If you’re unfamiliar with the term, decentralized finance (DeFi) is a subset of blockchain technology that focuses on financial applications powered by distributed ledgers. In essence, DeFi represents the next generation of financial services, where individual users have more control and transparency over their finances.

Over the years, DeFi has changed the way we think about money, and with some of the key benefits of using DeFi, there are many possibilities this technology holds for the future.

Also read: Potential Use Cases of Blockchain Technology for Cybersecurity

What is DeFi?

DeFi is a term used for Ethereum and other blockchain applications that allow for a peer-to-peer transaction without needing an intermediary such as a bank, central bank, or other financial institution. Because there is no central authority, all transactions are visible to everyone involved, providing more transparency and accountability.

In addition, DeFi applications tend to be more flexible and faster than traditional centralized systems, which can often be bogged down by bureaucracy. Moreover, users have direct control over their own funds in a DeFi system, meaning they can decide how to use their money without going through a third party.

While DeFi still has some associated risks, the potential benefits make it an appealing option for those looking for alternatives to traditional financial systems.

Current State and Potential of DeFi

In 2021, some outlets reported that DeFi’s growth on the Ethereum blockchain was 780% year-over-year. By the first quarter of 2022, the total value locked (TVL) in DeFi protocols was over $172 billion.

The current state of DeFi is characterized by four key trends: composability, yield farming, DeFi insurance, and governance.

Composability

Composability refers to the ability of different components to work together to achieve the desired outcome. In the context of DeFi, composability refers to the ability of different protocols and platforms to interoperate to create new financial applications and products.

This interoperability is made possible by using open standards and APIs (application programming interfaces), allowing developers to build on existing infrastructure rather than starting from scratch.

This isn’t to say that composability hasn’t existed in traditional finance. For example, when you use PayPal to buy something on Amazon or pay for an Uber, you use two different platforms that can work together. However, DeFi takes composability to the next level by making it possible to create a trustless system.

Every transaction and activity is verifiable on the blockchain. Ethereum is the neutral settlement layer, and no single entity wields power. In addition, the permissionless nature of DeFi means anyone can create new financial products and applications that wouldn’t be possible with traditional infrastructure.

As more protocols and platforms begin to interoperate with each other, we can expect an exponential increase in the number and variety of available DeFi applications and products.

Yield Farming

Yield farming is the practice of staking cryptocurrencies to earn rewards. This can be done by providing liquidity to various exchanges or participating in staking pools.

Yield farmers typically use multiple protocols to maximize their rewards. Due to the high risk involved in yield farming, many farmers diversify their portfolios across multiple projects.

Yield farming generally offers higher rewards than traditional staking, but it is also a more volatile practice. Therefore, yield farmers must carefully monitor the price of the tokens they are staking to avoid losses. Additionally, they must be aware of rug pulls, smart contract hacks, and other risks associated with yield farming.

Yield farming has become a popular way to earn cryptocurrency rewards despite the risks. However, it remains to be seen whether this practice is sustainable in the long term.

DeFi insurance

DeFi insurance is the missing piece to bring DeFi to par with traditional finance.

DeFi insurance has arisen out of necessity, as evidenced by the estimated $10 billion lost in the DeFi industry to fraud in 2021. Insurance protects against adverse events in the space, such as exchange hacks, smart contract failures, and stablecoin price crashes. Anyone can provide DeFi insurance by joining a pool.

In addition to the aforementioned coverage, other possibilities for DeFi insurance include DvP (delivery versus payment) protocols and flash loans. However, despite the advantages offered by DeFi insurance, the claims process is still uncertain. Consequently, more research is needed to assess the effectiveness of this new tool.

See Blockchain Hackers Cost Crypto Ecosystems More Than $1B in Q1 2022

Governance

Several DeFi platforms are resoundingly reaffirming the blockchain community’s dedication to decentralization by making governance tokens available to users.

A governance token grants users a certain amount of power over the platform’s protocol, products, and future features. Governance tokens are frequently created using decentralized protocols that encourage community-driven development and self-sustainability.

Decentralized networking projects require governance techniques to make critical decisions about protocol modifications, recruitment, and even governance framework adjustments.

For example, a borrowing and lending platform may utilize its governing procedure to calculate the required amount. In other words, the decisions made by a project’s stakeholders through its governing system can directly impact its success or failure.

With the right approach, governance initiatives have the potential to usher in a new era of decentralized development and cooperation.

Also read: Top 5 Benefits of AI in Banking and Finance

Challenges of DeFi

As the DeFi sector has grown, one key challenge is ensuring the playing field is level for all market participants, regardless of their size or location. Another is the need for stronger global regulatory coordination to prevent DeFi protocols from being used for illicit purposes. Finally, as DeFi protocols continue to evolve and mature, there is a need to develop more robust governance mechanisms to ensure they can adapt and respond to changing conditions.

While the challenges facing DeFi are significant, so too are the rewards. With its ability to empower individuals and communities worldwide with greater access to financial services, DeFi represents a vital step forward in achieving financial inclusion for all.

Future of DeFi

The DeFi space is still in its early stages, and it remains to be seen what the future holds. However, with its ability to reduce barriers to entry, increase access to financial services, and enable more democratic governance structures, DeFi has the potential to reshape the future of finance for the better.

Near instant and secure transactions is a critical area to watch. With traditional finance, transactions can take days or even weeks to clear. This is not the case with DeFi. Due to the decentralized nature of the sector, transactions are settled almost instantly, making it ideal for activities such as trading or lending, where time is of the essence.

Easier borrowing and lending are inevitable with DeFi. In the traditional financial system, it can be challenging to get access to loans because banks and other financial institutions are often reluctant to lend to individuals with no collateral. However, in the DeFi space, you can use your crypto assets as collateral for a loan. This opens up access to credit for many people who would otherwise be financially excluded.

Cross-communication and the ability to exchange assets are other areas of interest. In traditional finance, there are often silos between different asset classes. For example, you might have a bank account for your savings, a brokerage account for your stocks and shares, and a pension for your retirement savings. However, new DeFi applications allow users to easily trade between different asset classes without going through a centralized exchange. This increases efficiency and reduces costs.

Honesty and trust are two values that are important in any financial system. Unfortunately, they are often lacking in traditional finance. For example, banks have been known to mis-sell products to customers or charge hidden fees. However, in the DeFi space, everything is out in the open and transparent. This helps to build trust between users and developers and creates a more open financial system overall.

All in all, there are many reasons why DeFi could reshape the future of finance for the better.

The post How DeFi is Reshaping the Future of Finance appeared first on IT Business Edge.

That’s where secure access service edge (SASE) technology comes in. SASE can create a perimeter between an organization’s private network and public networks like the internet, which could otherwise be exposed to potential attackers.

Just as on-premises security has been consolidating under broad extended detection and response (XDR) solutions, security outside the firewall is increasingly getting combined into SASE solutions.

What is Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)?

​​Secure access service edge is a term coined by Gartner that refers to the convergence of network and security services into a single platform delivered as a service. SASE – pronounced “sassy” – consolidates and offers security services from a large-scale cloud network, including cloud access security brokers (CASB), secure web gateways, and firewalls as a service (FWaaS).

This shift is being driven by the need for organizations to provide better security and performance for their remote users. At the same time, they are looking for ways to reduce costs and increase flexibility in managing access to cloud-based applications. SASE provides end-to-end access control across wired, wireless, and mobile networks.

Also read: Deploying SASE: What You Should Know to Secure Your Network

How Does SASE Work?

SASE is a cloud-based security solution that offers a comprehensive set of security tools and services. SASE consolidates these tools and services into a single, easy-to-use platform, making it an ideal solution for businesses of all sizes. It provides the industry’s most advanced authentication, encryption, identity management, and access control features in one unified interface.

With robust reporting capabilities as well as multiple levels of granularity when configuring settings, organizations can make informed decisions on how they want their network secured while also meeting regulatory compliance requirements.

Organizations can quickly define who has access to what data without compromising performance. In addition, SASE helps mitigate insider threats by enabling federated identification to help ensure employees can only see data they have been granted access to.

Components of SASE

SASE includes a suite of enterprise-grade applications and software components that offer an integrated solution for securing remote access. The key components of SASE include:

Software-defined WAN (SD-WAN)

SD-WAN provides secure, high-performance IP connectivity to branch offices, data centers, and other networks across public or private cloud infrastructure. SD-WAN simplifies the design and operation of wide area networks (WAN) by automatically routing traffic based on application type, performance needs, security requirements, cost constraints, quality of service (QoS), and network topology changes — without any manual configuration or changes to applications or the underlying transport network.

SD-WAN enables enterprises to securely extend their existing network to the cloud, public internet, or third-party networks without needing expensive VPN hardware. It is often more cost-effective than MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching) over time.

Firewall as a service

A firewall as a service enables enterprises to centrally manage their organization’s firewall policies and protections regardless of where those endpoints are located in the organization — centralized, distributed or mobile. FWaaS provides a complete firewall service with robust data security and user privacy protection capabilities by leveraging next-generation firewall (NGFW) technology.

Zero-trust network access (ZTNA)

ZTNA is a robust access control framework that eliminates traditional barriers between internal resources and users who wish to connect outside the network. With ZTNA, IT administrators maintain complete visibility into all connections made through the network with granular detail about who is accessing what resources at what time while eliminating complexity and costly upfront investments. ZTNA ensures only approved devices can connect to corporate resources across all applications to protect against rogue devices and other threats.

See the Top Zero Trust Security Solutions & Software

Cloud access security broker (CASB)

CASB can help organizations meet compliance obligations related to information protection through authentication, authorization, monitoring, and reporting. CASBs also provide identity and access management capabilities, single sign-on (SSO) services, regulatory oversight, GDPR, fraud detection tools, SaaS app control, and more.

Data loss prevention (DLP)

DLP helps protect critical business assets such as intellectual property and sensitive customer data from unauthorized use by detecting when they leave your company’s network perimeter — intentionally or unintentionally. DLP protects against insider threats, too, by identifying inappropriate behaviors such as downloading confidential documents to removable media devices. DLP functionality includes encryption, classification, policy creation, and key management.

See the Top DLP Tools

Secure web gateway (SWG)

SWG features multilayered protections to provide customers maximum flexibility in balancing web security concerns with the organizational need for web accessibility. SWG offers multiple web filter profiles for enabling organizations to configure their ideal balance of content restrictions and website accessibility.

Unified management

SASE delivers unified, cross-platform device management that extends the capabilities of SASE for a seamless user experience that scales up or down according to the number of employees, devices, or locations. It allows IT admins to monitor the health and performance of SASE from anywhere on any device.

XDR vs. SASE

XDR (extended detection and response) is a security platform that takes data from multiple sources and uses it to detect, investigate, and respond to network threats. SASE, on the other hand, is a cloud-based security platform that provides users with secure access to applications and data from any location.

You’ll want an XDR solution if you’re trying to detect, investigate, and respond to cybersecurity threats, and you’ll want a SASE solution if you need secure access services or want user mobile or remote access capability. Both platforms offer robust protection against hacking and malware attacks.

XDR covers all aspects of on-premises security, from endpoint protection to network security, while SASE focuses on the edge, cloud security, and mobile device security. If you have most of your company’s resources stored in the office and rely heavily on IT infrastructure in the building, then XDR is probably better for you.

SASE would be better suited for your needs if you want to be more flexible with where work happens and is ideal for companies that wish to have remote access without giving up corporate data. You also get increased visibility into your devices by utilizing geolocation services.

Also see the Best Cloud Security Solutions

Top 10 SASE Solutions

Here are some of the best SASE solutions on the market, based on our assessment of product features, user feedback and more. These products range from low-cost ones appropriate for small businesses to higher-cost options aimed at protecting the most complex enterprises.

Perimeter 81

Perimeter 81 is a cloud and network security provider with a SASE offering that provides businesses a secure way to connect employees, devices, and applications. It uses a software-defined perimeter (SDP) to create a microsegmented network that limits access to only the resources users need. Plus, it’s cloud-based, so it’s easy to set up and manage.

Perimeter 81’s SASE offering includes a secure SD-WAN, next-generation firewall, CASB, and more. It’s easy to set up and manage and provides a high level of security for your network.

Key Differentiators

• Perimeter 81 offers ZTNA, FWaaS, Device Posture Check, and many more functionalities that enable remote and on-site users to securely access networks.
• Perimeter 81 uses AES-256-CBC cipher encryption to ensure all data transferred through their system is encrypted from point A to point B.
• Perimeter 81 monitors and secures the organization’s data from a single dashboard.
• This solution provides granular visibility into enterprise cloud resources, remote team members, and enterprise network management through its cloud management portal.
• An SWG utility is built into Perimeter 81 for those who want to protect employees from accidental malware infection by enforcing policies for browser traffic and CASB functionality to extend security policy to any cloud service provider’s architecture.

Features

• Multi-device usage
• Multiple concurrent connections
• Unlimited bandwidth
• User authentication

Cost

Perimeter 81 offers flexible licensing options that can be tailored to meet your business needs. The company has four pricing plans, including:

• Essential: $8 per user per month, plus +$40 per month per gateway
• Premium: $12 per user per month, plus +$40 per month per gateway
• Premium Plus: $16 per user per month, plus +$40 per month per gateway
• Enterprise: Prospective buyers should contact Perimeter 81 for quote

Cloudflare One

Cloudflare One is a SASE platform that provides enterprise security, performance, and networking services. It includes a web application firewall, DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) protection, and content delivery network capabilities.

Organizations with their own data centers can use it as an extension of their existing network infrastructure. It offers a secure communication channel between remote users, branch offices, and data centers.

Key Differentiators

• Cloudflare integrates a plethora of security and network optimization features, including traffic scanning and filtering, ZTNA, SWG, CASB, FWaaS, DDoS protection, the SD-WAN-like Magic Transit, Network Interconnect, Argo for routing, and WARP endpoints.
• Users can connect internet services, self-hosted apps, servers, remote users, SaaS applications, and offices.
• The solution protects users and corporate data by assessing user traffic, filtering and blocking malicious content, detecting compromised devices, and using browser isolation capabilities to stop the malicious script from running.
• With Magic Transit, networks can be secured from DDoS attacks.
• Cloudflare offers two access points (WARP and Magic Transit) to applications.
• Cloudflare’s Magic WAN offers secure, performant connection and routing for all components of a typical corporate network, including data centers, offices, user devices, and so on, allowing administrators to enforce network firewall restrictions at the network’s edge, across traffic from any entity.

Features

• Identity management
• Device integrity
• Zero-trust policy
• Analytics
• Logs and reporting
• Browser isolation

Cost

Prospective customers should contact Cloudflare for pricing quotes.

Cisco

Cisco’s SASE platform combines networking and security functions in the cloud to deliver seamless, secure access to applications anywhere users work. Cisco defines its offering using 3Cs:

• Connect: Cisco provides an open standards-based approach for integrating IT with any mobile device, whether it is BYOD or provided by the enterprise.
• Control: As enterprises move toward a unified approach to delivering employee experiences across all of their apps, they need a platform that provides consistent data protection policies while preserving employee choice on where they want to use apps.
• Converge: Enterprises also need to enable cross-enterprise collaboration capabilities by consolidating network and security policy management into one centralized place.

Cisco’s new approach converges these functions into a unified platform in the cloud that delivers end-to-end visibility and control over every application traffic flow between people, devices and networks.

Key Differentiators

• Cisco Umbrella unifies firewall, SWG, DNS-layer security, CASB, and threat intelligence.
• Cisco’s SASE architecture is built on its SD-WAN powered by Viptela and Meraki, AnyConnect, Secure Access by Duo (ZTNA), Umbrella cloud security with DNS, CASB, and ThousandEyes endpoint visibility.
• The solution uses machine learning to search, identify, and predict malicious sites.
• Rapid security protection deployment is available across various channels, including on-premises, cloud, remote access, and VPN.
• Cisco Umbrella combines a firewall, secure web gateway, DNS-layer security, CASB, and threat intelligence technologies into a single cloud service for companies of all sizes.
• Its ThousandEyes architecture decreases mean time to identify and resolve (MTTI/MTTR) by quickly identifying the source of problems across internal networks, ISPs (internet service providers), cloud and application providers, and other networks.

Features

• Analytics
• ZTNA
• End-to-end observability
• API (application programming interface)
• Automation

Cost

Pricing quotes are available on request.

Cato Networks

Cato Networks is a next-generation security platform that enables enterprises to securely connect users to applications, whether in the cloud, on-premises, or hybrid. Cato Networks provides a single point of control and visibility into all traffic flowing into and out of the network, making it easy to manage and secure access for all users.

Cato Networks also offers a variety of features to protect against threats, including an integrated intrusion prevention system (IPS), application-layer inspection engine, and NGFW. With this suite of protection features, organizations can quickly detect and stop an attack before it gets too far into their environment.

Key Differentiators

• Cato helps IT teams improve networking and security for all apps and users, its optimization and security features are readily available when provisioning additional resources.
• Cato’s unified software stack increases network and security visibility.  This improves cross-team collaboration and business operations.
• Cato provides the redundancy required to guarantee secure and highly available service by linking the points of presence with several Tier-1 IPs.
• Cato connects physical locations, cloud resources, and mobile devices to the internet. Cato SD-WAN devices connect physical locations; mobile users use client and clientless access, and agentless configuration connects cloud resources.

Features

• Infrastructure management
• Access controls/permissions
• Activity monitoring
• Cloud application security
• Intrusion detection system
• Remote access/control

Cost

Pricing quotes are available on request.

NordLayer

NordLayer is a cloud-based security platform that helps businesses secure their data and prevent unauthorized access. NordLayer provides various features to help companies to stay secure, including two-factor authentication (2FA), encrypted data storage, and real-time monitoring. NordLayer is an affordable, easy-to-use solution that can help businesses keep their data safe.

Key Differentiators

• NordLayer supports AES 256-bit encryption.
• A dedicated server option is available.
• NordLayer automatically restricts untrusted websites and users.
• Users can connect to networked devices with the help of smart remote access by setting up a virtual LAN.

Features

• 2FA
• AES 256-bit encryption
• SSO
• Auto connect
• Biometrics
• Smart remote access
• Zero trust access
• Central management

Cost

NordLayer’s scalable plans also make it a cost-effective option for companies with different levels of need for securing data. NordLayer offers three plans, including:

• Basic: $7 per user per month as $84 billed annually or $9 per user per month with monthly billing
• Advance: $9 per user per month as $108 billed annually or $9 per user per month with monthly billing
• Custom: Quotes available on request

Zscaler

Zscaler SASE is a cloud-native SASE platform consolidating multiple security functions into a single, integrated solution. It offers advanced user and entity behavior analytics, a next-generation firewall, and web filtering. Its secure architecture is uniquely designed to leverage the public cloud’s scale, speed, and agility while maintaining an uncompromised security posture.

Key Differentiators

• Zscaler optimizes traffic routing to provide the optimal user experience by peering at the edge with application and service providers.
• Zscaler offers native app segmentation by allowing an authenticated user to access an authorized app off-network through the usage of business policies.
• Zscaler’s design encrypts IP addresses to conceal source identities and prevent unauthorized access to the internal network.
• Zscaler currently boasts a global presence with over 150 data centers worldwide.
• It offers a proxy-based architecture for comprehensive traffic inspection and zero-trust network access, eliminating application segmentation.

Features

• Automation
• Zero-trust network access
• Multi-tenant architecture
• Proxy architecture
• SSL (secure sockets layer) inspection at scale

Cost

Pricing quotes are available on request.

Palo Alto Networks Prisma

Palo Alto’s Prisma SASE is a secure access service edge solution that combines network security, cloud security, and SD-WAN in a single platform. Prisma SASE provides the ability to establish an encrypted connection between corporate assets and the cloud.

It provides granular control over user access, allowing users to protect their data and applications from unauthorized access and attacks. With Prisma SASE, enterprises can meet compliance obligations by encrypting all traffic to and from public cloud services and within their internal networks.

Key Differentiators

• Bidirectionally on all ports, including SSL/TLS-encrypted traffic, whether communicating with the internet, the cloud, or between branches.
• With Prisma, organizations can streamline their security and network infrastructure and increase their responsiveness by combining previously separate products. These include Cloud SWG, ZTNA, ADEM, FWaaS, and NG CASB.
• Prisma uses machine learning-powered threat prevention to block 95% of web-based attacks in real-time, significantly lowering the likelihood of a data breach.
• Prisma offers fast deployment.
• Prisma Access prevents known and unknown malware, exploits, credential theft, command-and-control, and other attack vectors across all ports and protocols.

Features

• Cloud-based management portal
• Open APIs
• Automation
• SSL decryption
• Dynamic user group (DUG) monitoring
• AI/ML-based detection
• IoT security
• Reporting
• URL filtering
• Enterprise data loss prevention
• Digital experience monitoring (DEM)

Cost

Contact the Palo Alto Networks team for detailed quotes.

Netskope

Netskope SASE is a cloud-native security platform that enables organizations to securely connect users to applications, data, and devices from anywhere. It provides a single pane of glass for visibility and control over all internet traffic, both inbound and outbound.

With this solution, enterprises can focus on securing the apps and data they use most by prioritizing access based on risk profile and selecting security controls selectively without interrupting business operations.

Key Differentiators

• Netskope may be a forward or reverse proxy for web, private, and SaaS applications.
• This platform helps secure users, apps, data, and devices.
• ZTNA, CASB, private access, next-generation SWG, public cloud security, and advanced analytics are part of its unified cloud-native and real-time solution.
• Netskope SASE helps customers protect themselves against threats like DDoS attacks and malware by removing access to malicious domains at the perimeter edge.

Features

• Automation
• Zero-trust network access
• Threat protection
• Data protection

Cost

Quote-based pricing is available on request.

Skyhigh Security

McAfee Enterprise’s Cloud business rebranded to form Skyhigh Security. Skyhigh’s SASE secures data across the web, cloud, and private apps. The platform enables enterprises to securely connect users to apps and data from any device, anywhere. The platform uses machine learning to generate insight into user behavior and analyze real-time threat intelligence data with predictive modeling.

Key Differentiators

• Skyhigh’s security solution provides granular reporting on top of bandwidth utilization, high-risk service, and user activities.
• It provides enterprise-grade security policies that allow employees to safely use applications on their devices without sacrificing protection or productivity.
• Skyhigh automates manual tasks to gather and analyze evidence.
• Machine learning insight identifies and analyzes risk factors and predicts users’ actions.

Features

• Automation
• Dashboard
• Analytics and reporting
• Remote browser isolation
• Data loss prevention
• Zero-trust network access

Cost

Skyhigh Security provides pricing quotes on request.

Versa

Versa is a SASE solution that integrates a comprehensive set of services through the Versa operating system (VOS), including security, networking SD-WAN, and analytics. The solution delivers holistic enterprise-wide IT strategy and management to meet the needs of both security professionals and network managers. The services are orchestrated and delivered integrated to provide enhanced visibility, agility, and protection.

Key Differentiators

• Versa supports cloud, on-premises, or blended deployment.
• Versa Next Generation Firewall features decryption capabilities, macro- and microsegmentation, and full multi-tenancy, giving comprehensive security along the enterprise’s perimeter.
• The solution protects all devices with varying potential vulnerabilities and exploits, including various operating systems, IoT devices, and BYOD.
• Versa scans user sessions for risk based on URL filtering and categorization.

Features

• Multi-tenancy
• Versa operating system
• Analytics
• Routing
• NGFWaaS
• URL filtering
• Automation
• Multi-factor authentication

Cost

Pricing is quote-based. Potential buyers can contact Versa for personalized quotes.

How to Choose a SASE Provider

The right SASE provider will have a global presence and can offer exceptional performance and security. They are also known for being flexible and customizable to the needs of their customers.

Plus, they must always be backed by the latest technologies to provide excellent service. When looking for a SASE provider, ensure you find one with all of these qualities, so you don’t run into any issues later on. There is no such thing as too much research regarding choosing your SASE provider.

Before settling for a provider, read user reviews, assess the provider’s product features, understand your enterprise needs, and evaluate their SLA (service-level agreement) commitments. Once you’ve found the perfect provider, ask about pricing plans and contracts. Make sure you get what you’re paying for because your IT infrastructure is very important at the end of the day.

The post Top Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Solutions appeared first on IT Business Edge.

Businesses need to ensure the tools they use are practical and effective enough for the level of protection they need. Good data handling and security best practices are a good start, but the volume of information in an enterprise requires automated monitoring, and that’s where DLP tools come in.

Also read: Implementing Best Practices for Data Loss Prevention

What is Data Loss Prevention?

Data loss prevention is the proactive process of identifying, monitoring, and protecting data in use, in transit, and at rest. By doing so, organizations can prevent data breaches and protect sensitive information from being lost or stolen.

Organizations are responsible for this, as they must adhere to specific regulations, including HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard), FISMA (Federal Information Security Management Act), and SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley Act).

For example, HIPAA requires covered entities to take reasonable safeguards to protect electronic health information from misuse or inappropriate access by an unauthorized person.

By classifying data and identifying anomalous behavior, DLP tools give enterprises the visibility and reporting needed to protect data and satisfy compliance reporting requirements.

Also see the Top Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) Tools

Common Features of DLP Tools

Data loss prevention tools help organizations protect their data from unauthorized access and accidental or intentional deletion. Here are the must-have features of a good DLP solution.

Cloud support

If you use cloud services, looking for a provider that integrates with them seamlessly is essential. You want the system to automatically back up all of your data and notify you if there is any potential breach of privacy.

Alerts

A critical feature in any DLP tool is receiving alerts when suspicious activity occurs. It’s not enough to just know that an incident happened; it needs to give real-time notifications, so you can stop a problem before it becomes irreversible.

Alerts need to include details about the situation, including how much data was lost, who may have stolen the data, and how soon you need to act to recover the lost data. It should also provide recommendations on how best to deal with the situation without sacrificing compliance measures such as perimeters or encryption keys.

Advanced analytics

Advanced analytics can automate tasks like detecting anomalies in an employee’s behavior pattern, sending alerts when someone is about to exceed their usage limits, or determining whether sensitive information has been leaked outside the organization using keywords. Some companies even offer predictive analysis to know which employees are most likely to leak sensitive information ahead of time.

Audit and search

Audits and searches provide the ability to see who accessed what, when they accessed it, where they were accessing it from, and what types of files were accessed as well as the capability to search for sensitive information across all kinds of files, including email, files stored on remote drives, social media, mobile devices, and cloud storage services.

User account control

User account control prevents users from accessing anything on a system unless they have specific permissions. It ensures that only those people with permission can access documents and folders and prevents workers from copying sensitive documents outside the office by blocking printing, downloading or sending out emails with attachments containing sensitive information without permission.

Secure transport methods

Secure transport methods encrypt data over any network connection and implement encryption standards to maintain the confidentiality of all company data at rest, during transmission and while being processed. They also integrate with other security solutions, such as firewalls and intrusion detection systems, to ensure a complete level of protection.

Compliance with regulations

DLP tools must comply with various standards such as GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS, and NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) 800-171, which mandate specific security measures for different data and environments and keeping logs. Hence, you know who is accessing what information.

Also see the Best Cloud Security Solutions

How to Choose the Best Data Loss Prevention Tools

Data loss prevention tools are essential for any business that wants to protect its data. But with so many options on the market, how do you choose the best one for your needs? Here are a few things to consider.

Data location

One of the first considerations when selecting a DLP tool is where your data is stored. Some DLP tools can only monitor and analyze cloud-based or local networks, while others have agents installed on physical devices like computers and servers. Make sure your software covers all your company’s data locations.

Monitoring level

You’ll also want to decide what level of monitoring you need from your DLP software. Do you want it to detect unauthorized access attempts and alert the team? Or do you need it to identify sensitive information and mitigate risks before they happen? There are some fundamental distinctions between these two levels of monitoring, but they both come with their advantages and disadvantages. The most effective solution may be somewhere in between.

Reporting

It’s important to remember that different companies have different requirements for reports, too. If reports are essential to you, ensure the DLP software can generate them. But if not, this could be an area where you could save money.

Cost

Cost should always factor into your decision about which DLP software to purchase for your company. There are some free products out there, but if you’re looking for enterprise-level capabilities, you might be better off with a premium product.

No matter what product you choose, don’t forget to compare the costs against your budget. Your specific needs will dictate which features you prioritize, but it’s always wise to set aside some time for research before making any decisions.

Top 11 Data Loss Prevention Tools

Many data loss prevention tools are available on the market, but not all are created equal. After reviewing various DLP solutions, here are our top 11 picks for organizations looking to prevent data leakage.

Symantec DLP

Symantec Data Loss Prevention is a software suite that helps organizations prevent data breaches by identifying, monitoring, and protecting sensitive data. It can also monitor and log data access and activity.

In addition, Symantec DLP can look for patterns in data usage and detect anomalies in user behavior. The suite includes a web gateway, email gateway, endpoint agent, and management console. Symantec DLP can also detect and block confidential information leakage through various channels, including emails, FTP sites, and cloud storage services.

Features

• ​​Critical data protection
• Visibility and control
• Unified policy framework
• Regulatory compliance
• Data management
• Incident logs
• Reporting
• Encryption
• Endpoint intelligence
• Activity monitoring
• Breach detection

Pros

• Offers real-time blocking, quarantining, and alerts to prevent end users from leaking data
• Compliance with data protection regulations such as HIPAA and GDPR
• Enhance incident response through behavioral analytics
• Sensitive data storage locations can be automatically mapped by automated scanning

Cons

• Steep learning curve

Cost

Contact the Symantec team for quotes tailored to your enterprise needs.

​​Digital guardian DLP

Digital Guardian’s Data Loss Prevention platform is a comprehensive solution that helps organizations prevent the loss of sensitive and confidential data. The platform uses technology, people, and processes to identify, monitor, and protect data across the enterprise.

Digital Guardian DLP automatically identifies risky files based on predefined policies. These policies can be specific or broad in scope. This tool also includes endpoint detection and response (EDR) and user entity behavior analytics (UEBA) features to protect against external and internal threats from the same agent. In addition, it can be deployed on-premises or as a SaaS solution.

Features

• Data visibility
• Compliance
• Analytics and reporting
• Data classification
• Data discovery
• Management console
• Cloud data protection
• Managed detection and response

Pros

• Real-time endpoint monitoring and behavioral insight
• Total visibility and flexible control across all operating systems
• Automatic monitoring and logging of all endpoint activities
• Intuitive user interface (UI)

Cons

• Initial setup can be complex
• Some users consider this product pricey

Cost

Digital Guardian pricing isn’t available on its website. However, you can contact the sales team to schedule a demo and request quotes.

SecureTrust

​​SecureTrust is a comprehensive data loss prevention tool that helps organizations of all sizes identify and protect sensitive information from unauthorized disclosure. The system is autonomous and will block malicious attempts independently.

It can be used for cloud-based and on-premises storage, providing access to any data type. DLP policies can be created to block or alert specific types of content. A company can also choose the kind of enforcement to use when the policy is violated — either blocking or notifying the user they are attempting to violate a policy.

Features

• Risk assessment
• PCI compliance service
• Investigation management
• Advanced content control
• Automatic encryption, blocking, and quarantine
• Real-time identity match
• Automatically block HTTP, HTTPS, and FTP traffic that violates compliance policies

Pros

• Offers 360-degree risk mitigation
• Has over 70 predefined policy and risk settings
• Provides a configurable dashboard to monitor sensitive data and manage protective settings

Cons

• Initial setup can take some time.

Cost

Contact SecureTrust to request quotes.

CrowdStrike Falcon Device Control

CrowdStrike Falcon Device Control is a security software that helps businesses prevent data loss. It works by blocking unauthorized devices from accessing sensitive data and monitoring and logging all device activity.

It provides the visibility and granular controls to protect against malicious insiders and outside attackers, including attacks via removable media or over Wi-Fi. This tool provides detailed reports about device activity on your network and stores those records in an industry-standard format for easy sharing.

Features

• Automatic visibility across USB device usage
• Behavioral analytics
• Variable security set by policies
• Proactive alerts
• Malware detection
• Intelligence reports

Pros

• Centralized management dashboard
• User-friendly dashboard
• Less false positives

Cons

• Expensive for a small-scale enterprise
• Documentation can be improved

Cost

Pricing isn’t available on the CrowdStrike website. However, you can contact the sales team to request quotes.

Check Point

Check Point DLP is an enterprise-grade solution that offers content filtering, email protection, antivirus and anti-spam, application control, and many other features. The best thing about this software is how it can be customized to fit any organization’s needs.

With modules like Email Protection, Web Protection, and Mail Gateway Protection, Check Point DLP ensures any data leakage from the network is stopped in its tracks. One of the more exciting features of Check Point DLP is that it’s based on artificial intelligence and machine learning which means that as time goes on, its ability to detect data leaks increases.

Features

• Web filtering
• Firewall
• Policy management
• Logging and reporting
• Load balancing
• Continuous analysis
• Data classification
• Intrusion detection and prevention

Pros

• Prevent spam emails and other spam from entering the network
• Whitelist a specific URL to bypass the scanning process 
• Offers a virtualized network for client networks to mask identity, location, and other sensitive information
• Choose from 60+ or 700+ predefined data content types for PII, PCI, HIPAA, and more

Cons

• Application and URL filtering needs improvement
• As a feature-rich tool, its learning curve can be steep

Cost

Pricing isn’t available on Check Point’s website. You can, however, request quotes from its sales team.

Code42

Code42 Incydr DLP software is one of the top tools for managing insider risk in the workplace. For instance, the software offers advanced web monitoring and alerts that help businesses comply with regulations such as GDPR. And it can manage user activities on corporate networks, apps, and devices from a single dashboard.

With the increased number of the remote workforce, Incydr provides an easy-to-use interface divided into two main categories: Detection and Investigation (Forensic Search). These categories include web filtering, employee usage monitoring, and network monitoring, and users can take advantage of its Incydr risk indicators to detect and investigate data breaches and theft incidents.

Features

• Incydr risk dashboards
• Exfiltration detectors
• Incydr risk indicators
• Watchlists
• Forensic search
• Incident management
• Policy management

Pros

• Ease of use
• Provides visibility into employee’s activities
• Proactively detect enterprise data exposure or theft
• ​​Identifies data security risks across PCs, the cloud, and email

Cons

• Support could use some improvement

Cost

​​Code42 does not publish Incydr prices; thus, you must contact sales for pricing details.

Trend Micro IDLP

Trend Micro is an integrated DLP solution that can protect data across devices, networks, and the cloud. It provides a real-time view of your organization’s activity, allowing administrators to respond when threats are detected. With Trend Micro IDLP, you get in-depth visibility into what employees are doing on their computers and mobile devices, along with a prebuilt set of security templates for popular business applications.

Features

• ​​Lightweight plug-in
• Data discovery and scanning
• Employee education and remediation
• Supports compliance
• Automation

Pros

• With a lightweight plug-in, you can gain visibility and management of critical data and avoid data loss through USB, email, SaaS apps, web, mobile devices, and cloud storage
• Fully-integrated, centrally-managed solution
•  24/7 real-time network monitoring
• Responds to policy violations automatically, with options to log, bypass, block, encrypt, alert, modify, quarantine, or delete data

Cons

• As per user review, some users experience issues with installation
• Not as feature-rich as other solutions in the same category

Cost

Prospective buyers can contact Trend Micro’s sales team for pricing details.

Forcepoint DLP

Forcepoint DLP delivers unified data and IP protection for hybrid and multicloud enterprises with a single platform that enforces consistent security policies across clouds, on-premises systems, and user devices.

With Forcepoint DLP, you can protect your data from accidental or malicious leaks, ensure compliance with regulations such as GDPR and HIPAA, and prevent intellectual property theft. The features are designed to simplify complex security tasks, automate the analysis of massive amounts of log data, and integrate with existing IT infrastructure.

Features

• Policy management
• Encryption
• Advanced detection and controls
• Data management
• Incident logs
• Access control
• Data visibility
• Endpoint intelligence
• Data fingerprinting

Pros

• Forcepoint DLP is easy to use and provides granular control over what data is protected and how it is protected
• Offers native, behavioral analytics; risk-adaptive protection; and risk-based policy enforcement
• Integrate with third-party data classification tools to automate data labeling and classification

Cons

• Complex multiple server deployments
• Predefined policies can be improved
• Data discovery can be improved
• Steep learning curve

Cost

Pricing for the product is not available on the provider’s page. However, you can request pricing and get quotes tailored to your needs.

Fidelis Network DLP

Fidelis Network is a DLP tool that offers a full range of data security services, including system-wide compliance, end-to-end encryption, anomaly detection, and integration with other tools among other features.

Additionally, Fidelis provides granular control over what data is allowed to leave your network, so you can be sure that only the most sensitive information is protected. For example, Fidelis uses patented Deep Session Inspection technology to extract metadata and monitor 300+ different attributes. If the system detects a potential risk, it can flag it or take more specific action depending on your preferences.

Features

• Deep visibility and threat control
• Dashboard
• Analytics and reporting
• Automated detection and response

Pros

• Prevent data theft or unauthorized sharing
• Fidelis’s policy system can be easily customized to fit your needs
• Increase security efficiency by analyzing network threats at up to 20 Gbps with a single sensor

Cons

• Some users consider this tool pricey for small business
• Support can be improved

Cost

Contact the Fidelis sales team for personalized quotes.

Sophos

Sophos DLP is a comprehensive data loss prevention solution that provides visibility into sensitive information and detects any unusual activity. It includes content scanning, email monitoring, risk assessment, in-depth analysis of files and metadata, and more. All this makes it easy for IT admins to stop threats before they happen.

Features

• Data access control
• PII encryption
• User behavior assessment
• Regulatory compliance
• Security automation

Pros

• Easy point-and-click policy configuration
• Allows users to define the data control policies by endpoint, groups, email, and sender
• Log, alert, block, or encrypt sensitive data that triggers a DLP policy rule
• It doesn’t require additional software client installation

Cons

• The amount of false positives needs improvement
• As per user review, Sophos can be resource-intensive
• Support could use some improvement

Cost

Prospective solution buyers should contact Sophos for personalized quotes.

Trellix DLP Discover

Trellix – the product of the merger of McAfee Enterprise and FireEye – works closely with its former cloud business, Skyhigh Security, in the area of DLP to address both on-premises and cloud DLP issues. Trellix Data Loss Prevention Discover offers real-time visibility and security of data, dynamic access adjustment, intelligent threat identification, and automated response.

Features

• ​​Shared intelligence and automated workflows
• Centralized incident management
• Compliance enforcement
• Device to cloud
• Data management
• Incident logs
• Reporting
• Access control
• Compliance
• Data visibility
• Encryption
• Endpoint intelligence
• Activity monitoring

Pros

• Monitors and performs real-time scanning and analysis of the network traffic
• Use fingerprinting, file tagging, and classification to protect sensitive data
• This tool is feature-rich
• The data classification feature is robust

Cons

• Steep learning curve, especially with configuration
• Support can be improved
• The UI can be improved

The post Best Data Loss Prevention (DLP) Tools appeared first on IT Business Edge.

To enable data protection, data security teams must ensure only the right people can access the right data and only for the right purpose. To help the data security team with implementation, the data governance team must define what “right” is for each context. For an application with the size, complexity and importance of a data lake, getting data protection right is a critically important challenge.

See the Top Data Lake Solutions

From Policies to Processes

Before an enterprise can worry about data lake technology specifics, the governance and security teams need to review the current policies for the company. The various policies regarding overarching principles such as access, network security, and data storage will provide basic principles that executives will expect to be applied to every technology within the organization, including data lakes.

Some changes to existing policies may need to be proposed to accommodate the data lake technology, but the policy guardrails are there for a reason — to protect the organization against lawsuits, breaking laws, and risk. With the overarching requirements in hand, the teams can turn to the practical considerations regarding the implementation of those requirements.

Data Lake Visibility

The first requirement to tackle for security or governance is visibility. In order to develop any control or prove control is properly configured, the organization must clearly identify:

• What is the data in the data lake?
• Who is accessing the data lake?
• What data is being accessed by who?
• What is being done with the data once accessed?

Different data lakes provide these answers using different technologies, but the technology can generally be classified as data classification and activity monitoring/logging.

Data classification

Data classification determines the value and inherent risk of the data to an organization. The classification determines what access might be permitted, what security controls should be applied, and what levels of alerts may need to be implemented.

The desired categories will be based upon criteria established by data governance, such as:

• Data Source: Internal data, partner data, public data, and others
• Regulated Data: Privacy data, credit card information, health information, etc.
• Department Data: Financial data, HR records, marketing data, etc.
• Data Feed Source: Security camera videos, pump flow data, etc.

The visibility into these classifications depends entirely upon the ability to inspect and analyze the data. Some data lake tools offer built-in features or additional tools that can be licensed to enhance the classification capabilities such as:

• Amazon Web Services (AWS): AWS offers Amazon Macie as a separately enabled tool to scan for sensitive data in a repository.
• Azure: Customers use built-in features of the Azure SQL Database, Azure Managed Instance, and Azure Synapse Analytics to assign categories, and they can license Microsoft Purview to scan for sensitive data in the dataset such as European passport numbers, U.S. social security numbers, and more.
• Databricks: Customers can use built-in features to search and modify data (compute fees may apply). 
• Snowflake: Customers use inherent features that include some data classification capabilities to locate sensitive data (compute fees may apply).

For sensitive data or internal designations not supported by features and add-on programs, the governance and security teams may need to work with the data scientists to develop searches. Once the data has been classified, the teams will then need to determine what should happen with that data.

For example, Databricks recommends deleting personal information from the European Union (EU) that falls under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This policy would avoid future expensive compliance issues with the EU’s “right to be forgotten” that would require a search and deletion of consumer data upon each request.

Other common examples for data treatment include:

• Data accessible for registered partners (customers, vendors, etc.)
• Data only accessible by internal teams (employees, consultants, etc.)
• Data restricted to certain groups (finance, research, HR, etc.)
• Regulated data available as read-only
• Important archival data, with no write-access permitted

The sheer size of data in a data lake can complicate categorization. Initially, data may need to be categorized by input, and teams need to make best guesses about the content until the content can be analyzed by other tools.

In all cases, once data governance has determined how the data should be handled, a policy should be drafted that the security team can reference. The security team will develop controls that enforce the written policy and develop tests and reports that verify that those controls are properly implemented.

See the Top Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) Tools

Activity monitoring and logging

The logs and reports provided by the data lake tools provide the visibility needed to test and report on data access within a data lake. This monitoring or logging of activity within the data lake provides the key components to verify effective data controls and ensure no inappropriate access is occuring.

As with data inspection, the tools will have various built-in features, but additional licenses or third-party tools may need to be purchased to monitor the necessary spectrum of access. For example:

• AWS: AWS Cloudtrail provides a separately enabled tool to track user activity and events, and AWS CloudWatch collects logs, metrics, and events from AWS resources and applications for analysis.
• Azure: Diagnostic logs can be enabled to monitor API (application programming interface) requests and API activity within the data lake. Logs can be stored within the account, sent to log analytics, or streamed to an event hub. And other activities can be tracked through other tools such as Azure Active Directory (access logs).
• Google: Google Cloud DLP detects different international PII (personal identifiable information) schemes.
• Databricks: Customers can enable logs and direct the logs to storage buckets.
• Snowflake: Customers can execute queries to audit specific user activity.

Data governance and security managers must keep in mind that data lakes are huge and that the access reports associated with the data lakes will be correspondingly immense. Storing the records for all API requests and all activity within the cloud may be burdensome and expensive.

To detect unauthorized usage will require granular controls, so inappropriate access attempts can generate meaningful alerts, actionable information, and limited information. The definitions of meaningful, actionable, and limited will vary based upon the capabilities of the team or the software used to analyze the logs and must be honestly assessed by the security and data governance teams.

Data Lake Controls

Useful data lakes will become huge repositories for data accessed by many users and applications. Good security will begin with strong, granular controls for authorization, data transfers, and data storage.

Where possible, automated security processes should be enabled to permit rapid response and consistent controls applied to the entire data lake.

Authorization

Authorization in data lakes works similar to any other IT infrastructure. IT or security managers assign users to groups, groups can be assigned to projects or companies, and each of these users, groups, projects, or companies can be assigned to resources.

In fact, many of these tools will link to existing user control databases such as Active Directory, so existing security profiles may be extended to the data link. Data governance and data security teams will need to create an association between various categorized resources within the data lake with specific groups such as:

• Raw research data associated with the research user group
• Basic financial data and budgeting resources associated with the company’s internal users
• Marketing research, product test data, and initial customer feedback data associated with the specific new product project group

Most tools will also offer additional security controls such as security assertion markup language (SAML) or multi-factor authentication (MFA). The more valuable the data, the more important it will be for security teams to require the use of these features to access the data lake data.

In addition to the classic authorization processes, the data managers of a data lake also need to determine the appropriate authorization to provide to API connections with data lakehouse software and data analysis software and for various other third-party applications connected to the data lake.

Each data lake will have their own way to manage the APIs and authentication processes. Data governance and data security managers need to clearly outline the high-level rules and allow the data security teams to implement them.

As a best practice, many data lake vendors recommend setting up the data to deny access by default to force data governance managers to specifically grant access. Additionally, the implemented rules should be verified through testing and monitoring through the records.

Data transfers

A giant repository of valuable data only becomes useful when it can be tapped for information and insight. To do so, the data or query responses must be pulled from the data lake and sent to the data lakehouse, third-party tool, or other resource.

These data transfers must be secure and controlled by the security team. The most basic security measure requires all traffic to be encrypted by default, but some tools will allow for additional network controls such as:

• Limit connection access to specific IP addresses, IP ranges, or subnets
• Private endpoints
• Specific networks
• API gateways
• Specified network routing and virtual network integration
• Designated tools (Lakehouse application, etc.)

Data storage

IT security teams often use the best practices for cloud storage as a starting point for storing data in data lakes. This makes perfect sense since the data lake will likely also be stored within the basic cloud storage on cloud platforms.

When setting up data lakes, vendors recommend setting the data lakes to be private and anonymous to prevent casual discovery. The data will also typically be encrypted at rest by default.

Some cloud vendors will offer additional options such as classified storage or immutable storage that provides additional security for stored data. When and how to use these and other cloud strategies will depend upon the needs of the organization.

See the Top Big Data Storage Tools

Developing Secure and Accessible Data Storage

Data lakes provide enormous value by providing a single repository for all enterprise data. Of course, this also paints an enormous target on the data lake for attackers that might want access to that data!

Basic data governance and security principles should be implemented first as written policies that can be approved and verified by the non-technical teams in the organization (legal, executives, etc.). Then, it will be up to data governance to define the rules and data security teams to implement the controls to enforce those rules.

Next, each security control will need to be continuously tested and verified to confirm that the control is working. This is a cyclical, and sometimes even a continuous, process that needs to be updated and optimized regularly.

While it’s certainly important to want the data to be safe, businesses also need to make sure the data remains accessible, so they don’t lose the utility of the data lake. By following these high-level processes, security and data lake experts can help ensure the details align with the principles.

Read next: Data Lake Strategy Options: From Self-Service to Full-Service

The post Data Lake Governance & Security Issues appeared first on IT Business Edge.

IT managers seek to protect these users, devices and resources by moving the IT perimeter and rerouting all data through corporate control to prevent unauthorized access. One method to accomplish this goal is to use zero trust.

There are many zero trust solutions addressing the five key categories of Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA): 

• Identity
• Devices
• Networks
• Data
• Applications and Workloads

However, for most organizations limitations of budgets and IT team bandwidth will force selective adoption of ZTA and a focus on solutions that can be implemented quickly, inexpensively, and comprehensively with minimal expense. Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) will likely be one of the easiest methods for an organization to begin to adopt ZTA so we will focus on the top low-cost turnkey ZTNA products.

This list is aimed more at small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) seeking low-cost, easy to implement solutions, so larger enterprises might want to see our list of Top Zero Trust Security Solutions & Software.

Jump ahead to the top low-cost zero trust solutions:

• Appaegis
• Banyan Security
• Cloudflare
• GoodAccess
• NordLayer
• OpenVPN
• Perimeter 81
• Zentry Sentry
• Other zero trust solutions

What is Zero Trust?

The basic concepts behind ZTA were developed by Forrester Research and require an organization to treat all resources as if they are fully exposed to the internet. No users may be trusted by default, all users should be restricted to the minimum access needed, and fully comprehensive monitoring should be in place.

The firewalls and hardened security layers that used to exist only at the access point to a network now must be shifted and implemented for each endpoint, server, container, and even application. Each access request and session must start with the assumption that the user and device may be compromised and requires fresh verification.

U.S. Government agencies have received requirements to achieve zero trust security goals and many corporate executives also seek to improve their security and compliance using zero trust architecture.

Zero Trust does not require new tools or technologies to implement. Operating systems, firewalls, and other tools can be implemented on a device-by-device or application-by-application basis to implement zero trust.

However, new ZTA-branded tools often simplify the process for IT managers to implement. Instead of a variety of different tools with overlapping or even conflicting rules, ZTA tools provide a single place to implement policies and then push those policies out to linked technologies.

IT managers define what applications, databases, servers, and networks will be available to the end user from a central management console. However, keep in mind that to implement ZTA, companies must be ready to granularly differentiate between users and devices.

Any organization that does not use the features of ZTA to provide minimum needed access simply has recreated a non-ZTA trusted network with more expensive technology.

Note: We’ve included a glossary of key zero trust terms at the bottom of this article if any need clarification. 

Top Low-Cost Zero Trust Product Criteria

We reviewed many different vendors for this article and zero trust is too broad to compare or cover them all in a single article. To make this list of the top low-cost zero trust options we focused on a limited set of criteria that could provide value to the broadest range of organizations.

Vendors that made this list provide a solution that could be started very quickly, with minimal IT labor, and with no internal installation required. We focused on turn-key SaaS solutions that an IT manager could implement in a matter of hours and deploy to the entire organization.

These Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) products must replace or complement Virtual Private Network (VPN) access and publicly list their pricing for comparison. While many companies may offer free trials or tiers, we only list vendors that have a cost below $15 / user per month for their basic paid tier of service.

These solutions also must provide fully encrypted connections and support multi-factor authentication. These solutions should also support access to legacy IT infrastructure.

Types of Zero Trust Network Access Providers

ZTNA can be accomplished in many different ways, but a turnkey solution tends to be offered either as a browser-based solution or a global edge network solution.

Browser Based Solutions

These companies accomplish the practical equivalent of ZTNA through a secure browser. End users download the browser to their local endpoint and must use it to access corporate resources. The vendor also provides a cloud-based app that allows the IT manager to add and manage users and corporate resources in a single software package.

Global Edge Network Solutions

Vendors in the Global Edge Network category replace existing wired or software-defined network infrastructure with a cloud-based equivalent software-defined network on a subscription basis. The internet provides the wires and the vendor provides encrypted connections between the users and the protected resources.

While the details of deployment may vary, generally an agent or connector will be installed to cloud-based or on-premises resources such as servers, containers, and applications. These connectors create a secure tunnel to a Global Edge Network that can sometimes replace the need for firewall rules or DMZ architectures.

Administrators then use a SaaS management interface to select resources to make available to end users using access policies. Users then connect to the encrypted network through a standard browser or through an app.

Some vendors focus on Secure Web Gateways and others focus on cloud-based VPN Servers, but when delivering ZTNA their offerings tend to combine features of gateways, VPNs, and even CASB. Be sure to review the specific offerings of a vendor to ensure they meet the needed requirements.

The Top Zero Trust Network Access Providers

Our criteria narrowed the list down to the following companies:

• Appaegis
• Banyan Security
• Cloudflare
• GoodAccess
• NordLayer
• OpenVPN
• Perimeter 81
• Zentry Sentry

Appaegis

Appaegis Access Fabric deploys as a browser and provides a light-weight alternative to virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). The tool provides fully-logged role-based access controls (RBAC) to provide granular security controls and tight reporting for audits.

IT managers use a cloud management portal to control agentless app access, data access permission, and team and role-based policies. Location based access control, API support, and user activity logging are available in the paid tiers.

Appaegis provides four tiers of pricing that is quoted monthly, but paid annually:

• Free:
  • up to 5 users, 1 network, 1 servers/applications, 1 GB data / month
  • App MFA supported
  • PII Data Detection
• Basic (all features of the Free tier plus): 
  • $9.95 / user / month
  • up to 50 users, 50 servers/applications, 10 GB data / month
  • SMS MFA supported
  • User activity logging
  • Application security and monitoring for OneDrive, SharePoint, Office 365, Google Workspace
• Team (all features of the Basic tier plus):
  • No public price published
  • up to 100 users, 100 servers/applications, 20 GB data / month 
  • Isolated Password Vault
  • SAML support
  • API Support
• Professional (all features of the Team tier plus): 
  • No public price published
  • up to 5000 users, 1000 servers/applications, 50 GB data / month
  • IdP MFA supported
  • Custom Domain Name

Team and Professional tiers do not list pricing, but 14 day free trials are available for each tier.

Banyan Security

Banyan Security is a global edge network solution that provides multi-cloud, application, and service access through a real-time least-privileged solution that leverages an organization’s existing identity and security tools. The tool requires deployment of a Banyan Connector to corporate resources, set up through the Bayan Cloud Command Center, and access to the Banyan Global Edge Network.

Banyan’s Cloud Command Center policies use human-readable syntax based on user identity and device trust that integrate with corporate identity and security tools. Users then connect through a standard browser or through the optional Banyan app that also permits device registration and a catalog of available resources.

Banyan Security provides three tiers of pricing that is quoted monthly, but paid annually:

• Free: 
  • up to 20 users
  • Auditing & reporting of access and use
  • Community support (only)
• Business (all of free tier features plus): 
  • $5 / user / month
  • Integration with enterprise SSO
  • Mobile app
  • Customization of trust scores
  • SAML and OIDC Federation for SaaS applications
  • SaaS application policies
  • Defined service level agreement (SLA) and dedicated support
• Enterprise (all of Business tier features plus): 
  • No public price published
  • Self-hosted access
  • Cloud resource discovery
  • Integration with advanced security tools such as EDR, UEM, UEBA.
  • Zero-touch install
  • Tunnel options for private domains or split tunnels
  • IdP passwordless authentication 
  • Cloak SaaS Identities and restricted app access to authorized devices

Cloudflare

The internet giant Cloudflare makes its name providing distributed hosting services for corporate websites. However, they also offer Zero Trust Services, a global edge solution that provides ZTNA, Secure Web Gateways, Private Routing to IP/Hosts, Network FaaS, HTTP/S Inspection, DNS Resolution and filters, and CASB services.

Cloudflare provides an agnostic platform that integrates with a variety of existing identity, endpoint security, and cloud applications. Cloudflare’s ZTNA can be accessed from a high-speed global edge network from over 200 cities spread out across the world.

Cloudflare provides three tiers of pricing:

• Free: 
  • up to 50 users
  • Up to 3 network locations
  • Up to 24 hours of activity logging
  • Secure Web Gateway w/ recursive DNS filters
  • Security categories and threat intelligence feeds
  • 100+ categories for content acceptable use 
  • AV inspection
  • CASB services
  • FaaS
  • Community support (only)
• Standard (all of free tier features plus): 
  • $7 / user / month
  • Browser Isolation available for $10 per user per month
  • No user limit
  • Up to 20 network locations
  • Up to 30 days of activity logging
  • Email and chat support with a defined SLA
• Enterprise (all of Standard tier features plus): 
  • No public price published, customized pricing billed annually
  • Browser Isolation available 
  • Up to 250 network locations
  • Up to 6 months of DNS activity logging
  • Priority phone, email and chat support with defined SLA
  • Logpush to SIEM/cloud storage
  • Cert-based auth for IoT
  • Editable IP network locations

GoodAccess

GoodAccess markets their ZTNA edge solution as cloud-based VPN-as-a-service for teams with access gateways in more than 35 cities and in 23 countries around the world. IT managers can easily create management profiles for different classifications of users and easily assign both users and resources to the classification to enable least-privileged access.

GoodAccess provides four tiers of pricing. Customer that select annual billing can enjoy a 20% discount off of the price billed monthly:

• Free: 
  • up to 100 users
  • Mobile and desktop client apps
  • Basic threat blocking through automated detection and denial of malicious domains
  • Knowledge base support (only)
• Essential (all of free tier features plus): 
  • $5 / user / month
  • Minimum 10 users
  • Dedicated gateway with static IP and an option for a backup gateway
  • Dedicated private network
  • Split tunneling
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Gateway-level access logs for compliance and security review
  • Email and chat support 
• Advanced (all of Standard tier features plus): 
  • $9 / user / month
  • Minimum 10 users
  • 1 cloud and branch connector to an office LAN
  • Identity-based network level access control
  • Custom domain blocking
  • SSO
  • Custom domain names
• Premium (all of Advanced features plus:
  • $12 / user / month
  • Minimum 20 users
  • 5 cloud and branch connectors
  • Backup gateway included
  • Phone support and dedicated customer success manager

NordLayer

NordLayer builds on its successful NordVPN solution to offer a SASE and ZTNA turn-key solution. Available in more than 30 countries, the edge solution focuses on quick and easy installation to provide AES 256-bit encryption, threat-blocking, and MFA support for all offered levels. The solution is basically a VPN but with the additional security of fine-grained zero trust access controls set by admins.

NordLayer offers three tiers of pricing and a free trial period. Customer that select annual billing can enjoy a 18-22% savings from the price billed monthly:

• Basic: 
  • $9 / user / month
  • Mobile and desktop client apps
  • Unlimited users and license transferability
  • No traffic limitations
  • Centralized settings and billing
  • 2-factor authentication and SSO support for Google, Azure AD, Okta and OneLogin.
  • Autoconnect
  • Jailbroken/Rooted device detection
  • 24 / 7 live support
• Advanced (all of Basic tier features plus): 
  • $11 / user / month
  • Dedicated server with static IP up to 1Gbps speed $50 / month / server
  • IP allowlisting and Custom DNS
  • Biometric MFA support
  • Priority support support and dedicated account management
• Custom (all of Advanced tier features plus): 
  • Customized solutions with customized pricing
  • Premium support for custom technical implementations

OpenVPN

OpenVPN offers an option for a self-hosted VPN server, but this article focuses on the OpenVPN Cloud edge solution that does not require any server infrastructure. OpenVPN client software can be installed on Windows, MacOS, and Linux.

Open VPN supports SAML 2.0 and LDAP authentication and email or application-based MFA. Pricing is volume based and depends upon the number of simultaneous VPN connections per month. It is a single tier of service that can be billed monthly or customers can save 20% by paying annually:

• Up to 3 concurrent connections are free
• 10 connections are $7.50 / connection / month
• 100 connections are $3.00 / connection / month
• 2,000 connections are $1.56 / connection / month
• Customized pricing is available for more than 2,000 connections per month.

Perimeter 81

Perimeter 81 offers turn-key ZTNA connections from over 40 global locations. Their simple administration interface offers quick and easy network development with granular user controls to define user groups, available applications, work days, devices suitable for connection, and more.

Perimeter 81 offers four tiers of service billed monthly or customers can save 20% with annual billing:

• Essentials: 
  • $10 / user / month
  • Minimum 5 users
  • $50 / month / gateway with 500 Mbps performance
  • 2 applications
  • 14 days of activity and audit reports
  • Split tunneling
  • Private DNS
• Premium (all of Essentials tier features plus): 
  • $15 / user / month
  • Minimum 10 users
  • $50 / month / gateway with 1000 Mbps / Gateway
  • 10 applications
  • FaaS with up to 10 policies
  • 30 days of activity and audit reports
  • Always-on VPN
  • DNS Filtering
  • SSO support
• Premium Plus (all of Premium tier features plus): 
  • $20 / user / month
  • Minimum 20 users
  • $50 / month / gateway with 1000 Mbps / Gateway
  • 100 applications
  • FaaS with up to 100 policies
  • API Support
• Enterprise (all of Premium Plus tier features plus): 
  • Customized pricing for a customized solution
  • Minimum 50 users
  • $50 / month / gateway with 1000 Mbps / Gateway
  • Unlimited applications
  • Unlimited FaaS policies
  • 60 days of activity and audit reports

Zentry Sentry

Zentry avoids VPN troubleshooting by providing ZTNA over TLS through HTML5 browsers without any clients to download, configure or manage. The Zentry control panel permits granular control over applications and resources without VPN infrastructure or installing clients on local resources.

Zentry provides three tiers of pricing that can be paid monthly, or customers can enjoy a discount by paying annually:

• Free: 
  • up to 5 users, 1 site, 3 applications
  • 2 weeks of activity and audit reports
  • Two-factor authentication
  • LDAP/AD
  • Email support
• Basic (all features of the free tier plus): 
  • $10 / user / month
  • up to 300 users, 5 sites, unlimited applications
  • 1 month of activity and audit reports
  • SAML/OIDC
  • SSO support
  • Email and phone support 
  • Customer success manager
• Team: 
  • No public price published
  • Unlimited users, sites, applications and activity and audit reports
  • Anomaly detection
  • 24/7 email and phone support

Other Zero Trust Vendors

Many other products attempt to fill the Zero Trust Network Access niche with methods to securely connect all workers with all resources. However, there were two types of vendors that we did not consider for this article.

First, some vendors don’t list their prices on their websites so their cost could not be compared with other vendors. Some of these vendors will offer free trials and many will also have technology partners that can help explain features and drawbacks to an interested customer.

The other type of vendor was ZTNA providers that required significant installations and could not be considered turn-key. If the vendor needed cloud computers, dedicated servers, or virtual machines established we considered the threshold too high to be considered for this article.

This does not mean that our recommended vendors are the best solution for a specific organization’s needs. IT managers looking for even more options can consider these additional solutions:

• Akamai Enterprise Application Access provides a cloud-based secure web gateway that delivers real-time intelligence and detection engines to provide multi-layered security.
• Avast Business’ Secure Private Access provides a ZTNA alternative to VPN connections with their cloud-based solution.
• Axis Security’s Atmos product line delivers secure remote access, CASB, DLP, and other features. Different levels of subscriptions include different Atmos licenses to deliver different capabilities.
• Appgate offers a Software Defined Perimeter (SDP) product that provides single packet-level authorization security, microsegmentation, and continuous verification of access. Government pricing is quoted by AWS at roughly $12 per day for 25 users or roughly $15 per user per month. However, non-government customers need to go through partners and MSP resellers.
• BlackBerry’s CylanceGateway automatically enforces corporate policies across an AI-driven Zero Trust Network that also incorporates endpoint security and granular policy management.
• Cato Networks secure remote access is delivered via their SASE solution. Their solution is unusual because the billing is based upon traffic speed and throughput instead of mainly per-user fees.
• Check Point’s Harmony security solution offers endpoint security, clientless connectivity, VPN remote access, email security, mobile security, and secure internet browsing as a bundle.
• Cyolo provides a Zero Trust platform that supports a wide range of endpoints and cloud applications. It attempts to replace many different legacy tools such as CASB, MFA, ADC, NAC, VPN, and PAM with a unified security and networking tool.
• Google Cloud BeyondCorp provides ZTNA protection for organizations that can establish, secure and manage HTTPS load balancers or virtual machines on Google Cloud. While the costs are competitive with turn-key SaaS solutions, not all organizations have the ability to manage cloud resources.
• Iboss provides a Zero Trust platform that replaces VPN with a solution that delivers SASE, Browser Isolation, CASB, and DLP.
• InstaSafe provides hosted controllers and installable gateways to create fully encrypted channels for authentication and access to cloud resources, applications, and local resources. While reasonably priced at $8 / user / month this solution also requires IT teams to install local gateway ($35 / month / gateway) which exceeded the technical work required to make our list of solutions.
• Ivanti markets their Neurons as a cloud-based Zero Trust Access solution. Ivanti modules also support asset discovery, operational intelligence, and patch management.
• Jamf’s Wandera product provides private access, threat defense, and enforce data policies.
• NetMotion offers a remote access solution that provides both software defined perimeter (SDP) and VPN connections to cloud-based and local resources. Their solution requires customers to install the software on self-managed local or cloud-hosted servers.
• Netskope offers SSE and SASE zero trust solutions through system integrators and service providers. Pricing for individual components (CASB, etc.) can be located on the web or through the AWS marketplace, but a single price for the zero trust package is not publicly available.
• Proofpoint offers cloud-based security products that deliver Secure Service Edge solutions such as secure access and secure remote access for contractors. 
• RevBits Zero Trust Network provides a thin-client application that fully encrypts user access to corporate resources.
• Broadcom’s Symantec Secure Access Cloud provides a SaaS zero trust access solution to replace VPN technology with agentless, cloud-delivered infrastructure..
• Tempered’s Airwall solution replaces VPNs with an encrypted software defined perimeter (SDP) network. This permits microsegmentation and eliminates VPN congestion issues.
• TerraZone’s ZoneZero creates software defined perimeters that can enhance VPN services to make them zero trust networks.
• Twingate delivers a multi-step authentication process that requires at least two different components to permit communication between users and resources. Twingate’s solution requires deployment of a docker container or native linux service on remote networks which is a bit more work than a turnkey solution.
• TrueFort focuses on zero trust microsegmentation, workload hardening, and file integrity monitoring.
• Trustgrid is a ZTNA platform for application development. Up to 10 users and 25 nodes for $1,995 / month ($19.95 / user per month). More expensive option, but it allows for docker containers to run and update at the edge without centralized management or architecture.
• Versa Networks launched their cloud-based Secure Access VPN-as-a-service in 2020 with a price of $7.50 per user per month. However, current SASE Services do not list prices on the website and require contacting the company or a partner for a quote.
• VMware Horizon offers a digital workspace that can provide ZTNA features. However, this product is designed to integrate with other VMware solutions and does not appear to work as a turn-key solution.
• Zscaler delivers a cloud-based ZTNA solution by routing all traffic through its cloud filters for authorization, inspection, and control. While some pricing can be found in the AWS marketplace, IT managers generally need to contact Zscaler for pricing.

Zero Trust Buying Considerations

As with all IT needs, zero trust can be implemented in many different ways. ZTNA will likely be one of the easiest methods to start adopting zero trust and organizations with constrained resources will seek vendors that provide easy adoption with minimal IT labor for support and implementation.

We analyzed many different ZTNA companies and only eight companies could be verified to provide a low-cost solution that could be implemented quickly. These solutions likely will satisfy the needs of any company with an emergency need or limited resources; however, organizations should investigate their options thoroughly before making a decision.

Glossary of Common Zero Trust Acronyms

When dealing with new technologies, vendors take short cuts and pummel potential customers with an endless barrage of acronyms. For those who want to understand these offerings, it helps to review these acronyms for clarity.

AD = Active Directory = The Microsoft-developed user management database for Windows domains.

ADC = Active Directory Controller = A server hosting and managing AD

API = Application Programming Interface = A software interface using common connectors between different software applications.

App = Application abbreviated

AWS = Amazon Web Services = the cloud services and infrastructure developed and hosted by Amazon

AV = Anti-Virus = Endpoint anti-malware software

CASB = Cloud Access Security Broker = On-prem or cloud-based security software that monitors activity and enforces security policies between users and cloud applications.

CDR = Content Disarm & Reconstruction = A security solution that inspect packets and attempts to detect and remove exploits, executable code, and malformed packets.

DaaS = Desktop-as-a-Service = A remote access service in which desktops will be hosted in the cloud and become available when a remote user logs in and launches a session.

DLP = Data Loss Prevention = Software that inspects data use to prevent data theft or loss based upon policies and user identities.

DNS = Domain Name Service (or Server) = The IT service that matches domain name requests with IP addresses. EX: when a user types google.com into a browser a DNS server will look up the name and route the browser request to the associate IP address, perhaps 172.217.204.102. Some sites have multiple IP addresses and local DNS entries may vary.

EDR = Endpoint Detection & Response = Advanced endpoint protection that can proactively take a variety of actions in response to the detection of malware or attacker behavior.

FaaS = Firewall-as-a-Service = Firewalls set up and managed as a service.

HTML5 = Hyper Text Markup Language 5 = The modern HTML version powering the internet.

HTTP = Hypertext Transfer Protocol = Application layer protocol to transmit HTML documents between websites and end users.

HTTPS = HTTP Secure = An encrypted version of HTTP.

HTTP/S = HTTP/HTTPS abbreviated

IaaS = Infrastructure-as-a-Service = A managed service that replace part or all of the IT infrastructure needed by an organization (networks, switches, routers, etc.).

IdP = Identity Provider = An authentication tool that provides a single set of login credentials that verify user identities across multiple platforms, networks, or applications.

IP = Internet Protocol = Often used in the context of an IP address which is the series of numbers that identify any device attached to a network.

IT = Information Technology = The technology associated with data, computers, networks, IT security, etc.

LDAP =Lightweight Directory Access Protocol = A generic term for a user management database that manages identities and access.

MFA = Multi-Factor Authentication = Multiple means by which to verify a user’s identity for authentication purposes.

NAC = Network Access Controller = A solution that inspects users and devices to verify that they have permission to access the network based upon defined policies.

OIDC = OpenID Connect = An open-source authentication protocol and part of the OAuth 2.0 framework.

PAM = Privileged Access Management = Various access control and monitoring tools and technologies used to secure access to critical information and resources.

PII = Personally Identifiable Information = Personal information for customers, employees, etc. While the definition is broad, most organizations primarily are concerned with regulated PII such as social security numbers, credit card numbers, and healthcare information.

RBI = Remote Browser Isolation = A secure browser that effectively puts a web browser and hosts it in a container on the device hosting the browser.

SaaS = Software-as-a-Service = Software licensed on a month-by-month basis typically installed and centrally managed by the software company in the cloud.

SAML = Security Assertion Markup Language = A standard used by security domains to exchange authentication and authorization identities. SAML 2.0 is the current version.

SASE = Secure Access Service Edge = A security framework developed by Gartner that converts networks and their security into cloud-delivered platforms.

SDP = Software Defined Perimeter = A network perimeter defined by software instead of wires and networking equipment.

SIEM = Security Information and Event Management = Security tool used to gather alerts and logs for investigation and analysis.

SLA = Service Level Agreement = Determines the level of service between a vendor and a customer; agreements often center on availability and reliability.

SMS = Short Message Service = A text messaging protocol

SSE = Secure Services Edge = A Gartner defined product category for cloud-based security to create safe access to websites, SaaS, and other applications.

SSO = Single Sign On = An authentication scheme that creates a trusted identity that can be passed on to other applications or websites without additional authentication.

SWG = Secure Web Gateway = A networking tool that enforces corporate acceptable use policies and protects users from web-based threats.

TLS = Transport Layer Security = A cryptographic protocol to provide secure communication over a computer network. It is incorporated into various other protocols (email, HTTPS, etc.) and replaced Secure Sockets Layer (SSL).

UEBA = User and Entity Behavior Analytics = Technology that analyzes user behavior for signs of anomalies or malicious actions.

UEM = Unified Endpoint Management = Technologies that secure and manage devices and operating systems from a single command console.

VDI = Virtual Desktop Infrastructure = Similar to DaaS, this technology provides desktops for remote access staff.

VPN = Virtual Public Network = A remote access protocol that creates an encrypted connection between an endpoint and a network. 

ZTA = Zero Trust Architecture = IT infrastructure that embraces zero-trust principles.

ZTNA = Zero Trust Network Access = IT Networks (specifically) that embrace zero-trust principles.

Read next: Deploying SASE: What You Should Know to Secure Your Network

The post Top 8 Zero Trust Network Access Products for Small Businesses appeared first on IT Business Edge.

A cloud security solution maintains data integrity, confidentiality, and availability. It also manages authentication and authorization policies across hybrid deployments of public and private clouds. These solutions help organizations comply with industry regulations and internal policies and procedures.

Also read: Cloud Security Woes Give Rise to Integrated CNAP Platforms

How to Choose a Cloud Security Provider

A cloud security company can provide access to many resources that are critical to any business’s health. The best way to ensure you have a secure cloud environment is to enlist an organization that understands your industry and your needs as a client.

Cloud security vendors promise to protect your valuable data, but how do you know which one is best for your needs? Here are five factors to help determine if a cloud security provider can protect your cloud data.

Top-notch data protection

The first thing you need to look at when evaluating a cloud security provider is their data protection abilities. Ensure they have all your bases covered, including backups and offsite storage solutions in case of emergencies or natural disasters – or ransomware.

Ask about their contingency plans and make sure they’re up-to-date and well thought out. Are there any situations where customers would be without access to their information? What kind of customer support is available? These are some of the questions you should ask before choosing a cloud security provider.

Multi-cloud, misconfigurations and more

Cloud services and SaaS apps tend to be pretty good at protecting data; cloud security services are largely about protecting your data between your environment and the service. There are many options to consider, like workload protection, configuration monitoring, application and network security and performance monitoring, support for multi-cloud and hybrid environments, and more. Be sure to get the protection you need.

Resiliency

Another key factor to consider when choosing a cloud security provider is how much redundancy and resiliency they have built in. Do they use high availability software so your data isn’t lost in an emergency? Do servers failover so nothing is lost? What is their track record on uptime?

Consider pricing

When looking at different cloud security providers, consider their rates and contracts. Some may charge more for 24/7 phone support than others. Also, some companies may offer more affordable long-term contracts, while others may only provide month-to-month agreements. 

Look at their customer reviews

Before signing any agreement with a new company, take some time to read reviews from other customers who have used them in the past. You can better understand what to expect when working with them. 

Check for certifications and qualifications

Check if your potential cloud security provider has certifications and qualifications that confirm they’re up to the task of securing your data. It’s also important to note whether or not they are compliant with privacy regulations and standards like HIPAA or PCI-DSS. Many organizations require compliance as part of their contract terms.

Also read: Cloud Security Best Practices

Top 10 Cloud Security Solution Providers

The best cloud security solutions help keep your data safe from internal and external threats while making sharing information with customers and employees easier. As more businesses adopt cloud technology, choosing a provider that can meet all of your needs is essential. Here are some top cloud security solution providers to include in your research.

Check Point

The Check Point CloudGuard platform is a cloud-based service designed to help enterprises protect their data from advanced threats, detect zero-day attacks and stop them before they spread across a network. In addition, it offers full visibility into all traffic going in and out of an organization’s network.

Check Point’s networking, and security solutions offer integrated protection against traditional and emerging threats. CloudGuard makes sure that organizations’ data is protected while enabling secure migration to and from public cloud services.

The solution also helps secure hybrid clouds by providing visibility into all workloads across physical, virtual and cloud environments. This unique approach enables enterprises to control their network infrastructure, whether on-premises or in a public or private cloud environment.

With CloudGuard’s single unified console, IT administrators can centrally manage security policies across multiple cloud infrastructures without worrying about moving resources between them or maintaining multiple management consoles.

CloudPassage Halo

A key part of any cloud security strategy should be visibility into cloud apps and workloads running in virtual environments. CloudPassage’s Halo, a SaaS solution, constantly scans data storage repositories, detects unauthorized access attempts, and alerts security teams.

Halo also collects evidence needed to take action against threats so they can be stopped before they cause damage. The solution supports AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), IBM Cloud, OpenStack and VMware.

Prisma Cloud – Palo Alto Networks

Palo Alto Networks’ Prisma Cloud is a cloud-native security platform built to deliver automated, continuous protection of cloud-native applications. The solution leverages machine learning and behavioral analysis to identify threats and provide deep visibility into user activity. Using an agentless approach, it supports AWS Lambda functions, serverless containers, and Kubernetes clusters with policy-based enforcement of security best practices.

Prisma Cloud can be used as a standalone product or as part of Palo Alto Networks’ Next-Generation Security Platform.

Symantec cloud workload protection

Symantec’s Cloud Workload Protection (CWP) offers strong protection against malware and other threats. CWP is available as a standalone product or can be purchased as part of Symantec’s suite of security products. The software is installed on each workload instance in your public cloud environment to protect them from cyberattacks.

It automates security for public cloud workloads, enabling business process improvement, reduced risk, and cost savings. Additionally, it protects your data and applications by continuously monitoring all activity within an instance. If suspicious activity is detected, CWP blocks access to compromised files and alerts you so that you can take action.

The platform also monitors network traffic between workloads and services, providing additional protection against external attacks. By leveraging automation technology, CWP works with your existing IT infrastructure to deliver consistent security across public clouds.

Threat Stack

Threat Stack’s cloud security platform provides all cloud workloads visibility, monitoring, and alerting capabilities. Threat Stack allows you to track the change in applications over time, map vulnerabilities and misconfigurations, monitor application performance and security controls, and automatically identify changes in your environment indicative of an attack.

The solution uses supervised learning technology to detect suspicious behavior on your cloud infrastructure. Once deployed, Threat Stack can help customers understand how their public clouds perform at a granular level through continuous analysis of data from log events and system metadata.

Qualys

Qualys’ cloud security platform offers various services, including vulnerability management, web application scanning, network security monitoring and log analysis. Qualys can also be integrated with other cloud-based applications to ensure that all applications in your infrastructure are secure.

The platform offers a unified environment that provides visibility into security and compliance issues for your entire organization—and it’s also easy to use. It monitors containers, endpoints, mobile devices and virtual machines, making it one of the best solutions for companies looking to build or update their security strategy.

Datadog

This cloud-monitoring tool offers analytics, monitoring, alerting and app integration, giving you complete control over your data infrastructure. Datadog provides dashboards with visualizations of data flow so that you can quickly spot security problems as they happen. Alerts can be sent via email or Slack when key performance indicators are breached.

App integrations offer more detail into traffic patterns to help you optimize data usage across your infrastructure. Datadog helps you identify potential threats to your network before they become a problem. With features like automatic log correlation, cross-platform support and multi-cloud capabilities, Datadog is an excellent choice for businesses looking to protect their data cost-effectively. It’s also a great option if you need visibility into multiple applications on multiple platforms.

Fortinet

Fortinet provides cloud engineers complete visibility into all cloud resources and a single platform to enforce policies across public, private and hybrid clouds. With a comprehensive set of security services that can be deployed across any environment, customers can protect their infrastructure from advanced threats.

Fortinet provides Cloud Security Hub, an integrated solution that protects workloads running in both physical and virtual environments. This solution helps organizations monitor, detect and respond to cyberattacks in real-time by integrating multiple layers of security technology, including firewall, antivirus, intrusion prevention system (IPS), next-generation firewall (NGFW) and unified threat management (UTM).

It is fully scalable to meet growing demands as a business grows. It also includes automated deployment capabilities for faster provisioning without affecting performance or causing downtime.

Cisco

Cisco is one of the most well-known providers of cloud security. Their solutions protect your data, applications, and systems across all cloud environments. Cisco offers a wide range of cloud security solutions, including Cisco Umbrella for secure cloud access, Cisco Cloudlock for protection of SaaS applications, Cloud Email Security for blocking and remediating email threats, Stealthwatch Cloud for monitoring IaaS instances, and AppDynamics for application performance monitoring.

Enterprises can choose these solutions or combine them into their custom solution. Cisco’s core focus is protecting its customers’ networks from cyberattacks regardless of where they are hosted–the company offers support for public, private, and hybrid clouds.

CrowdStrike

CrowdStrike offers cloud security platforms that help organizations identify, investigate and respond to cyber attacks within their network. The platform lets users monitor network traffic, detect malware and intrusions across endpoints, and quickly investigate attacks.

It also provides real-time intelligence for better incident response and threat prevention. In addition, it offers endpoint protection capabilities for laptops, desktops and mobile devices, as well as data loss prevention (DLP) for cloud environments. CrowdStrike features a machine learning engine, enabling its products to adapt to new threats and automatically reduce false positives.

Research Your Options Carefully

This list of top cloud security providers isn’t exhaustive, but it will give you a good idea of the features you need to protect your environment.

Once you’ve chosen a cloud security provider, test their services by conducting regular audits and tests. Not only will this help protect your organization against outside threats, but it can also ensure that your current service is performing correctly. Although most providers offer free trials or demo accounts, it may be worth investing in additional testing to ensure your data will be safe.

Read next: Top Cybersecurity Companies & Service Providers

The post Best Cloud Security Solutions appeared first on IT Business Edge.

Though often used during the development of a new software system to aid in analysis and planning, data flow diagrams give unparalleled insight into every instance where data is potentially vulnerable.

Anatomy of a Data Flow Diagram

Data flow diagrams visually detail data inputs, data outputs, storage points, and the routes between each destination.

Components of a Data Flow Diagram

• Entities – Show the source and destination for the data. They are generally represented by a rectangle.
• Process – The tasks performed on the data is referred to as a process. Circles in a data flow diagram indicate a process.
• Data Storage – Data is generally stored in databases, which are seen in data flow diagrams inside a rectangle with the smaller sides missing.
• Data Flow – Displays the movement of data with the help of lines and arrows.

Also read: Unifying Data Management with Data Fabrics

Logical Vs. Physical Data Flow Diagrams

There are two primary types of data flow diagrams, each with a specific function and designed to inform a different target audience.

Logical data flow diagrams

Logical data flow diagrams illustrate how data flows in a system, with a focus on the business processes and workflows. With a focus on how the business operates at a high level, logical data flow diagrams are a great starting point, providing the outline needed to create more detailed physical data flow diagrams.

Benefits of logical data flow diagrams:

• Provide an overview of business information with a focus on business activities
• Less complex and faster to develop
• Less subject to change because business functions and workflows are normally stable processes
• Easier to understand for end-users and non-technical stakeholders
• Identify redundancies and bottlenecks

Physical data flow diagrams

Physical data flow diagrams provide detailed implementation information. They may reference current systems and how they operate, or may project the desired end-state of a proposed system to be implemented.

Physical data flow diagrams offer a number of benefits:

• Sequences of activities can be identified
• All steps for processing data can be described
• Show controls or validating input data
• Outline all points where data is accessed, updated, retrieved, and backed up
• Identify which processes are manual, and which are automated
• Provide detailed filenames, report names, and database field names
• Lists all software and hardware participating in the flow of data, including any security-related appliances

Also read: Top Data Quality Tools & Software

Strategies For Developing Data Flow Diagrams

Avoid feeling overwhelmed by the creation of a data flow diagram by following a few simple strategies.

• Begin with lists of all business activities, vendors, ancillary systems, and data stores that need to be included.
• Take each list and identify the data elements needed, received, or generated.
• Always include steps that initiate changes to data or require decisions be made, but avoid creating a flowchart (for example, identify that the user needs to accept or reject an incoming order or reservation, but don’t break it down by ‘if yes, then’ and ‘if no, then’).
• For complex systems, it may be helpful to start by adding data stores to the diagram and working outward to each of the processes involved – it is likely that single data inputs are used or accessed repeatedly.
• Ensure that there are no freestanding activities – only include processes that have at least one data flow in or out.
• Review labels to be sure they are concise but meaningful.
• Try to limit each data flow diagram to a maximum of 5-7 processes, creating child diagrams where appropriate or required.
• Consider numbering the processes to make the diagram easier to review and understand.
• A successful data flow diagram can be understood by anyone, without the need for prior knowledge of the included processes.

Using A Data Flow Diagram To Mitigate Security Threats

The best way to protect data from security threats is to be proactive instead of reactive.

Data flow diagrams can support cybersecurity initiatives in many ways:

• Identify when data is at rest and in transit.
• Visualize when data is shared with external vendor systems.
• Know which users and systems have access to which data, at which time.
• Enable the notification of affected users, systems, and vendors in the event of a security breach or threat.
• Understand the schedule of automated processes to know when data is being offloaded or consumed.

To best support the mitigation of security threats, data flow diagrams should include all risk assessments (corporate governance, external vendors and ancillary systems, and key business processes), complete inventory listings (hardware and software systems), and all user roles that have and require access to data at every point.

For targeted threat modeling, it may be helpful to create additional data flow diagrams to support a specific use case. One example would be a diagram that looks at authentication separate and apart from the workflows and processes that access will be granted to.

Comprehensive data flow diagrams ultimately show where the systems make data vulnerable. Threat modeling best practices generally consider data safest when at rest, so look to points in data flow diagrams where data is sent or received to ensure security and integrity are maintained.

A Living Part of System Documentation

Don’t forget that data may move through systems and processes in non-technical ways as well. Paper-based or non-technical business processes where information is gathered or stored should also be included in data flow diagrams.

Data flow diagrams should become a living part of system documentation and be thought of as a source of truth. As systems and processes are updated, it’s important that the consequences to data flow or data integrity are considered and reflected in any existing diagrams.

Read next: Best Data Governance Tools & Software

The post Identify Where Your Information Is Vulnerable Using Data Flow Diagrams appeared first on IT Business Edge.

Similarly, it wasn’t too long ago that health records were kept on physical shelves in thick folders. But today they’re in the form of Electronic Health Records (EHRs), and patients can easily access them via online platforms or Internet of Things (IoT) devices.

While this easy accessibility and abundance of data benefits patients, it’s even more useful for cybercriminals. It has been recently reported that nearly 90% of healthcare institutions faced a data breach in the past two years. According to Statista, the average cost of a healthcare data breach is over $9 million.

Also read: Top Cybersecurity Companies & Service Providers

Why is Healthcare the No. 1 Target of Cyber Criminals?

Today, healthcare information is even more valuable than financial data. Therefore, the exposure of an individual’s healthcare data is a critical privacy risk and has far-reaching personal consequences.

In case of a healthcare data breach, the patient or an individual might experience embarrassment due to health conditions or personal issues, and the breached data might be used for illegal activities like blackmailing, identity theft, and fraud.

Unfortunately, because of a number of cybersecurity weaknesses, breaching healthcare data can be a relatively simple job for hackers.

6 Cybersecurity Challenges of the Healthcare Industry

As new technology and compliance regulations arrive on the scene, every industry faces new cybersecurity threats to personal data. Unfortunately for healthcare, there are many reasons why it’s become the Number One target of cybercriminals. Here we look into the six significant healthcare cybersecurity challenges and solutions in today’s digital age.

Phishing

Recent research shows that phishing is the most common cybercrime in the healthcare industry. In a typical phishing attack, users are tricked into disclosing passwords or other relevant personal information. Emails are the most common platform for this cybercrime. For example, a hacker sends an email to a healthcare employee stating that their password is no longer valid and sends a link to reset their password. If the employee is not knowledgeable about phishing or lacks proper training, he may follow the link and reset his password – this is all a hacker needs to put a healthcare institution at risk.

Also read: Best Cybersecurity Training & Courses for Employees

The IoT challenge

The healthcare industry has quickly adopted IoT devices and conducted massive IoT innovations over the past decade. But unfortunately, cybersecurity innovations lag behind IoT innovations and adoption. Although positives have been seen from IoT adoption in the healthcare industry, cybersecurity issues are rising.

Hackers take advantage of IoT providers’ rush to roll out devices without considering the cybersecurity implications. Therefore, with numerous IoT devices circulating in the market and health organizations, hackers easily exploit their vulnerabilities.

Also read: Best IoT Device Management Platforms & Software

Distributed denial-of-service

Hackers devise distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks to flood a business organizations’ network with internet traffic to the point where the business ceases to operate normally. DDoS attacks are usually carried out along with malware or ransomware attacks (which will be discussed later). In sophisticated DDoS attacks, hackers fill a network with massive volumes of data from millions of hacked computers.

Therefore, DDoS attacks are hazardous to healthcare providers who need access to a faster network to provide efficient patient care, including email communication, filling prescriptions, and accessing and retrieving health records.

See also: 5 Best Practices for Mitigating DDoS Attacks

Ransomware attacks

A ransomware attack is a sort of malware attack devised by a cybercriminal to infect systems, devices, and files to gain a ransom from the victim. Most common ransomware attacks come as requests to click on a malicious link, view a malware ad (malvertising), or respond to phishing emails.

Ransomware slows down or ceases business operations until a ransom has been paid to the hacker. Untrained employees may fall into these traps, and it can cost a health organization lots of time and money. A health organization could have used this time and money to invest in new technology or improve patient care standards.

Also read: How to Prevent & Respond to Ransomware

Data breaches

Protected Health Information (PHI) contains personal data, including Social Security numbers, contact information, test results, diagnoses, and prescriptions. There is indeed an active black market for PHI.

So hackers are interested in PHI because an individual’s health and diagnosis history cannot be simply deleted or hidden like credit card numbers. Once hackers obtain this information, they can use it to get loans, medication, insurance claims, or set up credit lines—everything under fake identities.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) states that healthcare organizations must practice adequate data security measures in collecting and distributing PHI. But in reality, most organizations fail to update protocols, implement security measures, and adequately staff their IT departments.

Unauthorized disclosure

The unauthorized access or disclosure of PHI is equally dangerous and damaging as a ransomware attack. PHI exposure results from the intentional and accidental negligence of providers and employees.

The South Florida Community Care Network’s case is a real-world example of unauthorized disclosure. In September 2021, the organization announced that a former employee had been emailing internal documents containing PHI to their personal email inbox for several months.

While some of these instances arise from malicious intent, in most cases, these incidents stem from negligence or a lack of proper cybersecurity measures.

Tackling Healthcare Cybersecurity Challenges

Knowledge is power in the digital Information Age. Proper knowledge also plays a significant role in tackling cybersecurity challenges. Let’s look at some of the ways a healthcare organization can improve its cybersecurity efforts to ensure proper management and protection of sensitive data.

Create a cybersecurity culture

It pays well to build a cybersecurity culture into the structure of a health organization. Activities to create this culture include continuous ongoing cybersecurity training and educational programs for each employee that emphasize their role in protecting PHI.

The protection of devices

Since healthcare organizations are undergoing digital transformation and becoming more tech-savvy, their dependence on smartphones, tablets, and other IoT devices has risen. Therefore, these organizations must follow cybersecurity measures like data encryption to ensure data security.

Install antivirus application

Antivirus software enhances network and data security; however, these applications should be constantly updated. Constant updating is essential for a health organization’s protection against ever-changing cyber threats.

A zero-trust policy is the best policy

A health organization shouldn’t make the PHI readily available to anyone. Instead, always exercise control over the network access to PHI under a zero-trust policy. This policy grants access to PHI only to those who view and use it within the limits of their daily work schedules.

See the Top Zero Trust Security Solutions & Software

Maintain strong passwords

This may sound silly but creating and regularly updating strong passwords plays a vital role in an organization’s cybersecurity. A typical strong password is 12 to 14 characters long and should be a combination of numbers, symbols, and upper case and lower-case letters. Not only that, employees must understand the relevance of setting up strong passwords and the difference between strong and weak passwords.

Strong Cybersecurity in Healthcare Demands Expertise

In precisely the same way a health organization cleans up a human health system and helps build strong immunity, several third-party healthcare cybersecurity solutions can help your health organization in various ways. Although you can implement cybersecurity measures, it would be challenging to maintain strong cybersecurity without external yet additional support in a constantly evolving cyber threat landscape.

In addition, an external healthcare solution also improves your organization’s cyber health as it continuously monitors third-party vendor and IoT platforms, safeguards PHI, and remains in compliance with the evolving regulatory standards of the healthcare industry.

See the Best Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs)

The post Healthcare Cybersecurity: The Challenges of Protecting Patient Data appeared first on IT Business Edge.

As with traditional ethics, data ethics exist to protect individuals, groups, and society. But where ethics have historically focused on morality and an individual’s behavior, data ethics focus on technology, its potential and its misuse.

See our AZBEE award-winning article: AI Suffers from Bias—But It Doesn’t Have To

What is Data Ethics?

Data ethics are the guidelines that govern how we handle data for customers and society as a whole. These are best practices that should be followed by every business to ensure that privacy, security, and transparency standards are met.

At a time when even the largest tech companies are running into controversy over data algorithms, how we handle data touches on issues of regulatory compliance, data privacy, and fairness. How we handle data has the potential to affect the reputation of our companies and ourselves.

Why Should Companies Care about Data Ethics?

Because today’s consumers are digital natives, they expect your company to be just as digitally savvy as they are. If you collect and use their data in unethical or manipulative ways, they’ll write you off when they find out.

Virtually every organization that processes data—every bank, insurance company, retailer, health care provider, social media company and government agency—has a stake in how its customers’ personal information is collected and used. And if people don’t trust an organization to respect their privacy and personal data, they can do business elsewhere.

Bad press is bad press. There’s no way around it: If you come under fire for mishandling customer data, people will talk about it online and elsewhere, which means your brand reputation could suffer even more than whatever penalty comes along with violating data laws.

In today’s highly competitive marketplaces, companies must work hard to earn and maintain their customer’s trust. That means being honest about collecting and using data and taking steps to protect your customers’ sensitive information from unauthorized access or misuse. It also means giving them control over their own data.

See the Top GRC Platforms & Tools

What Are the Important Aspects of Data Ethics?

When you collect and store data, it becomes your responsibility. This is why companies have a legal obligation to protect user information. There are also business benefits to keeping your customer’s trust; customers who think a company can be trusted will be more likely to return, buy more, and recommend it to others.

Data ethics matter so much—they establish a baseline of trust between you and your users. The most important aspects of data ethics are ownership, transparency, consent, privacy, compliance, and openness. These components define what good data ethics look like in practice.

Ownership

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) essentially says that individuals own their data. As an entrepreneur or manager, it is crucial to keep track of these rules and regulations. A simple way to ensure compliance with these regulations is by implementing an ethical approach when collecting data from users, particularly through websites or mobile apps.

Transparency

Consumers want full transparency when they share their personal information with businesses.

Transparency should always be at the forefront of our minds when designing any type of product. Consumers must know exactly how their data will be used and which third parties might see it. They need to know precisely how long that information is kept, what security measures are being taken, etc.

Consent

Digital consumer rights are not only applicable offline but also online. If a company wishes to collect and store user data, it must ensure they obtain consent from users before doing so. There needs to be an opt-in element in place; you can’t just assume someone wants your service because they use your product or visit your site. You have to get permission from them first—this is referred to as informed consent. 

Privacy

Privacy is about making sure your customers understand how their personal information will be used. This includes telling them who has access to their data, where it’s stored, how long it’s stored for, and what security measures are in place to protect it. The most important thing here is transparency; there shouldn’t be any hidden terms or clauses that could potentially violate a customer’s trust.

Compliance

This refers to ensuring your business complies with all relevant laws and regulations regarding data protection. In other words, you must ensure all processes comply with GDPR rules and regulations, as well as other applicable laws like COPPA (Children Online Privacy Protection Act ), FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act), HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), GLBA (Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act), etc.

Openness

Openness regarding data ethics means giving control back to users. Many people claim that a key component of ethical behavior is empowerment, specifically giving control back to those whose data is being collected. Just as providing clear ownership, transparency, and consent will build trust between you and your customers, empowering them by allowing them full control over their personal information builds even more credibility.

Also read: Why GDPR Must Be an Integral Part of Your GRC Framework

​​A Framework for Applying Data Ethics

Today’s companies, government agencies and individuals face complex ethical issues in data collection, analysis and disclosure. What standards and principles should guide entities seeking to collect personal data? How can they be applied when addressing specific use cases?

It is important to understand what constitutes data ethics to answer these questions. There are two main components that make up data ethics:

• The underlying philosophical or theoretical foundation (or frameworks) used to determine right and wrong behavior
• The actual business practices that follow from those foundations

Enterprises can apply data ethics using frameworks such as fair information practices (FIP), privacy by design (PbD), fairness, transparency & accountability (FT&A), trust framework for Big Data analytics, etc. These models are not mutually exclusive but rather complement each other. For example, FIP could be considered a foundational component, while PbD guides how to operationalize those foundational principles into day-to-day activities.

This framework is designed to help you think through three core aspects of data ethics:

Personal data collection

Enterprises must consider whether or not it is appropriate to collect personal information about their customers. If so, what types of information should be collected? When does customer consent become necessary? Do you need explicit consent, or does implied consent suffice under certain circumstances? What steps should you take to ensure that your customers understand how and why they’re being asked for their information? And finally, how do you determine when it’s no longer necessary to retain that data?

Data use and disclosure 

Once an enterprise has obtained its customer’s personal data, how will it use and disclose that information? When is it appropriate to share that data with third parties? Are there limits on who can access or view a customer’s personal information within your organization? What about when you transfer that data to a third-party service provider (e.g., cloud storage)? Should you anonymize or pseudonymize your customers’ data before sharing it with others? And finally, what steps should be taken to ensure that your customers understand how their data is being used?

Access and transparency

Finally, we must consider whether or not our enterprises have provided reasonable access to their customers so they can learn more about how we are using their personal data. If so, do our entities offer sufficient transparency such that people can meaningfully exercise those rights? Does our privacy policy contain clear and concise language that allows consumers to understand what we collect from them and why? Do we provide opportunities for people to delete certain pieces of information from our systems if they want to erase them from our databases permanently?

These three areas (Personal Data Collection, Use & Disclosure, and Access & Transparency) are essential components of any data ethics framework. They also serve as a good starting point for your enterprise to begin thinking through these issues.

Best Data Ethics Practices

These are the principles that should guide your development and practice of data ethics.

Establish clear policies and procedures

You need written policies and procedures for protecting consumer data, including what types of consumer information you collect, how long you keep it, who has access to it, and what steps will be taken when there’s a breach of security or unauthorized release of consumer information.

Get employee buy-in

Developing and implementing your policies requires involvement from all levels of management and frontline employees. This may seem like a big job, but having a formal process for reviewing data protection policies and updating them regularly helps keep everyone on board.

Make sure your IT systems are secure

There are many ways to safeguard your computer systems against malware and hacking attempts. Hire a reputable computer security firm to regularly audit your systems, follow their recommendations, and ensure employees know how to spot potential threats.

Monitor activity closely

Make sure you know where personal data is stored, whether online or offline, and take steps to prevent accidental loss or theft of that information.

Encourage consumers to provide informed consent

When obtaining consent from consumers, clearly explain why you’re collecting their personal information and what you plan to do with it. Communicate any risks associated with providing that information and offer choices (such as opting out) whenever possible.

Be transparent about changes in policy

If your company changes its data collection or usage policies, inform customers immediately so they can make informed decisions about doing business with you going forward.

Maintaining Customers’ Trust

As you implement a data ethics program within your organization, it’s important to remember that there is no one-size-fits-all approach. What works well for one enterprise may not be suitable for another. This is why it’s critical to determine what works best in your specific context and then develop an appropriate plan of action based on those findings. The trust of your customers depends on it.

Read next: Using Responsible AI to Push Digital Transformation

The post Why Data Ethics are Important for Your Business appeared first on IT Business Edge.

This conversation can’t happen soon enough. A growing concern of mine is that automobile companies don’t yet seem to fully understand the risk they are taking with platforms that aren’t secure enough for products tied to human transportation and safety.

Having someone hack your phone or PC is bad, but having someone hack your car could be deadly. So when the industry is talking about putting apps in cars, safety and security should be a far higher priority for many of the automotive OEMs than it seems to be.

Granted, many of these companies are using, or planning to use, QNX for the operation of their cars, relegating Android and Linux to the entertainment functions of the vehicle. But this is not universal, and that could lead to some unnecessary accidents and liability for car makers who try to cut corners or attempt to build their own platforms without the necessary software background and experience.

 Tesla: A Cautionary Tale

Tesla was largely the pioneer of both electric and self-driving technology on the road – and a significant number of people have been injured or died as a result. On the positive side, Tesla did have a higher level of technological understanding than the older car companies, but on the negative side, they didn’t seem to take certain risks seriously enough, which resulted in unnecessary customer deaths.

Generally, it is considered bad form to kill your customers. However, over time, cars have gotten safer and far more capable. One example I witnessed early on was how they trusted this new technology too much and didn’t design good workarounds when it failed. Stories of people getting locked into the back of Tesla Xs were common. I had a friend whose Tesla’s software crashed with his newborn baby in the locked car in 115-degree weather. Fortunately, they were able to get to the child through the manual release in the Tesla trunk, but had they left the child in the car, or pets, and this crash had occurred (so the air conditioning shut off) the outcome would have been far more dire.

Same with Tesla’s Autopilot. The product name implied self-driving ability, but the technology wasn’t, and still isn’t, at that level. This resulted in a number of unnecessary deaths and a request from Consumer Reports to at least change the name (which Tesla refused to do), to prevent those deaths. NHTSA was not amused. 

Tesla is functioning as an early warning system for the rest of the industry, and I’m worried that one or more of the other car companies’ decisions to not use industry standard hardware and software could have similar tragic results.

Also read: 6 Emerging Technologies to Watch from the Current Gartner Hype Cycle

Securing Next-gen Cars

Since its pivot away from smartphones around a decade ago, BlackBerry has been a security-focused vendor with interests that cover government, healthcare, finance, defense and automotive markets. This heavy focus on security, both in terms of hardware and software, makes it uniquely capable of addressing what will likely be the biggest exposures coming in autonomous cars, and especially flying cars (which may be an even greater need at some point because if a flying car’s software crashes, you probably won’t survive the result).

While BlackBerry’s QNX platform is widely penetrated in the automotive market, and it partners with other companies that also help advance this market, like NVIDIA and Qualcomm, QNX isn’t as universally used as NVIDIA’s Omniverse simulation platform, but it should be.

In the end, when we choose those future cars, it may make more sense for our safety and those we love if we limit our choices to cars that are designed to be secure and run QNX for car operations, so we don’t become a footnote in another article on bad automotive OEM behavior like those about Tesla’s tragedies.

Also read: 5G and AI: Ushering in New Tech Innovation

The Automotive Future Needs to Be Secure

We are anticipating a growing wave of electric autonomous cars and flying cars. These vehicles will require a massive focus on security to ensure they don’t become rolling disasters waiting to happen.

Of the vendors I cover, BlackBerry is the most focused on this problem, and its QNX platform is the most secure automotive OS on the market. Here’s hoping the car companies do what they did with NVIDIA Omniverse and recognize that, when it comes to safety, the best product, not the cheapest, may turn out to be the least expensive in the long run.

Read next: Blockchain Hackers Cost Crypto Ecosystems More Than $1B in Q1 2022

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