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The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of 5G for Business

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of 5G for Business

The Good.

The advent of 5G is an exciting development in connectivity for most businesses. From the farmer who can now remotely monitor field conditions to the global manufacturing leader dependent upon a digital supply chain, to mom-and-pop shops offering real-time-customer service, 5G is changing the way business gets done. And both owners and consumers are enjoying the benefits!

For most, 5G still lacks the true “100 times faster” connection that service providers touted it would bring in 2019. But still, its improvements to speed and lower latency over 4G LTE for business connectivity have already established it as a game changer.

Although 5G is one of the fastest growing technologies in history with adoption 4x as fast as LTE, it will be years before 5G networks blanket the globe. However, explosive adoption is already well underway in the automotive, manufacturing, utilities, and healthcare industries, all of which have been catalysts for a rush on new IoT devices for business efficiencies, enhanced customer service, the movement of large amounts of data, and more.

As 5G network availability grows, the potential for 5G IoT business devices has grown exponentially. Unfortunately, the security risks have grown with it

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CCPA: The 500 Pound Gorilla Sitting on Your Security Strategy | Fornetix

CCPA stands for California Consumer Privacy Act. However, your company doesn’t have to be located in California for this law to affect business. If you’ve collected personal data on at least 50,000 people, or have $25 million or more in annual revenue, CCPA applies to your organization.

Proposition 24, also known as the California Privacy Rights and Enforcement Act of 2020, was passed by California voters in the November 2020 election. Proposition 24 expands the reach and amends some provisions of CCPA, creating additional protections for Californians, and additional work for organizations.

In short, CCPA (and the passage of Proposition 24) was enacted to protect California residents’ data from theft or misuse. It was also created to compel companies collecting or storing Californians’ data to initiate more effective data security practices to curb the increasing number of data breaches negatively impacting Californians.

The Gorilla can Cause Real DamageGorilla

GorillaAt the core of CCPA’s initiatives is the new responsibility placed on organizations to encrypt sensitive data. Companies across the globe have quickly complied by increasing their encryption of data at rest, in motion, and in the Cloud. But this move to mass encrypt data has inadvertently created a staggering problem for many organizations – a 500-pound gorilla – that instead of helping protect sensitive data, has quelled efforts by leaving organizations with more encryption key material than can adequately and successfully be managed without a dedicated encryption Key Management System (KMS).

More data encryption means more encryption keys. The more keys that are generated and used, the higher the odds an attacker will find a way to compromise them. Just like passwords on our computers, encryption keys must be rotated as frequently as possible. The rotation of keys increases the complexity and expense of encryption exponentially, but greatly decreases the probability of a successful attack on data.

So How do You Get Rid of the Gorilla?

A proper solution would be to install a highly scalable encryption key management system that fully automates the key lifecycle thereby alleviating the excessive weight additional encryption keys have put on your security strategy.

Enter: Fornetix’s VaultCore™. This patented, next generation key management solution provides a robust, simple to use, and secure “set it and forget it” approach that works actively to protect your data. The VaultCore system allows organizations to put in place a re-keying schedule that matches their desired policy, often saving organizations tens of thousands of dollars by turning a manual process into a simple click of a button, and grossly reducing errors associated with human nature.

How Encryption Key Management is Saving Companies Struggling with CCPA

Delivered as a physical or virtual appliance, VaultCore delivers a unified approach to data security through deploying and enforcing encryption across the entire organization – across all devices. This means an organization has the power to store and control all encryption keys for all data and helps to ensure the organization is meeting CCPA by adequately protecting data through encryption AND key management.

The most scalable KMS available, VaultCore is capable of handling over 100 million keys, more than adequate for any industry as they grow and continue to strive to meet CCPA, GDPR and the myriad of other regulations being put in place.

For a deeper dive into understanding encryption key management and how it works with your current security strategy to meet CCPA to protect sensitive data and relieve your organization’s security strategy struggles, click here to read how Encryption Key Management is Saving Companies Struggling with California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).

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PRESS RELEASE: Fornetix and OutSecure Partner to Provide Comprehensive Security for Smart Cities

FREDERICK, MD – Fornetix, Inc., an industry pioneer and leader in enterprise encryption management technology, has partnered with OutSecure, a preeminent Cybersecurity & Privacy Strategy creation company, to provide a comprehensive and complete approach to cybersecurity to smart cities.

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Ransomware vs Data Breach: What They Are and How You Can Protect Your Enterprise From Them

There are two popular types of malicious attacks: A data breach and a ransomware attack. You may have heard these two terms used interchangeably, however they’re not quite the same.  A data breach occurs when a hacker gains access to information and steals the unencrypted data from the system. This is often used to steal financial, medical, and other personal information. A ransomware attack occurs when hackers gain access to a system and hold the data hostage in exchange for a ransom, regardless of whether the data is encrypted or unencrypted. A hacker may keep the data inside the enterprise’s system but encrypt it so the right people can’t gain access to it. They may also remove the data from the system and return it in exchange for ransom. Both types of attacks have been around for a while, but recently, ransomware attacks have become more prevalent.

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How to Identify IoT Pitfalls and Adopt Technology with Confidence

When looking at technology adoption, I am frequently reminded of Pandora’s Box from Greek mythology. This metaphor rings true when considering the Internet of Things (IoT). Whereas Pandora released a host of evils into the world, with IoT we have released new concerns associated with multiple technologies, multiple standards, scale, and security (or as I like to say, resiliency). When considering the information that flows from the edge, through the cloud, and ultimately to the data center, the lowest common denominator for protecting information is trust created by cryptography (as noted by nCipher’s Juan Asenjo in the other half of this blog series). In this blog, we are going to start by acknowledging the pitfalls of our particular Pandora and then discuss how we find hope in the solution provided by nCipher and Fornetix.

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Security and the Internet of Everything – Are We Ready?

The demand for connected devices is growing exponentially, but the technology to secure these devices is lagging creating cyber security vulnerabilities at a massive scale.

The Current State of Cyber Security

Every day we hear about breaches, hacks, and cyber-attacks affecting banks, hospitals, transportation, and even entire cities. In some instances, the impact can mean life or death. Our most trusted institutions – like the US election process – are not the pillars of security they once were. And yet the demand for “connected everything” continues to grow in all sectors and across the globe.

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PODCAST: Chuck White Visits ‘New Cyber Frontier’ to Discuss Encryption and Cyber Defense

Our Chief Technology Officer at Fornetix, Chuck White, sat down with Professor Andre Hinton from the New Cyber Frontier podcast to explore the ways powerful encryption can solve the big problems of cybersecurity. Take a listen using the audio player below! Read more

VaultCore: Identity, Credential, and Access Management (ICAM) for the IoT World | Fornetix

When looking at the problems we were trying to solve with VaultCore, IoT and IoE have always been part of the grand vision of orchestration. As more and more systems break down the concept of perimeters or layers, there is a need to address the realities of these changes.

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Guest Post: Why Cities Need to Get Serious About Cyber Defense

A special thank you to Maha Amircani for her guest post discussing the reality of cyber vulnerabilities faced by major cities. Maha is an attorney in Atlanta, Georgia and founder of Amircani Law. A Georgia native born to immigrant parents from Egypt, Maha represents clients in city, state and federal court litigation as well as administrative proceedings. Her practice specializes in the areas of personal injury, criminal defense, and real estate closings.


 

There has been a lot of interest in protecting businesses from the threat of ransomware. But, city governments are at real risk and the impact reverberates to people like me who interact with them daily. After the City of Atlanta ransomware attack in March 2018, this became crystal clear.

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