Protecting Information is a Business’ Top Priority Today.
(Aberdeen, S.D.)--- Safeguarding information contained within computer and data systems has never been more important for businesses and industries such as healthcare, insurance and financial services.
Adhering to new regulatory requirements such as the HIPAA Privacy Rule, which represents the first comprehensive Federal protection for the privacy of personal health protection, and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which requires companies to determine, and certify, whether their internal financial controls are sound enough to prevent fraud, have necessitated strict, new controls for organizations concerned with potential exposure.
Such stringent standards have magnified the importance of having comprehensive and effective firewall protection, an issue that Aberdeen, S.D.-based Expetec Technology Services has addressed with its new i-Witness Security Services, a firewall program that addresses three key issues - monitoring for intrusion attempts, anti-virus protection and content filtering - that are vitally important to businesses and organizations concerned with safeguarding their computer and data systems.
“I-Witness addresses all of these pertinent issues,” said Lonnie Helgerson, Expetec’s founder and CEO. “The healthcare industry must now comply with HIPAA’s standards and public companies are under the auspices of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. New auditing standards require proof of network security measures that a company has implemented to protect from intrusion.”
What sets I-Witness apart as an affordable, managed security solution?
1. Intrusion Monitoring
24/7 monitoring by a network operations center monitors bandwidth usage and signals any variances that might indicate an intrusion or virus, an issue that is especially important for businesses and organizations because of the possibility of negative press that can result when security is not properly configured, managed or maintained.
Systemwide monitoring can also be focused on individual desktops, where unusual activity such as spamming can be easily identified. Insights into attacks and intrusion attempts are supplied through comprehensive reports.
2. Anti-Virus Protection
The Nimda virus caused $650 million in damage before most solutions providers even knew it existed. Once an e-mail threat has been identified and blocked, i-Witness updates all client desktops with the new definitions, but unlike traditional anti-virus solutions, i-Witness goes one step further and does not allow connections to the Internet until it is guaranteed that all client desktops have been updated.
3. Content Filtering
Accessing pornography, hate sites and other inappropriate content can expose a business, organization and even schools to legal liability. Server-based solutions are often too expensive, while software alternatives are either unreliable or easily removed by users.
i-Witness content filtering is subscription-based and requires no additional hardware or integration cost. While others might provide only rudimentary protection, I-Witness allows clients to monitor and control bandwidth usage, safeguard students, improve productivity and prioritize traffic by filtering non-business or non-educational web sites. Content and web applications can be blocked for an entire network or specifically to individual users during designated time periods.
Such concerns underscore the importance of having firewall protection that is properly configured, managed and maintained. Having due diligence in those areas might seem obvious, but that’s not always necessarily so.
“Most companies say they have a firewall, but it might not be configured properly and it might not even be turned on,” said Helgerson, whose program utilizes SonicWALL firewall technology. “Using I-Witness is like having a guard at the door.”
i-Witness offers bronze, silver, gold and platinum levels of service ranging in cost from $70 to $220 per month, not including installation.
