Two Hot Cyber Security Trends You Should be Considering

Posted On 24 September 2018 By Megan Morreale In Trends /  

Ebbs and flows of cybersecurity trends are no surprise to seasoned IT professionals, but sometimes it can be hard to keep up with what’s coming next and what’s on it’s way out.

The trick to staying in the know is constant conversation in amongst your peers, and keeping up with the technology companies currently making splash when it comes to thwarting attacks and keeping your data safe.

Today, we’re breaking down two hot trends in cybersecurity that you should be on top of—ransomware and blockchain.

Ransomware: defense is a high priority.

This particular pain for IT professionals has been an increasing threat lately because of the new capability to outsource the development of custom ransomware strains.

So, someone could be working with a hacker to build a ransomware specifically designed to attack you. The hackers get a portion of the proceeds as payment, meaning this doesn’t usually require any money up front.

Two popular examples are WannaCry and Petya, striking Britain’s National Health Service and personal bitcoin wallets.

Dan Manson, National Cyber League Commissioner, suggests how to prepare:

“Businesses need to stop looking for cybersecurity professionals in the wrong places and using outdated ways of hiring employees. We find that many companies lack the understanding of potential cyber threats and also are unfamiliar with the state of the cybersecurity landscape. Therefore, they don’t know better than to rely on a resume than to ask a potential employee to show proof of their skills being validated.

This is the main reason the National Cyber League started providing NCL Scouting Reports. Not only does this report reflect personal cybersecurity skills growth, but cybersecurity students are getting jobs as it shows employers their skills are tested and validated,” Manson told pheonixNAP.

His advice rings logically true—ransomware is evolving at an alarming rate, and the first step in defense against is your talent.

Finding the right person for ransomware defense could mean the difference between a near miss and a billion dollar mistake.

Blockchain: improving the security of transactions.

On a happier note, there’s something new on the horizon that looks to be an improvement for the cybersecurity professionals of today.

Cryptocurrency and blockchain are commonly referred to together, but the two aren’t mutually exclusive, and blockchain has the potential for very positive security applications.

Lawrence Aucoin, CTO and Managing Partner at Optimal IdM, discusses the future of blockchain for security professions, no matter how vague:

“Blockchain applied to an identity world is an interesting, if not fairly speculative, real-world application,” Aucoin told CSO.

“Some of the compelling foundational components of an identity blockchain are that you don’t need a central ‘store’ (or bank) as a middleman to trade with a partner. In fact, you don’t even need to know who the partner is—only that they are a verified participant in the blockchain. Trust is essential to commerce and that is blockchain’s sweet spot.”

Because blockchain is all about trust, there is a huge financial motivation. IT professionals should keep an eye out for more attempted attacks on blockchain solutions, as well as more developments and applications for corporations.

As we look ahead to new trends, we need to assume that the urgency and concern data breached foster is only going to rise. Keeping up with trends is just one step on the journey towards true cybersecurity.

Read More

The Best Way for Finance Companies to Improve Wireless Network Security

Posted On 4 June 2018 By Megan Morreale In Technology /  

As finance companies deploy Internet of Things (IoT) solutions, they must ensure that connections and critical data are secure.

As finance companies continue to update security technologies, and make use of all types of IoT) solutions, there are more opportunities for network security breaches.

These technologies are used for all types of things—from everything like finding optimal locations for new establishments, to personalizing offers for customers, to protecting their own internal data. The potential for network security failure lies everywhere.

Among the financial industry, banking malware is common. According to SecureList:

In 2017, the number of users that encountered Android banking malware decreased by almost 15% to 259,828 worldwide. Just three banking malware families accounted for attacks on the vast majority of users (over 70%).

As banks and financial technologies adopt more connected devices like sensors, Bluetooth low energy beacons, IP-connected cameras and more to their information technology (IT) environments, steps to secure those devices and their data need to be taken.

The best way to ensure financial institution network security is a mix of strong encryption, segmentation and a willingness to perform penetration testing and replace connected devices regularly.

Reduce Device Security Load with Network Segmentation

Network segmentation is the practice of isolation different IoT devices. Segmenting these devices reduces the risk that one breached device will be able to harm other devices that are a part of the network.

Marc Blackmer, Product Manager of Industry Solutions for Cisco was quoted in CDW talking about the benefits:

“Existing best practices, such as network segmentation, will help take some of the security load off of these devices.”

Once devices are segmented, IT departments need to ensure that there is strong encryption across the board to protect against a breach.

Encrypted Devices Need to Span Across the Board

The same security tools used for wireless networks needs to get carried over to devices.

Yariv Fishman, Head of Product Management for Vertical Solutions and IoT at Check Point Software Technologies, tells BizTech how to eliminate potential attacks:

“Establishing an encrypted virtual private network connection between a device and the network helps eliminate potential attacks, such as ‘Man in the Middle,’ that compromise the integrity and validity of the information provided from the device to the network and vice versa.”

The mobile threat is real—In Verizon’s “Mobile Security Index 2018” report, 25 percent of those surveyed who work in the financial services sector reported that they have experienced a mobile-related incident and 18 percent said it was a major one with lasting repercussions.

Strong encryption, coupled with the willingness to replace existing IoT devices with new, upgrades will enhance. security protections.

Penetration Testing for Mobile

Finally, it’s clear that the finance industry sees the potential threats that IoT and other wirelessly connected devices can bring.

The most important thing you can do is to identify malicious activity and identify vulnerabilities in IoT devices before a breach happens.

To do so, bring in penetration testers on a regular basis, and if you can’t afford to do that, conduct red team exercises with your staff. As technology advances, the opportunities are imments, but new devices need to be deployed securely to ensure a safe future for companies and their clients and customers.

Read More

3 Ways Network Security is Changing as IT Departments Transform Digitally

Posted On 16 April 2018 By Megan Morreale In Technology /  

Network security practices are familiar to most organizations as the policies and practices that protect your computer from cyber attacks.

Information Technology (IT) professionals and executives generally agree they’re necessary, but some of these practices are becoming outdated as organizations transform digitally.

Basically—it’s time to rethink the old school way.

Traditionally, you have public and private security—one reserved for use by employees at work, and the other for the public—and the tech has been the same for years.

It isn’t enough in the face of new digital technologies. Below are some tips from Chief Information Officers (CIOs) facing this changing landscape, with advice on how you can too.

You can’t just invest in protections for physical networks anymore—you need to protect your cloud.

As your infrastructure and your applications move to the cloud, so should your network security policies and practices. As organizations transform digitally, they rely less on physical networks and more on cloud services.

In fact, Research firm IDC estimates that nearly one third of the worldwide enterprise application market will be SaaS-based by 2018, driving annual SaaS revenue to $50.8 billion, from 22.6 billion in 2013.

Neil Thacker, European CIO of Netskope, told ComputerWeekly.com that the way to focus more on cloud security is to work in layers:

“The traditional seven-layer OSI model has…been replaced with three layers: identity, application and data. In summary, organizations must have better visibility into these three layers without necessarily prohibiting the use of services that businesses rely on.

“Cloud is not just the future, it’s how businesses work in the present day. Therefore, the security of these services and the data that resides in them must form part of a CISO’s principal strategy,” he adds.

Your identity, applications and data are all moving towards the cloud, if they’re not there already. Having protections in place for all three layers will greatly help reduce the risk of attack or breach from a third-party.

IT pros are taking a layered approach—they’re developing infrastructure as a service (IaaS).

As you approach network security in the cloud, you need to take into account that perimeter controls restrict the traffic that reaches your applications. This provides a lot of strength for an organization when they look at that traffic in layers.

Alex Ayers, Head of Application Security at Wolters Kluwer, also told ComputerWeekly.com that it’s particularly crucial for companies to develop IaaS:

“Supporting the architectural and technical controls is a security monitoring layer which, while often seen as an insurance policy, provides data that can be used to augment service health and performance indicators

“Through these different layers, our company is able to deploy, tune and replace discrete specialised technologies in response to changes in threats or business requirements.”

The adoption of IaaS is growing—according to Statista, IaaS’s share of the public cloud market in 2016 was 33.2%, and the number of installed cloud workloads for IaaS in 2018 was 50 million worldwide.

According to Ayers, the addition of these layers is a makes corporate network boundaries a thing of the past. They balance and corporate network, a host of SaaS products to run their business.

Finally, invest in more modern detection and response technologies.

The amount of time it takes you to react to a security breach today is critical. According to Geoff Belknap, CSO at Slack, investing more in modern detection and response technologies is one of the more important things you can do.

They’re not the only ones—Gartner reported last year that detection and response is top security priority for organizations of all kinds.

According to Belknap, Slack uses a suite of technologies like firewalls, network-based intrusion detection, and modern network and endpoint-based malware detection methods. They monitor at the kernel level to see how their services communicate, and of course to detect potential threats.

“We are also big believers in the beyondcorp/zero trust school of thought. We don’t assign any trust based on the source network that a given device’s request originates from,” Belknap said.

“We treat all our networks as untrusted. Instead we make device identifiers a key component of our security, which allows us to make more accurate decisions about access control and make more informed decisions about suspicious activity.”

Network security practices have been around for a long time, as as we continue to evolve digitally, the threats to our security will only evolve too. Preparing for this evolution with updated policies and practices is the first step in keeping your organization’s data safe.

SMSEagle is Hardware SMS gateway to send and receive SMS text messages. To find out how we can help support your network security program, check out our online store.

Read More

Network Security and Business Agility Can Coexist

Posted On 12 February 2018 By Megan Morreale In Technology /  1

You’d be hard pressed to find any business leader that said they didn’t want to be agile. The ability to pivot quickly, make fast decisions and change course in the midst of a project is valuable today as the business landscape becomes more volatile.

The thing is, we’re also bombarded with news of security breaches, hacks and stories of people and businesses that have been robbed of sensitive information. This requires management, processes, policies—all of the things you’d probably say work against agility.

It doesn’t have to be this way, though—you can have both agility and security.

But how? It’s hard to imagine a word with both when cyber security issues are becoming so overwhelming. Network World’s 2017 State of the Network report cited data breaches and leaks as the top challenge for IT decision makers in businesses of all size. Part of the problem is understaffing the security operations centers (SOCs) themselves.

“Understaffed and under-skilled SOC teams depend on key individuals and manual processes to get their jobs done,” ESG’s Jon Oltsik wrote for CSO Online. “And when cyber security professionals detect something wrong, they don’t work well with the IT operations team to fix problems in an efficient manner.”

The problem today has roots from the internet’s beginnings.

One major problem—we’re using IP addressing to a greater extent than anyone ever imagined. The founders of the web didn’t expect us to use it to attack one another.

The problem lies in the workaround we’ve created for the IP address:

“Since it’s impossible to give every device its own unique IP address, the clever folks at networking companies came up with an assortment of workarounds, such as being able to NAT (network address translation) non-routable, private addresses,” Moreover, as industry analyst Zeus Kerravala wrote in Network World.

“And as we’ve added more dynamic environments, such as private and public cloud, defining policy based on addresses or ranges has become unsustainable.”

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has tried to solve this problem with a new standard to address the flaws in TCP and IP addressing. With this standard, the host identity protocol (HIP) separates endpoint identifiers from IP address locator roles and introduces a new namespace based on public keys from that endpoint.

The solution—you need an inherently agile network.

HIP is part of the solution to this problem, and can help you bring both business agility and security into your framework.

One solution—secure network overlays based on cryptographic namespace identities.

With this solution, end-to-end or peer-to-peer encrypted networking is now possible and can be done in as little as three steps, even for traditionally non-routable endpoints.

SMSEagle is Hardware SMS gateway to send and receive SMS text messages. To find out how we can help support your network security program, check out our

Read More

5 Ways Predictive Analytics can Prevent Network Failures

Posted On 8 January 2018 By Megan Morreale In Technology /  1

The good news—you can put your crystal ball away. Preventing network failure doesn’t have to be a guessing game anymore. Predictive analytics can help you find these performance issues before they happen.

The ability to find and address network problems before they even begin affecting your operations is giving information technology (IT) professionals the freedom to focus on progressive projects as opposed to reactive ones.

“There is a growing need for networks to adapt to dynamic application demands as well as address dynamically to special events, seasonality and so on,” Diomedes Kastanis, head of technology and innovation for Ericsson told CIO.online.

“Although we have a lot of automation systems and rules to manage and operate networks, it still is not enough to cope with the intense changing environment and proactively adapt to changing demands.”

There’s a reason predictive analytics are so effective. We’re pinpointing five ways that they can help your IT department prevent network failures.

1) Incorporating AI in new technologies is paving the way for failure prevention.

Most of the current adoption of predictive analytics comes from updates to technologies that are already being used. Different security platforms, like endpoint technologies, include updates that leverage artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning (ML).

It’s technologies like these that have led companies like Skymind to start to adopt the practice, but the technology still isn’t yet fully evolved—only 95 percent accuracy for them.

“In other words, to predict data for the next month, you need five months of historic data,” Gianluca Noya, digital network deployment and analytics lead at Accenture told Networks Asia.

Still, the advancements in computing power, security technology and network data are allowing IT departments to start to figure out how to take advantage of this resource—including anticipating capacity requirements.

2) IT departments can stop spending time analyzing capacity data.

To determine to future capacity of their networks, IT professionals spend time determining a benchmark metric, and continuing to measure against it for comparison. This takes time—staff will spend months trying to gather and project data for several month forecasts, only to find they have to start over when those months roll around.

Instead of spending those months analyzing traffic, services, device use and how employees are using them, predictive algorithms can crunch all of that data for you. Not only can it same time, but it can continuously learn as it does this, beyond what is capable with benchmarks that don’t move.

3) Quality of performance is taken into account.

Learning capabilities also come into effect when you’re trying to analyze quality of performance in the future. Based on past events, deep learning technology can be applied to forecast for the future.

“When you have a dataset that includes records of events you want to predict, you can train a deep neural network on that data,”Chris Nicholson, CEO of Skymind, an AI developer supporting the open source deep learning framework Deeplearning4j told CIO.

“When you can predict capacity problems accurately (for example), you can act pre-emptively to rebalance the load on your network and provision the network with more capacity.”

The more data you have, the better the technology can learn. While there are still some stopgaps here—like data that’s not clean or organized properly—when applied correctly, it can proactively secure your organization.

4) As AI technology learns, predictive analytics learn about attackers as well.

As attackers get smarter, supporting intrusion detection gets tougher, and organizations will soon require predictive analytics to stay ahead.

It’s effective because this technology learns about your system in a more complete way than any other human could. This means it knows what your ‘normal’ looks like, and recognizing anomalous behavior is easy.

This will become very important in industries like banking, where risk mitigation and detection of security breaches is so important. The cost of a security breach is immense—the more quickly you detect them, the less impact to your organization.

5) Predictive analytics will cost you less in the long run.

Network pricing structures can be complicated, but coupling your system with predictive analytics can not only help you save in the event of an attack, but can help you forecast for effectively—like network upgrades, new devices and staff.

The key to success with predictive analytics is to have data that the technology can learn from. A historical look at past problems is paramount to predicting security events in the future.

While this is not a ‘quick-fix’ solution, predictive analytics are a tool for CIOs to better prepare for the future and identify behavioral patterns across all of your systems.

Read More

How to Ensure Your SMS Carrier Isn’t the Weakest Link in Your Security Chain

Posted On 9 October 2017 By Megan Morreale In Technology /  1

For businesses and users alike, there has recently been a big security shift to two-factor authentication, and many companies are leaning on mobile devices to provide authentication codes in a timely manner for users.

The way it works is pretty simply. Once customers login using their usernames and passwords, they have to then authenticate their entry a second time by entering a code sent to their mobile device.

Companies all around the globe also rely on SMS for redundancy in communication when internet isn’t available, to ensure their communications are never disrupted.

With a lot of services relying on this method of authentication and redundancy, there has never been more pressure on you mobile accounts to stay secure. It’s important to make sure your SMS carrier isn’t the weakest link in your security chain by choosing a secure SMS gateway solution.

Why rely on SMS in the first place? Your information is valuable.

The number one method of communication is email—personal and business users alike across the web use it to communicate, as well as to authenticate accounts and send sensitive information.
This infographic from Krebson Security shows just how valuable your email account can be when hacked—pretty much all of your accounts are connected to your email, and it can be a little scary to realize what someone could access there:

Krebson also goes into detail about how valuable these account can be to a hacker:

“One prominent credential seller in the underground peddles iTunes accounts for $8, and Fedex.com, Continental.com and United.com accounts for USD $6. Groupon.com accounts fetch $5, while $4 buys hacked credentials at registrar and hosting provider Godaddy.com, as well as wireless providers Att.com, Sprint.com, Verizonwireless.com, and Tmobile.com. Active accounts at Facebook and Twitter retail for just $2.50 a piece.”

In addition to the monetary value, hackers are also disrupting businesses with security breaches, account turnovers and major customer data thefts. If your internet security fails, you’re vulnerable to communication failure as well as to a security breach.

SMS provides a secure and reliable alternative to email, while also complementing the easy use of email. Without SMS, you’re flying solo with email—every service you use probably requires an email address, and all security precautions can become undone if someone unwanted gets access.

Keep the second link in your chain secure—work with the right SMS software and hardware.

Hackers can get a hold of your passwords easily through your mobile provider without the right security precautions.

Reliance on a secure SMS gateway ensures your communications stay up and running through SMS, even when internet is down. The right SMS gateway will keep your information secure through the two-factor authentication process and support your business in the event of an internet disruption.

Naturally, both users and businesses want their methods of communication to be calm and dependable.
SMSEagle hardware SMS gateways send SMS messages directly to 3G network without using Internet connection. The gateway will work even if Internet connection fails. The SMSEagle gateway, once purchased, is located in your company premises. These assures you control over security and confidentiality of SMS communication. No matter the temperature or humidity conditions the hardware sticks with you.

If you care about quality and security, you need a reliable SMS gateway solution to ensure that your mobile carrier isn’t the weakest link in your security chain.

Read More

Daily SMS Mobile Usage Statistics

Posted On 6 March 2017 By Megan Morreale In Trends /  7

It’s official—mobile use is now prevalent throughout internet users and businesses. Most people would respond to this statement with, “I could’ve told you that,” but what we’re still learning is how people interact with these mobile devices, and how they can best used to service businesses effectively and securely.

Analysts and companies of all shapes and sizes have released statistics about developments in mobile use this past year, and particularly, how companies have grown to use SMS. Here are some of the most impressive findings.

Mobile use is so big, the world starts to use these devices the moment we wake up.

According to ExpressPigeon, over half of users grab their smartphones immediately after waking up. This is just one of the ways we’ve grown to interact with our mobile devices more as time has gone by.

These mobile usage statistics indicate that mobile use is growing in new ways—especially when using SMS.

  • According to Nielsen, SMS is the most used data service in the world.
  • According to MBA online, more than 4.2 billion people are texting worldwide.
  • According to the Pew Research Center, 81% of Americans text regularly and 97% of adults text weekly.
  • According to CTIA, 6 billion SMS messages are sent each day in the US, over 180 billion are sent each month, and 2.27 trillion are sent each year.
  • According to Portio Research, the world will send 8.3 trillion SMS messages this year alone – 23 billion per day or almost 16 million per minute.
  • According to Statistic Brain, the number of SMS messages sent monthly increased by more than 7,700% over the last decade.

The reason that SMS messages are being sent at a faster speed across the globe—when it comes to communication effectiveness, they work.

  • According to Mobile Marketing Watch, SMS messages have a 98% open rate, while email only has a 20% open rate.
  • According to Velocify, SMS messages have a 45% response rate, as opposed to email which has a 6% response rate.

It’s clear that SMS is very influential for the general population’s overall use, but it’s not just personal use. Statistics show that businesses are starting to pay more attention to SMS as a reliable and secure communication source.

Most businesses think that their customers want support via SMS.

The most important communication for businesses isn’t always internal. Sometimes it’s communication with customers, and data shows that businesses are starting to make the move to customer communication via SMS message.

  • According to ICMI, 79% of companies believe customers want SMS support, and 1 in 5 customers is just as likely to prefer a text message from a business to a phone call.
  • According to Dimension Data, 38% of contact centers currently use SMS, and 23% have plans to implement in the next 12 months.
  • According to Forrester & ContactBabel, SMS text decreases the price of a customer service call from $6-$20 call to pennies per session.

Customer service isn’t the only use—businesses are starting to see the benefits to SMS message for internal use, as the response rate is so much higher.

  • According to eWeek, 80% of people are currently using texting for business.
  • According to eWeek, over one-third of business professional say they can’t go 10 minutes without responding to an SMS message.
  • According to Loyalty 360, 20% of financial services companies use SMS to ensure business continuity and add to their multichannel capabilities.
  • According to Vitiello Communications Group, nearly 70% of employees think their companies should us SMS to communicate with employees, and 86% say it should not just be reserved for customer communication.

These statistics show that mobile use isn’t just here to say, but that it’s growth is changing the way businesses are communicating securely and reliably both internally and with customers.

SMSEagle is Hardware SMS gateway to send and receive SMS text messages. To find out how we can help you reach your customers, check out our online store.

Create the right solution for your business

Your obstacles are unique, and the solutions for them should be too. The functions of SMSEagle allow businesses to incorporate SMS communications into their systems in a way that makes sense to them. To find out how, get in touch with our team.
Contact usor
Try demo
Read More

How to Choose the Perfect SMS Gateway for Your Organization

Posted On 16 January 2017 By Megan Morreale In Technology /  2

The SMS Gateway that you select for your organization is important—it’s the portal that connects your team with other contacts mobily.

Your connection to mobile carriers like Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, Virgin, Bell and more is important and will make or break your success in the event of a connection loss.

Without the time, resources or desire to develop your own gateway, many information technology (IT) leaders are in the market for SMS mobile solutions. The right SMS gateway provider will help you move forward.

Connecting with the right provider can be tough. These three tips will help you choose the perfect SMS Gateway provider for your organization.

Choose a Provider with Good Coverage and Network Quality

The first step in choosing an SMS gateway provider will be to ensure that they’re providing you with the coverage you need. Some providers don’t have the ability to deliver to certain countries or mobile operators, and you’ll want to make sure you choose one that extends to your needs.

Some providers might not be able to guarantee of delivery—an SMS message could be routed to other gateways that are not controlled directly by the gateway providers themselves. In addition, some might not be able to reach mobile phone numbers that have been ported between operators.

If you have the opportunity, you’ll want to test a gateway provider’s network quality before you decide to choose them. Some may offer you a small amount of free messages for new users. If so, take advantage to ensure quality is adequate for your needs.

Choose a Service that Works when the Internet is Down

For some business, their SMS gateway is an essential part of communication and IT functionality. You want to be sure that you’re getting your SMS message, even if there are internet connectivity problems.

This happens when your SMS provider frees you of having to work with 3rd party vendors, and connects you directly to carriers. With SMSEagle, you are connected directly to the GSM network and can be controlled optionally by SNMP—meaning you’ll never have to worry about an SMS message coming through, no matter what internet connectivity problems you may be having.

Choose a Business Oriented Partner

While you’ll easily find a gateway service provider that will allow you to securely send SMS, some are better suited for managing your SMS communications.

Look for a SMS gateway provider that will work with you and your needs, providing the business functionality and support you’ll need to ensure your IT operations run smoothly.

Finally, when looking for a channel through which to send SMS communications, make sure you find a provider that provides you with the functionality you need without nickel and diming you. In some cases, many providers charge extra for the “bells and whistles” that should come with basic functionality. Choose a reliable provider with technology you know you can count on.

Consider SMSEagle as an SMS Gateway for your Organization

We are a powerful device for sending SMS messages for your organization—a reliable, cost-effective and secure solution that controls SMS alerts, notification and tokens for controlling your servers and services.

We guarantee the success of your SMS message regardless of internet connectivity, and send SMS directly to GSM network with SMSEagle SMS Hardware Gateway. We even monitor your network and send you alerts when your services are down.

With SMSEagle you get the whole package – a provider that knows and is compliant with the regulations and legislation pertinent to you, GSM/3G protocol, works when the internet is down, and is a business oriented provider.

For your SMS communications, who are you going to trust? Trust the provider that gives you everything you need, and provides you with secure, reliable SMS messaging at all times.

SMSEagle is Hardware SMS gateway to send and receive SMS text messages. To find out how we can help support your network security program, check out our online store.

Read More

5 Security Experts on Why IT Leaders Need to Start Automating

Posted On 21 October 2016 By Megan Morreale In Technology /  2

Automation has been cited as the next big thing for IT leaders looking to secure their communications in all types of cloud environments—but leadership knows the challenges they face in doing so.

Answering to a Network World survey, 47% of respondents claim that it is difficult to monitor network behavior from end-to-end, and 41% say these security operations have difficulties that arise from cloud computing.

The main problem with not automating security operations is scalability and the difficulty in setting up these systems. But it’s necessary—it’s impossible to keep up with the increasing pace, limited cybersecurity, and network operations personnel, all while managing network security operations on a box-by-box, or CLI-by-CLI basis.

But don’t take our word for it. These five security experts have driven deep into the world of network security, and have their own reasons for passing along advice to IT leaders to start automating security processes today.

Security Experts and their Reasons for Encouraging IT Leaders to Automate

According to the Enterprise Security Group (ESG) 63% of networking and cybersecurity professionals working at enterprise organizations (more than 1,000 employees) believe network security operations is more difficult today than it was two years ago.

The bottom line – the main roadblock standing in the way of IT leaders and automated security process is difficulty. Here’s why you should take the plunge despite the challenges.

Jon Oltsik, ESG Senior Principal Analyst and Founder of the Firm’s Cybersecurity Service

Oltsik knows the scalability problems that security leadership faces, even though leadership knows the risk they’re taking without it. He cites a survey of 150 IT professionals, where 31% of respondents say automation is “critical” to address future IT initiatives, while 58% claim it is “very important” to address future IT initiatives.

Because of the recognition of its importance, the technology industry is listening – Companies like Cisco, Fortinet, Check Point, and more have all introduced solutions that will assist security network operations teams in automation and visibility of their networks. His advice to leadership is to adopt these technologies:

“Since relying on people and manual processes can’t scale or keep organizations secure, CISOs and network operations managers should assess where they are in the network security operations automation transition as soon as possible, making sure to look into their people, processes and technologies.

Once shortcomings and bottlenecks are discovered, large organizations should develop a plan to address these areas and institute network security operations automation projects, phasing in capabilities over the next few years.” – Jon Oltsik

Stephanie Tayengco, SVP of Operations, Logicworks

Tayengco is a proponent for automation, but automation the right way in the face of risk. Her bottom line—you need to get rid of as much manual work as possible to stay secure.

According her, it’s important to automate infrastructure buildout first, continually check instances across the environment, fully automate deployments, include automated security monitoring in those deployments, and finally, prepare for the future of automation.

“Ninety-five percent of all security incidents involve human error, according to IBM’s 2014 Cyber Security Intelligence Index.

This year alone, enterprises will spend $8 billion on cyber security, but these initiatives are often useless in preventing an engineer from misconfiguring a firewall or forgetting to patch a security vulnerability on a new server. Manual work is risk, and manual security work is a disaster waiting to happen.” – Stephanie Tayengco

Gabby Nizri, CEO, Ayehu

Nizri is worried about the rising number of security breaches. According to the ISACA 2015 Global Cybersecurity Status Report, 781 publicized cyber security breaches resulted in 169 million personal records being exposed.

Well-known companies like BlueCross, Harvard and Target were involved, making it clear that even the most sophisticated and well-funded security departments aren’t safe. Even so, only 38% of organizations across the globe can confidently say they are prepared to handle a sophisticated cyber-attack. Because of this, Nizri urges you to automate.

“Simply put, IT personnel are no match for such intensive, sustained attacks. Not only are humans incapable of keeping up with the sheer volume of incoming threats, but their ability to make quick and highly-impactful decisions to manually address such an attack is equally inefficient.

This is why automation is becoming such a powerful and effective component of cyber security incident response. To combat the onslaught of incoming threats, organizations must employ an army of equivalent strength and sophistication.” – Gabby Nizri

Danelle Au, VP of Strategy and Marketing at SafeBreach

Automation isn’t all about just avoiding mistakes. Au cites instances where automation makes an IT department more agile, and improves processes such as application delivery.

For the private cloud environment, applications and desktops are being virtualized at an faster than ever before. According to Au, As the number of virtual machines (VMs) increases, automation and orchestration is no longer a “nice to have.”

“The ability to translate complex business and organization goals into a set of automated data center workflows is critical to not slowing down the application delivery process. It is also an essential part of making compliance and security requirements a lot easier to manage in a very dynamic environment.

To fully realize the promise of private clouds or software defined data centers (as VMware defines it), the traditional IT infrastructure — in particular network security — needs to transform into agile and adaptive end-to-end automated processes.” – Danielle Au

Brian Dye, VP of Intel Security Group

A recent ESG study noted that 46% of organizations said they have a “problematic shortage” of cybersecurity skills—up from 28% just a year ago. That means the development of these skills in IT personnel isn’t improving at a rate needed to keep up with threats.

One-third of those respondents said their biggest gap was with cloud security specialists. According to Dye, this is the reason security automation is important, as well for working with SDN technologies and responding to breaches.

“As organizations explore software defined networking (SDN), they see a need for more automation skills, as security policy must co-exist with the orchestration to fully exploit an SDN environment. These skills become especially important as virtualization expands beyond servers and into networks and storage.” – Brian Dye

Network security automation is important for many reasons – the risks associated with manual processes, adaptation to new technologies, the agility of the cloud, and the race to keep up the skills needed in personnel to use new emerging technologies.

Creating the proper mix of skillsets, automation and processes will provide IT leaders with the security confidence they need moving forward.

SMSEagle is Hardware SMS gateway to send and receive SMS text messages. To find out how we can help support your network security program, check out our online store.

Read More

SMSEagle Sponsors Young Driving Talent

Posted On 12 September 2016 By Megan Morreale In Company /  3

SMSEagle is excited to announce our sponsorship of winning kart driver of the Moravian cup, youth: Vojtěch Birgus.

Together with our local Czech Partner IT-Awacs, SMSEagle is proud to support young driving talent, Vojtěch. The sponsorship is a part of giving back. We at SMSEagle Team believe that a responsible business is related with helping others. We are happy to support talent and hard work of Vojtěch.

You can view Vojtěch Birgus on the tarmac, racing with the SMSEagle logo at his side here:

Birgus is participating in karting as a gateway to faster motorsports, now traveling an average of 90 km/h in one lap. The driver has exciting stories behind his success, and his impact on the community.

Meet the driver: Vojtěch Birgus

Vojtěch Birgus

Vojtěch Birgus is a Czech driver that’s only 16 years of age. He was the winner of the prestigious Moravian Cup between the years of 2013 and 2015. He raced the category ROTAX MAX 125 Junior.

He started racing young – beginning his career at only 10 years of age. Then, he was in the karting category MINI60, before he went out to win the Moravian Cup in 2013. When the 2014/2015 season finally rolled around, he was racing as a junior driver, and came out at the end of 2015 as the winner of the season.

We’re expecting to win.

expecting to win

Birgus is now racing at a higher category, ROTAX MAX 125. He is a licensed racer for the Czech and Slovak championship.

He’s walking away with one goal this year – to qualify for the World Rotax Challenge in Italy. Birgus will be racing with the SMSEagle brand with GregorRacing, a larger racing organization supporting Birgus in this endeavor.

Watch him at the upcoming races in Austria at Speedworld, and again at the Czech Championship. We’ll be showing our support, as he crosses the finish line for the win.

SMSEagle is Hardware SMS gateway to send and receive SMS text messages. To find out how we can help support your network security program, check out our online store.

Read More