Archived CEO Blogs

Two kinds of security threats have emerged of late that need special attention, even if you’re running a small enterprise: Targeted zero-day attacks and advanced persistent threats .

Targeted zero-day attacks
Microsoft’s recent Internet Explorer security flaw (see my last blog post) is a fine example of a zero-day attack. The attackers got their edge from speed, since reactive countermeasures that depend on threat signatures — such as patching and tools like antivirus software and intrusion prevention — couldn’t be updated fast enough to halt the flaw.

Last September 18th, Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security warned that nation’s population not to use Internet Explorer because of an IE security flaw “is already being used for targeted attacks” designed to lure users to an infected website which, when visited, allows hackers to take control of the user’s computer. Soon after, the Swedish government issued a similar warning.

Even worse, Microsoft was not immediately able to fix the problem. First came a temporary patch, said to be less that complete.

When you find a Cloud services provider who’s able to precisely design and customize Cloud capabilities to address your organization’s unique needs, you can begin down the path to achieving the flexibility, scalability, cost reductions, efficiencies, redundancy , and disaster recovery protections you need. And you can do it without overspending on overcapacity.

In particular, a services provider who will customize your Cloud services can address your security concerns with an over-arching services contract and service-level agreement (SLA) that’s explicitly written for your business.

In addition to a no-charge DaaS proof-of-concept , there are a couple of other ways to get a real-world sense of how your organization can benefit from DaaS as well as Cloud computing in general:

For those who are ready to explore Desktop-as-a-Service, it’s worthwhile to find a DaaS-competent Cloud services provider who is willing to work with you to conduct a no-cost DaaS Proof-Of-Concept at your premises using you applications, data, and devices — and involving your employees.

There really is no other way to learn what your business can get from DaaS. A free DaaS Proof-of-Concept will help you understand very concretely how DaaS will work for your employees and what they’ll get from it. Using an iPad as part of your DaaS Proof-Of-Concept can be a wow! experience.

These are some of the most common questions I get asked about Desktop-as-a-Service — and here are my answers.

Q. What end-user devices can we use to access our virtual desktops?
A. Quest’s DaaS lets you use just about all of them: Any Wintel or Mac computer or laptop, iPhones, iPads, Android phones, and Android tablets. It even works on a Kindle Fire.