4 problems employees create innovative IT solutions themselves
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Garry Singh

The best employees constantly innovate on the fly. When they encounter an obstacle, they figure out how to get around it.Employees who embrace and overcome obstacles in unique ways are often announced as Employee of the Month or with other accolades.
However, employees often create more problems when they work alone rather than working with their own IT department.An unauthorized IT solution, such as a Google Drive or personal mailbox, which cannot be managed enterprise-wide, could prove disastrous.
In this blog article, we explore the concerns of allowing employees to build an IT solution on their own, without seeking IT advice.

Before we dive in, I wanted to share a brief anecdote.
A couple of years ago, there was an employee who didn’t like Wi-Fi coverage on his workstation and he took the liberty of buying his Wi-Fi router and creating a wireless SSID to connect to.
For days, the network would go down, driving the IT department crazy. On the network, the team saw that something else was taking over the IP address assignment, but couldn’t identify what.
The IT director said it had to be something physical and scoured the server room to see if there was anything connected that it shouldn’t be.
As I passed the employee desk, there was a beautiful cobalt blue and black Linksys wireless router sitting on his desk behind his monitor.
This self-installing router was waging a tug-of-war battle over the server role to become the communications hub for the core network, eventually leading to intermittent internet access.
Now let’s explore some of the key issues with IT solutions built independently of your IT department.

Your first problem: data loss


One of the main problems is when an employee creates an account with their personal information (email, phone number, etc.) and loses access to that email.
Since that email is not managed at the company level, there is now a risk of losing the data saved on that account.
Alternatively, if an employee leaves the company, there is a huge risk of data loss if the organization is unable to recover it.
With the hybrid workforce growing more and more, it’s not uncommon to see employees resorting to measures on their own, as they may feel disconnected from the organization, working remotely.

As a consultant, we always recommend that you only create login credentials that can be managed in the company, regardless of position in the organization.
If an employee goes out of business or is hacked, for example, the company must be able to close access as soon as possible to mitigate the damage.

Your second problem: control

If you haven’t already asked yourself this question, now I want to ask you a question: who controls your data? Your IT department? or the “Solution Hero”, who operates alone within the company?

When it comes to private and sensitive data, the organization must have self-control. This is in line with the previous point and I advise my clients to ask themselves the following questions internally:

  • Where is the data stored?
  • Who is in control of the data?
  • Who is logged in to access it and who is not?

Your third problem: compliance and legal action

I have the opportunity to work with many organizations to maintain compliance and avoid regulations, fines and lawsuits.
When insurance and / or auditors (suppliers, government, compliance committees) ask you to respond:

  • "Does your IT department control all of your data?"
  • "Has your data for the past seven years been archived?",
  • "Is your data protected with 2-factor authentication?"
  • "Can you block access to your data in the event of an attack or a malicious employee?"
  • "Do you have a record of who accessed which data?"

As a consultant, I work with clients to ensure that all these questions are answered with a resounding yes.
Your organization must comply with all government regulations and be accountable for all independent actors within the organization; otherwise, the risk of sanctions and regulations rests with the company.

Your fourth problem: scalability

With fast growing cloud IT services and solutions like Microsoft Azure and Office 365, I recommend organizations set up their solutions for collaboration.
The amount of automation, intelligence, and workflows that can be put in place can help your organization scale efficiently.

For example, when all data is within the Microsoft ecosystem, the different data points can contribute to a workflow that automates it or feeds it into powerful business intelligence (BI).
There are so many rich opportunities popping up on a near-monthly basis and being able to tap into these new skills will help companies grow above the competition.

The goal of every company is to grow and, to do so, it is necessary to scale intelligently and effectively. Having systems that work regardless of what your IT department creates can lead to inefficient and insecure work.

One thing to keep in mind is typically when you find an employee who has come up with their own IT solution, it’s not their fault.
Often these employees are on the front lines and improvise a problem that is making them more efficient, but at the cost of working independently.
As a consultant, I recommend that you have a strong impetus on your business and employees, so you can spot the problem early and innovate as a team. The questions to ask internally are:

  • "Was the IT department listening?"
  • "Has the IT department made itself accessible to employees, in person or through an online forum where people can raise their concerns?"
  • "Does the CIO, CIO and IT manager attend non-IT meetings on a regular basis to hear what's going on in the different parts and see how IT can help support the cause or find problems that IT can solve?"

Dataprise is committed to providing the best possible IT consulting services. When my team or I work with clients and their employees, the one thing I make sure I’m clear about is that my role is designed to be their advisor.
Every company is different and we strive to help your team develop customized solutions that can be successfully integrated into your IT department.

Unauthorized IT solutions can cause data loss, governance and compliance issues, and inefficient scalability.
While most employees have good intentions in innovating IT solutions, it is important that these solutions are not self-contained, but managed at the enterprise level.
Dataprise is committed to providing the best possible IT consulting services. If you are interested in learning more about our professional services, click here for more information.

Ultimately, I like to say, “Treat data like your kids and your business; keep it off the streets!”

Three keys to a successful business continuity and disaster recovery plan
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Garry Singh

76% of businesses experienced at least one ransomware attack in the past year. Current trends show that it is not a question of whether your organization will fall victim to an attack, but when.
This may seem like a conversation your internal managers may have to start because it’s not a quick thing until an attack happens, but having a successful disaster recovery plan is the only way to minimize the risk that your organization will face in the event of a ransomware attack.
Today read about 3 keys to establishing a business continuity and disaster recovery plan.

Manage your organization using business impact analysis

Recovering from data loss, ransomware, or any attack, in general, is not always possible if transactions have not been confirmed.
Being prepared for the inevitable can save your business not only from losing valuable data, but also from capital losses caused by downtime that the company may experience.

A business impact analysis allows you to go through and analyze your processes, workflows, tools and other things that are necessary to run your business.
In this analysis, your organization can determine, for example:

  • How does the exit affect the organization's reputation or brand?
  • If your organization doesn't serve your customers or employees, what about money?
  • Clients and employees unsure if their employer can maintain a reliable workplace?

Maintain best practices in software and hardware and test your backup systems

Another key to establishing a successful disaster recovery plan is to ensure that your organization is aligned with enterprise hardware and software best practices.
You may be wondering, what does this mean and what are these best practices?

  • Make sure your version is locked
  • Restart your server
  • Make sure you have permission for your server and hardware upgrade

Additionally, it is important to test your backups when you have them. The Global Data Vault Group supports this because entering a DR program only to find that a server is down will cause a lot of trouble.Your organization can test this issue by actually starting a DR event and ensuring that all applications are tested from the server level.

Implementing Cyber Insurance

The forecast growth in the cybersecurity insurance market between 2022 and 2027 is $11.9 billion to $29.2 billion.This market has exploded as the demand for protection against cyberattacks has increased over the past few years.Cybersecurity assurance is an important part of creating a successful BCDR strategy because once your status is known, your assurance can stop your internal environment.During this winter, damages can be investigated, investigated and reported to the appropriate authorities.This is intended to complement the cyber security and BCDR program to ensure your organization is well protected and ready to mitigate any type of threat.

12 Reasons to Choose a Firewall as a Service for Your Business
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Garry Singh

What is Firewall as a Service?

Firewall as a service (FWaaS) is a technology that provides firewall and other network security as a cloud service.

Why do organizations need FWaaS?

The migration to cloud-based firefighting platforms and the rise of mobile devices have created a clear gap in the network where users and applications can be protected from cyber threats.
Additionally, research shows that 59% of companies say that managing and monitoring security incidents has become a top priority. FWaaS solves all these problems.

Here are twelve reasons to choose Firewall as a Service for your business.

1. Better Disaster Recovery

Many businesses rely heavily on continuity and availability to remain competitive in today’s market.
Availability is also critical to customer satisfaction and retention. With security threats emerging every day, a security network breach can spell disaster with huge reputation and infrastructure costs.
When you use a managed firewall service, you get access to computer security experts who work hard to identify new threats and mitigate them.
In addition, the risk of network security risks due to incorrect firewall configuration is reduced and recovery is faster in case of failure.
According to research, more than 95% of firewall breaches in 2018 resulted from poor design rather than flaws in firewalls.

2. No Need to Offer IT Security Training

Many security measures often result in training costs for your IT staff on sophisticated configuration and security strategies.
The use of managed firewall services ensures that the management of firewall changes, migration rules between platforms,
security protection, and other time-consuming tasks are handled by professionals with special skills in security services.
These security groups can also provide you with affordable security advice.
This service checks your current firewall configuration, including policies and rules. After this review, security experts will help you tailor policies and special rules to meet your business needs.

3. Full security service

Firewall-as-a-service providers help manage and monitor every security device your network uses.
This often includes managed firewalls, anti-malware and anti-virus, custom security services,
virtual private networks (VPN), vulnerability scanning and intrusion detection to help meet corporate compliance standards.
All these services are provided through a high-quality data center with its own security system. Additionally, each frame includes built-in technology that protects your network in the event of a failure.

4. Easy control

Maintaining a secure network can be time-consuming and use up a lot of your IT resources.
Using a firewall as a service keeps your IT team focused on core business strategies. In this way, security management does not limit your work,
but rather helps it. Using these services gives you access to updates, music details, and the latest software.
This translates into better protection against the security threats you face every day as new types of attacks are developed.
Your system works best when critical policies and rules are implemented, regular clock checks are performed throughout the year, and necessary patch controls are performed.

5. Cost reduction and TCO improvement

To provide your business with multiple protections against sophisticated security threats, you need to deploy multiple firewall tools, such as intrusion prevention systems (IPS),
content filtering systems, and threat prevention tools. These network security capabilities can be expensive to monitor, manage, and maintain, in addition to purchasing and configuring equipment.
Each component requires its own type of maintenance update which can limit visibility regarding end-to-end security.
A firewall as a service helps reduce these sophistications and integrates security controls dramatically.
Your business gets next-generation firewall technology from IT experts with a monthly subscription.
There is no capital investment in equipment and expenses associated with this type of security group.
According to a study by Secure Data, a company with 500 employees will reduce electricity costs by 37% and save an average of $139,000.
Your cloud, WAN and Internet resources, as well as other IT resources you own will be saved at a lower cost.

6. Good for mobile users

The way people work is constantly changing. Advances in network technology have enabled remote work, which many companies used to do.
According to a survey by the US Bureau of Labor and Statistics in 2015, 38% of workers did some or all of their work indoors.
Companies are adapting to this growth by supporting cloud-based services, SaaS services, and mobile access to enterprise applications and infrastructure.
This idea has stirred the imagination of the corporate environment. Perimeter security technologies no longer provide the flexibility and flexibility needed in today’s enterprise.

This made it important for fire safety and security services. To make remote work possible, many companies protect mobile workers by moving traffic from their secure data centers.
All traffic is passed through an internal firewall before going to the Internet. When users need to connect to a central location to access cloud applications, latent issues in performance arise.

Another way to secure remote and mobile traffic is to secure local Internet traffic, resulting in increased bandwidth.
However, firewalls and managed security services eliminate these problems by connecting users through a global SLA-backend cloud network,
which connects all users, resources and traffic, including access to SaaS applications. and the cloud from remote and mobile users.

7. Performance

One of the biggest problems with application-based security is the performance limitations of physical devices.
When the physical device experiences a high load due to high traffic volume or additional configuration is required to handle the SSL traffic volume,
the application usually needs to be upgraded to meet the increased capacity requirements.
Due to budget constraints, the limitation of physical equipment often forces you to choose between cost benefit and security.
Therefore, the safety of isolated branches is questioned. The use of firewalls and managed security services eliminates the need for sophisticated configuration methods to determine application capabilities.
FWaaS allows you to grow your business naturally with unlimited scalability.

8. Keep up the good work

Failure to install the latest patches and updates on your firewall exposes your business to many risks.
New cyber attacks are being developed quickly and daily, which has led to the creation of regular updates to protect hardware.
If you do not install these updates, your security system will be vulnerable to attacks. If you are silent about updating your hardware, you are leaving your network at risk.
Offloading this task from managed firewalls and security administrators using remote monitoring tools to delegate the task of updating your system to them.
These updates will be made in time, which will increase the security of your business.

9. News

It is difficult to determine the number of threats that have attacked your network. By using firewalls and managed security services, you can get a detailed report on the threats your business is facing.
These reports can help you analyze your security measures and identify weaknesses. They can also give you a good idea of ​​the behavior of your employees that can undermine the value of your security efforts.

10. Update on threats

Although most security attacks originate from outside your corporate network, threats can also originate from within the organization.
Using social media, web browsing, productivity services and online videos can expose your network to malware and viruses.
Firewalls and security services may implement and configure applications that provide filtering and other protection against threats created by user programs.

11. Full disclosure

Today’s dynamic networks require a different approach. Many companies rely on expensive MPLS WANs to connect remote branch offices.
The back-and-forth migration from the central location creates a trombone effect when remote users attempt to access SaaS business applications in the cloud.
This arrangement results in a lack of visibility and control over the network. By moving firewalls to the cloud,
businesses can benefit from centralized management and unified security backed by complete visibility across the entire network.

12. Better end user experience

The proliferation of applications and instant access to the Internet is making the life cycle of environmental security management more unified.
Alternatives like MPLS/VPN provide a poor end-user experience, as outbound traffic sent over the public Internet can experience packet loss and high latency.
There are high costs associated with using MPLS networks before moving traffic. Firewalls and managed security services avoid all these challenges and create a secure and user-friendly environment.