Government Agencies Need Proactive Security Plans in Place to Defend Against Ransomware
Cyberattacks are increasing across all industries, but for state and local governments and government agencies, the threat is imminent. Attackers are becoming more sophisticated and use a wide variety of tactics to infiltrate organizations. Now, more than ever, a proactive security posture is imperative to avoid the loss of sensitive data and costly downtime.
The Stats
With 58% of local and state governments reporting a ransomware attack within the last year, government agencies became one of the most heavily affected groups – second only to academia – in 2021, according to the FBI.
It’s not cheap when government offices fall victim to a ransomware attack. Often agencies are attacked by complex cyberattacks that are difficult to detect and even more difficult to remove while keeping your data safe and your services uninterrupted.
Ransomware isn’t uncommon, but that doesn’t stop your agency from going down for an extended period of time—downtime that cost local and state government entities an estimated $623,700,000 in 2021, reports EMSISOFT in an August, 2022 article.
The Solution
A Security Operations Center (SOC) is becoming a necessity for government agencies of all levels. With the government sector being a prime target for hackers and cyberattacks, it’s imperative that proactive security is in place to protect your confidential data. With a continually increasing threat landscape, having security that can stand up to the worst of bad actors is a must. An SOC takes care of things for you.
Why an SOC? An SOC can answer threats before they slip into your network and servers—before important data has been stolen by the bad actor. Does your organization have an SOC? If not, your agency is falling behind and your security is not up to date, meaning it may not protect you from all cyberattacks that will try to injure your network.
SOCs can be expensive and complex to build, and even harder to fill with talent. Even with the short supply of talented security engineers, most entities cannot afford to compete with the money big names like Microsoft, Google, and Facebook offer, but it doesn’t mean you should go without an SOC.
Getting Help
FedRAMP certification is a long, difficult process, upon which a service provider becomes an expert in providing a secure platform to manage credentials, vendors, workforce, and more. A FedRAMP certified company can best protect your data and uphold your privacy, security, and confidentiality.
Aunalytics is proud to be one of a select few to be FedRAMP ready certified in the Midwest, meaning we have achieved compliance to meet FedRAMP security standards.
With the security standards that FedRAMP certification requires—and a proven history of working with local governments throughout the Midwest – we have tools and talent to protect your data with the most up to date security practices with our Advanced Security service. With an ever-changing landscape that always includes threats, a trustworthy security partner can help keep your data safe, using 24/7/365 threat and vulnerability scanning, allowing us to find and stop bad actors before they ever access your network.
Aunalytics to Showcase Its Portfolio of Managed Services, Enterprise Cloud, and Data Cleansing Solutions for IT Professionals at the 2022 Mi-GMIS Fall Conference in September
Leading Data Management and Analytics Company Provides the Tools Michigan IT Pros Need to Improve Operational Efficiencies and Provide the Highest Levels of IT Security to Their Organizations
South Bend, IN (September 15, 2022) - Aunalytics, a leading data management and analytics company delivering Insights-as-a-Service for mid-market businesses, announced today it will participate in the 2022 Mi-GMIS Fall Conference on September 18-21 in Boyne Falls, Michigan. The event is hosted by the Michigan Government Management Information Sciences and will bring together government IT professionals across the state of Michigan whose role is to meet the informational needs of their organization’s employees and to play an instrumental part in achieving organizational goals using IT resources. The conference program is designed to keep IT professionals abreast of best practices and industry trends, and how they can be applied to their organizations productively and economically.
Aunalytics will feature its managed services, enterprise cloud, and data cleansing portfolio. The company provides IT and security expertise to mid-market businesses in the areas of cities and local government, financial services, healthcare, manufacturing and professional services. The company’s Secure Managed Services offering combines mission critical IT services leveraging zero-trust end-to-end security to ensure data is protected regardless of a user’s location. Aunalytics provides managed components that offer stability and security, and its next-generation managed services offering is powered by a data platform that provides data-driven IT answers and embedded security that focuses on people and access.
The full suite of managed IT and integrated security services empowers businesses with a complete, all-encompassing approach that includes 24/7/365 monitoring and management, a synchronized network security platform, workstation and server patching, internet protection, email filtering and security, Office 365 management and security, multi-factor authentication, data and device encryption management, and security awareness training.
The company delivers advanced security for defending against modern threats through a team of engineers and analysts with expert skills and toolsets and, in regulated industries, Aunalytics provides the additional technology and controls required to manage risk. Its team of experts is dedicated to analyzing ever-changing rules and regulations and helping users to create processes and policies for data protection and meet compliance requirements within those industries that are regulated.
Aunalytics’ Enterprise Cloud offering is comprised of infrastructure solutions that provide a highly redundant and scalable platform for hosting servers, data, analytics and applications at any performance level. With the Aunalytics® Cloud Storage and Compute solution, users are assured the highest levels of security, accessibility, expertise, scalability, and savings. Aunalytics’ data centers, located in Northern Indiana and Southwest Michigan, meet the most rigorous standards for security, weather protection, temperature and humidity controls, fire suppression and more.
The company’s cloud offering has achieved Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) Ready status and is actively working toward FedRAMP certification. Certified cloud-based products help U.S. federal agencies meet increasingly complex regulations and defend against cybersecurity threats, prevent data loss, enforce compliance, and protect agency domains.
“Government IT professionals across the state of Michigan face similar challenges and opportunities, and are eager for real-world knowledge about emerging technology and management solutions,” said Steven Burdick, Vice President Sales – Cloud, Aunalytics. “Our portfolio of managed services, enterprise cloud, and data cleansing solutions provides the tools they need to improve operational efficiencies and provide the highest levels of IT security. We look forward to meeting with IT pros at the Mi-GMIS Fall Conference and demonstrating how Aunalytics can help them meet the needs of employees and advance their organizations’ goals.”
Tweet this: .@Aunalytics to Showcase Its Portfolio of Managed Services, Enterprise Cloud, and Data Cleansing Solutions for IT Professionals at the 2022 Mi-GMIS Fall Conference in September #Informationtechnology #Managedservices #Enterprisecloud #Datacleansing #Dataplatform #Dataintegration #Dataaccuracy #Digitaltransformation #ITsecurity #Securitytechnology
About Aunalytics
Aunalytics is a leading data management and analytics company delivering Insights-as-a-Service for mid-sized businesses and enterprises. Selected for the prestigious Inc. 5000 list for two consecutive years as one of the nation’s fastest growing companies, Aunalytics offers managed IT services and managed analytics services, private cloud services, and a private cloud-native data platform for data management and analytics. The platform is built for universal data access, advanced analytics and AI – unifying distributed data silos into a single source of truth for highly accurate, actionable business information. Its DaybreakTM industry intelligent data mart combined with the power of the Aunalytics data platform provides industry-specific data models with built-in queries and AI for accurate mission-critical insights. To solve the talent gap that so many mid-sized businesses and enterprises located in secondary markets face, Aunalytics’ side-by-side digital transformation model provides the technical talent needed for data management and analytics success in addition to its innovative technologies and tools. To learn more contact us at +1 855-799-DATA or visit Aunalytics at https://www.aunalytics.com or on Twitter and LinkedIn.
PR Contact
Denise Nelson
The Ventana Group for Aunalytics
(925) 858-5198
dnelson@theventanagroup.com
Mid-Market Companies: Here’s How to Manage Your Data for the Best Business Outcomes
Mid-Market Companies: Here’s How to Manage Your Data for the Best Business Outcomes
To make data usable, you need data management. While some think of data management simply moving your data into a cloud or a data lake, it’s much more than this. True data management should focus on making data informative by correlating and integrating data from multiple disparate sources and systems across your organization, adding third-party sources and transactional data created in daily operations.
Data management should also include:
- Cleansing the data to reduce errors
- Normalizing it so that aggregated information may be used for reporting, analytics, and better decision-making
- Governance for compliance with regulated industry and data privacy laws, and to ensure authorized access
- An audit trail of changes made to the data and which systems are using it
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Aunalytics to Participate at Multiple Financial Services Events in September, Demonstrating How Advanced, AI-Driven Analytics Can Help Mid-Market Institutions Increase Their Competitive Position
Leading Data Management and Analytics Company to Showcase Daybreak for Financial Services; Vice President, Client Relationships Ryan Wilson to Present a Session at Fiserv’s Signature Conference
South Bend, IN (September 12, 2022) - Aunalytics, a leading data management and analytics company delivering Insights-as-a-Service for mid-market businesses, announced today it will participate in five financial services conferences in September. The company will showcase its DaybreakTM for Financial Services advanced data analytics solution and demonstrate how midmarket banks and credit unions can use artificial intelligence (AI)-powered data analytics to gain valuable customer and member intelligence to compete more effectively and strengthen their regional position.
September events include:
- Heartland Credit Union Association (Kansas & Missouri) Convention & Annual Meeting, September 14-16
- Fiserv Signature Conference, September 18-21
- Ryan Wilson, Vice President, Client Relationships, Aunalytics to present a session titled Enhance the Customer Experience and Increase Market Share with AI-Driven Personalized Interactions, September 9/21
- Wisconsin Credit Union CONNECT, September 21-22
- Rich Carlton, President, Aunalytics to present a session titled Enhance the Customer Experience and Increase Market Share with AI-Driven Personalized Interactions, September 22
- PA Community Bankers Annual Convention, September 22-24
- Community Bankers of Michigan (CMB) Annual Conference and Expo, September 28-30
Daybreak for Financial Services enables midsize financial institutions to gain customer intelligence and grow their lifetime value, predict churn, determine which products to introduce to customers and when, based upon deep learning models that are informed by data. Built from the ground up, Daybreak for Financial Services is a cloud-native data platform that enables users to focus on critical business outcomes. The solution seamlessly integrates and cleanses data for accuracy, ensures data governance, and employs artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) driven analytics to glean customer intelligence and timely actionable insights that drive strategic value.
“Customers expect personalized interactions with the companies they do business with, and mid-market banks in particular are accustomed to providing ‘white glove service’ to set themselves apart from their larger counterparts,” said Ryan Wilson, vice president, Client Relationships, Aunalytics. “The key to greater personalization in today’s digital world, however, is artificial intelligence (AI)-driven data analytics.”
“Financial institutions generate massive amounts of data that is typically siloed across many systems, leaving it untapped for a variety of uses, such as marketing. To unlock the value of this data, it needs to be aggregated, integrated, and cleansed - a significant challenge that can be difficult and time-consuming, if not nearly impossible,” Wilson continued. “But with the emergence of new business models that couple talent with technology, mid-market banks can afford to take advantage of these tools to increase their competitive position. We look forward to meeting with bankers and credit unions at multiple events in September, and showing how Daybreak for Financial Services can help them compete more effectively.”
Tweet this: .@Aunalytics to Participate at Multiple Financial Services Events in September, Demonstrating How Advanced, AI-Driven Analytics Can Help Mid-Market Institutions Increase Their Competitive Position #FinancialServices #Banks #CreditUnions #Dataplatform #DataAnalytics #Dataintegration #Dataaccuracy #AdvancedAnalytics #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #Masterdatamanagement #MDM #DataScientist #MachineLearning #ML #DigitalTransformation #FinancialServices
About Aunalytics
Aunalytics is a leading data management and analytics company delivering Insights-as-a-Service for mid-sized businesses and enterprises. Selected for the prestigious Inc. 5000 list for two consecutive years as one of the nation’s fastest growing companies, Aunalytics offers managed IT services and managed analytics services, private cloud services, and a private cloud-native data platform for data management and analytics. The platform is built for universal data access, advanced analytics and AI – unifying distributed data silos into a single source of truth for highly accurate, actionable business information. Its DaybreakTM industry intelligent data mart combined with the power of the Aunalytics data platform provides industry-specific data models with built-in queries and AI for accurate mission-critical insights. To solve the talent gap that so many mid-sized businesses and enterprises located in secondary markets face, Aunalytics’ side-by-side digital transformation model provides the technical talent needed for data management and analytics success in addition to its innovative technologies and tools. To learn more contact us at +1 855-799-DATA or visit Aunalytics at https://www.aunalytics.com or on Twitter and LinkedIn.
PR Contact
Denise Nelson
The Ventana Group for Aunalytics
(925) 858-5198
dnelson@theventanagroup.com
Mid-Market Companies: Here’s How to Manage Your Data for the Best Business Outcomes
Mid-Market Companies: Here’s How to Manage Your Data for the Best Business Outcomes
To make data usable, you need data management. While some think of data management simply moving your data into a cloud or a data lake, it’s much more than this. True data management should focus on making data informative by correlating and integrating data from multiple disparate sources and systems across your organization, adding third-party sources and transactional data created in daily operations.
Data management should also include:
- Cleansing the data to reduce errors
- Normalizing it so that aggregated information may be used for reporting, analytics, and better decision-making
- Governance for compliance with regulated industry and data privacy laws, and to ensure authorized access
- An audit trail of changes made to the data and which systems are using it
Cost Concerns
It’s a big job, so it’s no surprise that enterprise-sized companies often have a financial advantage over the mid-market when it comes to data management. That’s because while enterprises likely have in-house teams with the necessary data management skillsets, it’s cost-prohibitive for most mid-market companies to invest in the technical talent needed for data engineering and management. Most mid-market companies do not have the data engineering expertise needed to use data management tools and technologies within their in-house IT team, or their IT team is too busy vigilantly keeping systems stable and secure—which should be IT’s primary and full-time focus.
Nearly half of IT professionals believe that data management is a significant barrier to digital transformation because digital processes and technologies such as the cloud are rapidly evolving and increasingly sophisticated. McKinsey & Company points out that the COVID-19 pandemic significantly accelerated these trends. This means successful data integration and management requires advanced data experts whose job is to stay current on quickly evolving data management technologies, which can be challenging for the mid-market to acquire. And even if you can find this talent, it often does not make financial sense for the mid-market to hire FTEs to obtain the skillsets needed for success.
Heavy Investment
Nevertheless, finding an effective way to integrate data management is non-negotiable for organizations of any size. Our modern way of doing business includes multiple decentralized data sources and applications, often chosen by separate business units for what works best in their daily operations. This means that in order to get a complete picture of your business, data from multiple cloud sources, on premise sources and third party sources needs to be integrated to keep corporate information consistent across the organization and ensure that decision-making is based on an accurate complete picture of the business. Insights for Professionals found that in 2022, 62 percent of senior IT leaders and company executives surveyed plan to invest in data management, with three-quarters honing in on digital technology and data integration. Gartner reported that in 2021, each company’s average spend on data management tools was close to $250,000. Insights for Professionals results show that in 2022, 30% of IT experts intend to invest up to $500,000 on data management, with around one-quarter planning to spend even more.
Looking ahead to 2024, Gartner also reports that cloud-native platforms will serve as the foundation for more than 75 percent of new digital workloads. This statistic is particularly meaningful for mid-market companies, where end-to-end solutions become a lifeline to leverage cloud technology efficiencies and advancements without the need for hiring in-house expert skill sets. The right end-to-end solution for the mid-market pairs the right combination of tools and technologies with access to the expert talent needed to achieve value and success. The right end to end solution includes everything so that mid-market companies need not spend years trying to piece together a solution out of countless possible tools and technologies. Building it just takes too much time and resources away from the primary business of most mid-market companies—and the mid-market does not have time to wait for this and thrive against competitive pressure from large enterprises.
By 2024, Gartner predicts that three quarters of organizations will have deployed multiple data hubs to drive data and analytics, since companies should only make decisions based on a complete picture of their data. But for mid-market companies with affordability concerns, few solutions meet the need for data management technology that enables companywide data integration as well as third-party data.
Solutions for the Mid-Market
Since mid-market firms that want to stay competitive can’t afford to fall behind enterprise-sized companies when it comes to data management, what can they do? Mid-market companies need technical experts to help build solutions, and research shows these solutions will be cloud-based. Insights for Professionals found that in 2022, close to two-thirds (63 percent) of senior IT leaders and company executives surveyed expect to invest in cloud infrastructure as a service. It makes sense over trying to maintain servers on-premise, recognizing that on-premise solutions have morphed into dinosaurs. According to Gartner, 85 percent of companies will have moved to a cloud-first approach by 2025.
Yet most hyper-scaler cloud service providers are priced for large enterprises, particularly to get the level of help that mid-market companies require. What’s more, many enterprise hyperscalers don’t offer data management, since their services focus only on migrating data to third-party cloud vendor platforms. Mid-market businesses need a hyperscaler capable of providing data management within a mid-market budget.
To ensure that important business decisions are not made based on inaccurate information, the mid-market needs an affordable data-cleansing solution.
Ideally, this means that data management would transform the data into decision-ready, analytics-ready status, including transactional data that sheds light on operations and customer behaviors. Gartner predicts that through 2024, half of organizations will adopt modern data quality solutions to better support digital business initiatives. To keep from falling behind, the mid-market must follow suit.
The Key to Consistency
In order to keep data consistent across the organization, another solution for the mid-market is to adopt master data management (MDM). MDM helps to ensure that if a customer’s contact information is updated through customer support, for example, then accounting and all other functional business units will receive the updated information. If data is kept in multiple siloes, operational efficiency decreases as employees spend time trying to track down data for reporting, analyzing, and determining which details are correct.
MDM technology has traditionally only been accessible to large enterprises due to its high cost, as most MDM platforms are a huge expense and implementation takes more than a year to achieve. These platforms typically also require highly skilled FTEs to use and maintain, which can be another cost consideration that rules out mid-market companies.
The answer to successful mid-market data management is to establish a side-by-side partnership with a data platform company to gain the benefits of working with experts and gain access to highly skilled technical resources to achieve true business value. By getting this help, you can devote your company’s time, resources, and innovation to your business and focus on what you do best.
