“Virtualization has revolutionized the data center, and now the next step is revolutionizing the network. Central to the networking revolution is software-defined networking (SDN), which allows network administrators to virtualize their networking hardware and bring added agility and cost savings.

Although all networking of all types can benefit from SDN, one area ripe for adoption is the wide area network (WAN). SD-Wan, as software-defined WAN is called, can enable businesses to harness virtualization and reap the benefits not only of improved agility and cost, but also other benefits. Companies are pushing forward with SD-WAN technology and giving businesses an easy adoption path.

Here are four reasons why SD-WAN makes sense.

1. Improved Transport Options

What SD-WAN gives businesses is true transport independence. Since the WAN is virtualized, it can take advantage of any transport protocol that is needed. This includes 3G, 4G LTE (News – Alert), MPLS, Internet, Ethernet, Serial or Wi-Fi. Businesses that use SD-WAN have total transport flexibility.

2. Better Security

Unlike traditional WAN solutions, which handle security through multiple appliances at each branch office, SD-WAN can include all of these functions in-box and at lower cost. SD-WAN can integrate with a cloud web content filtering service, too, and offer malware defenses and botnet command-and-control intervention for every branch and remote devices.

3. Intelligent Pathway Control

One of the most important advantages of SD-WAN is that it can provide intelligent path control that steers traffic based on application. This traffic-forwarding capability can be set in place at the centralized controller level and then pushed out to all SD-WAN devices. Policies can be based on IP addresses, application profiles, port number, quality-of-service markings, time of day, or any other number of variables.

4. Automatic Provisioning

Deploying WAN systems is so last year. SD-WAN enables businesses to send SD-WAN devices to branches un-configured. The device then can download its policy, crypto certificate and keys and automatically start to learn traffic patterns. Provisioning is dramatically easier with SD-WAN.

These are just some of the benefits of SD-WAN, but there are many more. Virtualization is a revolutionary technology, and WAN networking is no exception.”

Visit our website www.trivatechgroup.com to request a free initial consultation and find out why SD-WAN makes sense for your organization.

We can always be reached at 888-352-6563 also.

Trivatech Group. TTG

Are you wasting unnecessary cash flow monthly on your telecom and data services ? How can you tell ?

Protect your Internet Service from Outages

No more cable modem blues   Visit our website www.trivatechgroup.com for more info or to request a quote. Or give us a call 888-352-6563 Trivatech Group. TTG

TTG AND METRO!

Understanding the Telecom and Data business

The key to making a good decision is in how the telecommunications and data business works.

A point to make here is that the provider contracts with your company to provide a certain suite of services at a certain level of performance.  Many terms and conditions of newer contracts with providers are listed on a web page, how easy is it for the carrier to change the terms ?

And what about carriers consolidating and merging ?  Will your direct representative be with that carrier in 3 months ?  A year ?

How about care for you after the sale ?

Is it a local office ?  A call center ?

Can the direct carrier representative actually assist you, or do they get paid once to sell and move on ?

The Truth

Carrier direct representatives likely will not be employed for more than 18 months. You are left with a contract and no advocate to assist you. Most likely a  call center out of state and an 800 number to reach a cryptic system where you punch in your account number and then have to repeat yourself 3 times to get an answer, and usually they will insult you and claim the problem is on your end of the connection.

How can a prospective client sort through 3 or 4 providers information and make an educated decision about a provider at contract renewal time ?

Well frankly you can dedicate the next few weeks to research, study and reviewing terms and conditions, service level agreements (SLA) and calling current clients of the prospective vendors. Or just call an independent consultant in your area.

The Solution

Call an independent telecom consultant, who knows the available providers, the services available and negotiates many telecom contracts every year.

Telecom consultants are experts,  and with all the change in the carrier space, consultants  have  direct connections to carriers.   Many clients just like you who turn to telecom consultants for answers, recieving a live local response to their needs.

Independent telecom consultants work for you.  When  hired they are  paid to assist you and to make sure you receive what you are paying for.  In many cases the independent consultant will not get paid unless your services are installed and invoices continue to be paid.

Telecom consultants are paid to assist you today, and when it’s contract renewal time.  Independents are responsive, timely and know each and every carrier that is available for you to choose from.

In many cases they search for 3-5 quotes to source your services.  They continue to earn your business every month when you pay your invoice.  In addition the independent consultant will analyze your needs BEFORE suggesting a certain product or service.

Why Not ?

Why not try buying your products and services the smart way ?

Trivatech Group

888-352-6563

www.trivatechgroup.com

 

“Healthcare organizations are no stranger to cyberattacks, as private health information has become a valuable commodity for hackers. But the threat of a ransomware infection can go beyond a conventional data breach and cause a hospital’s operations, for example, to grind to a complete halt. The first article in this series described the threat of ransomware attacks and explained what it means for healthcare organizations. This article offers advice to those organizations on how to prevent and respond to ransomware infections.

 The general guidance from the FBI in its trifold brochure on ransomware, from KnowBe4 in its Ransomware Hostage Rescue Manual and in the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Computer Security Incident Handling Guide is to place primary focus on preparation and prevention, and then on response.

Preparing for ransomware attacks

• Users: First and foremost, companies need to recognize that their first line of defense against a ransomware infection includes every one of their users — employees, vendors, contractors and volunteers who use networked computers for email and internet browsing. Companies need to educate their users about ransomware, phishing attacks and subtle malware attacks. Otherwise, they can probably expect continuing issues with attacks or near-misses with ransomware and other viruses or worms attempting to infect their systems.

• Account privileges: Manage and limit the number and scope of privileged accounts in your enterprise’s user base. This way, an attack would most likely be against a user with limited privileges and its impact would be minimized, as opposed to an attack on a system administrator or highly privileged computer user which could lead to substantial damage and greater “depth” of the ransomware infection on your systems.
• Software: Take advantage of the various technical capabilities of your software and operating systems. These preparatory actions include:
  • Ensuring you are using a firewall — block known malicious internet protocol addresses;
  • Implementing antispam and anti-phishing;
  • Ensuring all systems have up-to-date antivirus — it is even better to add application whitelisting and heuristics here too;
  • Implementing highly disciplined and timely patching of operating systems and applications;
  • Disabling macro scripts in Microsoft Office files transmitted via email to best minimize the possibility of document macros downloading ransomware; and
  • Scanning incoming and outgoing email to detect threats and filter executable files to prevent them from reaching end users.
  • Backups: A key defense for malware is having recent backups of all working files and data readily available. If you don’t have these backup files segregated from your network but available when ransomware hits, you may wind up paying the ransom rather than rebuilding your systems without payment to the evildoer. Therefore, ensure all possible data you will need access to run your hospital or enterprise is backed up and segregated from the network — this includes USB and mobile storage.
    • Be certain your backups are not connected permanently to computers and networks being backed up or they will be subject to the ransomware’s scans and attack paths.

Regularly test your backup recovery functions and test the data integrity of physical backups. This is just as important as having a viable backup to restore.

• Step 1: Disconnect everything and implement the cyber emergency response plan

How to respond to a ransomware infection

If your computer begins to display the symptoms of ransomware or malware compromise, unplug the computer from the network and turn off wireless functionality such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and near-field communication. However, do not turn off the machine or you will lose the ability to perform forensics on the machine later on.

• Step 2: Determine the scope of the infection

Ascertain if the ransomware has infected any of the following:

• Mapped or shared drives;
• Mapped or shared folders in other computers;
• Network storage devices of any kind;
• External hard drives;
• USB storage devices including USB sticks, attached phones and cameras; and
• Cloud-based storage such as Drop Box and Google Drive.

• Step 3: Determine ransomware strain

You can probably skip this step in some incident response scenarios but it may be helpful for the FBI or law enforcement response — and even your antivirus or cybersecurity vendor — to know what type of ransomware they are dealing with. One ready asset you can immediately examine is the Bleeping Computer website, where you can view examples of different ransom note screens and make a more educated guess as to the type of ransomware you have been infected with.

• Step 4: Evaluate your responses

The FBI recommends contacting your nearest FBI field office immediately after detecting a ransomware attack. Telling the FBI is not conceding defeat but is instead a way of reaching out to get some experienced and expert advice on the ransomware attack.

Your other options may include:

• Restoring bare-metal systems from a recent, uncontaminated backup (preferred);
• Decrypting files using a third-party ransomware decryption tool (low probability);
• Doing nothing and losing your data — and suffering the legal/business consequences; and
• Negotiating and paying the ransom.

It should be noted that the FBI does not support paying a ransom to the attacker.

• Step 5: Restoration

In this step, your focus is on restoring your systems to normal. Ensure all traces of the ransomware infection are removed — even from old backups and backups of backups.

Also, conduct an after-action review of the attack and responses and be sure to take positive action on lessons learned.

Maintaining compliance after a ransomware infection

The U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Department has released a fact sheet on ransomware and HIPAA. This fact sheet is a fairly straightforward read; however, their recommendation is that “…an entity infected with ransomware contact its local FBI or United States Secret Service field office.” Additionally, as far as HHS is concerned, if your hospital/medical organization has been hit with ransomware you should immediately presume a breach has occurred and you must comply with the applicable breach notification provisions in accordance with HIPAA breach notification requirements.”

With everything else going on let us ease your mind when it comes to your Telecom, Data, Security and Maintenance needs.

Visit our website www.trivatechgroup.com or call us at 888-352-6563 for more information on how TTG can help you.

Trivatech Group. TTG

“The Federal Communications Commission intends to fine a Reno, Nev.-based reseller of telecommunications services and its founder/CEO $21.7 million for alleged violations involving the Universal Service Fund’s Rural Health Care Program.

According to the FCC, Network Services Solutions is being “charged with violating the program’s competitive bidding rules, using forged and false documents to seek funding from the program, and violating the federal wire fraud statute.”

The FCC alleges that the company violated the federal wire fraud statute and the commission’s rules by engaging in “systematic and egregious misconduct.”

As a result, the agency said it expects to order Network Services Solutions to refund $3.5 million in “improper payments that the company has received through the program, which provides discounts for telecommunications services to rural health care providers to help pay for modern telecommunications services.”

The USF Rural Health Care Program provides funding to eligible healthcare providers for telecommunications and broadband services. Congress in 1996 mandated that the FCC use the USF to provide support for both telecommunications and advanced telecom/information services for eligible providers in rural communities to enable telemedicine, transmit health records, and conduct other telehealth activities.

The FCC noted that this is the agency’s first enforcement action involving the Rural Health Care Program, and the first time the commission has proposed a fine for wire fraud in connection with a Universal Service Fund Program.

Network Services Solutions has operations nationwide serving more than 500 clients in 39 states, according to the company’s website. In its announcement, the FCC said the alleged violations “occurred throughout the country, but were concentrated in the southeastern United States.”

“Forgery, bribery, bid rigging and fraud are absolutely unacceptable in any federal program,” said FCC’s Enforcement Bureau Chief Travis LeBlanc. “The commission calls on Network Services Solutions and its CEO to account for any misuse of federal funds in this vital program that assists rural communities with access to critical services for healthcare.”

Aimee McCarty, associate vice president of operations at Network Services Solutions, declined to comment on the FCC’s announcement. In response to a query, McCarty referred Health Data Management to the McLean, Va.-based law firm Lukas, Nace, Gutierrez & Sachs, which is representing the company.

“NSS has cooperated with the FCC in this investigation and looks forward to a full and complete review of the facts underlying the allegations,” said Russell D. Lukas, a partner in the law firm.”

Call us at 888-352-6563 or visit our website www.trivatechgroup.com for more information on how this could affect your organization.

Trivatech Group. TTG

 

healthdatamanagementdotcom

 

Protect your Internet Service from Outages

No more cable modem blues Visit our website www.trivatechgroup.com for more info or to request a quote. Or give us a call 888-352-6563 Trivatech Group. TTG

Once upon a time a daughter complained to her father that her life was miserable and that she didn’t know how she was going to make it. She was tired of fighting and struggling all the time. It seemed just as one problem was solved, another one soon followed.

Her father, a chef, took her to the kitchen. He filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Once the three pots began to boil, he placed potatoes in one pot, eggs in the second pot, and ground coffee beans in the third pot.

He then let them sit and boil, without saying a word to his daughter. The daughter, moaned and impatiently waited, wondering what he was doing.

After twenty minutes he turned off the burners. He took the potatoes out of the pot and placed them in a bowl. He pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl.

He then ladled the coffee out and placed it in a cup. Turning to her he asked. “Daughter, what do you see?”

“Potatoes, eggs, and coffee,” she hastily replied.

“Look closer,” he said, “and touch the potatoes.” She did and noted that they were soft. He then asked her to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg. Finally, he asked her to sip the coffee. Its rich aroma brought a smile to her face.

“Father, what does this mean?” she asked.

He then explained that the potatoes, the eggs and coffee beans had each faced the same adversity– the boiling water.

However, each one reacted differently.

The potato went in strong, hard, and unrelenting, but in boiling water, it became soft and weak.

The egg was fragile, with the thin outer shell protecting its liquid interior until it was put in the boiling water. Then the inside of the egg became hard.

However, the ground coffee beans were unique. After they were exposed to the boiling water, they changed the water and created something new.

“Which are you,” he asked his daughter. “When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a potato, an egg, or a coffee bean? “

In life, things happen around us, things happen to us, but the only thing that truly matters is what happens within us.

Which one are you?

click me to see for more info about TTG

Trivatech Group

888-352-6563