With the advent of the COVID-19 global pandemic, many organizations have had to re-adjust the way they operate. Remote working is now a reality for large sections of the workforce. Remote collaboration through cloud-based platforms is an accepted part of most workdays. But the utility of cloud-based technology does not end there. Here is how COVID-19 is driving us into a cloud-based future.

A recent report indicates that in the next two years the cloud computing industry will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 12.5%. Already a strongly-emerging technology, cloud-based solutions are proving to be invaluable during a global health crisis where people can no longer work at a fixed site. The extent to which cloud-based technologies are driving us into the future are as follows:

Supporting Remote Work and the Freelance Economy

Continued productivity is vital as organizations shift to remote models of working. This is as important to corporate organizations as it is to schools and colleges. During COVID-19, many working and learning programs have continued with high levels of efficiency, thanks to highly-flexible, scalable, and efficient cloud-based solutions.

The seamlessness with which business has continued means that every responsible organization should have a cloud migration solution.

Demand for collaboration tools has seen unprecedented growth in platforms like Zoom and Slack. More entrenched office productivity tools such as Microsoft 365 also sees high demand. These tools are all cloud-based and their excellent conferencing, and productivity suites all enjoy the multiple benefits of the cloud.

When the pandemic eventually subsides, people will have to go back to work. But an increasing number of workers will not. The freelance economy has seen continued growth in recent years, with over 60 million Americans doing freelance work of some sort. Cloud computing is an invaluable tool that has allowed the freelance economy to take hold and thrive.

A boom in E-Commerce and the Fade of Brick and Mortar

As people have been stuck at home, the demand for e-commerce services has risen sharply. Retailers were already migrating away from brick and mortar into the online space before the global pandemic arrived.

Retail companies know that as e-commerce adoption rises, any cloud investment costs will be recouped through cloud cost reduction. This applies to cloud solutions also being responsible for overall reduced IT costs by obliterating the need for most traditional hardware such as servers.

The ways in which global supply chains have become embedded in e-commerce fulfillment points to an inevitable future internet of things. Service provider collaboration and integration happens at the level of the cloud between retailers and logistics service providers, resulting in a smooth and highly-efficient delivery system.

Through the robust scalability of the cloud and its forever switched-on nature, global supply chains can support the wants and whims of consumers everywhere. This has been shown during COVID-19, with online purchases spiking a staggering 146%, and supply chains barely breaking a sweat to deliver.

Growth of the Cloud in the Government Sector

Healthcare has come to prominence during the pandemic. It has benefited greatly from access to a scalable and secure cloud infrastructure. This has been necessary to manage patient information. With millions of people laid low by the virus, it has taken the need for efficient and accurate computing to a new level of importance.

The prominence of the cloud during the pandemic goes beyond patient records. Collaboration between various private and governmental agencies has risen to unprecedented levels. Virus development projects are being shared by many countries and institutions.

Additionally, virus contingency management information is being shared by nations across the world. All these efforts are underpinned by highly scalable and collaborative cloud-based tools.

It is for moments like these that governments were already moving towards a cloud-based future at great speed. Until recently, almost half of all government agencies in the US were actively using cloud services.

These agencies understand the power and versatility of private cloud networks, with benefits such as deep security and information sovereignty being crucial. Cloud adoption within government circles will only continue to rise.

Content Platforms Enjoying a Surge

Binge-consumption of TV and audio content has been a feature of the pandemic. Video-streaming services have reported a strong surge in new subscriptions since the enactment of lockdown orders in many countries.

Not to be outdone, music services and many podcasts and audiobook services have also reported large jumps in membership. The gaming industry has also reported large spikes in usage times. Support services such as mobile networks and internet service providers have benefited from these enforced behavior changes.

Cloud-Dependent Industries on the Rise

The SaaS segment was already a growth area, and its continued importance and growth potential has been revealed during COVID-19. Due to the many daily applications and tools driven by this service, the industry in its entirety is in the limelight.

Service desks, accounting packages, customer relationship management, human resource management, and enterprise resource planning all rely on the SaaS model. Infrastructure as a service, platform as a service, and desktop as a service are all part of the cloud family and are all showing continued growth.

The new model of remote working depends on the streamlined continuation of business-critical services such as human resource management. Cloud service providers have been able to remotely manage and secure underlying infrastructure, allowing organizations to continue to function within their constraints. This versatility has been perfect during the pandemic and will continue to be perfect for the business of the future.

Robust and Sustainable Is the Way of the Future

If anything, the virus has taught us the danger of having all your data tied to office sites and fixed hardware installations. There has always been the danger of data loss through disasters on site. Data loss has been mitigated by on-site security, but cloud services offer a better way.

The better way of cloud services is because hardware inevitably deteriorates, can be stolen, corrupted, or become obsolete. When your data is simply inaccessible, as it has been during the pandemic, a better solution must be found.

There is also the matter of sustainability. Large organizations can collect vast amounts of hardware to house their information. It is the responsible thing to do to cut down your environmental footprint by putting everything in the cloud.

There are also downstream issues like energy efficiency and reduced building usage. Other sustainability wins come with the reduced need for workers to commute to the place where the information is held. These wins have come into sharp focus during the virus as many measures have revealed a cleaner planet, even if just temporarily.

Conclusion

The global pandemic has revealed that cloud services will continue to provide strategic flexibility and scalability for a number of organizations. The virus response would likely have been a lot less effective in a time before cloud services.

It is totally imaginable that habits like social distancing would have been impossible to achieve if people needed to be on-site to manage and control business-critical systems.

At this moment in time, cloud services may heavily favor sectors which are useful during a pandemic, but future prospects are robust across all sectors. There are also no geographical boundaries, with cloud services projected to increase in adoption across the world.

New cloud technologies like cloud direct connect, where private networks can join the cloud, will allow more and more types of organizations and networks to take part. Cloud computing is truly taking center stage in driving us into the future.

The post How COVID-19 is Driving Us into a Cloud-Based Future appeared first on ReadWrite.

Impact of COVID-19 – Coronavirus is not stopping, but it has stopped all the activities in the world. There are many efforts put in by all the governments to control these situations and make things easy for people. Most of the businesses are completely at a halt and have no way of earning revenue at this time. Students are stuck inside their homes, many of them have not even been given their exams. Here are the impact of COVID-19 on sustainability and technology.

It seems that everything is mismanaged and there are still things that are scaring everyone around the world.

Talking about sustainable resources we get to know that they are not being properly utilized and because of that there will be negative impacts. All the stations that generate energy will shut down way early as they will not be able to circulate the extra energy. There will be an accumulation of resources and that will create disbalance.

Understanding the impact of COVID-19 on the technology sector.

Impact of COVID-19 over Industry

Many people are thinking about how COVID is affecting all industries. If we look at the enterprises that deal with these resources we will get to know the loss they are facing. No petroleum company is getting any revenue other than LPG. Transportation and Industries are at a halt and hence, electricity and fuel are not getting used — all of these happenings affect the sustainability of that industry.

There is one thing that is still giving relief to organizations and people around the world “Technology.” Without technology, everything would have been ten times harder for all of us right now. Many enterprises are being able to continue work by working from home. People who can provide services digitally are working, schools and colleges are working.

There are only a few types of enterprises that are at complete halt otherwise most of them are working. Almost all enterprises can utilize this time for marketing as most people are using the internet. Digital marketing is at its rescue. There are so many things that technology has done for people in this hard time. It is providing ways to learn new things, entertainment as well as all the important news.

Technology and sustainability are being the part of well being of providing solutions of COVID-19

Technology can only be beneficial to the environment only if it goes hand in hand with sustainability. There are people who are confined to their houses and not able to leave. In this scenario, only technology is helping them to work and connect with each other.

People all around the world are learning new and very different lifestyles. Such as the remote style of working and its challenges, remote and online schooling of children, and a whole different lifestyle in general due to the crisis happening worldwide.

Technology is greatly helping in coping up with stress and dealing with this new lifestyle. But when it comes to sustainability and climate change challenges, it is well-known that the virus has not spared political, geographical or religious boundaries. But like every cloud has a silver lining, this virus too has made some positive changes as per technology and sustainability perspective.

Role of technology in coronavirus crisis.

With the help of technology, the world is running all of its businesses and other services. Advanced technology is helping to get reliable information about the happenings of the world. Other than that, people rely on technology to connect with their family, friends and loved ones.

Nowadays, it has become the only source of entertainment as there are no ways to go out during nationwide lockdowns. People all around the world are learning new skills, getting updated, checking on to close people, and doing all that is necessary through technology only. Thus, it is being observed that it is providing extraordinary support to mitigate the negative effects of coronavirus in today’s scenario.

1. Good health and well-being.

Technology is helping people with treatment at home. There are many IoT applications that are allowing healthcare companies to check and provide treatment to people remotely. People can also order medicines and test kits to their home and get treatment for most of the things. Remote treatment facilities have been improved and this is all because of the innovation and advancement in technology during the pandemic.

Scientists and developers are still working hard to offer people and healthcare companies with solutions that can help to keep everyone healthy in these hard times. It would never have been possible without the collaboration of healthcare services and technology.

There are many things that people have realized and there are many more to come. After this pandemic, most of the people will keep using these and there will be many benefits to both doctors and patients because of this. This will solve the problem of waiting for patients and crowded hospitals.

2. Quality education.

There is no denial about the fact that there are many bad effects of closing down the educational institutes. Not just because children are not getting the education they need but also because of other things. There are many schools and colleges that provide shelter and food to many poor students, these are the places where many refugees stay.

All those people needed to vacate them and now they are struggling to stay alive, they do not have anything to survive on. But there are many positive impacts too and no one can ignore them. Colleges and schools have realized that they can teach no matter what happens.

Online lectures and examinations are working and that is keeping the flow going. There are many institutes that have created interactive courses that students can study at their own time and at their own pace, just like online course websites did. Most of the people have realized the importance of online courses and certifications. It is very easy to study remotely, although it is no replacement to in-class study still, it is a way to keep things going in the hard times.

3. Responsible usage and production.

Responsible usage and production are some of the things that would not have been possible without this pandemic. There are so many retailers and traders who will have to re-plan their supply strategies.

There are many products that they discard or don’t pay attention to as they go out of trend or are not as usable as they were in the past, these products get wasted and so does the resources and material used to make them. In this time all these products can be used.

There are chances that in the times to come these products can be on the high demand lists. This will improve the reusability and the way people use things. There will be a balance in production activities too.

More old material and products will be reused to make the new ones. The supply chain will also see a change as there will be all the products that people didn’t buy in the past. This is now the time when people need things in any way possible.

Producing new things will take time and also money and both of them are not available the way people want. This is a good opportunity to recover the losses and manage the way the sales activities take place in the future. The government is also paying attention to these types of options. It will help them in managing things and there will be no scarcity of resources.

4. Partnerships among enterprises.

It is a very smart step taken by many enterprises already that they have collaborated with other enterprises that helps them in working remotely. This is the time that provides people with so many partnership opportunities and it is all for the good.

Both consumers and businesses will get benefits from these kinds of partnerships. There are companies that can create 3D and AI-based applications that can help their clients and consumers understand things in a better way. These solutions are empowering enterprises to grow exponentially.

With each other’s help and constant hard work, enterprises in the world can reach the places that will help them a lot after all this ends. Many enterprises need solutions to deploy their services and products in the market. It is needed that they collaborate with some enterprise that can help.

The way partnerships are being made and the opportunity that is still left is something that will make things better for everyone. The government is also asking for partnerships with enterprises that can help them and the country in this hard time.

Impact of COVID-19 on sustainability

Above mentioned are the positive results that coronavirus brought to humans. The virus has also created a fresh and unimaginable impact on the nature and sustainability of the resources. The only way to prevent the virus from spreading is physical distancing.

For practicing physical distancing, countries have opted for lockdown in which only essential duties will be followed and the rest of the people will stay in quarantine and work remotely.

Due to distancing, there has been a drastic change in the way of living. Though people are still adjusting to this new lifestyle, it has been a boon for mother nature. There has been a significant drop in the consumption of electricity, gas and oil. Vehicles are being used less which is why energy is being consumed less and the pollution levels are decreased at significant levels.

Conclusion

Sustainable development can only happen if there is a perfect balance between technology, sustainability, and consumption. One must understand that even after this pandemic ends, it is important to be cautious about saving the energy for future generations and using renewable resources as much as possible.

The post The Impacts of COVID-19 on Sustainability and Technology appeared first on ReadWrite.

Ask any CEO what makes their product unique, and user experience will be at the top of the list. Products that are easy to use to ensure quick adoption and build brand loyalty are often at risk. It makes sense. After all, why use something difficult to navigate when there are easier solutions on the market? Here is zoombombing and how to secure your teams for remote work.

People searching for easy to navigate solutions has led to the boom of a build-it-first mentality.

But the COVID era has quickly shown the vulnerabilities in this approach with tools that have become critical to life during the pandemic. Many across the US are entering our third month of stay-at-home orders due to the spread of the coronavirus and looking towards a new standard of remote or flexible work — once things open back up.

The world is a different place than we left it before the pandemic and the writing is on the wall.

The way we work will never be the same. Take Twitter, which has said that employees have the option of never coming back to the office to work. While Facebook, Google and Slack have said they don’t expect workers back in the office until 2021 — if even then.

As we consider our new normal, it’s critical that we understand how we got to a place of enterprise communication being so easily hacked and learn from our mistakes. At a high level, corporations and corporate security people believe privacy is their enemy. They don’t worry about privacy; they worry about securing confidential data and ensuring they’re in compliance with regulations – privacy can be an effective tool to meet both of these goals.

The Zoombombing Craze

For example, “Zoombombing,” swept the nation at the height of COVID-19, affecting everything from a popular daily public WFH Happy Hour, to an online event hosted by Recode and New York Times journalists Kara Swisher and The Information’s Jessica Lessin.

Even SNL alum, Will Ferrell got in on the trend, promising 2020 USC grads a new car with their diplomas. Issues sprang from Zoom’s design choice that conference hosts “[do] not need to grant screen share access for another participant to share their screen.”

It’s tempting to shrug off “Zoombombing” as a tasteless prank.

Yes, a tasteless, if entertaining prank. Some don’t think about it in the context of a critical design flaw — but it underscores the security issues perfectly.

Without a clear market leader in the enterprise collaboration space, no service is safe — everyone is an obvious target. When work and our social lives moved online, Zoom became the clear frontrunner and therefore drew the attention of pranksters and cybercriminals alike.

Who bears responsibility? Certainly not the employees??

As we rushed into fully remote work – something many had never experienced before the pandemic – we adapted in live time. Coffee tables were cleared off for makeshift home offices, and we learned to work around our new and sometimes very distracting office mates (spouses, roommates, children and pets). We were largely trying to find the quickest solution to get back up and running after being displaced.

But the blame doesn’t necessarily come down on companies either.

Businesses were in triage to provide employees with new ways to communicate with each other. With how quickly everyone had to shift to communication and collaborating remotely, maintaining strict cybersecurity standards, wasn’t top of mind – even the DoD rolled them back. They simply assumed the remote solutions available would meet the mark believing the claims most companies had made that their solutions were end-to-end encrypted.

Flaws such as “Zoombombing” created by prioritizing ease of use in communication tools existed long before COVID-19, they were simply amplified as the pandemic spread.

The world is finally realizing that most communication platforms – chatting, video conferencing, or otherwise – were never designed to be highly secure tools. Not being highly secure was all fine when confidential work could be done in person. As we look towards a new standard of remote work — we need to be more critical not only of the tools deployed but the products we design.

How do you ensure that a platform is truly secure?

A good place to start with security — is end-to-end (E2E) encryption. True E2E encryption is the method of communication in which the users and only the users in communication can see messages or be included on a call.

One of the places Zoom faltered was by falsely marketing that its meetings were E2E encrypted.

But that would mean video call data is encrypted at all times in transit so that not even Zoom could access it? Zoom was merely delivering client-to-server encryption, something that Slack, Google, Skype, and most enterprise tools offer.

Client-to-server is a foundational level of encryption but it does not secure information fully from end to end.

As we can see from a slew of headlines — the encryption doesn’t stand up to increased attention from “advantageous threat actors.”  Now, something [and someone] is spending the next few months and millions of dollars to go back and fix.

Conclusion

We can’t change the past, but we can look to right these wrongs as we move forward. Our new mindset must include balancing ease of use with privacy and security. Things like preventing anyone not invited to a message or meeting to see or hear the content. Taking time to protect personal information and maintaining call histories for only as long as required by law. The highest priority is to make sure only the users can have access to it must become standard.

Speed and security are often at odds, which in the case of COVID-19 meant making trigger decisions around readily available technologies. We can learn from this experience though, and put better, more secure tools in place as we look towards our new state of work.

The post Zoombombing Was Just the Beginning – Securing Your Teams for Remote Work appeared first on ReadWrite.

Nowadays, with the increasing volume of Internet access, there is also a considerable increase in the number of breaches on the network, waiting for the unsuspecting. Recently, in a number of countries, the percentage of users and companies who have suffered some form of cybercrime, fallen victim to illegal digital activities, and violated their online privacy has increased.

In today’s world, practically everyone is connected, whether to check their email, update on social networks, or even buy online. The truth is that we spend a large part of our lives connected to the Internet.

However, do we pay enough attention to what we do and, mainly, to the personal data we provide? Are we sure that we are protecting them properly?

7 tips on how to protect yourself online and have more privacy:

1. Use trusted passwords.

The stronger your password, the more difficult a threat will be. For your passwords to be secure, they must contain capital letters, lowercase, numbers, special characters (@, #, etc.).

2. Avoid unnecessary exposure.

Be very careful with the information you share on your social networks. Avoid posting data about where you live, such as address and phone number. Only provide personal data to trusted sites. Although many companies today ask for this personal information, check the origin of those companies, what data they need, and for what.

Another way to avoid risks with exposure is to always disconnect from the GPS when you no longer use it. To maintain your privacy online, the GPS service shows you in real-time where you are located. Being everywhere comes at a price. Always being connected can be useful for your work, but registering everywhere you go allows you to leave marks and records of your routes and preferences.

3. Be careful with risky downloads.

Just download files from known websites. There are many free download sites for programs and applications that deceive their users. In many cases, when downloading the file, there is the hidden content that can destroy or take over stored data. Remember: always read the terms and conditions before installing an application or service.

4. Always use antivirus.

Always install and update your antivirus. With it, you can better protect your computer or smartphone. Antivirus not only safeguards you from malicious files and viruses, but it also helps protect your personal information.

5. Backup culture.

Backup is one of the best ways to protect against the loss of your data. So, if you are a victim of theft or damage to your computer and smartphone, you will have a copy of everything. Make regular backups. In addition to external hard drives, you can choose to backup in real-time to the cloud.

6. Updates are important.

Sometimes it can bother the warnings to update your Apps because they take up some memory space. But in reality, updates are needed and made to keep your data safe.

7. Use of encryption.

Finally, this measure is important. Many applications today already use encryption in their messages. Avoid using programs that do not use encryption, especially in instant messaging. With it, even the service provider will not have access to your conversations.

For a coherent internet.

We have seen that risks on the Internet always exist, but we will not stop surfing. Everything you do has its consequences, whether for better or for worse. However, the issue of online privacy has a profound social impact on our current society and one that does not escape the digital issue of laws, for example.

Today we discuss how our data are used by companies, such as machine learning and various other methods that take over decisions, such as artificial intelligence.

Today, protecting user data has become increasingly important in the midst of an open network movement zone. A data breach today is the action of a cybercriminal who successfully infiltrates a data source and extracts your confidential information.

Data in today’s world.

Today, data has become a priority for many companies. And as new technologies evolve, they can improve their methods of capturing and analyzing data. In the immediate future, executives will only use artificial intelligence to eliminate repetitive programming and research tasks. The way to approach online data privacy is already a concern, for example, by European countries, with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

GDPR is designed to protect users’ online privacy and provide more control over their personal data. The idea is for the regulation to be ethical and consistent with technologies, companies, and users following the principles of purpose limitation, data minimization, transparency, and the right to information.

The best path will always be the one with the highest security. When it comes to online privacy, as noted by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in August 2018, the “big data analysis and artificial intelligence allow more and more states and companies to obtain refined information on the lives of people,” and we often don’t realize what they are used for.

The truth is that we should not expose ourselves to unnecessarily on the Internet.

Conclusion

With these seven tips put in place, they will help you greatly reduce the chances of your information falling into the wrong hands.

Being aware of digital security issues keeps you on the right path to protecting the online privacy of your data. After all, you will not always know what and how much data is being collected at this time.

The post Online Privacy: The 7 Best Tips to Protect Your Data appeared first on ReadWrite.

Blockchain technology is cementing its position in the business marketplace to help you get more customers. Gratefully, the first thing that blockchain will help with is better security. But it’s going to take some time for the business community to adopt blockchain properly. With that being said, I’m going to explain ten unique benefits that blockchain technology will offer.

While some in the business community are hesitating to adopt the blockchain tech right now — all business will likely be forced to adopt blockchin tech in the future. Without the benefits of blockchain, businesses will be considered entirely outdated. Blockchain will take over almost every aspect of the business community. To safeguard your business, you will want to follow the blockchain trend, so that you and your business will be on the cutting edge of tech — and be able to compete in the future.

Helps Build Trust with Customers

Most businesses are under the wrong impression that their employees are the only ones who will be affected by the adoption of blockchain technology. Some erroneously think that blockchain might ruin their relationship with the respective clientele.

Surveys show many companies share a mindset sticking to the old ways to entertain long-term clients. Instead, we will urge you to provide your long-term clients better value as keeping a long-term client is far more important than acquiring a new one.

Blockchain can help you in this regard. The biggest fear that most business share is upgrading to blockchain systems will leave the current customer systems obsolete. Well, we are not going to dismiss this fact, because new technologies do take over old ones. While this is a drastic change, it offers several benefits like a better sense of security for the transaction, chat, and privacy.

Also, this change is going to take effect. Businesses that don’t adopt this technology willingly in time, will be forced to adopt it in the future or else they will lose their competitive edge. So, stay ahead of the trends and adopt it before anyone else.

Makes Fundraising Easy

There was a time when applying for a loan at a bank was the only way to fund your business. Fortunately, things have changed dramatically over time, and now you have several ways to fund your business venture, including Crowdlending or Crowd Fundraising.

Now, even if this is a far more feasible option than applying for a bank, this method has its challenges. Regardless, Initial Coin Offering or ICO has become the most popular way to raise funds for your business.

ICO is an initial coin offering which is also called a token sale. This raises funds by offering investors a token in the shape of cryptocurrency in exchange for real money or digital assets like Bitcoin or any other digital currency.

Prevents Spammy Ads

Blockchain will play an instrumental role to make digital ads less intrusive and prevent digital fraud. Now, businesses can use blockchain technology and build goodwill among their clients. But it doesn’t matter what you do, blockchain technology is going to make this change anyway as it will make online advertisement better for everyone.

Users will have a say on what sort of advertisement they want to see when they surf the internet. This means the content creator will get highly relevant traffic without begging any intermediaries to get it.

Improves Online Security

One of the biggest benefits of mainstream adoption of Blockchain is it offers Encryption and Validation. Everything that will happen will be within encryption. It helps to protect data from being altered. Thanks to the distributed nature, you will check the signatures across ledgers on all nodes in the network and confirm no one changed anything.

This will be rather useful for storage solutions, Private messages (between company/ clients or between friends on social media), Safer DNS, and IoT security. Blockchain will have several benefits for cybersecurity, but it will take some time before these improvements can affect how we use the internet.

Easy Payment Options

While online transactions are safer than ever, they still pose a danger to the user’s confidential information. Blockchain can help in this regard as this decentralized platform can help make payments transparent, and tamper-proof which will reshape the revolutionize the financial ecosystem.

The blockchain technology will help verify and secure data without any third party. Put simply, it lets you carry financial transactions without the need of a payment processor like a Bank, PayPal, Credit Card, it’s pure internet.

Blockchain technology helps make your financial transaction secure as it gets rid of central points of attack and failure, it improves enhances security to tamperproof with some fewer errors. This makes the process efficient and economical. Blockchain makes sure the transaction can’t be changed, and history is only viewed by people involved or allowed. It is not open like other platforms.

Blockchain for Insurance Industry

Blockchain will bring some positive changes to the insurance industry as well. These changes can be anything like efficiency gains, cost savings, faster payouts, transparency, and fraud mitigation. This lets the data to share in real-time between various parties in a trusted and traceable way. The blockchains will enable new insurance practices, which let in build better products and markets.

The insurance companies operate a highly competitive environment in which retail and corporate customers get the best value for money and superior online experience. Blockchain technology represents an occasion for a positive change and growth in the insurance industry.

The Ethereum smart contracts and decentralized applications, insurance can be conducted over blockchain accounts, it introduces more automaton and tamper-proof audit trails. The low cost of smart contracts and transactions mean the product is rendered more competitive for penetration of underinsured markets in the developing world.

The emerging trends will take some time but blockchain cyber insurance will be taken as a template, with extensions and endorsement, professional liability, and surety bonds, insurers will have to work with tech companies to assess risk and advise them for loss control and mitigation.

Enables Direct Selling

Blockchain will change the monopoly of social selling.  It disrupts current power imbalances and open industry to the broader retail sector. Blockchain tech is a decentralized and open source. The features can help empower sellers to work and prevent the customer data to be centrally controlled. The open-source aspect blockchain technology which lowers entry cost, it allows new merchants to enter space.

There is some blockchain social selling platform and these platforms have been successful since its inception. With a better sense of security, you can easily integrate your catalog.

Protects Your Information

Blockchain has top of the line encryption and validation. This way, everything that takes place in the blockchain is encrypted, and it’s easy to prove, and the data has not to be altered. The distributed nature, you can see check file signatures across and ledgers on all nodes.

The network and verify that nothing changed.  One thing we would like to mention here is that blockchain is virtually impossible to hack. This technology can be both private and public.

Better Auditing

Audit means the assessment of recorded transactions, which are supported by some evidence that the assessment of transaction is reliable, relevant, objective, accurate, and can be verified. When a bitcoin transaction for something, the transfer is recorded on the blockchain.

As a functionality, the blockchain will serve as an open, distributed ledger that can record transactions between two party’s efficiency and are in a verifiable and permanent way. The blockchain is used to verify the reported transactions.

Independent Energetics

Blockchain Technology will play a major role in the energy and sustainability sector. This ranges from utility providers to oil, gas, enterprises which are recognizing the transformative impact of blockchain technology. The industry will be catalyzed by innovation including rooftop solar, electric and smart metering.

The blockchain will spur growth in the energy sector as the smart contracts and systems have become interoperable. There are several use cases for the environment.  It might include new business models for the energy market, real-time data management, and moving carbon credits which will renewable and use then as certificates for blockchain.

The distributed ledger tech will improve efficiency for the utility provider as it tracks the chain of grid material. It goes beyond the provenance tracking; this technology does offer renewable energy distribution. As for the large energy sectors, they will take advantage of the implementation of enterprise Ethereum solutions.

The main benefits of blockchain technology for the energy sector will be cutting down costs, help to sustain the environment. While ton this, make sure you have excellent transparency for the stakeholders as it never compromises your privacy.

Conclusion

Blockchain offers several benefits to the business. It doesn’t matter If you are a business owner or entrepreneur who either wants to start their new business or maintain their already established business, this technology as something in store for you.

Above, we have discussed different ways of how blockchain will help businesses to advertise themselves and expand their reach. Now, these things will take a few years to be adopted by the mainstream industry. But you can always adapt it early to stay ahead of the trend.

The post 10 Ways to Skyrocket Business Growth Using Blockchain Technology appeared first on ReadWrite.

Despite evidence of multi-billion-dollar cybersecurity vulnerabilities in some of the world’s most trusted organizations, businesses still aren’t taking cybersecurity seriously. Big corporations are finding reasons to skimp on their cybersecurity budgets, cutting costs rather than investing in their infrastructure, and small business owners are simply negligent of the threat that cybersecurity issues present.

So why is cybersecurity still so underutilized and underappreciated, and what are the most common mistakes business owners are making?

Failing to Take Cybersecurity Seriously

One of the biggest issues here is that business owners continue to not take cybersecurity seriously—or at least not take it seriously enough. For big businesses, this is due to a combination of factors. For example, they may already be spending millions of dollars on IT teams and cybersecurity tools, and they may not have a barometer for whether or not this investment is “enough.” They may also struggle to see the results of their investments; after all, if your cybersecurity strategy is working, you won’t be the target of any major attacks or hacks.

On top of this, big organizations often struggle with departmental silos. Cybersecurity experts find themselves isolated from the rest of the organization, unable to provide direction or advice or limited in their abilities to influence the organization. Accordingly, people in other departments don’t give cybersecurity much thought.

For small businesses, the prevailing attitude is “we’re too small to be a target,” even though small businesses are some of the most common targets for cybercriminals. When faced with a steep bill for even the most basic cybersecurity measures, small businesses are disinclined to spend the money.

In any case, if a business doesn’t treat cybersecurity as important, they aren’t going to do enough to protect themselves.

Treating Cybersecurity Reactively Instead of Proactively

For cybersecurity to be effective, it needs to be done proactively. You need to put in the work long before you suffer from a data breach or opportunistic attack; if you wait until you know for sure you’re a possible victim, it will already be too late.

This is the difference between proactive and reactive cybersecurity. After suffering a data breach, companies are much more keen to invest in the infrastructure necessary to prevent another, similar attack in the future; but if they had done this in the first place, they could have saved millions, if not billions of dollars.

It’s much better to make cybersecurity a routine—something you invest in and improve continuously, even when things seem quiet.

Establishing Cybersecurity as a Separate Department

It’s tempting to think of cybersecurity as its own department, or as a subsection of your IT department. This approach allows you to hire experts in the field, and funnel funding specifically toward this cause. While this isn’t necessarily a bad strategy, this can be misleading—and possibly leave you open to attacks in other areas.

Instead, cybersecurity is something that’s best executed with teamwork and collaboration. For example, teams employing DevOps practices often work hard to ensure that security is incorporated into every stage of the development process—and isn’t simply shoehorned in at the end.

The big problem you’re trying to solve is that security vulnerabilities exist everywhere, in every department of your organization and with every individual. Only by working together will you be able to reduce these vulnerabilities to a minimum.

Implementing Bad Password Practices

Speaking of individual vulnerabilities, too many modern organizations still suffer from bad password practices. The majority of cyberattacks and digital breaches aren’t because of an insanely skilled hacker, but instead are due to an individual (possibly an unskilled one) finding, guessing, or stealing a password. With the right login credentials, anyone can be considered a “hacker.”

Password strategies can go wrong in many ways. Your people may choose weak or easy-to-guess passwords, like those that feature common words or predictable series of numbers. They may fail to update those passwords on a regular basis. Or they may have bad habits related to password storage; for example, they may keep a list of passwords written down on a sticky note by their desk.

Some organizations also use organization-wide passwords, copying and pasting the same sequences for all people across all platforms. This leads to a massive vulnerability.

Choosing the Wrong Software

There’s also something to be said for choosing the “right” software for your organization. Most companies need a variety of different tools to operate effectively, including CRM platforms, project management platforms, and communication platforms. Each of these is going to represent a potential point of vulnerability; these apps store information related to your business, and if breached, could represent a real problem for you.

Accordingly, you’ll need to think carefully about the tools you use. Pay attention to the reputation of the developers, and find out what kind of security measures are available; for example, some apps will employ features like AI designed for cybersecurity, or robust encryption standards.

Failing to Update Consistently

No matter how skilled a developer is, no software is perfectly coded. No matter what, there are going to be security vulnerabilities and issues with long-term integrity. If and when someone figures this out, they can take advantage of the flaw.

Fortunately, most development teams and open source communities are constantly on the lookout for new potential threats—and when they find one, they implement a patch to fix it.

Here’s the thing—the patch only works if you download it. Yet, many organizations fail to update their software or devices consistently. The easiest approach here is to mandate automatic updates, but many businesses simply allow their employees to update as they see fit—which isn’t as often as it should be.

Pinning Hopes on a Single Solution

There are several products and services that can minimize your security vulnerabilities, including firewalls, antivirus software, and virtual private networks (VPNs). However, too many business owners pin all their hopes on a single solution. They believe that since they’re using a firewall, they’re practically bulletproof.

However, complete data protection requires you to pay close attention to a number of potential threats, studying the landscape and employing unique solutions to guard against them. If you’re only using one or two techniques, you’re probably leaving yourself open to attack in some other way.

Neglecting Personal Device Vulnerabilities

Most businesses these days have some variant of a bring your own device (BYOD) policy. This works well for both businesses, which can save money on purchasing employee devices, and employees, who can exercise more control over what type of devices they use and how they use them. However, personal devices brought onto your network can pose a major security risk if your employees aren’t managing their devices correctly.

Additionally, employees may use their devices (with company accounts) or company devices on public Wi-Fi networks that are unsecured—a major risk for attacks.

Failing to Train Staff

One of the most common reasons for small business cyberattacks is simple employee mistakes. Most cybercriminals aren’t sophisticated hackers, but instead are opportunists—looking for ways to exploit basic ignorance or errors. For example, they may try to trick your employees into giving up their login credentials, or they may simply wait for an opportunity to conveniently learn more about your organization through social engineering. The better informed your staff members are, and the more trained they are in cybersecurity practices, the fewer vulnerabilities you’ll face. Unfortunately, most business owners neglect this.

There’s no easy way to get business owners to take cybersecurity seriously, especially when there are already many examples of businesses losing billions of dollars because of lax security habits. However, the more you know about the common failings of cybersecurity in businesses, the more proactively you’ll be able to work to prevent such disasters from happening to you.

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