Tag: Data Security

Digital vulnerabilities

Global security breaches are on the rise and no one or country is safe. The acceleration of certain technologies has been rapid since the pandemic engulfed the world last year. But unfortunately, we’ve also become slack in the process.

Once again, it has become apparent just how ‘at-risk’ our data is.

Data hacks have been frantic and are now getting major press attention. It’s hard to know who each unwanted visitor is in each case but fingers are being pointed in perhaps familiar directions.

Russian invaders back at it again

In fact, throughout June, Russians have been blamed for a slew of hacks around the world.

Microsoft in late May said a wave of Russian cyber-attacks had targeted government agencies and human rights groups in 24 countries, mostly in the US.

It claimed that around 3000 email accounts of more than 150 different organizations, some of them international, were attacked in just one week.

Allegedly, the group responsible was the same one that carried out 2020’s SolarWinds attacks, which the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) was accused of orchestrating.

But the Kremlin denied having any knowledge or anything to do with any cyber-attacks. It challenged Microsoft to how these attacks were linked to the European attacks.

Nevertheless, authorities are now aggressively investigating cybercrime. In the first week of June, the US Justice Department recovered around $2.3m in cryptocurrency ransom money.

This was part of the funds paid by the Colonial Pipeline Company to Russian hackers in the most disruptive cyberattack on record in the country.

The US deputy attorney general Lisa Monaco said investigators had seized 63.7 Bitcoins which was paid by the company after its systems were hacked, leading to massive shortages of petrol along the US’s East Coast. The department said it founded and recaptured the majority of the ransom.

The hackers are believed to be a group called DarkSide, whose menace caused a multi-day shutdown in certain petrol stations and a spike in gas prices.

The attack made international news and prompted the US’s White House to encourage business executives to improve security measures to avoid future cyberattacks whatever their nature, ransomware or otherwise.

The FBI said DarkSide had also disrupted operations at a meatpacking company. As no one tends to be spared in the spillover effects, it is always a good idea to protect your company’s digital assets as a preventative measure.

Not so sophisticated

The attackers rather proved to be quite ‘amatuerish’ because they sent the Bitcoins to an online platform to convert it to fiat money – and that is how they got nabbed. Server-hosted (Online) crypto exchanges are obliged to keep customer data for compliance and anti-money laundering practices. So while your Crypto digital wallet does not reveal your identity, pairing it with an exchange will link it to all the other particulars you needed to provide to use the exchange.

As long as you need cash to pay for things you will always need to switch your crypto in some way or another – unless your recipient agreed to take payment in Crypto as well. Keeping your digital assets on a hard-wallet or on your hard-drive keeps them “off-the-grid”. But also means you can’t actually spend them.

Although the initial cyberattack was a smart manuever, the attackers proved to be rookies at the robbing game in the end.

On a positive note: the ability to retrieve Bitcoins actually reinforces the need for a Blockchain-based financial system. This made it easier for the authorities to track movements of the ‘ransom-paid’ Bitcoins.

Cuban for a bruising

But politicians aren’t the only people who are urging businesses, civil society organizations, and other groups to improve security systems and be cognisant of an often-dark future.

US Dollar billionaire Mark Cuban has also called for stricter cryptocurrency regulations.

The owner of the Dallas Mavericks who has been investing in trading Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum said the world was in dire need of regulation for the burgeoning decentralized finance (DeFi) space.

—READ MORE ABOUT DEFI HERE —

Cuban said in an interview with Bloomberg that there “should be regulation to define what a Stablecoin is” in order for DeFi to be reliable and to prevent total collapses in investments.

This comes after he saw his investments in a particular Stablecoin ‘went to zero’. Cuban claimed he had been scammed.

Stablecoins are a type of cryptocurrency that is pegged to an underlying asset, or currency – usually the US dollar. They are the earliest forms of DeFi and the largest Stablecoin, Tether, is currently worth more than $62bn.

DeFi has helped the price of Ethereum, the blockchain on which most DeFi projects are built, to also soar. But they can be highly risky investments.

Investors try to create arbitrage opportunities and liquidity between coins but such a scheme collapsed for Cuban.

“There should be regulation to define what a stable coin is and what collateralization is acceptable,” he said.

Buy, Stake, and Trade Cryptos

Strong words of caution

Cuban hasn’t revealed how much money he lost but told a fellow DeFi investor via Twitter that regulation must be implemented- and quickly.

It had been suggested that Cuban was “rugged” which refers to when a project’s liquidity dries up and investors cannot withdraw their cash.

Mark Cuban is alleged to have 60% of his crypto holdings in Bitcoin, 30% in Ethereum, and 10% held in other coins. He likes to experiment with new financial tech investments.

He added further in a recent blog post that banks should be scared of unregulated DeFi technology.

All crypto-based investments remain highly risky as the technology around them develops. But there certainly needs to be global laws to prevent people from losing hefty amounts of their wealth/investment. Cryptocurrency is without a doubt a very lucrative investment vehicle that could make you an overnight millionaire. But that also makes it a perfect vehicle for scammers to clone projects to make away with your hard-earned cash.

You must, therefore, be extra vigilant and scrutinize offers for instant riches. But more so, you would be quite negligent these days to navigate the Internet without any form of cyber-protection.

5 July 2021
The Online Threats of 2019

How you can stop them from happening.

Like a biological virus mutates – as technology advances so do the complexity of phishing and identity theft schemes. With major services adopting cloud technologies and storing private data online, anyone is vulnerable to hacking.

To make matters worse, hackers continue to come up with some pretty creative ways to profit from stolen information.

Without wasting time, these are the things you should already be doing to avoid being exposed to hackers in the first place:

In order to keep these cyber-criminals out of your lives and computers, let’s take a look at some of the actual schemes to watch out for in 2019.

Hacking

We all know what hacking is by now – the term has almost become synonymous with internet security. So a question is: do you love watching movies on Netflix or jamming out to your summer playlist on Spotify? If the answer is yes, then you’re at a pretty high risk of getting hacked.

DynaRisk, a UK cybersecurity firm, recently found that cybercriminals most commonly target these brands, along with adult-oriented sites (you know what we mean) and then, online gaming services.

Identity Theft

A few weeks ago, authorities caught a New York-based gang who had used identity theft to steal over $19 million worth of iPhones. Quartz reported that this operation ran for seven years.

So-called “Top Dogs,” the ring leaders, would organize lower level members of their organization to steal identities and create clone credit and identity cards. Then, affiliates fanned across the nation, signing up for mobile phone plans to acquire iPhones, which were later sold for a profit by the Top Dogs.

Because phone payment plans take the shape of nominal fees over the course of several years, victims often wouldn’t notice the fraud until it was too late. Learn how another scheme dubbed sim port attack works in the diagram below:

Ransomware

Hacking can happen to anyone – including our favorite bands. In early June, a hacker managed to steal the minidisk archive of Thom Yorke, the lead singer of Radiohead. This included previously unreleased demos and audio material from around the time of “OK Computer,” the band’s 1997 worldwide hit album. The hacker then demanded $150,000 on the threat of releasing it.

Holding files for ransom is so common nowadays that it even has its own name: “Ransomware.” Either pay over the ransom or lose your files—or, even worse, have them released onto the unforgiving Internet.

In response, Radiohead released all 18 hours of material on Bandcamp themselves, winning against these ransom hackers.

Most security experts recommend the same route as Radiohead—never pay the ransom, because there’s no guarantee you’ll recover files or prevent their release.

Sextortion

If you think ransomware is bad, there’s an entire subgroup of it aimed to profit off sexual shame. Cheekily named “Sextortion,” some hackers creatively upgraded the classic email phishing scam to scare victims into handing over Bitcoin.

According to Fortune, hackers have already racked up over $900,000 with sextortion. In these phishing emails, the sender claims to have spied on you while you watched porn—and has webcam footage of the salacious deeds. The message then demands a Bitcoin ransom, or else face the social and professional consequences of this lewd video getting sent to all your contacts.

To make the threat even more believable, the sender references a previous password tied to the user’s email account. According to Krebson Security, a sextortion phishing message might look a little like what’s written in the sidebox.

In rare cases, the threats are real—and hackers get their hands on some sexually explicit photos. Recently, American actress Bella Thorne fell victim to sextortion. Last Saturday, she took a similar, albeit more risqué, route as Radiohead, opting to release her nude photographs on Twitter in order to take the power away from her hacker.

Last thoughts

So, what’s the best way to avoid your personal, or, business from costing thousands in virtual currency? Since most of these emails are fake, you can just avoid them with a spam filter. And you should probably buy a webcam cover…just to be safe. When it comes to general browsing- we suggest using a VPN.

Read more about VPNs here

There are now more secure anti-hacking tools that use the Blockchain and offer great protection, especially against identity theft. Have a look at our feature on Tokenisation.

Most online services now like mobile banks, offer App-based 2-factor authentication. This should now be regarded as the minimum security for ANY online account or App.

To avoid hacking or phishing scams in general, optimizing your cybersecurity and using online common sense will save you loads of time, trouble and money.

20 June 2019
Smoother Online Shopping

As a small online business, it makes sense to ensure that what you are selling is very easy to access. This is especially important when offering something that is common. The purchasing process should be practical and aesthetically pleasing to your clients.

Your online shopping cart software creates that important connection between you and your customers. It must therefore help you achieve three goals:

-Deliver the best and most secure experience for your users;

-Make it simple and desirable for them to complete transactions;

–Minimize common ecommerce hurdles (such as shopping cart abandonment).

Customers expect consistency, reliability, and speed. Most users are now accustomed to the speeds facilitated by broadband Wi-Fi and omnipresent LTE mobile networks.

Research indicates that 78 percent of ecommerce consumers completed a purchase on their mobile device in 2016.

This percentage has probably increased since then. Therefore, delivering experiences that embrace mobile best practices has to be one of your primary concerns as you choose a solution.

Some other salient things a good online shopping cart solution should pay attention to:

TRUSTis obviously a huge part of establishing a valuable relationship. Your shopping cart software is an extension of your brand, and your buyers must trust it with their personal and financial information.

As buyers avoid using direct credit card purchases (due to increasing fraud and data breaches) in favour of more secure methods. Your company must be prepared to offer new payment options.

Customers appreciate the SECURITY and ease of mobile wallet payments, such as Apple Pay and Google Pay. This is because they can complete purchases using a single-use virtual credit card number.

Give them the ability to use these alternative payments and if possible, do not exclude Cryptocurrency!

It would also need to link up to your MARKETING and customer service platforms to provide a holistic customer experience.

Naturally, you also want a system that tracks product sales and customer activity with as much detail as possible, and that can also sort transaction data across a multitude of categories.

So, where does one get such software?

Read more about how to get a good shopping cart software here.

7 May 2019
Open Banking – too exposed?

As a human race, we are constantly striving for easier ways of doing things: simpler, faster, and more practical. Thanks to better tech, you can now interact with people globally and instantly with the click of a few buttons.

Likewise, you can also physically move quickly due to advances in transportation technology. When it comes to the age-old practice of banking – the same is now happening.

Provided you have the necessities, a passport, residential address and a mobile phone, you can now open a bank account within minutes. This is brought about by a Fintech offering better known as Open Banking.

Open banking uses APIs that enable third-party developers to build applications and services around the financial institution.
Wikipedia

It is ultimately about giving you a better, secure, and flawless service experience. This comes with the opportunity to gain access to excellent financial products.

Online security expert and Chairwoman of Zortrex, Susan Brown reflects on the advent of the new offering:

“Just over a year ago when Open Banking came into the limelight for the Fintech world. CMA9 were effectively mandated to make their banking platform accessible for third party companies.”

A comprehensive global report commissioned by Accenture emphatically highlighted growth and talking points about the emerging industry in 2017.

MS Office package

This is all wonderful, innovative, and promotes transparency within the financial services market. There is only one drawback:

“Consumers really do not know what Open Banking means, there has been a lot published about the benefits that are to be had from Open Banking. At the same time, consumers have become very aware of the negative aspects around sharing their data.”

Scourge of hacks & breaches

Daily, you hear more and more about hacks, and data compromises. With the UK’s Lloyds Bank breach last year; the trust by its consumers to share their financial and personal information, some would say, is completely gone.

In addition, you go onto a site to review products and before you know it, you are bombarded with adverts on the products that you have been looking at elsewhere. This has led some consumers to abandon shopping carts and refrain from using online retailers.

If not adequately protected, the newly established Fintech system might suffer a similar data breaches.

Visa and Mastercard for one, are among the established firms threatened by Open (Mobile) Banking. And so, they should be according to Brown.

“As consumers knowledge grows about their data and the security around their financial data has not been secure as shown with the Marriott hack.”

Naturally, new systems pose a huge threat for banks. They become the digital gateway channel connection to the financial sector. This eliminates the direct relationship between consumers and banks.

This is not a bad thing as banks are overwhelmed and cannot always keep in touch with everyone.

An added layer of protection

The solution for failing global acceptance would be for a new Fintech company to gain the trust of its new customers. They would naturally also be able to chip away at the market share of other expensive financial institutions.

What you as a consumer know and want is privacy and security. Currently, only banks can make this happen – but at a high cost.

With a new digital tokenisation system like Zortrex vault, you can concurrently let your consumers reap the awards on their transactions.

They can as a result, gain redeemable tokens for patronising your services. This can occur while both you and your partners offer them products globally.

“Don’t be a gateway for the challenger banks be in control of your omni channel for your consumers,” Brown advises

Read more about Zortrex’s solution to privacy here.

This contains excerpts from Susan Brown about Open Banking initially published on her LinkedIn page.

15 April 2019
Get a vault for your data!

It’s not often that we readily endorse a product or company. However, when the nature of work they engage in is considered ground-breaking and has a positive impact on our lives – it most certainly warrants a mention.

The rationale for considering such tech-driven projects as highly significant is neither due to ‘gut feeling’. Nor that it is simply because it is fascinating and therefore must be an excellent product. This project actually has a value proposition for you!

We are indeed well into the information age and while we have written extensively about data, its importance to marketers, and its fragility when used and abused by unscrupulous third-parties for their financial gain.

The issue of data security is, however, quite a serious one. You just need to pay attention to the news to become even more aware.

Data breach incidents

In Europe, where security is supposedly more advanced, we have seen the likes of renowned airline British Airways, being hacked. Several hundreds of thousands of customers’ personal data compromised.

These were followed by hacks on other major airlines such as Cathay Pacific. Aside from airlines, other business outfits have suffered a similar fate.

The perpetrators are getting a lot more brazen and very recently, a cable car, used as public transport in Moscow was hacked. This left vulnerable passengers terrified and stuck high up in the air. And all this happened probably to the amusement of the pranksters (hackers).

Can you imagine the chaos and commotion that would be caused if their control systems of driverless cars were to be hacked?

The digital intrusion gets even more sophisticated...

This time affecting the very wealthy: private yachts are now being hacked and taken into the pirate waters, all via uniquely coded signals, reading data from their antennas!

Data security

On the issue of data security, you often hear about extra protection but not just anti-virus and anti-phishing software. The more secure and heavily encrypted Blockchain technology is, however, making waves in the digital sphere.

It is mainly for the escalation of its once shining star by-product designed for discreet transacting – Bitcoin.

Blockchain technology has also triggered several other technologies based on its digital cryptology technology. The aim is to ensure that your information is kept safe from prying eyes while stored, used, or transferred online.

Blockchain products such as cryptocurrencies, however, are not completely safe from hackers.

A solution

The company we chose to highlight uses a unique vault system and is called Zortrex. It has adopted one of such Blockchain technologies dubbed tokenization. It will be using it to ensure that your highly sensitive data online is kept safe.

“Our tokenised solution would have protected their customers’ personal identification information (PII) details. Instead the hackers ran off with the date of birth; passport numbers; financial data etc,” says Susan Brown, Chairperson of Zortrex – relating to the British Airways incident.

Tokenization is the process of converting rights to real-world assets into a digital token on a blockchain.

Brown’s background in data privacy systems as well as her devoted passion for the protection of PII, financial and healthcare data led her to start up and chair Zortrex.

The law on data

Thanks to new laws like the European GDPR law, which enforces the protection of data, breaches are now met with hefty financial penalties.

“Companies have disrespected your data for over 25 years, and if left unattended, there will be nothing left to protect,” Browns says.

Companies now have to think twice about getting your consent and how to use and share your data digitally. But is it enough? The simple answer is no.

The authorities just do not have the resources to investigate every complaint nor to actively enforce all data breaches.

We have ingeniously invented systems that automatically align with financial messaging, payments and securing information. All of which require data.

“However, we need to go a step further to secure all the PII details with tokenization. This is so that in the event of a hack, the cookies and trackers will only be following a ‘useless’ token will be no real identification on it,” Brown explains.

Zortrex would naturally like to tokenize all healthcare data. This way, vulnerable those of you living outside of major cities can also feel assured that your privacy is protected.

Using Blockchain

The application of the all-powerful blockchain is not limited to use in the financial sector and will be applied via the supply chain to all industries that deal with your data – especially the most sensitive ones.

A business angel or any investor for that matter looking to get onto the next best thing since Amazon would therefore be unwise to pass up the opportunity to back the Zortrex venture given its scope.

Furthermore, regulations are currently being implemented primarily in the pharmaceutical sector.

A tokenized supply chain such as what Zortrex offers would be ideal for this new law which is planned to be implemented by 2023. A judiciary blockchain, for instance, would allow the police to “talk” to the prison service. They, in turn, will communicate with the legal sector or public health institutions (NHS).

Forensic evidence would in such instances be tokenized and kept secure (away from tampering) during legal hearings. In another practical scenario, Smart Contracts (which could replace some lawyers) can spark off legal aid assistance to you.

Your court cases will be heard quicker and be more efficient. Protection registers can also be guarded using tokenization – rendering them more secure.
Blockchain technology offers quality assurance making sure that no shortcuts are taken.
This will enable the monitoring and tracking if any of your data is shared with third parties once tokenized. The third-party apps would only gain access to your data once the trigger has been activated.

Like other pioneers and visionaries, Brown’s futuristic hope that every child being born will have their name, date of birth, blood type data being tokenized, might seem far-fetched.

Zortrex wants to use its technology to put the hackers out of business!

Tokenisation cannot be mathematically reversed and thus it will least it will keep the hackers busy for a while.

Scalability

For such high ambitions, the creators of Zortrex’s software have adequately ensured that the technology used is fully scalable. One stumbling block many Blockchain projects now face is what is referred to as scalability. This is the ability of a network or software to grow and manage increased usage.

Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum specifically – which is used to build a lot of Distributed Applications, however, have massive scalability issues.

The growth in demand for DApps is also crippling (slowing down) those systems. They need to investigate the incorporation of alternative technologies, upgrade or split their platforms to cope with such high demand.

Someone must take the first step in securing this data forever. You should be able to purchase what you want without being harassed by trackers and cookies.

The need for tokenization is endless and further, down the line, celebrities and government official’s PII can be secured by it to protect them from damaging schemes, ‘bad press’, and scandals.

In a previous blog, we “prophesized” that data is the new commodity – like gold or oil. However, the actual value with that data will lie in its privacy, the ability to store it securely and unlock it only with legal permission by its rightful owner.

19 March 2019
Get a vault for your data!

It’s not often that we readily endorse a product or company. However, when the type of work they engage in is considered groundbreaking – and one with the potential to have a massively, positive impact on our livelihoods, it most certainly warrants a mention.
The rationale for considering such tech-driven projects as highly significant is neither due to ‘gut feeling’ nor that it is cutting-edge/fascinating and therefore must be an excellent product – it actually has a value proposition for everyday people!
We are indeed well into the information age and while we have written extensively about data, its importance to marketers and its fragility when used and abused by unscrupulous third-parties for their financial gain, the issue of data security is quite a serious issue – we must just pay attention to the news to become even more aware.
In Europe, the where security is supposedly more advanced, we have seen the likes of renowned airline British Airways, being hacked – with several hundreds of thousands of customers’ personal data compromised. This was followed by hacks on other major airlines such as Cathay Pacific. Aside from airlines, other business outfits have suffered a similar fate.
The perpetrators are getting a lot more brazen and very recently, a cable car, used as public transport in Moscow was hacked, leaving vulnerable passengers terrified and stuck high up in the air – probably to the amusement of the pranksters (hackers). We all know about driverless buses and cars coming to the market soon.
Can you imagine the chaos and commotion that would be caused if their control systems were to be hacked? The hacks get even more sophisticated: this time, affecting the very wealthy – private yachts are being hacked and taken into the pirate waters, all via uniquely coded signals, reading data from their antennas!
On the issue of data security (with almost full anonymity); we have also heard about extra protection (and not just anti-virus and anti-phishing software) but the more secure and heavily encrypted Blockchain technology that is making waves in the digital sphere. Mainly for the escalation of its once shining star by-product designed for discreet transacting – the Bitcoin.
It has also triggered several other technologies based on its digital cryptology technology to ensure that information is kept safe from prying eyes while stored, used or transferred online.
The company we chose to highlight uses a unique vault system and is called Zortrex. It has adopted one of such Blockchain technologies dubbed tokenization – and will be using it to initially ensure that highly sensitive data online is kept safe.
“Our tokenised solution would have protected their customers’ personal identification information (PII) details, instead the hackers ran off with the date of birth, passport numbers, financial data etc,” says Susan Brown, Chairperson of Zortrex – relating to the British Airways incident.
“Tokenization is the process of converting rights to real-world assets into a digital token on a blockchain.”
The establishment of this start-up company was due to Brown’s background in data privacy systems as well as her devoted passion for the protection of PII and financial/healthcare data. In her view, companies have disrespected their customer data for over 25 years, and if left unattended, there will be nothing left to protect.
Thanks to new laws like the European GDPR law which is now imposing the data protection; data breaches and abuse of customer data is now met with hefty financial penalties. Companies now think twice about consent and how to use and share customer’s data digitally – but is it enough? The simple answer is a no. The authorities just do not have the resources to investigate every complaint nor to actively enforce all data breaches – yet.
“We have ingeniously invented systems that automatically align with financial messaging, payments and securing information, all of which require data. However, we should and need to go a step further to secure all the PII details with tokenisation so that in the event of a hack, the cookies and trackers will only be following a useless token as there is no real identification on it,” Brown explains.
Zortrex would naturally like to tokenise all healthcare data so that vulnerable people living outside of major cities can also feel assured that their privacy is protected. In a previous blog, we wrote about the new Internet of things (IoT). For all those devices being built for it, their IP addresses and the serial numbers can be tokenised to avoid the terrifying thought of the whole Internet being compromised.

The application of the all-powerful Blockchain is not limited to use in the financial sector and will be applied via the supply chain to all industries that deal with customer data – especially the most sensitive ones.

An angel investor or any investor for that matter looking to get onto the next best thing since Amazon would therefore be unwise to pass up the opportunity to back the Zortrex venture given its scope!

Furthermore, regulations are currently being implemented primarily in the pharmaceutical sector and a tokenised supply chain such as what Zortrex offers would be ideal for this new law which is planned to be implemented by 2023. A judiciary blockchain, for instance, would enable the police to “talk” to the prison service, who in turn, will communicate with the legal sector and public health institutions such as the UK’s NHS.

Forensic evidence would in such instances be tokenised and kept secure (away from tampering) during legal hearings. In another practical scenario, Smart Contracts (which are touted to replace lawyers) can spark off legal aid assistance, so that court cases can be heard quicker, more efficient than currently pertains. Protection registers can also be protected with tokenisation rendering it more secure.

Blockchain technology offers quality assurance with every process being undertaken making sure that no shortcuts happen; as the smart contracts trigger any possible malfeasance. This will enable the monitoring/tracking of any data sharing to third parties once it is tokenised. The third party apps would only gain access to the data once the trigger has been activated.

The company will be providing numerous business blockchain platforms; Asset Chain, Supply Chain, Accountancy Chain, Debt Chain, Life Cycle Management Chain, Outsourced Worker Chain; the list is endless, and all will be adequately secured.

Like other pioneers and visionaries, Brown’s futuristic hope that every child being born will have their name, date of birth, blood type data being tokenised, might seem farfetched – but may we remind you of the need for data protection taking into consideration the growth rate of massive data breaches.

Zortrex is aiming high and wants to use their technology to put the hackers out of business! Tokenisation cannot be mathematically reversed and thus it will least it will stop the hackers for a while.

Brown explains further that as they move with their education; other information can be added on to the token, as with all their healthcare; any allergies tokenised; what injections they have had right through their life cycle until the day no more data can be tokenised.

For such high ambitions, the creators of Zortrex’s software have adequately ensured that the technology used is fully scalable. One stumbling block many Blockchain projects now face is what is referred to as scalability – which in tech terms, is the ability of a network or software to grow and manage increased demand.

Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum specifically – which is used to build a lot of Distributed Applications, has massive scalability issues. The growth in demand for DApps is crippling those systems and they are having to investigate the incorporation of alternative technologies, upgrade or split their platforms and accompanying cryptocurrencies to cope with such high demand.

Someone must take the first step in securing this data forever. Citizens should be able to purchase what they want without being harassed by trackers and cookies. The need for tokenisation is endless and further, down the line, celebrities and government official’s PII can also be secured to protect them from damaging schemes, ‘bad press’ and scandals.

In another previous blog, we “prophesized” that data is the new commodity – like gold or oil. However, the actual value with that data will lie in its privacy, the ability to store it securely and unlock it only with legal permission by its rightful owner.

19 December 2018
How would you like to be served?

The thought of “servers” and “hosting” are rarely things you consider on a daily basis. If you are not an IT or a software architect, then probably not at all.

For the mentioned professionals, however, these decisions are critical to the operations of a business however large or small.

There is a fine line between how (and where) your software systems are used. This line has become thinner because of evolving cloud technology and automation.

Sourcing and deploying the right IT architecture could therefore help your business stay afloat, or sink without.

Communication is key

The most effective mode of communication in any business (other than verbally or telephonically) is still electronic mail (E-mail).

It is effective because it helps you get a time-stamp and a reference point when it comes to the documentation of your conversations. This is important tool when it comes to your legal obligations and commitments.

Emails are, therefore, something that should not be taken for granted!
We consequently send, receive emails with attachments through various devices. All this without a second thought as to how this happens.

After all, this is the job of the IT-guys, right?

Well quite rightly so. They often clash with their management and board of directors for funds to keep this going without compromising operations. Emails are crucial not only from a daily functional point of view but from security but also the compliance facet.

Defining servers

Your company’s IT infrastructure: Emails; File-servers; Databases (CRMs and ERPs) and other communication tools are commonly managed on-site on systems referred to as ‘on-premise’ solutions.

These are managed by computer-like CPUs that look like the standard boxes that you plug your monitor and keyboards. They, however, have a lot more processing power and storage than your average desktop and are called Servers.

Your servers naturally must be kept cool because of the heat they generate from being on all the time. As you can imagine, built-in fans are far from being enough to cool them off!

There an array of server types. Each of them is designed to run the tasks of your mail exchanges, file storage, and the storing/deploying of remote PC operating systems. Others handle your databases and other dedicated functions.

You would need to have the licensed software to operate each server providing unique services. This makes it quite an expensive outlay if you have all of the abovementioned requirements!

Servers are not irreplaceable and can overheat, get corrupted, or crash like a hard-drive (or a NAS server system). You, therefore, need to be maintain them at a cost to your business via your IT department.

Depending on the amount of data and complexity, the maintenance is outsourced to specialized IT companies or software license providers.

Cloud-computing

In the early 2000s, ‘the cloud’ or ‘cloud computing’ became a new concept. It is basically a very large set of high-end servers equipped with software to manage all the tasks mentioned above. It is usually offered as a service under a single (monthly or annual) subscription.

So basically, you are renting the service of a server as opposed to owning it. Renting, just like with property or cars, relieves the user of all the costs of maintaining the product in question.

This sort of rental service offered by cloud service providers is now known as Software as a Service (SaaS). This also saves you from purchasing any hardware let alone paying for the extra electricity bill to cool a server room.

According to Quora.com, the main difference between a cloud and a datacenter is that a cloud is an ‘off-premise’ form of computing that stores data on the Internet.

A Datacenter, on the other hand, is an on-premise set of hardware that stores data within an organization’s local network.

As an IT professional, you constantly face the burning question of whether to go for a solution that will relieve you of mundane tasks – like server maintenance. Naturally, you would also want a solution that facilitates the daily administering of user-profiles, data archiving, and backups. But to what costs then?

Deciding on which to go for

There are many pros and cons when it comes to the hosting of your company’s data on a local server as opposed to having it run via the cloud. There is also a massive array of choices and bundles between the top cloud service providers.

Cloud service providers have several data centers used as backups. So your email hosting may have several servers in different locations to serve that function. This curbs the risk of your data getting lost, unavailable, or hacked.

Naturally, Datacenters are kept highly secure in undisclosed locations globally. Google is known to have one of its datacenters floating on a massive container ship somewhere over the Atlantic ocean.

Maintenance

Maintaining a server is expensive as you require massive cooling systems. Some smarter companies like Microsoft, are now taking to the deep oceans for that function.

When it comes to email hosting or the storage of your files in the cloud only five large multinational corporations’ names come to mind. Microsoft, Oracle, Google, IBM, and Amazon.

These companies however bear the burden of maintenance, while providing just the service you require on a subscription basis.

Setting up an on-premise solution, in contrast, can be a tedious exercise and an expensive one. This is more applicable to smaller companies that do not have large IT budgets.

Licensing your server is no child’s play either!

Having to decide on costs versus functionality will determine how to license your server. This would be either per-server, per virtual machine needed, or per processor core and then you need CALs). If you don’t believe it, just have a look at this licensing guide!

An example

To illustrate the difference, let’s say you have an outlay of a hundred thousand dollars to acquire the software licenses for three years. This compared to a cloud-hosted package that performs the same function over the same timeframe.

You can then piggy-back off companies like Amazon and Microsoft’s security services, which then costs eight thousand dollars monthly ($96k annually).

So, within three years of using the cloud, you would have reached the $100K cap that would be spent only for licenses. You would have also saved with an extra $188K in additional services.

This is a portion of what you would have been spent on maintenance, technical support, security, upgrades, and updates.

These figures are rudimentary, but the long-term savings are noticeable as cloud service providers tend to provide value-add solutions when pricing their bundles.

Microsoft recently launched its Microsoft 365 package which includes an upgrade to the latest operating system (Windows 10 Professional or Enterprise). This is something you would have had to source and pay for separately.

Stress relievers

Software deployment and the administration of user accounts is cloud-based. This means you can do this conveniently and remotely from your PC, laptop, tablet, or even your smartphone!

This means as an IT professional, you will now have more time to oversee more important issues like data security and overall IT policies. Better yet, you would have the time to investigate ways to automate and improve your systems.

This is possible without the inconvenience of running from PC-to-PC to install operating systems, Office software, or manage mailboxes.

Remote desktop services of an on-premise server were a step in this direction – but are a pain to set up. So, you can view the cloud as an evolution of remote-desktop services.

Infrastructural setbacks

The only (and potential) hindrance to using cloud services naturally would be the availability of good and cheap broadband (Internet connectivity).

Without both, the justification for running your business fully on the cloud would not stick. Some businesses, especially in developing countries, go endure desperates attempts to adopt the cloud.

They use what is known as hybrid-systems: a combination of cloud and on-premise solutions.

If you operate in a country without forward-thinking government officials that facilitate broadband availability, you will suffer the most.

Like an old, car, outdated hardware and software can lead to costly services (out-of-date and warranty solutions). This leads to you having heftier maintenance fees and support costs by third-party IT professionals.

The old rhetoric of ‘not trusting the cloud’ is now one of the past. Cloud services often outperform on-premise solutions when it comes to high-end security software and data protection. This is because of the obvious economies of scale involved in setting up expensive security software.

The level of security has to be the digital equivalent of Fort Knox. This especially if you are dealing with sensitive data such as financial, legal services, healthcare, and educational institutions.

Your company would need a system that will keep all such data secure and data compliant.

Data is now treated as a commodity. There is now a subsequent need to trade and value it. We now have Blockchain-based solutions like IOTA to facilitate your payments. This while keeping data encrypted, decentralized, and safe.

In the advent of the new GDPR laws, some companies will still opt to keep and maintain their servers internally. By doing this, however, you might lack the transparency and tools needed to show your consumers how you handle their sensitve data.

16 June 2018

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