We’re going to Vegas baby!
The BDS team is heading to Las Vegas next week and exhibiting at the International Legal Technology Association’s 2010 conference. ILTA puts out a quarterly magazine (Peer to Peer, in which BDS was featured a few months back), and is the show to attend if you deal at all with the legal IT space. Come by and meet us and learn about the new BDS 4.0 release, as well as our new iManage integration module.
Over a year in the making, we finally launched version 4.0. This is a pretty big release for us and adds a number of exciting features! Read the full release here.
The launch of BDS 4.0 sets a new standard for ease of use in a secure file transfer solution. Simple and straightforward for end users, BDS 4.0 raises the bar for system customization, flexibility, and features that administrators will love. Some of those features include:
- Automatic file compression to accelerate file transfers
- Ability to upload entire folders (and their sub-folders)
- Outlook 2010 add-in
- Collaboration
- User preferences
- Support for OpenLDAP and SunONE LDAP
- AutoPost and AutoFetch utilities for automated transfers
Come see us at Booth 437 at the upcoming ILTA conference (International Legal Technology Assocation) in Las Vegas August 22-26, 2010. The theme will be Strategic Unity, a concept for integrating technology with the practice of law.
This is a great way to network with other legal technology professionals to attend educational sessions, see what’s coming down the pike regarding compliance, and the latest secure file transfer and collaboration tools.
Healthcare IT News just published an interview with Mark Haas, associate director of health information services at Mass General Hospital, one of the premier hospitals in the world. Mark discusses how MGH implemented Biscom Delivery Server to more than double the number of release of information (ROI) requests they can handle with the same staffing. MGH is now handling 52,000 releases per year with the help of BDS.
Another interesting statistic – MGH has reduced their costs for providing these medical records to insurance companies, law firms, and others who request them from $16.08/request down to $5.61 – a 65% savings. MGH also benefits by using BDS to comply with meaningful use objectives.
To see the full case study on MGH, go here.
Our latest newsletter has just been published with the latest news, tech tips, and announcement of BDS version 4.0 this summer.
Biscom and Pro2col Ltd, a privately held company specializing in the supply and integration of network security and secure file transfer solutions, will demonstrate BDS at InfoSecurity Europe, April 27-29, 2010, Earls Court, London, UK. Pro2col and Biscom will be exhibiting together in Booth R88.
The International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) just published its March issue of Peer to Peer magazine. You’ll find an article I authored on data breaches, privacy laws, and how secure file transfer can help companies distribute their confidential information while complying with various legal requirements. You can also use this link to download the specific article as a PDF.
The Ponemon Institute released a new study on the Federal government accessing your electronic health records. The study showed that people actually care about their privacy, at least when it comes to government workers.
See the article in Forbes.
Up to $204 per compromised record. That’s the latest data the Ponemon Institute has collected based on their annual study. Ellen Messmer’s PC World article on the cost of data breaches again supports the notion that, just like your doctor keeps telling you, preventive strategies will save you in the long run, in more ways than one.
The article also contains a link to the 2009 Data Breach Hall of Shame, which is interesting reading. Heartland Payment Systems topped the list with 130 million records breached through SQL injection! Ouch.
Google is not infallible? That’s crazy talk. Well, this apparent leak just goes to show that no company or organization is truly safe from data breaches. This was not an intentional or malicious data breach, and most data breaches are not — it was simple human error, which is never going to be extinguished as a potential chink in a company’s data protection armor.
If Google were using Biscom Delivery Server for its secure communication however, this could have been avoided. Even if it was sent out in error (which even the best DLP solutions may not catch), the recall feature of BDS could have prevented the leak.
Read about the leak here: http://www.pcworld.com/article/186719/google_blames_human_error_for_data_leak.html
Biscom was interviewed by the Boston Business Journal a few weeks ago, and the story just came out. At a time when many high tech businesses in Boston are hurting, Biscom stands out as a profitable, growing company, and it’s nice that we’re being recognized for that.
Biscom’s roots do go back to computer fax technology (Biscom invented the category of a computer-based fax server back in 1986), but Biscom has expanded its scope to include all kinds of document delivery, including secure file transfer, workflow, imaging solutions, cloud-based offerings, VM appliances, and Fax over IP.
You can read an excerpt here, but you’ll need to register to read the full story.
Sean Doherty at Law.com wrote a great review of BDS. I’m impressed with the level detail he included in his review — he really dug down deeply into the configuration and setup, but he also goes over usage scenarios in just as much detail. Sean’s audience is probably on the more technical side, and he gives that audience the necessary technical specifics they’ll want to hear about, but he also does a fine job of describing the business case for secure file transfer at a high level. I’d say this is a good primer for people in IT who would be responsible for deploying our solution.
I talked to Kelly Jackson Higgins from Dark Reading for an article she was working on. She’s been covering IT for a number of years, and her latest article discusses one aspect of a growing threat — the dangers of malicious software capturing FTP credentials and using them to hack into legitimate web sites. Because FTP is prevalent for updating web sites, having the credentials gives hackers the opportunity to inject their own code into web pages unbeknownst to the site owner. These infected pages may redirect a visitor in a phishing scam, collect user credentials on login pages, or spread the malware or bot to increase the scope of infection. There are a number of other vulnerabilities in FTP that makes it hard to justify as a viable file transfer solution, and this is just one more nail in the FTP coffin.
Just had a conversation with Mark Gilbert at Gartner a few days ago. That guy knows his stuff! We updated him on Biscom’s SharePoint development and that we’ll be exhibiting at the Microsoft SharePoint conference this Fall (October 19-22, 2009 in Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas). If you’re a Gartner client and have SharePoint questions, want to know who the players are, and where Microsoft is going with this technology, Mark is the guy to talk to!
I just had a talk with Carol Baroudi, Security Research Director at Aberdeen, today. She wrote an excellent, data-driven whitepaper on Secure File Transfer which you can download for free here. Some of you may know Carol from her Internet for Dummies book. She’s updating her SFT whitepaper and wanted to find out what’s new in the secure file transfer space. Well, lots actually!
It made me think about what we’ve been up to in the last 6-12 months here at Biscom. We released version 3.1 of Biscom Delivery Server just last month, added a new compliance role, introduced a Chinese language version of BDS, set up a real-time monitoring tool for watching system activity and user transactions, added support for user quotas and user expiration, and have built new modules for automating many of the manual tasks of sending and receiving files.
One topic we covered quite a bit is the cloud. We’ve been secretly offering a cloud version of BDS for a while now, and will be coming out with an official offering soon. We see a big market for cloud computing, and secure file transfer really fits in nicely as a cloud solution — no CAPEX, reduced management of physical servers, robust performance, scalable performance as demand increases, and often it’s faster because of better availability of bandwidth. We’ve also designed our cloud solution with our premise solution in mind, so customers can start off with our cloud offering, and easily migrate to a premise solution as their needs change. Moving from cloud to premise, end users will not see any change in the user interface or have to change their existing behavior, and all their files and deliveries will still be available. Companies can also go the other way — from a premise to cloud solution just as easily! The hybrid approach that we’re taking offers a lot of flexibility to our customers. Many want to explore the cloud, but would like an easy alternative if they need it brought in-house, or vice versa. Carol calls it “security as you like it,” and I think that’s a perfect description of our hybrid model.
I could probably keep this blog filled with all the data breaches happening these days, but that would be an exercise in futility — there are just way too many to report, and for every one reported, there are probably hundreds that aren’t.
One data breach, however seems particularly scary — President Barack Obama’s ride (when he’s not flying in Air Force One) had its blueprints and details of its avionics package leaked. Tiversa, a company that monitors P2P networks, discovered the information on an IP address in Tehran, Iran, and traced the leak back to a defense contractor’s computer in Bethesda, MD.
First, the person who installed this P2P sharing software should have known better. Second, the company should have these network sharing applications locked down, especially for anyone who has access to sensitive information. But we all know that where there’s a will, there’s a way. I’m sure this isn’t the only sensitive military secret that’s escaped from a computer on a P2P network.
Who knows what the P2P software on this computer was installed for — most likely sharing music, but what if the person used it to share legitimate business information because it was the easiest way to get his or her job done? It just goes to show you that it’s so important to have the tools in place, like a secure file transfer solution, so that employees don’t resort to non-secure methods to share information.
Just got a copy of Frank Kenney’s latest note on Managed File Transfer called “Key Issues for Managed File Transfer, 2009″ published this month. In our last meeting, Frank told me about MFT evolving from a siloed point solution into a broader, more integrated solution that has multiple touch points within an organization’s data delivery and management services. In addition to the obvious security requirements, Frank ties in aspects such as monitoring, reporting and auditing, provisioning, and workflow. He also flags a key issue — companies need visibility into the processes and systems that transport content, and a way to lock that content down during delivery. Frank also discusses adaptability, which he defines as the ability to leverage and connect to existing systems and infrastructure.
Biscom Delivery Server will definitely benefit from this new viewpoint — we’ve always believed that tying into existing investments such as LDAP and Active Directory, SAN and NAS storage systems, and common clients like email and Web applications, are critical features of any MFT/SFT solution. And it’s about time people looked at secure file transfer as not just a single, discrete function, but as an integrated enabling tool for sharing all sensitive information in this increasingly paranoid world. The demand is not just internal — companies are feeling greater pressure from their own customers and partners who are wary of how they are sending their personal and confidential data in.
There’s a lot more to Frank’s piece, so I recommend you request this paper if you’re a Gartner client. I’m just scratching the surface of Frank’s vision in this blog posting but Frank’s paper offers some interesting predictions at what’s coming down the MFT road.
We’re hosting a webinar with Derek Brink, VP and Research Director of IT Security at Aberdeen Group. Before joining Aberdeen, Derek was VP of Strategy at RSA, and has deep knowledge of security, encryption, and file transfer technologies. Derek will be discussing the growing threat of internal data breaches and what best in class companies are doing to prevent these problems.
So, mark you calendars for March 11th, 2009 from 1-2pm ET and register for this webinar. You’ll have the opportunity to talk to Derek and also have access to one of Aberdeen’s whitepapers on Secure File Transfer at the end of the webinar.
I’ll be speaking with Dave Brown from Rockland Trust (see previous blog entry) at the AIIM show in Philadelphia (March 30-April 2, 2009) and AIIM has been kind enough to provide a $200 discount for any new attendees. You can get the discount code here.
It’s going to be a fun session — Dave has a great story to tell, and I hope it helps others see the potential for a secure file transfer solution in their organization.
My first blog and my first blog posting. Actually, Frank Kenney, Research Director at Gartner, paid us an onsite visit today, and suggested that it might be worthwhile for me to start a blog on managed file transfer (aka secure file transfer/intelligent file transfer) and to start evangelizing the concept. As someone who’s been quietly evangelizing this for the last 8 years, I guess this is as good as any forum to share news, industry events, and other thoughts on the state of the SFT/MFT market (like the military, tech is full of acronyms).
Biscom Delivery Server (BDS for short, to remain true to the acronym-phillic technology community), is an enterprise Web-based secure file transfer application. (EWBSFTA?) BDS enables people (or machines/automated processes) to send files and messages to each other securely, while tracking every transaction that can later be used for reporting and auditing purposes (think regulatory or compliance requirements). Basically, if you have a file that contains sensitive or confidential information that you can’t send over email because it’s either too large or you’re concerned about other people being able to view it, and FTP, PGP, and other security technologies are too complex for your end users, then you need our product. BDS, above all else, is easy to use!
In a nutshell, here’s how it works.
Questions? Comments? I guess I’m opening myself up to the world now, so fire away!
