The 4 P’s for Securing the Road Warrior (Part II)

By Jeff Garell

Whether you're hitting the road for business or personal travel, making sure you keep your company or individual information secure should be the top of your list. In yesterday’s blog post, we discussed Plan and Prepare. Today, let’s tackle the last two topics: Prevent and Purify

Prevent 

Now that you're on the road, you need to be a little more aware of your surroundings – whether making sure you collect everything after passing through the X-ray station or sitting in the airport lounge waiting for your flight. Be sure all of your stuff is accounted for and NEVER, NEVER, NEVER put anything of value in your checked luggage.

Clothes and toiletries can be replaced relatively cheaply compared to your tech gear, fancy cameras, and the like. As mentioned in yesterday’s post, the less gear you bring, the less you have to worry about tracking.

Once you've navigated the Transportation Security Administration and airport gauntlet, you've arrived at your destination. And it’s smooth sailing from here, right? Not really. There are still potential threats all around, and your prevention steps go beyond the physical safety of your gear:

1. Check the room safe: Is it big enough to fit all of your electronics if you want to ever leave them behind? If not, what can or should you do? This is a tough one. You can choose to take the risk and leave it behind, try to hide it somewhere (between mattress & boxspring? Duct Taped to the outside of the building?), or you'll just need to take it with you. Whatever you choose for this trip, you might need to consider paring down your pile before the next one so you can fit your gear in that safe next time.

2. Be aware of housekeeping: I tend to not make much of a mess, even on the longest of trips, so I often leave the “Do Not Disturb” sign on my door for the duration of my stay. If I run into the staff in the hall, I'll explain (and often sign something) that I don't want my room cleaned. If I need something such as fresh towels, I’ll call or go to the front desk and make the request. How does this help? If no one is supposed to ever be in my room but me, then the key card access logs will be easy to narrow down. Additionally, I have walked down the halls during housekeeping time and have often seen many doors left open while the staff members work their way along the corridor. In fact, I've approached my room while it was getting cleaned, walked right in, grabbed a couple of things (my notepad), and walked out without being challenged as to whether this was my room. That’s when I decided this was a better tactic. If you want to get your room cleaned, take everything of value with you.

3. Validate the Wi-Fi: This advice applies to your visits to the Starbucks, Panera and anywhere else that doles out free Wi-Fi. Here’s one spot where you'll want to do some practicing before you hit the road so you have the process down. Whenever I sign on to the Wi-Fi, I'll quickly scan the network (using nmap) to see if I can find any other devices on it. A properly configured guest network should block “conversations” between guests on that network. If it doesn't, you should seriously reconsider whether you should use that Internet service. If I can see your device, then I can see your traffic and capture your data.

In addition, at hotel check-in, verify the Wi-Fi network name so you connect to the correct one. I recently stayed at a well-known hotel chain that uses something along the lines of "IBahnxxxx" (with the x’s being a number) as its guest network, but, when looking for it, I saw several variations of “hotelName_Guest” access points. If you connect to the wrong one, you're now connected through a stranger’s “access point,” and someone could decrypt your session in what’s called a Man-in-the-Middle Attack. Had I not checked, I probably would have connected to the more obvious access point names.

4. Turn it off: No, not your glowing personality, but your device. If it’s connected to Wi-Fi and you're not using it, turn it off. Just closing the lid of your laptop isn't really good enough for a motivated enough attacker. If you're connecting to an Ethernet port (wired), then be sure to disconnect the cable. Many IT departments enable something called Wake-on-LAN (WoL) so they can turn your machine on remotely if they need to do maintenance; leave a machine on the wired hotel network, and your laptop could be turned on while you're away. If you've followed the advice about encrypting your drive, then there’s much less to worry about regarding WoL.

All right, your trip is nearly over, and it’s time to check out. You hung on to those room card keys right? I ask because there are hotel systems that will put some of your personal data – and, in a few cases, your credit card info – in plain text on that card. These systems are getting phased out, but I certainly won't trust that the hotel I'm in has the latest and greatest software or systems – even if it’s new. Every key card comes home with me and gets friendly with the shredder.

Purify 

OK, finding a “P” word for remediate or fix was a little challenging. So by "Purify", I mean when you get back home (or to the office), it’s time for a heavy duty scan by your anti-virus/anti-malware tools.

If you have an IT department, ask what you should do given available tools. For the most part, you're looking to make sure that you don’t share something picked up while on the road. Some people take this to an extreme by fully restoring their equipment with backups they made before traveling. Unless you're going to a hacker conference, this is probably not necessary, but some will still do it.

This might seem to be a pretty daunting list of things to think about - and these rules apply whether you're on vacation or on a business trip - but given the potential loss you could experience, it’s well worth the effort. I hope you've picked up a few good ideas that will help keep your gear and data safe while on the road.

Happy and safe travels!

Jeff Garell is a co-founder of Convergent Technologies Group.

The 4 P’s for Securing the Road Warrior

By Jeff Garell

I travel pretty often in my business – not as much as some, but more than others – and I've found some pretty common sense methods to make sure my equipment and data remains safe.

Those simple action steps each start with the letter P: Plan, Prepare, Prevent and Purify.

Plan 

Do I really need to bring all of this?

Every time I go on the road – whether for a simple overnighter or a longer trip – I evaluate the tools I expect to need. On many trips, I’ll really only need a tablet and my cell phone. I follow this routine because the less I bring with me, the less chance there is to lose something – not to mention the lighter my travel load will be if I don’t need my laptop, extra monitor, mobile hotspot, power bricks/chargers, as well as various cables and power strips for all of it. Sadly, occasionally I need to haul all that gear but fortunately not too often.

The key to making this work is ensuring that you will have the tools (software) you need on the devices that you chose to bring. In the past, I’ve tested that I can perform the majority of my work on a tablet by putting away my laptop and just using the tablet in the office for a week. While I recognized a small productivity hit and I surely wouldn't want to do it long term, that test showed that I can work effectively on many trips with a much smaller tech footprint.

Paring down your gear means less chance of leaving something behind or taking your eyes off the pile and having it walk away without your knowledge.

Prepare

Once you've decided what to bring, take time to ensure your data is safe.

The first thing to do is make sure important data is backed up. I know: Backups are boring. But it’s better than the total freak out you’ll experience when you realize it’s gone. I'd highly suggest making copies of anything important you’ll need on the trip. Leave one copy with a colleague at the office and put the other on a USB drive that does not get tucked into your laptop bag. If that bag gets stolen or left behind, then there was no point in the extra backup. This extra backup will allow you to purchase or borrow another machine and still make the most of the trip.

Just as important is making sure you have run updates on your operating system, current anti-virus, and that your laptop firewall will be on (or that you know how to turn it on) when you're traveling.

If you carry any confidential or regulated information (think HIPAA, proprietary/financial data, or the super secret plans for your island lair), make sure you are using whole disk encryption. This encrypts your entire drive and requires a password before the operating system even starts. It’s an extra step on every boot but is critical if you have data that needs an additional layer of security. Should your laptop get stolen, then all you've lost is the laptop (you did back up your data already, right?). Yes, it’s a pain in elbow to have to buy a new device but much less so than having your confidential information out in the wild.

And when you're not using your laptop, shut it down completely. Your laptop’s sleep/hibernation mode does not cause the drive to be in an encrypted state.

Tomorrow: Prevent and Purify

We covered a lot of ground today, so we’ll finish the discussion tomorrow, when we’ll share some additional practical tips to use every time you travel.

Jeff Garell is a co-founder of Convergent Technologies Group.

4 Key Takeaways from HP Discover 2015

By John Monahan

Our CTG team left Discover 2015 just on Friday, and we're already working to bring the latest innovations from HP back to our clients along the East Coast.

While we hope you were following our social media updates about what was happening at this annual customer event, I wanted to take a moment to share some of the key takeaways from our days in Las Vegas:

       1. HP is focused on transformation.

On Day 1 of the conference, CEO Meg Whitman brought this front and center, particularly as the organization drives the evolution of two new companies. Her focus was initially on Hewlett Packard Enterprise, the arm that will continue to drive innovation within the IT industry.

“Technologies may change. Business models may shift. But one thing never changes for us, and that’s the importance of the relationships we build with our customers and our partners,” she said. “Thriving in the idea economy requires a new style of business, and this is where HP leads like no other company. … You have to pick a transformation partner with the vision and breadth to create the best possible future.”

The HPE strategy will focus on:

·         Transform to hybrid infrastructure

·         Protect your digital enterprise

·         Empower the date-driven organization

·         Enable workplace productivity

Check out this highlights video to hear more directly from Whitman about the transformation strategy. In fact, HP has an entire YouTube channel dedicated to presentations and more from Discover 2015, so we encourage you to explore topics of interest to you and your business. Our CTG team can help answer questions about how to bring new solutions to you.

       2. Storage is king.

Amidst many different production announcements and upgrades, one stands out: the HP 3PAR StoreServ Storage family. I don’t have enough room here to fully detail just how revolutionary this is to the industry, so I’ll focus on the key issues. As HP explains, this product brings a new class of massively scalable flash arrays, flash-optimized data services to accelerate IT-as-a-Service consolidation, a 25 percent lower cost for flash capacity and hybrid IT initiatives.

We saw this personally in an exclusive meeting we hosted for our clients with some of HP’s leading storage developers. For a rare hour, we discussed the real challenges that our customers face in their daily business, with HP’s top minds giving insight on effective solutions that work not just for today but can adapt and evolve as those businesses grow and tap into new opportunities.

3. New products are responding to the evolving economy.

To start, HP is getting into the movie business, with a five-year partnership to develop the next digital experience and technology to support a trio of upcoming “Avatar” sequels.

New products include HP LeanFT, which brings a test-and-learn methodology to application development. Products where updates are coming include the HP Helion portfolio, which supports your transition to a hybrid infrastructure, and HP will expand it's Converged Systems offerings, including a new partnership with Arista Networks.

The bottom line is that HP is applying forward thinking in creating and launching IT innovations that build on it's years of leadership, while recognizing that how we do business is changing every day. As those business models evolve, we need technology that is equally nimble and flexible to support ideas we haven't even yet considered.

4. Relationships matter.

To reiterate that last point, every industry is moving forward at lightning speed. And no one business can do it alone. Whom you select as your partners in those journeys is paramount to ensuring you get smartly and efficiently to your destination.

That’s why CTG looks to build a relationship with every client. We don't believe in simply selling you technology. Instead, we are bringing our unparalleled expertise across the IT infrastructure to guide you in making meaningful investments that work today and are scalable to your changing business. Some of the first customers we signed when we launched CTG a decade ago remain our closest clients today, because they see that we bring deeper value to the business.

John Monahan is a co-founder of Convergent Technologies Group. 

We Built Our Business on Relationships

By Brandon Samuel

When I started at Convergent Technologies Group a little more than five years ago, I learned quickly that to succeed in this industry, you have to develop an effective way to set yourself apart from all the competition you face on a daily basis. Clients constantly are facing new challenges in their environments and rely on their IT partners to provide insight and expertise to address those challenges head on.

Starting out, I had little experience in the IT field. While my family has seen much success in the industry, I was determined to blaze my own path and find what worked best for me. It took a while to find my stride, but one of the things that makes CTG a great place to work is that our people – starting with our leaders - never stifle creativity or dismiss our ideas. Our sales team is made up of a group of individuals committed to a common goal of making CTG a trusted resource to each and every company with which we work. We all have an open door policy in the office and work closely together so that we can all learn and grow as a team.

Meeting after meeting, it became increasingly apparent that there aren’t many companies looking to provide forward-thinking solutions to their clients. The fast-paced IT environment makes it easy to slip into the role of an “order taker” and to forget that each technology that a customer implements is something that they will rely on in the long term. Budgets are getting tighter, and it is more and more important that each solution provides the greatest amount of value and ROI for the client.

I am proud that CTG takes a much more holistic approach to our relationships with new and existing clients. We view ourselves as a relationship-based company and fully understand that each IT solution requires in-depth consultation and consideration – not just for now, but also for three to five years down the road. In a sense, we are taking a great deal of ownership with everything that we provide, because we understand that the customer experience both near term and long term is paramount to having a successful relationship.

I tell everyone that I meet with that CTG is not a “churn-and-burn” type of company. Our sales process is not designed for our sales representatives to be sitting in front of their computers and by their phones, waiting for the client to call with a quote request. Our goal is to work with companies that see the value in a relationship between their IT team and their team at Convergent. We want to have regular meetings with our clients, not only to make sure things are running smoothly at that time, but also to discuss and plan out future projects so that we are ready when their business is ready. Each sales rep is dedicated to their own book of business and is involved in each step of the process: from the initial meeting all the way through the implementation process and beyond. One of the biggest complaints that I get from customers is that when they have worked with other companies, they were left “high and dry” after they made a purchase. Because of the emphasis that we place on relationships, you can be assured that we will continue to be your go-to partner year after year.

Convergent Technologies Group is a strong company that is dedicated to being a partner with our clients. We work with the best manufacturers in the industry and take pride in delivering a solutions-based service to our customers. If your company is looking for a relationship and wants an organization that will get to know and understand their needs, we are the company for you. We look forward to the opportunity to meet with you and earn your business.

Brandon Samuel is CTG’s mid-size commercial/enterprise account executive.