IT Services Tips For Brisbane Businesses

Business owners and theirs IT services teams in Brisbane should know the value of encryption and how it protects them from online bad guys. Encryption is encountered everyday in our modern digital age and businesses rely heavily in keeping our bank transactions secure from being tampered with, in making sure nobody eavesdrops with our communications, and it safeguards delicate information that is stored by various enterprises, including our government.

Encryption works by disarranging the information in a very complex manner that it would be almost impossible to unscramble and understand the information without a key or a password. Hackers launch a brute force attack to try hundreds or thousands of possible password combinations to acquire the correct key. The world’s most sophisticated supercomputer would be fortunate to get through a 256 bit AES encryption, one that financial institutions use today, in about five billion years or before the sun burns out. IT services groups in Brisbane can safely say that your money in the bank is quite protected, but how about your business data?

Encryption, just like any other tool, is of courses susceptible to abuse with terrorists and criminals also utilising it to secretly communicate. To fray these kinds of threats, law enforcement bureaus and governments around the globe want to build back door access than only they will be able to use. Most people say that if there is nothing to hide then you need not fear, but others are reasonably concerned that weak encryption is susceptible to abuse, especially with the recent revelation of US NSA personnel Edward Snowden regarding governments spying on their own citizens. You do not have to be an IT services engineer in Brisbane to know that these backdoors on encryptions is like having a flimsy lock on your office front door and the police have a key to it and can enter and look around whenever they want to. They cannot expect us to trust that they would not abuse this power and that the key would not fall into devious people’s hands.

Governments around the world have been putting pressure on curbing encryption. David Cameron, the UK Prime Minister, called for prohibition of communication applications that offer end to end user encryption, like Wickr. Barrack Obana, the US President, is asking tech giants like Microsoft, Apple, and Google to work with law enforcement and government agencies to work on a compromise on standards regarding encryption. The latest sensation was the FBI versus Apple standoff in unlocking the iPhone of the people involved with the alleged terrorist attack in San Bernardo shootings.

The new Australian cyber security strategy also has its eye on encryption. Prime Minister Turnbull would like to have a balance between national security and civil liberties. He said that the government will work with private sector IT services groups in Brisbane and the rest of Australia, in certain circumstances that it is very much needed, especially in the fight against terrorists, extremists, and against online criminals who hide behind encryptions to get away with illegal activities. He guaranteed that it will of course be done with the appropriate oversight and legal framework.

Australian citizens and businesses with IT services support in Brisbane can make use of encryption to protect sensitive information and personal data from both the government and online criminals but it is imperative to fully comprehend what you will be doing. It would be best to confer with your Brisbane IT services team if you wish to deploy an enterprise wide encryption strategy.

There are Smartphone applications that will allow you to send encrypted emails or messages. There is also the option to use a virtual private network to camouflage communications and online activities. A VPN generates an encrypted tunnel from your gadget or from your computer across the web, to hide your internet tracks and make sure there are no eavesdroppers. It is like having a secret tunnel from your office to the back entrance, so you can slip past whoever may be keeping watch by your front office entrance.

Your IT services team in Brisbane can also help with installing encryption software or setting up cloud storage services where you can manage the encryption keys to ensure that other unauthorised users cannot access your important business files.  Keep in mind that if you misplace or forget the encryption key, there is no way to rest the password.