Cloud Security Solutions for Public Institutions | TX DIR Forum 2019 from ManagedMethods
Earlier this week, I traveled to Austin, Texas to join the Texas Department of Information Resources (DIR) Information Security Forum. I was invited to lead a session on how cloud security can help public institutions secure sensitive data stored in the cloud and help safety management teams keep employees, students, and others safe. It was a fantastic discussion, and very well-received by attendees. Here is a brief overview of what we discussed.
There is no cybersecurity “silver bullet” (cliché, I know, but true). Information security pros layer security to provide both comprehensive and redundant protection. In many areas of business, redundancies are a bad thing. But in cybersecurity and campus safety, where the consequences for failure are high, redundancy is necessary. During the session, we talked about the different layers of cybersecurity that attendees use today, and answered questions about some that they were less familiar with.
Next, we took a deeper dive into cloud security. Many people don’t realize just how important cloud security is. Many think that if they have a firewall and a gateway, they’re covered. This simply is not true. With cloud computing there is no perimeter. If there is no perimeter, there is nothing for the firewall to protect. Traffic can easily bypass firewalls and gateways to gain access to cloud environments.
There are also legal reasons and compliances that require organizations to use cloud security. If you are storing student, employee, and/or customer personally identifiable information in Google Drive or SharePoint, for example, you need to secure it. And, again, a firewall or gateway simply won’t do the trick.
Cloud security solutions provide IT security teams with control over the information and account behavior within cloud applications. They can see who has access to what files, what is being shared with whom, and much more. IT teams get threat protection, data security, and user behavior & monitoring with a good cloud security tool.
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Cybersecurity and safety are closely related in several ways. Cyberbullying in schools and in the workplace have led to devastating incidents on-campus, with workplace violence, suicides, and school shootings becoming a depressing norm in U.S. society. Further, there are incidents of unwanted sexual advances, explicit and/or offensive content being shared throughout the office or school. This type of behavior is more than just a distraction.
Finally, criminals and hackers are finding ways to use smart building technology to gain access to buildings, spy on workers and meetings, and threaten students. These types of incidents are not just people trying to harass or otherwise “get a rise” out of people. In some cases, they’ve attempted to run ransom schemes by threatening violence and more through campus surveillance systems.
Cybersecurity’s role is to protect technology infrastructure and information from unauthorized access and attacks. Cybersafety focuses on protecting the physical and emotional well being of employees, faculty, and students using the technology.
Cybersecurity protects information like social security numbers, names, addresses, HIPPA health information and more that are stored in networks, computers (or other devices), and in the cloud.
Cybersafety scans for explicit content, threats of violence, self harm, and cyberbullying. Technology can be used to filter domains, scan email, documents, images, messaging apps, and even social media channels to flag potentially harmful content and alert the proper authority to handle it before it becomes a bigger issue.
As our lives are more and more entwined with technology and the digital world, cybersecurity and cybersafety will only continue to merge. IT and security professionals need to recognize this and work together to keep people safe and their data secure. ManagedMethods is a cloud security platform that helps education, public sector, nonprofits, and mid-sized companies do just that. Our platform is used to secure over 1,000,000 user accounts (and growing) as well as help IT professionals gain control over how information in all those accounts is being stored, accessed, and shared.
It was a great pleasure to meet and talk with the attendees at the 2019 DIR Security Forum. If you have a chance to go to this FREE event next year, I highly encourage it!