Hacks to Secure Your Data in Cloud

To the digital era, the cloud has proved to be a big blessing. It enables storing of a large amount of information- photos, videos, music, messages, etc. with a limited budget. With the dawn of internet, backing up data became much easier by storing it on the server rather than hard drive. Also, data can be accessed using internet enabled devices. It is fascinating to know that the birth of the internet has made it possible to squirrel away a huge amount of data without buying extra storage devices like memory sticks or hard drives. Recently, with technological advancements, we have seen Google Docs and Gmail taking place of Microsoft Word and Outlook Express. But, the raised concerned is data security in the cloud. Have you ever thought is your data secure on the internet? 

We have seen too many cases of data hacking in the past. In 2011, Sony’s PlayStation Network carried all the news channels by storm for its news of data hacking. A huge amount of user information was compromised. Also, recently in September 2018, we came across news of Facebook security breach exposing more than 50 million user accounts. This was the largest breach in the last 14 years of the company’s history affecting millions of lives by compromising their personal information. 

Though hacking is considered to be highly illegal there are different hacking groups targeting businesses, national security and also, private information. The user information like usernames, passwords, home address and also, credit card information encourages the hackers by enabling easy access to boatloads of personal information. Passwords are a way to safeguard your information from the prying eyes. But, let’s be honest that we prefer simple passwords which are easier to memorize. But, these passwords can be easily guessed by the hackers and your personal information can be at risk. We keep on blaming the security systems for poor security and the hackers for the malicious attacks. But, it is a fact that the users are also at fault in these attacks. 

Here are a few tips to help you secure your data on the cloud 

1. Don’t Reuse or Share Passwords

It is really bad to use simple passwords as the hackers can easily guess them and breach into your account. Once, the hacker gets access to your email account he can easily breach into your other web logins since the passwords are mailed to your email accounts. Your information networking sites like Facebook, Instagram, banking, etc. will be compromised. The hacker can also change the passwords restricting your access to the accounts. So, it is a piece of advice to use passwords that are hard to break and difficult to guess. You can use a combination of capital and small characters, numbers, symbols to secure your data. 

The second suggestion is never to use the same passwords for different sites. If you wish to reuse the password across multiple sites change up letters, capitalization and symbols. You need to be sure that you don’t repeat the password across different sites which carry your banking details like credit card information or social security number. Out of all, your email account password is the most important so don’t repeat it for any site. 

Lastly, never share your passwords with anyone may it be friends or family members. The number of people who know your passwords is directly proportional to the possibility of your passwords being compromised. Following these password rules will make your online life more secure. 

2. Data Backup 

It is beneficial to take backup of your data to be on a safer side. The unexpected accidents like system failure, robbery, power surge and faulty hard drive may take place when they are least expected. Years ago, data backup was an expensive task but, cloud storage brings a cost-effective and better solution. Cloud storage is available in all sizes and shapes. 

The smartest way to backup data is storing all the files on the cloud instead of depending on a single device. It is highly important to locally backup data on a secondary device or automated backup drive with hard to crack passwords. 

There are many organisations offering cloud storage services to set up some cloud accounts for storage purpose. 

3. Password Manager

Password manager allows you to lock all your unique passwords behind one master password. In other words, it allows you to create separate logins for different accounts like Facebook, Twitter and cloud storage but, you can access them memorizing the single password. Last Pass, KeePass, etc. are the online password management utilities available in the market. 

These online utilities are also capable of creating random passwords that are impossible. These utilities synchronize the information across multiple web browsers and devices thus, enabling to fill the forms with just a click. 

4. Data Encryption 

Data encryption is an excellent practice to encrypt data before uploading it to the cloud. This can be a better precaution against the malicious attacks from hackers. Using local encryption as an additional layer of security will help you protect your information from the service providers and administrators. While selecting a service provider make sure you choose the one that provides data encryption facility. 

5. Avoid Storing Sensitive Information

There is a huge number of enterprises that avoid storing confidential or sensitive information on their servers. This is because saving such confidential information can be a risk to the organizations. Hackers are always ready to target the firm’s sensitive information, securing which is of utmost importance to the enterprises. Compromising this information can cause gruesome troubles and losses to the firm. 

Also, uploading sensitive data on the cloud is risky for customers too. It is your responsibility to make sure to keep your personal information out of this virtual world to protect it from hackers. So, it is an appropriate solution to avoid storing such information on the cloud. 

6. Be Aware of Your Online Behavior 

Your online behavior is sometimes responsible for the security of your data on the cloud. It is good advice about not saving passwords while using public desktops. Also, make sure you logged out once you are done using the public computer. If these rules are not followed, your data may be compromised by the strangers accessing it. 

Hackers target you by sending spam emails that are worth not opening. Similarly, while making online payments and shopping make sure you research everything you need to know and it is not a fraudulent site. 

Also, connecting to open Wi-Fi hotspots in public places to access the data in the cloud may be a high risk. These public connections are unencrypted which means the hacker can intrude your data on the same network. He may get access to your confidential information like login credentials. Smart browsing can help you secure your data in the cloud. 

Conclusion

Despite, Cloud Computing having several benefits the major concern is data security in the cloud. The rise of the internet has given birth to hackers who are capable of breaking the security. You can prevent the hackers from entering your cloud security system by following the above techniques. Data encryption, avoid reusing passwords and all others mentioned in the blog are a few hacks that need to be implemented to safeguard your privacy from hackers.

Why Is Edge Computing Gaining Popularity Today?

In this modern era, where things are moving towards digitization, Edge Computing has left no stone unturned to make its way into business.  Its popularity is growing due to the huge computing demands of cloud users and massive data explosion through IOT. The business associates are finding it the best way to streamline the IOT traffic and facilitate the real time local data analysis. IIOT i.e. Industrial Internet of Things has paved way to move the data processing close to its source which is its actual industrial machines. A survey says, Edge Computing will reach the peak of productivity in the near future.

The growing innovations in Artificial Intelligence and IOT indicate that Edge Computing is likely to gain maturity very soon. The growing popularity of Edge Computing doesn’t mean Cloud Computing is a history. Both, are equally important for the IT infrastructure. They don’t compete each other because, they are here to live forever. The CEO Michael Dell gave a statement recently on Edge Computing “it will be everything and everywhere i.e. Internet of Things which means ultimately it will be the internet of everything.” A recent report predicted, by 2025 the Edge Computing will capture $3.24 billion of the market globally.  Industries like oil and gas, power utilities, aerospace, automotive benefit from Edge Computing to optimize the operations.

Here, are a few benefits of Edge Computing that may prove helpful to the industries:

•          Security:

 

With the rise of IOT devices, the threats to the network also increased.  But, Edge Computing provides a high level of security from these vulnerable attacks. The distribution of storage, applications and processing is carried across a wide range of data centres and devices. This results in securing the network by making it difficult for a single disruption to intrude the network.  IOT devices are vulnerable to cyberattacks but, the distributed architecture of Edge Computing makes it easier to seal the compromised portions instead of shutting down the network.

•          Speed

Speed is one of the important reasons for industries to move towards Edge Computing as it increases network performance by combating latency.  Since the data is processed at a local edge data centre, the collected information doesn’t travel too far distances. An expert says, with the help of Edge Computing digital traffic jams are almost guaranteed by 2020.

Edge Computing is capable of reducing Latency which results in a speed increase at the customer’s end. Latency is measured in microseconds rather than milliseconds.  This is the main reason why the speed benefit of the Edge Computing can’t be overlooked.

•          Scalability

The companies looking forward to expanding their computing capabilities build a dedicated data centre which is an expensive proposition. Also, the increasing computing needs and insufficient computing resources was the main reason to the rise of Edge Computing.  It offers scalability to the companies at an affordable cost. The combination of IOT devices and Edge devices allows organizations to flexibly expand their computing capabilities at a low price.

Also, it eases the growth cost since the addition of new devices doesn’t impose the bandwidth demands on the network.

•          Versatility

The Edge computing offers incredible versatile capabilities to the enterprises. Companies are able to target the desired markets using the local edge data centres without expensive investment infrastructure. The organisations are able to offer efficient services with latency. Integration of new IOT devices into the Edge network architecture helps to offer better facilities to the end users without a change in IT infrastructure.  These IOT devices compel the organizations to be a part of the competing world and value the innovations thus, driving its growth.

•          Reliability

Along, with the huge security support it also offers better reliability.  Since the data centres and the IOT devices are placed in the end user’s locality there are fewer possibilities of the network getting affected. Managing vital processing functions natively helps in effective operations of IOT devices. The massive number of Edge data centres makes it very difficult for any disruption to shut the service entirely.  To ensure that there is no breakdown of service, the required data is routed using multiple paths. This helps to offer unparalleled reliability. 

The advantages of Edge Computing are a sure short way for companies to progress in future.

Here are the few Industries that can leverage Edge Computing in Future:

•          Autonomous Vehicles

It is very important for vehicles to react in real time for all the occurring incidents if, human drivers need to be replaced. The vehicle sensors and backend data centres may take 100 milliseconds for the action which might put the passenger’s life at risk. The 5G network capability and Artificial Intelligence are extremely important for self-driving cars which paved the way to Edge Computing.

The 5G network has an ability to deploy the computing capabilities near to the logical edge of the network thus, forming distributed cellular towers. This may result in high-speed data transmission between the communication towers and vehicles. This will facilitate the cars to react faster than humans.

•          Voice Assistance

The AI has extended its limit because of the voice assistant technologies of Amazon Echo, Google Home and Apple Siri. It is highly predicted that the year 2020 will see 30% of the consumer interactions using voice assistant technology. The increasing consumer needs require advanced AI processing and low latency response time for the effective delivery of end-user interactions. Edge computing can enable the technology to extend its limits beyond the AI’s computational power and data transmission speed. 

To reduce the security risk with voice assistant technology, vendors like Amazon are enhancing their AI capabilities by deploying technology close to the edge. This leads to reducing vulnerabilities as the data doesn’t move across the network.

Cloud Hosting: The true successor of digital age

The concept of Cloud Hosting was established in the year 1996 and was brought into existence in the year 2006 by Amazon.  The technology experts predicted that Cloud Hosting would revolutionise all the industries starting from huge gaming industries to small enterprises. Also, the statistics say that it will bring the digital cities into life thus ensuring the availability of digital infrastructures like smart elevators, automated parking lots, driverless vehicles and AI managed farms and power plants.  The internet survey says, by 2020 most of the enterprises and people will recognise the importance of Cloud Hosting and will start effectively using it for accessing the information and applications online. It was poised to bring in the significant transformation in the IT sector by enabling online sharing of computer system resources and high-level services over the internet. The cloud capabilities have improved storing, managing and processing of data over the internet. 

A survey predicted that more than 50% of the global enterprises would rely on the clouds by 2020 to contribute their share in the digital transformation of the industries.  Also, 6 billion of the world population will enjoy the luxury of digital cities and will live by 2045. There is an enormous possibility of Cloud Hosting dominating the market in the next decade. Also, SaaS (Software as a Service) will lead to progressive transformations in the era of Cloud Hosting also, sharing half of its market revenue. Social networking sites are the best examples of SaaS as a Cloud Service used today.  Facebook is one of the popular Cloud application where more than 500 million people share and store their data. In 2006 Facebook made a drastic shift from heavy load servers to distributed cloud architecture due to its improved capabilities. Similarly, blogging services like Twitter and WordPress have also started taking advantage of Cloud Computing. Small mid-sized businesses have even started shifting to Cloud usage thus, joining hands with the digital era.

Here are a few lessons how Cloud Hosting will be the foundation of the digital age:

•    Cloud Hosting: Stepping Stone of the Internet

The birth of the internet in the year 1990, took the industry by storm and lead to the dawn of a new era. Cloud Hosting revolutionised internet technology with hardware virtualisation and Service-oriented architecture.  Since 1994, the increased capabilities of Clouds have encouraged the small and large scale companies to end spending on the storage of internal digital data. Over the last 20 years, Cloud has become the vital and significant component of the Internet Infrastructure. The data transfer over the internet has become an easy and quick task with Cloud architecture. Every Single person on this earth who uses the internet is taking advantage of the cloud. The next decade will find Cloud computing becoming an integral part of every business entity thus ensuring custom infrastructure with complete data security to flourish in the market.  Cloud facility is enjoyed even by the desk workers who make use of the internet on their computers.

•    Artificial Intelligence

Cloud hosting has given wings to Artificial Intelligence by enabling them to adapt to the upcoming platforms including smartphones.  The industries claim that cloud technology will play a vital role in their AI projects. Flexibility is one of the major reason behind the success of Ai enabled Cloud Computing.  The fusion of Artificial Intelligence and Cloud has transformed the world of Information Technology positively and hence, is believed to be the future of the corporate world.  A survey says, both Artificial Intelligence and Cloud Hosting together will be the core pillars for digital innovation.

Enterprises using a fusion of AI with Cloud are capable of driving the digital innovations using the resources they possess.  Cloud environments store vast volumes of data, and AI feeds on it. More and more access to data enables the AI to behave smarter than humans. 

•    Information Technology Infrastructure: 

Cloud Computing has proved to be a boon to the IT industry. The reason for the significant shift of IT sector from hardware services to Cloud services is virtualised It systems to access the software applications on the internet.  Now a day, most of the software applications are moved to on Public or Private clouds instead of storing it on the hardware thus, reducing the cost. Since managing data is one of the most significant aspects of IT industry they have started moving towards the cloud technology as it minimises the efforts required to handle and process the data as it becomes the vendor’s responsibility.

The shift of IT industries shows that they believe to focus on the areas they are best at instead of just spending on the IT processes.  

•    Online Streaming:

Initially, movies and songs had to be consumed at theatres. Later, movies could be downloaded once; the user pays for it. But, Cloud technology changed the media industry in such a way that the movies, songs or web series can be consumed online. Netflix, Amazon, Gaana.com, etc. are the best examples of online streaming applications leveraging cloud technology effectively. These applications enable offline availability of data which means, videos and songs can be viewed even without the internet connectivity. The songs and videos can be consumed from anywhere and at any time wit in the application. In other words, once the user logins to his account he can consume the data from any corner of the world.

This positive transformation has led the media Industry to contribute to the digital era.