The most successful IT projects that I have been involved in are those where change management and user acceptance  have been recognised as a top priority.  With research organisations citing that up to 47% of jobs will be lost to robotisation it has never been more important to have user support for an automation project.

At the recent Automate 2019 conference, many of our customers and partners shared their experiences in introducing automation to their organisations and it seems that no matter the size or complexity of the organisation, one key response always emerged when this type of project was announced to staff and management.  FEAR.  People were terrified that in supporting an automation project, they were potentially putting their job at risk of being taken over by robots.

Whilst businesses are going to see automation create new ways of working and creating value, what needs to be clearly communicated to staff and stakeholders prior to undertaking an automation project is that it is more than likely that process automation will enhance their performance in their current position, rather than take the position away.

When introducing process automation to a business, it is the ongoing, repeated, time-consuming TASKS that will yield the best outcomes for automation and these are the processes that will be replaced.

To get your staff thinking more positively about the benefits of automation, ask them to think about the time that is spent each day on running and analyzing reports, making configuration changes across multiple machines, recording change and maintenance requests – they will soon realise that these tasks that will likely be automated are actually the preliminary steps that must be taken in order for them to complete a job.  So by automating these tasks, your staff can actually complete their job more efficiently and effectively!

It is not the tasks that are completed but the outcomes that are produced that indicate a job well done.  If your staff see their value as their ability to input or output data, they will lose to robots.  If they understand that their value comes from the other creative and intangible skills that they bring to a role, they will realise that there is little to fear.

To take a look at some of the ways that Opmantek customers have used automation to enhance their network operations, improve efficiencies and to move from a responsive rather than a reactive operation model, contact us and we can show you how we have successfully implemented this for other organizations.

According to a new research report by Global Market Insights, the global cybersecurity market is set to grow from its current market value of more than $120 billion to over $300 billion by 2024.

This growth is driven by businesses increasing need to minimize security risks and to build and protect trust, both from within organisations and without. As enterprises globally evolve and shift their business capabilities to cloud computing platforms and other networking technologies, they are becoming more vulnerable to various cyber-attacks. To prevent such attacks organisations are seeking cybersecurity technology that addresses ransomware, phishing, malware and other kinds of cyber assaults as the global average cost of a data breach is up 6.4 percent over the previous year to $3.86 million.

At the recent RSA Conference in San Francisco in March, which brought some of the biggest names in cybersecurity together under one roof, discussed the leading trends impacting the industry. One trend dominated the discussions over the four-day event, and that was that “We are not just protecting data and applications and infrastructures,” RSA President Rohit Ghai said. “We are in the business of protecting trust.”

Covering the RSA conference, Tony Kontzer said, “And in an age of advanced technology, that trust has to extend endlessly, because tech has enabled us to reach across the globe in an instant to connect with total strangers. Or, conversely, to pluck funds from their bank accounts or chip away at their reputations.”

One of the key drivers contributing to the exponential growth of the cyber security market globally is the increase in access and affordability of numerous mobile devices as well as the advancements in the connectivity infrastructure. This expansion is driving the adoption of smart devices across enterprises and consumers, simultaneously, increasing the number of cyber-attacks on mobile devices, which increased by over 40% with an average of over 1.2 million attacks per month.

Over the next five years, the identity and access management (IAM) market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 17%. The public sector is key to fuelling this growth with increased cyber-attacks on state and federal bodies and the increased need to assure trust between civilians and their governments when it comes to outside influences on election results.

As the adoption of IoT devices and the use of email and web-based applications continues to grow, the infrastructure protection market is also expected to grow considerably leading up to 2020. The need for individuals to be able to trust that organisations are storing their information securely has never been more important, especially since the Marriott incident that saw half a billion customers data stolen including their names, addresses and passport numbers.

While the West Coast of the US continues to attract VC investments of up to $2.5 billion in cybersecurity companies globally, the East Coast of the US and the rest of the world are steadily increasing their investments in the industry. Israel, the UK, and China are driving most of the foreign investment outside of the US, with Israel leading the way.

Accorind to ​With so much personal data captured and stored by businesses and government agencies, cyber-security – the protection of systems and data from malicious individuals – is becoming more and more important. Breaches can have damaging reputational, legal and financial consequences for businesses and agencies, while individuals may lose money and have their digital identities stolen.

Despite these impacts, not a month seemingly goes by without news of a massive breach. For example, an attack on Facebook last year saw hackers steal the names, contact details and other information about 29 million users worldwide – including 111,813 Australian users. More broadly, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner’s October-December Notifiable Data Breaches Quarterly Statistics Report revealed the Office received 262 notifications of breaches – 64% of which could be attributed to malicious or criminal attacks.

According to Cybersecurity Ventures, cybercrime is expected to cost the world USD$6 trillion annually by 2021.

In this environment, a career spent safeguarding data and systems is an exciting option. According to Deakin University, cyber-security roles include information security officer, cyber security consultant, penetration tester and others. Demand for cyber-security specialists is skyrocketing – a recent AustCyber report revealed that a shortfall in the cyber-security workforce was costing more than AUD$400 million in lost wages and that Australia would need an additional 17,600 cyber-security workers by 2026.

Moving into cyber-security is comparatively easy for workers in related fields, such as software engineers and programmers. However, people in unrelated fields or who are completing an education may look instead to University degrees, information security certifications or other courses to gain a foothold in the industry. A range of certifications are also available to help people already in the industry build and demonstrate their skills.

Top cyber-security certifications available include Certified Ethical Hacker; Certified Information Security Manager; CompTIA Security+; Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP); and GSEC: SANS GIAC Security Essentials.

Cloud security specialist FirstWave is always looking for smart, motivated people to join its engineering team. Based in North Sydney, FirstWave protects businesses and government organisations from risk by providing access to advanced, cloud-based cyber-security solutions.

Most corporate IT teams are likely to feel that they have tight control over their operations, with a good grasp of the types of sensitive data their organisations keep and, indeed, how it is used. However, a troubling phenomenon, known as shadow IT, is quickly making its way into many businesses, potentially compromising the security of data and organisational reputation. This issue is particularly problematic within the financial sector, thanks to its absolute dependency on digital security to retain customer faith and loyalty.

What is shadow IT?

Shadow IT is essentially a technology that individual employees or special business units may decide to start using without the consent or knowledge of their relevant IT team. Indeed, shadow IT is not usually employed with malicious intent, but can cause a number of problems that the user may not have anticipated.

The unstoppable growth of shadow IT has been driven by the impressive popularity of SaaS (software as a service) applications, in part due to their simplicity and ease of use. For IT teams, this means that their firms are likely to be using a number of applications that they are totally unaware of. This is a serious issue for financial services organisations, as the strict regulatory standards, they are expected to abide by may be infringed thanks to shadow IT.

A configuration management database (CMDB) is an important component of an organization to ensure they are aware of what assets are in the organization and also the relationships and interdependencies that are in place. Despite being at the core of the ITIL process, many organizations fail to implement a CMDB, this can be due to resource limitations; time, knowledge or money.

These perceived limitations are not as valid as anticipated, implementing a CMDB solution is quite straightforward and cost-effective compared to the risk that is prevalent without one. Opmantek has an extensive CMDB solution that will benefit your organization while reducing the severity of the resource limitations that other implementations can face.

Time Limitations

As IT departments have grown in responsibility there has been a decline in resources and staff in some organizations. These companies don’t view IT as an asset, they view it as a liability and a cost that they wish to reduce. There are resources that showcase how managing IT as a business will actually improve net revenue. A major challenge for these organizations is finding the time to implement solutions today, that will save them tomorrow, it is hard to think ahead when you are fighting daily fires.

Open-AudIT is the perfect solution for teams that are in this situation, the application can be installed on Windows, Linux or on a CentOS 7 VM, up and running in under 10 minutes. After supplying credentials, Open-AudIT will automatically discover everything that is connected to your network and then proceed to audit it. In 10 minutes you will have an effective CMDB storing every asset that is connected to your network.

Further, opConfig acts as a configuration and compliance management tool that will monitor your network devices for configuration changes. Once configured, it will alert on change and can also compare configuration states to its own history or even other machines. Once you have downloaded opConfig, there is minimal set up required and it will start monitoring your network, you will know of anomalies in minutes.

Knowledge Limitations

The same departments mentioned above that have been given more responsibilities, generally aren’t afforded the extra time to thoroughly learn new systems and processes, they have the time to learn to fight the fire not prevent it. This can lead to applications being partially configured, used differently to intentions or not used at all.

Opmantek offer 30-day free support for all new customers to help them get our software working and optimised, Opmantek even offers on-site training to help all staff easily grow accustomed to our platform.

Financial Limitations

The bottom-line when implementing new software is to keep in mind the bottom-line. A CMDB solution will provide a better change management process while also protecting your organization against any disaster scenarios because you will have the ability to roll back. Finding budget to use software for prevention purposes becomes really difficult to justify the ROI because they are systems designed to provide value in a crisis.

However, the combination of opConfig and Open-AudIT boast a wide array of business benefits for immediate, Open-AudIT can be used for asset management and to ensure that you are within license parameters, opConfig can be used to ensure that all of your network devices are configured correctly and compliant to numerous standards. This combination of modules is saving organisations thousands of dollars in licensing fees each year by automating device discovery and audit, storing configurations, monitoring changes and pushing configuration changes out to sets of devices.

Malicious groups and individuals continue to be highly active online in 2019 – highlighting the importance of robust education, processes and technology to organisations in tackling cyber-crime. Fraudulent ‘phishing’ messages that aim to trick people into disclosing sensitive information pose an ongoing and increasingly sophisticated threat. These scam messages – typically delivered over email – use a variety of techniques to convince the recipient they are legitimate communications, including the use of authentic logos, text and designs from trusted organisations.

Phishing messages may also include links to fake versions of legitimate websites. These fake websites aim to trick a visitor into entering details such as usernames or passwords. Messages may also include attachments loaded with malicious software that aims to infect a computer to disrupt its operations or capture sensitive information.

While variations such as ‘spear-phishing’ – that occurs when malicious groups target an individual by using his or her personal information to elicit sensitive information – are well known, business email compromise is a comparatively new but increasingly potent threat. Business email compromise occurs when a group or individual impersonates a business representative – often a senior executive – at an organisation to trick employees, vendors or customers to transfer money or sensitive information to the malicious party. The FBI noted in mid-2018 the incidence of ‘identified global exposed losses’ from business email compromise had risen 136% between December 2016 and May 2018 – with the real estate sector a prime target.

The Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) noted in October 2018 “criminals are constantly developing increasingly sophisticated business email compromise techniques often include a combination of social engineering, email phishing, email spoofing [forging an email sender’s address] and malware [malicious software]” to trick recipients. Importantly for many organisations, the ACSC notes that business email compromise attacks tend to spike around tax time – when many people are busy and under pressure to complete workplace tasks quickly.

So how can your organisation protect itself against business email compromise? The ACSC has posted comprehensive information here about the types of business email compromise; how to recover from an incident; and techniques for minimising the risk of being caught out by this type of attack.

By Roger Carvosso, Product and Innovation Director