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  • WEBINAR ALERT: Awareness, Discovery and Control of Cloud Service…

    By Vincent Naughton on August 8, 2017

    The growth of cloud services combined with business drivers of mobile workforces and greater collaboration with those we do business with, has added a different set of challenges for organisations, as we try to maintain governance and control over our data, users and systems.

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      Ward Presents: Awareness, Discovery and Control of Cloud Service Usage

      When and where?

      Start: 4:00 PM, 15/08/2017
      End: 4:30 PM, 15/08/2017 (GMT)

      Missed it? Here is the recorded session: Click here

      Do you know what the hidden threat is at the heart of many organisations?

      It’s called shadow IT!

      Let’s explain this in the simplest way possible.

      Shadow IT refers to the implementation and utilisation of IT solutions and platforms without any organisational authorisation.

      The growth of cloud services combined with business drivers of mobile workforces and greater collaboration within and between organisations has added a different set of challenges like data governance and control issues for organisations. The ease in which a user can adopt a cloud service, usually at limited or no cost and without the need to install software except a browser, means we are faced with likely scenarios that cloud services which haven’t been vetted or authorised by the organisation, are in use within our networks. This poses a significant risk, if this usage is undetected and unmanaged, especially if users are utilising cloud services for storage, sharing or processing of data, which may be in direct conflict with your information security policies. It may result in exposure of sensitive data to unauthorised audiences.

      It’s worth noting that adoption of these unauthorised services is usually for non-malicious reasons, driven by the needs of the user to increase efficiency, be more productive or as a work around to perceived organisational blockers to their tasks.

      A simple example; I need to get a file to a customer, which is larger than the limit allowed by our email service. We don’t have a business file sharing service, so I will copy the file to a public cloud storage service that I happen to have a personal account with, and share the file from there.

      Problem solved for the member of staff!

      Problem created for the organisation!!!

      • What data is in the file & how sensitive is it?
      • Who else can access it now?
      • How long will it stay up there?
      • We have no control over the cloud service or the file, what do we do?

      According to our recent survey where we interviewed 170 senior IT decision makers, 72% of them believe that the explosion of cloud services has led to shadow IT becoming an issue for a number of organisations. Our experience is that organisations don’t have the adequate assessments and controls in place to prevent shadow IT which further leads to risks and incidents that ultimately affects your organisations’ reputation.

      We think it’s important to give you a head’s up about this crisis and that is why we bring you one of our experts. In this webinar, Allan Cahill, head of secure identity and information solutions will explain Shadow IT, how the risks associated with it can impact your business and how to manage these risks.






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        If you do not wish to receive this information please e-mail us at privacy@ward.ie.

        For more information on our cloud security solutions e-mail: cloud@ward.ie

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