A long, long time ago, in the last century, before the
Web was invented, cloud computing did not exist.
Each company had its infrastructure hosted in its
premises and all the tools were installed on its
servers. At the beginning of the computing era,
cybersecurity was not the most important topic.
At least not in everyone’s mind as it is these days.
Over time, castles and fortifications were built
around our systems. Computer scientists awakened
the digital Vauban [brilliant 17th century French
military engineer] who slumbered within them to
invent protection systems not lacking in genius.
Weak castles
Thus, DMZs *were created. These are the famous
demilitarized zones inspired by the buffer zones
between the first lines of two enemy armies. Such as
those existing between North and South Koreas.
To enter either country, one cannot do otherwise
than transit across these zones. ‘DMZs’ are,
therefore, mandatory passages for accessing a
company’s IT tools. It is in these fortified border-like
areas that checks to prevent viruses going through
are done. Likewise, Honeypots appear as well as
active defense techniques for luring hackers, identify
and possible eliminate them. In addition to firewalls,
encryption and other one, two or three factor
identifiers have come in as reinforcements.
In parallel, business recovery plans (BRP) with
infrastructure backups on other sites have also been
set up. Nevertheless, hackers manage to break
through. No wall seems capable of stopping them.
As a reminder, 67% of French companies were the
subject of attacks in 2019. Current priority targets:
medium-sized companies with between 50 and 249
employees. In other words, those companies with
the fewer resources to manage security on internal
servers.
Security without a cloud
But is the cloud a game-changer then?
Fortunately so. In all companies using a multitude
of cloud-connected services, hackers cannot reach
the castle.
Simply because there is no castle anymore!
The situation has changed and so has the landscape.
Going forward, one must imagine being in the
countryside, with little, discrete, scattered houses,
much harder to target. In concrete terms, of the
about twenty IT tools used by a company, a hacker
may possibly access one tool and break it. But the
other nineteen remain up! So, when a Microsoft
Dynamics 365 For Operations and Finance ERP in
cloud mode is deployed, complete and dedicated
security teams are devoted to implementing
complex solutions.
540° defense
For its part, FiveForty has no any internal server
and its IT system uses at least 15 completely
interdependent tools. Interdependent but
connected, (see What does the future hold for ERP?).
Of course, each individual, the same as every
organization must implement rules and follow
them. Because keeping the same weak password on
a Post-It stuck on a screen will always be a risk.
Its consequences way too important to be taken
lightly. For FiveForty, security is also at the heart of
its business. The Microsoft Dynamics 365 For
Operations and Finance ERP is the proof. In addition
to a password-protected login, that a hacker can
easily figure out, it is possible to configure a second
security level for the updating of certain sensitive
data. For instance, for the validation of production
orders or supplier bank accounts. If hackers have
managed to go through the first password barrier,
they will be blocked for a production order or the
diversion of the supplier’s payment to their own
account. Within D365FO, this feature is called
Electronic Signature. And cybersecurity, that’s also
a FiveForty signature!
By J.Lascaux, FiveForty° founding partner
*DMZ, honeypots, encryption and firewalls against hackers and crackers
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