Understanding if Google Workspace is CMMC and DFARS Compliant?

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Google Workspace complies with the CMMC. To satisfy current compliance requirements, you must carefully consider the numerous restrictions and special deployments that the system mandates.

Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) 7012, 7019, 7020, 7021, and the impending CMMC 2.0 standards are just a few of the contracts in the military supply chain that mandate the installation of lower limit benchmarks to protect various data types. Because of this, DoD contractors are looking for cloud service options that can boost productivity and teamwork without jeopardizing their capacity to comply with regulatory requirements. Unfortunately, many suppliers and prospective clients believe these objectives are easier stated than done. 

Being a DoD contractor eyeing a big defense contract, you must be wondering if Google Workspace is CMMC/NIST, DFARS, and ITAR compliant. If you are looking for cybersecurity compliant cloud solution for your business, you must consider hiring CMMC consulting personnel when implementing any solution. 

Google Workspace and Compliance  

A Certified 3rd Party Assessment Organization assessed Google workspace’s capacity to meet the demands of NIST SP 800-171 and CMMC 2.0. Following that evaluation, the 3PAO granted Google Workspace a letter of attestation, which confirmed the platform’s capacity to meet the criteria of NIST 800-171 and CMMC 2.0.

Google Workspace also disclosed in July 2022 that it received a DoD Impact Level 4 (IL4) clearance. Organizations must implement Google’s Assured Workloads to benefit from the shared accountability features of the Workspace’s IL4 authorization. The organization’s Google Workspace environment is only a DoD IL2 environment without this product deployed.

Is Google Workspace CMMC/NIST compliant? 

Four CMMC 2.0/NIST 800-171 cybersecurity policies were found to have issues, according to the 3pAO letter of attestation:

Offer privacy and CMMC compliance cybersecurity notices in accordance with applicable CUI regulations, per CMMC AC.L2-3.1.9 and NIST 3.1.9.

Google Workspace does not meet CMMC AC.L2-3.1.9 / NIST 3.1.9 because it is unable to show notices upon user login. To successfully implement this control, the company would need to locate a suitable and compliant 3rd party technology.

Suspend identifiers after a predetermined amount of inactivity, per CMMC IA.L2-3.5.6 and NIST 3.5.6.

Workspace would necessitate establishing human procedures to disable inactive IDs beyond the organization’s established boundaries. Although neither control can be streamlined using Google Workspace’s features, the organization can nonetheless fulfill both of them.

NIST and CMMC IA.L2- 3.5.7 3.5.7 – Require a minimum level of password complexity and character diversity when generating new passwords.

Password reuse should be prohibited for several generations, per CMMC IA.L2-3.5.8 and NIST 3.5.8.

CMMC IA.L2- 3.5.7 / NIST 3.5.7 and CMMC IA.L2- 3.5.8 / NIST 3.5.8 can both be satisfied by Google Workspace, in contrast to the conclusions of the NIST 800-171 attestation letter. Users’ password requirements can be enforced and tracked by administrators in Google Workspace. The capabilities for custom configuration include things like credential length, complexity, and reuse time limits. As a result, the admin can modify the Workspace password policy to imitate the organizationally determined password values to satisfy both of the aforementioned controls.

In the end, Google Workspace may be used to satisfy CMMC 2.0 / NIST 800-171 criteria. 

However, that depends on the organization’s capacity to make up for the identified control shortcomings in CMMC AC.L2-3.1.9 / NIST 3.1.9 and CMMC IA.L2-3.5.6 / NIST 3.5.6.…

Things Digital Marketers Should Know Before Starting With Youtube Marketing

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As a digital marketing Virginia Beach professional, you are probably aware of the value of optimizing content for search engines to draw in a ready audience during their search journey. However, how to optimize your YouTube material for search may not be something you are considering. You may optimize your YouTube material similarly to how you do with on-page website features like titles, meta descriptions, tab headings, and body copy to rank higher in the algorithm used by the video platform.

Depending on your business objectives, high-ranking video content enables your branded content to show up in video search rankings, reach the right audience, and convert people into subscribers or paying customers. Every digital marketer should be aware of a few things before embarking on the path of YouTube marketing.

Be familiar with search engine algorithms.

Algorithms are mathematical formulas that search engines like Google and YouTube employ to decide what content to put up in response to a user’s search. These algorithms also gather various user-related data, so search results and rankings are personalized for each user. In light of this, how can companies profit from tailored results with authoritative content? Although search engines regularly alter their algorithms, there are some fundamental ways the algorithms evaluate your material. Consider keywords that match searches, keeping people on the site, and watch time as the three main elements at work for producing high-ranking video content on YouTube.

Think About Your Content Strategy

When developing an SEO strategy for IT solutions and managed services company, keep the audience in mind. Consider what questions they have, how your brand can help them find the answers, and how they are looking for this information. This prompts the search for high search volume keywords and the pursuit of unoccupied space where your rivals’ or other high-ranking sites’ content results aren’t already dominated (aka, keyword gap analysis). SEO keyword gap analysis might lead you astray and take you far from your brand’s core. Think of it as a closed loop to make things simpler. Your search engine optimization and link-building techniques should complement each other to support your content marketing plan.

Remember the brand’s content strategy when you conduct keyword research; this is where many marketers become distracted by high-volume prospects that conflict with the brand’s long-term goals.

Although it seems straightforward, many brands will go a long way with keyword strategies that aren’t in line with the brand’s content pillars. You won’t get very far like that. These strategies complement one another for a solid, well-rounded content marketing strategy.

To make your keyword analysis and YouTube video content a strategic component of your entire content marketing plan, start by outlining or updating your team on the wider content strategy.

Audit your YouTube Channel

Most likely, the content on your brand’s YouTube account is a mishmash. To try to maximize the ROI of a video created for another channel or for a particular campaign, many brands treat YouTube as an afterthought. Undoubtedly, this results in a fragmented, non-optimized strategy for video content.

Fortunately, it’s rather easy to audit, archive, and modify current content to increase the likelihood that Google will crawl it.

Here’s how to get started:

  • Observe your YouTube Analytics and Data Studio.
  • Depending on visits, view through percentages and other essential KPIs, and sort and filter your current content.
  • Examine the top-performing content’s applicability to current audiences (that is, determine whether it is outdated, whether the material is still correct, and whether it is a strong illustration of your brand strategy).
  • Mark it from your list and archive or delete it if it doesn’t meet your requirements.
…

How can Real Estate Business Boost Conversions Through Social Media Marketing?

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It is no surprise that one should undertake social media advertising with data-backed insights to compete effectively online. This is especially true for real estate marketing when everyone, from your competitors to freelancers, might be running a PPC campaign.

With all that commotion, you can understand how easily your competitors might drown out your brand voice.

This is where research, testing, and experimenting come into play to help you improve your approach. Because only by doing so will you be able to outperform your competitors and produce more prospects and, ultimately, revenue. Since, these approaches require deliberate planning and strategizing, one should consult digital marketing agency Virginia Beach for expert help.

Social Media Marketing for Real Estate Industry

Social media has shown to be a powerhouse in capturing attention and raising awareness. In this day and age, there is no doubt about it. The next challenge is how to use social media to close a few sales.

1. Understand your target market.

It all begins with getting to know your prospects. To be more precise, gather demographic data that you may utilize to generate sales for your social media ads.

Learn about your consumers via various lenses so that you may create buyer profiles that will help you strategy for better conversions. 

Here are a few examples of how you can implement this in practice:

  • Gather audience information from analytics platforms. Age, gender, geography, and interests are typical examples of relevant data. Apps such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and others may be used as analytics platforms.
  • Conduct polls on your social media networks. This consumer research might include Twitter surveys, Instagram responses, and even Facebook group threads from prior real estate clients.

2. Never skip testing

Many advertisers for IT support consultant clients assume that testing is a time-consuming and labor-intensive procedure that is not worthwhile for their business in the long term. However, testing is an essential aspect of any advertising campaign, especially in industries as large and competent as real estate.

Make use of a system’s machine learning tools. Most, if not all, social applications have their own commercial and advertising strategies with various machine learning levers. Use its data analytics and ad optimization solutions to execute all of your tests quickly and easily.

3. Test and experiment.

You may now assess your statistics and experiment based on the data you’ve collected and tests you’ve done on your platform. This will allow you to focus on components that work in your favor and use them in future marketing campaigns.

Use the following strategies for ad evaluation and experimentation:

  • Perform a heuristic review. Create your heuristics assessment and have specialists rate your current online ad using a predefined set of parameters.
  • Make certain that you are working with pros. Working with specialists ensures that you have powerful conversion levers that actually operate on your selected socials.

4. Enhance features for leads.

Now that you have all of the information you need to create a conversion-focused approach, you can create a real estate ad that makes use of the benefits of social media advertising.

There are several platform capabilities that you can leverage to increase reach and conversions. Choose the one that best meets your company’s objectives and ambitions.…

Understand API and How it is Different from Microservices

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Application Programming Interface, or API, is a component of an application, a software interface, or a protocol that specifies how two apps can interact and modify each other’s data, among other things. APIs are sometimes known as software solutions by app developers in Virginia because they concentrate on a particular service.

Broadly speaking, APIs are typically incorporated and held between the software’s essential parts and the application’s user interface.

Developers must either create their own APIs or integrate APIs from other companies into their software in order to give their program the functionality it needs to complete a task or to use that functionality provided by a third-party service provider. Developers must consult the high-level API reference document, best practices, or rules published by the owners when integrating a third-party API.

Types of APIs

Many various apps have APIs designed for them, but there are primarily two categories of APIs, which are as follows:

Internal APIs are exclusively utilized by authorized development and corporate management team members for internal application use scenarios, such as in-app communication.

In order to communicate public company data with related third parties, third-party APIs and resources must be coupled with external APIs. application services as a service, public cloud services, etc.

Popular API Design Styles

The following API design trends are the most often used by developers out of all those offered on the market:

Representational State Transfer APIs, or REST APIs, are developed using the REST architecture with the goal of integrating across platforms. Microservices can make use of these APIs as well. The HTTP requests that the REST APIs used are used to represent data in JSON format.

Simple Object Access Protocol APIs, or SOAP APIs, allow programs running on operating systems like Linux and Windows to communicate with one another using HTTP and XML formats. By interacting with this API, your app can generate, edit, drop (delete), and retrieve data like accounts, login passwords, etc.

Since GraphQL APIs have connectivity to all program data source points, they can answer your queries quickly and predictably, even if your device’s internet connectivity is slow.

The Role of APIs in The Software Development

The most flexible tools for creating your mission-critical apps are APIs, which enable developers to:

  • Create APIs based on containers.
  • Use many languages, such as Python, Go, Java, etc.
  • Use public cloud platforms to deploy applications.

APIs increase the value of services offered by IT companies in Virginia and streamline their deployment. As a result, you can provide detailed services.

Considering APIs as a product that works in conjunction with a developer portal. As a result, developers who have access to an API key are notified about how APIs are used. On the developer site, you can see:

  • The function and method of the service
  • Data organization and schema
  • The specifications for API development

How Do APIs and Microservices Differ From One Another?

Since APIs and microservices are used in tandem in the development architecture and share many characteristics, drawing comparisons between them could be rather misleading. How come we are saying this?

While APIs function more like an app interaction tool, facilitating cross-application interactions, microservices is a software development methodology. Consequently, technically speaking, APIs aid developers in igniting and energizing microservices to create a robust mission-critical application with a shorter time to market.

Each microservices element has its own private API to gain access to various microservices architectural components, much like an application that employs external APIs to interconnect with other public APIs.…

What is an Encryption Backdoor, and What are its Advantages and Disadvantages?

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Information can be encrypted so that only those with the proper keys can decipher it. In other words, encryption modifies decipherable data so that it appears arbitrary. On the other side, the backdoor is a way to get past the usual authentication process and gain access to a system or encrypted data. Before being extensively dispersed, it is often placed into software or algorithm. It is often concealed in the way the algorithm or software is designed. Since data protection has become a primary concern for businesses, they hire DFARS consultant to understand the importance of encryption backdoor.

What is an Encryption Backdoor?

A way to get around verification and retrieve encrypted data in some services is by using an encryption backdoor. It can also be described as a purposeful flaw made by the service operator to make it simple to access data that has been encrypted. Depending on the message’s context, an encryption backdoor would instead let the hacker guess the access key or present a master key that would always let him in.

Fundamentally, encryption weaknesses and backdoors are pretty similar because both give users a non-traditional means to access a system. However, backdoors and flaws vary in that backdoors are intentionally produced, whereas flaws are inadvertent.

Benefits of Encryption Backdoors

  • Law enforcement agencies and organizations might benefit from an encryption backdoor in their efforts to fight and prevent crime. Additionally, agencies would be permitted to wiretap communications and search suspects’ electronic devices to acquire information, which would speed up investigations. According to officials, a backdoor would be very helpful in terrorist and hate crime investigations.
  • When there is no other choice, it might be used to grant users access again. Additionally, it can be used for troubleshooting.
  • It can assist in locating CSAM that is concealed in applications that use encrypted messaging.

Drawbacks of Encryption Backdoors

  • Although an encryption backdoor could appear like a lifesaver in the fight against crime, it may eventually make many services and applications vulnerable. Hackers may make use of the same backdoor that governments and law enforcement organizations have argued strongly for, which would ultimately increase crimes.
  • Intelligence agencies could abuse a backdoor to get as much data as possible while surveilling people without a warrant.
  • IT groups would keep decryption keys in databases, providing hackers with a chance to obtain the keys and steal sensitive data from billions of users.
  • The backdoor to one IoT device will expose all other devices linked to the network in the case of IoT devices.
  • When businesses utilize multiuser and network security operating systems, the risk of encryption backdoors increases.

Are Encryption Backdoors necessary?

The introduction of encryption backdoors has angered major international tech companies. Encryption protects everything, including networks, gadgets, emails, and financial transactions. Even while law enforcement organizations may have the best intentions, it is crucial to realize that hackers would have a greater advantage online without reliable encryption.

There is no middle ground yet, and this discussion will only get more heated over time, as privacy experts and DFARS compliance professionals continually advise keeping the strictest encryption standards while, on the other side, law enforcement agencies are eager to have a backdoor in order to catch criminals. We currently have no choice except to protect our data as best we can.…