In today's data-driven world, businesses must navigate the complexities of data management while ensuring compliance with an ever-growing array of laws and regulations. Two concepts that often arise in this context are data sovereignty vs data residency. While related, these terms refer to distinct aspects of data management. Understanding their differences is crucial for businesses to make informed decisions on where to store their data and how to remain compliant with data protection regulations.

While Gen AI tools are useful conduits for creativity, security teams know that they’re not without risk. At worst, employees will leak sensitive company data in prompts to chatbots like ChatGPT. At best, attack surfaces will expand, requiring more security resources in a time when businesses are already looking to consolidate. How are security teams planning to tackle the daunting workload? According to a recent Morgan Stanley report, top CIOs and CISOs are also turning to AI.

A strong misconception abounds that managed providers are impervious to data loss. The truth, however, is that accidents can happen at any time, to any business. Finding a provider that takes data backup and protection seriously, therefore, is critical to the well-being of your business. Opti9—a leading provider of managed cloud solutions—is one company that is addressing this problem head-on.

Cybersecurity challenges continue to grow in impact and complexity, especially as they relate to government and Defence information. In response to increasing hacking and cyber attacks, the Department of Defense (DoD) has released the DFARS and CMMC information management and cybersecurity standards to reduce the risk of system compromises within government agencies and the defense industrial base (DIB) that supports them.

The recent US National Guard leak has once again focused attention on the risk that overprivileged access poses. A massive intelligence breach occurred when Massachusetts US National Guardsman Jack Teixeira, an IT specialist with a top secret security clearance, accessed and printed classified files and posted them to a civilian Discord chat room. He did this after having been previously reprimanded for his mishandling of classified information.

Imagine a scenario where a competitor gains access to your organization's most sensitive data, causing severe financial loss and irreparable damage to your reputation. This nightmare can become a reality through data exfiltration. Data exfiltration is a real threat to organizations, as it involves the unauthorized transfer of sensitive information, the effects of which can lead to operational disruption, financial losses and damage to reputation.

Unstructured data is a prime target for ransomware attacks, making it crucial for organizations to protect and manage it effectively. Currently, it is estimated that 80-90% of all data generated falls into the unstructured category, consisting of files and objects. Organizations rely on unstructured data to store sensitive information, intellectual property, and other invaluable corporate assets.

What is it: Agentless architecture refers to platforms and services that are built to run as cloud-native applications. They require no installation, patching, or other forms of long term upkeep on the part of a user. Why it matters: Agentless applications, especially agentless security applications have a lower total cost of ownership (TCO), in terms of man-hours saved in deployment, maintenance, and overhead.

Personally identifiable information (PII) compliance is an ever-increasing challenge for any organization. Whether you’re in ecommerce, banking, healthcare, or other fields where data is sensitive, PII may inadvertently be captured and stored. Having structured logs enables quick identification, removal, and protection of sensitive data fields easily; but what about unstructured messages? Or perhaps call center transcriptions?

Departing employees are a source of insider threats that often get overlooked. According to a study by Biscom, more than one in four departing employees steal data when leaving. Whether they do so out of negligence or with malicious intent, such cases can only have negative outcomes for organizations, from loss of competitive advantage to penalties for non-compliance with cybersecurity requirements.