Month: April 2022

April 18, 2022

Domain Related

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Ransomware attacks can be headaches of the highest order, and in many instances they have disastrous repercussions and that is to say nothing of the way those repercussions are paired with major expenses no matter how the problem ends up being resolved. When Japanese automaker giant Toyota had to shut down 14 factories across the country for one day, it was staggering to see just how much in the way of financial loss could come from just 24 hours of dealing with an attack. Most businesses will be of a much smaller scale, but there’s also been plenty of instances of data being breached for businesses that no one will necessarily be familiar with. No matter what size of operation, if you have sensitive data stored in digital format – and who doesn’t nowadays – then you will want to make sure you have all the defences in place there and ready to do their job if and when it’s needed of them. Ransomware attacks are increasing; between 2019 and the end of 2021 they had risen well over 200% overall worldwide, and again it’s not always just the big fish being attacked. Likely goes without saying that data management and data security are two aspects of operation that we can relate to here at 4GoodHosting, and that will almost certainly be true for any other quality Canadian web hosting provider who has the same solid operating principles for their web hosting business. Like most we’re also as enthusiastic and bullish about the ever-evolving potential for cloud computing, which leads us to our topic of discussion for this entry – why do ransomware attacks tend to look past cloud computing environments when weighing potential victims? Franchised Ransomware A recent advisory from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the US FBI, and the NSA reveals the latest trend is now ransomware as a service. Where gangs of malicious hackers essentially ‘franchise’ their ransomware tools and techniques and then make them available to less organized or less skilled hackers. This works out to many more attacks, despite some of them being not as sophisticated as others for the same reasons. But...

April 11, 2022

Domain Related

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Patience may well be a virtue, but few of us have much of it when we’re doing whatever is we’re doing online. We all remember those ads from years ago when broadband internet was new where they compared the previous super slow speeds as sucking a milkshake through the narrowest of straws. We’re a long way from that, and while the standard 1.5 gigabyte-per second speeds have been quite nice if there’s improvements to be made well then let’s get right to that. Bell is one of the big players as a home broadband internet provider and they are the first to now be making 3 Gbps internet speeds available to Canadian consumers. We don’t need to talk about how this will appeal to people, and the needs for ever-better download and upload speeds is something that those of us here at 4GoodHosting will relate to in the same way any good Canadian web hosting provider would. We are tops for VPS virtual private server web hosting in Canada and we know that is sites like these with dynamic content that will be among the many that are better served this way. People with sites hosted are going to want to have uptime guarantees for sure, but let’s not forget that these faster Internet speeds in Canada are also going to pair exceptionally well with the new 5G networks, and what is most noteworthy there is what that will do for Internet of Things applications and all that is set to do for the welfare of humanity and more. Toronto is Canada’s most populous urban area, so it likely makes sense that the new 3-Gig internet speeds are going to be made available there first. Exciting news for anyone in Hogtown, so let’s use this week’s entry to look into this in greater detail. Sub-30 Seconds Downloading a 10GB file might not have necessarily been daunting in the past, but you would certainly understand you wouldn’t be viewing anything anytime soon. With this new type of high speed internet, it is a whole different story. Bell announced this new plan on April 6th, and as mentioned the fanfare expected for...

April 4, 2022

Domain Related

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Artificial intelligence making possible new computer technologies and businesses If there has been any time in human history where technological advances in computing have come as fast and furious as they have recently, we’re not aware of it and likely you aren’t either. What comes with so much promise also comes with some level of trepidation for people, but that has always been the case with any type of game-changer advance that’s been seen in human society. A.I. is a great example where we wouldn’t even think about slowing the speed of change it is promising but at the same time most of us hope this doesn’t go sideways in any regard. But one aspect of this where the potential positive ramifications absolutely must be encouraged is with making better use of data. This is something that any Canadian web hosting provider will be able to relate to, and here at 4GoodHosting we are no different. We understand the magnitude and potential for data management, but can also relate to a lot of shortcomings in how this data is understood and utilized properly. Which leads us to the topic at hand here today. Advances in AI research have made it so that the use of computer algorithms to differentiate patterns from noise in data is entirely possible, and we now have open-source software and many data scientists streaming into the field. All of this leads to the belief that computer science, statistics, and information technology can lead to a successful AI project with useful outcomes. Teaching humans to think like AI will have value, but will have more of it is teaching AI to understand the value of humans. Deep – and Deeper – Learning for Neural Networks One of the most notable ways deep learning neural networks are being put to use is in healthcare, and specifically with more accurately predicting health outcomes. What we are seeing now is state-of-the-art AI algorithms for predicting health outcomes fairly accurately. This could be for whether a patient should be readmitted to the hospital following a surgery, or any number of other very significant decisions that can be better made by AI...