The IT world is full of phrases that could come off as odd or confusing to those who aren’t full-time in the industry. It’s not uncommon at all – there are definitely some really odd phrases farmers or shoemakers or chefs all use that might make us scratch a hole in our heads. But when it comes to today’s topic, penetration testing is a wildly straightforward concept, at least as far as naming conventions go.  

If you’ve never heard the phrase before, just stop right here and take a stab at it.  

… Good.

The security world once was able to (safely) gather and discuss all things topical and relevant to the industry during the 2022 RSA Conference. There were tons of takeaways, with one survey of attendees finding remote work was the number one concern for 17% and ransomware affecting 19% the most. But the main concern for the largest group, 37% of the attendees, was cloud security.  

And while we’ve touched on security topics from specific things like protecting against $43B scams and how Microsoft Azure works to why more cyber security training is important, nothing quite scratched the itch on the best ways to beef up cloud security. 

Back in October 2019 – you know, before it all changed – Microsoft beta-tested a new baseline security program with 30 million users. We let the mega-computers crunch all of those numbers but the result was astoundingly clear: Adding things like MFA and conditional access to accounts made a world of difference.

To be fair that isn’t exactly a surprising find. While it’s our job to care about how nefarious types are trying to get into your data, you’re likely busy thinking about the 99.9% of the rest of your business. Cakes, cookies, muffins, whatever kind of delicious baked goods you make. (And even if you don’t make baked goods, you should still keep reading..) 

Businesses around the country – and the world for that matter – have been spending quality time devising the right balance of on-premises vs. cloud computing, with many landing somewhere on the hybrid spectrum of solutions. But no matter how exactly it can benefit your small business, our current reality is cloud computing enables organizations of every size to grow well beyond previous expectations. 

When doing research on the topic it may feel like the tools and resources are endless and boundless. From car dealerships to caddies and well beyond, tools aid in every kind of decision-making situation. No, we’re not talking about PAT from the 1999 Disney Channel Original Movie Smart House (did you know it was directed by LeVar Burton??), but instead a collection of advanced programs that give businesses everywhere tools they would otherwise not be able to afford to house. 

To continue our mini-series on cloud migration topics, we wanted to lay down a figurative gauntlet that can help you decide between two incredibly useful, and fairly different, ways to compute for your business, namely picking either On-Premis or Cloud computing. 

While IT teams of every size consider the best options for deploying digital workloads, these days the choice always seems to come down to these two options. Public cloud resources offer extraordinary scalability, lower operating costs, and boundless access to new technologies – but on-premise infrastructure offers more control, dedicated security options, and internal visibility.