1 P a g e. Lim Jun Yan, Undergraduate School of Information Systems Singapore Management University

Transcription

1 1 P a g e Lim Jun Yan, Undergraduate School of Information Systems Singapore Management University

2 Trust is to rely upon or place confidence in someone or something. However, this is not a definition that the modern generation can easily adopt without putting a certain amount of effort in understanding the background of the specific someone or something and of course, understanding how important it is to place that trust. As a result, in a world where information is growing rampantly and becoming increasingly valuable, you can trust absolutely no one with it. The reason why information security is so important is mainly because of its value. The information can be, for example, in a form of corporate secrets, high level project data or confidential details of your clients, all of which can be used for monetarily gains, harming a company s reputation or intruding on a person s privacy. The list of how information can be utilized and the consequences of losing it is endless and this creates a real need for information security. Where information security is involved, we must first understand the core fundamentals that are involved namely confidentially, integrity and availability. In essence, we do not want our information to be exposed to the wrong people and to be modified by unauthorized users. At the same time, we only want our information to be accessible by legitimate parties. In a world where there is no one we can trust, there is only one solution and that solution is to encrypt everything. While direct threats towards our information are huge concerns, the changing environment poses challenging problems for everyday users as well. With significant and widespread advancements in technology, the typical desktop of the past has been transformed and extended into smart phones, laptops, tablets and even phablets. Together with improved communication services and the ability of new age applications to function on different operating systems, the exchange of information becomes even more complicated than ever. This presents the need for one comprehensive security software that can operate on different forms of device with different operating systems and dissimilar technological make ups. Additionally, individuals now possess multiple devices. This factor coupled with their desire for speed and accessibility creates a demand for real time transfer of information. This has led to the proliferation of cloud storage systems such as Dropbox and Google Drive, especially in recent years. Whether for personal usage or work-related storage, there is a dramatic increase in users due to the convenience and flexibility of these services. Users find cloud storage a very simple and effective way of storing their information or sharing their information from one device to another. However, amidst these benefits for the user, they have forgotten the fact that they are placing very valuable information in the hands of a third party whose main resources may not be fully committed to the defence of their information. Just as a country would not place responsibility for its national defence with another country, individuals should not place responsibility for the security of their information in the hands of others. While third-party cloud companies do possess a certain level of security, it should be known that utilization of such facilities faces a risk because the 2 P a g e

3 data is no longer under direct control of the original owner. To counter this risk, it is essential for software to be able to sync multiple devices to the same owner and at the same time protect the information that it is sent to the cloud. Now, if security software were only to be implemented on a single device or for a single user, it would be easy and straightforward. However, if we are looking at the problem from a business point of view, a significant amount of resources must be devoted to planning and implementation of the software because there are many users with each of them having a possibility of many devices. Installing the software and teaching a group of users how to operate it is no easy feat. This is why businesses of different magnitudes take execution time, learnability of product and ease of usage into huge consideration. Not only will these factors affect the overall costs of the implementation, but also the sentiment of their employees or users. Furthermore, instances of companies not practising good security habits or protocols are still present. One of the more important reasons is the failure of educating its employees and coming up with standard guidelines. For example, many employees do not practice good password management. Due to the amount of usernames and passwords the employees individually have to remember for their different accounts, they often write their passwords in places they can be easily accessed by other people. Furthermore, to aid in their memory of their passwords, they make the passwords simple and easy to guess. This makes it much easier for third parties to hack the passwords through a simple dictionary attack or a brute force attack especially when the company itself does not set password standards. Additionally, more companies information security is infrastructure-centric and is not data-centric. A huge number of organizations have the tendency of adding security infrastructure and solutions without understanding their effectiveness in today s world. As mentioned before, data today is stored in a multitude of places, especially in the mobile and cloud domains. Thus, the addition of more security infrastructure often is not the key to data protection. Having listed the problems in context, let us look at how Ohanae is able to tackle and successfully solve the current problems. Firstly, the proliferation of different types of devices (BYOD) means that there is a need for a single app that is able to sync and work on different types of device. This is the condition that Ohanae has fulfilled as it supports Windows and Mac, Android and ios. Secondly, users having multiple devices can look forward to Ohanae s supportability of up to eight devices. Additionally, Ohanae s Identity Protection capability allows access to unique strong passwords without the need to remember them. This allows secure access to your information without the mess of memorizing individual passwords for each account. Thirdly, with the emergence of cloud services and the ever increasing demand for it, information uploaded to these applications should be thoroughly protected and not left to the companies offering the cloud service. Ohanae s Information Protection capability answers the call. It ensures that files in the cloud 3 P a g e

4 and for sharing are encrypted and only the user has the encryption key. No longer is the user putting the safety and protection of his or her information in someone else s hands. Looking from a business perspective, Ohanae s services are very implementable. All the user must do is download the software and follow the easy steps to get the services started. The clear step-by-step guide allows users to understand how the security software works. The software s learnability is fairly simple; it works exactly like an ATM machine, the user would need a pin together with a token in order to access the information in that particular account. This two-tier protection ensures effective and maximum security for the user and at the same time, ease of usage as well. The problem of password management is thoroughly addressed. Ohanae s 1-Tap Login secure credential management allows a simple access to any web and standalone applications with a single tap. Not only does it instantaneously create unique and strong passwords for each account but it also secures the user s identity with dynamically generated passwords that are not stored in any client or local files. Some standalone applications which are widely used in businesses and supported by Ohanae are Skype, and Outlook. As mentioned before, as more and more companies shift towards BYODs, information security no longer revolves around infrastructure-centric approaches but also data-centric means as well. Since data storage is not strictly confined to within the walls of the company anymore, security of the BYODs and its cloud storage avenues becomes a priority. Thankfully, Ohanae s services cover this area of concern as well. Employers can be assured that corporate data remains secured while having the freedom to choose their preferred devices for work or personal purposes. Ohanae s centralized management features for its users and their devices shifts any business towards a data-centric security protection, which includes cloud storage protection, and this is precisely what many companies need in this modern era. Bringing a case study into picture, I am currently interning in a large scale company who recently requires their field agents to encrypt their information due to a lack of information security in their BYODs. This is after a local governing authority conducted an IT audit and realized that many of the field agents have not been actively safeguarding confidential information of their customers. After planning for a few months, the company decided to make use of an enterprise security system and required field agents to download software which basically encrypts their entire hard disk so that in the event of a missing device, no third party would be able to access the information. However, this turned out to be a huge nightmare because the company failed to realize that most field agents use a variety of BYODs each functioning with different operating systems. As a result, the enterprise security system which was meant for a controlled internal environment met with many issues in an uncontrolled environment made up of diverse BYODs. Additionally, the company also failed to understand that many of the field agents utilize cloud storage to share and store their information so that they could have the convenience of moving around lightweight without 4 P a g e

5 having to bring a dedicated laptop. The agents would use a laptop or desktop in their office and when they are tasked to do their out of office duties, they would switch to a light weight tablet or phablet, pulling information from the cloud. This means that even though the information confined to their local computers was secured, the information in their cloud was not safe. Hence, putting Ohanae back into the picture, if the company were to utilize Ohanae s cloud privacy protection services, it would not have the faced the problem of the BYODs and at the same time would still be able to utilize Ohanae s Secure Drive capability and Secure Cloud Drive for data protection. Ohanae s data centric approach would also benefit the company in the long run; its holistic data safeguarding and security compliance would also allow the company to pass its IT audits. Ohanae s services are catered to the modern generation of devices and users and it innovatively seeks to protect the user s information from any online and offline threats. From individuals to businesses, Ohanae can play a significant role from encryption of data to identify protection to cloud storage security while concurrently, providing convenience and satisfaction. In a world where there is no one left to trust, a thoughtful all rounded defence by Ohanae is your best bet. Ohanae Cloud Privacy Protection lets you protect everything! 5 P a g e