Cloud servers bring with them distributed hosting and the ability to anonymize identities and that has enabled cloud becoming a breeding ground for criminals and even terrorists.
The cloud brings unique advantages to individual and business users alike and this explains the exponential adoption rate that cloud has seen in the past decade. There are also numerous security challenges with the cloud especially in the areas of privacy and data theft that has concerned stakeholders for a long time. However, with sophisticated encryption technologies, the instances of cloud data getting stolen is only going to get fewer in future.
Enterprise Networking in a Cloud World | @CloudExpo #Cloud
Enterprises must rethink network management in the cloud computing world. This new reality is driven by the rise of software defined networking, the virtualization of everything and a business imperative to create and deploy even newer information delivery models. With the entire infrastructure stack now fully programmable, the need to integrate the network with cloud compute services is essential. Another important environmental change is that both servers and applications have joined data with respect to mobility. This leads to an increased need to categorize those assets and apply appropriate security controls with respect to business/mission functions, data user role, location of access, legal/regulatory guidelines and user devices. In meeting the challenges of mobility and globalization, enterprises must address their lack control or complete visibility into the networks they use.
75% of apps not compliant under EU data protection rules
Research from Netskope has claimed more than 75% of business apps lack key capabilities to ensure compliance under EU General Data Protection Regulation.
The company tracked 22,000 apps of which three quarters failed to meet minimum requirements of the EU, falling down in areas such as deleting personal data in a timely manner or violating data portability requirements.
The companies who have not met the required standards now have just under two years to ensure compliance, when GDPR comes into play in 2018. Failure to meet the criteria will see a company fined up to $22 million or up to four percent of annual worldwide revenue, whichever is greater.
“The shift to the cloud presents an increasing complexity and volume of security challenges for enterprises, including regulations like the EU GDPR,” said Sanjay Beri, CEO of Netskope. “With the deadline for compliance looming, complete visibility into and real-time control over app usage and activity in a centralised, consistent way that works across all apps is paramount for organisations to understand how they use and protect their customers’ personal data.”
The number of sanctioned apps containing malware increased from 4.1% to 11% in the period between reports. More of a quarter of the instances of malware was detected in files that had been shared with others within the organization. In terms of cloud data loss prevention, cloud storage applications accounted for 73.6%, with Webmail coming in at second with 22.1%.
Microsoft commits to $26bn LinkedIn purchase in social media play
Microsoft has made a play to enter the social market after announcing it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire LinkedIn for $26.2 billion.
The announcement will create one of the largest cloud acquisitions this year, with LinkedIn shares jumping 47% following the news. During the same period Microsoft shares dropped 3%, possibly indicating some scepticism in the market.
“This deal brings together the world’s leading professional cloud with the world’s leading professional network,” said Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft in a note to employees. “I have been learning about LinkedIn for some time while also reflecting on how networks can truly differentiate cloud services.”
Microsoft does already play a role within the social media market, but more from the perspective of providing tools for online advertisers and media agencies. Although the LinkedIn purchase is almost 50% above market value, it could be seen as a much safer play than attempting to crack the social market organically. Google and Apple have seemingly learnt this lesson the harder way, launching Google+ and iTunes Ping respectively, neither of which seemed to have gathered much momentum.
Advertising revenues may be attractive to executives at Microsoft, the move could fall into the wider strategy of being the all-encompassing enterprise IT vendor. Research from JPMorgan highlighted Microsoft is valued as the most important vendor in the IT space due to the broad range of offerings. While others specialize in individual areas, Microsoft has created its position as the ‘one-stop-shop’ enterprise IT vendor. The acquisition of the ‘enterprise social media network’ could fill a whole in the portfolio, building on the theme of collaboration.
“We are in pursuit of a common mission centred on empowering people and organizations,” said Nadella in a note to employees. “Along with the new growth in our Office 365 commercial and Dynamics businesses this deal is key to our bold ambition to reinvent productivity and business processes.
“Think about it: How people find jobs, build skills, sell, market and get work done and ultimately find success requires a connected professional world. It requires a vibrant network that brings together a professional’s information in LinkedIn’s public network with the information in Office 365 and Dynamics. This combination will make it possible for new experiences such as a LinkedIn newsfeed that serves up articles based on the project you are working on and Office suggesting an expert to connect with via LinkedIn to help with a task you’re trying to complete.”
While the two companies could be seen as complimentary, it would appear a combination of the two would create a total addressable market (TAM) of $315 billion. According to a joint slide-deck shared by the team, LinkedIn has a TAM of $115 billion where as Microsoft can account for $200 billion. The team believe by joining forces and further diversifying the offering, this number can be further increased through differentiated experiences.
LinkedIn is billed as the largest professional social network globally, and has been growing steadily to 433 million members in recent years. The team have introduced a number of new features in recent months which it credits for increased engagement levels as well as membership numbers. Over the last 12 months the team at LinkedIn launched a new version of its mobile app, acquired online learning platform Lynda.com and launched a Recruiter product for its enterprise customers.
The number of social media users worldwide is estimated at 2.22 billion, with Facebook controlling the largest share at 1.59 billion. Judging the market value of social on the whole gives widely varied results, though Facebook did announce revenues for Q1 of $5.4 billion, a 52% year-on-year growth. The company now claims to have 3 million active advertisers on Facebook and over 200,000 on Instagram.
While the news will dominate technology headlines, there will still be some questions surrounding the integration of LinkedIn into the wider Microsoft portfolio. Office was a prominent character in Nadella’s email to employees, though whether this means LinkedIn will be incorporated into Office proposition has not been stated. For some, the role of social in the workplace is still unclear.
Following the completion of the deal which is expected by the close of the year, Jeff Weiner will remain LinkedIn CEO, reporting into Nadella.
More than a quarter of enterprise cloud apps deemed risky, CloudLock argues
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A new piece of research from cloud security provider CloudLock argues that more than a quarter of cloud apps connected to corporate environments were seen as high risk.
The report, the firm’s Q2 2016 Cloud Cybersecurity Report, gave a generally pessimistic warning over the threats of shadow IT. From 2014 to 2016, CloudLock has observed an almost 30 times increase in apps used under shadow IT, from 5,500 to almost 160,000. What’s more, over half of third party apps are banned because of security concerns.
The level of risk is defined by CloudLock’s Cloud Application Risk Index (CARI), which evaluates any potential threat across access scopes, community trust ratings, and application threat intelligence, taking into account past breaches and security certifications, as well as community sourced intelligence.
27% of the 156,796 apps overall were considered high risk, compared with 58% at medium risk and 15% at low risk, while the researchers found that across all industries there was a relatively even mix of low, medium and high risk applications. Finance, for instance, has only 8% of apps used in their organisations which are considered low risk by CloudLock – perhaps a surprise given the strict data compliance plans that are normally in place.
On average, an organisation’s users connect 733 third party apps to the corporate environment, the researchers argue. Naturally, this has its peaks and troughs; healthcare providers (138 on average) and media and entertainment (422) pale when compared to retail (2,498) and manufacturing (2,169), but when normalised by size, media, higher education, and technology are the largest consumers. “In these industries with more tech-savvy users, applications are abundant and increasing in use at faster rates,” the report notes.
“The shift to the cloud creates a new, virtual security perimeter that includes third-party apps granted access to corporate systems,” said Kaya Firat, CloudLock director of customer insights and analytics. “Today, most employees leverage a wide variety of apps to get their jobs done efficiently, unwittingly exposing corporate data and systems to malware and the possibility of data theft.”
You can read the full report here.
DDoS Managed Security Services | @CloudExpo #Cloud
Hosting providers are often judged by their ability to ensure network availability/uptime. Unfortunately, distributed denial of service (DDoS) easily impact service availability and, in some instances, completely take down a hosting platform. As DDoS attacks continue to increase in size and frequency, hosting providers have more difficulty ensuring uptime.
Blockchain as a Service – The New Weapon in the Cloud Wars? | @CloudExpo #Cloud
The cloud wars rage on. The room is full of 800lb gorillas that have been battling over market share and supremacy for several years now. You know who the key players are – Amazon, Microsoft, Google and IBM – all still standing. Three year ago, Gartner described the market as ‘still evolving and maturing’. However, last year, they described the market as ‘in a state of upheaval’ with many providers shifting their strategies as they struggle to obtain market share.
India to answer unanswered cloud questions
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has launched a consultation project to identify the challenges of governing a digital economy driven by cloud computing, reports Telecoms.com.
TRAI launched a consultation paper last week which outlined questions which still remain over the adoption and management of cloud computing. Before an adequate regulatory framework can be built, the team have highlighted a complete understanding of cloud as a technology and its business implications are required. TRAI has seemingly unearthed a number of unknowns which have been swept aside during the speedy adoption of cloud computing.
The consultation process itself will focus on several areas affecting the adoption of cloud computing in India including future trends, security, interoperability, quality of service, a legal & regulatory framework and the overall implementation of cloud services. The objective of the consultation process is to create a framework which encourages growth and adoption of the technology, while also protecting the interests of the customer.
“With a view to bring out all relevant aspects of the issues and to provide a suitable platform for discussions, TRAI has initiated this consultation paper to engage the industry and all the stakeholders on the key issues referred by Department of Telecom,” the team outlined in the consultation paper.
India is generally recognised as one of the more lucrative markets for the cloud computing industry, owing to a large population and a healthily growing economy. The report states the public cloud service market in India is expected to grow from $ 838 million in 2015 to $ 1.9 billion by 2018, while social, mobility, analytics and cloud technologies collectively could account for $1 trillion in 2016 alone.
The basis of the consultation paper would seem to be based on not only a lack of information available, but also a lack of constancy and clarity of the benefits, cost and ongoing management of the technology itself. Two areas which were given particular attention in the paper was that of lawful interception and interoperability.
According to TRAI there is currently a lack of clarity on how lawful interception will be justified and managed in a cloud-orientated, but also how data will be managed in the international community.
“One of the top security concerns of enterprises is the physical location of the data especially if they are located in another country because the laws of the host country apply to the machine and data residing on it,” the report highlighted. “That becomes an issue if the host country does not have adequate laws to protect sensitive data or if the host nation becomes hostile and depends largely on the government concerned. The primary location of the data and any backup locations must be known to ensure these laws and regulations are followed.”
From an interoperability perspective, there could be a need to formalize the means in which a customer moves from one cloud provider to another to ensure a fair proposition for the customer. Here the consultation process will focus on identifying how vendors can standardize processes and aspects of the technology to ensure interoperability, as well as what regulations need to be put forward so the customer is able to have control over his data while moving it in and out of the cloud.
Those who wish to put forward their opinions have until 22nd July to make their comments known to the organization.
Symantec acquires Blue Coat for $4.65 billion
Symantec has announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire cloud security specialists Blue Coat for $4.65 billion.
Blue coat is generally accepted as the market share leader and share gainer in web security and the deal is expected to close in Q3 this year. For the year ending April 2016, Blue Coat reported revenues of $598 million, demonstrating 17% year-on-year growth, accounting for 15,000 customers worldwide.
The company’s current CEO Greg Clark will be confirmed as Symantec’s new CEO and board member upon closing of the transaction. The move to appoint Clark as the company’s new CEO may indicate a shift in strategic direction for the business, as Symantec could be viewed as one of the technology industry’s old guard.
“Today, Symantec keeps global enterprises, governments and individual consumers protected with solutions across threat protection, information protection and managed services,” said Clark. “Likewise, Blue Coat is the trusted source for protecting billions of web transactions daily and is the clear leader in the growing cloud security market. Once combined, we will offer customers around the world – from large enterprises and governments to individual consumers – unrivalled threat protection and unmatched cloud security.”
Symantec has stated it will incorporate Blue Coat capabilities to ‘define the future of cybersecurity and set the pace for innovation industrywide’. R&D investments will focus around 3,000 engineers and nine Threat Response Centres in various locations around the world.
As part of the agreement, Silver Lake has agreed to make an additional investment of $500 million, taking its total investment to $1 billion. Bain Capital has also agreed to invest an additional $750 million in the company, as well as adding David Humphrey, a Managing Director of Bain Capital Private Equity, to Symantec’s Board of Directors.
“With this transaction, we will have the scale, portfolio and resources necessary to usher in a new era of innovation designed to help protect large customers and individual consumers against insider threats and sophisticated cybercriminals,” said Dan Schulman, Chairman of Symantec. “Together, we will be best positioned to address the ever-evolving threat landscape, the massive changes introduced by the shift to mobile and cloud, and the challenges created by regulatory and privacy concerns.”
Orange Business Services beefs up cloud gateway
Orange Business Services has integrated its Enterprise Application Management (EAM) Riverbed offering into its Business VPN Galerie portfolio, reports Telecoms.com.
The EAM offering is a fully-managed service from Orange Business Services targeted on delivering application acceleration and WAN optimization to boost user experience. The product aims to tackle a number of different challenges for customers including insufficient WAN bandwidth, as well as insufficient transport and application protocols in high-latency environments.
The offering uses Riverbed’s Steelhead appliances to deliver application acceleration and WAN optimization, which uses various optimization techniques including data, transport, application and management streamlining. The data streamlining techniques are claimed to reduce WAN bandwidth utilization by 65% to 98% for TCP-based applications.
“Customers need to boost end-user application experience with faster response times to increase productivity at a global scale, enable business-critical migration projects and improve the corporate image,” said Pierre-Louis Biaggi, VP of the connectivity business at Orange Business Services. “By integrating Riverbed’s best-of-breed technology in our secure and fully-managed solution we can deliver this promise.”
The Business VPN Galerie, which Orange claims was the world’s first cloud-ready network, offers customers a range of cloud-based applications and services from their own private network provided by Orange Business Services or its partners. The portfolio currently has 1,600 customers, as well as more than 20 cloud partners including Orange Cloud for Business, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Express Route, Salesforce and AWS.
Elsewhere in the Orange business, the team have opened a new Eco campus based in Chatillon on the outskirts of Paris, which will be devoted completely to research and innovation.
“Innovation, has always been one of the Group’s fundamentals, and must be the expression of Orange’s mission: transforming technology into progress each day and serving people through innovation,” said Stéphane Richard, CEO of Orange. “To put the human context in the centre of our thinking, it is a choice we accept and that characterises us, this is a philosophy that now has a name: ‘Human Inside’. ‘Human Inside’ is both a slogan and a catchword, that gives meaning and which highlights all our action.”