Identifying and minimizing cloud risks - the danger of cyber attacks

Why cloud risks are also enterprise risks

Cloud solutions play a central role in the digital transformation of our economy. But with the great economic opportunities that new cloud-based technologies open up, risks are inevitably increasing - for example, due to vendor lock-in, cloud sprawl or cyber-attacks from the cloud. It is not for nothing that the following two business risks have been identified globally as the biggest according to the Allianz Risk Barometer 2022: the fear of unauthorised access to central and sensitive corporate data and the resulting operational limitations or even operational disruption.

Currently, the Shadowserver Foundation reports that nearly 20,000 Microsoft Exchange servers on the public Internet (more than half of them in Europe) have reached the end of support, including Exchange versions 2007 (275 servers), 2010 (4,062 servers) and 2013 (26,298 servers). This creates critical vulnerabilities, including CVE-2021-26855, that make these servers vulnerable to remote code execution. Statistics indicate that many companies and organizations have not yet updated their servers despite the end of support.

Therefore, PREDNY SLM licensing experts strongly recommend:

1. check all Microsoft Exchange servers and update them if necessary,
2. identify and promptly patch vulnerable systems
3. if updates are no longer possible, upgrade to newer versions of Exchange and consider that secondary licenses can be a cost-effective alternative that significantly reduces the burden on your company's budget.

Minimise risk with a hybrid cloud or on-premise solution

Especially in industries with high standards in terms of compliance and data protection, such as energy, healthcare, transport and logistics or waste disposal, but also in public administration, many IT managers still consider the risks of total cloud solutions too high. Instead, they use hybrid cloud architectures or complete on-premise solutions in which cloud-specific security risks can be eliminated, at least for some areas. In addition, these scenarios open up the possibility to sustainably reduce ongoing licensing costs through needs-based integration of the software used, as the following example from LMT Group shows:

Result: With no loss of productivity, the company achieves savings in the upper six-figure range. The investment is recouped within two years.

Why secondary software from PREDNY SLM pays off

We are the largest and most stable supplier of Microsoft licenses from the open market to the public sector in the Czech Republic. We always offer companies, organizations and public authorities a large selection of used Microsoft multi-licenses with which they can sustainably optimize their licensing costs and benefit from them in many ways:

• High savings in ongoing licensing costs of up to 80% compared to the corresponding new version.
• Greater sustainability in the IT sector by promoting an active circular economy and reducing the company's carbon footprint.
• Obtaining the license 100% legally and audit compliant with the highest level of transparency in all processing steps including complete documentation.
• Many years of experience in integrating secondary software licenses into traditional network structures or hybrid licensing models.
• Detailed market knowledge and extensive experience through audit-verified conversion of more than a million used software licenses.
• Existing software license management capabilities for large IT infrastructure projects with thousands of workstations and cross-border locations.
• Convincing reference projects for many medium and large companies in a range of industries.

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