The New Standards for IT Security

The commonly understood and practiced standard for most organizations is to protect itself from outside intrusion. As IT professionals, we spend countless hours and sizable budgets securing our physical premises, our web sites and our networks from malicious hackers and other potential intruders. However as we deliver more corporate communication options and utilize social media sites on the Internet, we must also begin to consider the risks of sensitive information being distributed (maliciously or incidentally) outward from behind the protective firewall.

In the past, it seems that only companies with regulatory compliance needs cared about data that was leaving their network. While this is still the case, more and more companies are finding out the hard way that sensitive company information has found itself outside the company’s walls. Imagine yourself as the IT Director of a plastic surgeon treating a celebrity or the CIO of McDonalds finding out that someone has Tweeted about your work on Miss California or posted the recipe for the secret sauce on Facebook. (It’s basically Thousand Island dressing, if you’re interested)

So who needs to bolster their internal security? Basically, everyone. If your company stores financial data, health records, social security numbers, account numbers, customer passwords or any other customer identifiable information, you should be concerned about what could be leaving your network. In some cases, the leak simply an innocent mistake based on processes developed before the hacking, identity theft and fraud became commonplace.

So what can you do to protect yourself? Work with your trusted service providers to assess your needs and implement intelligent practices. At LightEdge we are engaged in the following initiatives to make sure your data protection needs are being met.

First we are proud to announce the completion of a comprehensive SAS-70 Type II audit regarding our data center and hosting services. This audit, performed by a third party, validates that LightEdge’s policies are accurately accomplishing the objectives for data protection set out by LightEdge management.
Furthermore we are enhancing our existing suite of data protection product by adding Managed Intrusion Detection, Managed Data Loss Prevention (complete with Web 2.0 support if desired), and consolidated log management and analysis.

Combined with diligent oversight by our customers, we believe that our suite of Managed Security products will significantly reduce the risk of regulatory exposure while helping customers evaluate and tighten their own internal security standards.

For more information on the enhanced LightEdge security options, contact your Account Executive directly or call 877-771-3343 to schedule a meeting to discuss and assess your IT risks.

Travis Thompson
VP of Engineering, LightEdge Solutions

Managed Security Overview

Managed Firewall

From our carrier-class network operations center, LightEdge will remotely monitor and manage your firewall appliance and policies for availability and alerts that it may generate 24/7/365.

Dynamic Packet Filtering with Stateful Inspection
Stateful inspection is a firewall architecture that works at the network layer. Unlike static packet filtering, which examines a packet based on the information in its header, stateful inspection examines both the header and the contents of the packet up through the application layer.

Professional Policy Implementation
The LightEdge network operation staff will implement your desired security policies and will work with you to minimize the impact of any policy implementation. Our security experts have implemented security policies for thousands of customers and can help you determine the best approach to meet your company’s security goals.

Intrusion Detection Services

IDS through LightEdge provides an additional layer of security once data has been filtered through your Managed Firewall service. The system actively monitors network traffic and system activities through open ports for potential malicious activities or policy violations.

Data Loss Prevention

Managed DLP prevents sensitive and confidential information from leaving data networks, to ensure against the loss of proprietary, financial or other sensitive information. This Managed DLP solution monitors and analyzes all network protocols in real-time and adheres to regulatory compliance requirements such as: HIPAA, GLBA and Sarbanes-Oxley.

E-mail (SMTP)

Web traffic, including applications such as mail, wikis and blogs (HTTP/HTTPS)

Instant Messaging

File Transfers (FTP) - word processing files, spreadsheets, presentations, compiled/compressed files (ZIP)

Web/URL Filtering and Reporting

Giving your employees unrestricted access to the internet can challenges for both security and productivity. LightEdge’s Managed Web/URL Filtering allows your HR team to develop and enforce best practices related to Internet use by blocking and/or reporting content infractions.

Filter Examples of Blocked Content*

Productivity Draining Activities Shopping, Sports, News, Social Networking...

Bandwidth Intensive Activities Streaming Video, Streaming Audio...

Inappropriate Activities Discriminatory messages, Gambling...

Specific URLs YouTube, Victoria’s Secret, FaceBook...

Specific Applications MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Twitter...

*Listed topics/sites are examples only. Your administrator will be able to customize filter setting based on the needs of your company.

For more details on Managed Security options, contact Info@lightedge.com or call 877-771-3343

Gartner Selects LightEdge in Magic Quadrant Analysis for Unified Communications as a Service

LightEdge was selected among only 16 companies in North America for the first annual Magic Quadrant study on Unified Communications as a Service. Gartner reviewed the LightEdge Connected Office product suite which includes Hosted Voice-over-IP phone service, Hosted Microsoft Exchange (e-mail and collaboration), Hosted Microsoft OCS (secure corporate Instant Messaging and presence) and LightEdge's voice and web conferencing platform.

The list comprised large and small companies that Gartner felt had shown a strong drive in Hosted Unified communications and were the ones to watch for the future. Other companies included in the Magic Quadrant analysis included: Microsoft, AT&T, Google, Cisco, IBM, Verizon, Skype and Nortel.

As one of the smaller companies listed, Gartner was impressed with the "completeness of vision" and the overall integration of the suite of products that LightEdge offers as the LightEdge Connected Office.

Free 30-day Trials of Hosted Microsoft Exchange and Hosted Microsoft OCS are available - Call us Today!

For more details on Unified Communications as a Service, contact Info@lightedge.com or call 877-771-3343

Big Bandwidth for a Small Price - Ethernet-over-Copper

10 Mbps Managed Access for less than $800/month

Ethernet-over-Copper networking offers small and medium-sized businesses a flexible and very scalable means of delivering high bandwidth Internet and WAN to their company without the capital costs of trenching and fitting a building for fiber access.

LightEdge offers an Ethernet-over-Copper solution in most of its Iowa markets and into Moline and Rock Island in Illinois. For a limited time, LightEdge is offering Ethernet-over-Copper services at a price well below the cost of traditional bonded T1 service of the same speed.

Advantages of Ethernet-over-Copper:

Flexibility - once set up, bandwidth can be throttled up through router configurations and by provisioning additional copper pairs
Resiliency - because multiple copper pairs are used with this service, it remains viable for your business even if one pair is compromised
Pricing - less than half the price of a bonded T1**
Scalability - Ethernet-over-Copper can provide up to 100 Mbps

"We're making an aggressive push on our access services to ensure that small and medium-sized businesses have a secure, private managed path to the LightEdge network cloud, " said Jeff Springborn, LightEdge chief operating officer. "Once a business has access to our cloud, they can immediately take advantage of the other IT solutions that can reduce the cost of IT, improve resiliency and offer unparalleled security and protection for their data."

For more details on Ethernet-over-Copper, contact Info@lightedge.com
or call 877-771-3343

*Customer location must qualify for LightEdge Ethernet-over-Copper service.
**Price comparison based on 7xT1 (10.5 Mbps) vs Ethernet-over-Copper 10 Mbps monthly recurring rates.

Desktop Faxing Solution over IP

Regardless of your whether or not your company has begun to leverage LightEdge's IP network, your business can begin leveraging an IP-based desktop faxing solution to reduce the work necessary to send faxes that originate as electronic documents, as well as improving electronic capture and storage of incoming faxes.

Reduce use of fax machines
Reduce paper
Keep employees at their desks
Route sensitive faxes directly to the recipient
Incorporate with Unified Messaging platform
Improve workflow and throughput

For more details on Desktop Faxing, contact Info@lightedge.com
or call 877-771-3343

LightEdge Consulting Services

Looking for a little help or a lot of help?
Many companies have recently been forced to cut IT staff because of the current economy. If this is impacting your ability to get projects done, the professionals at LCS are able to help whether it is a limited hourly engagement to "keep the ship afloat" or large-scale implementations for new systems.

LCS specializes in:

Assessment of IT Risks and Gap Analysis
Overall IT Direction
Windows Server
Microsoft Exchange Server
Microsoft Communication Server
Microsoft SharePoint
Microsoft SQL
Software-as-a-Service
Hybrid Server Solutions
Cisco Networking Solutions
EMC Storage Solutions

For more details on LCS consulting, contact Info@lightedgeconsulting.com
or call 877-771-3343

Unified Communications Growing, Moving to Cloud

New systems that merge e-mail, telephony, and online collaboration are taking root among companies—and increasingly moving onto the Internet

Enterprise take-up of Unified Communications (UC) – the merging of IP telephony, conferencing and collaboration, messaging and communications tools – is on a "steeply rising curve", according to analysts.

Spending on UC among businesses worldwide is expected to rise from just $302m last year to $4.2bn in five years' time, according to industry watchers ABI Research.

By Steve Ranger

Study: Unified Communications provides 4X the ROI

A study carried out about Frost & Sullivan--commissioned by Cisco and Verizon--found that collaboration tools like VoIP, instant messaging, and high-definition video meetings resulted in cost savings averaging four times the return on investment for firms using the IP platforms.

October 14, 2009 — 10:35pm ET | By Mike Dolan

UC analyst sees collaboration, conferencing driving growth

Unified communications analyst Blair Pleasant said she had to revise her projections for the market after the economic downturn caused budget cuts and project postponements, according to her post at No Jitter. She said sales of most unified communications equipment, once hyped as the next serious revenue driver for the industry, will remain sluggish through 2009.

September 24, 2009 — 10:46am ET | By Pete Wylie

The Best U.S. Cities for Business

We all know the fable of the tortoise ultimately winning his painstakingly measured race against the hare.

Apply that to today's economy and it's relatively easy to come up with a winner for MarketWatch's third survey of the best U.S. cities for business. This year's victor is the subdued terrapin of regional economies: Des Moines, Iowa -- population 556,230.

by Russ Britt - Wednesday, December 30, 2009

FAQ: What is the impact of a compliance audit on IT operations?

Complying with the increasing number of regulations has made leveraging IT essential. That's particularly true in the automation of processes to handle the information in an organization's possession. As requirements grow, systems that both facilitate compliance and demonstrate to auditors that standards for security and data protection have been met are an increasingly critical area of IT operations.

30 Oct 2009 | SearchCompliance.com

Information security budget closest thing to recession proof in 2010

With IT budgets potentially lower in 2010 than in 2009 at many shops, senior managers have a short list of projects that will get funding this year. One thing many will not be skimping on: information security.

We asked 958 respondents to our annual IT Priorities Survey about 38 high-profile projects or technologies. Of the 10 technologies that will be most deployed, three were security-oriented, and a fourth was compliance, which has a substantial security component. At the enterprise level (companies with more than 1,000 employees), there were four security projects in the top 10, plus compliance. More than 80% of respondents are implementing some kind of security project in 2010.

By Mark Schlack, Vice President, Editorial - 05 Jan 2010 | SearchCIO.com

IDC forecasts five-year 26% cloud services growth

Services delivered from the cloud accounts for 10% IT spend

IDC has rated the five-year annual growth outlook for cloud services at 26%, some six times the rate of traditional IT and forecast to be worth almost $45 billion by 2013 when it will account for 10% of all IT revenue.

“In spite of the challenging economy – or more accurately, because of it – this growth rate advantage expanded from last year’s forecast, in which cloud services were forecast to grow at over five times traditional offerings,” IDC’s Frank Gens said in an official blog.

Published:09-October-2009 By Kevin White

IT best practices in 2009: Lessons learned for 2010

Enterprise CIOs will likely remember 2009 as the year "doing more with less" evolved from an IT best practice into a necessity in the midst of an economic recession. Although the transition called for cost cutting and tough decisions, innovative IT organizations thrived, using IT best practices to achieve cost savings in their core technology areas.

In this month's CIO Briefing, find out how CIOs used IT best practices in areas such as the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), cloud computing, IT outsourcing and business process management to drive efficiency in their organizations. You'll also learn how they're carrying these lessons forward in their IT plans for 2010.

07 Jan 2010 | SearchCIO.com

Important regulatory compliance trends that will affect IT in 2010

What can IT professionals expect for regulatory compliance in 2010? More regulations, risk management and returns on their investment in time and technology. As we reported last year about the top regulatory compliance trends of 2009, increased federal regulation and enforcement, changes to state data protection laws and major cyber-security policy initiatives are on the way. Here is part one of SearchCompliance.com's top regulatory compliance trends that will affect IT in 2010.

By Alexander B. Howard, Associate Editor - 11 Jan 2010 | SearchCompliance.com

Hot data storage technologies for SMBs: Storage trends for 2010

Data storage, data backup and recovery, and disaster recovery (DR) in the small- to medium-sized business (SMB) market saw many changes in 2009. Data deduplication made its way into SMB data storage environments, many SMBs adopted cloud backup technology as part of their data backup plans, and many vendors altered their products to fit the specific needs of an SMB. But what's going to change in 2010? This tip predicts the top SMB data storage technologies and storage trends that will have the biggest impact on SMBs this year.

By Marc Staimer - 11 Jan 2010 | SearchSMBStorage.com

CIO best practices: A self-assessment guide for top IT professionals

Some CIO best practices held steady in the recession, while others have shifted, largely because of IT cost restraints, emerging management strategies and new business technologies. Have you kept up on the latest CIO best practices in areas such as service-oriented architecture (SOA) implementation, IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) and IT Service Management (ITSM), and the qualities of a good leader in a recession? The stories and quizzes in this self-assessment guide for top IT professionals can help you get up to speed.

By SearchCIO.com Staff - 26 Jan 2010 | SearchCIO.com

CIO technology spending focused on reducing risk, boosting efficiency

The Wall Street crowd might be ready to spend again, buoyed by bailouts and record bonuses, but CIOs don't seem inclined to go on any technology spending sprees in 2010, our annual IT Priorities Survey of senior IT executives and managers shows.

With two-thirds of the 171 respondents facing flat or declining IT budgets this year, CIOs and senior IT managers remain focused on technologies and projects that mitigate risk, boost efficiency and reduce IT costs.

By Linda Tucci, Senior News Writer - 28 Jan 2010 | SearchCIO.com