technologyreseller.co.uk 35 Education Another way in which Norton supports its resellers, says Wilson, is through on-going education initiatives that both strengthen Norton brand awareness and boost demand for its solutions, which in some areas is still largely untapped. “We do threat surveys on a regular basis, focussing on a different area each time. What these all highlight is the huge lack of awareness amongst consumers of the risks they are exposed to. In the last few months, for instance, we have had a big push on identity protection and uncovered some very frightening figures like the fact that in the last year 29% of Brits aged 18-34 have suffered some form of identity theft. That could be something as simple as somebody hacking your Facebook account, which you might consider unthreatening – unless the credentials you use for Facebook are the same as the ones you use for online banking, say. “Another example is a survey we did on stalkerware, which is a very invasive piece of software that gives someone else the ability, unbeknownst to you, to monitor everything you do on a device – read your messages, track your location etc.. We found that during the pandemic, there had been a 63% increase in installations of stalkerware. “There are different threats coming all the time. I think identity is probably the biggest surge we are seeing at a macro level, but there are always micro things like stalkerware that can come to prominence at any time. When there’s been a big breach of a major consumer brand, for example, we tend to find that not long afterwards some new threat will emerge as a result.” By identifying and then addressing these risks with new features or new products Norton helps resellers maintain a dialogue with customers and prospects and gives them additional opportunities for recurring revenue from other products covered by the Norton Empower Reseller Program. In addition to Norton 360 and Norton 360 Advanced, which also includes Norton Identity Advisor Plus (see box), these include three standalone products: n Norton 360 for Gamers – the full Norton 360 package with additional gaming functionality that monitors the dark web for the user’s credentials and any gamer tags and nicknames they use, while also improving gaming performance by separating the processing of computer functions from gaming functions; n Norton Anti-track, which monitors tracking by cookies and fingerprints and searches the dark web for leaked/stolen personal data; and n Norton Identity Advisor Plus. Wilson says that over the next few years Norton will continue to build on its core areas of expertise and expand into additional areas, offering resellers more revenue-generating opportunities. “The direction for Norton in the next few years will be to continue to build on the strengths of our cyber threat defence for devices – the classic anti-virus – and expand on it with identity protection as one strategic area and also privacy and limiting the amount of data you may be sharing, while also making you aware of what you’re sharing.” With the cyber threat showing no sign of abating, for businesses or consumers, and NortonLifeLock continuing to acquire additional capabilities, the Norton Empower Reseller Program is a perfect opportunity for resellers to expand their offering with this fast-growing company. https://uk.norton.com CYBERSECURITY Keeping your feet on the ground New CloudStratex report highlights weaknesses in enterprise cloud initiatives Moving to the cloud has many benefits but it also has risks, with 57.5% of enterprise decision-makers surveyed by client-side IT advisory CloudStratex stating that the transition has increased their IT costs. This is one of several findings in a new CloudStratex Insights Report 2022, Resilience, Integration & Efficiency – Hidden Cloud Challenges, which identifies shortcomings in existing approaches to cloud and legacy integrations and cloud financial management. Almost three quarters (73.2%) of respondents from enterprises with more than 500 employees said their companies would be better supported by higher levels of IT process maturity, especially in cloud financial management. Fewer than 30% of respondents were able to confirm that their organisation doesn’t waste money on cloud subscriptions. CloudStratex CEO Adrian Overall said: “I think the key insight to take away from our research is simply that cloud’s purported benefits – efficiency, agility, scalability and so on – don’t always happen automatically, and certainly not without a price that can be tricky to pay without the right planning and execution.” A clear majority of survey respondents reported that IT changes, some implemented at speed during the pandemic, and a lack of tools giving visibility over IT environments have led to business outages in their organisations. Three quarters (75.8%) of those surveyed said that a more resilient IT environment would increase their business productivity, with almost the same number (75%) agreeing with the statement that ‘the number and duration of business outages could be reduced if your organisation had a better understanding of its application and infrastructure environment’. In this context, it is significant that 44% of respondents said their organisation’s configuration management database (CMDB) is updated using manual methods, with 39% saying that their CMDB is consistently out of date. This matters because a growing number of enterprises face new and extensive Operational Resilience (OR) requirements in relation to their IT infrastructure. In fact, nearly 70% of those surveyed have compliance-related OR obligations; 66.8% are required to perform contractual reporting on IT OR. www.cloudstratex.com CloudStratex Insights Report 2022 Resilience, Integration & Efficiency Addressing the challenges of cloud’s mid-life crisis. HIDDEN CLOUD CHALLENGES CloudStratex Adrian Overall
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