Lessons from the Global Ransomware Attack, Part 4

IT and cyber-physical systems that support many companies and organizations are, to use a British term, bespoke---custom-made for the user.  These organizations may want to think about outsourcing certain functions to the cloud to be sure that they benefit from the best available practices for security and reliability.<p>
Many organizations assume that they keep their data most secure by keeping it to themselves.  But these organizations generally don't have computer security as part of their main mission.  Moving some functions to an outside provider could, if done properly, provide them with higher levels of security and reliability.<p>
Oursourcing some computer operations would be easier if we had better software patterns and architectures for industrial control, patient management, etc.  Much of the work on cloud services is motivated by transactions.  I encourage my colleagues to put some thought into software designs that can be customized to applications that operate on real-time data and signals.