Swan Newsletter : CommuniQA : Winning the Cyber Security War

Dear Readers,

Greetings from Swan Solutions!

October is declared as ‘National Cyber Security Awareness’ month. It’s become very common to read news about large enterprises facing security breaches without realizing it for long. There have been a total of 577 data breaches and over 155 million records have been exposed so far in 2015, according to ITRC. It doesn’t matter how large and profitable a business is – no one is immune from data breaches. Protecting your business against these modern threats requires much more than just downloading the latest version of anti-virus software – it requires constant vigilance and matching up your skills to a hacker’s. It is critical for businesses to invest in security and train their staff to stay one step ahead of data thieves. Else, the costs and consequences in terms of loss of clientele could be devastating.

While the US celebrates October as ‘National Cyber Security Awareness’ month, let’s not miss the humor- that it culminates with Dussehra, an Indian festival which celebrates the victory of good over evil. This quarter, let’s fight the evil and work towards a secure enterprise. In this edition of CommuniQA, we will discuss why you should invest more in security, along with useful tips how you can secure your enterprise data

Sincerely,

C.E.O

Swan Solutions Helps Government Entity Upgrade to a Secure Network Infrastructure

It’s common for enterprises to witness a hike in the number of apps and users, while the network gets clogged and slow. An Indian government organization which holds sensitive financial information about government employees came across the same issue. As the government organization started depending on computerization rather than maintaining records on files and papers, their IT infrastructure grew huge and complex. In their case, security and ease of use were equally important aspects while designing a network infrastructure upgrade.

Why you should be spending more on Security

CIOs understand that they live in a world of ‘when’, not ‘if’ there will be a security breach. Sophisticated breaches are not the result of lone hackers, but the effort of organized criminals who work all week. What’s worse – they are better skilled and funded than most large enterprises.

While the number of attacks and their costs continue to rise, many organizations don’t update critical information security processes, technologies, and employee training needs. It is surprising to find a survey pointing at employees. One of the most time-consuming info-security tasks lies in addressing vulnerabilities in software applications developed in-house, according to a BlackHat’s study titled ‘2015: Time to Rethink Enterprise IT Security’. The compromises also take place through third parties with trusted network access. It doesn’t matter how secure the enterprise network and data are if third parties do not employ equivalent security and privacy safeguards. Hence, security teams end up investing far too much time on application weaknesses than on sophisticated targeted attacks.

Many CIOs endanger their companies simply by not spending enough on the right security solutions. And how will spending on IT help? Apart from ticking regulatory compliance boxes, the purpose of investing in the right IT security solutions is mainly to reduce the risk of a security breach to an acceptable level. While deciding the budget, it is important to consider what percent of the IT security budget will be invested in personnel, software, hardware, outsourcing and consulting. Having reasonable security measures in place is a reason good enough for many companies to ensure that hackers would move on and attack someone else. As we get closer to 2016, CIOs find themselves in a position of being asked to do more with the same budget. Invest wisely on IT and stay away from breaches. Have a secure October!

A large infra company preferred Swan for one of their application roll out. It was a complete solution stack which included Servers, Storage, Networking and backup solution worth INR 40L for their Monorail project. Swan understood the criticality of the project and offered solution which is quick to deploy and easy to manage.

"CIO Review" covers Swan Solutions in its September 2015 issue of "20 Most Promising Infrastructure Management Services companies in India". Click here to read the online article on Swan providing comprehensive solutions in the Mobile infrastructure domain.

Get serious about Passwords

Of course you’ve heard this before. It is important to most hackers still rely on easy passwords like as simple as ‘123456’ or ‘password’ to access a user’s account to access your enterprise data. The best way out is, stick to the rules. Ensure your password is at least eight characters-long and includes numbers, upper case letters and symbols. Don’t share your password with anyone and avoid using the same password for multiple accounts. Also consider using multi-factor authentication.

Tech Support: "I need you to right-click on the Open Desktop."
Customer: "Ok."
Tech Support: "Did you get a pop-up menu?"
Customer: "No."
Tech Support: "Ok. Right click again. Do you see a pop-up menu?"
Customer: "No."
Tech Support: "Ok, sir. Can you tell me what you have done up until this point?"
Customer: "Sure, you told me to write 'click' and I wrote 'click'.".

Have you ever forgotten where you left your smartphone? Calling it won’t help if you’ve set it in silent or vibrate mode. Mobile app Clap! Phone Finder lets you find your smartphone by just clapping your hands. With the app, the smartphone detects a clap it will ring even if it's in silent or vibrate mode..

For more info, visit:- http://www.9apps.com/android-apps/Phone-Finder-4/

The hardest past about keeping good passwords is memorizing them. aWallet Password Manager helps to securely store all your passwords, credit card information, e-banking credentials, web accounts and other custom data on your phone. All data is encrypted, including Entry names, Category definitions and the data itself.

For more info, visit:- http://www.awallet.org

Would you like to win a Free Movie Ticket ? Answer a few simple questions and send us the reply. In case of more than one correct entry, winner will be chosen by a draw.

A) Which one of the following describes spam?
1) Gathering information about a person or organisation without their knowledge
2) Performing an unauthorised, usually malicious, action such as erasing files
3) Putting unnecessary load on the network by making copies of files
4) Irrelevant messages sent to large numbers of users

Swan is a 26 year old, IT infrastructure and facilities management company providing state-of-the-art IT solutions to large and medium enterprises.

Swan Solutions & Services (P) Ltd - 404 T-Square, 4th Floor, Saki Vihar Road, Andheri East, Mumbai 400 072; Tel. 022-28034088 ; Email :enquiry@swansol.com	www.swansol.com