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1. Hope Hope is the utmost important thing we need to cling to as we look forward to a new beginning. That’s why it is on the top of our list.

2. A new perspective You cannot welcome today with the bitter memories of yesterday.

As we start a new year, we wish that you can find a new perspective in life.

2020 has hurt each one of us in different ways. But it has also taught us the importance of change. It is not the fittest that survives a battle but the one who quickly identifies his opponent and embraces new strategies.

3. Normalcy Normalcy! We are missing that so……………. much.

We wish that 2021 be the year where we start returning to normalcy.

The big void created by the pandemic that divided the world between pre-COVID and post-COVID, let’s hope that starts filling this year.

4. Vaccine rollout COVID-19 vaccine rollout is the most anticipated thing that we are all wishing for in 2021.

It is going to be a challenge for highly populated countries, considering the daunting task of distributing it and storing the vaccine in suitable conditions.

5. Better Infrastructure The COVID-19 pandemic has created an urgent need for sustainable and resilient infrastructure.

6. New business opportunities The past year has been challenging for small businesses and startups. The drastic shift in the economy, consumer behaviour, and cashflows have created an everlasting ripple effect on all major businesses and industries.

7. Access to technology One important lesson 2020 taught us is that technology can make things happen – even those that were a distant dream once.

During the pandemic, the one thing which helped us all stay together and stay connected was technology.

The year 2020 brought many challenges and possibilities for businesses around the world, and we are hopeful that 2021 will be the year that will advance your team and take your business to the next level.

Why businesses need managed services? All businesses, at different points in time, struggle with few major issues, like:

- Maintaining acceptable performance of IT infrastructure systems - Managing the risk of overrunning costs – going over budget - Necessity to adopt new technologies to keep oneself competitive

What are managed services?

Managed services are outsourcing of several non-IT and IT related processes like cloud, IT infrastructure and IT security to specialist third parties having expertise in that domain. With managed services, clients are able to obtain the same benefits of large IT infrastructure, without maintaining or purchasing that amount in-house. Managed services help organizations to distribute resources optimally and augment overall profitability.

Types of managed services As per Gartner, Managed Services is structured around three main areas:

- Technology Maintenance, including maintaining

- technology and delivering content

Imagine waking up in the morning and finding your smartphone’s battery exceptionally low (although you fully charged it the last night). The notification bar is cluttered with multiple notifications and messages that you didn’t even initiate. Scary, isn’t it? This is how your phone may behave if it is hacked. Phone hacking is not uncommon. In several cases, you might not even realize that you are hacked before it irrevocably harms you.

Imagine waking up in the morning and finding your smartphone’s battery exceptionally low (although you fully charged it the last night). The notification bar is cluttered with multiple notifications and messages that you didn’t even initiate. Scary, isn’t it? This is how your phone may behave if it is hacked. Phone hacking is not uncommon. In several cases, you might not even realize that you are hacked before it irrevocably harms you.

We have researched few tips and tricks to help you secure your mobile data and amp up your smartphone security in 2021.

Mobile data security 2021 – How to protect your data? 1. Keep it updated Your smartphone, just like your laptop or computer, needs to be regularly updated. The primary reason why companies release updates is to fill security gaps and patch leaks. A smartphone running on an older version of software becomes an easy target for hackers and other cybercriminals. Updating your Android device is quite easy and takes hardly 5 – 10 minutes.

It is one of the best ways to secure Android phones from hackers.

These software updates are designed to take care of a lot of performance and bug issues. Occasionally, software updates also bring new features to your smart device and improve its compatibility with other applications.

2. Backup your data on the cloud Backups are one of the most essential tips for smartphone or mobile data security in 2021.

Backing-up your mobile data to a cloud or physical hard drive can add an extra layer of protection to your smartphone data. We do recommend using cloud-based backup software like Acronis True Image, Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive Personal, etc. This is the most convenient way to keep a copy of your data saved in the protection of cloud.

In case, somebody hacks your phone or snatches it away, you can always wipe away the data remotely and retrieve that from the cloud. For maximum protection, avoid keeping any confidential document or private photographs on your phone. Upload them to the cloud and password-protect them.

3. Say no to free WiFi Free WiFi is something that nobody can say no to. But if you want to protect your phone’s data, it is high time you learn to say no to it. Public WiFi or hotspots can put your phone’s security at risk.

Hackers love to target these weak and unprotected free WiFi connections and can infect them with viruses and malware in a jiffy. Once you connect your phone to this freely available internet, they can steal your personal files, data, and infect them with malware.

We are not saying that all free WiFi is bad. There’s no reason to not enjoy your company’s free WiFi (pun intended) or use a friend’s hotspot. As long as you know the source and trust the source, it is safe to use. Simply avoid connecting to unknown WiFi networks available at public places like parks, metro stations, hotels, etc.

4. Create multiple user accounts One of the most alluring features in an Android device is – the ability to create multiple users.

There are times when you might need to share your device with a friend or a colleague or a stranger at a bus stand. The multiple users account feature helps you share devices without the fear of encroaching on each other.

It is quite similar to using a shared Windows PC. Everyone has their own settings, apps, screen, and log in. However, do not confuse it with creating a second Google account on your phone. It is completely different from it. When you add a new device or user profile, it is like setting up a brand-new device. You can find multiple tutorials online on how to add multiple user accounts on your Android device. If your phone gets hacked, the bad actor will have to go through a tough challenge of finding out which one is your main profile.

5. Do not allow your phone to save passwords No matter how tempting it is, you should never save passwords on your phone. This includes setting the autofill feature ‘ON’, saving them in notes or documents.

Web applications are increasingly becoming more feature rich, powerful, and complex. This complexity in web applications is a result of the rising technological demands of the customers. To meet their customers’ demands, organizations are consistently releasing new versions of their web applications. While Software Development and Operations teams provide faster release cycles, it becomes difficult to scale web security.

Common Web Application Security Flaws

1. Remote Code Execution (RCE) Remote Code Execution is generally the most dangerous vulnerability in a web application.

In this type of flaw, attackers can run their own code within a web application that possesses some defect or weakness. Once the application is compromised, attackers can get the right to access the server where all the important information exists like a database with client-related information.

2. SQL Injection (SQLi) SQL Injection is a vulnerability in which an attacker inserts malicious SQL statements to the web application that makes insecure SQL query to a database server (for example, MySQL). The attacker exploits a web application’s weaknesses that are usually the result of poor development practices.

3. Cross-site Scripting (XSS) Regardless of the variation in this category, all cases of cross-site scripting follow almost the same pattern. In cross-site scripting type of vulnerability, the attackers inject client-side scripts into the websites viewed by other users. They may take place anywhere a web application allows input from a user without validating it.

The common objective of an attacker is to make a victim execute a malicious script (also referred as the payload) to an unknowing user. This script runs on a trusted web application. The prime focus is to steal the data of users or modify it to threaten to get access to the sensitive information.

4. Path Traversal A path traversal attack (or directory traversal) is made to get access to files and directories that appear outside root folder of the web application. Path or directory traversal attacks typically manipulate the variables or its variations to access server file system folders.

Since these files contain critical information like access tokens, passwords, or backups, a successful attack may allow a hacker to further exploit other vulnerable applications as well.

Path traversal flaw may not be as common as Cross-site Scripting and SQL Injection flaws but still pose a major risk to the web application security.

5. Source Code Disclosure This type of vulnerability is more common and could provide sensitive information of a web application to an attacker. Hence, it is important that a source code is kept safe, away from the attacker’s eyes, especially if the web application is not open source.

In source code disclosure, a weak server can be exploited to read arbitrary files. Further, this can be used to get access to the source code of web application files and configuration files. Disclosure of source code can leak sensitive information such as passwords, database queries, or input validation filters.  

6. Weak Passwords Weak passwords always play an important role in a hack. To make it easy, sometimes, applications allow simple passwords without complexity, such as Admin123, Password@123, 12345, etc. Such passwords can be easily guessed allowing an attacker to easily login to the server.

This year and the last, COVID-19 caused a rapid increase in the digital transformation initiatives. Be it cloud computing firmly establishing itself as a ‘remote work enabler’ or multi-cloud and hybrid cloud helping organizations with the business continuity.

Seeing the benefits of cloud computing, more and more enterprises are now having a ‘cloud-first’ strategy i.e., they are preferring cloud solutions when they need new services.

Research indicates that investment in the cloud solutions will increase across industries. As per IDC, Cloud will account for more than US$ 1 trillion of all enterprise IT spending, by 2024.

Between all this planning and reaping benefits comes a very crucial step of cloud migration. Many organizations struggle with this step as they are wary of the challenges like overprovisioning, skills’ shortage, adoption issues and downtime.

To help you decide, we’ve listed 10 important things below that you should be aware of before jumping in for cloud migration.

1. Understand your cloud migration goals Before planning a cloud migration, first ask yourself, “Why do you want to migrate your system to the cloud?”

Wrong Reasons:

Because other companies, including your competitors, are doing this and you think it will beat the competition. Because you want simple experimentation with the cloud. Because some experts say that cloud migration will save money. Right Reasons:

Because cloud adoption will lead to faster infrastructure expansion, provide better uptime, and potentially speed up business growth. Because it will improve IT agility and will reduce your operational burden thereby enabling quicker response to the market changes. Because you want to improve the quality of the customer service and user experience. Because you want to improve security and operational resilience. If you fall into the Right Reasons’ category, then you are headed in the right direction.

Cloud migration often provides better scalability, better agility, higher security, enables faster software development, and increases efficiency. However, each organization may need cloud for different reasons, for example, a finance company may need it to increase its computing power, greater scalability and cybersecurity.

2. Do some realistic assessment A realistic estimate of the current state of your organization is essential as it will provide the basis that you will need when making important decisions.

You need to understand:

Your current IT environment The current level of your resources Your application requirement, and Your overall budget for acquiring new resources A thorough assessment of your existing infrastructure will help you determine the scope and scale of the migration.

3. Understand and control cloud costs With the cloud, you are going to pay Opex (Operational Expenditure) majorly as the cloud solutions rarely need Capex (Capital Expenditure). You will need to pat for infrastructure in IaaS and applications in SaaS model as you use them. So, pricing can be calculated after calculating your requirements. Calculate and compare cloud costs with costs of your existing environment. The cost of cloud solutions will vary from one vendor to another. Research and find out different pricing for different cloud services of different vendors.

You can use a cloud comparison tool to make your research a bit easy.

4. Select the right deployment model Cloud service providers mainly offer three types of deployment models:

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS) Each one of them offers various features for management and control.

If you are looking for higher level of flexibility with your infrastructure, then you can choose the IaaS model. PaaS helps you improve your speed of delivering apps in the market. You can opt for the SaaS model to automate and speed up the deployment process. This reduces the need to control applications and provides greater flexibility.

Understand the differences between these deployment models and choose the one that best aligns with your needs.

5. Consider compliance and security You need to know about the compliance and security aspects before starting the cloud migration process. You will need to create new policies that enable secure data sharing and protect data in the cloud, especially when you are in the finance or healthcare sector.