Approximately two billion records were stolen between July and October 2019. That’s just in one quarter of a year! This is several times more than what was stolen last year – half a billion records. Even as organizations continue to invent new technology and pump in more and more funds (an estimated $124 billion in 2019) to secure data, the number of breaches also continues to rise – at an alarming rate!
It’s becoming evident that cybersecurity software solutions alone are not enough anymore. There is an urgent need to train employees and bring in experts who can close the loopholes left by software solutions. Therein arises the concept of offensive security.Continue reading Understanding Offensive Security
Compliance ensures that an enterprise maintains a minimum standard of security-related requirements in accordance with industry and regulatory standards. Its scope, however, goes beyond having regulations in place, to successfully implementing policies and contracts.
As security breaches, fraud, and theft of data are becoming increasingly widespread in the IT world, industry guidelines for compliance have become more complex, and enterprise policies more elaborate. Adding to the difficulty of achieving security compliance is the limited functionality of network security tools in dealing with the dynamic nature of the cloud.Continue reading Navigating the World of Data Security in the Cloud: Steps to Ensure Compliance
According to the PwC 21st Annual Global Survey, reliability, congruence, consistency, and transparency are the four pillars for building trust among customers and other stakeholders. The same survey also found that 65% of CEOs are concerned about declining trust in business. If you have the same concern, here are some useful suggestions!
Just last year, the popular Q&A site Quora suffered a data breach, as reported by Techworld in their article on UK’s most infamous data breaches. This just goes to show that even the best of businesses are finding it a challenge to secure their data and vital business information in this age of digital advancements.
IT security is, no doubt, an overwhelming, daunting, and expensive task. With cybercriminals getting more advanced and sophisticated, organizations are struggling to find security solutions that will effectively counter them.Continue reading How Technology Can Simplify IT Security
When in action, a social engineering attack could look like an email received from a government organization or your own organization asking your employees to divulge their credentials. The basis of social engineering attacks is to induce fear or urgency in unsuspecting users and employees into handing over sensitive information. Over the years, these attacks have become more sophisticated – even if you open a mail or message from a possible attacker, malware is immediately installed on your system. Continue reading Identity and Access Management for Social Engineering Attacks
Security vs. usability – the debate has been around for quite a while now. Which one would you prioritize? Would you consider convenience more important than security when it comes to the identity management of consumers? What are your users more inclined to? Is there a way to find a balance between the two?Continue reading Security vs. Usability
Online identity theft, simply put, is impersonation on an online platform. If someone else pretends to be you — either by stealing your credentials and logging into your account or by creating a fake account that others believe is yours – then your identity has been stolen.
There are a number of ways – data breaches, phishing, mishandled passwords, and more – through which personal data collected by an organization can be compromised, giving rise to the risk of identity theft. There are also a number of ways in which Akku, the Identity and Access Management (IAM) solution by CloudNow, can help you prevent it.Continue reading Prevent Online Identity Theft with Akku
Data protection and data privacy are so closely linked that people (and sometimes even organizations) tend to think of them as synonyms. However, understanding the difference between the two is crucial to ensuring that both protection and privacy are maintained.Continue reading Data Protection & Data Privacy – A difference that matters
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) has been effective in the USA since 1996.
The Act actually has five different section titles, namely Health Insurance Reform, Administrative Simplification, Tax-Related Health Provisions, Application and Enforcement of Group Health Plan Requirements, and Revenue Offsets – however, the mention of ‘HIPAA Compliance’ most often refers to compliance to the second title – Administration Simplification.
This is the most challenging aspect of the HIPAA Act, as it comes with strict regulations on protecting the data of patients in an industry that is often a major target for data breaches and malicious activity. Identity and access management across applications used in a healthcare facility, therefore, becomes critical to HIPAA compliance.
Here’s how Akku can help in ensuring data privacy and preventing both outsider and insider attacks on patient data, and, ultimately, compliance to HIPAA’s stringent regulations.
It also employs a custom salted-hash encryption methodology – a combination of salting and hashing techniques – for user credentials and data
Preventing unauthorized access
Akku allows you to exercise tight control over which users have access to what applications and data, so that access is not available to users who may not require it
It prevents accidental and malicious data breaches by allowing access to applications only from whitelisted network IP addresses and devices
The system also automatically blocks suspicious access attempts at abnormal times or from unexpected locations, and also enables the set up of time-based and location-based restrictions
Ensuring privacy and accountability
Every Akku implementation is set up independently in a separate server instance, so privacy on the cloud is ensured
Akku provides administrators with complete visibility by maintaining detailed logs maintained for every activity taking place across the apps and in the server
Beyond HIPAA
In addition to helping your healthcare facility become HIPAA compliant, Akku also makes it easy to set up integrations across your Hospital Information System (HIS), Lab Information System (LIS), Patient Management System (PMS) and more. This, in turn, improves collaboration between various departments and enhances overall productivity.
To know more about Akku’s complete set of features and their specific benefits to your facility, contact us today!
