In response, organisations are revamping increasingly digitalised workforces with a cloud-first security strategy. Whether your organisation has just embarked on a cloud journey, or you’re looking to update you cloud vendor onboarding process, here are some considerations for building a cloud-first security strategy.

Involve teams company-wide to mitigate security risks

Unlike siloed business systems of the past, cloud security is everyone’s responsibility. Make sure that leaders understand the risks and cascade expectations across teams accordingly.

At an executive level, sensitive company and customer data and its governance are paramount. Breaches or leaks of sensitive data can destroy trust (and your brand) with millions of existing or potential consumers, and cost millions, if not billions, of dollars in damages to the company.

Technology infrastructure, architecture, and operational data, and its associated maintenance, availability and security are a critical responsibility for the chief information, digital or technology officer. As cloud technology develops and grows, so do the increasingly sophisticated threats, requiring more advanced protection measures. Dedicated internal IT security resources may not be feasible and/or scalable, or a cost-effective option to protect critical cloud systems.

Cloud security also extends to any business unit reliant on cloud software up-time for business-critical applications that serve existing and potential customers, while protecting the company brand and reputation. The financial and legal implications resulting from a lack of data privacy and security can be substantial.

Holistic cloud security and compliance considerations

When considering new cloud vendors, be prepared to sign a non-disclosure agreement before a potential cloud vendor will hand over their sensitive security and technical reports, certifications, and associated documentation. Cloud software and service providers storing and processing sensitive company or customer data should undergo multiple, regular, and globally recognised audits.

Compliance requirements may vary depending on the business functions, data, industry and/or geography. Common global standards for cloud security and service management include BS10012:2017 certification covering data privacy standards, ISO 9001 certification covering quality standards. In addition, ISO 27001 provides a global standard for IT security management practices, and ISO 22301 focuses on the security and resilience of business continuity management processes of the cloud provider.

For example, was one of the first cloud service providers, serving customers such as a national defence agency and financial institutions, and the 18th U.S. company to become ISO 27001 certified (formerly BS7799) in 2004. continues to undergo this and several other external and internal security audits to maintain a high level of certification.

Additional standards to consider include payment card industry (PCI) compliance related to payment data security, and SOC1 and SOC2 Type II reports, which cover compliance of internal controls and security audit reporting, respectively.

Data privacy is a growing area of scrutiny. Depending on the country and jurisdictions you are operating in, there will be local privacy laws which the vendor should comply with. For example, in Australia organisations must comply with Australian Information Privacy Principles. Common privacy product features include data retention (and deletion) procedures, and the general data protection regulation (GDPR), which are applicable to EU citizens regardless of where an organisation is located.

Data should be encrypted when it’s transmitted over a public network and at rest when being stored in databases. Cloud provider access to data should only be available to a limited, appropriately vetted number of authorised personnel. It is common to request that staff with access to data and data centres undergo appropriate background checks before being given access to customer data. Use industry standard encryption methods for data in transit and at rest.

If data sovereignty is important to your business, be aware of the location and ownership of your cloud provider’s data centres. Make sure that data centres are Tier 3+ or Level 4 facilities and confirm appropriate disaster recovery and archival/backup practices. Primary production sites should be separate to secondary backup and disaster recovery sites.

Cloud providers often outsource services to third parties for services such as infrastructure. Ask your cloud vendor about their practices, and how they will treat your data with privacy and security.

Mobile security is another consideration. Treat security capabilities of mobile applications with the same level of scrutiny as the vendor’s web applications, over and above the mobile device’s local security features such as biometrics.

Cloud security is constantly evolving. Perform continuous security and technical due diligence, as requirements, legislation, and expectations can vary between functionality, industries, and geographies. Above all, manage the integrity, security, and availability of your company and customer data with the same level of rigor as your entire cloud-based business. It’s the only way to keep pace with your digitalised workforce.

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As technology remains critical in keeping people safe and connected, the key focus for all hackathon teams was addressing the impact of COVID in real-world scenarios. Runners-up of the event, Team , presented the judges with CovidSafe Building Access Management Solution – a cross-industry resource for managing employee OH&S.

, Microsoft Practice Lead and Solutions Architect for Bourne Digital, explained, “In the initial stage of hackathon, the whole team came together to come up with a lot of ideas, but the main challenge facing a lot of organisations was around COVID. We interviewed some of our clients and those in the company, their main concern was how to help employees return to work while keeping things safe and secure, implementing the COVID-safe protocols.

“At the time, all businesses were operating ats a risk with COVID and needed to implement control measures to manage those risks. They also needed to assess any new changes that arrived because of COVID, for example, customer aggression, the unusually high work demands at the time, and also the difficulties in work isolation.�

Bourne Digital’s CovidSafe Building Access Management Solution uses thermal-screening technology to support facial recognition and temperature checks. This identification data passes through authentication via Face API and a backend ECC system to determine whether employees can be permitted into the office.

“On the Microsoft side, we used a series of servers hosting in the MSN Azure Cloud,� Barry explained. “Altogether, the servers provided the functionality around facial recognition, which was a key function of the system. The key server, a real in-demand prototype, is something that we call Face API, which is part of the collective service – it’s the AI surface service in the Azure Cloud. It can do a lot of things, like image recognition, voice recognition, and facial recognition as parts of its function.

“That server is built together with other services also hosted in Azure, like Azure AD, which is the world’s most popular identity management service and stores all the user information, such as name, ID, and password. It can also be used as an identification portal for external services. All this together with Face API as a strong backbone, provides a solid solution to these safety challenges.�

According to Barry, thermal screening provides two primary functions. “The first function was to collect the photo of the user for other applications – it’s the same as when you go through customs at the airport. This also saves your facial information to the backend and sends this information to Face API, which will match your identity from Azure AD.

“The thermal screening is also responsible for capturing the temperature from the user without the user having to actually contact anything themselves – no need for a fingerprint or to enter a password. It’s just through the thermal screening.�

Ben Kemal, General Manager of Southern Region at Bourne Digital noted that the team used their hackathon entry to develop a solution for internal use. “Using the Microsoft Power Apps platform, they created a desk-booking solution that they’re using to managed desk space in our office – especially with the restrictions around Australia in terms of how much capacity you can use. I was proud that the team could take a solution from the hackathon, build upon it, and convert that to a solution that we could implement for ourselves and potentially for our clients.�

Barry believes this kind of solution will have numerous applications across different organisations and industries, providing more intelligence and convenience to accessibility. “I think traditional security, such as physical access cards and passwords will be replaced with biometric security assets like facial recognition – it’s just a matter of time.

“COVID has sped up that evolution. From a business perspective, it’s given much stronger justification for organisations to fund these kinds of changes. And there are really good values that can be provided through this project as this kind of accessibility has gone from something good to have to almost an essential requirement.�

Last year’s Â鶹ԭ´´ and Microsoft hackathon not only helped developer teams become more familiar with the latest technologies and techniques available; but it also provided them with real-world experience in addressing critical challenges that we all face through this pandemic. The event encouraged more collaboration between Â鶹ԭ´´ and Microsoft experts from across different organisations and functions, all working to improve the way we work and live.

To understand more about the innovations presented at previous hackathons or to learn about the upcoming

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No one knows this more than Mayur Saxena, CEO and founder of . Saxena created his startup while pursuing his doctorate degree at Columbia University and working at a healthcare company conducting clinical trials on new medication.

He is energised by the plethora of opportunities to improve healthcare using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning.

“Patient data is notoriously disorganised and complex,� Saxena said. “With machine learning, healthcare professionals can organise that information to better understand the disease of every patient and reach them faster with interventions that improve their lives. It’s an amazing feeling when you talk with someone who’s recovered from an illness because they received the right care.�

The idea behind Droice is to make messy data neat so people can spend less time organising it and more time analysing it.

Insights Drive Personalised Patient Care

The startup has collected data from 50 million patients while working with healthcare providers, payers, and government organizations in the U.S. and Europe. Healthcare professionals in hospitals, pharmaceutical firms, medical device manufacturing, and insurance rely on Droice Labs’ natural language understanding (NLU) technology. NLU makes sense of patient information in multiple languages from anywhere, such as electronic medical records (EMR), insurance claims, research reports, and medical devices.

“Our machine learning system takes all the data about an individual into account and breaks it down so that a doctor, pharmaceutical scientist, or healthcare insurer can understand patients better and faster,� explained Saxena. “Instead of repetitive, disparate, one-on-one diagnoses and follow-up care, we’re automating personalised care for a much larger patient population. With shared insights across a large patient population, physicians can chart disease progress and prescribe the best treatment plan. Clinical research into new drugs that took years could be reduced to days or weeks.�

Saxena said that one hospital reduced the amount of time it took to arrive at an appropriate patient diagnosis by over 20 percent.

Â鶹ԭ´´.iO Foundries Opens Up World of Healthcare Opportunities

Droice Labs recently participated in the latest healthcare-focused accelerator program at Â鶹ԭ´´.iO Foundry New York. It was one of seven up-and-coming startups working with hospital system providers, employee health and wellness solutions, medical devices, and health IT.

“We’ve learned so much about customers in the healthcare industry from Â鶹ԭ´´â€™s sales and product teams,â€� said Saxena. “These large organizations have unique needs, and we’re grateful for the opportunity to partner with Â鶹ԭ´´, a company with a massive presence across so many geographies. We’ve gained valuable insights about strategic global selling and scaling our technology to meet the unique requirements of these customers.â€�

The Droice Labs machine learning platform is .

Turning Long-Time Passion into Thriving Startup

Droice Labs reflects Saxena’s long-time personal and career commitment to healthcare. After earning his undergraduate degree in bio-engineering and biomedical engineering, he worked in high-performance computing in Singapore before arriving in the U.S. That is when he acted on his passion, exploring how AI and machine learning can help improve patient care and potentially eradicate disease.

“We’re looking at data from hundreds of thousands of patients a day, helping improve their care pathways across the healthcare system,� said Saxena. “We have the technology to work with patient data at scale. I’m most excited about working together with recognised healthcare experts using state-of-the-art technology to address major challenges in this complicated, regulated industry.�

Digitally Trustworthy Strategy at Droice Labs

In an environment where patient concerns and regulations around data control continue to increase, Saxena emphasised his company’s strategy of digital trust.

“Everything we do is designed to respect individual patient privacy,� explained Saxena. “We don’t possess related identifying data on patients, and we remove any identifiers. Working in a mission-critical environment like healthcare brings a set of responsibilities. If there is a population suffering from disease, and by looking at their information we can partner with healthcare providers to help make their quality of life better, that’s what we’ll do. But we don’t participate in business models targeted to specific individuals.�

Saxena expected his company’s rapid growth trajectory to continue, and it was easy to see why. According to Gartner’s 2020 CIO Survey, AI is the healthcare industry’s top game-changing technology. Analysts  75 percent of healthcare delivery organizations will invest in an AI capability to explicitly improve either operational performance or clinical outcomes by 2021.

This article first appeared on the Global Â鶹ԭ´´ News Centre.

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Registration for Â鶹ԭ´´PHIRE NOW Australia and New Zealand is now open. To get your free access today, .

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When bushfires ravaged Australia’s east coast over summer, Taronga Zoo played its part, treating hundreds of injured animals at its two wildlife hospitals. More importantly – from a conservation perspective – it also collected animals ahead of the fires, including 12 koalas from the only group that lives above 1000 metres, to preserve valuable DNA.

“This was a critical part of our bushfires response,” says Taronga Zoo CEO Cameron Kerr, adding that now the hard work starts. One challenge is that rehabilitating ecosystems and breeding genetically viable populations to return to the wild is a long and delicate process. “For koalas, this will take eight to 12 years.”

Taronga’s long-term bushfire response highlights its transformation of its zoos in Sydney and Dubbo over the past decade. When Kerr took over in 2009, zoos around the world were struggling to justify their existence in an era of cheap travel and mass media overage of exotic animals.

“Our journey has been about identifying what makes us relevant in the 21st century,” says Kerr. “Wild animals in an urban setting [such as Taronga Western Plains Zoo Dubbo], are not appropriate without a higher purpose.”

For Taronga, that purpose is a deep commitment to wildlife conservation and education. It has teams of zookeepers, scientists, vets and geneticists working with 18 universities around the world on preserving endangered species, including the platypus, Sumatran tiger and sun bear.

And Taronga ensures that the two-million-plus visitors to its zoos each year, including 100,000 schoolchildren, get the conservation message. Its tiger den, for example, exits through a “supermarket”, where visitors can scan products to check for palm oil – a key contributor to the destruction of habitats for Sumatran tigers and orangutans.

Technology plays a key role in creating these innovative visitor experiences and is also fundamental in making sure Taronga is able to invest heavily in its conservation mission.

“We are mainly self-funded and the key step is creating a strong business,” explains Kerr. “We can have a much greater impact when every dollar is used effectively.

“We need a partner like Â鶹ԭ´´ to uplift our core business systems – payroll, HR, management data, business reporting, scenario planning – the bread-and-butter stuff that makes the organisation run efficiently. They’re giving us the world’s best business systems, used by some of the biggest companies, for a small to medium-sized organisation.”

Kerr also expects Â鶹ԭ´´ technology to be crucial in further developing engaging visitor experiences, as well as mapping the zoo animals’ experiences and emotions and comparing them to wild animals.

“We can win the hears and minds of visitors and really make a difference. And we can replicate animals’ behaviour in the wild. This is leading-edge stuff.”

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Using intelligent technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), the Â鶹ԭ´´ S/4HANA Cloud solution for upstream oil and gas helps customers to further increase visibility into operations and cash flow. Additionally, the solution includes contributions from leading global oil and gas companies such as ConocoPhillips and Shell.

“Working together with Accenture and a consortium of industry leaders, we have delivered an industry-defined intelligent solution that has the capabilities upstream oil and gas companies need to reduce complexity by using market standards,â€� said Benjamin Beberness, Â鶹ԭ´´ global vice president of the Oil and Gas Business Unit. “Â鶹ԭ´´ S/4HANA Cloud for upstream oil and gas is a flexible and agile solution that can provide customers a 360-degree view of the intelligent enterprise — from operations to the boardroom, enabling operational excellence.â€�

Now generally available globally, Â鶹ԭ´´ S/4HANA Cloud for upstream oil and gas is a scalable solution that can help oil and gas companies reduce total cost of ownership and operational costs, as well as create new revenue opportunities. Tools for preconfigured, integrated and user-friendly business processes are included so that companies can shrink implementation time while working to reduce risk of business disruption. The solution delivers new industry standards that help simplify operations and free up resources to drive more business value.

To define market-standard end-to-end processes that are preconfigured within the solution, Â鶹ԭ´´ and Accenture are working with a consortium comprised of leading exploration and production companies including BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Equinor and Shell.

“ConocoPhillips collaborated with Â鶹ԭ´´ and Accenture for more than two years to launch this solution, based on a flexible cloud architecture that can scale and deliver real-time insights into oil and gas upstream processes,â€� said Mike Pfister, CIO, ConocoPhillips.

“This release represents an important milestone demonstrating the impact of our ongoing collaboration,� said Scott Wahl, CIO Upstream, Shell. “We look forward to continuing to work together to deliver a mature solution that creates business value for the upstream oil and gas industry.�

“Â鶹ԭ´´ and Accenture are delivering a solution that brings in innovative technologies like AI to deliver real-time insights, greater visibility and better decision-making,â€� said Jan van den Bremen, a senior managing director and lead for Accenture Intelligent Platform Services in Europe. “We are proud to be the only Â鶹ԭ´´ co-development partner working side by side to deliver leading oil and gas industry solutions. We’ve worked with Â鶹ԭ´´ and leaders in the oil and gas industry to co-develop a solution that helps enable faster adoption of new technologies to better manage changing market conditions.â€�

This article first appeared on the Global Â鶹ԭ´´ News Centre.

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