COVID19: No City Gets Smart in a Crisis: Three Ways Tech Vendors Can Help

Ted Cuzzillo,
Principal Analyst – Data Analytics

Summary Bullets:

• Technology vendors should stay away from cities during the height of the COVID-19 crisis unless they’ve got a relationship already.

• Make sure your solution fits the city’s ecosystem and be ready to educate city staff.

The pandemic seems to some data technology vendors like as a great time to be heroes with the frantic staff in cities’ public health departments. But the advice from those close to the action is clear: If you don’t have a relationship with the city already, stay home for now — and get ready for what comes next.

For now, as one observer noted, city public health staffs are getting by on old-fashioned techniques that were first validated during the London cholera outbreak of 1854.

COVID-19: IBM Helps Clients Protect their Digital Assets and Keep Newly Remote Operations Online During the Pandemic

Amy Larsen DeCarlo – Principal Analyst, Security and Data Center Services

Summary Bullets:

• IBM is mapping its COVID-19 support efforts around seven major technology and business concerns relevant to clients during the outbreak, with business continuity and IT security being two key areas.

• Company executives think the move by so many organizations to remote work will accelerate major post-pandemic transformation projects.

The rapid shift of brick and mortar operations by enterprises and governments to a remote work model has placed technology companies front and center in the fight for business to survive. IT vendors and service providers are helping clients with everything from standing up new collaboration systems and providing critical connectivity to delivering AI-based tools to support customer communications with fewer call center resources. As one of the world’s largest providers of technology and professional and managed services, IBM has been leading a massive effort to help clients transition to and manage remote operations.

COVID-19: Considerations for Cybersecurity in Healthcare

R. Muru

Summary Bullets:

• Security heads must consider the right options when addressing security gaps in an organization’s IT, with a particular focus on email phishing, ransomware, DDoS, and network breaches.

• Assess vendors that have strong threat management capabilities, wide portfolio coverage encompassing cloud and endpoint security through a platform-centric approach, and flexible commercial pricing arrangements.

The global healthcare sector is being subjected to an array of cyberattacks as it deals with the COVID-19 pandemic. Criminals are attempting to cash in through ransomware and compromise the integrity of IT systems. Recent examples where GlobalData has seen cyberattacks include i) Bruno University Hospital in Czech Republic, one of the country’s COVID-19 testing centers, was struck by ransomware resulting in the postponement of surgeries, ii) the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services suffered a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack intended to disrupt the organization’s responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, and iii) increased phishing website hacking attempts on the World Health Organization (WHO) and its partners.