Computer Room Setup: Creating a Space That Boosts Productivity

Key Features to Look for in a Secure Web Gateway Solution

Key Features to Look for in a Secure Web Gateway Solution

A secure web gateway (SWG) acts as a security checkpoint for all inline internet traffic, standing between users and the threats that try to enter or steal data. An ideal SWG solution combines URL filtering, malware and threat detection and prevention, application control for popular cloud-based apps, ShadowIT, and data loss prevention.

Authentication

What is a secure web gateway? A secure web gateway solution provides additional security for your organization’s network. It integrates with your existing endpoint and network security systems to extend your company’s security posture. For example, some gateways offer data loss prevention (DLP). This feature is similar to content filtering but works in reverse: it detects when confidential information leaves the organization’s network and redacts it to prevent breaches. DLP is a critical component of an SWG because it can protect sensitive information from being downloaded to personal devices and shared with outside parties.

Additionally, some gateways have SSL/TLS decryption capabilities. This feature allows SWGs to analyze SSL-encrypted traffic and inspect incoming and outgoing data. This enables SWGs to prioritize alerts, ensuring that incidents that impact productivity or cause a potential threat are handled promptly and thoroughly. This also makes it easier for enterprises to manage and monitor SWG security operations. This is especially important since many of today’s workforces are remote and utilize unsecured endpoints on untrusted public networks to access corporate applications.

Encryption

With more organizations embracing remote work and cloud-based applications, their systems are at risk for malware attacks from outside the office. A SWG monitors web traffic 24/7 and prevents cyberattacks by inspecting all incoming and outgoing network data. Most web traffic today is encrypted with HTTPS, so if attackers can sniff the data or use packet sniffing, they will only see a string of undecipherable scrambled characters. SWGs use a unique process called SSL/TLS decryption to scan the encrypted data for malicious code, which is then blocked if found. Some SWG solutions also provide application-level controls to prevent the use of specific software programs. This enables IT administrators to create granular policies based on users, groups, or machines to identify and control the usage of various apps and widgets. It also helps prevent the spread of viruses, worms, and other malicious programs. This feature is often a must-have for organizations to secure their data and protect their users.

Access Control

As organizations move to a flexible working environment, employees must work from anywhere, on any device. This flexibility opens up new attack vectors undermining an organization’s security posture. Legacy secure web gateway solutions can only keep pace with these changing threats if they require more time-consuming upgrades. These updates can be costly and difficult to manage, leading short-staffed IT teams to postpone or skip them. This leaves the door open for attackers to exploit vulnerabilities and exploit employee negligence that leads to data loss and breaches. Next-generation SWG solutions take a holistic approach to security and can mitigate these evolving threats. They integrate with other security solutions in the ecosystem and extend them across organizational environments. SWGs inspect inline traffic, preventing malware from entering the network or accessing sensitive information. They also enable organizations to categorize data and enforce policies for compliance with regulations. Prioritization is another feature that helps organizations to ensure that business-critical applications receive the highest priority.

Policy Enforcement

More than just a filter, an SWG solution constantly monitors web-based activity to understand better threats that other security solutions may not have seen. This helps organizations gain greater visibility into how attackers might target them and improve their overall security posture. To determine policy disposition, SWGs inspect and categorize web traffic based on various attributes, including URL categories. This granularity provides better compliance enforcement to ensure compliance with regulations. A modern SWG solution offers advanced features like content inspection and sandboxing to provide superior threat detection. This includes decrypting encrypted traffic, enabling a deeper look into the contents of web uploads, and blocking unauthorized data exfiltration. It also integrates with security monitoring systems to notify administrators of any problems before an attack occurs. This reduces admin overhead and makes the solution easier to manage for enterprise-wide implementation. This is essential since more employees often work remotely on their devices and connect through untrusted public networks.

Monitoring

With employees working from remote locations and using cloud apps to collaborate, a secure gateway is critical for keeping cyber threats out of the company network. SWGs monitor incoming and outgoing data from all devices to ensure compliance with the policies set by the administrator. Incoming web traffic is scanned for malicious code and URLs, and outgoing data is inspected to ensure sensitive information does not leave the network. This can include credit card numbers, patient medical records, intellectual property, and more. The gateway can also use sandboxing to identify and prevent malware by executing potentially dangerous code in a controlled environment, away from the system. Often, this is the only way to determine if a piece of code is malicious and can be stopped in its tracks. SWGs can also decrypt SSL/TLS session data and inspect it for potential malware or a breach of privacy. They can then log the results for administrators to review. These logs can help to track and alert if a violation has occurred so that steps can be taken to correct the issue.

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Why Cloud Access Security Brokers Are Essential for Data Protection in the Cloud,

Why Cloud Access Security Brokers Are Essential for Data Protection in the Cloud

Why Cloud Access Security Brokers Are Essential for Data Protection in the Cloud

Organizations leveraging the cloud to support remote workers and expand their business infrastructure must protect their data at rest and in transit. Existing data protection tools need to be designed to handle this challenge. CASBs bridge the gap to deliver security management. This includes threat prevention, which thwarts cyberattacks by analyzing activity and using contextual information.

Authentication

CASBs or cloud access security broker use authentication to ensure that only authorized users are allowed to access your sensitive information, especially when it is stored in the cloud. They can also enforce the principle of least privilege, ensuring that only the minimum amount of data is transferred across your network. This is especially important if your organization relies on cloud service providers with multiple physical data centers or availability zones, as you will likely need to transfer data between them to ensure the optimal performance of your application.

Using behavioral analytics and threat intelligence, CASBs can provide insight into your organization’s cloud usage and identify potential security risks. They can alert and respond to suspicious activity in real time, allowing you to protect your information against malicious activities. They can also bolster your security posture by identifying and enforcing security policies in your organization’s unique environments.

CASBs can take the form of on-premises hardware or software or be delivered as a cloud service for greater scalability and reduced costs. They can either operate via a forward proxy to intercept traffic or through APIs that offer out-of-band security for data at rest in the cloud. They can integrate with firewalls, NGFWs, WAFs, and endpoint agents to analyze traffic, protect information, and detect threats. And they can import log data from the cloud, enhancing their ability to discover and enforce enterprise-specific policies for your entire security ecosystem.

Encryption

Protect sensitive data en route to or from any cloud application, sanctioned or unsanctioned, using encryption and tokenization. This capability is a vital defense against endless threat variations that cybercriminals create as they target SaaS applications like Slack, Confluence, Jira, etc. A conventional CASB solution fails to keep up with modern collaboration applications that organizations adopt quickly.

Protect against unauthorized exfiltration of data out of the organization by blocking proxies and stopping malware. CASB solutions can also detect and stop risky file sharing, protecting the organization from a potentially disastrous data loss incident. Classify, prioritize, and evaluate each cloud application based on its security risk level. CASBs also assess how the application is used, what types of data are shared, and identify misconfigurations that expose the organization to attack.

CASBs can also detect suspicious behavior patterns, using benchmarking and continuous traffic data to identify malicious activity. For example, CASBs can recognize unusual login patterns and flag them for review by security administrators. CASBs help organizations stay compliant in the cloud, whether they are a healthcare organization worried about HIPAA and HITECH compliance or a retail company concerned about PCI compliance. A CASB helps organizations comply with industry and government regulations by delivering visibility, automated remediation, and policy creation capabilities. A CASB is an essential tool to defend against the growing number of threats and to maintain compliance in the cloud.

Access Control

As the most sophisticated threats evolve, CASB solutions use advanced anti-malware, sandbox, and cloud threat intelligence (such as their research and third-party feeds) to detect attacks in progress or motion. Combined with automated policies tailored to specific cloud applications’ unique risk levels, these capabilities help you stop zero-day threats, ransomware, and other sophisticated attacks.

CASBs can also detect the presence of sensitive data in the cloud and on endpoint devices. This functionality is important because it helps you prevent data breaches by blocking or encrypting sensitive files before they are transferred to the cloud or downloaded onto an endpoint device. Moreover, CASBs can detect and block shadow IT — using unsanctioned or unapproved cloud apps — to prevent inappropriate file sharing and hamper productivity. They can then respond by automatically enabling or blocking the app or enforcing different access controls, such as document sharing and reducing detection surface area.

Finally, CASBs can ensure compliance in the cloud by enforcing security policies and protecting data on-demand, whether stored in the cloud or on endpoint devices. This can be particularly helpful for organizations that must adhere to strict regulations, like healthcare companies worried about HIPAA and HITECH, retail businesses concerned with PCI, and financial services firms concerned with FFIEC and FINRA.

Compliance

With the increase in remote work and bring-your-own-device (BYOD) programs, plus the growing presence of unsanctioned employee app usage known as Shadow IT, organizations need a CASB to help monitor cloud application use, enforce security policies, and protect sensitive data contents. A CASB provides visibility into all third-party applications used by your employees and their devices, scopes redundancies, evaluates license costs, and gives IT granular control over which business apps can be used (and which ones cannot).

In addition to enforcing security policies, a CASB also delivers threat detection to prevent ransomware attacks and other advanced threats from accessing the organization’s data in the cloud. CASBs can identify malicious activity, determine which users are infected, and immediately remediate the situation.

Rather than taking a “block” stance on productivity-enhancing cloud services, a CASB solution should allow IT to say “yes” to useful business apps while governing access to and activities in those services. This could mean providing full access to a sanctioned suite like Office 365 to managed devices while allowing web-only email on unmanaged ones or enforcing a strict policy across a group of unsanctioned apps for which you want to maintain compliance. With visibility into sensitive content traveling to, from, and between the cloud and on-premises systems combined with cloud DLP, a CASB can help your organization maintain compliance even in highly regulated industries.

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How To Increase The Level Of Data Security Of Your Company,

How To Increase The Level Of Data Security Of Your Company

How To Increase The Level Of Data Security Of Your Company

With technology and software advancing every day and policies on privacy and protection constantly changing, keeping your data safe has become a top priority now more than ever. Safeguarding your company’s data is a heavy burden to carry on your shoulders, but there is a range of things you can do to ensure your company’s data is always safe and secure. Here are a few very helpful tips that will guide you on how to increase the level of data security of your company.

1. IT Company

It’s always advisable to collaborate with an IT company so that all your IT-related activities and responsibilities are taken care of by a separate organization. This reduces your company’s burden and thereby will enable you to redirect your resources to the company’s primary priorities. Make sure to collaborate with a reputed IT company that is well-versed in data protection and knows how to quickly and efficiently handle any breaches in data. The IT company you choose to work with should also know how to safely recover lost data and properly dispose of sensitive company information.

2. Role-Based Access Control

It is no surprise that the more people have access to certain information, the more likely that the information will get leaked. If your company has many employees, a smart move to protect your data would be to employ role-based access control. In this system, access to information is determined by one’s role in the company, meaning that not all information is accessible to everyone. For additional protection, use multi-factor authentication and thoroughly train your employees on security procedures. Doing so will restrict the number of people using and analyzing your company’s sensitive information.

3. VPN and Multi-Factor Authentication

Small businesses are increasingly using VPN and multi-factor authentication (MFA) to ensure the highest possible level of data security for their organization. VPN technology prevents data within a network from being intercepted by third parties making it harder to hack than unprotected networks. MFA, also known as two-factor authentication, is an invaluable tool to bolster the existing defenses of VPN technology. When used in combination with MFA, VPNs provide a powerful defense against both intentional and accidental malicious access to sensitive information. If your business is a Cisco Firepower VPN Client by utilizing Cisco Firepower MFA, you can be confident that your corporate data is secure no matter where it’s accessed from or shared across the organization.

4. Strong Passwords

The first thing you can do to ensure increased security of data at your company is to set strong passwords. A strong password forms the basis of a good security system. Information found at https://www.passcamp.com/ emphasizes the need for password management and advanced protection at the company level. Any compromises at this stage in security indicate major issues with your overall security system. For all your systems and files, set foolproof passwords that aren’t easy to hack. This means that your passwords need to be long, non-generic, and complex. 

5. Cloud Computing

Another way to safely access and store your data is through Cloud computing. Cloud computing offers multi-level foolproof security that will enable you to keep track of your data’s safety. You can also choose to have additional layers of security implemented. Cloud computing gives you insights into user activity and file accessibility. This way you will have an idea of what data was accessed, when, and by who. Any changes made to the data will also be visible. In general, Cloud computing will save you a lot of time and money by preventing disruption and loss of data.

6. Back up your Data

A critical part of securing your company data includes backing it up. In the unforeseen yet not uncommon chance that you lose your data, it is crucial that you have another information source to turn to. Without important data on hand, the company’s ongoing operations may be disrupted. Data retrieval can be a lengthy and complex process, so it is always recommended to store your data elsewhere within a secure system.

These are some of the most important things you can do to ensure your company’s data security. If ever unsure of where to start, consult a professional who will give you expert advice on how to protect your company’s data. And be sure to keep our tips in mind for extra protection.

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Cybersecurity Tips for the Remote Work Model,

Cybersecurity Tips for the Remote Work Model

Cybersecurity Tips for the Remote Work Model

The security for work is important as more employees are working remotely due to pandemic situations. It has brought huge and disruptive changes in the digital infrastructures of work and in the lives of individuals and companies. 41% of the workers have shown interest and flexibility when they work from home. Remote work has many advantages, but on the other hand, it also carries different types of cybersecurity risks that can harm employers and employees correspondingly.

Keep these tips in your mind so you can keep your data and your devices safe and secure from hackers and for leaking your datas’ privacy and stealing sensitive information.

Use of VPN:

Some of the biggest IT Consulting companies and IT Support agencies provide their clients with paid VPNs. A VPN is a Virtual Private Network that secures your and your client’s information transmitted between employer and employee through data encryption. It maintains external attacks by hiding your IP address and makes you invisible by protecting your identity. Like if you’re using a VPN on your device, do not turn it off when you’re working because you’ll lose a device that could block any hacker to steal your data information.

Through VPN you can get a secured internet connection, by routing the data traffic through an encrypted channel. To get the best VPN you need an IT Support professional to check out which service satisfies your needs. To work safely from other locations if required, like while traveling, or from another country or town, VPN works best!

Create strong passwords or enable Authentication:

For every security, you need to create a strong, lengthy password for your account that you log in to on an employer-issued device. Always use complex passwords and enable two-factor authentication for security. Make sure your password includes upper and lowercase letters, numbers, special characters, and symbols. By making them difficult enough so that someone can’t guess them. Moreover, do not share passwords online ever with any of your coworkers or colleague, or even your boss. Use voice notes instead of text or email if it’s that important.

Simultaneously, Authentication reduces the user identity risk by 80% because when you Log in to the network or account it may require OTP or code verification that is sent via SMS.

Keep Your Devices Updated

Companies should take steps to make sure all employees must update security vulnerabilities even if they are using a supported operating system. Although if you are some managed IT services in Los Angeles you should make sure that all the devices apply security patches quickly as automatic updates. Do not ignore the pop-ups on the window screen that tell you that software needs to be updated according to the availability of your device. Like some of the devices will automatically update by default but for that, you may need to allow your computer to restart to complete the rebuilding process. A great way to protect your company documents is through Privileged Access Management which adds layers of security so it goes beyond regular users.

Installing updates regularly or in a timely manner will help you and your employees to prevent issues or troubles caused by delayed system updates or slow speed.

Keep your Work and Personal Devices Separate:

Make sure your employee uses the device you provided only for work. It’s important to cut the boundaries between your work life and home life, especially when you’re working from home because you might get cyber security issues. Don’t use your personal devices like a laptop or PC for work. To minimize cybersecurity risks and prevent the loss of business or personal data from being stolen.

To prevent cyber-attacks you can seek help from any of the Los Angeles IT Services centers so you can safeguard the security of your business networks and devices.

Bottom Line

Working from home is a new trend in the world, so, cybersecurity for remote workers has become a hot topic these days. Keeping your passwords strong, having VPN installed, and keeping your work and personal devices separate and updated can help you secure the remote working process of your company. This method can be easily connected with end-to-end encryption along with the tips for the remote work mentioned above, from where you can assure successful remote working during these pandemic times.

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