Security

Players use a variety of strategies in Monopoly. If you are familiar with the game, you know you must achieve a monopoly before you can build, and you need four houses before you can add a hotel. My preferred strategy is to establish an infrastructure before I start building houses. I try to buy railroads and utilities, as well as the less expensive properties on the board.

In this way, Monopoly mirrors the Internet of Things. As localities try to implement IoT technologies for smart cities initiatives, they need an infrastructure that includes networking, storage and processing to handle the data that will be collected, stored, transmitted and analyzed. And starting with smaller, less expensive projects can help them establish a record of success before they move on to bigger things.

Everyone has a preferred method when playing Monopoly. Some people save up and get Park Place and Boardwalk — others prefer to acquire the railroads and utilities. Whatever your way to play, the reality is that it can all go to pot if you land on the wrong space.

Technology is more important than ever to the merger and acquisition (M&A) process. For many firms, IT is a top driver of deals, but it can also be a sticking point.

In its “Corporate M&A Report 2020,” Bain warns of the challenges posed by IT integration: “In a tech-enabled world, deal scrutiny is expanding to include issues such as data ownership and access to critical technology, often prompted by national interests, as well as the impact on future competition. The time, complexity and the resources to get deals over the regulatory hurdle are rising — it will take longer than you think and cost more than you expect.”

It’s essential for organizations to prepare for the integration process and enter it with their eyes open. These four types of technology tools can help to streamline IT integration.

A large organization I work with recently experienced a serious cybersecurity incident. Ransomware had struck the business, crippling its technology systems and causing an outage that lasted more than 300 hours. This type of outage would have a devastating impact for any organization, but this company felt the pain acutely because it is a Software as a Service provider. The ransomware took down its SaaS offerings which, in turn, affected the critical business operations of hundreds of its customers.

After the dust settled, the company’s CISO contacted CDW to ask how we could help him better mitigate and respond to disasters in the future. He knew that deficiencies existed in the company’s technology architecture. He also understood that correcting the deficient technologies would not be enough. They needed assistance identifying gaps in their program in addition to understanding the impact of losing their SaaS offerings. The firm was determined to avoid the financial and reputational damage of another serious outage.

Savvy IT shops have long understood the need for effective device management, first through mobile device management (MDM) solutions and then via unified endpoint management (UEM) platforms.

Today, more organizations are opting for “modern device management,” a Microsoft-coined term that describes device and application management delivered via cloud-enabled services. Here’s why organizations are making the move and why this model is likely to stick around.

Enhanced video surveillance (EVS) has been a game changer for physical security. Now, as businesses and organizations strive to resume operations while supporting public health, many are deploying these systems for new purposes: thermal screening, occupancy management and social distance monitoring.

The heart of EVS is video analytics, either built into cameras or integrated into the back-end video management system. Video analytics run continuously in the background to interpret video content and provide real-time alerts. This is a much more efficient way to make use of video capabilities than by assigning employees to constantly monitor a live video feed or conduct after-the-fact forensics in the wake of an incident. Real-time situational awareness lets organizations respond to threats faster and more effectively.

Now, EVS is proving its worth in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Healthcare facilities, educational institutions, manufacturing and distribution centers, transportation providers and retailers are among those deploying these tools so they can continue to provide essential services. Here are three ways organizations can utilize EVS to operate more safely.

Recently, I had the opportunity to help a CDW client in the legal industry assess the current state of its cybersecurity program. The firm had a good grasp on cybersecurity issues and, in fact, had many effective cybersecurity controls in place. I’d definitely consider the firm far along the cybersecurity maturity model.

Like many organizations with mature cybersecurity programs, the firm wanted to get an outside assessment of its controls to uncover any gaps its security personnel might have overlooked internally. We spent a few days conducting a penetration test to provide the firm with an attacker’s view of its network.