Cloud showed that last year was definitely lacking security and cost effectiveness.

Redlock (a palo alto company) reports for the year some interesting facts.

· Public cloud account compromises are fueling new attack vectors. This is causing 27% of organizations to have users whose accounts are potentially compromised. (RedLock)

· Only 12% of global IT organizations understand how GDPR will affect their cloud services. (Commvault)

· 84% of organizations say traditional security solutions don’t work in cloud environments. (Crowd Research Partners)

Regulatory is also forcing to create “private infrastructure”. This is in order to achieve better control over the critical data of the provider. Either B2B or B2C.

The Malta Gaming authority, recently published a new publication, regarding the new gaming act (Chapter 583 of the laws of Malta). It reminds licensed companies that they must operate in and from Malta.

Also, the UK Gambling Commision (UKGC) published the License conditions and codes of practice for the technical standards equipment specifications. It clearly referenced the location of the Key equipment document, that must be listed and be available for inspection, at any time to any enforcement agent.

They say “nobody does it better than us”. But many companies nowadays, are finding it difficult and costly to match the skills gap with the technology trends. Ultimately, this drives businesses to search for talent in countries across borders.

In 2018 we also saw a tremendous interest in Virtual sports – eSports. A very “high demanding” product that requires a seamless service for content delivery (CDN) over the Globe.

Content delivery networks such as cloudflare, have implemented various tools. This is to ensure content will reach the end user, even if they are on the other side of the planet.

Tools such as Global Routing, Caching, Firewalling, Load balancing and DDos mitigation, are all included in one service.

All bets are off, regarding Cybersecurity in the Betting and Gambling industry, whether land-based or online based.

In the last year we have witnessed many threats. They spread the panic to the decision makers allocating resources (people and money), to deal specifically with penetration testing to their platforms and systems.

Implementation of AI and Machine learning tools in the betting systems, allows companies to provide personalized content and bonuses. Therefore achieving player lifetime value.

Overwhelmed by these new technologies business, are now adopting such tolls that will give them competitiveness over the strongest market players.

Last year we have also seen businesses outsourcing or building a group of people, to create a platform that supports cryptocurrencies based on the blockchain technology.

This trend in 2018 required strong programming skills. While understanding technologies such as DLT (Distributed Ledger Technology) promising to wave out by core, security threats that now cost business a large amount of resources and money.

The Maltese government as a pioneer published the VFA (Virtual Financial assets Act 2018) to regulate the field of ICO’S (Initial Coin Offerings) and charted the path while embracing this new technology and its business whiting the globe .

Unless these technology trends face a significant reduction in the pace such skills will be very high in demand. This will force people to seek outsourcing partners. Mostly being pioneers that will start to drive this new technology to it’s what to be expected “digital transformation”.

Future is exciting . Let’s embrace it !!!