‘Data Privacy’: Our Tech Experts Share Their Insights
January 28, 2024 | Blog
In 2021, Facebook—currently known as Meta—was fined by many countries for violating data privacy laws that caused millions of information to be subject to attacks and vulnerabilities. According to the Business Insider report, 533 million Facebook users’ phone numbers and personal data have been leaked online, putting data privacy and security in the spotlight, which is a topic for most countries—public and private sectors—to assess their ways of handling and protecting one’s data, like the data breaches in the Philippines, where its government agencies such as Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) and the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) experienced cyber-attacks and data breaches.
It is why IT Group, Inc., one of the leading IT Solution partners in the Philippines and in the ASEAN region, and its Tech Experts rally over and support data privacy and security for its clients and business partners, especially as we celebrate World Data Privacy Day this coming Jan 28. In line with the awareness to promote the privacy and security of data, we asked our Tech Experts to join the conversation and share their take on what security means to business, our clients, and the people we protect behind it.
Open Source Solutions for Enhanced Security
For Ryan Ching, ITG’s Head of Enterprise IT Infrastructure Solutions, security means being open and transparent. “Security is important because it’s a way to protect your business. As [part of] ITG, and as a provider of Open Source Solutions like Red Hat and EDB, we recommend open source software for organizations because we believe open-source software is more secure, especially if you are running it on a Linux System,” he said.
Ching explained that the open source principle revolves around collaborative work from many developers and becomes a community that helps improve one’s software, identify vulnerabilities, and fix errors quickly. “When we think about the principles of Open Source, we think about being open to everybody. Everybody can see [it] and be able to modify or customize it according to its use,” he said. “What makes it more secure is that it is opened by itself. So, if your source code is open to everybody to see, it simply means that more eyes can scrutinize the code, which leads to better software development and more secure solutions.”
When asked how ITG and its technological partners came in, Ching shared his experiences of how ITG can help businesses to be fully open for better data privacy and security. “In our case, what we do is that we look into our customers’ information systems and we learn [the] technology that they use. A lot of times their applications would run on one or more open source solutions. Based on that experience, we wanted to give our customers peace of mind that they would have access to customer support. Normally, you wouldn’t have developers to look into it, so you would need somebody to manage and maintain these systems while you’re using it.”
Although as much as open source is a community where collaboration flourishes, Ching emphasized the importance of professional support from reliable Tech Experts. “Only rely on the [open source] community to help you when there are issues, but having an open source software that comes with support means there’s someone you can [trust and] rely on whenever you need [an immediate] help,” he said.
He also shared some features of ITG open source software for companies who want to improve their data privacy and security.“Number one is to use Enterprise Open Source Software. Apart from adhering to the principle of open source, they go through other compliances, such as ISO 27001 Certification, security standardization, and industry certifications. We provide Enterprise Open Source Software so that they [businesses] can also be certified using a secure and compliant product to their certification requirements,” he said.
Cybersecurity and Comprehensive IT Management Solutions
On the other hand, Rommel Bernabe, ITG’s Head of IT Management Solutions, shared the other side of the spectrum, which many businesses often overlook about security. According to him, companies should take data privacy and security from the inside out because, most of the time, companies are more vulnerable to cyber attacks due to weak links, unprotected data, and, most of all, inside threats within the organization.
Also read: ITG and ManageEngine’s Best Practices for Cybersecurity
“The risk of losing the business or the risk of losing valuable assets or damage of those assets can [really] happen. So we need to protect those assets and important information, important details about our employees. That’s one of the [many] responsibilities of each organization [involved in data privacy and security],” he said. “Both private and public organizations, they are all growing. The demand for technology is increasing, and at the same time, threats are also evolving, so we need to practice [how to protect our data].”
Bernabe believes that the success of a company’s solid cyber security system lies with the right partner who understands your business security needs. He also shared some of his experiences, where one of ITG’s clients successfully combated hacking inside their company with the help of our technological partner, ManageEngine. “One time, there was a [data] breach happened within our client’s organization. Eventually, [someone] disabled all the accounts in the active directory. No one could use their workstations. They looked for a solution that could automatically enable all those accounts. That was the time ITG and ManageEngine came in, they were able to download our product and install it in a matter of maybe minutes. All users were able to operate again,” he said.
Bernabe also shared that companies should always check and secure all their devices to ensure data privacy and security are safe from data breaches and exploitation, sharing some of ITG’s cost-effective and comprehensive IT management solutions such as Privilege Access Management, Identity Access Management, and Endpoint Security, to name a few. “It’s always about business availability, a continual business, and with prior security measures in place within the organization,” he said.
Let’s Venture Together in Celebration of World Data Privacy Day
For over 20 years in the industry, ITG has continued to provide excellent customer service to our clients with our technological partners, rallying over the importance of data privacy and security as one of our top priorities in promoting digital transformation. In celebration of World Data Privacy Day, ITG encourages you and your business to be cyber-ready in this modern time. Learn more about how ITG can elevate and fortify your security and data privacy today.
