The recent SolarWinds breach is in all the IT and news headlines. This has caused IT decision-makers to rethink/re-evaluate their current Systems Monitoring solutions if they are a SolarWinds customer. This is where a tried-and-true platform from Microsoft may be able to assist in the decision-making process.

New to conditional access is session control where you can define sign-in frequency and persistent browser session. This requires Azure AD P1.

In today’s modern business environment, reliable digital infrastructure is essential and having access to real-time IT support is a resource that you can’t afford to live without. Fortunately, contrary to popular belief, you have cost-effective options that can provide some peace of mind.

Attackers often hijack browser sessions to steal and/or manipulate data. In addition, they run malicious code to steal passwords, plant trojans, ransomware, and other activities to penetrate your network.

As a best practice, most security professionals recommend administrative users have two accounts - one for administrative tasks and a second account for all other tasks. This ensures that things like email that can be a vector for malware are kept separate from the account with administrative rights. Unfortunately, this creates a hurdle for many environments, in that the additional time and effort taken to manage and use two accounts for all administrative users becomes problematic.

The new Microsoft Edge is a browser built for business. This Chromium-based browser offers many advantages over its predecessors and other browsers in the market today. So, is it the right choice for your organization?

Securing Applications and Data

When talking with IT service providers working in the healthcare space, we’ve found a few concerns repeated:

1. My organization has become heavily security conscious after the malware attacks, but we’re not sure where to focus.
2. Our leadership wants us to adopt cloud infrastructure and platform services, but our security team is preventing that as they are not sure of the security.
3. As our development teams are building products, such as SaaS offerings for clients or other solutions, we are not sure what modern tools work for managing the infrastructure and apps involved.

Collectively, these concerns all engage in the shared idea of security and operations. 

In the 2^nd quarter of 2016, 88% of all ransomware attacks targeted healthcare entities.  In one high-profile case, Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles paid $17, 000 in bitcoin to restore their files. 

So what makes healthcare organizations such an attractive target?  There are several contributing factors.

Generally speaking, companies must weigh the pros and cons of upgrading or updating any system.  It is accepted that physical assets such as machinery or equipment must be maintained at specific intervals.  

Furthermore, the projected end of life date is typically established at the time of purchase.  Equipment kept in use past its projected EOL requires additional maintenance and upkeep and often hampers productivity or increases risk and most companies would not dispute this fact. 

Software systems are no less critical. Software applications and operating systems also have a projected EOL, but often the temptation to extend the service life of these assets is greater than for a piece of equipment that you can touch and feel.