As the year draws to an end, we like to take stock of all the positives and negatives on our personal and professional fronts. We reminisce the victories, mull over the difficult times and make resolutions that we intend to carry through in the upcoming year.

Complex and highly interpretive, software audits are like an evil spirit that can cast a gloomy shadow on any organization’s profitability and reputation. However, as CIOs and IT specialists, you would know that if your company licenses any software, it is only a matter of time before the vendor sends you an audit notification. Larger players, such as Microsoft, SAP, Adobe, IBM and Oracle are known to send out frequent audit requests to their customers. In fact, given the surge in the use of multiple technologies and hybrid environments, many of these companies see software audits as a mainstream revenue generation mechanism.

While information security threats continue to multiply and data breaches take on never-seen-before levels, cybercrime issues are worsening in both, scale and depth. With the backing of cartels and mafia, hackers have greater access to resources, and are leading increasingly sophisticated attacks. Unfortunately, that means the lifeblood of the new digital economy, data and information, needs to be continually guarded and secured. As CIOs and CXOs, you want to ensure that your company invests in the best possible safeguards and systems to avoid being exploited at the hands of cybercriminals. Hence, budgeting for them correctly should be your priority.

From finance and insurance, to retail and healthcare, blockchain technology has been all pervasive since emergence. Recent reports indicate that the global market for this technology is projected to reach 20 billion USD by the end of 2024, while the overall market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 58.7%.

No matter how large or small your business, data thefts, hacks and breaches have become the order of the day. Almost every single day, we wake up to news of cyber-attacks that originate in different parts of the world and cripple businesses, institutions and even non-profit organizations for varying lengths of time. Such massive scale data thefts not only impact the credibility and continuity of your business, but also pose serious privacy concerns for the impacted parties, such as your clients, employees, shareholders, associates and vendors.

Have you ever wondered whether sci-fi movies inspire new technology or reality happens to be portrayed in movies slightly ahead of time? There are massive digital transformations that we see around our personal lives, as well as businesses have become intertwined with the Internet of Things (IoT). From smart homes, driverless cars and auto-calibrated stoplights, to app-based alerts for shopping, social interaction and professional requirements, gadgets and appliances have made our lives easy, intelligent and efficient. Virtually every device that we use hooks up to the internet through sensors, electronics, software, actuators or other embedded items that enable non-stop connection, collection or exchange of data and information.   

In a data-driven world, where real-time analytics and emerging technologies greatly impact your business decisions, the performance and endurance of large scale data are of utmost importance. While dealing with the ever increasing enterprise workload, CIOs and CEOs are constantly rethinking newer ways to capture, conserve, process, access and transform data.

According to MarketResearchReports.biz, the global BYOD security market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 31.95 percent between 2013 and 2018. Whether it is about bringing down the time and effort in device procurement, or increasing flexible and remote working arrangements, a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy presents several advantages for any mid to large enterprise. Implementing this policy can contribute to reduction in hardware costs, as well as increase in employee productivity. In fact, BYOD is not just practical, fashionable and employee-friendly, but it also frees up the bandwidth of your IT asset management teams and positively impacts your bottom line.

It is no surprise that if you have unsecured or poorly secured digital information, it may be stolen, hacked or breached at some point. Cyber criminals are always on the lookout for data that they can use for personal, unlawful, gains. In recent years, the number of extortion scams that have come to light, and the sheer volume of data hacks that have occurred, suggest that targeted phishing has gone mainstream. Fraudsters have been continually evolving their methods of deceit, launching scams on a global level and masking their attacks with greater authenticity, creativity and sophistication.

For any business owner, one of the greatest fears today is loss of personal, financial or any other confidential information pertaining to the company, employees or clients. Information security threats come in several shapes and forms and often from sources that you may never have imagined. While your company may invest in the best tools to protect, backup and recover the information on your servers or applications, your weakest link may be devices such as laptops, desktops, smartphones and printers. Basically, any gadget that accesses the internet from your network presents a potential opportunity for unauthorized users to access your data and information. Threats such as phishing or ransomware also usually get into your company systems through such endpoint devices.