Tag Archives: Wayne (Pennsylvania)

About 1788 days ago Data Security

Can Outsourcing Better Protect Customer Data?

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“Is it inherently insecure to let someone else handle your own security?” mused an October 2007 report by Forrester Research. Not if a reputable firm can do the job better and for fewer greenbacks than you can, experts say. In today’s marketplace, your company must meet a dizzying number of compliance regulations, with acronyms to match, if you store your customers’ personal or financial information.  Everything from the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) to the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) to Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) requirements. High-profile cases of laptops containing such data being stolen have added to the angst. Meanwhile, many smaller businesses just don’t have the manpower to handle these added security concerns. “You might have someone on-site who can put in a firewall or a VPN [virtual private network] gateway, and then forgets about it,” warns Guy Fardone, chief operating officer and general manager with Wayne, Pa.-based Evolve IP, a managed security and compliance services firm. “So no one is looking at it, and no one is updating it…they never inspect it.” As a result, there is no threat detection and the system is at risk, he says. Does this sound familiar? Providers come in several flavors If it does, hiring a managed security services provider (MSSP) may be the solution. They can step in and install and manage firewalls, VPNs, vulnerability management, Web filtering and anti-spam, security intelligence services, and wireless and mobile functions.  According to the Forrester report, there are several types of these providers, including: Managed services specialists, such as Evolve IP, SecureWorks, and Solutionary; Security product or service vendors, including VeriSign, McAfee, MessageLabs, and Google’s Postini, which offer either security services or products; Telcos and managed services providers, such as Verizon Business, AT&T, and Sprint now offer some of these services. Which type of MSSP should you choose? That, experts say, depends on how extensive your needs are. For example, do you need consulting, hardware, and services, or only some of these? Telcos do not provide compliance consulting, “but if requirement number one for PCI [compliance] is that you need a firewall, you can get one through a telco,” notes Doug Barbin, director of product management with Mountain View, Calif.-based VeriSign. VeriSign, which offers a full range of MSS products and services to enterprise customers, currently services the small business market only through telco partners such as AT&T, Barbin says. Other service vendors may cover specific security needs (for example, MessageLabs offers email protection and archiving services) but not a full range of service. A so-called pure-play MSSP, such as SecureWorks or Evolve IP, can provide a wide range security and compliance systems and consulting, notes Evolve IP’s Fardone. The cost can start at $100/month for a managed firewall and run over $1,000/month for a threat detection service, but is still “cheaper than hiring someone,” he says. Choose wisely and get everything in writing The next big question: whom to choose? “Like choosing a doctor, the customer’s lack of specified knowledge in the field makes trust an essential issue,” the Forrester report notes. Many companies tend to rely on word of mouth. Whomever you choose, make sure the service-level agreement (SLA) you draw up with the company is crystal clear and is done with legal help. This IncTechnology article on avoiding security pitfalls with subcontractors can help. Experts recommend that the SLA includes enforcement rights, consequences, and a policy about how sensitive data will be destroyed after use. After all, a good security agreement with the correct firm can save you time, money — and your bottom line.

About 1788 days ago Wireless Networks

What Can Managed WAN Offer?

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Three offices, three different states, 100 employees. They needed a secure, managed wide-area network (WAN) to link them – fast — and didn’t have the staff to do it themselves, recalls Bo Breneman of DVFG Companies. “We had a very short timeframe to put these systems in place, and no one in the office to do it,” she remembers. In a company that sells life, property, and casualty insurance, investment products, and health care benefits — and works with sensitive customer data — finding a trusted partner to configure a secure network was a must. Breneman, an IT director, solved the problem by bringing in Evolve IP, a Wayne, Pa.-based managed technology service provider. Faster, better than homemade “They were awesome,” she says, handling the company’s wiring, phone systems, offline exchange, backup, and customizing their T1 and data service between regional offices in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. “They did follow-up, they made additional suggestions, things we didn’t even know to ask them. They made it easy,” she says. Breneman is not alone. According to a May 2008 survey by Forrester Research, 21 percent of enterprise firms surveyed used managed services to handle their network and telecommunications needs in 2007. For smaller firms, the needs can be just as great. External WAN management can help small businesses achieve the same level of service and security as a much bigger company, without the price tags that come with in-house staffing and duplicative hardware. “If you’re a business with multiple locations, you may wonder, ‘Do I need three networks? Or one?’” notes Scott Kinka, senior vice president of network services for Evolve IP. With a WAN, he notes, businesses can do more with less — video, voice, and Internet connections — but not without dedicated, knowledgeable staff. “It requires know-how that existing staff might not have,” Kinka adds. “The answer to everything used to be, just get more bandwidth. But this is not always the solution now.” Offices may not need as much connectivity as before, but they need systems that can manage fluctuations in demand for voice, video, and Internet data traveling over the same systems. Making this work, he says, “requires different management.” A good option for small businesses While small and mid-sized businesses often seek out hosted services for many individual functions, such as an Internet connection, voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), or even the newer multiprotocol label switching (MPLS), “It’s difficult in the WAN world to purchase a hosted service,” adds Guy Fardone, Evolve IP’s chief operating officer and general manager. Breneman adds that working with an external managed provider has given the company’s network a custom-made quality they never could have achieved themselves. “I can access my system from home through the tool bar on Windows, and make changes to it,” she says. The bottom line?  An externally managed WAN can save you time, money, and worry.

About 1818 days ago Business Software

The Software License Police

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Don’t take let your business take software for granted. After you pay for the package, your obligation to the manufacturer doesn’t end — ever. Part of your agreement in buying software involves pledging to carry out the terms of the manufacturer’s license and warranties. And watch out if you violate those agreements. Having too many users for too few computers or letting staff copy software onto their home computers may be a violation of those terms that could cost your business. The Business Software Alliance (BSA), a Washington, D.C.-based industry group, sometimes audits firms for members. Fines can run up to $150,000, paid to the manufacturer, which adds up to a costly piece of software. Software is an intellectual property, like music, books, and art, and the real cost of the software is not the actual software, but the license to use it properly. The sooner companies understand and comply with the fine print in licensing agreements, they better equipped they’ll be in avoiding the consequences of software violations. Avoiding violating software terms Here are tips to avoid software licensing problems — and potentially costly fines — at your business: Set the tone from the top down. Top management must communicate to their staff the importance of keeping up-to-date with software licenses and must stress that violations will not be tolerated. Jenny Blank, BSA’s senior director of legal affairs, says employees must be informed of their company’s software policy so they can avoid the “I just didn’t know” excuse many violators commonly use. Appoint a software manager. This person’s responsibility is to retain files on all the software licenses and warranties, conduct audits, keep up with tools, resources and upgrades, take inventories, and distribute software property rights information to the staff. Use a managed software provider (MSP). Since managed service providers host their client’s software, software compliance is generally assured. Janel Ryan, product manager at SunGard Availability Services in Wayne, Penn., says that as a Microsoft Gold Partner, they have a blanket license key that reports to Microsoft how many licenses and customers they have. When companies hire an MSP to keep track of their long software key identifiers and work directly with software vendors, then the burden of software compliance doesn’t have to fall on a few people at a small company. Use BSA’s tools and resources. On BSA’s website, businesses can access the organization’s “Tools and Resources” page, which offers free 30-day trials of automated software audit tools, IT manager tracking/compliance sheets, guides about software piracy, and more.  On the software side R. “Ray” Wang, principal analyst for Forrester Research, says software companies can also make compliance easier by allowing companies to add users with the touch of a button, instead of having them wait weeks for approvals and contracts. “Doing so would save the vendor a lot of grief and the companies would add additional users as they grow,” Wang says. It’s easy for small businesses to ignore software compliance because some might consider software a support function that doesn’t directly affect their bottom line. Wang says most people don’t go out of their way to commit software violations, since some don’t know how many licenses they should have or what compliance laws they have broken. However, these excuses won’t exonerate a business that violates these agreements.

About 4861 days ago E-Commerce

Dispatches from the Web Economy

If you’re not on-line yet, you will be soon. That’s the finding of a recent study commissioned by Prodigy Biz Corp., which found that one-third of U.S. small businesses were on-line. The smallest organizations were the least likely to have taken the plunge. Only one in four companies with fewer than 10 employees reported that it had an Internet presence, while half of those with 10 or more employees were on-line already. Nearly 75% of small companies reported that cost was not a barrier for getting onto the Web. The survey results ranked reasons for going on-line as follows: promoting to prospects (69%); doing E-commerce (57%); providing better customer service (48%); competing with other businesses (46%); and communicating with employees (11%). Of course, few small businesses suggested that doing business on the Internet was easy. More than 40% of the small-business owners surveyed claimed that they did not have the staff or the time to maintain a Web site. And 66% didn’t believe that the Web offered them significant growth opportunities, because they are local businesses. Such quibbling aside, many off-line small businesses planned to get on-line in the near future. Some 40% of businesses that didn’t have Web sites — approximately 2.1 million — said they would be on-line soon. The study was conducted by International Communications Research. –Mike Hofman Four years ago Jayesh Patel, managing partner of the Los Angeles law firm Parker Mills & Patel, hung his firm’s shingle out on the Web. Although Patel intended to communicate to the firm’s base of big-ticket customers, the overwhelming response to the site has been from prison inmates, who write or call collect in search of a lawyer. “We don’t know what to do about it,” Patel says. “We can’t sort of boldly put on our Web page ‘Prison inmates, please don’t bother us.” His misconception, he says, was expecting the Web audience to be much like his client base: professionals in management positions with a good income. “The audience is far, far bigger than we would have predicted.” –Emily Barker “I like banner advertising,” says Vincent J. Schiavone, CEO of 4anything.com, a three-year-old Web business based in Wayne, Pa. A recent Andersen Consulting study concurs, concluding that experienced U.S. Web users are more likely to buy on-line from a company after exposure to banner ads than they are after exposure to traditional advertising. Schiavone has found that banner ads are actually a great way to promote the thousands of sites that his 100-person company produces. The CEO reports that he can buy ads on portal sites for as little as $2 per thousand page views. And since companies that sell, for example, lacrosse sticks are willing to pay a decent price to advertise on 4Lacrosse.com, Schiavone can mark up his banner-ad pricing. “The economics work for us on both ends,” he says. –M.H. Attention, dot-coms: your mountains of venture capital no longer guarantee you special treatment in the ad world. Scheyer/SF Inc., a boutique ad agency in San Francisco that handles accounts like EMusic.com, demands 50% of a campaign’s cost up front. “If the check isn’t in our hands, we do not do the work,” says agency president and founder Dennis Scheyer. He adds that ad costs are skyrocketing. Demand for airtime is so strong that when companies cancel an ad, TV and radio stations resell that time to another company at a higher rate. He points to one local radio station that a few years ago would have charged $500 for a 60-second spot. Now the price is $5,000. One more thing. Once the spot is contracted, dot-coms often have to guarantee it immediately and with cash. Call it the ad industry’s version of due diligence. No one’s waiting to see who wins and who loses in the dot-com game. –Anne Marie Borrego THE 7 MYTHS OF THE WEB ECONOMY Myth 1: Building a Web site is easy The word from the experts Myth 2: Traffic will make you rich The word from the experts Myth 3: Smart money makes you smart The word from the experts Myth 4: Razzle-dazzle makes Web sites great The word from the experts Myth 5: Brand is everything The word from the experts Myth 6: Wild ads make Web stars The word from the experts Myth 7: Community, community, community The word from the experts Plus: Tales my guru told me Dispatches from the Web economy Back to Intro, ” I Was Seduced by the Web Economy”