How Data and Network Security Urgency Obscured Insight

The digital revolution would still be stuck in 1996 if people around the world had not become, to some extent, assured of data and network security. Web usage would not have blossomed without willingness; that is, unless people had come to believe that the data they provide – both transactionally and unwittingly – were not secure.

As we see again and again, the assurance that was built among the public at large was in some measure just a matter of getting used to things, rather than providing real proof that private data would remain private. Despite continual proof of the imperfections in data and network security, digital payments – one conspicuous example of the trust people invest in the Web – are projected to reach $726 billion by 2020.

Similar to personal data and network security, the tsunami of commercial and institutional data that flows around the globe would be barely a stream if not for the sense that data and network security are firmly established.

And yet, the news of personal and commercial data breaches – often involving reputable retailers, financial services resources, election commissions, and even whole state governments – has become a more or less regular feature of life. At the professional and institutional levels, data and network security are so conditional and qualified that data raids and malware have been called “the perfect weapon.”

At both the personal and professional levels then, we carry on to some extent in a condition more like “suspension of disbelief” than actual data and network security. What ushered us over that barrier of good judgement or even skepticism? The very urgency of the advantages offered by digital engagement with the world made that barrier seem to dissolve. A time came when no household could stand to be without a personal Internet connection, and certainly no enterprise could afford the competitive disadvantage of being behind-the-curve in the digital revolution.

Since that vast transition, we all have been operating in a kind of willing state of delusion about data and network security. We know it’s not iron-clad, but we can’t afford to hold back.

Physical Access Should Have Been Basic

As we analyze the elements of global digital engagement, we see that authentication was among the first priorities. Ingenious protocols and solutions were devised from the very beginning to make sure that people and institutions are who they “say” they are in a digital exchange. We live today in a world in which two-factor authentication is basic, and it seems the only thing holding back digital purchases even slightly is the inability to remember the password one allocated to that particular site.

Yet, with all the attention and energy devoted to online authentication, the actual, physical points of entry into today’s vital data networks and information systems are almost always unguarded. USB and FireWire ports, as well as cable and LAN connectors, are wide open in the vast majority of installations. People, enterprises, and institutions that would never even consider operating a router without a firewall still leave ports and connectors gaping for anyone to plug in.

To make this point emphatically, we often say this is like installing every digital home security device known to man – from alarms to motion sensors to front-door cameras – and leaving the front door wide open. Considering the brilliance of many of the ongoing digital solutions for data and network security, the software and programs constantly being deployed to defeat incursions, the lack of logic in this open front door is nothing short of astounding.

Sourcing the Devices for Data and Network Security

Here at The Connectivity Center, our perspective includes all the exponential expansions of risk to computer data and network security that resulted from universalizing access to data, because our founding influences were active at the human-computer nexus ever since computer access moved beyond the mainframe. You can count on The Connectivity Center to provide the devices that complete your cybersecurity perimeter.

Our mission is to guard the physical points of entry that that turn computers into data networks and information systems. We protect the ports and connectors where the most damaging and historically impactful cyber-attacks were perpetrated. Our Link Lock connectors and the Link Lock Hub secure your USB ports and network connections, and also lock your devices so that they cannot be removed without authorized access. Our Smart Keeper collection of data and network security devices protect the vital data connections that empower your information systems and still permit the controlled access that moves your enterprise forward day after day.

You’ll find data and network security solutions by the hundreds from The Connectivity Center, including a variety of locking 4K high-speed cables. For unlocking them, we offer two kinds of keys, the Enterprise and Professional series of the Smart Keeper USB Port Lock Key. As a convenient and efficient option, the Professional Series key offers you an ergonomic, retractable housing with anti-static rubber grip, LED light for low visibility work areas, and dual-retractors – main and peripheral – for access to any angle of installation. The Professional Series provides effective control to reach port locks in confined spaces. Key patterns are strictly controlled, yet you can order duplicate keys to suit your own security authorization structure.

Private enterprise and public service alike share many of the same risk exposures today, and fortunately can benefit equally from completing the cybersecurity perimeter by adding the physical dimension to data and network security. Our whole way of life, and enterprises of every kind, depend on the flow of data, uncontaminated and with controlled access. The importance of this flow extends to the systems for power generation, energy distribution, water purification and supply, transportation, all the operations that support the lives we live.