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Security Breaches Cost Health Care Industry $6B Annually

Monday, November 22nd, 2010

Scary and disheartening.  Those are the only words I could think of after reading an SC Magazine article stating that continued security breaches in the health care industry are costing them $6B a year.   According to the article, despite regulations such as HIPAA, health care organizations are struggling to protect patient data.    60% of respondents of a new survey said they have suffered two or more security breaches in the past two years.   The top causes of breaches were “unintentional employee action, lost or stolen computing devices, and third-party accidents.”  The economic impact of each security breach was a whopping $2M per organization over a two year period.

Security breaches have resulted from a lack of preparation and staffing.  Most health care organizations have fewer than two people on staff dedicated to data protection management.   According to Doug Pollack, director of privacy and security at ID Experts, “revenue trumps privacy.”

There are a few things that cost-conscious health care organizations can implement to protect their patients’ private data.

  • Ensure that all communication with patient records be sent securely, requiring authentication.
  • Utilize content monitoring to prevent all patient information from going across unsecure email

With the cost of healthcare security breaches reaching a mind-boggling $6B a year, it’s hard to understand why health care organizations haven’t taken the steps to secure patient records.   It is far too easy for that information to get into the wrong hands – data brokers and identity thieves using that confidential information for their own financial gain, and at the cost of patients losing the ability to get the care they need.

Securely transferring data is simple today.  Accellion offers secure file transfer solutions that can help health care organizations protect health care data to help comply with HIPAA and other regulations.  We’re already helping a whole host of health care providers such as Harvard Medical School, Catholic Health East, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Clarian Health Partners, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and many more.

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Stop the Presses – UnManaged File Sharing is Riskier than Facebook?

Thursday, November 4th, 2010

File sharing riskier than Facebook? If you’re a bit surprised by the headline, you’re not alone.  As a technology marketing professional who spends a lot of time reading articles in TechCrunch, Mashable and GigaOm on Facebook security issues, today’s article entitled “Employees’ Use Of Webmail, File-Sharing Services Riskier Than Their Facebook Activity” in Security Dark Reading Room was an eye-opener.

According to Palo Alto Networks, a whopping 96% of enterprises allow use of personal webmail (Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail), instant messaging, and peer-to-peer and browser-based file sharing apps, without any monitoring whatsoever, and these apps consume more than one quarter of the bandwidth.

“The heavy use of Webmail at work, as well as Web-based file-sharing apps, basically circumvents most organizations’ email and other security”, according to Palo Alto Networks.  What are the main web and browser-based file sharing apps contributing to this security loophole? SkyDrive, USendIt, RapidShare and DocsStock contributed to 96% of this unmonitored file sharing traffic based on Palo Alto Networks data, leaving organizations at risk of data breaches and violation of government and industry regulations.

While file sharing certainly enables collaboration and shouldn’t be hindered, allowing one quarter of an organization’s bandwidth to go unmonitored and unmanaged is definitely worthy of a headline.  Particularly given that there are smarter ways to share confidential files with colleagues, partners, and vendors without exposing your organization to a costly data breach, lawsuit or government fine.  It’s called secure file transfer.  If this article on risky file sharing has you a little worried please give us a call at Accellion. We are here to help with secure file transfer solutions that keep your users and organization protected.

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It’s an Automated Life

Tuesday, October 19th, 2010

I recently visited a friend who praised her Roomba…her robot vacuum cleaner.  That conversation got me thinking about the futuristic Jetson’s cartoon from the 1980s where George Jetson and his wife Jane employed a robot maid named Rosie to cook, clean, and do mundane tasks for them.  We might not be flying saucers to work in 2010, but we do automate many things to make our lives more productive.  We use auto-pay to pay our bills on time.    We use banking apps to show us when our account is running low on funds. Automation has become part of our daily lives at work and at home.

It may be a bit of a stretch, but the Accellion Automation Solution Suite’s auto-clean up functionality is a little like the Jetson’s robot maid Rosie.  Rosie vacuumed the Jetson’s space-age house to eliminate all the clutter in order to create a safe environment for the Jetson kids – Judy and Elroy.  Accellion Automation enables businesses and government agencies to transfer files automatically and securely, and cleans up after itself to keep organizations safe.

Accellion’s Automation Solution Suite is a comprehensive group of products that streamlines business processes and centralizes the management of all secure file transfers.  For example, with Accellion Automation, retail businesses can ensure that point of sale (POS) data is sent securely from individual branch offices to headquarters every night.  Design firms can scan large design documents and then transfer them securely via Accellion Automation. Entertainment companies can send ticket specials to clients every weekend via Accellion Automation Agents.  All clients have to do is click on the Accellion secure link in their email to download the ticket information.

So while Accellion might not be able to turn your organization into Cosmos from the Jetson’s, at least you can automate secure file transfers and do it in style.

Posted in Accellion, Automation, Product | No Comments »

Don’t Let Email Destroy Your Relationships

Monday, October 11th, 2010

You can’t live with them or without them.  I am referring to emails.   Only a few lucky souls get less than ten emails a day.  But most corporate employees get tens and even hundreds of emails each and every day.  A Plantronics study called “How We Work,” reveals that email usage by professionals has increased 78 percent over the past five years with half of those surveyed saying email causes workplace relationship problems such as communication anxiety and confusion.  Nearly 4 out of 10 respondents said they received emails that made no sense whatsoever.   72 percent had to follow up on an unintelligible email with a phone call.

Emails with large file attachments are also relationship killers.  Even the most spectacular presentation can lose its luster by the time it reaches its recipient, if it is delivered as a large file attachment.  That “Oh wow” is supplanted by “Arrg…I was finally able to open your email and download the attachment. But everyone in the office is glaring at me for slowing down the email system.”

Relationships can be mended by simply offloading attachments from email servers and sending a secure link via Accellion.  Encourage your company to utilize secure file transfer solutions.  With the Accellion Secure File Transfer system, email servers are no longer clogged up and business productivity isn’t degraded.

Posted in Accellion, Email Attachments | No Comments »

Accellion- A Recommended Pick for Secure File Transfer

Wednesday, October 6th, 2010

This week SC Magazine published the results of their Encryption: In Motion 2010 product review and the Accellion Secure File Transfer solution was the Recommended Pick.

According to the review, Accellion secure file transfer is “very easy and straightforward.”   Reviewers were also impressed by the “ease of use and features included with the appliance, including some of the localization options.”

Check out the full SC Magazine product review here to learn why Accellion secure file transfer is their Recommended Pick.

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I’ll stick to my Enterprise solution

Monday, September 27th, 2010

As a professed news junkie, I am always scouring the web for the latest political, economic and technology news.  One particular trend that I’ve noticed in the past year or two is the convergence of consumer and enterprise technologies. Consumer products have added support, limited security and integration hooks as a way of garnering adoption in the enterprise.   Conversely, many enterprise solutions have adopted innovative consumer-centric features to make their products more user-friendly.  A great example is chat.  Skype started off in the consumer space and has moved into corporate environment as a way to increase business productivity.

Another technology that has seen applications in both the consumer and enterprise space is secure file transfer.   Numerous companies offer file transfer technologies but they are far from equal.  The level of sophistication, robustness and security required for an enterprise secure file transfer solution continues to be quite different than one for the consumer space.  With an alphabet soup of regulations, companies need to be careful about the technologies they use to securely transfer confidential financial data, health records, legal documents and more.  Consumer-centric solutions allow individual employees to send files without any corporate or IT control, and that can leave companies vulnerable to security violations.  There is nothing worse than finding out that your company is on the 10 o’clock news due to lost confidential data.  That’s a PR nightmare everyone can easily avoid.

The Accellion Secure File Transfer solution provides its customers with the security, tracking and reporting tools necessary to demonstrate compliance.   Companies can safely allow the transfer of files between employees, employees and outside vendors,  and through automated business processes.  With Accellion; administrators have a system by which all files sent via Accellion Secure Transfer contain audit trails for compliance.

Posted in Accellion, Data Security, Email Attachments | No Comments »

A Little Privacy Please

Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010

TechCrunch is one of my favorite sites to get the latest tech gossip.  Who wouldn’t want to know about Mark Zuckerberg’s personal life, Carol Bartz’s liberal use of the F-word, and of course breaking technology news?

Last week’s post by TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington caught my eye.   Arrington emphatically states that Google employees found abusing user data should be criminally prosecuted.  I couldn’t agree with him more.   Google recently fired two employees for inappropriately accessing user data but hasn’t commented on whether employees will be charged with any crime.

With Google and other search engines having an un-Godly amount of user data, I wondered what life would be like if all of our data was secured.  What if all our emails were encrypted and file attachments kept away from prying eyes?

For those trying to ensure that Yahoo/Bing and Google stay at arm’s length, might I suggest In-Private Browsing which prevents the browser from storing information on your browsing session.

As for protecting the integrity of email file attachments, Accellion offers a FIPS 140-2 certified solution that is secure enough for federal, state and local governments to quickly and easily send and receive files using the Accellion managed file transfer system.  With Accellion, corporations and their employees can protect documents from prying eyes and meet compliance regulations.

Posted in Accellion, Data Security, Email Attachments, Product | No Comments »

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