding of your organisation's cloud needs, budgeting your service expenses is the next important step. It's imperative to strike a balance between how your need and spending capacity. Understanding what licence you are going for is critical. Will per-user or overall usage benefit your organisation more in terms of cost reduction and better workflow? Companies are continually spending more on cloud services. It is not a bad thing necessarily, but something organisations might want to watch out for.

But organisations should ensure room for flexibility while preparing this budget because any impetuous decision can hamper usage. The bottom line: assess the needs and strike a balance.

Cloud management platforms help you in creating visibility of cloud service usage. An organisation that is aware of the usage of its cloud services will be able to better utilise the services.

Keeping a tab on departmental usage can help the organisation to implement cost cutting where needed. This will not only uncover loopholes in allocation and capacity, but will also provide the organisation with any data-saving method that's already in place. Investing in cloud management platforms is therefore an important tool. These platforms give accurate information about your use of these services and can help you to optimise the same.

Managing the usage of services is often the most overlooked part, but is an essential factor in increasing or reducing costs.

Staff should understand the usage of cloud services because they are the users. Mistakes made by employees when accessing services result in increased costs, which burden the organisation's overall finances. It's simple: if you want to achieve lower costs, educate your employees about the usage of these services.

While opting for cloud services, larger organisations use a mixture of services to keep the costs down. They understand their needs diligently and invest in services that are most cost-effective and beneficial.

For some, a single cloud service may do the trick, but these are not necessarily cost-effective. The right cloud services depend on your organisation's needs and capacity. Also, it is beneficial to integrate your cloud services with your systems to facilitate ease of use and data transfer.

Often a network architect is hired in a company to help in decision making on where the company should invest in. It is the job of the network architect to devise a cost-efficient strategy for the organisation and oversee the working of these services.

Cloud computing is the future. Efficient usage of these services can unlock a lot of opportunities, but managing them well is essential for your growth.

(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of YourStory.)

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Ways to keep the organization's cloud costs under control - YourStory

Cyberattacks are continuing to grow in sophistication and scale.

The coronavirus pandemic has increased the attack surface for cybercriminals, leading to a possible cyber-pandemic.

Healthcare is one industry that has been particularly exposed.

If you look back at early 2020 "new year predictions", you will find nowhere a reference to an unprecedented global pandemic that will shut down, in many ways, the way we live and begin a new normal.

But it happened. And with the new normal came "new everything".

With the rapid shift to more cloud servers, the popularity of network-connected smartphones, in addition to the shift to remote work, organizations had to quickly adapt their security measures to make sure they are secured at all times, from any remote places they might connect from. This has now become the new security perimeter.

The new landscape has generated a surge of sophisticated fifth-generation cyberattacks. As organizations adapted to remote work, and all its digital implications, cyber-criminals seized the global crisis to launch a series of large-scale cyber exploits.

Cyberattacks have reached a new level of sophistication, ranging from international espionage to massive breaches of personal information to large-scale internet disruption.

Advanced weapons-grade hacking tools have been leaked, allowing attackers to move fast and infect large numbers of businesses and entities across huge swaths of geographic regions. Large-scale, multi-vector mega-attacks have sparked a need for integrated and unified security structures.

Most businesses are still in the world of second- or third-generation security, which only protects against viruses, application attacks and payload delivery. Networks, virtualized data centres, cloud environments and mobile devices are all left exposed. To ensure a cybersecure organization, businesses must evolve to fifth-generation security: advanced threat prevention that uniformly prevents attacks on a businesss entire IT infrastructure.

Just as we thought 2020 could not have brought any more bad news or cybercrime advancements, along came the SolarWinds incident, which swiftly qualified for the title of the most significant attack of the year: sophisticated, multi-vector attacks with clear characteristics of a cyber pandemic, where the malicious activity is spread within the organization in a manner of seconds. This was a manifestation of fifth-generation cyber-attack.

The scope of the incident became clearer several days later when Microsoft, FireEye, SolarWinds, and the US government all admitted they suffered an attack made possible by a hack to SolarWinds, a common IT-management software. Further investigation revealed that the attackers added a backdoor, called Sunburst, to a component of the SolarWinds system, which was then distributed to its customers via an automatic software update. That granted remote access to multiple high-profile organizations making it one of the most successful supply-chain attacks ever observed.

Several aspects of the SolarWinds supply-chain attack make it unprecedented in the ever-evolving cyber-landscape. Its scope was uniquely broad, with an estimated 18,000 SolarWinds customers affected, including most Fortune 500 firms.

COVID-19 forced organizations to set aside their existing business and strategic plans, and quickly pivot to delivering secure remote connectivity at massive scale for their workforces. Security teams also had to deal with escalating threats to their new cloud deployments, as hackers sought to take advantage of the pandemics disruption: 71% of security professionals reported an increase in cyber-threats since lockdowns started.

As COVID-19 continues to dominate headlines in 2021, news of vaccine developments or new national restrictions will continue to be used in phishing campaigns, as they have been through 2020. The pharma companies that developed vaccines will also continue to be targeted by malicious attacks from criminals or nation states looking to exploit the situation.

Recent Check Point research shows that healthcare is currently the most targeted industry in the US, with a 71% increase in attacks compared to September. The chart below shows the sharp increase of healthcare-sector attacks compared to the global increase; since November, there has been an increase of over 45% in the amount of attacks in the sector, double the global increase in amount of attacks over the same time period (22%).

Healthcare sector cyberattacks in 2020

Image: Check Point

As the coronavirus spread worldwide, the social distancing policies enacted due to the COVID-19 pandemic shifted a substantial portion of businesses from corporate offices to employees home offices. Network admins had to rapidly adjust to the requirements of working remotely and implement remote-access platforms within their organizations. Unfortunately, these often resulted in misconfigurations and vulnerable connections, allowing attackers to leverage these flaws to access corporate information.

As a result, the first half of 2020 saw an increase in attacks against remote access technologies such as RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol, developed by Microsoft to provide an interface for remote connection) and VPN. The following chart displays the increase in attacks exploiting vulnerabilities in remote connection products.

Attacks targetting remote connection vulnerabilities

Image: Check Point

Schools and universities have pivoted to large-scale use of e-learning platforms, so perhaps its no surprise that the sector experienced a 30% increase in weekly cyberattacks during the month of August, in the run-up to the start of new semesters. Attacks launched by these digital class clowns will continue to disrupt remote-learning activities over the coming year, if and when the pandemic spread will peak.

With this new world, comes a new opportunity to redefine the role of cybersecurity and ensure every organization is stepping up the fifth generation of security. Below are three guiding principles:

As weve learned, vaccination is far better than treatment. The same applies to your cybersecurity. Real time prevention of attacks, before they infiltrate, places your organization in a better position to defend against the next cyber-pandemic.

2. Consolidation and visibility

Solutions applied in individual areas of attack will probably leave you with security gaps, fragmented visibility, complex management and limited options to scale. Consolidated security architecture will guarantee you the security effectiveness needed to prevent sophisticated cyberattack. Unified management and risk visibility fill out your security posture.

Next-generation technologies such as AI, ubiquitous connectivity and quantum computing have the potential to generate new risks for the world, and at this stage, their full impact is not well understood.

There is an urgent need for collective action, policy intervention and improved accountability for government and business in order to avert a potential cyber pandemic.

The Forum's Centre for Cybersecurity launched the Future Series: Cybercrime 2025 initiative to identify what approaches are required to manage cyber risks in the face of the major technology trends taking place in the near future.

Find out more on how the Forum is leading over 150 global experts from business, government and research institutions, and how to get involved, in our impact story.

3. Keep your threat intelligence up to date

To prevent zero-day attacks, organizations first need incisive, real-time threat intelligence that provides up-to-minute information on the newest attack vectors and hacking techniques. Threat intelligence must cover all attack surfaces including cloud, mobile, network, endpoint and IoT.

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Fifth-generation cyberattacks are here. How can the IT industry adapt? - World Economic Forum