Networking & Cyber Security
“Rather than rely on a phone line, digital cloud fax uses any device connected to the Internet (whether PC, tablet or mobile) to send and receive faxes. It transmits emails with faxes as attachments either to physical fax machines or other digital fax services (such as mobile apps). Documentation is encrypted before it is sent and remains protected through processing and transfer, making it more secure than standard email. By allowing faxes to be read directly on devices (and digitally archived), overheads such as hardware maintenance and printing costs can be reduced, while having a dedicated fax number is also no longer required.”
It is not free – Time and time again, fax is seen as free, but it is still very much part of the telephone bill, it just has not previously been separated out. As they wrestle to keep fax going, IT needs to be aware that it is not a new cost, but an old one repackaged. Whatever solution they choose, they need to factor that in. New infrastructure requirements – As PSTN switches off, many fax machines are going to become redundant. IT is then faced with finding a digitally suitable update – if they go down the hardware route, this could be a major undertaking. Tat is why the PSTN switch-off offers an opportunity to reduce hardware maintenance costs while still facilitating the use of fax.
Different security challenges – As the world becomes more security conscious, businesses are waking up to the fact that the human factor is quite oſten the cause of many breaches, whether intentional or not. Many people make the mistake of thinking that legacy fax is a secure method of communication, with the result that fax machines send confidential data all the time. While the actual method of delivery may have been secure, most fax hardware is in the centre of an open-plan office, and how many recipients wait for faxes to come through? Important information can be leſt out in the open for some time. Plus, the assumption that fax is secure can lead to issues when the technology is integrated with wider systems, with many organisations overlooking how attackers could use unsecured fax machines to access corporate networks. If businesses are going to continue with fax in the post-PSTN world, they need to be clear on how they are securing it.
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Te migration challenge – Oſten there is no central oversight of the use of fax within a company. Tat is why IT needs to audit the entire organisation for the use of fax before it goes ahead with a PSTN switch-off. Tey will need to be prepared for a lack of understanding and knowledge – at one enterprise, a company-wide request for fax machines to be logged with IT led to many being leſt in the IT centre over the weekend, with no indication of where they had come from or how much they had been used. IT managers may well be suited to creating hybrid environments
to support both the cloud-native and legacy applications that businesses need in order to deliver intuitive customer experiences. Where they fall short could be their lack of specific functional knowledge to support the migration of non-IT legacy infrastructure, such as the critical understanding of complex communication networks. What they need to be aware of is that there is still a place for old
approaches when there is not an adequate replacement. Fax is one of those. But to see fax as a necessary legacy evil is to miss a major
integration opportunity. Te rise of digital cloud fax offers businesses a best-of-both-worlds solution – a fax-based method of communication that is integrated into the latest digital technologies, including email. Rather than rely on a phone line, digital cloud fax uses any device
connected to the Internet (whether PC, tablet or mobile) to send and receive faxes. It transmits emails with faxes as attachments either to physical fax machines or other digital fax services (such as mobile apps). Documentation is encrypted before it is sent and remains protected through processing and transfer, making it more secure than standard email. By allowing faxes to be read directly on devices (and digitally archived), overheads such as hardware maintenance and printing costs can be reduced, while having a dedicated fax number is also no longer required. It also means that a company’s fax needs can migrate onto its
existing IT infrastructure and network – the same cloud servers that support email can be used to deploy digital cloud fax. In doing so, IT departments can avoid costly new investments into new hardware and can focus on auditing fax users and then provisioning the appropriate digital cloud fax solutions as an alternative.
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