Computing

Encryption is mandatory for healthcare data

More hospitals are turning to cloud-based services to store their data.  They want to tap into the existing infrastructure and convenience, not to mention reduced costs and lesser maintenance hassles that come with this transition.

That’s not all. The data that is stored on the cloud can be analyzed quickly to get meaningful insights. For example, it’ll be easy to know the rate of child obesity or the demographic groups that are more vulnerable to diseases like diabetes. With such deep insights, providing care will become streamlined and focused. At the same time, the government and the healthcare industry can come together to create a way to prevent such diseases from plaguing those demographic groups.

In fact, the above situations are just a tip of the iceberg as cloud storage and analytics opens the world for all kinds of possibilities in the medical world. Little wonder that more companies are moving to the cloud to leverage these benefits.

To cater to this growing demand from hospitals to store and analyze patient data, many companies have setup public healthcare cloud. But how safe are these cloud services?

A report called Cloud Infrastructure Security Trends released by cybersecurity vendor RedLock shows that 31 percent of databases in public healthcare clouds are easily accessible over the Internet and 40 percent of organizations have one or more cloud storage services exposed to the general public. In fact, this study looked at multiple verticals and were able to access 4.8 million records that includes many sensitive data about patients.

You may wonder what happened to the many privacy regulations including HIPAA?

HIPAA lays down certain regulations when it comes to public healthcare cloud, of which, a primary one is to ensure that the data you store is safe. Though these healthcare clouds have to comply with these regulations, it’s not completely foolproof. HIPAA as such faces many challenges, so the onus is on you to take measures to protect the safety and integrity of your data.

One way to ensure that your data is safe is to keep it encrypted. The report further states that 82 percent of databases are not encrypted, so the chances for accessing information with low to medium effort is fairly high. As a hospital authority, you have to make sure that all your data and databases are encrypted. This should be one of the most important aspects that you should talk about before signing a contract with a service provider.

Another option is to go with a zero-knowledge provider. If you’ve never heard this term before, don’t worry as you’re not alone.

Zero-knowledge providers are those that encrypt your data using AES algorithm and only you have the key to decrypt them. In other words, no other person other than you, not even the employees of your service provider or any other third party such as your Internet Service Provider or the NSA can access your data. Since this service doesn’t even store your username and password, you can ensure that you’re records are safe.

That said, not many zero-knowledge providers are out there and even among those, not many abide by HIPAA regulations. All this means, you’ll have to put in more time and effort before you park your healthcare data online.

The post Encryption is mandatory for healthcare data appeared first on Cloud News Daily.

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Back up that Mac!

Guest blog article from Guennadi Moukine, Acronis!   If you’re not already scheduling regular system backups for your Apple Mac, it’s time to do it. Now. It’s a small bit of insurance invested to protect against data loss and operational continuity disruption. If you are performing scheduled backups, make sure you are fully protecting your […]

The post Back up that Mac! appeared first on Parallels Blog.

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[session] #Serverless Compute | @CloudExpo #IoT #M2M #AWS #AI #Serverless

When shopping for a new data processing platform for IoT solutions, many development teams want to be able to test-drive options before making a choice. Yet when evaluating an IoT solution, it’s simply not feasible to do so at scale with physical devices. Building a sensor simulator is the next best choice; however, generating a realistic simulation at very high TPS with ease of configurability is a formidable challenge. When dealing with multiple application or transport protocols, you would be looking at some significant engineering investment.
On-demand, serverless computing enables developers to try out a fleet of devices on IoT gateways with ease. With a sensor simulator built on top of AWS Lambda, it’s possible to elastically generate device sensors that report their state to the cloud.

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Fantastic Tracks at @CloudExpo | DevOps #AI #ML #DX #IoT #IIoT #FinTech

With major technology companies and startups seriously embracing Cloud strategies, now is the perfect time to attend @CloudExpo | @ThingsExpo, June 6-8, 2017, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY and October 31 – November 2, 2017, Santa Clara Convention Center, CA. Learn what is going on, contribute to the discussions, and ensure that your enterprise is on the right path to Digital Transformation.

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Join DDN June 6-8 at @CloudExpo NY | #HPC #SDN #SDS #AI #DataCenter

As cloud adoption continues to transform business, today’s global enterprises are challenged with managing a growing amount of information living outside of the data center. The rapid adoption of IoT and increasingly mobile workforce are exacerbating the problem. Ensuring secure data sharing and efficient backup poses capacity and bandwidth considerations as well as policy and regulatory compliance issues.

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Silicon Valley CFP | @CloudExpo #DevOps #Serverless #FinTech #IoT #AI #DX

The 21st International Cloud Expo has announced that its Call for Papers is open. Cloud Expo, to be held October 31 – November 2, 2017, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA, brings together Cloud Computing, Big Data, Internet of Things, DevOps, Digital Transformation, Machine Learning and WebRTC to one location. With cloud computing driving a higher percentage of enterprise IT budgets every year, it becomes increasingly important to plant your flag in this fast-expanding business opportunity. Submit your speaking proposal today!

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Announcing @Clouberio to Exhibit at @CloudExpo New York | #AWS #MaaS #Cloud #Azure

SYS-CON Events announced today that Clouber will exhibit at SYS-CON’s 20th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on June 6-8, 2017, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY.
Clouber offers Migration as a Service (MaaS) across Private and Public Cloud (AWS, Azure, GCP) including bare metal migration to cloud. Clouber’s innovative technology allows for migration projects to be completed in minutes instead of weeks. For more updates follow #clouberio

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Cloud native architecture ‘default’ for customer-facing apps by 2020, says Capgemini

Cloud native architectures will become the ‘default’ option for customer-facing applications by 2020, according to a new study from Capgemini.

The research, which surveyed more than 900 senior professionals across 11 countries, found that 15% of new enterprise applications are cloud native today, set to jump to 32% by 2020.

The study also outlined the different stages organisations are currently at in deployments. ‘Leader’ organisations, those which are already committed to cloud-native applications, are twice as likely to report increases in organisational revenues as a result of this strategy compared with laggards. Cloud native leaders are also more likely to describe their software development approach as agile – 69% of respondents compared with 37% of laggards – as well as be more likely to focus on customer growth than cut costs for IT.

This has an effect on the CIO, the study notes. While the rise in cloud native apps prompts many CIOs to see IT as even more central to supporting business growth, challenges remain. Two thirds (65%) of respondents said they expect to ‘battle an ingrained culture’ opposed to cloud native working, with an additional 70% fearing a skills shortage. 62% cited integration with legacy infrastructure as an issue.

Yet Capgemini says avoiding the issue will only make things worse. “Businesses that delay adopting this approach will struggle to make up the gap with cloud-native competitors,” said Franck Greverie, cloud and cybersecurity group leader at Capgemini in a statement. “Organisations need to listen to their CIOs and understand the huge potential of cloud-native technology to deliver business benefits and innovation.

“CIOs must also address culture and skills gaps within their own organisations on the road to being cloud-native leaders,” Greverie added.

Capgemini gave a six-point roadmap for organisations looking to build a cloud native business:

  • Assess the application portfolio and identify priorities for cloud native development
  • Build credibility by demonstrating a cloud roadmap and ability to deliver growth
  • Start small, and then scale up to develop a skilled team
  • Adapt the IT operating model to support both business agility and stability
  • Be pragmatic in selecting technologies
  • Incubate a culture of innovation, collaboration, testing and learning

You can find out more by reading the report here (registration required).

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Wave Gets More Funding

Wave, a Canadian firm that specializes in offering cloud-based accounting software for small and medium firms got another round of funding today. NAB’s venture capital arm led this round of funding with A$32 million. Royal Bank of Canada and a few other investment firms were also a part of this funding round.

Wave was founded in 2010 to provide free accounting software for small businesses. Over the last few years, it has grown enormously and now it offers a suite of cloud-based products for a range of different financial activities such as lending, payroll, payments, invoices and receipts.

Currently, this company employs about 130 people and reaches out to more than 2.5 million customers spread across 200 countries.

Specifically, it has more than 25,000 small business customers in Australia and this explains why Australian-based companies like National Australia Bank (NAB) have invested in this company. In this round, NAB and RBC are the main investors and they are joined by companies like Social Capital, CRV, OurCrowd and HarbourVest. A few Canadian companies like IT Venture Fund, Portag3 and OMERS Ventures also participated with their Australian counterparts.

Though the exact split up of investments made by each firm is not known, NAB is one of the highest investors and this gives it an opportunity to appoint an observer to Wave’s Board of Directors. NAB has invested in many such small companies that create a big impact in the economic and social world.

This series of D investment is the eighth round of funding for Wave, and during the previous seven rounds, it has raised US$55.7 million. These levels of funding reflect the stellar performance of Wave. One of the highlights of this company is that it helps small businesses to be more productive and efficient by giving them the tools needed to be successful.

In fact, their invoicing and accounting software is free to use for anyone, but clients have to pay for additional software they need such as payroll, lending and more. In many Asian and African countries, these free tools can be a game changer and it is known to have helped many companies to become successful at what they do.

Such a social impact has garnered the interest of many firms, so it’s no surprise they are making a beeline to invest in Wave.

Wave announced that it will use this round of funding to integrate more financial services into its free software, so it has a greater benefit on small businesses and the people they employ. Such a move is sure to present opportunities for these small businesses to grow and along with, Wave will also grow.

Such accounting software can also change the way banks perform their core functions of risk assessment and credit pricing. Currently, banks use the data stored in the form of financial statements to make these decisions and the existing software systems and operational processes are based on this presumption. Now, with cloud-based accounting software, businesses can use live data which can disrupt the practices followed by the banking industry for decades.

NAB doesn’t seem to mind that though.

The post Wave Gets More Funding appeared first on Cloud News Daily.

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Report argues network issues persist with large scale Office 365 deployments

A new piece of research from cloud security provider Zscaler looks at the issues with deploying Office 365 in large organisations – and found that companies still suffered from latency despite upgrading their firewalls.

The study, which polled more than 200 respondents from organisations with between 1,000 and 5,000 employees, found more than two thirds of respondents had beefed up their firewalls in preparation for Office 365 – a typical tactic for deployments – yet 69% reported post-deployment latency.

Almost two thirds (64%) of respondents in the survey admitted they had concerns over the impact of Office 365 on their bandwidth before deploying, while 69% expected to see a bandwidth increase of more than 50%.

The figures got worse once companies took the plunge. Almost half (48%) of those polled said network infrastructure and equipment upgrade costs for Office 365 exceeded their estimates. This is despite 28% of respondents believing the total cost of IT, security and network infrastructure needed to deploy Office 365 was at least 75% of their typical budget.

Yet increasing the bandwidth did not result in a faster Office 365 experience, the research found. 30% of respondents reported daily issues, with 69% reporting weekly problems, impacting on business operations and productivity.

As a result, organisations are ‘beginning to realise that legacy applications were not designed to handle the network demands of Office 365’, as the report puts it. 

“Through their own experiences, organisations are finding out that they simply cannot run ac loud application of the magnitude of Office 365 on legacy architecture,” said Punit Minocha, VP business development at Zscaler. “To fully leverage the power of Office 365, a majority of organisations are looking to transform their networks from traditional hub-and-spoke implementations to ones that securely access the Internet directly from branch offices.”

As Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO, noted at the company’s BUILD conference earlier this month, Office 365 now tops more than 100 million monthly active users (MAUs). Zscaler also said that Office 365 was the fastest growing software as a service (SaaS) application on its cloud.

You can read the full report here (no registration required).

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