Ajay C Bhayani, CEO, AmbiSure Technologies advises organisations to always invest in cybersecurity solution that not only safeguards their business and is scalable, but also automates detection and responds to threats, making them resilient
As a security solution provider, how do you assess the current scenario and the lessons learned? What’s your preparedness to handle such unprecedented situation?
From day one, our aim has been to offer cybersecurity solutions that are scalable as well as resilient to deliver 100 per cent in diverse conditions. This is the kind of value addition AmbiSure Technologies brings for its customers. In the current scenario, customers have been reaching to us to know how our solutions will enable secure access of their data and prevent leakage in work-from-home situations. In these times, it is very heartening to see the trust customers has kept in us for the security of their organisations.
How are you safeguarding your customers’ assets / premises in order to ensure continuity of their business operations?
We monitor our customers’ assets as well as infrastructure that is accessible online. Any changes or failed report is evaluated for the impact. Besides, we are equipped to integrate our customers’ systems with tailored, next-generation security solutions that can protect and safeguard their vital assets, including people, technology, processes, and intelligence. This ensures the continuity of their business operations. We understand that every part of IT infrastructure is important, but it is how organisations secure it determines how safe they will be. This is where we offer security solutions to protect not just the IT infrastructure, but also give customers easy and flexible ways to manage it.
With the sudden rise in cyber threats and attacks in this period, how are you ensuring your customers’ data is safe and helping them mitigate risks?
During this lockdown period, we have successfully blocked many threats that were trying to phish customers’ data in the name of their organisation. As the users are working from home, we are working with customers to train their WFH users in order to make them aware and remain vigilant to any kind of email being received.
WFH users generally do not have advanced firewalls or UTMs, and they use open internet or company offered VPN to report to the business. Our solutions have enabled customers to enforce internet usage policies to WFH users and still maintain cybersecurity while they are browsing on the internet.
There was a very short time to prepare a complete organisation for the 21-day lockdown. We managed to synchronise many devices which were part of periodic vulnerability assessment and had to be provisioned for WFH. We are working with their IT team to keep these machines secured.
During this time of total lockdown, how are you ensuring 24×7 service and support to your customers?
Online meeting tools and telephone connectivity has enabled our team to provide non-stop service and support to our customers. Many a times, critical infrastructure access needs to have higher approvals and audit trail, which we are making available through our advanced security solutions.
Highlight some of the challenges being faced in providing service or support to the customers during this period?
Responsibility of the customers’ security teams, who are working from home, has tremendously increased, due to which, we have seen a few cases where authorised personnel is not available due to their prior engagement with other activities.
We all are aware of the fact that internet connectivity does play a major role in providing support. The mandate from business leaders was to first get their employees up and running and then address security concerns. We managed to do both by explaining them the threat exposure and business risks and at the same time, made adjustments in existing controls.
Another major challenge was to authenticate the right users, and that too, in a seamless manner. We are currently working on a project where employees can authenticate without a password or touch.
Soon we will witness business models changing, wherein there will be far more remote workers in any organisation. In such scenario, what are the best cyber security practices that your customers should adopt? How would you, as a security solution provider, compliment in such a scenario?
We have seen a steady rise in the change of business models – from being run on paper and on-premise setup to digital workflow and cloud setup. However, this transition has been facing roadblocks from traditional mindsets. The COVID-19 situation has suddenly made organisations realise the importance digital transformation as that will help in business continuity of their operations.
We are currently running sessions with customers on procedures to maintain cyber security hygiene, training them on how they can achieve security even while working from home.
Some of the best practices that customers can follow include:
- If employees, who are working from home, connect using local Wi-Fi, its important for them to use complex passwords
- As the colleagues are not physically available, it is really important to always call and confirm any urgent request over the phone, before sharing any kind of information
- Only use company approved communication medium to interact with colleagues and managers, do not use any P2P tools like WhatsApp, Telegram, etc
- Apart from offering consultation to businesses on cyber security, we alo have solutions that will help organisations to secure their network, applications, online business, email as well as digital risk protection or brand protection
What’s your message to customers, so that they are assured of full support today and in the days to come?
Our advice is to always invest in cybersecurity solution that not only safeguard any organisation’s business and is scalable, but also automates detection and respond to threats, making them resilient. Communication is the key for success. While our teams are continuously reaching out to customers to know how best we can support them, we also invite customers to call us even in slightest of doubt.
