Editor's Choice Europe Media North America Webinar

Cybersecurity Webinar: Cloud Security and Password Safety

This month’s webinar brought to you by The Fintech Times is on Cloud Security and Password Safety. It is hosted by Editor-in-Chief Gina Clarke, who is joined by Jean-Paul Smet of Rapid.Space and Gary Orenstein of Bitwarden.

Together the panel discussed issues such as recent high-profile data leaks and whether they have led to a greater awareness of security protocols in the public consciousness. The thorny issue of remote working was also tackled, what should businesses and consumers need to be aware of when working online?

You can watch the webinar in full here, or for our review read on.

The key points discussed in this webinar on Cloud Security and Password Safety were not just about keeping personal data safe, but also securing corporate information while working in a home environment.

Jean-Paul Smet is the President of Rapid.Space, he introduced himself by saying, “We created Rapid.Space about a year ago and what we wanted to do is something we call hyper open cloud, which is cloud computing where everything is open source, even a billing platform and the training procedures of our staff to ensure we offer full transparency which then has an impact on security.” The company is a provider of converged cloud and 5G network infrastructures that offer privacy and sovereignty.

Gary Orenstein is the Chief Customer Officer at Bitwarden, an open-source password manager. Garry added, “Bitwarden is for both individuals as well as teams and large organisations. Individuals can manage their own credentials for various websites with logins but also provide the ability to share those credentials securely amongst members of their team, so it’s a full circle of credential management from individuals to organisations.”

The webinar kicked off with a look over the past 12-months, which have been incredibly busy for the cybersecurity industry. Gary began by saying that the main change from the pandemic was the requirement to chat over video as a replacement for meeting people in person, he added, “I think step two which we’re still in the middle of, is people realising the infrastructure that’s needed to make it successful not just to collaborate with each other, but to do so securely.”

Jean-Paul was also cautious about the prevalent use of new software which might not be so hot on security aspects which can be overlooked in favour of scalability. He said, “What we’ve seen is that with the increased use of online services and cloud there’s also been a tremendous growth of trust towards conventional cloud providers. But with companies facing risks from passwords and credentials, there’s a fear that organisations don’t want to use the cloud for managing those credentials.” He added that users should take the burden of managing security themselves to make sure that information remained secure. In Jean-Paul’s view, the security of our connections is based on one thing, human convenience.

According to Gary, convenience is certainly the reason why so many of us repeat our passwords across various sites. Which is why when one password is identified in a leak, the risk comes from not just exposure across one site, but several.

Both panellists recommend using if not certificated software, then a password manager which can set a long and unusual password that relies on encryption to keep each site secure. It was also touched upon how much the emphasis on password management had reached the mainstream, as Google’s Chrome now identifies if any passwords have been breached.

Despite the question, “How often should I change my password” still being a frequent ask in Gary’s line of work, he advocates using long and complex passwords for independent sites, rather than changing passwords more frequently as in some legacy corporate infrastructure.

Still, despite the wealth of information out there on cybersecurity, including tips on staying safe for both companies and individuals, the pair were convinced that the world will only see more data leaks and big hacks – with medical data the one to watch, in part thanks to the global pandemic and the need for governments to collect health data as the public continue to travel.

You can watch the webinar in full here.

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