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Alyson Behr

Alyson Behr is a tech writer, editor, analyst and content consultant. With roots in testing, industry competitive analysis and product reviews, she has written for numerous IT publications. Alyson founded LabRat Magazine, the first publication devoted to the network test and measurement community. When’s she not at her computer, she’s an avid pilot and equestrian.

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Latest stories by Alyson

Three worker health wins for a successful return to the office

  • Leadership
  • min read
    • There's no hope of returning to 'business as usual' anytime soon – Europe's economy is not forecast to return to pre-pandemic levels until 2022. And the pandemic's economic impact has affected countries as unevenly as their recovery prospects. Wherever you are, government health policy plays a critical role in the national recovery and how and when businesses can open their doors. All businesses face hard decisions on how to protect employee health best. If you're in the market for innovative options, here are three ideas to consider. Clearing the office air Advice in many countries says building managers should consider installing plexiglass between workstations and in front of high traffic areas like counters. Dr. Niket Sonpal, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine at New York's Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine, points out it's not easy to create optimal working conditions. Space is also an issue. "There are a lot of bottlenecks when it comes to entering a corporate building. When you get to the front desk, you have to scan in or show ID, so social distancing gets diminished." Even when circumstances are not ideal, there's a lot businesses can do. Organizations who own their building could upgrade the heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems to hospital-grade standards. High-efficiency filters and Ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI) disinfection can limit virus spread, although it's challenging to add UVGI to an existing system. Air filtering can be highly effective with the right type of filter. High-efficiency particulate absorbing (HEPA) air filters can capture over 99 percent of virus particles. These filters, used in labs and industrial clean rooms, need higher air pressure than typical commercial systems. Using the Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value (MERV) scale to measure filter effectiveness, trade bodies like the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers recommend air filters with a MERV 13 rating or higher. The World Health Organization (WHO) also recommends some less costly steps to thwart coronavirus spread. But in its November 2020 report, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control notes many countries recommend building owners run their HVAC systems continuously, including evenings and weekends. Reduced working hours suit businesses and staff If your business is facing having to let some staff go, make sure you've considered all the options first – for your company's good and the wellbeing of your staff. German businesses have been encouraged to reduce workers' hours rather than making them redundant, with the government making up 60 percent of their pay for their lost hours. People are not forced onto welfare, and employers can avoid expensive, time-consuming hiring when they restart operations. Olaf Scholz, Germany's Financial Minister and Vice-Chancellor, described the scheme, known as Kurzabeit, as "Germany's greatest economic and socio-political act." While most countries don't have this kind of state support available, businesses could still consider whether they can keep employees on the payroll but reduce their hours. On top of not having to re-hire when business picks up, Employees in challenging, salaried jobs on average wish they had the option to work fewer hours. Reduced working hours are also linked with higher productivity and improved employee psychological wellbeing. Educate carefully around vaccines and testing As vaccine distribution rolls out globally, WHO and national health organizations like the US's Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) decide who goes first. According to Dr. Sonpal, "A vaccine doesn't mean that we're in the clear because we don't know for how long it's going to be effective." Organizations may be able to sponsor COVID-19 vaccination clinics, like some sponsor flu vaccination clinics. Sonpal warns, "When people get the vaccine, they need to be educated that this doesn't mean you can run around without a mask. You're not protected until you have a concentration of antibodies and their protective properties have kicked in. It's going to have to be well planned and carefully crafted for every corporate structure that's going to do this." Sonpal is not keen on using tests to determine whether someone should be allowed back to work. "The problem with tests is that it's all dependent upon risks, exposures and time. It's very pricey and not accurate. Tests are useful to determine who's positive. However, if you're negative, that doesn't necessarily mean that you weren't exposed and are not incubating. Continuous testing doesn't make sense." Finding the best of both worlds Sonpal thinks bringing workers back requires a hybrid model with people working in the office and remotely. In the building, take temperatures and have strict screening in which workers are asked to verify they don't have any symptoms, haven't been exposed to anybody with symptoms and haven't traveled. He goes on to say, "Prudence is key. 2020 has shown people can work remotely. To bring people back may seem like a good idea to get the gears of industry moving, but it could also cause more damage to the business." Be conservative and remain vigilant, he advises. Scale things back and accept that for now, we still don't have all the answers.
services multi cloud

Multicloud may be your cloud strategy’s silver lining

  • Cloud and security
  • min read
    • No one expects to hear bonfire-roasted undersea cables were part of what inspired University of Hawai'i's interest in using the cloud. Galvanized steel conduits come out of the ground right where Honolulu's homeless population tends to light fires. More than once, the undersea cables have ended up cooked, leaving Honolulu with a quarter of its usual bandwidth. It's a novel problem, but the benefits University of Hawai'i is getting from multicloud are shared widely. More than 80 percent of organizations now use more than one cloud provider, say leading technology researchers Gartner. They describe multicloud as, "bringing multiple cloud services under unified management to serve multiple service models such as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS,) Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS,) and multiple delivery models (public, private.)" Many businesses are testing ways to use multicloud in digital transformation, to reduce risk, avoid getting locked into using one vendor and get more of the services they need. I spoke with Brian Chee, co-host at TWiT: This Week in Tech – a network of nearly 30 tech podcasts and IT Specialist at University of Hawai'i, to find out how and why the university uses multicloud. He shares his advice for those deciding whether it's a good option for their business, or just getting started. Why multicloud? For Chee, it comes down to none of the major cloud providers doing everything they want. For example, since they've been wooing University of Hawai'i, Chee's been considering the value of Google Cloud. But as they've only just started providing infrastructure as a service (IaaS), he couldn't run anything custom on it without a lot of painful retooling. If he were willing to retool, Google Cloud would be economical. They have many and varied data centers globally, making load balancing and failover capability simple. He thought setting up global load balancing (GLB) on Google Cloud was easier than Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure, but that will change, as Microsoft and Amazon invest big in undersea cables. Does multicloud mean chaos? University of Hawai'i has 10 campuses and 30 research institutes. Its IT group acts more like an Internet Service Provider (ISP.) They provide connectivity to the research and instruction units, but departments buy their own equipment and services. Brian says between them, departments use almost all the cloud providers he's heard of. Recently they've started turning the corner and using private cloud. It delivers services through IT infrastructure used only by their organization. About three years ago, they deployed a system based on VMware so they could pool resources and provision systems through a portal. On top of that, Chee says university departments want a hybrid cloud environment. He knows some are experimenting with Microsoft Azure, who has a deal on trial machines for educational institutions. He uses Amazon Web Services' Glacier for data archiving with a failover: An alternative destination if there's disruption on the original transfer method. Getting started with multicloud There's no "one size fits all" solution Multicloud can happen by circumstance rather than design. Kaspersky's Andrey Pozhogin explains: "When changes happen – like a company restructure, merger or acquisition – the IT team are suddenly managing a very different technical infrastructure stack. How to best resolve this is a unique decision based on your needs. There is no cookie-cutter solution." Know your needs from your wants Chee says, start by making two lists, "needs" and "wants." When you test drive, use these to decide where to place workloads. Proof of concept (POC) As they offer deals for test-driving, you should set up test runs with the major cloud service providers. Try to verify the claims in their brag sheets and marketing materials. This is important because all the big players are different. "Too many people just believe salespeople," says Chee. "Independent, unbiased testing is almost non-existent nowadays." Find a cloud-agnostic dashboard Look for a dashboard that gives you one-touch capability on every switch port, several views into the inter-device path and the health of everything connected to it. Switch ports can be physical or virtual, as long as they talk SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol.) Chee says market pressure means vendors are moving their dashboards toward this kind of functionality. Always have security top of your mind Chee thinks security is lagging behind DevOps. "They tend to be separate tools. SecOps hasn't caught up with the DevOps folks or a single pane of glass yet, but they're getting there." He's only heard of one tool, TotalView by PastSolutions, that combines DevOps and SecOps, but expects more are on the way. Reducing multicloud risk People often think trying to set up failover between cloud providers is complex. Not so much anymore, says Chee. "For cloud providers to stay competitive, they've had to develop Application Programming Interface (API) sets to manage and control IaaS and SaaS images remotely." Another good thing to include in your proof of concept. If they don't lead by example, the rest of the company will keep bad habits like weak passwords, using sticky notes and personal web browsing on company equipment. The C-suite must also be willing to invest in cybersecurity training and company-wide licenses for security tools like password vaults. Portability is the future Chee thinks the flexibility to move applications and data from one cloud provider to another will be critical in the next few years, and he says things are happening there. "It shouldn't be long before I can shop complex mathematical tasks around various computing clusters worldwide to find the best price. I think that kind of portability is just half a dozen years away." Businesses are choosing multicloud to diversify where they place their workloads among the major cloud service providers, taking advantage of their strengths.
security as a service cloud migration

Why you need Security as a Service for cloud migration

  • Cloud and security
  • min read
    • From small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to the biggest multinationals, use of cloud computing infrastructure and services is growing exponentially. Spending on end-user information security and risk management will reach 188 billion US dollars by 2023, according to leading technology researchers Gartner. This vote of confidence in the cloud could partly come from greater confidence in Security as a Service (SECaaS.) In our interview, Curtis Franklin, Senior Editor at widely read cybersecurity news site Dark Reading, says SECaaS is a consideration in many cloud migrations, but not the primary factor. Not all businesses are ready to migrate everything to a cloud environment – or in other words, to migrate to Enterprise as a Service (EaaS) – but their cloud assets still need enterprise-grade, cloud-based security. Firewall plus access less identity IT departments have widely accepted security solutions like web application firewalls (WAF,) security information and event management (SIEM) and encryption. Franklin says user identity is there: "Cloud access security brokers (CASB) are an option: On-premises or cloud-based software that sits between cloud service users and cloud applications. It monitors all activity and enforces security policies. Some would have called it the next-generation firewall. It's a firewall and access management in one application, but not so much identity." In the cloud, there's a lot of analytics data, or Security Operations Center as a Service (SOCaaS,) that can be added to user credential management, managing encryption keys and identities. What companies should look for Look at the expertise your cloud service brings to the table. Is it just a service, or a service with people? The security of application program interfaces (APIs) that connect data and applications in the cloud is also critical. Franklin warns against introducing vulnerabilities to take advantage of a new cloud-based experience. "Every time you have one application connecting to another, you have a place where a vulnerability can exist. In the cloud, there are many of those." A lower Total Cost of Ownership (or TCO – direct and indirect costs of an application or system) isn't a given unless the enterprise manager has carefully crunched the numbers. Franklin cites cases where companies on volume-based cloud service pricing schedules didn't know their actual volume, or the cloud got unexpectedly popular with staff, so they ended up with high costs. "Many now understand you're not always reducing your costs, but shifting it. You're exchanging Capital Expense for Operational Expense. For a lot of customers, that's fine or better, because it's taxed differently and hits a different part of the annual report. You're taking the money you'd spend anyway and getting more value for it." Sometimes when you're buying SOCaaS, you're buying expertise in the form of people you can't otherwise find. You're trusting the cloud provider to find and rent those minds to you, rather than trying to find them yourself. Built-in reporting and customer support are critical. If an attacker knows more about your infrastructure and environment than you do, it's an opportunity for an exploit. Franklin suggests using these services to stay on top of what's really happening in your environment, as opposed to what you think is happening. What about cloud service agreements? Review cloud service agreements (CSAs) to ensure you'll get the value you need from the service. There must be enough flexibility to set things up so you can realize that value. Know what you want out of the relationship: Harmonious functionality between the cloud service provider and your existing applications. Everything flows from that. Reporting can help you understand what you're getting from the service. Franklin says, "Are you paying for notification? Are you paying for integration with other systems that will automatically act on signals received? Will it play a role in procedural controls or is it going to be active in process control? You need to know, because if it's process control, there's automation. If it's procedure control, you're getting notifications people will have to review. It's critical to know upfront, as part of your CSA, which it is and where those notifications are going." How will SECaaS solutions evolve? Franklin believes SECaaS solutions will evolve in two ways. On the one hand, there will be SECaaS solutions that augment the intelligence of IT staff, letting analysts and engineers be more productive. On the other hand, some will replace human analysts and engineers. The human replacement may be of more interest to small-to-medium sized business, and automation of more interest to larger enterprises. He says businesses should know which path they're taking when they talk to a service provider. "Are they going to make your current staff more effective, letting you avoid hiring or taking over staff roles?" There'll be much more solution development in authentication and access management because it's a complex piece of the security puzzle. Franklin sees much of that going to the cloud service provider that's handling multi-factor authentication. Whether it's a secondary factor that comes through an app, an SMS or something else, the cloud will handle it. He says more companies want the cloud provider to handle all access management, because it's complicated. They want to be able to do it for their employees on both corporate and personal devices. SECaaS bundled into the cloud service provider services, or bought by the business from a vendor, is an excellent way to do it.
ai for smb data

How SMBs can benefit from artificial intelligence right now

  • Artificial intelligence
  • min read
    • Many small- to medium-size businesses (SMBs) wouldn't consider installing artificial intelligence (AI), thinking it a technology that's too far ahead or challenging to implement and use. It isn't. You may already be using apps with AI embedded in their functionality and not realize it. AI can increase human productivity and efficiency. It won't replace workers; instead, it will free up employees to address tasks that need the human touch to grow business. Types of AI Machine learning (ML) and deep learning – which takes ML a step further using neural networks – are two of AI's many subsets that are commonly used in business technologies for SMBs. These forms of AI use an "If so" then this, "If not," then that, technology, like decision-making flow charts where users are guided toward decisions based on data received. ML systems get smarter the more you use them. Read more about the types of AI and cybersecurity challenges. AI for customer relationship management SMBs can apply AI now to many areas in business. Three use cases are customer relationship management (CRM), customer support and cybersecurity. You will need to take a leap of faith with vendors who have a track record of success in your industry – those with mature products with integrated AI tech. Ready to give this tech a try? Many CRM vendors are supporting SMBs using ML and deep learning. For example, FreeAgent CRM Software is a cloud-based, browser-agnostic solution that uses AI to aid selling. It generates a flow-based feed of prioritized tasks and insights. Another SMB-centric vendor is Zoho CRM. It's also AI-driven using Zia, a sales assistant that helps you navigate your CRM data. HubSpot uses ML and deep learning to help SMBs make relationship-building decisions based on data, similar to how Netflix makes movie recommendations. It uses ML to develop an on-target SEO (search engine optimization) strategy which understands search topics associated with the business's online content. Natural language processing and customer service The goal of AI in natural language processing (NLP) is to teach machines to understand human language. Early examples include Siri and Alexa. It's well established as a customer service enabler that people are now used to using. Think of how live chat has revolutionized customer support by making it available 24/7. Many customers are perfectly happy to talk to a bot for straightforward requests instead of plowing through pages of a website to find hours, office locations or pricing. It provides synergy with live customer support; when issues become complex, people take over. An AI bot can handle customer service requests and sell too. Ready to give this tech a try? NLP is an important ingredient in customer support applications like Zendesk Suite, targeted to SMBs. It uses a combination of ML, deep learning and NLP for customer support, including live chat. NLP can also separate relevant data like human sentiment which can be used for different purposes. Birdeye uses an NLP engine to pull human sentiment from feedback to improve product feature development in R&D phases and operations. Many SMBs are challenged when it comes to having time available for human sales efforts like lead generation. smith.ai Chat uses AI chatbots to capture website leads for small businesses. Most of these CRM and customer service products offer free trials, so you don't need to invest significant resources if you find out it doesn't meet your needs. The cybersecurity challenges of AI No SMB can survive without a robust security package across all points of its network. But when it comes to applying AI for cybersecurity enhancements, it's a tricky proposition. While AI is helpful to guard against attacks, bad actors can turn it against companies by targeting the algorithm's training data. According to a MIT Technology Review article, at a 2018 Black Hat conference, several companies admitted they were releasing machine learning products to stay relevant with customers who are enamored of AI. That poses a problem as companies could think they're safer using AI than they are. Some products which use supervised learning data sets that algorithms train on label the data as clean code or malware. Here's the rub: companies can use training data that hasn't been completely scrubbed of anomalous data points, which in turn may make the algorithm miss attacks. Bad actors could also get hold of the data and change labels, labeling malware as clean code. This doesn't mean machine learning and AI don't have important roles to play in your defense lineup. MIT's article concludes that customers need to monitor and minimize risks associated with algorithmic models. AI can power your digital transformation Digital transformation is here for SMBs. These new technologies to help power it are in reach and available now, helping you to compete and take on the bigger players. And like enterprises, SMBs that adopt emerging technologies like AI can gain a competitive edge and grow smarter and faster than the rest.
margaret dawson interview mountains women

Mentoring is hard but rewarding, and it’s everyone’s job

  • Leadership
  • min read
    • Margaret Dawson is known for attacking life at top speed with her hair on fire. Vice President and Chief Digital Officer for Red Hat, she's also a sought-after public speaker, coach and mentor and a vocal advocate for advancing women in tech. She challenges everyone to seek personal growth and equality in their workplace. We spoke about how women and men need to commit to supporting each other to progress their careers. Alyson: What's your theory of 'intentional support' in mentoring and coaching, and how is it different than "giving it a try?" Margaret: A lot of companies and leaders know we need to do more to mentor and coach others, whether it's young people or peers. But it takes more than just wanting it to happen. It takes intentional support: action, time, energy from people and companies to put in place a program to support mentees and mentors. Women in tech talk about needing to support women intentionally, to help them find their way and empower them to be successful. Everybody has to say, "I will mentor, coach or support someone intentionally." If everyone did it for just one person, the numbers would change. Why is intentional support so hard? It takes commitment, and you're making yourself vulnerable by saying, "I will support this other person." We're so focused on doing our day jobs that taking on people who aren't in our direct chain, maybe even not at our company, feels like a risk. I've had a lot of people reach out to me, at an event or on LinkedIn, and say, "I know it's probably no, but could I just talk to you for 30 minutes and bounce some ideas, because I have no one to talk to, and I am trying to figure out what to do in my career." I can't think of a time when I said, "no." People don't ask, because it's scary. Sometimes the person you're asking doesn't respond or says "no," but mostly, people don't ask. Is it important men are as invested in intentional support as women? Absolutely. We must be mentoring and coaching men, women and all people equally. The difference I've seen is, men will more readily mentor other men. Women don't reach out to other women as much. A young woman at a conference I was at recently said she'd reached out to a senior woman in her company for advice. The answer she got was, "I don't have to support other women just because I'm a woman. That's not my job." My response to that is, "Yes, it is your job." Modeling, coaching and mentoring is every leaders' job, but leading women in technology have a special responsibility, because there are not enough of us. If you make it, it's your job to help others around you succeed. Does the 'old boys network' show men are better than women at networking? When you become that person who says, "Yes, I will support all of you," it's amazingly powerful. I've seen it change lives. I think there are things men are taught socially that women are either not taught or don't have the support system to make happen. So much of what we do is not based on our capabilities and our brain, but how we look. From the time they are small, girls are called pretty, and boys are called smart or strong. In coaching and mentoring, we have to help women and girls understand their strengths, their capabilities, their value in ways that don't equate to how they look and dress. How can women find ways to mentor others? First, if you work for a company, start there. Second, reach out to any of the women in tech organizations, such as Women in Technology, Girls Who Code and Black Girls Code. There are many local, national and international organizations. Volunteer at a local high school or college. Just let people know you're available. You could start with a friend's daughter. I've helped many friends' daughters write their resumé, talk about career paths and interviewing. Talking to girls is crucial because sometimes their parents have preconceived ideas about their future. Parents may talk about the profession they want her to go into, but she'll admit to someone else what she really wants to do. Do people who mentor feel a sense of accomplishment and contribution? Absolutely. That's probably the best thing. If you can help someone else believe in themselves, that generates power. I've seen that happen. If people know you mentor and coach, they think, "I'm going to do that too." What I always try to remember is, "What could you do right now to provide intentional support to someone?" I challenge everyone just to act.
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Secure Futures magazine is your go-to business guide for opinions, trends and insight into the world of technology and cybersecurity. We help your business to bring on the future. Brought to you by Kaspersky, the global cybersecurity experts.

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