The PowerTech corporate offices in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, recently celebrated the arrival of October with a noticeable drop in outside temperatures, and a chilly blanket of several inches of snow. I’m told that hardy Minnesotans embrace these seasonal changes, but, coming from Iowa I know what the word “embraces” translates to: thick jackets, heavy boots, and a car that groans like a wounded animal when you try to start it in the morning!

It’s also the kick-off for the traditional fourth-quarter push for companies to allocate the remainder of their budgets. While this year has seen extensive financial hardship for individuals and companies alike, it has been an interesting one for a security solution provider such as PowerTech. While many technology initiatives were put on hold, or eliminated completely, many organizations have recognized that this type of economy is when you should be investing in security, as hardship often leads to a significant rise in security threats to your data.

A reduction in the workforce often stretches remaining resources to the limit, and manual tasks become an invasive burden on those companies already running with a lean staff. Who has time to manually pour through server event logs, when a day is consumed with “more important” tasks that someone else used to do?

The departure of users who had unrestricted access to corporate data provides an unparalleled threat of data leakage. With an increase in the number of disgruntled employees, even read-only access—once seen as the Holy Grail of data protection—is enough clearance to drag-and-drop a file onto a PC, and then smuggle it outside the borders of the organization through a variety of channels. USB thumb-drives now cost well under $100 for a 32GB model; enough space to hold almost seven DVDs worth of data! Internet-based e-mail services, such as Gmail and Yahoo, operate outside the control of corporate e-mail systems, and provide a lightning-fast conduit to transfer data out of the workplace. What’s most challenging about data theft detection is that the object that was stolen still can be found where you left it!

As you set your sights on the arrival of 2010, and a new decade of positive economic change, you might want to start working on that IBM i security initiative that you’ve been meaning to get to for the last few years. Give PowerTech a call! We have solutions that not only help prevent data leakage, but also ease the burden of monitoring system and security events—even in real-time.

Now, does somebody around here know where I can get a remote-starter for my car?

Tags: network security

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 at 4:00 am and is filed under Security. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.