Information Technology

28 March 2018 - Total malware attacks are up by 33 percent and cyber criminals are increasingly leveraging Microsoft Office documents to trick victims and deliver malicious payloads, according to the latest Internet Security Report from WatchGuard Technologies, based on global threat intelligence data from nearly 40,000 Firebox appliances. WatchGuard has also launched a new Threat Landscape data visualisation tool, giving public access to daily updates about the most prevalent computer and network security threats affecting SMBs and distributed enterprises.

London, 21 March 2018 – A new research survey from Clarizen, the global leader in collaborative work management software, reveals that poor communication is the biggest barrier to project success. Close to 40% of respondents identify communication as one of the biggest challenges they need to overcome – ahead of organizational change (36%) and budget (25%).

Your brand identity matters a lot to your business if you are to succeed in online business. There is so much to protect which includes your business name, brand reputation, domain name among other elements that make your business. Unfortunately, your business is faced with a lot of threats that one might wonder if it is worth doing business online at all. Cyber squatting, intellectual property theft, domain hijacking, hacking are some of the few things you will have to worry about. Identity thieves have become more organized and might even be hard to spot them out.

The top five networking trends that will shape 2018 are:

Security First

Cyber threats are becoming ever more sophisticated and increasing in volume. In addition, remote working or working across multiple sites and multiple devices, together with an increasing reliance on cloud-based applications, have all served to weaken traditional perimeter-based security.

Traditional firewall technology is no longer enough. Anyone designing or planning a new network deployment in 2018 must adopt a ‘Security First’ mantra, with security being embedded into the network elements and design.

1. Continued mergers and acquisitions in UC market

We will see a continued growth in the number of mergers and acquisitions – from highly strategic and significant moves like Cisco’s acquisition of Broadsoft, through to smaller “roll up” plays in local markets in Europe, where niche players will start to be acquired by ambitious high growth and privately-funded entities.

2. Growth of video deployment for communications and collaboration

There is much more focus today on the overall User Interface (UI) and user experience, with video becoming a key technology to drive better communication and collaboration.

Karl Roe, VP Services & Cloud Solutions at Nuvias, takes a look at what’s in store for organizations using the cloud in 2018:

The Rise of AI

2018 will see Artificial Intelligence (AI) drive a transformational change among organizations and impact on cloud use. 

ICT isn’t getting any simpler, and businesses are being forced to move faster as their customers’ requirements become more demanding. This is driving innovation in areas like AI, but automation of past processes won’t be enough to keep up with the “need for speed” in business agility.

Many organizations have yet to start the process of migrating their data and applications away from the Lotus Notes platform, and while there are many reasons as to why this is so, probably the two key ones are a truly compelling event that forces the issue and a lack of expertise. This is according to Jon Pyke, CEO, CIMtrek Ltd.

“That compelling event is the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which becomes UK law on 25th May 2018. It is compelling because organizations are expected to create a single view of a customer – leaving data in old Notes databases is likely to render users non-compliant,” stated Jon.