As we evolve more and more to complete self-contained services like the mainstream Cloud services of Microsoft, Amazon, IBM and Google, I often express concerns about the Cyber aspects being coupled. Enterprises and users are, if they haven’t already, getting more and more comfortable with giving up their physical/virtual servers, applications and storage but are not, and should not, be comfortable giving up control of their sensitive data. The shared responsibility models of Cloud Services Providers (CSPs) delineates between the physical aspects (network, disks, memory, etc.) and the responsibility of what resides in the storage and computer.
4 Building Blocks of an Exceptional Customer Experience
Since I became Senior Manager of Technical Support at WinMagic about seven months ago, my mandate has been to take the support organization here to the point where they were consistently delivering an exceptional customer experience. To do that, I needed to build a solid foundation using the skills and observations that I have acquired from elsewhere. My first step in this was to audit the technical support team and identify areas where improvement was needed or more focus needed to be applied. Through observation, looking at the metrics that were being gathered, and even learning the product so that I could take customer calls in the interest of seeing firsthand what customers experience was, I was able to come up with these key building blocks as part of my foundation for exceptional customer experience. Since February 1st, we’ve been tracking these key items:
SEDs, Sleep and Hibernation
I have written about the security implications of using sleep with encrypted drives in the past and have offered both short term and longer term solutions that would allow users to use sleep under some conditions and not risk (too much) a data breach. Today I am writing to offer another, common sense, alternative: Just don’t use sleep because you don’t really need it.
Coaching: The Key Tool for Successful Support Teams
I’m passionate when it comes to coaching and developing a Tech Support team. Because when you make a sincere effort to coach and develop Tech Support agents, it results in a more engaged agent who delivers world class support. One who will go above and beyond not because they feel they have to, but because their efforts are validated by those that they report to and by the customers they assist. This is important because a Tech Support team talks to customers more often than any other part of an organization such as WinMagic which makes what they do very crucial to the success of that organization. I use a number of tools to make sure my coaching is effective as possible.
5 Qs Security Professionals Should ask for Cloud Migration
Have you heard of the great migration of Modern IT to the Cloud? It’s not new, revolutionary or innovative, and many enterprises are doing it. But what we are seeing is, regardless of industry, migrating to a cloud solution is occurring for a myriad of different reasons – from strategic reasons, to the flexibility, productivity and cost-savings gained by moving workloads and storage from on-site to the Cloud.
How do IT leaders manage encryption the smartest way?
Today’s IT leaders have to ensure that desktops, laptops, and tablets are secure, which is not any easy feat when they all run on different operating systems – and that is just the beginning. As most organizations move to the cloud, there is a new set of security considerations to tackle. An organization needs to ensure that every confidential piece of data is protected no matter where it resides.
Encryption Challenges in a Changing Tech World
There are many Encryption Challenges in the Tech world today. We know that encryption is one of the fastest emerging data security options today. An increasing number of organizations worldwide are adopting encryption to address the growing concerns of data safety and data privacy for compliance regulations. Data Encryption is a time-tested tool that can severely hinder attackers in their goal to steal confidential user and customer data, trade secrets, and more. In addition, to the complex regulations, the increasing adoption of new technologies such as mobility, cloud and virtualization have also found the need for encryption more than ever before.
BitLocker Pain Points: Guiding Better BitLocker Management
If you have been following our blogs you know that the ideal FDE architecture has two main components. The actual encryption component is a separate layer from the key management. The encryption can be done by the OS (e.g. BitLocker for Windows or FileVault2 for Mac), by Self-Encrypting Drives (SEDs) or by ISVs such as WinMagic’s FIPS140-2 validated software cryptographic engine.
6 Best Practices for Data Security in the Cloud
Though the cloud offers businesses the opportunity to meet their computing needs with greater scalability, flexibility and cost effectiveness than ever before, it also requires new approaches to data security.
Proactively SecurE Cloud Deployments & Keep Control of Data
When you move into a new place, one of the first things you do is change all the locks. It’s important to your sense of security that you control who has access to your home. Changing the locks just makes logical and practical sense. This same logic should also be applied to your business thinking when you are looking to secure your sensitive information in a new environment or an environment you don’t fully control.