8th Aug 2014 | Event Bridge, Eventbrite, Salesforce, Security and Safety
You could say that it has been a good week, but that would be a lie. It has been a fantastic week! Bear with me… I will get to that security flaw.
I have to start with Salesforce – Cloud Genius Ltd now has registered partner status. This will let us give you even better service and give you sneak peeks at new features. It will also enhance our ability to offer training environments.
As you may have read before, we have been developing an Eventbrite -> Salesforce connector. Why? when there are others? Well this one has features that are unavailable in the others (and unlikely to be, because of their nature) and ours does not have the usage/limit costs associated with the others. We have finally come up with a name for the product (Event Bridge) and are in the process of developing a website that will tell you all about its features, pricing and why you could really do with using it. We are also in the process of re-vamping the CG website. (Yes, I know it is looking ‘tired’, but if you go to an electrician’s home and turn on the light the kettle boils.)
In the process of developing Event Bridge we discovered a subtle security flaw in Eventbrite. Talk about rapid reaction – within hours they had deployed a fix. I always say that you can just a company not in the good times, but in the bad. On that score, Eventbrite has certainly come up trumps. Even better, Cloud Genius will now appear on their security Hall of Fame… so we managed to help make the internet a safer place. (I always like it when a small company in Wales helps out a multi-national.)
So, that’s it for this week. Just off to get my super-hero uniform re-tailored.
13th Jul 2013 | Defeating spam, General Information, Salesforce, Web Hosting
I could not help but have a chuckle when I saw this article: Kremlin to revert to typewriters. Even the secret services are having difficulty keeping their information to themselves. [ss_screenshot width=’300′ site=’https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/10173645/Kremlin-returns-to-typewriters-to-avoid-computer-leaks.html’]
To my mind this means that security is not an absolute, but a best effort. Reassuring then, that we use Salesforce, which is regularly audited as secure enough to hold credit card details (in properly designed apps). That I have been trained in security and hold a CompTIA Security+ qualification. In my past I have designed and set up security for financial transactions for boutique banks, private equity companies and hedge funds. We always use strong passwords and store the gateways to our clients’ worlds in securely encrypted stores with two factor authentication. If our computers are stolen, the hard disks are fully encrypted – inaccessible without the correct password. They will be automatically wiped the moment they re-connect to the internet.
Do criminals go after hard targets or easy ones?
What security do your IT companies use? I have seen scary cases where clients’ passwords were stored in unencrypted spreadsheets and databases!
We keep our clients secure, they sleep at night and do great business in the day.
10th Mar 2013 | General Information
I am excited to be writing to you from Wales. It is not that that makes a significant difference to my work, but I am now surrounded by beautiful countryside rather than urban sprawl.
Part of the move involved my laptop going missing. You know… the one that contained everything of importance to my business.
My first concern would have been my clients’ data. Fortunately I have my hard disk encrypted. Recovery without the correct credentials is impossible.
Then there was getting back to work. Fortunately, everything is backed up through the day. I was able to use a desktop PC and restore everything overnight. In the mean time, the things I was working on were backed up to the cloud, so were available in a few minutes.
Everything that I have on Salesforce is available with just a web browser and is stored in the cloud. Nothing lost there then!
Finally, my internet landline was not due to arrive for a couple of weeks! Fortunately, Virgin had given me a very good deal on 3G unlimited broadband. As long as the dongle was near the window it all worked. With all the furniture still to be unpacked I was running the company and developing Salesforce installations and websites from a table that was two foot square (60cm x 60 cm).
I recommend using cloud solutions for all the reasons outlined above. I was able to experience the true benefits myself. (As well as the reassurance of good backups!)
