Do cloud environments really have to be so foggy? Absolutely not. Yet, many enterprises have come to accept that not having full visibility into their cloud estate is just “how it is.”

Discovered on December 9, 2021, the log4Shell vulnerability is one of the most talked-about vulnerabilities in computing. Because simple text can be used to take control of a device and download anything that is Internet-accessible, companies are taking it seriously. As they should – log4Shell has the maximum CVSS score of 10 (CVSS, Common Vulnerability Scoring System, is an industry-standard for ranking vulnerabilities).

Predicting the future is tricky business. However, when you’re privileged enough to frequently speak with the technology leadership at Fortune 500 companies, looking forward is less about gazing into a crystal ball and more of an extrapolation of trends that you're seeing. I’m honored that Fast Mode published my article detailing what I think is in store for cloud computing in 2022.

When a large government agency decided to refresh its infrastructure down to Layer 2 switches, Forward Networks data delivered over $6 million in savings. Like many companies around the world, this organization had challenges getting full visibility and the structure of its network, which had grown organically over time.

Several years ago, a global investment bank embarked on an ambitious plan to automate its network configuration deployment process and use internal teams to run all aspects of network operations. The move was made, in part, because of the fluidity of the bank's network, which is constantly undergoing configuration changes.

As one large, global financial institution prepared for employees to return to the office, its IT team identified a significant issue with the company's more than 8,000 access switches. The switches in question were used to provide connectivity to IP Phones – a crucial part of people's work across virtually all areas of the company.

Is it just me or is the announcement of a significant CVE becoming a holiday tradition? Discovered on December 9, 2021 by Minecraft players, the Apache Log4Shell vulnerability is a uniquely insidious because it infects servers which are traditionally well insulated from attacks and perceived as unreachable by an intruder and not at risk for CVEs. Log4Shell is an entirely different can of works that proves this assumption wrong.

Editor's Note: As leader of our customer success team, Yadhu works directly with our users and their leadership to solve real-world technology problems. This blog is the first of a new series featuring how our customers are using the Forward Enterprise platform to deliver business value. Enterprise IT teams around the world are frustratingly familiar with the process of vendor contract reconciliation, the annual process of ensuring that the support contracts for devices in the network are accurate.

There are almost 165,000 known CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) listed in the NIST Database. In October of 2020, the NSA published a list of the 25 CVEs most likely to be exploited by Nation-State attackers in China; Checkpoint software found over 3 million attempts to penetrate networks or steal files using these known vulnerabilities.

There’s a lot of upside to becoming an application-centric business. You can increase collaboration, work more effectively with your data, deliver an optimal customer experience, and much more. One major downside, though, is that your network and security operations teams are under intense pressure to provision new applications both quickly and securely.