Hackers are using a new channel of attack for penetrating networks. A malware threat previously used in direct attacks against energy sector companies is now being aimed at organizations that use or develop industrial applications and machines. This strategy introduces malware into systems that are then connected into target networks. In early 2014 attackers began distributing new versions...
Read MoreBusiness System Complexities and What To Do About It Business systems are complex, only becoming more complex, and as such the management of the associated identities has spiraled out-of-control for many Enterprise organizations. Additionally, it is increasingly more challenging to protect the type of devices that access Enterprise data. Over the years, this has culminated in business unit...
Read MoreI recently wrote a post about considerations for an international deployment – key items that need to be planned for or mitigated to avoid trouble down the road. To follow up on that post, I wanted to discuss some additional items that aren’t necessarily specific to an international deployment, but really are more relevant for any migration, large or small, local or global.…
Read More[Update 2015 June 3: Windows 10’s kernel version number has changed from 6.4 to 10.0 – as a result, some additional updates to MDT are required as outlined below] When Microsoft released the Technical Preview of Windows 10, I was excited to try deploying it using WMP’s Automated Build Environment (ABE) deployment tool.…
Read MoreOver the years I have had the privilege to use, configure, and review a multitude of claim and benefit administration systems. Some have been home grown systems that have evolved as a business changed, while others were off-the-shelf versions that had minor tweaks and customizations to fit a specific business need.…
Read MoreThe evolution of massively scalable, multi-faceted, cloud based infrastructure solutions (think Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and others), has enabled an unprecedented amount of functionality to our clients. Even better, these solutions come at a cost structure unheard of even just a few years ago. Their ease of provisioning and deployment and their extremely low barrier to entry...
Read MoreA couple years back, an HP engineer at CommBank in Australia managed to format some 9,000 workstations using Microsoft’s System Center Configuration Manager. The problem is…they weren’t trying to. Turns out that an operating system deployment task sequence was inadvertently advertised to nearly every computer in the environment, meaning those machines, whether they needed...
Read MoreOffice 365 is a leading enterprise cloud solution for companies looking to make the jump to Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). While the functionality is now mostly on-par with the On-Premises solutions (e.g. Exchange), there are a number of caveats during the implementation phase that add complexity and limitations if not properly addressed.…
Read MoreIn a previous blog, “Customizing Salesforce.com for Better Business Results,” I described a customized Salesforce solution configured for a financial services organization to help realize the greatest possible return from its Salesforce.com investment. After seeing the initial value the platform delivered for its business, the institution wanted to expand its use of Salesforce.com to solve...
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Credit: heartbleed.com This week, researchers from Codenomicon and Google Security publicly disclosed a critical bug in the OpenSSL cryptographic software package used by millions of internet connected services. This weakness, referred to as the Heartbleed bug, allows anyone on the Internet to steal information from vulnerable systems by exploiting a protocol designed to ensure the security...
Read MoreNearly 70% of healthcare executives currently face challenges due to increasing billing complexity, delayed managed care payments, decreasing reimbursement, or increasing debt. Chances are your organization is faced with at least two of these. It’s imperative to take a decisive approach to solving these types of cash flow impediments to maintain solvency.…
Read MoreWhen it comes to the IT challenges of the new Healthcare.gov Healthcare Exchange, the hits keep on coming. Over the weekend, the healthcare.gov hosting vendor, Terremark (a subsidiary of Verizon), “experienced a failure in a networking component” and the attempted fix crashed the system. The failure is in the “Data Services Hub,” which connects the exchange to other...
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