Brian Greenberg

Throughout my career, I’ve had the privilege of working in several industries and many roles. The one constant was that I needed to keep learning along the way. There was always a new process to understand or technology to become familiar with. There was always something new, and as time went on, there was more and more technology to learn.

In the ever-evolving landscape of the modern workplace, a new reality emerged: Every worker, regardless of their field, is now a tech worker to some… Show more

Throughout my career, I’ve had the privilege of working in several industries and many roles. The one constant was that I needed to keep learning along the way. There was always a new process to understand or technology to become familiar with. There was always something new, and as time went on, there was more and more technology to learn.

In the ever-evolving landscape of the modern workplace, a new reality emerged: Every worker, regardless of their field, is now a tech worker to some extent. This shift is not limited to the tech industry and IT; it encompasses every sector, ranging from healthcare, education and carpentry to food service, manufacturing and retail. As technology permeates every aspect of our lives, adapting and continually retraining has become paramount. Show less

In the digital age, smishing – SMS phishing – poses a growing threat. These scams, often disguised as urgent messages from trusted sources, aim to steal sensitive information. My latest post, “Understanding Smishing: How to Protect Yourself from SMS Phishing Scams,” dives into how these scams work and how you…

For those organizations that don’t engage with new technologies thoughtfully, they’ll likely experience several pitfalls.

The role of IT leadership in today's business world is undergoing a significant transformation, driven by factors such as digital transformation, cybersecurity, cloud computing, data analytics, artificial intelligence and the need for agility.

Last year, the average cost of a U.S. data breach was $9.44 million. Of those companies that suffered a breach, 60% were forced into bankruptcy within six months. No one wants to end up a statistic like that. Hence, the priority of cybersecurity has increased as a growing concern for businesses in all industries.

Security risks come in many forms, from cyberattacks, phishing, and data breaches to insider threats and vulnerabilities in Internet of Things (IoT) devices. However, most… Show more

Last year, the average cost of a U.S. data breach was $9.44 million. Of those companies that suffered a breach, 60% were forced into bankruptcy within six months. No one wants to end up a statistic like that. Hence, the priority of cybersecurity has increased as a growing concern for businesses in all industries.

Security risks come in many forms, from cyberattacks, phishing, and data breaches to insider threats and vulnerabilities in Internet of Things (IoT) devices. However, most businesses don’t know where to begin and have limited resources and small IT teams, if any at all.

In this article, I’ll show you what you should be on the lookout for and what high-priority solutions you can employ to address the top cybersecurity issues in 2023. Show less

Cybersecurity insurance should be another item on every organization’s checklist next to secure backups, especially as cybercriminals employ more sophisticated methods to access organizations’ digital assets.

Ransomware is one of the fastest-growing forms of cybercrime. It begins when ransomware criminals gain access to a company’s network and, like a virus, spread their malware, infecting all the company's computers. From there, the malware encrypts all the company's data, making the information unreadable, shutting down the business until a ransom is paid, often in the millions of dollars. Ransomware is a grave threat to any business. It's an incredibly complicated problem that traditional IT… Show more

Ransomware is one of the fastest-growing forms of cybercrime. It begins when ransomware criminals gain access to a company’s network and, like a virus, spread their malware, infecting all the company's computers. From there, the malware encrypts all the company's data, making the information unreadable, shutting down the business until a ransom is paid, often in the millions of dollars. Ransomware is a grave threat to any business. It's an incredibly complicated problem that traditional IT defenses have been unable to stop, and a single strategy cannot fix it. Show less

Even the smallest unknown or unpatched vulnerability can be catastrophic. Unlike known vulnerabilities that have been identified, patched and publicized, unknown (or known but unpatched) vulnerabilities are called zero-day vulnerabilities. It means that the developers have "zero days" to fix the problem that has just been exposed and likely already exploited by hackers. They're vulnerabilities that a malicious hacker or government agency could have discovered yet are not reported, or the… Show more

Even the smallest unknown or unpatched vulnerability can be catastrophic. Unlike known vulnerabilities that have been identified, patched and publicized, unknown (or known but unpatched) vulnerabilities are called zero-day vulnerabilities. It means that the developers have "zero days" to fix the problem that has just been exposed and likely already exploited by hackers. They're vulnerabilities that a malicious hacker or government agency could have discovered yet are not reported, or the developer knows about the vulnerabilities but hasn't yet issued a patch. Show less

There seems to be confusion in corporate America about whether or not to delete data. On one hand, there are legal departments that advise keeping everything forever, and on the other are those that recommend deleting everything as a matter of policy as soon as possible — whacking away at files and folders on your file servers like a drunk landscaper whirling a weed whacker around your yard. Meanwhile, IT is stuck in the middle trying to develop and engineer systems to enforce ever-changing… Show more

There seems to be confusion in corporate America about whether or not to delete data. On one hand, there are legal departments that advise keeping everything forever, and on the other are those that recommend deleting everything as a matter of policy as soon as possible — whacking away at files and folders on your file servers like a drunk landscaper whirling a weed whacker around your yard. Meanwhile, IT is stuck in the middle trying to develop and engineer systems to enforce ever-changing data retention policies.

With a rash of security breaches and companies getting slapped with huge fines for mismanaging data during legal investigations, for some, the only reasonable thing to do is delete all data. The view taken by some is that if there’s no data, then it can’t be stolen and won't available for evidence in a lawsuit. Unfortunately, this is rarely true and likely to cost a lot more in the long run. Show less

The systems that we trust with our personal data, perhaps naïvely and at times reluctantly, are the targets. According to Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, 7,859 data breaches have been made public since 2005 (and the actual number may be higher). Juniper Research estimates that each single data breach will cost more than $150 million on average by 2020.

Strong IT leadership is essential. Data breaches can happen at any moment, and we now need to assess the influx of increasingly massive… Show more

The systems that we trust with our personal data, perhaps naïvely and at times reluctantly, are the targets. According to Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, 7,859 data breaches have been made public since 2005 (and the actual number may be higher). Juniper Research estimates that each single data breach will cost more than $150 million on average by 2020.

Strong IT leadership is essential. Data breaches can happen at any moment, and we now need to assess the influx of increasingly massive amounts of data for risk in real time. Show less

Let’s face it, the cloud is everywhere, but if you ask five different people what the cloud is, you’ll get five different answers. The fact of the matter is; There is no cloud, it’s just someone else’s computer.

Once again, everybody is talking about China. On Feb. 19, Mandiant, an American security company issued a startling report -- the result of a six-year investigation -- that makes the claim that the United Sates is in a cyber war with a 12-story building in Shanghai. The private security analyst concluded that the building is home of China's stealth cyber war division, the People's Liberation Army Unit 61398.

If this sounds like the movie, War Games, make no mistake - this is real… Show more

Once again, everybody is talking about China. On Feb. 19, Mandiant, an American security company issued a startling report -- the result of a six-year investigation -- that makes the claim that the United Sates is in a cyber war with a 12-story building in Shanghai. The private security analyst concluded that the building is home of China's stealth cyber war division, the People's Liberation Army Unit 61398.

If this sounds like the movie, War Games, make no mistake - this is real. According to Mandiant, for the last seven years, Chinese hackers have stolen data from at least 141 companies across 20 major industries, including critical infrastructure sectors like energy and telecommunications. At least 115 of the companies were in the United States. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said classified intelligence documents support Mandiant's claim.

Last year, we proclaimed this the Era of Big Data, and, in light of the dramatic events of the last few weeks, we thought it was an appropriate time to consider what's happened since. In order to understand this from the inside, we invited a leading big data expert, Brian Greenberg, VP of Technology Operations at Total Attorneys and Founder of General System Dynamics, to help us parse fact from fiction or fantasy. Show less

Want to know how to save yourself a lot of money and grief? Stop write protecting your backup tapes.

It seems that there are a lot of people with relatively old knowledge about backup technology. There is an outmoded belief at many IT organizations that if you restore data from tape, you have to write protect the tape before you put the tape in the drive (or tape library), for fear that you might overwrite the data by accident. This belief has caused a great deal of trouble in lost… Show more

Want to know how to save yourself a lot of money and grief? Stop write protecting your backup tapes.

It seems that there are a lot of people with relatively old knowledge about backup technology. There is an outmoded belief at many IT organizations that if you restore data from tape, you have to write protect the tape before you put the tape in the drive (or tape library), for fear that you might overwrite the data by accident. This belief has caused a great deal of trouble in lost time, increased grief, and lost budgetary dollars.

This article explores why IT Departments continue to write protect backup tapes, the history behind the behavior, how to increase efficiency, reducing costs, and protecting your organizations data with modern backup systems.
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Backup and documentation are together the most-often neglected facets of IT operational management. Why? Backups usually don’t contribute directly to revenue generation. But this is a fatal mistake: ignoring backup and documentation can cost a corporation millions of dollars, even in typical litigation or disaster recovery scenarios. In this article, you will learn:

— Factors to consider before you move to a tapeless data backup system
— Encryption challenges and… Show more

Backup and documentation are together the most-often neglected facets of IT operational management. Why? Backups usually don’t contribute directly to revenue generation. But this is a fatal mistake: ignoring backup and documentation can cost a corporation millions of dollars, even in typical litigation or disaster recovery scenarios. In this article, you will learn:

— Factors to consider before you move to a tapeless data backup system
— Encryption challenges and opportunities-related to keeping your off-site data secure
— Approaches for backup tape reduction and legacy storage technology elimination

By addressing backup challenges systemically in the context of the entire organization, you will see that running effective, efficient and secure backup operations is an opportunity to effectively contribute to the success of a company, even beyond protecting from financial risk. This perspective will help you to:

— coherently manage data security
— control data and data storage growth
— reduce data storage costs
— ensure business continuity
— recover from disasters
— provide effective reporting and data visualization of systems
— automate processes to reduce data exposure, fine-tuning backup coverage and identifying security vulnerabilities
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Electronic Discovery, eDiscovery, Legal Holds, Electronically Stored Information (ESI) and Data Preservation are just a few of an increasing family of terms that CIO's and IT Managers are hearing more and more every day. Particularly since the new Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) came about at the end of 2006 have internal legal counsel and IT departments started a new dialogue as to what responsibilities, and capabilities an organization has in regards to preserving data required for… Show more

Electronic Discovery, eDiscovery, Legal Holds, Electronically Stored Information (ESI) and Data Preservation are just a few of an increasing family of terms that CIO's and IT Managers are hearing more and more every day. Particularly since the new Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) came about at the end of 2006 have internal legal counsel and IT departments started a new dialogue as to what responsibilities, and capabilities an organization has in regards to preserving data required for legal discovery. Even more challenging are the tasks IT staff are being asked to perform in terms of actually doing the electronic preservation.

What we have seen in recent years is where the necessity of data preservation is driving organizations to create new processes and procedures as well as vendors to develop new technologies that allow companies to preserve data in systems that otherwise never had been designed to conduct legal holds. Considering the scores of systems that we find throughout a company, to discuss the risks and challenges of data preservation of each type of system would be far too much to encompass in just one article. However, I will cover the most common and important aspects of data preservation and electronic discovery that companies have to address with particular emphasis on backup systems. Backup systems, as you will see, pose some of the most significant challenges and risks, in both financial and legal spaces when it comes to managing legal holds. Effective solutions for managing legal holds is currently provided by only a couple vendors for this complex and all too often, over-looked high risk area. Show less

Using computer tape for data storage has a long and established history going back to the early 1950’s. Today there are newer, heavily marketed and overly hyped disk storage technologies and even more advanced tape technology for the consumer to consider. Among these technologies are disk targets such as multi-tier virtual tape libraries and disk storage units. Additionally, there are MAID (massive array of idle disks), deduplication and single instance storage options. Assessing the options… Show more

Using computer tape for data storage has a long and established history going back to the early 1950’s. Today there are newer, heavily marketed and overly hyped disk storage technologies and even more advanced tape technology for the consumer to consider. Among these technologies are disk targets such as multi-tier virtual tape libraries and disk storage units. Additionally, there are MAID (massive array of idle disks), deduplication and single instance storage options. Assessing the options available and trying to figure out the costs of replacing tape with disk is not a simple one. Exploring the myriad of technologies, storage architectures and operational criteria such as performance, risk assessment, RTO (recovery time objective) and RPO (recovery point objectives) as well as the businesses data protection policies and legal requirements can bewilder even the most seasoned professionals. Particularly difficult is calculating the costs of these storage architectures which requires an understanding of data growth, storage density and calculating media consumption in a backup system with variable schedules, backup levels, data and media growth rates as well as activities involving data migration and moving media to an off-site location.

In this paper, I present a unique approach to predict and model media consumption within production backup environments in various industries using either disk or tape as a backup target. The configurations and architectures of backup environments analyzed was done for the first time utilizing system dynamics modeling. By developing these models I was able to run backup system simulations over a span of years that provided data on media consumption for both disk and tape. I was also able to incorporate leveraging technologies such as de-duplication or single instance storage into the models to analyze the correlating cost differences potentially affecting the total cost of ownership for each architecture. Show less