Tag: Cloud

News

Adobe Takes 40% Off Creative Cloud All Apps for Your First Year

Post author By miranda cosgrove
Post date May 9, 2024
No Comments on Adobe Takes 40% Off Creative Cloud All Apps for Your First Year

[ad_1]

Adobe this week is offering first-time subscribers of the Adobe Creative Cloud All Apps plan a 40 percent discount on the service. With this sale, you’ll pay $35.99 per month for the plan, down from $59.99 per month, and this price will last through your first year.

adobecreativecloud Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Adobe. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.

You can also choose to pay for the entire year upfront at the price of $395.93 per year, down from $659.88 per year. After your first year ends, your subscription will automatically renew at the standard rate unless you change or cancel the subscription. This sale ends May 13.

When signing up for Creative Cloud All Apps, you gain access to more than 20 creative apps, including Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, After Effects, InDesign, and Acrobat. You also get templates, cloud storage, and thousands of Adobe Fonts.

These programs can be subscribed to individually as well for a monthly fee, but the new offer is only for Adobe Creative Cloud All Apps. Adobe is not discounting individual services. Our full Deals Roundup has more information on the latest Apple-related sales and bargains.

Adobe’s full Creative Cloud suite is 40 percent off in a rare deal

Post author By lisa nichols
Post date May 7, 2024
No Comments on Adobe’s full Creative Cloud suite is 40 percent off in a rare deal

[ad_1]

Designers, photographers and other creators may want to check out this deal from Adobe. From now through May 13, first-time subscribers can save 40 percent on the monthly cost of the Creative Cloud All Apps plan for a full year. That brings the price down from a hefty $60 per month to a slightly more palatable $36. To get the deal, you’ll need to agree to a 12-month subscription commitment. After the year is up, the plan will automatically renew at the regular price, unless you cancel. If you want to pay for the whole year at once, it’ll run you $396, which is also 40 percent of the standard $660.

Adobe

You can save 40 percent on a subscription to Adobe’s Creative Cloud All Apps with a 12-month commitment.

$36 at Adobe

Creative Cloud All Apps includes online access to Adobe stalwarts like Photoshop, Adobe Premiere Pro, Illustrator, and InDesign, plus about 20 additional apps — including Firefly, the text-to-image generative AI tool and the social-content-focused Adobe Express. The plan also comes with 100GB of cloud storage, tutorials, Adobe Fonts and 1,000 credits per month to use towards generative AI creation in Firefly and others.

Adobe doesn’t often run discounts on their service, so this is a rare opportunity to catch a break on the tools that, for some creative pursuits, are tough to replace. The $36 monthly price tag is likely the closest most of us will get to the enviable student and teacher pricing of $20 per month.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

[ad_2]

Source Article Link

Tags Adobes, Cloud, Creative, Deal, full, percent, Rare, suite

Featured

The global cloud market just saw one of its biggest ever quarterly growth spurts

Post author By lisa nichols
Post date May 6, 2024
No Comments on The global cloud market just saw one of its biggest ever quarterly growth spurts

[ad_1]

New data from Synergy Research Group has revealed a significant surge in cloud infrastructure service spend, with Q1 2024 not only setting a new high but also sending year-on-year growth rates on an upward trajectory.

The firm’s report revealed global cloud spend surpassed $76 billion during the first three months of 2024, marking a substantial 21% year-over-year increase of $13.5 billion, and also the second quarter to have seen considerable year-on-year growth.

According to the data, Amazon, Microsoft and Google can be thanked for a large proportion of the spend, collectively accounting for two-thirds (67%) of the market.

Global cloud spend is on the up

Amazon maintains its stronghold as market leader, according for nearly one-third (31%) by itself. Microsoft (25%) and Google (11%) follow in second and third place.

However Synergy also noted healthy growth among tier-two cloud providers, including Huawei, Snowflake, MongoDB and Oracle.

Despite lingering economic and political uncertainties, the cloud market continues to prove resilient, while the increased focus on cloud computing and artificial intelligence suggests that the market will have enough fuel for plenty more quarters yet.

Public IaaS and PaaS services, which Synergy says account for a large portion of the market, saw a notable 23% increase during the quarter, with overall trailing twelve-month revenue hitting $283 billion.

Failing to mention any geographic regions that performed poorly, Synergy confirmed that the APAC region saw the biggest growth of 25%, though the entire region still trails behind the US, which remains the single largest cloud market.

Looking ahead, John Dinsdale, a Chief Analyst at Synergy Research Group, commented: “We will not return to the growth rates seen prior to 2022 [up to around 40%], as the market has become too massive to grow that rapidly, but we will see the market continue to expand substantially. We are forecasting that it will double in size over the next four years.”

Distributed cloud may solve data management challenges

Post author By lisa nichols
Post date April 26, 2024
No Comments on Distributed cloud may solve data management challenges

[ad_1]

Due to its explosive growth, the management and storage of unstructured data is becoming increasingly challenging for organizations to contend with. This unprecedented expansion, however, is a double-edged sword: while the opportunities for leveraging this treasure trove abound, so do the issues in orchestrating it. Another major factor impacting data management, is that according to Gartner, by 2025, 75% of enterprise data will be created and processed at the edge – outside traditional centralized data centers or clouds. Today, companies across the globe are grappling with an increasing array of data-related problems, from cyber threats and compliance headaches, to the intricacies of data sovereignty.

Enrico Signoretti

VP of Product and Partnerships at Cubbit.

Navigating cybersecurity challenges in 2024: a closer look

At the forefront of cybersecurity concerns is data sovereignty. Despite major cloud providers’ best efforts to align with strict regulations such as NIS2, ISO 27001, and GDPR, the landscape remains fraught with complexities. For many organizations handling sensitive data, depending on cloud service providers inherently comes with a myriad of hurdles, particularly concerning the location of data storage (whether it resides within or outside national borders) and the jurisdiction under which the company operates, with the Cloud Act being a major issue.

Data independence and control have never been more critical. The market is flooded with cloud storage solutions, yet, once data is integrated within these systems, transferring it to alternative environments — be it other clouds, data centers, or on-premises — becomes arduous, leading to potential vendor lock-ins that hinder innovative hybrid and multi-cloud strategies.

The threat landscape is also evolving. On the one hand, we’re witnessing an uptick in regional disasters, ranging from data center fires to earthquakes, affecting service continuity. On the other, ransomware attacks are growing in sophistication, targeting both client-side and server-side vulnerabilities with unprecedented precision. For this reason, from the point of view of the user, a ransomware attack can be considered even worse than a natural disaster.

Cost considerations further complicate the scenario. Expansion efforts by cloud providers involving the construction of new physical sites not only exacerbate environmental and sustainability concerns, but also lead to spiraling costs. Additionally, the hidden fees imposed by some of the leading cloud storage providers — for egress, 90-day deletion policies, redundancy, and more — make cost predictability a considerable challenge. Often, these supplementary charges can equal or surpass the initial storage costs, effectively doubling the financial burden on organizations.

Centralized and distributed cloud: what’s new

At first glance, cloud solutions offered by hyperscalers might seem widely distributed. However, they often rely on a centralized infrastructure, with data housed within a few, albeit large, data centers.

Distributed cloud storage takes a fundamentally different approach by separating the control plane from the data itself. This facilitates data storage across multiple locations, both on-premises and across multiple cloud platforms, enhancing redundancy and resilience. This paradigm shift is game-changing for several reasons. Not only does it eliminate many traditional barriers and paves the way for more robust multi-cloud strategies, it also raises flexibility and resilience in data storage and management to a whole new level. Under this model, while the service provider maintains control over the control plane, the actual computing resources can be deployed and moved flexibly by the organisation. Whether within a single public cloud ecosystem, over multiple cloud environments, or within a private data center, the essence of distributed cloud lies in its ubiquity.

Control and sovereignty, reimagined

One of the distributed cloud’s paramount benefits is the unprecedented degree of control it offers. Indeed, the distributed model eradicates the common issue of vendor lock-in, while also allowing organizations to precisely dictate the geographical perimeter where their data resides. This could mean having parts of your data securely stored in France, Italy, Germany, or literally any place you want, offering unprecedented levels of redundancy while complying with data localization requirements. Beyond data sovereignty, distributed cloud storage facilitates comprehensive independence over all facets of data management, ensuring that organizations can comply with evolving regional, European, and global regulations without relinquishing control to third-party providers and hyperscalers.

The significance of this cannot be overstated, especially in regions where data governance and digital sovereignty are key. In this context, the distributed cloud uniquely meets the need for sovereignty, cost control, and policy management, offering a balanced compromise between the on-premises and public cloud models. It combines the control over IT infrastructure traditionally associated with on-premises storage with the scalability and flexibility of public cloud services.

Applications and benefits of the distributed cloud

Distributed cloud storage technology is versatile, supporting a wide array of use cases, from backup and disaster recovery to fostering collaboration and housing expansive data lakes for AI and machine learning endeavors. Its latest developments unlock unprecedented resiliency, through encryption, fragmentation, and replication across customizable storage networks, and empowering MSPs and enterprises alike to build and deploy their own hyper-resilient, sovereign, 100% S3 compatible object storage network in minutes, with full control over data, infrastructure, and costs.

For MSPs and VARs, this autonomy transforms them into independent object storage providers, enabling them to offer secure and compliant storage solutions, maintain direct customer relationships, and enjoy enhanced profit margin. Full customization also means that MSPs can craft tailor-made industry clouds designed to meet the specific requirements of the industries and regions in which their customers operate.

Enterprises, on the other hand, benefit from a hybrid model that combines the best aspects of cloud storage and on-premises solutions, minus the drawbacks.

The distributed cloud’s ability to tailor storage networks to meet specific national compliance requirements such as GDPR, ISO 27001, and CCPA, further underscores its utility. Its architecture, designed to prevent any single point of failure, can ensure up to 15 nines of data durability and minimizes the risks of downtime and data breaches, making it particularly suited to scenarios where cybersecurity, digital sovereignty, and independence are mission-critical.

Lastly, this model optimises resources by reusing what is already present in the premises of companies and data centres. This extends the storage hardware’s lifespan while reducing carbon footprint and electronic waste. This eco-friendly approach not only addresses environmental concerns but also aligns with the growing demand for sustainable IT solutions.

We’ve featured the best cloud backup.

This article was produced as part of TechRadarPro’s Expert Insights channel where we feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today. The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/news/submit-your-story-to-techradar-pro

[ad_2]

Source Article Link

Tags Challenges, Cloud, Data, Distributed, Management, solve

Featured

Going cloud optional for the deskless workforce

Post author By lisa nichols
Post date April 22, 2024
No Comments on Going cloud optional for the deskless workforce

[ad_1]

Most applications are built to rely on the cloud. However, many organizations are beginning to realize that cloud dependency has drawbacks. The challenges of cloud over-dependency are most apparent in industries such as aviation, quick-service restaurants, e-commerce, and healthcare, where deskless workforces rely on mobile apps to do their jobs.

Max Alexander

Using the cloud in practice

Think about how a modern fast-food restaurant uses mobile technology today. Customers input their menu choices at kiosks in the restaurant, on handhelds at the drive-thru, or at point-of-sale terminals. Their order is then sent to screens in the kitchen for the order to be made up. When it is ready, an alert is sent to counter staff to hand it over. Whilst it sounds simple, this is actually a complex, business-critical workflow in which it is vital that data is synchronized and shared in real-time.

This data must travel to a remote data center halfway around the world just to arrive at a device in the same building. Business apps become unusable if the data connection is slow, a Wi-Fi router breaks, or there is a cloud service outage.

Since cloud-only applications have so many single points of failure, operations halt whilst waiting for a device to reconnect. Apps like these do not provide a great user experience and ultimately cost businesses money, customer experience, or worse. In situations like healthcare, where decisions about a patient’s treatment are logged and updated on mobile devices used by a team, these interruptions and their impact on quick decision-making may have serious implications.

Finding ways to connect those different devices directly is an obvious solution. Indeed, peer-to-peer networking between devices is common; how many times have you used AirDrop to send pictures to a friend’s smartphone?

So why are we not more collaborative work apps built with cloud-optional features to enable them to function without the Internet?

One answer is that it has been easier to build cloud-only applications. A wealth of cloud-only databases and tools has meant developers have not had to worry about TCP/IP networking, database partitioning, or on-disk compression whenever they must update a field in a database table.

Moving beyond cloud-only applications

By contrast, offline-first applications have been challenging to implement because of the limited tools available to support them. There are scalable peer-to-peer protocols for data that do not change, like AirDropping photos. However, developers need the reliability of a database when data updates must be in real-time or super-accurate. To do this, an offline-first datastore capable of handling offline and peer-to-peer changes must be built.

But where to start? A model for a datastore that allows these in-the-field apps to work without a cloud connection has several key characteristics.

Firstly, it must be user-friendly for software developers. Instead of sending data to a remote server, the application needs to write data to its local database first in the form of changes, then detect changes from other devices and recombine them whenever needed. Devices must be able to discover, connect, and maintain these connections with nearby devices in what is called a mesh network. It is important to note that creating mesh networks for peer-to-peer data synchronization is not a silver bullet for enabling an organization to go cloud-optional when it needs to. These networks generate vast amounts of data that can overwhelm small devices if each node aggressively tries to sync every piece of data, which becomes a hindrance to businesses and halts operations.

As such, to overcome this, different types of devices should have different responsibilities when it comes to synchronizing the data. Smaller devices such as phones and tablets that have less processing power and storage capacity can focus on synchronizing the data explicitly requested by other devices, not complete documents, so as not to overwhelm the device’s bandwidth. This means that these smaller devices can sync data incredibly quickly because only the deltas are exchanged. Larger devices, such as local or cloud servers, connected to the mesh through the internet, should be responsible for synchronizing as much data as possible, ensuring data access and visibility for users who are not directly connected to the local mesh.

When considering the latency aspect of synchronization, a peer-to-peer mesh network must make it easy for other devices to join and leave when they need to. Within this model, it is key to ensure that all devices have input from the same data source. However, this poses a great mathematical challenge as the mesh network topology changes over time. So, it is important for these mesh networks to be flexible without needing to have the complete full history of a database table to write or read the latest value. Therefore, creating an ad-hoc network.

For this to be successful, the peer-to-peer mesh network must understand that devices update frequently but at different times, so it must take into account the incoming data with different schemas. In this way, even if a device is offline and, therefore, outdated, it should still be able to read new data and sync. The way to do this lies in how the network works with a device in a reliable order of changes that can be inspected, which also includes incorporating metadata about schema changes over time.

Developers need the proper tools to be able to purposely build cloud-optional apps. When there is an interruption, all devices must see the same query results given the same set of changes, even if the changes arrive in a different order. It is challenging for development teams to create a dependable, offline-first, peer-to-peer datastore that syncs data in a partially connected mesh. However, as cloud-optional capabilities become more attractive, there will be growing demand for a complete end-to-end solution that combines the best of cloud software with the best of peer-to-peer software.

We’ve featured the best cloud computing.

[ad_2]

Source Article Link

Tags Cloud, deskless, optional, workforce

Business Industry

Samsung’s virtual gamepad app makes Gaming Hub cloud gaming easier

Post author By miranda cosgrove
Post date April 17, 2024
No Comments on Samsung’s virtual gamepad app makes Gaming Hub cloud gaming easier

[ad_1]

Samsung launched a new Virtual Gamepad mobile app some weeks ago. If you never heard of it, you’re probably not alone. Unless you own a Samsung smart TV and often use it with SmartThings on your phone, chances are this new app flew under your radar.

Samsung didn’t make any official announcements for this app. It was released quietly on the Google Play Store, but people could find out about it through the SmartThings mobile app, assuming they have a Samsung TV linked up. Here’s all you need to know.

You can now use Gaming Hub without a physical controller

As the name suggests, Virtual Gamepad is a gaming-oriented app. Its primary purpose is to turn your smartphone into a game controller for your TV.

Using this app, you can play cloud games via Gaming Hub on your Samsung TV without having to buy a physical controller. You can turn your mobile phone into a virtual gamepad instead.

This is what it looks like by default. You have some control over the virtual button layout, but there’s no light theme or other color options.

As far as your Samsung TV is concerned, the Virtual Gamepad app on your phone is like any other standard controller connected to your TV. You can use it to control games and your TV’s UI.

Similar to a physical gamepad, the left virtual thumbstick and D-pad control the TV UI, while the A and B buttons work as “select” and “back” buttons — just like on a regular Xbox controller.

This means you can also use Virtual Gamepad on your phone to play smaller Tizen OS games on your TV — games you can download from the TV app store. In other words, it’s not just a Gaming Hub accessory but also a TV remote and virtual controller.

If you want to give the Virtual Gamepad app a try, you can download it from Google Play. But, without a Samsung TV, there’s not much you can do with it.

However, if you have a Samsung TV, you can open the SmartThings app on your phone, access your TV, and select the “Virtual Gamepad” option. It now resides under “Camera Sharing.” You’ll be redirected to the Play Store to download the app on your phone. If you don’t see the Virtual Gamepad option in SmartThings, make sure you’re using the latest version.

Another barrier lifted for Samsung TV owners

Samsung continues to make gaming more accessible to everyone. Gaming Hub for TVs is one of the best choices for casual gamers who don’t want to spend too much money or for people who have never gamed but are interested in trying this pastime activity at a low cost.

However, because Gaming Hub requires a controller to play games, this can be another barrier casual gamers with no prior gaming experience — and thus, no accessories — are facing.

This new Virtual Gamepad mobile app won’t replace the tried and tested physical controller for most gamers. But it can lift this other cost barrier related to controllers. Now, Samsung TV users who want to try Gaming Hub no longer have to spend money on an accessory they may or may not use in the long run. They can try games using the Virtual Gamepad app and decide later whether they should buy a physical controller.

Join SamMobile social media channels to get instant Samsung news updates, in-depth reviews of Samsung devices, and more.

[ad_2]

Source Article Link

Tags App, Cloud, easier, gamepad, Gaming, hub, Samsungs, Virtual

Featured

Crypto miner arrested for skipping on millions in cloud server bills

Post author By lisa nichols
Post date April 17, 2024
No Comments on Crypto miner arrested for skipping on millions in cloud server bills

[ad_1]

A 45-year-old Nebraska man Charles O. Parks III has been charged with numerous financial crimes, including wire fraud and money laundering, as part of a scheme defrauding two cloud storage providers based in Seattle and Redmond, Washington.

Ars Technica, reporting on the indictment, beat us to the punch in alleging that the cloud providers in question are probably Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure.

Parks registered a number of accounts using various identities to secure the computing resources, and continued registering accounts even after being kicked off of the Seattle provider for non-payment and suspicions of fraudulent activity.

Don’t try this at home

Though Parks is estimated to have cost both providers a combined $3.5 million in unpaid service fees and the sheer amount of energy consumed by his operation, the whole charade only netted around $1 million. That’s probably not worth the 30 year custodial sentence facing Parks if he’s convicted on all charges.

Parks was methodical, laundering his ill-gotten Ether, Litecoin and Monero via crypto exchanges, unnamed NFT marketplaces and online payment gateways, as well as plain old bank accounts.

He was cunning, managing to socially engineer, trick and fraud his way to persuading employees at the provider to defer demands for payment and elevate his service allowances.

However, Parks was also reckless in not paying his bills in the first place, as well as splashing the cash about a little too much, buying a car, jewelry, ‘first-class hotel and travel accommodations’, and ‘other luxury goods and services’.

The decision was perhaps particularly unwise, as we’ve already highlighted that the return on investment with cryptocurrency mining isn’t great, in part because companies are wise to it now. They can throttle their resources (which is almost certainly why Parks had to do some social engineering fraud) and have the telemetry (as they almost certainly did on Parks) to look at what their systems were doing and put two and two together.

Plus, caring about the environment might be for squares or whatever when there’s money to be made, but the environmental impact of data centers generally is bleak and depressing, even when you’re not using them to mine monopoly money. What better reflection is there of capitalism in action than a race to the bottom, ultimately set to doom us all, for a meager return on investment?

Apple’s First AI Features in iOS 18 Reportedly Won’t Use Cloud Servers

Post author By miranda cosgrove
Post date April 14, 2024
No Comments on Apple’s First AI Features in iOS 18 Reportedly Won’t Use Cloud Servers

[ad_1]

Apple’s first set of new AI features planned for iOS 18 will not rely on cloud servers at all, according to Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman.

iOS 18 Siri Integrated Feature
“As the world awaits Apple’s big AI unveiling on June 10, it looks like the initial wave of features will work entirely on device,” said Gurman, in the Q&A section of his Power On newsletter today. “That means there’s no cloud processing component to the company’s large language model, the software that powers the new capabilities.”

Apple will probably still offer some cloud-based AI features powered by Google’s Gemini or another provider, according to Gurman. Apple has reportedly held discussions with companies such as Google, OpenAI, and China’s Baidu about potential generative AI partnerships. iOS 18 is not expected to include Apple’s own ChatGPT-like chatbot, but it is unclear if Gemini or other chatbot will be directly integrated into iOS 18.

It is possible that Apple could offer some of its own cloud-based generative AI features in the future, as Apple supply chain analysts like Ming-Chi Kuo and Jeff Pu have said that the company is actively purchasing AI servers.

iOS 18 is rumored to have new generative AI features for the iPhone’s Spotlight search tool, Siri, Safari, Shortcuts, Apple Music, Messages, Health, Numbers, Pages, Keynote, and more. Gurman previously reported that generative AI will improve Siri’s ability to answer more complex questions, and allow the Messages app to auto-complete sentences.

Apple is expected to unveil iOS 18 and other software updates at its annual developers conference WWDC, which runs from June 10 through June 14.

Competition under threat as cloud giants selectively invest in startups, watchdog says

Post author By lisa nichols
Post date April 12, 2024
No Comments on Competition under threat as cloud giants selectively invest in startups, watchdog says

[ad_1]

In a recent address at the 72nd Antitrust Law Spring Meeting in Washington DC, UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) CEO Sarah Cardell delved into the potential impact of the current AI landscape on competition and consumer protection.

Emphasizing AI’s transformative benefits, Cardell implied that tech giants like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have been selectively investing in specific startups.

Her speech, recorded via speaker’s notes, highlighted the need for proactive measures to ensure fair, open, and effective competition in the AI landscape.

Cloud companies are the subject of CMA scrutiny yet again

Reflecting on the CMA’s ongoing scrutiny of the cloud and AI industry, Cardell outlined a series of risks that current practices pose.

Concerns were raised about tech giants controlling critical inputs (such as compute and data) for foundation model development, potentially restricting access for other companies. Such restriction could lead to incumbent firms protecting their existing positions from disruption, which Cardell fears might even lead to market power in other markets beyond AI.

The CMA’s CEO also noted that partnerships involving key players in the AI landscape, such as the big three, could reinforce their existing positions of market power and dominance, making it even harder for smaller companies to reach the top.

To address these concerns, the CMA has already committed to enhancing its merger review process to assess the implications of partnerships and arrangements and to monitor current and emerging partnerships more closely, including that of Microsoft and OpenAI.

Finally, the CMA has plans to examine AI accelerator chips and their impact on the foundation model value chain.

As the AI landscape continues to evolve, it’s clear that the CMA remains committed to its existing investigations into dominant companies and encouraging competition.

The inevitable risks and best defense for cloud cybersecurity

Post author By lisa nichols
Post date April 12, 2024
No Comments on The inevitable risks and best defense for cloud cybersecurity

[ad_1]

Most businesses, regardless of size, now understand the potential value of the cloud. We’re beyond that stage of early skepticism in which technology decision-makers questioned whether cloud services would factor significantly into corporate operations. Wholesale adoption is now underway and has been for years.

And why not? The benefits of the cloud are obvious. The ability to access cloud-hosted applications and services from anywhere, store and recall data and content without regard to physical data center limitations such as capacity and aging hardware, and grow or shrink infrastructure elastically to meet the changing needs of your business is invaluable. As a complementary part of your overall IT strategy, the cloud can definitely accelerate your corporate growth and help achieve your goals and desired business outcomes.

Danger, unfortunately, still lurks within the cloud for the unwary. All the attributes that make the cloud so convenient and efficient—such as ease of access and decentralization of IT services and data—create the very conditions for risk in the form of security breaches. As more companies embrace public cloud resources and hybrid cloud infrastructures (as opposed to traditional on-premises IT infrastructure) and begin to push more of their workloads and data (especially sensitive data) into these environments, we are witnessing a steady increase in companies experiencing cloud security breaches. The reality for every company embracing cloud is that a cybersecurity incident will eventually occur—it’s just a matter of when.

Trevor Morgan

VP of Product, OpenDrives.

Inevitable security breaches

The inevitability that your business will encounter a security breach, whether through inadvertent carelessness or perhaps through a threat actor’s concentrated efforts, is sobering. The host of problems stemming from such a situation includes legal ramifications, potential governmental sanctions, and most certainly brand reputational damage. Most sources agree that a single security breach can cost your organization millions of wasted dollars, not to mention the fact that it will defocus your organization and alarm your customer base (many of whom might have sensitive personally identifiable information (PII) somewhere in your data ecosystem).

You might have the impression that all your cloud data is highly secure no matter what, especially when you’re leveraging public cloud services that tout rock-solid security measures. Go ahead and rethink any self-assurances or complacency about your cloud security posture. The potential problems are manifold: most security measures in cloud environments must be consciously deployed and configured properly; well-trained (and expensive) professionals must remain alert and monitor cloud environments regularly; and your entire organization must participate in a culture of safe cyber-activity in order to thwart the efforts of hackers employing not only technical acumen but social engineering trickery to find cracks in the armor.

Don’t get me wrong—this is not a scare tactic convincing you to lose faith in your push to the cloud. Quite the contrary! With proper planning and some deliberate and persistent vigilance within your organization, you can confidently rely on your cloud-based IT infrastructure and cloud data services. And, just know that you’re not in the fight alone!

The major web service providers understand the problems and threats just as intimately as any organization can, and they’re trying to stay one step ahead of bad actors. With the mainstream adoption of automation in the form of machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI), these companies are merging next-generation machine intelligence with standard cloud-based operations and workloads to detect anomalies and potential threats to their customers like you, without your direct intervention.

Taking cybersecurity problems seriously

One way to see how major cloud providers are taking the cybersecurity problem seriously is to view the types of intellectual property patents they file. For example, a patent filed by a subsidiary of Microsoft details the method by which machine intelligence can automatically monitor API transactions and detect anomalous requests in the form of mismatched cloud providers. This might indicate a mounting and intentional threat. On top of using automated machine intelligence to monitor and detect these kinds of situations on a massive scale, the patent details mitigation and remediation efforts in the form of data sharing between cooperative cloud providers. All good measures!

Evolving tech like this helps cloud services providers—and their customers—move closer to a Zero Trust posture in which no request or transaction is assumed legitimate, and instead enforces multiple or many challenges before allowing access to data or services to avoid the dangers of implicit trust. Obviously, maneuvers such as these would be done at the service provider level and wouldn’t necessarily involve intervention from customers or their employees. That doesn’t mean, though, that you should rely solely on the methods that your cloud services provider implements in order to keep your IT infrastructure (and all that potentially sensitive data) safe.

With a deliberate effort to build your organization’s cybersecurity consciousness, you can improve your chances of delaying that event I claimed earlier in this piece was inevitable. While these tactics may seem simple, they go a long way toward closing potential security holes and certainly complement the tech that your cloud services provider no doubt is in the process of deploying to keep you and all those other customers secure:

Don’t be fooled into complacency by relying solely on traditional perimeter security such as firewalls, perimeter monitoring, and intrusion detection. Cloud environments are incredibly distributed so even knowing the extent of your perimeter becomes challenging.

Data-centric security

Consider more data-centric security such as format-preserving encryption or tokenization, especially when you house PII or other highly sensitive information. Data nowadays is rarely at rest, and you want data security that can travel with it.

If your organization has embraced DevOps, make sure you include the Sec in there to form DevSecOps. Data security shouldn’t be an overlay once most of the development is complete—move security up front to the planning phase to ensure it’s built right in.

Encourage a culture of security among all your employees. Never let them forget that all it takes is one oversight for threat actors to pounce. Talk openly about times when you almost feel for that social engineering trick, and keep those lessons learned alive for all to see.

Prioritizing data security, integrating DevSecOps practices, and fostering a security-conscious culture among employees are crucial steps toward safeguarding sensitive information in today’s dynamic digital landscape. By proactively addressing security at every stage, organizations can mitigate risks and uphold the integrity of their data assets–and reputation–in the face of evolving cyber threats. So when it comes to data security, remember: prevention is always better than a cure.

We’ve listed the best cloud optimization service.

[ad_2]

Source Article Link

Tags Cloud, Cybersecurity, Defense, inevitable, Risks

Apple Announces New iPad Pro With M4 Chip, OLED Display, and More

Apple Event Live Blog: New iPad Pro, iPad Air, and More

Apple Says iOS 17.5 Coming ‘Soon’ With These New Features for iPhones

Apple Announces Redesigned Magic Keyboard for New iPad Pro Starting at $299

Everything Announced at Today’s Apple Event

‘iPhone 17 Slim’ With Smaller Display Rumored to Launch Next Year

Apple Announces New M2 iPad Air Models in 11-Inch and 13-Inch Sizes From $599

iOS 18 Will Add These New Features to Your iPhone

iPhone 16 Plus Rumored to Come in These 7 Colors

Macs to Get AI-Focused M4 Chips Starting in Late 2024

Top Stories: M4 Mac Roadmap Leaked, New iPads in Second Week of May, and More

Best Buy Opens Up Sitewide Sale With Record Low Prices on M3 MacBook Air, iPad, and Much More

Popular Stories

Navigating cybersecurity challenges in 2024: a closer look

Using the cloud in practice

You can now use Gaming Hub without a physical controller

Another barrier lifted for Samsung TV owners

Popular Stories