Insights

The corona pandemic has digitized our everyday life. In response to the pandemic and to shape their digital future, companies are increasingly using the advantages of cloud infrastructures such as Amazon Web Service, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Alibaba, IBM or Oracle. But what is a “cloud”? What are the advantages for companies? And what do companies have to consider in the area of security and data protection? An analysis.

Element, WhatsApp, Threema, Signal, Telegram, Vibr, Wickr Me and Wire are not rock bands or fashion labels, they are instant messengers that enable the immediate exchange of text, video or voice messages with one or more recipients over the Internet. Thanks to smartphones, these messengers became extremely popular in a private as well as business context, since they allow data sharing in no time. The announcement of WhatsApp at the beginning of this year that the terms of use will be updated, moved data protection and the security of messengers to the fore. But what does this mean for WhatsApp users? How secure are messengers in general? And how are the messages securely stored and transmitted? This article compares four popular messengers – WhatsApp, Threema, Signal, and Telegram – to answer these questions.[1]-[3]

Identity and access management (IAM) is the discipline to enable the right individuals to access the right IT resources, such as systems applications, files, and networks, at the right time for the right reasons. This often needs to be enabled across diverse technologies and the resulting processes must meet the security policies of the organization. The IAM system is a critical part of IT infrastructure of any larger organization.

Our way of working has been turned upside down by the corona virus. Companies had to offer their employees the opportunity to work from home in the shortest possible time. It was not only a challenge to provide the necessary infrastructure. Not infrequently, the necessary safety precautions were also neglected. Thanks to the home office, productivity can be maintained as much as possible. But the new way of working is susceptible to hackers who want to profit from the current situation.

Two-factor authentication (2FA) –or multi-factor authentication (MFA) in general – has grown in importance in security in recent years. This is about how users (employees and customers) authenticate to systems. Authentication by username and password is called 1FA. However, in order to increase safety, 2FA or MFA has been increasingly used in recent years.