IT Trends & Technology

Persistent security breaches, new investments in hardware, and a growing demand for cloud services are the primary drivers behind ongoing increases in IT security spending, according to a recent industry forecast.

In 2019, expenditures for security products are expected to reach $124 billion, up almost 9 percent from the $114 billion allocated for 2018. Recent high-profile attacks like Equifax, WannaCry, and Yahoo, to name a few, have prompted businesses to take a good, hard look at their security vulnerabilities and their abilities to detect and respond to increasingly crafty cyberthreats.

Research indicates that cybercrime damages will total $6 trillion a year by 2021—more than double the cost of just a few years ago. Part of that total comes from the growing success of ransomware schemes, which cost about $5 billion a year, up from just $325 million in 2015. These chilling stats point to one reality: Effective IT security measures are growing more important with every passing year.

As overall IT budgets grow tighter, it becomes more challenging to improve IT security. In a recent IBM security study polling more than 2,800 IT and security professionals, 69 percent reported that funding for cyber resiliency is insufficient.

While a recent study by SAP Center for Business Insight shows that digital transformation in healthcare is growing, the slow pace of that growth can be directly attributed how healthcare organizations are grappling with some of the most significant IT challenges. While the use and plethora of digital platforms have become standard, the resulting big data, the need for interoperability and real-time analytics, as well as the need for greater mobility and security, are all setting the stage for more challenges moving forward.

According to the Cisco 2017 Annual Cybersecurity Report, ransomware is growing at a yearly rate of 350 percent. That type of growth means that businesses face a scenario where it’s just a matter of time before they are dealing with ransomware. One way to protect an organization is to develop a sound data backup and recovery strategy.

The use of public and private clouds is now a cornerstone of an enterprise’s ability to innovate and operate with agility in an evolving business landscape. The challenge has been maximizing that ability while minimizing costs, vendor lock-in, and security issues that are inherent to the public cloud at scale.

Healthcare data is increasingly under attack. In October alone there were 27 healthcare data breaches reported to the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights, resulting in the exposure of some 71,377 records.

To understand how to best counter these threat, we’ll take a look at some recent breaches, review key best practices, and explore the rise of Artificial Intelligence as a cyber remedy.

Have you suspected that cyberattacks on businesses are increasing in sophistication? A 2017 report confirms that success via these malicious events stems from three primary factors:

When technology analysts look back on the Equifax hack, they may well see a turning point in cybersecurity.

It’s one thing when a major retailer like Target gets hacked. Certainly breaches in government agencies raise concern. But Equifax is a credit reporting agency. It’s exact function is to safeguard the kind of sensitive personal data hackers are looking to steal.

Did you know that 81 percent of hacking-related breaches were aided by a combination of stolen and weak passwords? The 2017 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report also shows that 62 percent of breaches featured hacking, while more than half (51%) were driven by malware.

According to a holiday shopping projection from CMO, the 2017 holiday season will be the first to break $100 billion in online sales.

With credit card numbers and personal information being shared through web browsers and mobile and work devices, it is important for people to be vigilant when making their holiday purchases to avoid becoming a victim of cybercrime.

It’s easy to get lulled into thinking that just because IT systems are compliant with regulations, that means they are secure. After all, compliance is intended to safeguard data and ensure privacy. Security seems like the natural outcome and many organizations fall into a false sense of comfort, believing that just because they have checked all the boxes on compliance, their systems must therefore be secure.

First National Technology Solutions (FNTS), a leading provider in remote managed IT services, announced it will begin offering new cloud security technologies to companies, which will allow them to extend security policies outside of their own infrastructure.

Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) solutions enable transaction level security for cloud managed services, including Software as a Service (SaaS) and (Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), by combining data science, machine learning, real-time traffic processing, insightful visualization and intuitive controls.

The cloud is growing in popularity in the digital world, and more businesses are taking advantage of cloud-computing strategies to stay relevant and competitive. The cloud is a network of servers that allows companies to provide services in an efficient and cost-effective way. At First Technology Solutions (FNTS), we are seeing an increasing number of companies leveraging server consolidations by moving to the cloud. Not embracing the cloud is becoming a competitive disadvantage for companies, and if they aren’t already using the cloud as part of their strategy, they are already behind one of the fastest growing IT trends.

First National Technology Solutions (FNTS) welcomed visitors of all ages Friday for AIM’s Amazing Tech Race in downtown Omaha. The Amazing Tech Race is an annual tech-driven competition and scavenger hunt hosted by AIM Institute.

This year AIM invited First National Technology Solutions to participate in this exciting event, which gets more people throughout the Omaha community excited about technology. At FNTS, we believe in the importance of building and sustaining a strong tech workforce. Providing engaging learning experiences like the Amazing Tech Race are important due to the increasing demand of tech and STEM jobs across the country. A Global Information Security Workforce study indicates there will be 1.8 million open cybersecurity jobs by 2022 due to a large population of cyber professionals retiring over the next ten years.