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Security tokens: Heralding a New Era in Blockchain Featured

Security tokens: Heralding a New Era in Blockchain

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Blockchain is evolving into a new phase of our technological society. It is growing exponentially like other life-changing technologies used to, similar to the internet. The different possible ways of making money, presenting projects and bringing new ideas to light every day is what makes the cryptocurrency world so interesting. But let’s focus on a soon very hot topic... security tokens.

Utility tokens were one of the hottest topics in the past bull-run, Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) and token generation events were the easiest and quickest way for a project to raise funds. Same for the investors, the returns in ICOs used to be way higher than by investing in higher market cap coins. For the next era of blockchain technology, we should prepare for something new, security tokens. Imagine a fully-regulated token that represents shares of a company.

The difference between Utility tokens and Security tokens

A utility token is the “coin” backed by a project, which is used to raise money in an ICO and should at least have some use. Usually, these are Ethereum based tokens, since this is one of the most simple ways of creating a token and programming some smart contracts on it. The actual “use” of these tokens is mostly some sort of access to a platform, or a currency to purchase a specific service.

On the other hand, security tokens or equity tokens are a regulated way of creating a token and building its own ICO. Unlike utility tokens, security tokens don’t need to have a “utility”. Their use case is that they represent a real share of the company. So this type of token is the equivalent of issuing company stock on the blockchain. Regarding the founders of a Security token based company, it won’t be that easy to raise millions anymore. The team won’t just create a website and a whitepaper to start raising money. This time the tokens and the company are regulated by the Government, which reduces the chances of a fraud. Or at least enough to get accepted by the institutional regulations. So when we talk about security tokens, that’s where the traditional stocks and the blockchain framework find their way of getting together.

Why are Security tokens so important?

Security tokens are a brand new cryptocurrency category that will likely play a major role in the space in the next years. The main idea of a security token is to remove the middleman in a transaction. This middleman is the main cause of risk, fees and delays in non-peer-to-peer transactions.

Security Tokens bring a number of improvements to traditional financial products by removing the middleman from investment transactions. The removal of middlemen leads to lower fees, faster deal execution, free market exposure, larger potential investor base, automated service functions, and lack of financial institution manipulation.

Security tokens also come with many benefits for regulators. Issuers can, for example, code lock-up periods right into the security token. This makes the violation of lock-up period times physically impossible.

The era of STOs and ETOs

As of 2019 we will start to see how STOs (Security Token Offerings) and ETOs (Equity Token Offerings) dominate the blockchain market. And since this new way of contributing to a project or asset is SEC regulated, there will be fewer worries for new people entering the market. People who used to dislike cryptocurrencies might now feel safer venturing into the space and start experimenting with the technology.

This next “boom” of new money flowing into Security Tokens, might be a little different than it happened with ICOs. There will be fewer STOs as there were ICOs, since the process of building one is way more complex. But still, there will be quite a lot of them. So more certainly, in this phase of the cryptocurrency space, there will be a couple of STOs dominating the market.

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The AI that Learned how to Cheat and Hide Data from it's Creators

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The AI that learned how to cheat and hide data from its creators

  • AI was trained to transform aerial images into street maps and then back again
  • They found that details omitted in final image reappeared when it was reverted
  • It used steganography to 'hide' data in the image and recover the original photo

New research from Stanford and Google has shown that it's possible artificial intelligence software may be getting too clever. The neural network, called CycleGAN, was trained to transform aerial images into street maps, then back into aerial images. Researchers were surprised when they discovered that details omitted in the final product reappeared when they told the AI to revert back to the original image.

 

Stanford and Google researchers were surprised when they discovered that details omitted in the final product reappeared when they told the AI to revert back to the original image. For example, skylights on a roof that were absent from the final product suddenly reappeared when they returned to the original image, according to TechCrunch.  

'CycleGAN learns to "hide" information about a source image into the images it generates in a nearly imperceptible, high-frequency signal,' the study states. 'This trick ensures that the generator can recover the original sample and thus satisfy the cyclic consistency requirement, while the generated image remains realistic.'

What ended up happening is that the AI figured out how to replicate details in a map by picking up on the subtle changes in color that the human eye can't detect, but that the computer can pick up on, TechCrunch noted. In effect, it didn't learn how to create a copy of the map from scratch, it just replicated the features of the original into the noise patterns of the other. 

For example, skylights on a roof that were absent from the aerial reconstruction suddenly reappeared when they returned to the original image, or the aerial photograph labeled (a)

Researchers found the AI figured out how to replicate details in a map by picking up on the subtle changes in color that the human eye can't detect, but that the computer can pick up on. The researchers say the AI ended up being a 'master of steganography,' or the practice of encoding data in images. CycleGAN was able to pick up information from the original source map and then encode it in the reconstructed image. By doing that, it enables the AI to be able to recover the original image with precise accuracy. However, it means that the AI was using steganography to avoid actually learning how to perform the requested task in order to speed up the process, TechCrunch noted.

HOW DOES ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE LEARN?

AI systems rely on artificial neural networks (ANNs), which try to simulate the way the brain works in order to learn. ANNs can be trained to recognise patterns in information - including speech, text data, or visual images - and are the basis for a large number of the developments in AI over recent years.

Conventional AI uses input to 'teach' an algorithm about a particular subject by feeding it massive amounts of information.

AI systems rely on artificial neural networks (ANNs), which try to simulate the way the brain works in order to learn. ANNs can be trained to recognise patterns in information - including speech, text data, or visual images. Practical applications include Google's language translation services, Facebook's facial recognition software and Snapchat's image altering live filters. The process of inputting this data can be extremely time consuming, and is limited to one type of knowledge. 

A new breed of ANNs called Adversarial Neural Networks pits the wits of two AI bots against each other, which allows them to learn from each other. This approach is designed to speed up the process of learning, as well as refining the output created by AI systems. 

 
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Everything you've Always Wanted to know about Fintech in 5 Minutes

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The financial technology (Fintech) industry is thriving globally and received over $31 billion in investment during the course of 2017.

According to EY’s Fintech Adoption Index, a third of consumers worldwide are using two or more Fintech services, with 84 percent of customers saying they are aware of Fintech (up 22 percent from the previous year). But users are often unaware that the financial services applications they use count as “Fintech”, or may not know what exactly Fintech and its accompanying jargon means.

In this article we'll explain all the crucial terminology you need to know to understand the sector.

Fintech

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Financial technology is broadly defined as any technological innovation in financial services. Those actively engaged within the industry develop new technologies to disrupt traditional financial markets.
 
Various start-ups have been involved in the process of creating these new technologies, but many of the world’s top banks including HSBC and Credit Suisse have been actively developing their own Fintech ideas as well.
Fintech companies utilize technology as widely available as payment apps to more complex software applications such as artificial intelligence and big data.

Cryptocurrency

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A cryptocurrency is a decentralized digital currency which uses encryption - the process of converting data into code - to generate units of currency and validate transactions independent of a central bank or government.

Bitcoin and Ether are the most common form of digital currencies. But there are other forms of virtual cash, such as Litecoin, Ripple and Dash (i.e. “Digital Cash”).

Bitcoin

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‘Bitcoin’ – a term we’re more used to hearing even in mainstream finance – was the first and one of the most prominent cryptocurrencies used by traders in the world of Fintech.

It all began when an unknown person(s), under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, designed Bitcoin as a peer-to-peer (P2P) payment network without the need for governance by any central authority. In an introductory white paper introducing the virtual currency, Nakamoto defined Bitcoin as: “A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash (which) would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution.”

Blockchain

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Blockchain is a form of distributed ledger technology (DLT). This means that it maintains records of all cryptocurrency transactions on a distributed network of computers, but has no central ledger.

It secures the data through encrypted ‘blocks’. Various blockchain experts believe the technology can provide transparency for a multitude of different industries, not just the financial services.

The original blockchain network was created by Bitcoin-founder Nakamoto to serve as the public ledger for all Bitcoin transactions.

Ethereum

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Ethereum is another type of blockchain network. It was proposed by a 19-year-old Russian-Canadian programmer, Vitalik Buterin, in 2013.

Ethereum differs to the original blockchain in that it is designed for people to build decentralized applications. These are applications which allow users to interact with each other directly rather than having to go through any middlemen, Buterin said, explaining the project in 2014.

Ether is the value token of the Ethereum blockchain. It is traded on cryptocurrency exchanges.

Disruptive innovation

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Disruptive innovation happens whenever new technologies alter the way markets operate.

Though not exclusively a Fintech term, it is often used to describe events in the financial services where technological developments force financial institutions to rethink their approach to the industry.

Financial services firms engaged in Fintech can even “disrupt” themselves at times. “We continue to disrupt and challenge ourselves,” Christina Hamilton, head of partnerships and international expansion at remittance firm Western Union, told CNBC in an interview in July.

Regtech

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Regulatory technology (Regtech) is technology which helps firms working in the financial services industry meet financial compliance rules.

One of the main priorities of Regtech is automating and digitizing Anti-Money Laundering (AML) rules which aim to reduce illegally obtained income, and Know Your Customer (KYC) processes which identify and verify the clients of financial institutions to prevent fraud.

The U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority was the first governmental regulator to promote the term. Regulators like the FCA are working with Regtech firms on a range of different applications, including AI and Machine Learning, to improve the efficiency of compliance in the financial services and cut costs.

Insurtech

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Insurtech is a subset of Fintech which relates to the use of technology to simplify and improve the efficiency of the insurance industry.

A report by consulting giant Capgemini and non-profit insurance industry body EFMA last month found that traditional insurance firms are facing increasing competitive pressure due to the emergence of a number of Insurtech start-ups.

Initial coin offering

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An initial coin offering (ICO) is a crowdfunding measure for start-ups that use blockchain.

It involves the selling of a start-up’s cryptocurrency units in return for cash.

ICOs are similar to initial public offerings (IPOs), where the shares of a company are sold to investors for the first time. However ICOs differ to IPOs in that they deal with supporters of a project rather than investors, making the investment more similar to a crowdfunding experiment.

Last month China banned ICOs over concerns that the practice is not regulated and can be opened up to fraudsters.

Open banking

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Open banking refers to an emerging idea in the financial services and Fintech which stipulates that banks should allow third party companies to build applications and services using the bank’s data.

It involves the use of application programming interfaces (APIs) - codes which allow different financial programs to communicate with each other - to create a connected network of financial institutions and third party providers (TPPs).

Proponents of open banking believe that an “open API ecosystem” will allow Fintech start-ups to develop new applications such as mobile apps to allow customers greater control over their bank data and financial decisions.

Robo-advisor

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Robo-advisors are platforms that automate investment advice using financial algorithms.

They limit the need for human investment managers, thereby dramatically reducing the cost of managing a portfolio.

Unbanked/underbanked

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The “unbanked” or “underbanked” are those who do not have access to banks or mainstream financial services.

Various Fintech companies have developed products aimed at addressing this portion of society, providing them with digital-only solutions to open up their access to the financial services.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) estimates that there are 10 million unbanked or underbanked American households.

Financial inclusion

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Financial inclusion refers to Fintech solutions that provide more affordable finance alternatives to disadvantaged and low-income people who, like the unbanked/underbanked, may have little to no access to mainstream financial services.

This is one of the most important areas for Fintech companies that operate in developing markets.

Smart contracts

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Smart contracts are computer programs that automatically execute contracts between buyers and seller Smart contracts are often blockchain-based and can save huge amounts of time and costs involved in transactions which usually require a human to execute them.

In Ethereum for example, the contracts are treated as decentralized scripts stored in the blockchain network for later execution.

Accelerators

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Accelerators, also known as “seed accelerators”, are programs enacted by financial organizations to mentor and work with Fintech start-ups.

Fintech accelerators can be either privately or publicly funded, with several programs being run by big banks, from the U.K.’s central bank, the Bank of England, to the multinational private bank Barclays.

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Why Cybersecurity is More Important than Ever Before

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The threat of cybercrime to businesses is rising fast. According to one estimate, by McAfee, the damages associated with cybercrime now stands at over $400 billion, up from $250 billion two years ago, with the costs incurred by UK business also running in the billions. In a bid to stave off e-criminals, organisations are increasingly investing in ramping up their digital frontiers and security protocols, however, many are still put off by the costs, or by the bewildering range of tools and services available. The following is a list of reasons why investing in cybersecurity is a sensible decision to make.

1. Rising cost of security breaches

The fact is that cyberattacks can be extremely expensive for businesses to endure. Recent statistics have suggested that the average cost of a data breach at a larger UK firm is £20,000. But this actually underestimates the real expense of an attack against a company. It is not just the financial damage suffered by the business or the cost of remediation; a data breach can also inflict untold reputational damage.

Suffering a cyberattack can cause customers to lose trust in a business and spend their money elsewhere. Additionally, having a reputation for poor security can also lead to a failure to win new contracts.

2. Increasingly sophisticated and organised hackers

Almost every business has a website and externally exposed systems that could provide criminals with entry points into internal networks. Hackers have a lot to gain from successful data breaches, and there are countless examples of well-funded and coordinated cyber-attacks against some of the largest companies in the UK. Ironically, even Deloitte, the globe’s largest cybersecurity consultant, was itself rocked by an attack in October last year.

With highly sophisticated attacks now commonplace, businesses need to assume that they will be breached at some point and implement controls that help them to detect and respond to malicious activity before it causes damage and disruption.

Why Cybersecurity is More Important than Ever Before

3. Widely available hacking tools

While well-funded and highly skilled hackers pose a significant risk to your business, the wide availability of hacking tools and programmes on the internet also means there is also a growing threat from less skilled individuals. The commercialisation of cybercrime has made it easy for anyone to obtain the resources they need to launch damaging attacks, such as ransomware and cryptomining.

4. A proliferation of IoT devices

More smart devices than ever are connected to the internet. These are known as Internet of Things, or IoT, devices and are increasingly common in homes and offices. On the surface, these devices can simplify and speed up tasks, as well as offer greater levels of control and accessibility. There proliferation, however, presents a problem.

If not managed properly, each IoT device that is connected to the internet could provide cyber criminals with a way into a business. IT services giant Cisco estimates there will be 27.1 billion connected devices globally by 2021 – so this problem will only worsen with time. With use of IoT devices potentially introducing a wide range of security weaknesses, it is wise to conduct regular vulnerability assessments to help identify and address risks presented by these assets.

5. Tighter regulations

It is not just criminal attacks that mean businesses need to be more invested in cyber security than ever before. The introduction of regulations such as the GDPR means that organisations need to take security more seriously than ever, or face heavy fines.

The GDPR has been introduced by the EU to force organisations into to taking better care of the personal data they hold. Among the requirements of the GDPR is the need for organisations to implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect personal data, regularly review controls, plus detect, investigate and report breaches.

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Why Your Business Needs to Embrace AI if You Don’t Want to Be Left Behind

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The machines are taking over, it’s true. But you don’t have to run and hide just yet. At the moment, artificial intelligence is still run and managed by humans. And billions of us all over the world use it every day of our working lives.

You may be a business owner who has heard of AI and its benefits for business use. But like 45% of US respondents surveyed for Computer Weekly, you may not feel ready to embrace machine intelligence within your current business infrastructure.

The purpose of this article is to explore the relationship that your business needs to have with AI. Among the issues we consider are: your business goals, the price of AI, how it can help your business get ahead of your competition, and security.

You have a unique set of business goals

The first thing that you should consider is where AI fits into your company’s unique business goals, as for each goal there will be a range of different AI enhancement options.

This is to ensure you are bringing the relevant qualities AI offers to the areas of your business that will benefit from the technology. For instance, you may want to consider updating your operations to:

 1. Increase customer service capabilities

AI chatbots can help homepage visitors complete transactions without having to speak to a real-life person. You can also use AI to collect customer service feedback and improve your team’s productivity. AI-led customer service tools can even make it possible for customers to track their deliveries or raise query tickets, without human intervention. Self-service technologies like order tracking take some of the responsibility for mundane tasks away from your staff.

 2. Reduce inefficiencies in your supply chain

AI in your supply chain means that your solutions and frameworks will be constantly improving themselves and developing over time. The best way to use AI is to enable autonomous action – like having AI-assisted machines monitor POS data and make predictions about future purchase habits and consumption trends. This kind of real-time data could have a major positive kickback from a scalability and roll-out perspective.

 3. Get better ROI from your marketing campaigns

You may have  have poured lots of time and money into marketing campaigns, yet you still can’t seem to garner a regular stream of audience interaction. If this is so you may want to consider how AI can help you.

AI bots are able to draw from a deeper range of source data than traditional marketing research techniques. This allows you to be more refined in your method of targeting your customers and increase the engagement and response levels you see from your campaigns  – David Steinberg, the co-founder and CEO of Zeta Global, has claimed that marketing campaigns that incorporate AI have an ROI that is up to 1600% higher than those which do not.

You can find AI at every price point

You don’t have to shell out on Amazon warehouse style robotic systems to reap the full benefits of AI within your business.

Why Your Business Needs to Embrace AI if You Don’t Want to Be Left Behind

In many instances, just ensuring that you incorporate the basic AI technology that is relevant to your business and industry will be enough to help you stay in the loop.

For ecommerce brands, the shopping cart service you choose will be vital to scaling your brand’s growth. Make an online store with access to a continually developing list of AI functionality, such as marketing coaching tips.

You can also access higher-priced AI tools such as beacon technology for brick and mortar retail outlets. These tools help brands create immersive advertising campaigns that send connected mobile users push notifications with incentivizing offers.

The options and scale with which a brand can utilize AI can be staggering and awe-inspiring. While this may seem daunting, it is important for you to remember that, whatever your budget is, you must make sure that you get to grips with AI.

AI can help you develop unique ideas to beat the competition

AI-assisted tools are helping retail brands stay ahead of the competition by ensuring that their stores look lovely at all times. Shelfie cameras attached to shop shelving provide live feedback data to staff’s mobiles. Here, they can be notified when an item is missing or misplaced within the store.

The addition of RFID tags can also be used within retail to create a unique and immersive shopping experiences. Burberry, for instance, offers shoppers a ‘magic mirror’ that will recommend clothing to customers in fitting rooms.

Further, IBM created E.L.F for Mall of America in the run-up to Christmas 2016. By logging in through Facebook Messenger, mobile users in the mall could access ELF’s services, offering suggestions for customers searching for gifts for their loved ones.

AI will be at the forefront of security

As internet payment and technologies expand and increase, so will the need for tighter security against data breaches. Analyzing and protecting your customer’s data is an integral part of building trust as a business. AI can help your business track buying behavior and alert you to any areas of unusual activity within your business operations.

Using deep learning and NLP Processing such as Aphelion's Singularity, AI is becoming all the more sophisticated in recognizing and alerting to possible cyber threats. While this is, of course, very useful to your business, you will also need to make sure that investigations into threats are lead by your data team.

This is to ensure that there is accountability for your AI, so that you are certain it is accurately recording threats. In addition to this, having your data team overseeing the process means they can draw lessons from the threats your AI notes, meaning that you can continue to improve the range and level of security offered by your business

However, without AI intervention, in the years to come it may become harder to stay on top of the hundreds of ‘strikes’ that may befall your company’s systems daily.

So, there you have the reasons why your company needs to embrace AI to stay ahead of the game. You can start off small and gradually scale up your AI offerings to build a highly efficient network of systems.

The future is bright for AI, so make sure you invest if you don’t want to be left behind. To discuss and explore the possibilities how AI could benefit your business Contact Aphelion.

 

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Why Businesses Today are Choosing Managed IT Services Featured

Why Businesses Today are Choosing Managed IT Services

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Staggering statistics were published stating that by 2019, the managed-services market is expected to see growth by as much as $193 billion . What is it about this particular business model that is so wildly successful? It seems a large percentage of small- and medium-sized businesses are very much in favor of these services, and there are a number of good reasons why.

Why the Demand for Managed Services?

We have already established that business owners are drawn to the managed-services business model, but why? What is it that owners are hoping to get out of such services, and how can you use those wants to market your services?  Research shows that the reason our clients choose our services are not necessarily the reasons why we think they should. Business owners are looking for a wide range of benefits when they opt for a managed services model, and what they want is:

  • To improve the efficiency and dependability of their IT operations.
  • Enhanced security and compliance.
  • A proactive approach to maintenance.
  • Cost effectiveness and a good return on investment.
  • Free up IT staff to work on strategic projects.
  • Have greater access to new technologies.
  • Lacks in-house IT capabilities for certain functions.
  • Shifting capital expenses to operating expenses.
  • Predictable pricing and manageable costs.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the more pressing reasons why managed services are becoming the obvious choice for small to medium sized business owners.

  1. More Efficient and Reliable IT Operations

This is one of the main reasons that companies with over 100 employees decide that managed services are the right choice for them. Often, the businesses we partner with as managed-service providers are suffering from overburdened IT staff, or lack employees that have the knowledge and skills to handle certain tasks and successfully handle the entire network on their own.

In these situations, it is hard to deny the value of working with an outside IT service provider. A majority of businesses using managed-services describe their partnership with their provider as a collaborative arrangement with their internal IT department, leading one to believe that certain aspects of IT management fall into the MSP bucket while others are preferably handled in-house. The driving force for these business owners is to improve and enhance the capabilities of the in-house IT team, not replace them altogether. Outsourcing IT not only ensures an extra team of IT experts to help resolve any issues or concerns but to be able to benefit from having access to the latest and greatest technology and innovative business grade solutions that will assist in maximizing uptime and profitability. These technologies include such things as:

  • Remote monitoring and management (RMM)
  • Backup and disaster recovery (BDR)
  • Cloud computing

By investing in these tools the entire IT infrastructure becomes more reliable and dependable, labor constraints are overcome, and internal IT departments are able to keep in control of the situation.

  1. Enhanced Security and Compliance

There are so many variations of technology that store and transmit data nowadays, including tablets, operating systems, servers, smartphones, laptops and more. Because data is stored and transmitted on these devices it means their security is critical. Many business owners live in fear that they will fall victim to a security breach. As a managed service provider it is your job to make them well aware of the risks, sharing examples that have been highlighted in the media and explaining how their data and compliance practices are compromised when such an event arises.

It is also crucial you address the business owners concerns about compliance, especially in industries such as health and legal, where compliance is a major concern. For these people it is important they work with a provider that is HIPAA compliant and in addition, can implement other ways to supplement additional managed security protocol, policies, and procedures.

  1. A Proactive Approach to Maintenance

This is a major and important benefit to managed IT services. Business owners have little to no time to spend thinking about their IT infrastructure, worrying about things such as the dependability and speed of the network connections, and other concerns. By working with an MSP they are afforded the luxury of all-day, every-day, around-the-clock coverage.

Security solutions and services such as RMM are always working to detect potential threats, vulnerabilities, or potential disturbances. When you provide fully managed IT support, bugs and issues can most often be troubleshot and remediated before they are ever a concern to the business owner. Owners are happy to pay for such a service, as CEOs and others have no time to be verifying that backups are done properly. It has become more than clear that data management on the cloud is expected to yield more managed services revenue in the coming year, and when business work with the right MSP they are able to take advantage of proactive business continuity solutions, such as BDR, by combining RMM intelligence with regular and encrypted backups, cloud computing, and virtualization.

  1. Cost Effectiveness and Return on Investment

The cost savings associated with managed services is considerable, making it another reason that using MSP’s is desirable. This fact has an incredible amount of business value, but many business owners are unaware of just how significant this is. It is your job as a managed service provider to explain to your clients how MSPs help control outgoing expenses and increase ROI. An IT budget consists of many items, including:

  • Hardware costs
  • Software and network infrastructure
  • Maintenance costs
  • IT labor

The businesses you work with need to understand every-way that managed services can benefit them financially, especially where the aforementioned maintenance costs are concerned. Using outdated software can have detrimental effects on ROI, and this is avoided with MSPs. In additional it provides the flexibility and scalability needed to grow or scale back in a way not possible with internal IT teams.

The managed service model allows clients to easily predict their IT expenses on a monthly basis and are able to better plan and budget for larger IT projects and improvements. All of these factors should be reviewed in a quarterly business review. You are able to show your clients the value of your services during these reviews, and how you play an instrumental role in what they do.

  1. Free Up Internal IT Staff To Work On Strategic Projects

When businesses choose a managed-service provider a major advantage they often don’t think of with an outside service provider, is that any internal IT staff is free to focus their energy and talents on projects and tasks they are better suited to handle.

This increases productivity and allows strategic planning to get the time and attention it deserves.

This maximizes the business’s IT budget and the business is able to get the most out of their investment.

It doesn’t make much sense to have your internal IT team handling things they have little expertise or experience with. Things like migrating over to Microsoft Office 365 when it can be expertly handled by an MSP instead, and the technician can commit their time to something they excel at. Managed-services enable in-house staff to spend their working hours on what they are best at, with the MSP filling in the gaps and taking the pressure off, providing specialized services where they are needed most.

As managed service providers Aphelion is well aware of the benefits and advantages of the services we offer, but it is our job to help our clients see them as well. By better understanding what it is they are looking for and how their businesses can be best supported we are able to tailor our offerings and approach to better meet those needs.

Want to talk more about the advantages of managed services? Contact us

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Advantages of Migrating to the Cloud

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If you’re like most businesses, you already have at least one workload running in the cloud. However, that doesn’t mean that cloud migration is right for everyone. While cloud environments are generally scalable, reliable, and highly available, those won’t be the only considerations driving your decision.
For companies considering their first cloud migration, there are a lot of factors that you’ll want to take into account, from the benefits and the risks, to the cloud service model and type that is right for your business. In this post, we’ll look at the high-level elements that you should consider as you contemplate a move to the cloud.

Potential Benefits of Cloud Migration

There are many problems that moving to the cloud can solve. Here are some typical scenarios that will benefit from cloud migration.

    • Your application is experiencing increased traffic and it’s becoming difficult to scale resources on the fly to meet the increasing demand.
    • You need to reduce operational costs, while increasing the effectiveness of IT processes.
    • Your clients require fast application implementation and deployment, and thus want to focus more on development while reducing infrastructure overhead.
    • Your clients want to expand their business geographically, but you suspect that setting up a multi-region infrastructure – with all the associated maintenance, time, human, and error control effort – is going to be a challenge.
    • It’s becoming more difficult and expensive to keep up with your growing storage needs.
    • You’d like to build a widely distributed development team. Cloud computing environments allow remotely located employees to access applications and work via the Internet.
    • You need to establish a disaster recovery system but setting it up for an entire data center could double the cost. It would also require a complex disaster recovery plan. Cloud disaster recovery systems can be implemented much more quickly and give you much better control over your resources.
    • Tracking and upgrading underlying server software is a time consuming, yet essential process that requires periodic and sometimes immediate upgrades. In some cases, a cloud provider will take care of this automatically. Some cloud computing models similarly handle many administration tasks such as database backup, software upgrades, and periodic maintenance.
    • Capex to Opex: Cloud computing shifts IT expenditure to a pay-as-you-go model, which is an attractive benefit, especially for startups.

Potential Risks of Cloud Migration

While your specific environment will determine the risks that apply to you, there are some general drawbacks associated with cloud migrations that you will want to consider.

    • If your application stores and retrieves very sensitive data, you might not be able to maintain it in the cloud. Similarly, compliance requirements could also limit your choices.
    • If your existing setup is meeting your needs, doesn’t demand much maintenance, scaling, and availability, and your customers are all happy, why mess with it?
    • If some of the technology you currently rely on is proprietary, you may not be legally able to deploy it to the cloud.
    • Some operations might suffer from added latency when using cloud applications over the internet.
    • If your hardware is controlled by someone else, you might lose some transparency and control when debugging performance issues.
    • Noisy “neighbors” can occasionally make themselves “heard” through shared resources.
    • Your particular application design and architecture might not completely follow distributed cloud architectures, and therefore may require some amount of modification before moving them to the cloud
    • Cloud platform or vendor lock-in: Once in it might be difficult to leave or move between platforms.

What Cloud Service Model Do You Need?

Now that you’ve decided to try the cloud, you’ll have to choose the cloud computing service model that you would like to deploy it in. These are the most common service models:

    • IaaS: Infrastructure as a service is a form of cloud computing that provides virtualized computing resources over the internet.
    • PaaS: Platform as a Service is a category of cloud computing services that provides a platform allowing customers to develop, run, and manage applications without the complexity of building and maintaining the infrastructure associated with developing and launching an app.
    • SaaS: Software as a service is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted.

Here’s where you’ll have to make an important choice.
IaaS is best for companies that don’t mind hosting their applications in third-party data centers, but would prefer to outsource the care of their physical infrastructure to concentrate more completely on developing, deployment, and monitoring.
However, if you prefer your applications to be portable, you might want to simply drop your code onto a robust PaaS platform that provides a full (and invisible) infrastructure environment. SaaS is a delivery model through which centrally hosted productivity software is licensed on a subscription basis.

IaaS takes care of  PaaS takes care of SaaS takes care of
Storage Application Platform CRM
Virtualisation Database Business Management
CDN Development Security
Networking Integration Tools
Compute    

Public, Private, or Hybrid?

Assuming you’ve chosen a cloud model, it’s time to choose the cloud type. There are three basic options:
Public: Your resources are entirely hosted by a cloud provider like Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Private: You create your own private cloud using a platform like OpenStack or VMware’s vCloud.
Hybrid: Your resources are spread over both private and public platforms.
With its healthy mix of on-demand reliability, high availability, security, and reduced operations costs, hybrid cloud implementations can be attractive. Going hybrid can sometimes give you the best of both worlds.I’ll illustrate how hybrid can work through a hypothetical scenario.
Let’s imagine that your web app is quickly gaining popularity and users. In order to keep up with the growing demand, you need the underlying resource to scale up dynamically. During peak usage, you should be able to deploy maximum resources to serve requests, and when demand drops, you should ideally be able to simply drop unneeded resources to save costs. This is possible within a public cloud. But suppose the data your app gathers is highly confidential and can’t just be stored off-premise. This is where a hybrid solution can help. In this case, you can choose which components you want to live in the public cloud, and which will remain in your data center.
RightScale reported that enterprises are increasingly adopting a multi-cloud strategy (81%), and 51% plan to use hybrid clouds.
Advantages of Migrating to the Cloud

Assessing Applications for a Cloud Migration

Having chosen a cloud model and cloud type, the real struggle is about to begin. Now, it’s time to see if your applications are cloud-ready. Here are some factors that you will need to consider:

  • Application design complexity: Some traditional applications are so complicated and tightly coupled that customers might not be willing to rework it. However, the foremost requirement for any successful migration is that the app should follow a distributed architecture and should be scalable by design. Tools like PaaSLane and Cloudamize can help you assess your applications’ cloud-readiness. AWS’s Migration Hub service is a one-stop shop for everything you might need tool-wise to discover and assess your application’s readiness for cloud migration.
  • Integration complexity: Every application has its integration points, such as payment gateways, SMTP servers, web services, external storage, and third party vendors. It’s very important to analyze the impact your cloud migration will have on those dependencies. Sometimes you will experience unexpected connectivity or authentication challenges that you should identify and solve up front.The most critical (and tedious) task is to identify all of those integration points. Since older applications might be poorly documented and the developers familiar with the end-to-end functional and non-functional details may no longer be available, you might have to go through each module manually. The task gets complicated if you’re considering migrating hundreds of applications currently running in your data center.

    Many of these issues can be addressed through a combination of the familiarity your team has with the apps and an asset discovery tool (either open source or commercial). An asset discovery tool can help you identify entire server configurations within a network, along with connectivity details.

    For example, say that you have a data center within a network that is hosting around 100 applications. A discovery tool can give you the bird’s eye view of the entire system. It can also provide granular details that can be helpful for a general capacity management assessment.

    Some of the better-known asset discovery tools include BMC Atrium and HP DDMA. Cloudamize provides a tool that can perform automated discovery of applications and machines, and additionally perform automated application dependency mapping to discover dependencies between applications.

  • The host operating system: Once you have decided on a cloud migration, it’s important to know whether you will be able to deploy your applications on the same OS. Your applications may only run on a specific OS (or OS release). If it’s not compatible with your cloud provider, then you need to find a workable substitute OS, a different cloud provider, or simply give up the whole project.For instance, most cloud providers don’t provide 32-bit OS options and others might have unexpected subscription requirements. It’s best to do your research in advance.
  • The application database: A database is obviously a critical part of any application. Customers invest a great deal on database servers and, often, licenses. Moreover, given the complexity and sensitivity of your data, you just might not want to move it right now: migrating petabytes of data is no trivial undertaking.In either case, you should make sure that the migration methods you use are highly reliable and come with the possibility of roll backs to deal with any unexpected chaos. Most cloud providers offer their own migration services. Therefore, it’s very important to evaluate those services before pushing the “start” button.
  • Network: Most cloud environments don’t support multicasting, so if your application relies on multicast, then I would say “think twice.”

Cost Comparison

Aphelion like many cloud providers have pricing calculators that can help you to estimate the real costs you’ll face after a cloud migration vs. your current costs so you can decide which option is the best fit based on your current application workload profiles.

Proof of Concept

It’s always a great idea to build a small proof of concept (POC) before you actually migrate your workload to the cloud. I know such models won’t anticipate all possible issues, but it will give you greater clarity and understanding about the challenges you may face. Some of the things you should look for during your POC include:
• Performance comparisons with your existing application
• Complexity levels involved in migrating the application
• Network challenges that need to be worked out
• Reliability
• Cloud provider support evaluation
Addressing all the real-time challenges of a cloud migration cannot be captured in one post, but we have tried to address some common issues you should consider before you start the process. Contact us to see how we can help with your migration strategy.

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The Disadvantages of Cloud Computing

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If you are planning to deliver digital services of any kind, you’ll need to calculate resources including CPU, memory, storage, and network connectivity. Which resources you choose for your delivery, cloud-based or local, is up to you. But you’ll definitely want to do your homework first.
Cloud computing has benefited many enterprises by reducing costs and enabling a focus on core business competence, rather than IT and infrastructure issues. Despite the general hype, there can be disadvantages to cloud computing, especially in smaller operations. In this post, we will explore some of the key disadvantages and share tips and best practices that your teams can employ to address them.

Disadvantages of Cloud Computing Explained

1) Downtime

Downtime is often cited as one of the biggest disadvantages of cloud computing. Since cloud computing systems are internet-based, service outages are always an unfortunate possibility and can occur for any reason.
Can your business afford the impacts of an outage or slowdown? An outage on Amazon Web Services in 2017 cost publicly traded companies up to $150 million dollars and no organization is immune, especially when critical business processes cannot afford to be interrupted.
Best Practices for minimizing planned downtime in a cloud environment:

  • Design services with high availability and disaster recovery in mind. Leverage the multi- availability zones provided by cloud vendors in your infrastructure.
  • If your services have a low tolerance for failure, consider multi-region deployments with automated failover to ensure the best business continuity possible.
  • Define and implement a disaster recovery plan in line with your business objectives that provide the lowest possible recovery time (RTO) and recovery point objectives (RPO).
  • Consider implementing dedicated connectivity. These services provide a dedicated network connection between you and the cloud service point of presence. This can reduce exposure to the risk of business interruption from the public internet.

2) Security and Privacy

Any discussion involving data must address security and privacy, especially when it comes to managing sensitive data. We must not forget what happened at Code Space and the hacking of their AWS EC2 console, which led to data deletion and the eventual shutdown of the company. Their dependence on remote cloud-based infrastructure meant taking on the risks of outsourcing everything.
Of course, any cloud service provider is expected to manage and safeguard the underlying hardware infrastructure of a deployment. However, your responsibilities lie in the realm of user access management, and it’s up to you to carefully weigh all the risk scenarios.
Though recent breaches of credit card data and user login credentials are still fresh in the minds of the public, steps have been taken to ensure the safety of data. One such example is the General Data Protection Rule (GDPR), recently enacted in the European Union to provide users more control over their data. Nonetheless, you still need to be aware of your responsibilities and follow best practices.
Best practices for minimizing security and privacy risks:

  • Understand the shared responsibility model of your cloud provider outlining which security controls are their responsibility and which are yours.
  • Implement security at every level of your cloud deployment.
  • Know who is supposed to have access to each resource and service and limit access to least privilege.
  • Make sure your team’s skills are up to the task: Solid security skills and regular training for your team is one of the best ways to mitigate security and privacy concerns in the cloud.
  • Take a risk-based approach to securing assets used in the cloud
  • Extend security through to the device.
  • Implement multi-factor authentication for all accounts accessing sensitive data or systems.

3) Vulnerability to Attack

In cloud computing, every component is online, which exposes potential vulnerabilities. Even the best teams suffer severe attacks and security breaches from time to time. Since cloud computing is built as a public service, it’s easy to run before you learn to walk. After all, no one at a cloud vendor checks your administration skills before granting you an account: all it takes to get started is generally a valid credit card.
Best practices to help you reduce cloud attacks:

  • Make security a core aspect of all IT operations.
  • Keep ALL your teams up to date with cloud security best practices.
  • Ensure security policies and procedures are regularly checked and reviewed.
  • Proactively classify information and apply access control.
  • Prevent data exfiltration.
  • Integrate prevention and response strategies into security operations.
  • Discover rogue projects with audits.
  • Remove password access from accounts that do not need to log in to services.
  • Review and rotate access keys and access credentials.
  • Follow security blogs and announcements to be aware of known attacks.
  • Apply security best practices for any open source software that you are using.

These practices will help your organization monitor for the exposure and movement of critical data, defend crucial systems from attack and compromise, and authenticate access to infrastructure and data to protect against further risks.

4) Limited control and flexibility

To varying degrees (depending on the particular service), cloud users may find they have less control over the function and execution of services within cloud-hosted infrastructure. A cloud provider’s end-user license agreement (EULA) and management policies might impose limits on what customers can do with their deployments. Customers retain control of their applications, data, and services, but may not have the same level of control over their back-end infrastructure.
Best practices for maintaining control and flexibility:

  • Consider using a cloud provider partner to help with implementing, running, and supporting cloud services.
  • Understanding your responsibilities and the responsibilities of the cloud vendor in the shared responsibility model will reduce the chance of omission or error.
  • Make time to understand your cloud service provider’s basic level of support. Will this service level meet your support requirements? Most cloud providers offer additional support tiers over and above the basic support for an additional cost.
  • Make sure you understand the service level agreement (SLA) concerning the infrastructure and services that you’re going to use and how that will impact your agreements with your customers.

5) Vendor Lock-In

Vendor lock-in is another perceived disadvantage of cloud computing. Differences between vendor platforms may create difficulties in migrating from one cloud platform to another, which could equate to additional costs and configuration complexities. Gaps or compromises made during a migration could also expose your data to additional security and privacy vulnerabilities.
Best practices to decrease dependency:

  • Design with cloud architecture best practices in mind. All cloud services provide the opportunity to improve availability and performance, decouple layers, and reduce performance bottlenecks. If you have built your services using cloud architecture best practices, you are less likely to have issues porting from one cloud platform to another.
  • Properly understanding what your vendors are selling can help avoid lock-in challenges.
  • Employing a multi-cloud strategy is another way to avoid vendor lock-in. While this may add both development and operational complexity to your deployments, it doesn’t have to be a deal breaker. Training can help prepare teams to architect and select best-fit technologies and services.
  • Incorporate flexibility as a matter of strategy when designing applications to ensure portability now and in the future.

6) Costs

Adopting cloud solutions on a small scale and for short-term projects can be perceived as being expensive. Pay-as-you-go cloud services can provide more flexibility and lower hardware costs, however, the overall price tag could end up being higher than you expected. Until you are sure of what will work best for you, it’s a good idea to experiment with a variety of offerings.
Best practices to reduce costs:

  • Try not to over-provision, instead of looking into using auto-scaling services
  • Scale DOWN as well as UP
  • Pre-pay if you have a known minimum usage
  • Stop your instances when they are not being used
  • Create alerts to track cloud spending

Disadvantages of Cloud Computing: Closing Thoughts

Many organizations benefit from the agility, scale, and pay-per-use billing that cloud services offer. However, as with any infrastructure service, the suitability of cloud computing for your specific use case should be assessed in a risk-based evaluation.  Build in time for research and planning to understand how the cloud will affect your business.

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Pros & Cons for Building a Hybrid Cloud for Your Enterprise

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Over the last several years, the clouds have rolled in over enterprise IT. These clouds aren’t dark ones obscuring the sun, however; in fact they’ve made the enterprise computing horizon much brighter. Going from a relatively unheard-of concept ten years ago, the cloud has become a popular buzzword seizing hold of the collective conscious of CIOs and directors of IT at companies across industries, sizes, and revenues for its promise of organizational transformation.

Pros & Cons for Building a Hybrid Cloud for Your Enterprise

A large amount of enterprises have already built their own private cloud networks, hosting essential applications and providing anywhere, anytime access to mission critical data for employees scattered across the world. While it’s a large undertaking, in many cases the effort pays off, resulting in increased productivity and ease of access.

And there’s no shortage of companies that have built public cloud offerings to leverage this trend, with tech giants like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Oracle all having entered into the market in the last few years, not to mention the thousands of smaller service providers offering more niche solutions for the organizations that need them. These services can be a cheaper alternative to building an internal private cloud infrastructure, or can provide a necessary extension of the limits of a private cloud, allowing for occasional bursts in computing power.

Many organizations have started to blend both private and public cloud offerings to create a hybrid cloud infrastructure. These hybrid clouds exploit the control and security of a private cloud, along with the flexibility and low cost of public cloud offerings. Together they form a powerful solution to meet the increased demands on IT from the rest of the organization.

Cloud computing has a seemingly endless list of reasons for why companies should adopt it: cost savings, improved security, enhanced agility, greater accessibility and flexibility, among many others. Implementing newer technology always poses risks and challenges that must be taken into account and built into the plan for rollout though. For that reason, we’ve put together this helpful guide with the best practices for building a hybrid cloud for your organization. Read on to learn more.

Benefits of Building a Hybrid Cloud

One of the foremost benefits of implementing a hybrid cloud approach is cost savings. Instead of having to spend the money and build infrastructure to withstand occasional bursts in system usage that only happen a small fraction of the time, organizations can leverage public cloud offerings to offload some of the heavy usage, and only have to pay for it when they need it. With less money spent on infrastructure, more funds can be devoted to other critical projects that help move the business forward, instead of holding it back.

Improved Security is another major benefit of hybrid clouds. While the perception that the cloud is insecure is a persistent one among members of traditional IT teams, TechTarget reports that users of service-provider environments actually suffer from less attacks than on-premise users do. The myth that cloud computing is less secure than traditional approaches can lend itself to the fact that having things stored off-premises feels less secure, however this is not the case. Cloud computing can offer increased security for organizations utilizing it.

Another major benefit of hybrid clouds is enhanced organizational agility. By leveraging the public cloud in times of heavy usage, the organization can experience fewer outages and less downtime. For developing and testing new applications, the hybrid cloud also offers an attractive option for hosting them–buying time until a decision is eventually made as to where to host it permanently.

With employees becoming increasingly mobile, greater accessibility to business-critical applications is a necessity for any 21st century enterprise. Gone are the days when employees only need to access their email when they’re at their desks, or only need to update a spreadsheet or access an application during business hours. Business happens 24/7 nowadays, and for companies to compete effectively, the cloud offers the advantage of anywhere, anytime access.

Although the benefits outweigh the negatives in most cases, building a hybrid cloud poses a number of challenges, and for this reason, it may not be the solution for every company.

Challenges of Building a Hybrid Cloud

It takes tools and skills to effectively operate a hybrid cloud solution. Not everyone has these skills, and it can cost a pretty penny to get them. If your organization has recently decided to make the move to the cloud, it might be necessary to look for outside talent that has the necessary skillset to accomplish it. Moreover, the team implementing the project will probably need additional training to learn the systems, and all of this costs money; bringing us to our next point…

Cost plays a major role in planning to execute a hybrid cloud strategy. While the public cloud can offer an attractive option for its flexibility and relatively low cost to operate, building a private enterprise cloud requires significant expenditure and can become expensive very quickly with all the physical hardware necessary. At the same time, heavy use of public cloud resources can rack up unexpectedly high usage bills that may not have been planned for. When outlining a budget for a hybrid cloud project, make sure to factor in all of these difficult-to-plan for costs.

Security is at the forefront of everyone’s mind these days when they think of the cloud. While we’ve already seen that cloud computing is not inherently any less secure than traditional computing, and in fact faces fewer attacks, there are still considerations to take into account when building out a hybrid cloud. The proper precautions must be taken to ensure data is properly protected and that control is maintained by the right people. Additionally, depending on the industry, there may be certain regulatory requirements that prohibit data from being stored off-site, which would prevent the use of a public cloud entirely.

Data and application integration serves as a second challenge to take into account while building a hybrid cloud. Applications and data exist in a symbiotic relationship, with each one being useless without the other. Oftentimes they’re chained together. So when considering where to store each of them, it’s essential to ask whether the infrastructure they’re placed on matters. For example, if an application lives in a private cloud and it’s data lives in an on-prem data center, is the application built in order to access the data remotely? Technologies like copy data virtualization can decouple data from infrastructure and make this problem less of a headache.

Compatibility across infrastructure can prove itself to be a major issue when building a hybrid cloud. With dual levels of infrastructure, a private cloud that the company controls, and a public one that the company doesn’t, the chances are that they will be running different stacks. Can you manage both using the same tools, or will your team have to learn a new set in order to effectively oversee them?

Networking is another factor to consider in hybrid integration and there are a number of questions one must ask while designing the network around it. For instance, will very active applications be living in the cloud? It’s necessary to consider the bandwidth usage that this could take up on the network, and whether or not it could cause problems in bottlenecking other applications.

Like every IT project, building an enterprise hybrid cloud brings along many benefits and challenges. When properly accounted for during planning, organizations can minimize these difficulties and maximize the benefits they bring for the company.

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The Role of AI in Cybersecurity

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The growing and evolving cyber security risk facing global businesses can be stemmed by the integration of AI into security systems 

 The Role of AI in Cybersecurity

Hyper-connected workplaces and the growth of cloud and mobile technologies have sparked a chain reaction when it comes to security risks. The vast volume of connected devices feeding into networks provide a dream scenario for cyber criminals — new and plentiful access points to target. Further, security on these access points is often deficient.

For businesses, the desire to leverage IoT is tempered by the latest mega breach or DDoS attack creating splashy headlines and causing concern.

However, the convenience and automation IoT affords means it isn’t an ephemeral trend. Businesses need to look to new technologies, like AI, to effectively protect their customers as they broaden their perimeter.

The question becomes, how can enterprises work with, and not against, artificial intelligence?

>See also: How AI has created an arms race in the battle against cybercrime

The emergence of AI in cyber security

Machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) are being applied more broadly across industries and applications than ever before as computing power, data collection and storage capabilities increase. This vast trove of data is valuable fodder for AI, which can process and analyse everything captured to understand new trends and details.

For cyber security, this means new exploits and weaknesses can quickly be identified and analysed to help mitigate further attacks. It has the ability to take some of the pressure off human security “colleagues.” They are alerted when an action is needed, but also can spend their time working on more creative, fruitful endeavours.

A useful analogy is to think about the best security professional in your organisation. If you use this star employee to train your machine learning and artificial intelligence programs, the AI will be as smart as your star employee.

Now, if you take the time to train your machine learning and artificial intelligence programs with your 10 best employees, the outcome will be a solution that is as smart as your 10 best employees put together. And AI never takes a sick day.

It becomes a game of scale and leveraging these new tools can give enterprises the upper hand.

AI under attack

AI is by no means a cyber security panacea. When pitted directly against a human opponent, with clear circumvention goals, AI can be defeated. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t use AI, it means we should understand its limitations.

AI cannot be left to its own devices. It needs human interaction and “training” in AI-speak to continue to learn and improve, correcting for false positives and cyber criminal innovations.

This hybrid approach already has proven itself to be a valuable asset in IT departments because it works efficiently alongside threat researchers.

Instead of highly talented personnel spending time on repetitive and mundane tasks, the machine takes away this burden and allows them to get on with the more challenging task of finding new and complex threats.

Predictive analytics will build on this by giving security teams the predictive insight needed to stop threats before they become an issue as opposed to reacting to a problem. This approach is not only more cost effective in terms of resources, but also is favourable for the business due to the huge reputational and financial damage a breach can cause in the long term.

Benefits of machine learning

Alongside AI, machine learning is becoming a vital tool in a threat hunter’s tool box. There is no doubt machine learning has become more sophisticated in the past couple of years and will continue to do so as its learnings are compounded and computing power increases.

Organisations face millions of threats each day, so it would be impossible for threat researchers to analyse and categorise them all. As each threat is analysed by the machine, it learns and improves. This not only helps protect organisations now, but compiles this valuable data for use in predictive analytics.

However, just staying ahead of the hackers and the threats they pose is not enough to protect organisations as the new vulnerabilities and new devices that come online will make this more and more difficult.

The continued and enhanced standardisation on data formats and communication standards is crucial to this effort. Once data flows and formats are clearly defined, not just technically but also semantically, machine learning systems will be far better placed to effectively police the operations of such systems.

The industry needs to work towards finding the sweet-spot between unsupervised and supervised machine learning so that we can fully benefit from our knowledge of current threat types and vectors and combine that with the ability to detect new attacks and uncover new vulnerabilities.

Much like AI, machine learning in threat hunting must be guided by humans. Human researchers are able to look beyond the anomalies that the machine may pick up and put context around the security situation to decide if a suspected attack is truly taking place.

The future

For the security industry to get the most out of AI, they need to recognise what machines do best and what people do best. Advances in AI can provide new tools for threat hunters, helping them protect new devices and networks even before a threat is classified by a human researcher.

Machine learning techniques such as unsupervised learning and continuous retraining can keep us ahead of the cyber criminals. However, hackers aren’t resting on their laurels. Let’s give our threat researchers the time to creatively think about the next attack vector while enhancing their abilities with machines.

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