Have you had to deal with security issues in the past year? Brace yourself, as there are more to come. For this reason, security experts have become indispensable members of society, who guard tech-dependent individuals and businesses against malicious attacks that pose threats to their privacy and livelihood.

Ever since the cloud started to hover over the prospects of technological evolution, IT pros and businesses had no problems taking to it in droves. Yet, all of us had this hangover on cloud security and the possible risks companies might face.

The actual story, however, is that cloud computing has seen growth levels that defy fears of cloud security.

Security management is a nightmare. All businesses and individuals suffer from it, one way or the other. Thanks to the fact that the Internet allows for anonymity, super fast speeds, and a global reach the scope of security breaches has grown to untold proportions today.

Today, businesses can never rest in peace. If it was perceived that security was an issue earlier and IT assets are massed with staff in place to combat network security issues, today that very security issue has multiplied multi-fold. An Information security survey  predicts that this year, at least 34% of small businesses that participated in the survey feel that security is the top challenge and at least 18% of them plan a full-frontal strategy to battle spam, malware, threats, and intrusions.

The computer network and supporting infrastructure is perhaps the very nerve centre of every growing business. As such, all critical possessions have an element of risk associated with them. For your company’s network, the associated risk is its vulnerability.

If your business is growing, you'd doubtlessly have a  huge number of computers, laptops, and mobile devices connecting to the main corporate network. Have you given a thought to the seemingly endless points of security lapses that are possible anywhere between these connections? What, if any, is your approach to security with regards to client systems connected to one or many servers in your organization?

In networking parlance, security software that’s installed on each of the client systems –be it a PC, laptop or even a mobile device such as Blackberry but is managed from a centralized location is termed as End-point Security.

Cloud Computing – what does that mean?  According to Gartner cloud computing is “a style of computing where massively scalable IT-related capabilities are provided ‘as a service’ across the Internet to multiple external customers.”

In English, that definition means the cloud should just deliver a service on a subscription basis, allow access from anywhere and provide economies of scale.

Computer security is the process of preventing and detecting unauthorized use of your computer. Prevention measures help you stop unauthorized users (hackers) from accessing any part of your computer system. Detection helps you to determine whether or not someone attempted to break into your system, if they were successful, and what they may have done.