Putting People First: Cloud Destinations' Culture of Well-Being and Balance

8 Min Read

Effective Healthcare Data Management Strategies to Deal with Data Challenges

Since way before the Covid-19 pandemic hit, doctors have been going through torment in regards to electronic health records (EHRs). In most of the instances, it was apparent that EHRs produced an enormous amount of surplus work and generated insufficient advantages.

One of the most critical challenges is handling a concurrent oversupply and scarcity of information. Simultaneously following up with outbreaks, keeping tabs on the current information about effective cures and vaccine development, keeping check on each patient's health, and identifying and recording an evidently interminable course of strange new symptoms, seems to dreadfully overburden the entire healthcare community.

The prevailing EHRs are unable to cope up with the data challenges that clinicians face on a daily basis, besides those caused by the pandemic. Healthcare providers experience constant resentment at various stages - user interfaces, utility difficulties, the standard of the data input, the finite data capability to aid disclosure and integration between systems, and so on. These hindrances have staggered the proficiency of medical professionals to avail and deliver care throughout the Covid-19 crisis.

A reexamination and reconstruction of EHRs is overdue, which must surpass repairing the user interface or enhancing integration.

It must acknowledge the basic issues uncovered by the pandemic. The renovation of EHRs must also assist the healthcare providers in adapting to the new value-based-care health care business model, as it rewards the providers based on the end results instead of the quantity of services and that pulls their attention from reactive ailing care to the dynamic handling of health.

To acknowledge these needs, the EHRs need to be transformed from patients' medical record centric to patients' health plan and from clinical transaction support focused to information delivery to the provider and the patient-focused.

To reach from the record to the plan, a reassessment and reconstruction of the EHRs is necessary. Though the EHRs have an exceptional “record” part that helps in keeping surveillance on what happened to the patient, they should also develop to consider the “health” part by helping the health providers plan based on the outcome they would want. These EHRs can be transformed into tools that would help create those plans and keep them on track, if we design and develop them with that target in mind.

A “plan-centric” EHR system would include :

A collection of plans related to healthcare that would cover a broad-spectrum of circumstances. Considering various possible situations and alternatives, would direct alterations in the plans.

Developing and utilizing algorithms to create customized plans for each patient separately. Usually, patients have just one clear and controllable difficulty. A master plan would be a combination of relevant and accurate algorithms for treating different diseases, automatically rectifying struggles and dismissals.

Care team support with members including the patient, the principal care provider of the patient, specialists, pharmacists, nurses and case supervisors will be able to access the master plan and their respective tasks list. The team members would be able to allocate duties to one another.

The facility to pass over care settings, terrains and various EHRs would be highly beneficial. The plan would involve consistent movement with the patient. Healthcare providers with interworking systems could combine a patient's plan irrespective of its emergence.

The decision support and functionality coherence would incorporate reminding the team members of forthcoming and pending tasks, recommend modifications the plan depending on the patient's conditions and care, and forward messages to the corresponding team member concerning patient's incidents and new test results.

The analytics would help the system evaluate the plan on the basis of its outcomes, both for the bigger population that may be under the care of the same provider. The system would be able to implement the lessons learned in treating one patient to other patients.

Envision a plan-centric EHR equipped to cope up with Covid-19, integrating the contemporary proof-based treatments into each and every patient’s care plan derived from their latest status and underlying health conditions, and then giving feedback data on each patient's response so as to enhance the plan for the next patient. Such proficiency can revolutionize outcomes and save many lives.

Cloud Destinations Provides Data Services including:

• Data Design (OLTP, Data Warehouse, Data Lake), Installation, Backup and Recovery, Physical/Virtual, On-Perm/Cloud,
• End to End High Performance DB Architecture & Design (Systems, Storage & Network),
• Database Monitoring, Best Practices, Performance Optimizations & Query Optimizations,
• High Availability & Disaster Recovery Design and Implementations, Database Migrations & Upgrades.

Please reach out to us at info@clouddestinations.com for any query.

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8 Min Read

The Cyber Security Catastrophe of the Year’21 Log4j Logging Library Vulnerability

The Log4Shell exploit gives attackers a simple way to execute code on any vulnerable machine. CVE-2021-45046, second version of vulnerability emerges from the incomplete patch to the CVE-2021-44228 that leads attackers to craft malicious input data using a JNDI Lookup pattern resulting in a denial of service (DOS) attack. CVE-2021-45046, rated 9.0 (critical) on the CVSS scale.

CVE-2021-45105, third version of vulnerability emerges when the attacker’s control over Thread Context Map (MDC) input data which can craft malicious input data that contains a recursive lookup and can cause Denial of Service.CVE-2021-45105, rated 7.5 (high) on the CVSS scale.

CVE-2021-4104, fourth version of vulnerability emerges when the attacker has write access to the Log4j configuration using JMSAppender which is vulnerable to deserialization of untrusted data.CVE-2021-4104, rated 8.1 (high) on the CVSS scale.

CD Bytes! As a trusted Qualys partner Cloud Destinations helps organizations in quick detection and remediation of log4j vulnerabilities with its advanced out-of-band detection mechanisms. Qualys is also continuously updating their platform to make accurate detections of applications vulnerable to log4shell. For more information & engagement please refer https://clouddestinations.com and write to info@clouddestinations.com

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8 Min Read

Kronos Ransomware Has Disrupted HR Operations Around The World

The company said that attack could force its payroll management systems offline for weeks since it affected their employee payrolls.

Potential disruptions to pay

As per the UKG, all products linked to the Kronos private cloud are unavailable, UKG’s list of clients includes some huge names including Tesla, GameStop, Honda, Sainsbury’s, Puma, the YMCA, MGM Resorts, the city of Denver, and New York City’s Metro Transit Authority.

Digging Deeper!

UKG spotted the unusual activity in the kronos network and many other clients which employ thousands of workers, announced that they are also affected. Even governmental organizations announced this week that they had been affected by the attack. Cyber Security firms speculate it’s linked to the Log4J vulnerability, an open-source Java-based logging framework, it’s a zero-day vulnerability which was discovered last week exploited in multiple servers across the globe, and it is already being described as one of the most serious threats ever seen however, currently “no indication” that the two events are linked, though investigating is still on.

CD Bytes!

A piece of malicious software that will infect your network or your machines, and it can happen a number of different ways. It’s not always the end users fault, but its success is based on either relaxed security or somebody who has way too much access. A network, if it’s configured properly, will resist 1,000 attacks and It doesn’t care, all they have to do is make one mistake. AWARENESS IS KEY.

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8 Min Read

Insider Threats Can Cause Big Breaches and Damage

In 2019 SANS report on emerging threats, security professionals recognized major gaps in insider threat defense caused by inadequate accessibility into a base point of normal user behavior, as well as the management of privileged user accounts, which reflect a more intriguing benchmark for phishing or credential compromise cases. With 40% of insider events involving an employee with privileged access to business assets, companies must analyze the risks walking inside their doors every day with the same care that they do when defending the perimeter from external attackers.

1. Detect Insider Threats

A potential insider threat is anyone who has insider knowledge and/or access to the organization's private data, IT, or network resources. Insiders have the capabilities, motives, and privileges required to steal critical data, therefore it is the CISO's responsibility to detect and defend against all of those attack vectors. Some of the common Indicators of an Insider Threat are as follows,

Digital Warning Signs

• Downloading or accessing substantial amounts of data
• Accessing sensitive data not associated with their job function
• Multiple requests for access to resources not associated with their job function

Behavioral Warning Signs

• Attempts to bypass security
• Frequently in the office during off-hours
• Displays disgruntled behavior towards co-workers

2. Insider Threats Defense Plan

Organizations can detect and forecast insider threats by tracking the behavior of employees. Being proactive may enable businesses to detect potentially harmful insiders before they steal sensitive information or disrupt operations.

• Identify and discover the location of your sensitive data
• Keep an eye on activity, files, and emails on your primary data sources
• Determine who has access to the data and who should have access to it
• Use security analytics to detect unusual activities
• Maintain a paradigm of least privilege throughout your infrastructure
• Teach your employees how to think about data security

3. Insider Threats Response Plan

Establish an insider threat detection system which allows you to detect an attack early on and develop an effective incident response strategy to reduce potential harm. Monitoring your data, gathering information, and triggering warnings on anomalous behaviour are the keys to fight against insider attacks.

• Alert the appropriate teams
• Restore deleted data if necessary
• Eradicate any malware used during the attack
• Determine affected users and files
• Verify the threat severity and legitimacy

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8 Min Read

Malware Hidden In Encrypted Traffic

To enhance data privacy and security, organizations must use the benefits of encryption—whether at the endpoint or in data centers.

1. Detect Hidden Malware

Some malware attempts to conceal all activities, leaving no visible evidence. Even if you don't notice anything out of the ordinary, it's conceivable that a bot on your system is ready for instructions from its command and control system. The offenders utilize drive-by downloads or other fraudulent methods to install the fake antivirus on your computer, then display threatening alerts about fake threats. Use the following strategies to avoid similar scenarios:

• Use Antivirus or Anti-malware software and conduct system checks to spot infection attacks.
• Augment Anti-malware scanner and antivirus protection with a spyware software to spot keyloggers.
• Conduct regular check-ups to protect applications from exploits.

2. Examine Network Traffic

Monitor the network availability and activity in order to detect abnormalities such as security and operational concerns to avoid traffic in the network. Malicious traffic is a threat that causes an incident that can either compromise an organization's security or your own PC. Enhanced malicious traffic detection abilities can determine whether a suspicious link is a type of malicious traffic emerging from bad URLs or C2 sites in order to determine malicious traffic.

• Having a real-time and comprehensive record of what is going on in your network and how to Troubleshoot a Slow Network
• Detect and identify malicious activities, such as Ransomware, vulnerable protocols and ciphers
• Internal visibility is being improved, and blind spots are being eliminated.

3. Use Secure Level Authentication

Security experts are dealing with a number of authentication-related problems as hackers continue to improve their attacks. As a result, organizations should develop more complicated incident response procedures that incorporate authentication as part of the process.

• Certificate monitoring used to detect malicious software to conceal its actions by communicating with command and control centers via the SSL/TLS protocol.
• Monitoring passive certificates identifies communicating peers and determines if these certificates are legitimate and include the necessary security algorithms to meet local security policies

4. Employees Should Be Trained on Encrypted Attacks

By training your employees on a regular basis, you can reduce the risk of them being misled by phishing or other strategies and unintentionally bringing malware into your network. Through cyber awareness training, employees learn about real-world threats and scams, as well as how to respond to them. Employers are noticing that it significantly secures an increasingly remote workplace, particularly in post-pandemic circumstances.

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8 Min Read

How Employees Can Protect Your Company Against Cyber Attacks

By integrating best-practice cybersecurity policies into your operations, you can dramatically reduce the risk of a data breach, malware, or a ransomware attack. It starts with your people and policies. You can start creating a security culture at your company by challenging this big misconception: “cybersecurity isn’t just for the IT department”.

Employees are Often the Weakest Link

According to Verizon’s 2020 Data Breach Report, data breaches resulting from internal malicious actors have decreased considerably. However, privilege misuse and human error continue to be major internal sources of breaches. Among the most common mistakes reported includes:

• Misconfigured accounts or permissions.
• Poor password practices.
• Confusion about access protocols or procedures.
• Logging into personal emails or unauthorized websites on company computers

What is Security Culture?

Security culture refers to the set of behaviors or customs that a group of people takes to maximize security in everyday operations. It’s the idea that security is everyone’s responsibility, not just something for the IT department. It involves making security practices habits that your entire organization does instinctively.
Examples of security culture includes:

• Locking computer screens when you step away from your workstation.
• Using a sign-in app at a front desk for all visitors.
• Deploying the principle of least privilege for user accounts.
• Protecting professional contact information & Having a set of security policies.

How to Promote Good Security Practices

Security culture is powerful because it addresses the blame culture approach that many organizations take. When employees feel empowered to act, they’re less likely to hide potential breaches out of fear of repercussions. The best ways to promote smart security practices are:

1. Make Practices Easy

Verizon noted in their report that some breaches occurred because employees weren’t following established procedures. The more convoluted and unclear the practice, the less likely people will adopt them. Clear policies make sure that everyone understands their responsibilities.

2. Have Clear Procedures for Reporting Incidents

Always establish a set of policies including what employees should do if they suspect an incident. Make sure employees are trained on these procedures so they can act quickly if the need arises.

3. Reward Good Security Habits

Get employees excited about security culture by rewarding good habits. This also helps to counteract fears that they may be punished if they make a mistake or fall for a scam.

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8 Min Read

4 Strategies for Startups to Improve Network Security

According to the SANS Institute, network security is defined as, “the process of taking physical and software preventative measures to protect the underlying networking infrastructure from unauthorized access, misuse, malfunction, modification, destruction, or improper disclosure, thereby creating a secure platform for computers, users and programs to perform their permitted critical functions within a secure environment.”

1. Develop Security Awareness

It should develop stronger security in any business. Your employees may be smart, diligent, tech-savvy individuals, but there’s no limit to the ingenuity of cybercriminals. Frequent, creative security awareness training can help cultivate an information security culture right from the start.

2. Use Penetration Tests and Vulnerability Scanning

New vulnerabilities appear almost daily because it’s just not possible to catch all of them before software or a security strategy goes live. However, you must be proactive about catching these weak points before malicious actors do. We recommend:

• Periodically running thorough, deep scans with your antivirus
• Running regular vulnerability scans to identify risks
• Use penetration tests to check your cybersecurity strategy
• Consider using a third-party expert to conduct a risk management or security audit

3. Implement a Robust Set of Policies

Formal policies and procedures aren’t just for the big companies – startups should have them in place, too. Policies help you standardize security across your entire startup, keeping everyone on the same page. They also help make abnormal behaviors or unusual activity on the network much easier to spot.

4. Practice Open Communication

Did you know that as many as 45 percent of employees hide cybersecurity incidents instead of reporting them? That’s one of the worst things that can happen because incidents resolve with the best outcome when they’re addressed promptly. However, this happens when a blame culture exists and staff is afraid of repercussions, such as being fired or even sued.
You can combat this by encouraging an environment of open communication. Make it easy for your employees to report potential incidents and reassure them that they won’t be punished if they fall for some clever scheme concocted by a criminal.

Network Security Done Right

Startups cannot afford any extra expenses, least of all an expensive breach that scares off investors and customers. The strategies we’ve provided are steps that anyone can take to improve the network security in their startup. They’re simple, quick, and can help you build a solid security foundation that signals to investors or customers that you take their data seriously. Implement effective security controls the first time around, and enjoy staying focused on business in the future.

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8 Min Read

Steps to Engage Your Team in Information Security

Why We Need Information Security

Cultivating a security culture can empower them to be more discerning when they encounter potential attacks. Even if they think they are adept at spotting phishing emails or suspicious links, other tactics like social engineering remain prominent.

How to Cultivate Information Security

Schedule Training Simulations: In a crisis, it’s easy to freeze if you don’t have a clear plan of action already determined. Live-action training like simulations, table-top exercises, and roleplaying can help staff understand how and why a security incident unfolds and what to do about it. Make these semi-frequent and use them as educational opportunities to keep your employees up-to-date with current threats.

Make it About Learning, Not Consequences: According to Kaspersky, as many as 45 percent of employees hide cybersecurity incidents rather than report them. That’s the exact opposite of what needs to happen, yet it occurs when employees fear repercussions if they make a mistake. Rather than emphasizing punitive measures for employees that fall prey to scammers, focus on positive feedback for the things they do right.

Implement Security Frameworks: Security frameworks are guides that can help you secure your organization without accidentally leaving anything out. These can help you decide which policies you need, give you a benchmark for compliance, and put you in a strong position when you need to answer vendor security questionnaires. Leveraging a framework can also show you where any weak points or vulnerabilities stand, helping you to secure your company before those holes are exploited.

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8 Min Read

How to Disable Automatic Login in Windows 10

This likely isn’t a problem if you’re at home all the time, but if you have a laptop this becomes a serious security risk. Especially if you travel with your laptop.
This automatic login means that anyone who finds your computer (or steals it!) only needs to start it up to have access to all your files. Because of this, companies that have information security policies typically mandate that you disable automatic login on your Windows 10 machine.

How To Disable Automatic Login:

1. Press Win+R, enter “netplwiz“, which will open the “User Accounts” window. Netplwiz is a Windows utility tool for managing user accounts.
2. Check the option for “Users must enter a username and password to use this computer” and click Apply.
3. That’s it. Restart your computer and the system will prompt you to enter your password at the login screen.

Why Small Steps are Important for Keeping Your Company Secure

The information security policies and procedures at your company are incredibly important. Even on your personal computers at home, following these policies can help make sure your own information stays safe! Everyone should be aware about how to protect their own personal and financial information at home. You don’t want to be a target of identity theft. Or the source of a data breach at your company!
In the case of your Windows 10 laptop set to log in automatically that’s what we InfoSec experts consider an endpoint. Every laptop or device that remotely connects to your corporate network or systems is called an “endpoint,” which means these devices are all a potential entry point for security threats. While that automatic login feature is convenient, it also makes your laptop more vulnerable.

Get Cybersecurity Policies for Your Business

If your company already has policies, make sure you’re familiar with the requirements and follow them. Go find them. You’ll want to stay up to date since companies change and update their policies. If you have a small business or startup you will likely have to create your own security policies.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a salesperson, a marketer, or a developer with access to everything. You don’t have to work in IT. You’re a target. Unfortunately, too often small businesses are easy targets. Most cyber attackers don’t discriminate. They’ll hit with a broad stroke. In fact, they might target every employee with an @YourCompany.com email address. Or every device connected to your company wifi network.

Cyber-attacks may target and steal your employee personnel records. Other times, the target is your company’s customer database full of private records, payment information, passwords, and internal data. However, your company may not be the true target, if you are a vendor for a global brand or Fortune 500 company.

If your laptop or another endpoint is compromised, that could give someone with nefarious intent access to other devices, databases, and critical systems within your company. Securing every possible entry point, through easy steps like disabling automatic logins, is key

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