Wasabi’s viewpoint is that cloud storage is a commodity, like electricity or bandwidth, and it should be available to everyone without an individual having to go out and buy their own storage. In an interview with David Friend, he likens buying your own data storage facility to building your own electric generating facility. While people did this more than a century ago, it’s just not the way things work in today’s technology-driven world.  Friend’s innovative approach to cloud storage has garnered him mention in The Channel Company’s 2022 Top 100 Executives list. 

As the cloud storage market grows, those who enter will realize there are places they can go to store their data quickly and inexpensively. Wasabi’s popularity is a result of its ability to hold large amounts of unstructured data such as video, audio, image files, and social media posts. With this data predicted to grow by over 50 percent per year, reaching 80 percent by 2025, Wasabi is a welcome choice for a low-cost, cloud-storage solution. 

Wasabi’s Success at a Glance

• As of May 2021, Wasabi signed over 25,000 customers, most who came aboard in 2020 when the company announced it tripled its revenue. 
• Wasabi reports three times year-over-year growth.
• The company’s total funding is $286 million.  
• Estimated annual revenue is $35.2 million per year, with a total revenue of $275 million. 
• As of April 2021, Wasabi’s valuation is $700 million. 
• Wasabi offers the same S3-compatible public cloud storage as Amazon Web Services (AWS), at one-fifth of the price. 

Keep reading to learn more information about Wasabi, David Friend, and how the company has reached new heights.

How Targeted Advertising Paid Off

Wasabi invested a great deal of money in advertising to get their initial customers. They primarily focused on Google Ads and focused on customers who searched for Amazon S3 and Object Storage. Wasabi also spent a large portion of their marketing budget on radio ads that were featured on NPR. Online and print computer publications also featured Wasabi ads.

In total, the company spent a couple of million dollars to blast their name everywhere that made sense. Now that Wasabi has established itself as a player in the cloud storage market, they spend less on advertising and focus more of their marketing with their channel and technology partners.

Why Wasabi Spent $20 Million on Their First Center

It takes a lot of money to build a product of Wasabi’s scale and ensure its stability, as well as market the product. David Friend likens Wasabi’s business model to building apartment buildings.

You build the building. You fill it up with tenants. When the building is 70 percent occupied, it starts making money, and then you build another building.

David Friend

Wasabi builds a data center, fills it up with customers, and when it hits a certain level, they build another data center. Getting it right is worth the money, so scaling becomes easier.

Friend shared that Wasabi has prospective customers whose business would be larger than the entire company. If Wasabi seals the deal on one or more of these companies, they will have to quickly scale and build more data centers. Each storage facility takes about 90 days to build.

Investors Bank on Past Successes

Many investors have done business with David Friend and his co-founder, Jeff Flowers, and made plenty of money on previous projects with them. With success in five companies prior to Wasabi, including Carbonite, investors were excited to hand over funding for this new venture. These good relationships provided the capital the company needed for startup and gave investors the opportunity to once again make money with Friend and Flowers.

Additionally, the founders chose not to finance their venture with debt and fund some of the earliest stages with the money they made from Carbonite. Although building version one of Wasabi came with a hefty $20 million price tag, the founders also knew they needed to spend money to advertise and have enough capital for operating costs. 

As of August 2022, Wasabi has a total of 232 employees. Approximately 50 percent are employed in the technology division, keeping the systems running smoothly for customers. 

How Wasabi Signed Over 25,000 Customers

Once Wasabi secured some business, they created a program for channel partners and technology partners. These partnerships give partners the authority to sell Wasabi cloud storage bundled with other products. As of May 2021, Wasabi has 5,000 channel and Technology Alliance partners. Most of these partners are resellers and their bundles often include backup products and video surveillance products. The resellers get a discount or margin on the products they sell, so they see a profit when they provide their customers with Wasabi service. Depending on the size of the reseller, they get a discount between 15 and 50 percent.

Currently, Wasabi has storage regions throughout Europe, including London, England, Paris, France, Amsterdam, Netherlands, and Frankfurt, Germany. There are also storage regions in Tokyo and Osaka, Japan, as well as Sydney, Australia and Singapore. 

Noteworthy Data Points

Funding

• May 2016: Venture Round — $1.9 million
• May 2017: Series A — $8.9 million
• August 2017: Series B — $10.8 million
• September 2018: Series B — $68 million
• April 2021: Series C —$112 million 
• May 2021: Series C —$25 million

Customers

• 2017: Launch of Wasabi
• 2018: 3,000 customers
• 2019: 15,000 customers
• 2021: 25,000 customers

Revenue

• 2019: $18 million (estimated) and $1.5m MRR
• 2020: $45 million
• 2022: $54 million

Can Wasabi Coexist with AWS?

Amazon’s subsidiary, Amazon Web Services (AWS), provides a cloud storage option called Amazon S3. Like S3, Wasabi’s storage is fast and durable.

From a statistical standpoint, this means if you were to give Wasabi a million files to store, there is a chance they will lose one file every 659,000 years. All things being equal, Wasabi offers the same service as S3, but instead of charging customers $23 per terabyte, they only charge $6 per terabyte.

David Friend argues that it’s highly unlikely Amazon would drop their price to undercut Wasabi and put them out of business because they would simply lose too much money.

With increasing cloud storage use, the market is surely big enough for Amazon and other small companies like Wasabi. Plus, Wasabi gives customers a technological advantage with their proprietary file system that takes advantage of new storage technology.

The post How Wasabi’s Cloud Storage Solution Became a Company to Watch appeared first on Verblio.

Establishing the Standards for Compliance

The pursuit for an EHR standard began when the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)  Meaningful Use (MU) provisions were developed in 2009 as part of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH).  The provisions detail how eligible providers participate in the federal incentive programs for health information technology. The MU provisions include requirements for the use of certified EHR technology, as well as for the exchange of health information. Providers and hospitals can earn incentive payments for the “meaningful use” of certified EHR technology.

CMS developed the MU program to enable health care companies to become compliant through the following three stages:

• Stage 1 (2011-2012): Established the base requirements for providers to adopt EHRs
• Stage 2 (2013-2014): Encouraged using EHRs for exchange of medical information and quality care improvement.
• Stage 3 (2015): Finalized the process as providers used EHRs routinely to improve health outcomes and standardize reporting requirements with government health programs.

While CMS has since renamed the program to Promoting Interoperability Programs with a new phase of EHR measurements, many providers still refer to the standards as meaningful use.

Why Is It Important to Be MU Compliant?

By achieving this compliance, healthcare companies demonstrate their commitment to providing high-quality, interoperable healthcare IT solutions. In addition, MU compliance ensures that your healthcare IT company is able to exchange data with other MU-compliant organizations. This interoperability is essential for coordinating care and reducing duplicate tests and procedures. As a result, working with an MU-compliant healthcare IT company can help to improve the quality of care and reduce costs.

EHR technology that is not compliant with MU cannot be used to meet this objective, and as a result, the provider would not be able to receive incentive payments for adopting it. Furthermore, providers who do not demonstrate MU are subject to financial penalties.

How Do Healthcare Companies Become MU Compliant?

In order to be considered MU compliant, healthcare companies must use technology, including complete EHR systems and individual modules, certified by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). These systems can be purchased as a package from a single vendor or as separate components from multiple vendors.

Patient Engagement Is Key

Patient engagement is a core requirement for stage one and stage two. In these stages, MU mandates that 50 percent of the facility’s patients be given access to their health information online. Additionally, five percent of patients need to log in through the EHR portal to view their health data online and send a secure message to their provider. It’s essential that providers encourage patients to use the portal by demonstrating how to set up a log-in, send messages, view lab results, and set up appointments.

Demonstrating Additional EHR Tasks

In 2016, the objectives and measures for the EHR incentive program were updated. Health care providers are required to successfully demonstrate the following EHR tasks to be MU compliant and qualify for incentives through the Medicaid or Medicare EHR program.

• Protect electronic health information through security risk analysis and implementation of security updates
• Use clinical decision support to improve high-priority health conditions
• Use electronic order entry for medications and lab and radiology orders
• Use the EHR for health information exchange for referrals
• Use the system to identify and provide the patient with educational resources that suit their needs.
• Identify the list of patient medications upon referral from another health care setting or care provider.
• Provide patients with the ability to view, download, and transmit their health information within four business days of it being available to the eligible medical professional
• Use the EHR system for secure messaging with patients
• Actively engage in public health reporting by submitting electronic patient data from the EHR.

CMS updates the above policies yearly to keep pace with the advancement of EHRs, increase interoperability, and increase patient access to health information. Updated policies can be found on the CMS.gov webpage.

How to Prepare for a CMS Audit

Audit is a scary word for anyone running a business. Unfortunately, some providers will be chosen at random by CMS for an audit. How can you be prepared? The first rule is to assume you will be audited. Clearly document all the steps taken throughout the process. When did your registration/attestation take place? MU started back in 2011. So, providers across the country are at various stages of implementation. Don’t assume CMS has accurately recorded who began when. Take a screenshot that includes a date stamp on the day functionality was turned on. If you do receive an audit letter, respond immediately. Auditors will be looking for contradictions between the documentation submitted and what was actually done. Ensure that the staff responsible for certain pieces of MU actually did what you think they did at the right time. Lastly, work with your EHR provider to give CMS the proper certification documentation.

EHR Adoption: Where We Stand Today

According to a 2019 HealthIT.gov report, three-quarters of office-based physicians and nearly all non-federal acute care hospitals had adopted a certified EHR system. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that the highest EHR adoption rates by specialty are by office-based cardiologists and neurologists, at 95.6 percent and 94.5 percent, respectively.

While financial incentive was the biggest factor, many physicians listed reasons for conversion such as board certification requirements, recommendations from peers, and the capability to exchange information with other physicians.

The benefits of EHR go far beyond the financial incentives. Doctors attest to benefits, including:

• Improved coordinated care. The ability to share information with patients and other physicians improves collaboration.
• Safer care through reduced errors. EHR technology not only records data, it alerts physicians to medications, allergies or other conflicts in care. For example, an emergency room doctor can access data recorded by a primary care physician that alerts the ER staff to life-threatening allergies.
• Enhanced patient/provider interaction. Patients feel like their physician is more accessible through enhanced communication methods provided by EHRs.
• Quicker diagnosis. The comprehensive picture of patient health provided by EHR technology enables physicians to find problems faster.

Key Takeaways

Don’t let the lack of technical assistance or knowledge stop your practice from reaping the benefits of EHR technology. For Medicare and Medicaid providers, avoiding implementation directly affects your bottom line. The same can be said for other providers as well. As EHR improves efficiency in your office, productivity increases, making EHR a valuable tool. Improve patient care and run a more productive office by exploring EHR solutions provided by professionals dedicated to helping you improve your healthcare IT strategy, while complying with healthcare reform legislation.

The post The Road to Meaningful Use Compliance for Healthcare IT appeared first on Verblio.

A data breach can have a devastating impact on your business, causing reputation damage, loss of customers, and heavy financial penalties. Data security in cloud computing is also important from a compliance perspective. Depending on the industry and regulations that apply to your business, you may be required to implement specific security controls to protect customer data.

The good news is that cloud providers offer a variety of security features and services to help you protect your data in the cloud. In this post, we’ll discuss some of the key security considerations for moving data to the cloud, as well as some best practices for securing data in cloud environments.

When it comes to data security in cloud computing, there are three main areas to consider:

Physical Security

Physical security refers to the security of the physical infrastructure that houses your data. This includes the data center itself, as well as the network and server infrastructure. When you store data in the cloud, it’s important to know that the data center meets high-security standards.

All major cloud providers have state-of-the-art data centers that are designed to meet stringent security requirements. These data centers are typically located in secure facilities, with restricted access and multiple layers of physical security.

The servers and other infrastructure components in the data center are also protected with security measures such as firewalls and intrusion detection systems.

In addition to the physical security of the data center, you also need to consider the security of the network that connects your data to the cloud. When data is transmitted over the public internet, it’s susceptible to interception and man-in-the-middle attacks.

To mitigate this risk, you can use a secure VPN or private network connection to encrypt data in transit. Many cloud providers also offer direct connect options that provide a dedicated, private connection between your on-premises network and the cloud.

Logical Security

Logical security refers to the security controls that are implemented to protect data from unauthorized access, use, or modification. When you move data to the cloud, you need to consider how you will secure it at rest and in transit.

“At rest” refers to data that is stored on disk or other media. In order to protect data at rest, you need to encrypt it. Data encryption is the process of transforming readable data into an unreadable format. This unreadable data can only be decrypted with the proper key.

There are two main types of data encryption: symmetric and asymmetric. Symmetric encryption uses the same key for both encryption and decryption, while asymmetric encryption uses a different key for each operation.

Cloud providers typically offer both types of encryption to protect data at rest. For example, Amazon S3 offers server-side encryption with both AWS Key Management Service (KMS) and Amazon S3-Managed Keys (SSE-S3). Azure Storage offers similar options with Azure Storage Service Encryption (SSE) and Azure Disk Encryption (ADE).

In addition to encrypting data at rest, you also need to consider how you will secure data in transit. Data in transit is susceptible to interception and man-in-the-middle attacks. To mitigate this risk, you can use a secure VPN or private network connection to encrypt data in transit. Many cloud providers also offer direct connect options that provide a dedicated, private connection between your on-premises network and the cloud.

Data Privacy

Data privacy refers to the protection of personal or sensitive data from unauthorized use or disclosure. When you store data in the cloud, you need to consider how you will protect it from unauthorized access.

There are a number of ways to protect data privacy in the cloud, including data encryption, user access control, and data activity monitoring.

Data Encryption

Data encryption is the process of transforming readable data into an unreadable format. This unreadable data can only be decrypted with the proper key. Data encryption is an effective way to protect data privacy, as it makes it difficult for unauthorized users to access or disclose sensitive information.

User Access Control

User access control is a security measure that restricts access to data based on user roles and permissions. This means that only authorized users will be able to access or modify data. User access control can be implemented through authentication and authorization mechanisms such as passwords, tokens, or digital certificates.

Data Activity Monitoring

Data activity monitoring is a process of tracking and logging user activity in order to detect unauthorized access or disclosure of data. Data activity monitoring can be used to detect suspicious activity, such as unusual login attempts or data transfers.

Best Practices for Securing Data in Cloud Environments

There are a number of best practices you can follow to help secure data in cloud environments:

• Encrypt data at rest and in transit.
• Use strong access control measures, such as user access control and data activity monitoring.
• Implement least privilege policies to restrict user access to only the data they need.
• Regularly back up data to help ensure data availability and integrity.
• Monitor for suspicious activity and investigate any potential incidents.
• Work with a trusted cloud provider that has security measures in place to help protect your data.

Following these best practices can help you keep your data secure in the cloud. However, it’s important to remember that no security measure is 100% effective. You should always have a plan in place for how you will respond to a security incident.

The Bottom Line

Data security is a top concern for any organization that uses cloud computing. The cloud offers many advantages in terms of flexibility and cost savings, but it also introduces new risks. Data stored in the cloud is more vulnerable to theft and unauthorized access. In addition, cloud providers may not have the same security controls in place as your organization. As a result, it’s important to take steps to secure data in the cloud. This includes encrypting data at rest and in transit, using strong access control measures, and regularly backing up data. Following these best practices can help you keep your data secure in the cloud.

The post Securing Data in the Cloud: Best Practices for Keeping Your Data Safe appeared first on Verblio.

Unfortunately, these companies cannot afford expensive security servers, related cybersecurity equipment, and highly-skilled experts to deal with such threats as they happen. Maintaining an in-house IT department that can repeal threats is practically and financially impossible. 

Without any feasible solution and cyberattacks becoming a daily occurrence, small companies have no solution but to consider managed IT solutions.

What Are Managed IT Solutions?

Managed IT solutions allow small and medium-sized businesses to outsource IT functions from a reputable and highly competent third-party vendor. A company will delegate all IT duties to a highly skilled and equipped IT provider to address the weaknesses shown by the in-house IT department. 

Depending on the managed service provider (MSP), small companies can outsource most functions such as data storage, cloud services, email hosting, CRM applications, network monitoring, and data backup. 

Outsourcing managed IT services allows smaller businesses to apply their limited resources accurately by focusing on core competencies and organizational goals without worrying about complex IT functions. 

How Can Your Small Business Benefit from Managed IT Services?

As a small business owner, you already know that in-house IT systems cannot scale your organization to the next level. Besides, such systems require heavy investments to protect your organization from the increased cyber threats that face your company today. However, your business will access the following benefits by outsourcing IT solutions. 

1. Cost Savings

Often, small companies don’t have a fully staffed IT department complete with all the latest tools. In most cases, regular employees have to take care of IT issues as they turn up. An unqualified person working in the IT department only leads to delays or compounds the problem. 

Data corruption, security breaches, and business downtimes are usually rampant. So instead of saving the much-needed money, they spend even more trying to keep their systems operating. 

However, with the support of a managed service provider (MSP), small companies don’t have to invest in any equipment. Instead, these companies will access IT experts, modern IT tools, and fewer downtimes at a proportional monthly cost. 

Working with specialist IT teams can save a company around 40% of its IT costs while enabling employees to concentrate on utilizing their skills in areas such as customer service, sales, and business marketing. 

2. Access to High-end Cybersecurity

Contrary to the current opinion, small businesses have become primary targets for cybercriminals. They don’t have sophisticated security systems, making it easier for hackers to access sensitive business documents or install malware into their systems. 

The current statistics note that more than 43% of the cyberattacks in the country today are targeting vulnerable small organizations. But unfortunately, three out of four small entities don’t have sound IT security capable of dealing with such threats. 

That’s why managed IT solutions have become the only option for these companies to protect their operations against cybercriminals. Noteworthy, these organizations are currently accessing robust and cost-effective cybersecurity. 

To provide high-end cybersecurity services, managed service providers have what it takes, including high-skilled and experienced IT experts. They also offer proactive security techniques by training business staff in unique strategies to deal with phishing, malware, and other social engineering tricks. 

3. Flexibility and Scalability

Small companies are growing quickly. They want to serve many customers, reach out to different geographical locations and compete with established organizations. However, this growth must be supported by sufficient resources. 

As highlighted earlier, the lack of financial resources has made it challenging for these organizations to have a proactive IT department that can support the growing needs of the business. That’s why the majority of the small and medium-sized organizations have outgrown their in-house IT systems. 

Fortunately, managed IT services have been made to address the growing needs of smaller companies. These service providers have unlimited IT equipment, tools, and experts, which makes them fit into any size business. 

Therefore, small companies have multiple data backups available around the clock, which means they have the flexibility and scalability to maintain their growth. Additionally, with unmatched IT capability, smaller organizations have an opportunity to grow without having to second-guess the security of their files. 

4. Custom IT Solutions

Importantly, managed service providers are not interested in providing generic IT services. Instead, they take a keen look into the services of a company to understand all business processes and goals. 

Moving forward, these companies can provide custom IT solutions to meet the organization’s unique needs. Customization of IT solutions has proved to be the next frontier in enabling companies to enhance their operations and deal with extreme industrial competition. 

Today, the majority of the companies outsourcing IT services match the competitive abilities of the larger organizations. As a result, they can quickly scale their IT solutions depending on the competitive needs and customer demands. 

5. Reduced Business Downtimes

Business downtimes have become a common challenge in the majority of organizations. Besides the technical downtimes usually caused by cyberattacks and other technical issues, organizations also deal with extreme environmental aspects that cause business downtimes. 

In the last few years, various businesses in the United States have faced severe business downtimes caused by extreme weather conditions and natural phenomena such as hurricanes, heavy winds, flooding, and power outages. 

As stated earlier, these businesses can’t push through unnecessary downtimes in a matter of days. Some smaller companies might take more than two weeks to restart their operations without external support. 

Managed service providers have what it takes to restore a company’s operations from extreme environmental downtimes in hours. They provide around-the-clock monitoring while storing massive organizational data backup, which can help such organizations be back in operations immediately. 

What’s Next for Small Businesses?

It’s now apparent that small and medium-sized businesses face severe cyberattacks that can potentially cripple a company. Unfortunately, in-house technologies are not sufficient to deal with such threats. With the benefits highlighted above, there’s no doubt that such companies have no other option but to incorporate managed service providers (MSP) in their operations. 

The post Why Your Small Company Should Consider Managed IT Solutions appeared first on Verblio.

How to Make the Most of Your Data

We often lose sight of the fact that data has become a commodity that can tell us more about our potential customer base. However, to make the most of the data we have access to, there must be a system in place. To do this most effectively, we must have a plan that organizes data, a plan in place for managing the data, and the skills to analyze the data for the most effective outcomes.

Organize

What form should the data be in to give us the most effective processes for using it? The form we store the data in should be flexible enough to provide us with the information we need when we need it.

Manage

Determining how to handle the data is as important as obtaining it in the first place. We must ensure the data is kept safe to protect our clients, but at the same time, we must have the flexibility in place to make full use of the data.

Analyze

Doing the proper analysis of data can provide us the insights we need. However, if we fail to have a process in place for analysis, the data will be worthless.

When a potential customer visits your website, you need to understand both their interest and intent. This means reviewing what pages they visited, what products or services they reviewed, and how long they spent on the site. Naturally, some of the data that is collected during their visit will be unnecessary, but this can be filtered out with the proper analysis.

Better Intent Data Leads to Better Marketing

Intent data, when used properly, can be used to drive revenue. For example, you can do the following with intent data:

• Personalize user experiences on your website
• Categorize your leads based on user engagement
• Target known leads with targeted marketing campaigns
• More readily identify those prospects who have yet to engage

To unlock these capabilities, utilizing data best practices is absolutely key.

Humanizing Intent Data

It is important to remember that data sets are not just numbers and information — they represent people. If you lose sight of this basic fact, you will be performing analysis blindly because you will fail to recognize the potential of the information you have on hand.

Developing sales personas, understanding the needs of leads, and effectively engaging with prospects is the way to generate additional sales. If you do not recognize that the data you are reviewing represents individual personalities, you could be costing yourself additional sales.

For example, forgetting there are real people behind the data could result in approaching a potential customer with a sales pitch too soon. You must be prepared to allow the data to indicate when it may be time to reach out to an individual lead with a specific goal in mind based on what the data has told you.

What Collected Data Sources Matter?

There are three primary types of data: first-party data, second-party data, and third-party data. The source of the data you are planning to analyze matters because it can tell you more about a potential client’s intent. All data sets have different uses. For example, your inbound data, which is first-party data, will provide information on page views, click-through rates, and conversion rates.

First-party Data

Some of the information that is found internally can help to analyze the effectiveness of calls to action, landing pages, etc. and allows you to improve your marketing efforts. It can also help you determine the intent of the client. Once you have determined their intent and interest, you can more effectively contact the client and offer to fill their needs.

Second-party Data

Second-party data is that data which you purchase or trade from a complementary source. For example, if you are marketing accounting services, you would not turn to another accounting firm. However, you may wish to solicit business from business brokers, attorneys who specialize in new business formation, or those who provide financial advice to other business owners.

The second-party data can provide you with insights into customer behavior, which you may not be able to capture on your own website, or through your own analytics. This data can be as valuable as the data you are collecting on your own.

Third-party Data

Third-party data is best used in combination with first-party data. This is data collected from an aggregator — typically someone who does not have an existing relationship with the customer. In most cases, this data is already broken down into various categories, which include targeting audience segments. This means the data has already been analyzed, providing you with a clean data set from which to work.This data can be invaluable as it can provide insights that you may not have readily been aware of otherwise. If you combine this with the data collected from your website, you could gain critical insights.

Firmographic Data

Firmographic data is data that is obtained from sources such as company financial results and the company website. Such data provides a broad picture of the company, including revenue, geographic location, company size, and industry.

Behavioral intent can help identify the customer before they have purchased, versus after they have purchased and are merely looking for additional information or insights.

Social Media Data

Social data comes from people’s interactions on social media sites. This includes likes, shares, comments, and impressions, to name a few. This data will come to you in raw form and require further analysis. For example, you may be able to glean which of your posts were shared most frequently, which ones provided the highest click-through rates, and which social sites provided you with the most leads.

Social media data includes data obtained from Google Analytics, Facebook Insights, Twitter Direct Message, or LinkedIn InMails. You may be able to provide more valuable content on your website using this data and design a highly personalized sales call for those individuals who have engaged with your company through your sales team or other methods.

This data generally requires the most analysis. The data collection is in raw form but can provide you with more insight than simply collecting data from your own site. This data may also provide the opportunity to improve your online marketing campaigns.

Not All Data Is Created Equal

In past years, many companies depended on demographics for target marketing. However, without a “deep dive” into what is behind those demographics, you could be losing out on a wealth of leads.

In addition to the age, gender, and location of a lead, you must understand where they are in the buying process. Someone who has just purchased one product may be looking at your product for comparison purposes. Someone who is considering the purchase of a competitor’s product may have the same demographics but you could target them and persuade them to use your product instead.

Less Effective: IP Data

While IP data is readily available from your own website, this data is often not as effective as other data you will be able to obtain. While IP data can help you with data that you cannot access otherwise, it is a guessing game. Your sales and marketing staff should be using this data in conjunction with other data. That allows for ideal audience targeting. The IP data will provide you with some leads, but not every visitor is a viable lead.

How to Get the Most Out of IP Data

None of this should be taken to mean that IP data does not have value. However, one must use it properly to be most effective. Use IP data to ensure you:

• Communicate with potential buyers. Follow up on the appropriate leads and ensure engagement.
• Address challenges. Target the specific challenges a potential customer is facing, do not depend on generic solutions. Always remember that personalization works.
• Review your content. Your content should be addressing the potential needs of your leads. Make sure your content is engaging and worth your prospects’ time.
• Practice dynamic targeting. Consider which articles, blog posts, or white papers address the possible needs of your leads and send out emails to encourage viewing.
• Do not over-market. Remember, too many emails could mean you lose a potential lead. Target your drip email marketing wisely after thorough testing.
• Create supplemental content. If you set up one white paper or eBook, and there is nothing after that, your lead may wander away to a competitor. Keep them engaged by providing follow-up content.
• Be responsive. Never lose sight of the fact that when a sales lead contacts you, they should be contacted as quickly as possible.

By addressing the needs of potential leads, you have an opportunity to turn a lead into a sale and a sale into a long-term client. Respect their time and their intellect by addressing their needs.

Marketing Using Behavioral Intent Data

Behavioral intent data better allows you to target your audience by creating personalized campaigns. This can be done in a variety of ways, including:

Paid Advertisements

This form of advertising is commonly called pay-per-click (PPC) marketing. Using paid ads is effective because it is highly targeted and measurable. When you have the data sets you need to create an effective paid ad, you get more money for your dollar. You may also incorporate retargeting as part of your overall campaign.

AMB Campaigns

When you have a set of accounts you have identified through analyzing your data, you can concentrate your resources more effectively with AMB campaigns. This type of campaign specifically targets new business by understanding the specifics of what potential customers are searching for or what they have shown an interest in.

Lead Nurturing

When you combine demographics with other data, such as budget, you can target an audience of leads. Once targeted, you can continue to monitor their behavior, which could allow you to turn a lead into a customer.

Marketing is always the first step in sales. The better the data you have available to you, the more likely you are to be able to turn leads into sales. Behavioral intent data gives you the data points you need to understand when it’s time to make a hard sales pitch either through a targeted advertisement or another type of marketing campaign.

Compiling the right data and the proper analysis of the data can make your marketing campaigns more cost-effective. Once you have determined what type of targeting works best, your efforts to turn a lead into a sale will be more profitable.

Using Intent Data to Drive Sales

Effective sales require the proper use of data to drive sales. Remember, the more information you have available about a potential account, the more likely you are to be able to close the sale. This is when crucial information can be used to close a sale — such as the needs to be addressed, who the decision-makers are, and what pain points are driving them.

Some of the information can be used to:

• Drive event attendance. The right data can help you determine who should be contacted when you are holding seminars, webinars, or open houses. Events can be an important aspect of your sales and marketing efforts. They allow you to collect more information about a prospect.
• Understand the team structure. When companies have multiple layers of management, they often have teams that work in layers. Your goal will always be to reach the person on the team who has the authority to reach a final decision.
• Outline competitor views. Another useful piece of information for your purposes will be which competitor a potential client is talking to. The reason for this is simple. You can customize a plan to target the right contact person and make sure you are tailoring your presentation to what interests them now.

Integration of CRM

Understanding your existing customer base may also help you with targeting future customers. This is one of the reasons it is so important to have reliable information. Your sales and marketing teams must have access to reliable data, so they are not overlooking future sales by existing customers. For instance, you can use the data you have obtained from website visitors to see if your existing customers are returning looking for something specific to allow both your sales and marketing teams to fulfill their needs for future products or services.

Additional Uses of Behavioral Intent Data

Targeted advertising has a lot of value. When you are paying on a per-click basis, this is the best way to maximize your marketing dollars. One of the determining factors in paid advertising is how well a campaign performs over time. To create useful advertising, you must have a set of keywords in place. Ideally, these keywords are what is being searched for by your leads. Once you have identified the relevant keywords, you can customize your paid advertising campaign based on the broader topic.

Long-tail Keywords

Paid advertisements also require long-tail keywords. These can be a bit more challenging because there are so many potential combinations. Careful analysis of third-party intent data can help with the identification of long-tail keywords that are most often searched by your potential audience. In the case of online advertisements, nearly all will allow for adjustments should you discover a campaign is not working as effectively as you might hope.

Targeted Accounts

Keep in mind that behavioral intent data should also be used to set up targeted account lists. These lists allow you to keep track of where certain leads may be in the buying cycle. That allows you to customize a marketing program based on where they are in the cycle between lead and sale. These lists can also be used to create personalized email campaigns to ensure your name remains front and center from the beginning to the end of the sales funnel cycle.

Streamlined Marketing and Sales Departments

Having a strong marketing and sales department is important for every business to remain competitive. However, to ensure these departments are working at maximum efficiency, you do not want them wasting time responding to every lead. This is one of the reasons it is important to review available data and determine how to effectively put that data to use.

Data-driven sales prospecting keeps your costs down, avoids the potential of over-saturating leads with the information they have no interest in, potentially driving them away, and allows your sales staff to make the most of their sales calls.

Conclusion

Ultimately, in this day and age, a business’s relationship with its data has a tangible impact on its revenue. Likewise, the possible uses of behavioral intent data are ever-expanding. By investing your time and resources into effectively utilizing data, you can reap countless rewards for your marketing, sales, and overall success.

The post Behavioral Intent Data: What Business Leaders Need to Know appeared first on Verblio.

What’s keeping those businesses from using data to its full advantage?

Proper data management techniques.

If you’re selling directly to consumers as a B2C company, data management has implications for both the success and security of your business. Not only is it crucial for protecting your customers’ information, but proper data management will also allow you to get valuable insights into your business and help guide your future strategy.

Data management can appear to be a complex and intimidating process, but it doesn’t have to be. Follow these best practices for both managing and monitoring your data, in addition to ensuring your data’s security, to help put your business on the path to success.

Best Practices in Data Management and Monitoring

First, let’s cover best practices in collecting, managing, and monitoring your data. With the right strategies, you can ensure that you’re collecting the most valuable information in the most accessible way for your team. 

#1: Keep It Clean

Data collection and management can get messy more quickly than you think. All too often, your data storage will get bogged down with data that is poor quality, comes from inaccurate sources, or has become outdated over time. Before running any analytics, it’s critical that you make sure the data you’re using is clean.

This may include:

• Identifying potential spelling errors that could interfere with your data collection and information
• Standardizing your format for data entry
• Checking for duplicate records

Before you use the data that you’ve collected, you may also want to filter unwanted outliers, which could skew your analysis.

Keeping your data clean means training your team members on how to collect and process that data in a standard way, while also having an effective, typically automated system in place to help filter that data and keep it clean for future use.

#2: Use a High-Quality Data Management Solution

Good software is a vital part of your overall data management process. As you look for a data management system, make sure you consider these key elements:

• It needs to fit the specific needs of your business. Make sure it has the fields and functionality you need, whether that’s out-of-the-box or through customization.
• You need a data platform that will give you clear insights into your customers, including leads, current customers, and the buying cycle. 
• It needs to be simple and intuitive enough for your team to use in their daily work. Don’t use a system that is too large or unwieldy to be a useful part of your operations.

Finally, make sure that you’re using a data management system designed for B2C businesses. You may need to use your data differently than a company that deals primarily with B2B transactions, and your data management system should reflect that.

#3: Keep It Simple

With modern data management systems, there’s a lot of data available to your business. It doesn’t take much for that data to become overwhelming. If you’re struggling to make sense of your existing data, it may be worth simplifying. What do you really need to know about your customers? What about your competitors? If you’re just beginning to think about your data management, keep it simple to start. Consider what you really need to know, what you really need to keep, and what probably isn’t worth tracking, and adapt your collection strategies accordingly. Remember that you can always expand the data you collect as you continue to grow. 

#4: Make Your Data Accessible

Related to simplicity is accessibility. Few of your employees are likely interested in running SQL queries anytime they need a particular bit of data. Set up dashboards to provide them with an instant view of the numbers they most often need. You can also build automated reports to help your team sift through the noise and stay focused on what matters most.

Best Practices for Data Security

In addition to managing your data and making it useful, you need to keep it safe for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, you want to protect your business to ensure that competitors cannot access your data and that you have access to the information, platforms, and solutions you need to keep your business running smoothly. Data security is a critical part of making sure that your business remains in operation, particularly with cyberattacks up 17% over last year’s total by September of 2021. 

#1: Control Access to Important Data

As a B2C business, you may have access to a wide range of information that your customers do not want to see compromised, whether that’s personal data or payment information. This information helps you do business more smoothly and effectively. 

However, not every member of your team needs to access every piece of data. Control access, particularly when it comes to important or confidential data. Assign access based on what access your employees really need, which clients they work with, and their position in the company. 

#2: Test Your Security Regularly

An annual pentest is about much more than ensuring compliance with industry standards. It’s also an opportunity to go above and beyond. Pentesters are able to breach an estimated 92% of the companies they test. Since pentesters are able to simulate the actions of a potentially malicious hacker, they can provide you with an in-depth, highly-effective look at any holes in your system. 

By working with a pentesting company, you can help close those holes and avoid many of the threats that could challenge your company.

#3: Have a Robust Backup System

Carefully consider what data your company really needs in order to keep functioning efficiently, and make sure that you back it up regularly. Studies show that as many as 60% of data backups are incomplete, and 50% of backups fail when the company tries to implement them. 

Ineffective data backups are not much better than no backups at all, and either could leave you struggling as you try to bring your business back up after a ransomware attack or data loss. By having a robust data backup system in place, you will be able to access that data when you need it, even if hackers attempt to steal access away from you. 

Make sure you carefully consider what data, platforms, and solutions your company needs in order to keep operating efficiently even in the midst of a disaster or cyberattack, then carefully protect that data so you will be able to access it in the event of an emergency. 

Data management and security have become an increasingly important part of businesses of all sizes. By instituting these key best practices, many businesses have found that they can use their data more effectively, giving them deeper insights into the needs of their customers, their internal operations, and the market.

The post Best Practices in Data Management for B2C Businesses appeared first on Verblio.

There is an update now, and it’s appropriately called WPA3. The WiFi Alliance released the standard in June 2018. Manufacturers already had access to pre-release versions of it and are well on their way to making devices available. Clients and routers that support WPA3 can fall back to WPA2 when communicating with devices that don’t support the newer standard.

Public WiFi with security

Public WiFi, such as you find in shopping malls and libraries, doesn’t require a password. Its current state is, to put it bluntly, disastrous. WPA2 requires a password, so public connections have to fall back to a completely unprotected communication mode. There’s no encryption. Anyone with some simple equipment can intercept the traffic, picking up personal communications. If a site asks for passwords without using HTTPS, they’re sent as plain text for anyone to read.

WPA3 uses opportunistic wireless encryption (OWE) for public hotspots without a password. Each connected user gets a different encryption key. People will be able to use public networks without the fear that someone is watching every byte they send and read. However, OWE doesn’t provide authentication, so it doesn’t protect against SSID impersonation.

Other security improvements

Two levels of security are available with WPA3. Both of them offer significant improvements over WPA2. The Personal level uses a 128-bit key, and the Enterprise level uses a 192-bit key. In addition to using stronger keys, Enterprise WPA3 uses algorithms based on the CNSA suite for authenticated encryption, key derivation and authentication, and management frame protection.

WPA3 features an improved handshake for entering the password and establishing a secure connection. Currently, someone trying to guess a password can capture the handshake, take the data offline, and test any number of passwords till they get one that works.

With the new validation mechanism, called Simultaneous Authentication of Equals, that won’t be possible. Each authentication attempt requires the active participation of both sides. Someone who gets the password wrong too many times will be blocked from further attempts. If a snooper does succeed, the handshake provides forward secrecy, meaning that the information obtained won’t let the intruder decrypt earlier traffic.

What does Verblio do, exactly? Learn more here. 

Setting up headless devices

Right now it’s a pain to set up a WPA2 connection for a “headless” device, one with no console or keyboard. WiFi Protected Setup (WPS) works after a fashion, but it’s clumsy and insecure. Just having it enabled is a security risk.

Printers commonly use a WiFi connection, and so do a growing number of IoT devices. The need to set up WiFi where there’s no console or GUI is greater than ever. WPA3 replaces WPS with WiFi Easy Connect. The new approach lets the user set up connections for all supported devices by entering a string or scanning a QR code on a phone or computer. Devices will come with a QR code printed on the gadget or package to make setup easy.

Easy Connect will be available for WPA2 as well as WPA3. However, the device being set up needs to support Easy Connect, so this approach can’t be used with old devices.

Making the upgrade

WPA3 routers are just starting to become available. In most cases it won’t be possible to upgrade existing hardware. The Wi-Fi alliance requires WPA3 devices to be certified, and companies would rather certify new hardware rather than apply for certification on their older machines. Deploying WPA3 will require getting at least a new network card and router, and they aren’t likely to be widely available until 2019. Upgrading a whole network to WPA3 will be a rather expensive proposition.

At some point, support for the new protocol will be required for WiFi certification, just as support for WPA2 currently is. This is several years off, though.

A network needs to start by upgrading its routers. They’ll be compatible with WPA2, so they’ll be usable whether or not clients can use the new protocol. A WPA3 network card, on the other hand, won’t offer any advantage until there’s an upgraded router for it to talk to.

Public hotspots won’t be able to drop their existing, insecure service until most people have WPA3. This will take a few years. In the interim, they’ll have to set up a service that tries to negotiate a WPA3 connection and falls back to an unencrypted one if that fails. Alternatively, they can set up WPA3 as a premium service alongside the existing one. That would give clear assurance to customers that they have a secure connection.

Some devices don’t get replaced very often. A smart refrigerator which you buy today could still be in your home in twenty years. If it doesn’t support WPA3 or Easy Connect, it never will. There will be legacy WPA2 appliances for a long time to come.

Strategic considerations

Upgrade decisions are a part of business strategy, especially when there’s a big jump in technology. Businesses need to decide whether they should delay buying new communication equipment until it has WPA3 capability. If they can hold off for a year, it could be a good idea. Otherwise it depends on how high a priority enhanced security is.

Public, unencrypted networks have the most to gain, but they’re less likely than security-conscious businesses to have the motivation or budget. A large building, such as a shopping mall, will need upgraded repeaters as well as routers, so the cost will be significant. Hotels may be among the first to upgrade, since their business customers worry about leaking information. For most businesses, the process will be a gradual one.

It’s a time of opportunity and uncertainty. The people who make hardware decisions need to ask their vendors when WPA3 equipment will be available and plan their upgrade strategy accordingly.

The post WPA3—The New Standard Of WiFi Security appeared first on Verblio.

DNS Traffic Analysis

The trouble is that DNS logs are gigantic. Think of how many domain resolutions happen per minute on even a low-volume server. Looking for problematic requests just by reading the logs is a hopeless task. It’s necessary to use an analysis tool that will spot questionable requests and unusual patterns.

Analyzing DNS traffic isn’t a simple task. Normal activity generates lookups for many domains, including unfamiliar ones. An ordinary web page may pull in data from a dozen domains. However, certain patterns characterize malware talking to C&C servers.

Considering the sheer volume of DNS data, making sense of it is a daunting task. Adding to the complexity, different operating systems and machines will have different log formats. Bringing it all together requires a powerful and flexible log analysis tool. Several such tools are available on the market.

What DNS Analysis Can Reveal

A widespread zero-day attack hit several major sites in January 2013. Facebook was able to locate the infiltration method through DNS analysis. A suspicious domain turned up in the DNS logs, identifying the employee computer that sent the request. This let investigators focus on that machine, where they found a malware file. Without that lead, they would have had to go through every workstation, a time-consuming and inconvenient process.

Just aggregating the log entries by domain or TLD and sorting them by the number of requests is easy, and it can reveal unusual patterns. If an unfamiliar domain appears in the top 20, it deserves a closer look. However, malicious servers often scramble their domains to avoid easy detection. Requests from infected machines rotate through changing URLs so that no one is hit too often. Unusually long qualified domain names are another possible red flag. Analysis software can find suspicious patterns even in changing domains.

Malware can use DNS not just to locate C&C servers, but to encode communications. The requests usually don’t get much scrutiny from network security software, aside from blocking blacklisted domains. The requests get past most firewalls and don’t even require direct access to an outside DNS server. A rogue request can encode information in a subdomain, and a response can encode it in the resource record fields. Analysis can catch anomalous information, such as nonstandard record types or dubious TTL values.

Defense in Depth

Why is it necessary to go to this effort? Wouldn’t it be better to keep the malware out in the first place? Certainly, it would be, but it’s not something IT management can count on. There are too many ways attackers can get a foothold, and users will make mistakes. Security software can detect many intrusions but not all of them. Sometimes it’s necessary to get down into the logs and look for suspicious traffic. It’s part of a defense in depth, based on recognizing that no single measure can stop all threats to a network.

Security software can block access to known malicious domains. Unfortunately, new ones keep emerging. Malware can include domains that haven’t even been registered yet so that it can move its C&C to new domains as its old ones get blacklisted. For this reason, failed DNS requests can be grounds for suspicion, especially if a lot of requests for the same nonexistent domain occur.

Tricks to Watch for

Malware authors are devious, and identifying their activity isn’t always as simple as spotting rogue domains. Some C&C servers reside on subdomains of legitimate but carelessly managed domains, and administrators may assume they’re legitimate. Others keep generating new domain names, and the malware uses an algorithm to generate the same series of domains before they’re actually deployed.

When performing DNS analysis, it is prudent to include a dynamic IP address. It spreads the traffic for a domain across multiple addresses so that catching and blocking any address doesn’t stop access. Major websites use multiple IP addresses because they have a huge amount of traffic to handle, but if an obscure domain shows many different addresses in the log, that should add to the suspicion it comes under.

Summary

DNS analysis is an often overlooked part of network security. It can appear to be a serious challenge, but it’s a major help when administrators suspect malware activity. It can locate the source of dangerous requests, whether they’re users opening phishing links or malware communicating with a rogue server. It can spot excessive amounts of traffic to dubious sites. Domain request analysis software is an important part of any IT security toolkit.

The post DNS Log Analysis for Network Security appeared first on Verblio.

This week’s report, “Roadmap for the Washington Region’s Economic Future: Seven Key Economic Clusters” found a 5 percent job growth in the Information and Communications Technology category over the last decade, and the greatest total number of jobs in the seven categories.

Douglas Meade, the director of research of Inforum, a University of Maryland-affiliated group focused on business planning and government policy analysis says, “You might not think of Washington as a specialist in this area, but it is.”

Indeed.

With a goal of “weaning the economy off of federal government spending,” here are seven job clusters the report has placed before regional leaders, listed below according to the number of jobs currently held in that sector.

You might note a commonality among them:

• Information and communications technology (hardware and software providers and computer programming): 204,489 jobs
• Business and financial (management, scientific, and technical consulting services): 190,128 jobs
• Science and security technology (aerospace, defense manufacturing, scientific, and research services, security and emergency services): 123,785 jobs
• Advocacy (jobs at think tanks, trade associations, and public and private foundations): 115,731 jobs
• Business and leisure travel (accommodations and transportation services, entertainment, sporting events, museums, and parks): 89,919 jobs
• Biological and health technology (researchers, regulators, biotech, and VA medical employees, but not employees at local hospitals): 55,389 jobs
• Media and information (news services online, in print, on radio and in television): 35,745 jobs

By 2025, the report predicts these clusters will account for 981,005 jobs in the region. The commonality? Most are actually thinly disguised tech jobs. It appears that the Washington researchers don’t see themselves as part of the IT sector yet, in spite of the fact that most science is technological these days, and most research involves massaging data. On computers.

Meade adds that, “We wanted to look at what are the strengths we have now and, moving forward, how would those strengths evolve?” It would appear that these strengths will evolve from a primordial cesspool of technological savvy. Even travel and entertainment work requires extensive social media skills.

Singapore provides just such a lesson. After a financial crisis in 2009 with sluggish growth in manufacturing and construction industries, the population has had to shift focus where it’s needed: the IT sector. In 2014 there were 15,000 job vacancies in this category. Local polytechnics have responded by introducing courses on “in-demand tech tools such as social media marketing, cloud computing and mobile computing.”

From think tanks to news services, let us not forget the vital focus on social media. According to the Singapore report, “Social media is not just a platform for folks to post selfies with their cats; it presents a unique opportunity for marketers to push products and services to potentially millions of users instantaneously at a low cost.” This is relevant to, say, staffers in numerous political offices within the Beltway, seeking new ways to communicate with their boss’s constituency.

This is a point where developers meet content deliverers. As it is in D.C., Yon Heong Tung of Singapore notes that you can, “Flick a stone in any direction in Asia and you are bound to hit someone engrossed in his or her smartphone. With a wide variety of apps that one can download and utilise on his or her phone, the smartphone has become the de-facto platform for content consumption.” Are you listening, Washington?

“Therefore,” states Tung, “it is vital for developers and marketers to optimise their sites to fit into behaviour patterns of a smartphone user. This could mean re-learning UX principles and design layout; including the rewording of content to be digestible in a small screen format.”

It would seem that the best way to provide gainful employment for residents of The District is to have them honing their technical skills so they can leave their dependency on government paper-pushing jobs behind…just in case we really do turn into a paperless society.

The post IT Jobs & A Tale of Two Cities appeared first on Verblio.

Through trial and (mostly) error, individual business computer work stations and mobile devices become isolated compartments of expertise, where sharing is stunted and corporate memory is buried in a morass of ad hoc approaches to continuous challenges.

That’s where SaaS — software as a service — can put the service back into business automation software. According to a piece in ComputerWeekly.com:

Software as a service (SaaS) is set to become mainstream in 2014 as organizations replace on-premises systems with cloud applications… SaaS is a deployment model that is particularly suited to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

SMEs that have not yet considered SaaS Cloud need to look past the status quo of their current IT automation and recognize the following:

1. On-premises, mission-critical software and supporting hardware infrastructure are on the road to obsolescence. That obsolescence can either be gradual or precipitous, depending on the market and competition. Either way, it is still inevitable, and SaaS developers and vendors keep up, while their clients stay agile and up to date.

2. The web has gone way beyond global in the sense that market accessibility is no longer restricted to the “big guys.” It used to be that the big players were able to trump smaller competitors with sophisticated and expensive software. SaaS levels that competition. Add IaaS (the I is for infrastructure) and SMEs can overcome the hardware and network obstacles as well.

3. SaaS turns the diffuse into the focused. A well-designed business application, accessible on the Cloud — rather than installed, nurtured and continually updated locally — gives everyone a piece of the action. Jealously guarded spreadsheets, vital customer contact and sales records — and everything managers need to manage — can all be consolidated and brought under the same roof.

So business leaders who have their heads in the clouds (pun intended) hoping to grow, prosper and stay competitive need to look into the advantages of SaaS.

The post SaaS Answers Your IT S.O.S. appeared first on Verblio.