NC1811

NETWORKNEWS
NETWORK NEWS - MOVES, ADDS AND CHANGES
A REGULAR LOOK AT THE STORIES INVOLVING PEOPLE, COMPANIES AND SOLUTIONS
It is clear that organisations do not pay
sufficient attention to the 'people' component
of their cybersecurity. A specialist
cybersecurity team, NotSoSecure,
part of the Claranet Cyber Security division,
has added their weight to this, saying
that it believes that UK businesses
are not providing appropriate cybersecurity
training to staff, particularly in more
in-depth disciplines such as advanced
web and infrastructure hacking.
NotSoSecure claims this leads to a security
skills shortage, increases the risk of
serious data breach by leaving businesses
open to attack.
Sumit Siddharth, Director at
NotSoSecure, said: "Given the growth in
technology ubiquity and the new areas of
vulnerability, the importance of being prepared
can't be overstated. While being
aware of the risks is a positive step, training
staff to understand the ins and outs of
hacking is too often overlooked."
SD-WAN is currently enjoying the spotlight,
but based on its own recent
research, Barracuda Networks says that
less than a third understand SD-WAN.
Poor vendor support is also an issue, but
the IT C-Suite is driving over a quarter of
EMEA deployments.
Chris Ross, SVP international at
Barracuda thinks there is an opportunity
for the SD-WAN channel, saying "We've
got a long way to go before EMEA
organisations are confident implementing
and managing SD-WAN. Our research
suggests that training is the key to getting
them there and almost two thirds believe
that there is not enough SD-WAN training
in their organisation."
Moving to new technology can, it
seems, erase the memory of best practice.
Recent research by Databarracks shows
that over 60 per cent of organisations
have not evaluated the continuity risks for
their cloud services over the past year,
despite moving sensitive data there.
Peter Groucutt, Managing Director at
Databarracks references the McAfee
Cloud Adoption and Risk Report, saying,
"McAfee's research shows the increase in
sensitive data in the cloud. That data
must be protected, just as it has been for
systems held in internally managed data
centres. In many ways cloud computing is
vastly more secure and resilient, but it's
worth noting that several issues do carry
equal risk, regardless of whether systems
are on-premises or in the cloud: disgruntled
users intentionally deleting data,
hackers gaining access, and for malware
to encrypt or delete data. For these reasons
alone it is vital to have reliable
backups in place."
Within the European market, providers
of Hosted Internet Protocol (IP) telephony
and Unified Communications-as-a-
Service (UCaaS) are, according to analysis
by Frost & Sullivan, enhancing their
portfolios as well as engaging in mergers
and acquisitions to gain an edge in this
intensely competitive market. Elka
Popova, their Unified Communications &
Collaboration Programme Director comments
that, "While sophisticated, featurerich
UCaaS solutions are critical for service
provider success, the future is programmable
communications. Providers
need to deliver flexible application programming
interfaces (APIs) and
Communications Platforms-as-a-Service
(CPaaS) to hold their own against the
next wave of innovations from non-UC
companies… competitors that employ
analytics tools to combine workflow/business
app data with communications stats
will be able to present clients with deeper
insights into business issues, such as productivity
bottlenecks and business process
disruptions."
Cybersecurity training needs weight
behind it, and as part of their mission to
make the UK the safest place in the world
to be online, Cisco has partnered with
the UK police force to provide cybersecurity
training to 120,000 officers. By
implementing the Cisco Networking
Academy they can draw not only on
Cisco's expertise in cybersecurity, but also
in running successful skills programs.
Andy Beet, National Police Chiefs'
Council, Data Communications Group -
Futures Lead, said "It's important for all
police officers to understand cybersecurity
[to] improve security in both their professional
and personal lives." NC
WWW.NETWORKCOMPUTING.CO.UK @NCMagAndAwards NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018 NETWORKcomputing 7