Dicker Data : Empowering businesses in a cloud-based environment

Employees are increasingly demanding Work from Anywhere (WFA) privileges and many organisations have been quick to respond, implementing permanent flexibility with remote and hybrid work environments. While traditional workforces are being redefined, the adoption of new technology to enable these changes has seen a steep increase in cloud-based technologies giving rise to a host of new security issues.

As Australia's leading value-add technology distributor, Dicker Data works with the world's leading vendors to empower our partners with best-in-class cloud computing solutions and capability to deliver the customers holistic end-to-end strategy with cloud at the core. Cloud-networks can create visibility issues and lead to gaps in security infrastructures, increasing vulnerabilities. Partnering with Dicker Data's cloud technology experts, we help partners understand where these gaps lie and design best practice, tailored solutions to address and mitigate the risks. This means we help our partners, and their customers, accelerate digital transformation projects for their modern workforce, scale, innovate and maintain productivity and agility, while reducing operational costs.

Below are six ways the Dicker Data team are working with vendors and partners to empower end-users with cloud security for the modern world.

1. Control and visibility in a WFA environment

A dispersed workforce means reduced visibility and control over where, when, and how employees are engaging with the corporate network. Organisation-wide security that provides increased control is essential to cope and manage how users access cloud environments from anywhere at anytime. Check Point's CloudGuard solutions are crafted to secure everything in the cloud and protect against diverse and advanced security breaches. CloudGuard provides automated security and advanced threat prevention to protect cloud assets and workloads from the most sophisticated cyber-attacks, allowing employers to gain visibility of threats, workloads and posture across multi-clouds, all through a single management platform.

Blind spots within cloud-networks are a common problem and businesses can miss threats normally detected within a traditional security perimeter. NetWitness helps solve this pain-point by providing visibility into the broadest and deepest set of data sources to reveal and understand the full scope of attacks.

Speed and agility are key when securing the cloud. Cisco Secure Cloud Analytics, part of its Umbrella solution, is a SaaS-based solution that can be deployed quickly and easily. It provides end-to-end traffic visibility of who is accessing information at anytime from any location and highlighting any anomalies. This supports business which require visibility into their entire network infrastructure and the ability to act quickly to minimise threat impact.

2. Authenticate from anywhere

WFA has created a need to authenticate and verify users with BYODs operating off unsecured networks around the world. SecurID empowers users to authenticate from anywhere-and on any device, whether Windows-based or macOS-even if there's an interruption in network connectivity or if there's no internet service available. SecurID's risk-based authentication uses data collection, device matching, anomaly detection and behavioral analytics to determine the context for an access attempt, assess access risk, and apply that knowledge to future requests. Dicker Data is NetWitness' and SecureID's exclusive distribution partner, and our experienced team provides deep training and insight into our vendor products as well as the broader operating environment, truly setting our partners and end-users up for success.

3. Don't sacrifice security for productivity

Increased productivity and efficiency are the golden ticket for businesses, and apps can be integral to this. However, this creates new challenges with visibility across all exposure points, especially as shadow IT increases with employees deploying non-approved applications and systems. Recognising this issue, Trend Micro's CloudOne security services platform delivers the broadest and deepest cloud security offerings to cloud platforms, securing workloads, containers, serverless, storage repositories, as well as providing an overview and remediation of security best practices across your cloud platforms. Trend Micro Cloud App Security enables organisations to secure email and collaboration apps in the cloud while maintaining functionality. Again, visibility and control are key when it comes to cloud security. Forcepoint ONE enables this through its single platform security solution, safeguarding and providing control over cloud apps accessed anywhere in the world. It automatically discovers cloud application use, analyses the risks, and enforces controls.

4. Your customer's inbox could be their biggest security threat

Emails and phishing attacks are one of the greatest threats to data, with 81% of organisations experiencing an increase in phishing attacks . Trustwave's MailMarshal Cloud is a sophisticated multi-layered approach to email security, pioneering the latest proprietary and best-in-class technologies to reduce false positives and protect against spam, gateway attacks, viruses, phishing attempts, and malicious URLs. It provides complete email protection against phishing and business email compromise.

As part of Dicker Data's value-add service, we work with vendors who provide partners cloud security audits and penetration testing on existing systems to understand gaps and vulnerabilities and help organisations secure all access points.

5. Keeping it simple

When it comes to comprehensive security, simplicity is key. VMware's Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) solution offers secure, reliable, and optimised access to traditional and new applications or mobile devices with a single, holistic solution. Carbon Black Workload complements this through creating consistent security on workloads running in a virtualised, private and hybrid cloud environment plus offers industry-leading prevention, detection and response capabilities.

Dicker Data has a comprehensive understanding of security and technology environments, and we take a hands-on approach to helping end-users scale, accelerate innovation, drive business agility, streamline operations and reduce costs.

Our end-to-end security offerings are designed to create an integrated solution that recognises and addresses threats across the entire IT environment, including cloud and traditional networks, keeping it simple and providing a total picture of the business.

6. Strong corporate governance

Corporate governance is an essential pillar to security, with data protection crucial to building trust with customers, the industry, and regulators.

Microsoft's Defender for Cloud also prioritises data governance, providing posture management and threat detection services that strengthen security across workloads in the cloud, hybrid and other platforms. Dicker Data is the largest Microsoft Azure distributor in the region, meaning we have constant exposure to the changing cloud landscape and unparalleled understanding of how to secure the Microsoft public cloud.

To address organisations advanced and complex corporate Compliance and Governance, Archer, an RSA Business, delivers their "Archer Regulatory and Corporate Compliance Management" solution. ARCCM tackles the compliance and governance maze from constant changes to laws, regulations, and industry requirements by enabling organisations to take control of their risk management and improve strategic decision making and operational resiliency. Executive teams use ARCCM to assess compliance and governance status of their organisation at any time with full visibility and granular reporting.

Multi-cloud, Work from Anywhere, and hybrid environments add complexity for businesses, and the technology and platform solutions required are often bespoke. As a Dicker Data partner, you can leverage a range of global leading offerings that cover all aspects of cloud security and the peripheral security considerations, whether it be network and cloud data storage, identity management, or network protection for connection to the cloud. We have a deep understanding of the ever-evolving threat landscape and technical capabilities that span the entire security ecosystem. We act as true partners, empowering you to provide comprehensive, seamless, and tailored solutions to your customers.