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Archive for November, 2008

Security Management Services

November 24th, 2008

It is imperative for all business organizations to exercise discretion in their operations and safeguard all the data pertaining to these operations. Leakage of crucial information can be detrimental for the organization in many ways. Competitors will make use of such vital data. There could be danger to the business even leading to dissolution of the business. Hence, it is very essential to keep confidential facts of every business inaccessible, and under layered safeguards. Fear of misuse or destruction of data is the most pressing concern. Seeking such protection is both lawful and moral.

These threats are posed not only by individuals or competitors, but also by the information systems themselves. By this we mean, the operating systems of an enterprise stand to lose critical facts and figures to malfunctions in the system like viruses, spyware, spamming, etc. The application and usage of the internet cannot be undermined or under-rated in today’s world. So every information and operating system functioning today faces the risk of irreparable damage.

Threats come from all corners such as, unencrypted data in various office locations, new day to day application-level attacks, mismanagement of key infrastructures, poor user authentication, authorization and management, and human configuration errors.

Multi-national corporations, hospitals, defense services, governments, banks and other financial institutions generate volumes of statistics which ought to be protected. To secure such critical and vital records it is important to hire professional services of security providers. State and federal laws are more complex and require constant review for a company to be compliant. For example, following high-profile data security breaches in 2005 at ChoicePoint (where 163,000 records were compromised) and CardSystems (where 40,000,000 records were compromised), many other states used California SB 1386 as a model for developing their own data security breach disclosure laws. Today, 40 states in the country have passed data security breach disclosure laws, each with their own distinct notification requirements.

With different industries, threats can be more or less important. For example, Healthcare companies are responsible for 11% of all data breach incidents in the U.S. between 2000 and 2007. Although educational institutions have a greater number of incidents/records lost, healthcare ranks number two. Government came in 3rd. Education ranks quite high in total number of incidents but only accounts for 2% of all records compromised. Healthcare has a similar number records compromised, but accomplishes it with one third the incidents. So if your industry is under regulations such as HIPAA, you may have to dedicate more resources to information security management.

There are many security services providers one will come across while browsing the internet. It is essential to choose a service provider who will cater to the specific needs of the organization, as the security concerns of a bank will be different from that of hospital or a municipal corporation.

www.kraasecurity.com provides security for all groups seeking to safeguard fundamental and crucial information. KRAA Security is managed by professionals and experts who use their expertise in identifying and framing security solutions, and continuously updating them as per advancements in technology. They offer all this at very economically viable rates, wherein, a company has to part with very low monthly fees after an investment in the beginning.

The purview of services of KRAA Security broadly includes:

Network Security Operating System Security Application Security Compliance Testing.   Managed Security Services, Intrusion Detection/Prevention systems, Firewall management, Managed VPN Service, Content Filtering, Website monitoring, Virus scanning, Spam filtering, Vulnerability scanning, Phishing and Pharming defense and Host Intrusion Detection are some of the aids to facilitate the above services.   Visit the site of KRAA Security  www.KRAAsecurity.com for updates on information security. Contact us at info@kraasecurity.com

Brawell Smith

Computer Security , ,

The Bulletproof Network

November 16th, 2008

Filtrona Extrusion implemented a network redesign and network security solutions to guarantee uninterrupted business processes at sites across the United States and Mexico.
“Outsourcing seems like a sexy alternative for a lot of problems, but turning the management of your mission-critical infrastructure over to a third party is pretty scary,” says Jeff White, corporate director of IT for Filtrona Extrusion. When Jeff White joined Filtrona Extrusion as corporate IT director, the company was operating a single threaded network with mixed traffic mission-critical and non-mission critical traffic running side-by-side, with no way to separate or prioritize the two. In addition, the company experienced network performance problems and increasing amounts of downtime at its facility in Mexico. Because its manufacturing facilities run 24/7 and do not always have on-site technical resources available when there is a problem, the company needed a better solution.
“You just never know when things are going to happen, from a backhoe digging up a fiber cable or a more significant outage, and these situations were shutting down an entire facility,” says White. “Because the network is critical to all areas of our business, we needed to implement a fully redundant network to reconcile problems automatically and ensure we could remain up and running, no matter what the situation.”
Filtrona Extrusion is one of the largest manufacturers of extruded plastic profiles, sheets and specialty tubes in the United States. The company manufactures more than 40,000 different products for medical, merchandising, aviation, transportation, traffic, lighting, fencing and custom plastic industries. Its products range from catheter tubes, traffic posts and cones, plastic sheeting for fluorescent lights, air-conditioning ducts in commercial jets, and outdoor furniture.
All of Filtrona Extrusion’s business and manufacturing processes rely heavily on its managed network services. The company’s most critical business application is an enterprise resource-planning (ERP) system that runs on a centralized server in the corporate headquarters in Atlanta, with a standby server replicated in real time and located at a manufacturing facility in Tacoma, Wash. The ERP system manages sales, manufacturing, purchasing, shipping and receiving, accounting, and quality information for all locations, including additional manufacturing facilities in Illinois, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Monterrey, Mexico.
White uses a custom simple network-management protocol system to pull data off the routers directly in order to monitor the circuits and overall network performance.
Since plastic is a commodity product, Filtrona Extrusion must maintain complete visibility of its inventory at all times to ensure purchasing decisions can be made at the most advantageous price. Losing sight of inventory levels for as little as a few hours can prevent the company from taking advantage of spot-buy opportunities or force it to use a more-expensive, higher-grade of plastic than is required to fulfill an order for a customer. Moreover, if the ERP system is down, the company is unable to record quality data during the manufacturing process. Without the quality data, there is no way to certify that the product meets the requirements specified by the customer, and without the certifications, the product cannot ship.
“Our whole planning system depends on inventory,” says White. “Without it, we don’t know what materials to buy or how much to purchase for existing orders, which creates some very significant business issues that can cost the company tens of millions of dollars.”
White’s first step after joining the company was to evaluate the effectiveness of his outsourced providers. He needed to understand what the current providers had done, and what they could do moving forward to help him meet the company’s strategic objectives.

Bill Dodds is vice president of sales and marketing for Virtela Communications. Virtela provides managed network services and security solutions to many of the world?s largest and fastest-growing multinational companies. Currently serving customers across six continents, Virtela?s network reach spans more than 190 countries. The company?s Global Service Fabric provides the foundation for delivering an extensive managed services suite, including enterprise WAN services, remote access services, remote monitoring and management services, and managed security services.

Computer Security ,

Know Everything About Information Security

November 8th, 2008

Information Security means to give protection to the confidential materials of any organization and to restrict the availability of all information, be it the electronic, print or other types.

Everyone will agree to the fact that information assets are critical to any business and paramount to the survival of any organization in today’s global market. As there has been a rise in the cyber crimes, such as hacking, data thefts, data losses and virus attacks in the networking and software related jobs, the need of information security is growing by leaps and bounds.

Components of Information Security

Typically information security comprises of five components, such as:

1. Confidentiality

Information security ensures that information is shared only among authorized persons, within or outside the organization. Breaches of confidentiality happen due to improper handling of data through printing, copying, e-mailing or creating documents, etc.

2. Integrity

With proper information security, there is also the assurance of the information being authentic and complete. The term ‘integrity’ is regarded as the indicators of information security or lack of it. The integrity of data is not just restricted towards the correctness of data but it also verifies whether the data can be trusted and relied upon.

3. Availability

In information security, the person in charge of it makes sure that the systems can be accessed by authorized people whenever needed. It helps in delivering, storing and processing data in a responsible manner.

4. Accountability

Since there are different departments in an organization, confidential information needs to be protected and secured with utmost care. Most organizations build a culture of confidence in their employees, and all employees, particularly in senior and responsible positions understand that internal information and data is not to be shared or divulged to unauthorized persons. Some organizations also have specific departments where the people are entrusted with the responsibility of protecting the assets and confidential data .

5. Audit-ability

This component of information security has got two parts. Firstly, any system must be able to backtrack as that one can determine the positioning of the system during any emergency. Secondly, with auditing it becomes sure that the systems have all the necessary documented requirements.

Role of Information Security in Indian IT market

Over the past few decades, the information technology industry has placed India amongst the fastest growing IT exporters IT-Enabled Services (ITES) providers in the world.

According to a survey conducted by the National Association of Software and Services Company (NASSCOM), the Indian IT software and services sector showed a growth of 31.4 percent during 2005-06, and by 2010, it is believed that the IT and ITES sector will touch US$ 60 billion in exports. Looking at the phenomenal growth in IT jobs, the need of information security and network security experts is growing everyday in India.

According to market estimates, the IT Security market is worth $100 billion today and India itself is facing a shortage of over 1,88,000 security professionals. Recognizing the growing need for information security management, reputed IT training institutions are providing regular and distance learning courses in information security training and network security training.

 

Mandira Kumar is working in a reputed IT firm in India. She is also an amateur writer and his write-ups mainly focus on the importance of information security training and network security training.

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