E-Business
Why Your Company Needs Cloud Visibility
As organizations migrate to the cloud, they outsource the management of their computing infrastructure to cloud service providers. These specialized firms take care of the complex engineering involved, and allow their client businesses focus on their core operations.
But there’s often a tradeoff involved. When you ask cloud firms to look after segments of your IT, you risk losing your hold on the system. You may be unable to tell where critical functions are located, or where a security breach has occurred.
The IT person has a phrase for this. It’s called a loss of cloud visibility.
What is Cloud Visibility?
Cloud visibility is having a good view of the activity in your cloud, such that you can spot inefficient performance and security lapses in your cloud setup. It’s being able to access the data you want from your clouds.
You can maintain high visibility of your IT environment if the supporting infrastructure is located on-premise. In this scenario, you have complete control of your security. You can implement measures to keep costs down. And you could also assess performance in real time, and enforce corrections as quickly as you like.
But with the cloud, there’s a potential limit to your powers. A service provider runs your cloud setup on your behalf. They control the data centers that store your data, and are also in charge of the data that travels through their networks.
Cloud visibility is about retaining a good deal of your IT infrastructure while they are hosted by an expert third party—a blending of the benefits from both on-premise setups and service provider’s data centers.
Why is Cloud Visibility Important?
We have already hinted at some of the benefits of greater cloud visibility. Let’s look at them in a little detail:
- Performance Tracking
You may think that you don’t need to actively monitor the performance of your clouds or networks if there’s a specialized service provider doing this for you.
But there are performance issues that may arise, which you will only be able to solve if you have good visibility of what goes on with your cloud.
Here’s an example. You may want to know what your cloud traffic is like. If there’s a fall in cloud traffic, it could indicate deteriorating quality of service to your customers from your end. But unless you’re tracking this, you may not be aware that it’s happening.
- Security
Firewalls and threat detection systems will work for on-premise computing infrastructure. But it’s not sufficient for cloud environments. Because cloud infrastructure is sprawling and elastic, your security team may find it hard to watch over everything that goes on with it.
If you achieve greater visibility of your cloud, you will be better able to spot security lapses and fix them soon enough.
- Managed Costs
Increased visibility lets you discover underutilized resources and waste in your cloud setup.
For instance, there may be unused capacity in your cloud. Or a significant amount of workloads on your clouds could be non-productive. You will be paying for these things, despite the fact that they aren’t contributing to growth in your organization.
When you have a good view of the underutilization or excess capacity in your systems, you can adjust them to improve efficiency and scale back capacity. This saves you time and money.
What Hinders Cloud Visibility?
These are some of the factors that restrict cloud visibility.
- Scale
The cloud is attractive because of its scalability. But scaling up comes with some risks. If you increase capacity, you will have a broader spread of infrastructure to monitor. You could even be managing multi-clouds. That’s more difficult to manage than a fixed on-premise data center.
An expanded IT infrastructure throws up security challenges as well. When there are so many different segments to look after, it’s possible that certain security vulnerabilities will go undetected. It will be difficult to achieve a uniform application of security policy.
Even when your team detects a problem, they could struggle to locate the source because of the scale of the cloud setup.
- Control
Many businesses assume that it’s alright to relinquish control of their cloud to managed service firms. But this approach can be counterproductive.
Companies that use public cloud don’t own the data centers on which their data gets stored. They also don’t control the networks that their data runs through. This automatically limits what they can learn about their clouds.
There’s nothing wrong with cloud service providers managing and running cloud setup on a company’s behalf. That company will benefit from their expertise, and from the time and resources that it will save by outsourcing to them. But this doesn’t mean that it should stop paying attention to its clouds.
- Inadequate Visibility Tools
There are tools that allow you to monitor your workloads on cloud platforms. But it’s not enough to just have a tool. It has to be something that you as a customer can use. Some cloud service providers will avail their clients of visibility solutions, but these are often not service-centric enough to work for clients.
The effort required to evaluate and choose visibility tools may also discourage businesses from using them.
How to Improve Your Cloud Visibility
These are the steps you can take to improve cloud visibility.
- Adopt a Shared Responsibility Model
Service providers will usually take care of the security surrounding your cloud. But it’s up to you to regulate what happens within your cloud environment. This is what a shared-responsibility model in cloud service provision looks like.
Your in-house IT team has a role to play here. They should track your data, applications, and user activity within your organization. This lets you restrict the room for malicious actors to break into your networks.
- Use Cloud Integration Solutions
The sheer variety of applications that run on your cloud could make it difficult for you to gain cloud visibility. You can deal with this issue by using a cloud integration platform. This solution enables real-time exchange of data between your on-site and cloud environments, as well as between various applications that your organization uses.
- Train Your Team
Some of the issues you encounter with data and traffic monitoring may be happening because your employees aren’t skilled enough to manage the cloud environment.
This is something you want to fix, even before introducing cloud integration or monitoring tools. When your IT team is properly trained, they will be more efficient at monitoring your cloud resources.
Conclusion
Most discussions about cloud visibility focus on the technologies that can make it work. But trust between cloud service providers and their clients is also important. It’s key to implementing the shared responsibility that both you and your cloud service provider should have towards your infrastructure.
Layer3 takes this approach seriously. As a cloud service provider, we have served both clients in both the public and private sectors. No two organizations are the same. That’s why we work with each one of them to plan and deploy solutions that they meet their peculiar needs.
If you want a cloud provider partner that’s as much a partner as a vendor to your business, you can reach out to us. Send your questions via email to enquiry@layer3.com.ng, and we will respond in the shortest possible time. To request a free demo of our services, contact us here.
A new global survey from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) reveals that 52% of marketing leaders believe generic top-level domains (gTLDs – the three characters or more that come after the dot in a URL) have strong potential for enhancing brand presence online; however, a knowledge gap is preventing many brands from taking advantage of the opportunities that a gTLD can bring.
The research surveyed over 2,000 marketing leaders across eight countries (Brazil, China, India, Mexico, Nigeria, South Africa, U.K., and U.S.) with the purpose of creating a picture of the evolving digital marketing landscape and understanding the levels of awareness around gTLDs.
It comes as ICANN prepares to open the next application window for new gTLDs in April 2026 the New gTLD Program: Next Round – the first opportunity in more than a decade for organizations to apply to operate their own gTLD.
Top-level domains are the letters found at the end of an Internet address (with gTLDs including .charity, .menu, .paris and .ceo). Brands can apply to run their own gTLD as a way to indicate the purpose of their organization or to clearly mark a website as being related to their brand.
The research shows that increasing brand awareness and visibility is the top priority for marketing leaders (54%) and that over half believe that gTLDs have strong potential for enhancing brand presence online.
However, the research also shows that almost a third (32%) of marketing leaders surveyed are unfamiliar with gTLDs, which suggests that operating a new gTLD may be a strategic opportunity that many organizations are currently overlooking.
Key findings from the research include:
- After defining a gTLD, 92% of marketing leaders responded that they could see the potential benefits to gTLDs, with enhanced brand differentiation (46%), improved customer trust (45%), better control over online presence (44%), and improved SEO (44%) topping the list.
- 19% of marketing leaders work for organizations that have previously applied for a gTLD.
- Cost concerns (31%), knowledge gaps (27%), and insufficient resources (24%) were identified as the main barriers to application.
- The research revealed notable regional variations, with Nigerian (74%) and Indian (61%) marketing leaders showing the strongest belief in gTLDs’ potential for branding and online presence. In contrast, marketers in China expressed more mixed views, with 50% seeing strong potential but 49% considering gTLDs an unnecessary investment with unclear Return On Investment.
The findings come at a time when marketing leaders are facing significant challenges in standing out from competitors (53%), attracting and engaging the right audience (52%), and keeping pace with digital trends (47%).
A new gTLD can be an innovative tool for commerce and communication. They allow businesses in specific countries, sectors, or niche markets to create an exclusive, descriptive, and memorable label on the Internet.
An entity operating a gTLD can provide its users and customers with an extra measure of confidence in its security and legitimacy online. This can be valuable in today’s environment, where users often don’t know whether they can trust the source on the Internet.
Theresa Swinehart, SVP, Global Domains & Strategy said: “The New gTLD Program: Next Round presents an opportunity for businesses, communities, governments, and others to apply to operate their own secure space online, tailored to fit their organization, community, culture, language, and customer interests.
Now is also the moment for brands to consider applying for a gTLD, and this research tells us there is still a lack of awareness. ICANN can help provide information and raise awareness of the Next Round and the opportunity it presents for global communities, organizations, and businesses, including brands.”
To help address the knowledge gap, ICANN is developing resources to help organizations understand the application process and potential opportunities for gTLDs ahead of the 2026 application window. ICANN also offers the Applicant Support Program (ASP), which provides financial and non-financial assistance to eligible applicants.
Kaspersky’s Global Research and Analysis Team (GReAT) experts at the 10th annual Cyber Security Weekend – META 2025 held recently, talked about supply chain attacks and reported that by the end of 2024 a total of 14,000 malicious packages were found in open-source projects, a 48% increase compared to the end of 2023. 42 million versions of open-source packages have been examined by Kaspersky throughout 2024 in search for vulnerabilities.
Open-source is software with source code that anyone can inspect, modify, and enhance. Popular open-source packages include GoMod, Maven, NuGet, npm, PyPI, and others.
These are tools that power countless applications and help developers easily find, install, and manage pre-built code libraries, making it simpler to build software by reusing code others have written. Attackers take advantage of the popularity of these and other packages.
In March 2025, the Lazarus Group was reported to have deployed several malicious npm packages, which were downloaded multiple times before removal. These packages contained malware to steal credentials, cryptocurrency wallet data, and deploy backdoors, targeting developers’ systems across Windows, macOS, and Linux.
The attack leveraged GitHub repositories for added legitimacy, highlighting the group’s sophisticated supply chain tactics. Kaspersky’s GReAT also found other npm packages related to this attack. Malicious npm packages could have been integrated into web development, cryptocurrency platforms, and enterprise software, risking widespread data theft and financial losses.
In 2024, a sophisticated backdoor was discovered in XZ Utils versions 5.6.0 and 5.6.1, a widely used compression library in Linux distributions. Inserted by a trusted contributor, the malicious code targeted SSH servers, enabling remote command execution and threatening countless systems globally.
Detected before widespread exploitation due to performance anomalies, the incident highlighted the dangers of supply chain attacks. XZ Utils is integral to operating systems, cloud servers, and IoT devices, making its compromise a threat to critical infrastructure and enterprise networks.
In 2024, Kaspersky’s GReAT discovered that attackers uploaded malicious Python packages like chatgpt-python and chatgpt-wrapper to PyPI, mimicking legitimate tools for interacting with ChatGPT APIs.
These packages, designed to steal credentials and deploy backdoors, capitalised on the popularity of AI development to trick developers into downloading them. These packages could have been used in AI development, chatbot integrations, and data analytics platforms, endangering sensitive AI workflows and user data.
“Open-source software is the backbone of many modern solutions, but its openness is being weaponised. The 50% rise in malicious packages by the end of 2024 shows attackers are actively embedding sophisticated backdoors and data stealers in popular packages, which millions rely on.
“Without rigorous vetting and real-time monitoring, a single compromised package can trigger a global breach. Organisations need to secure the supply chain before the next XZ Utils-level attack succeeds,” comments Dmitry Galov, Head of Research Center for Russia and CIS at Kaspersky’s Global Research and Analysis Team.
Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) has launched an investigation into allegations that the confidentiality and integrity of candidates’ personal data may have been compromised by hackers.
The Commission initiated the inquiry following concerns over possible data breaches during examinations.
Preliminary findings indicate that several examination centres may not have implemented adequate technical and organizational measures to safeguard candidates’ personal information, as required under data protection regulations.
Although the incident reportedly affected 379, 997 candidates, the NDPC’s investigation is poised to cover a systemic audit of data processing and third parties.
It will be recalled that JAMB recently admitted that a technical error on its platform affected a total of 379,997 candidates in 157 examination centres across Lagos and the South-East.
Further investigation led to the arrest of at least 20 suspects who are currently in the custody of the Department of State Services and the Nigerian Police Force.
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