By Nora Gibbons, Sentinel Social Media Specialist

I had the honor of joining nine colleagues representing Sentinel at the Chicago Top Workplaces Awards event at United Club Soldier Field. The evening was a true celebration of Chicago.  Sentinel, our fellow honorees and more than 700 C-level Chicago executives had the opportunity to take photos on Soldier Field, learn more about fellow local businesses, and meet the Chicago Cubs mascot Clark.   

After cocktail hour, the night kicked off with Chicago’s favorite news anchor-turned-Lyft driver/podcaster Anthony Ponce, who was emceeing the event. We listened to thought-provoking speeches around the central theme of “meaningfulness” from business leaders, including Bruce Dold (Chicago Tribune), Amy Carr (Chicago Tribune), Dan Kessler (Energage), and Steve J. Bernas (Better Business Bureau). The speeches capped off with a fun and enlightening keynote from Tom Ricketts of the Chicago Cubs. 

As each speech brought us closer to the announcement of Chicago’s Top Workplaces, we were all equal parts nervous and excited. The ten of us were holding our breath in anticipation, because we all truly cared about the outcome. When the list was finally revealed, I realized how different Sentinel is than other companies. We all work hard each and every day contributing to both the culture and success of the company.  We all had made the decision, at some point during our career, to lean in. Sitting next to the stage on the edge of our seats, we heard Sentinel be named #11 in the midsize business category. It was a very surreal experience.

I’m proud of the work Sentinel does. We work hard, constantly grow, and have A LOT of fun along the way. This is our 6^th consecutive year on the Top Workplaces list, and I could not be prouder of the talented team I get to work with every day. I came into Sentinel a little over two years ago with no experience in the technology industry. In that time, I have learned more than I thought possible and discovered a love of technology I didn’t know I had.  I have been surrounded by a team willing to lend a hand, mentor me and work with me to accomplish more than I thought was possible. I have also grown personally and professionally. I have met coworkers who quickly grew to friends and even more quickly grew to be an extension of my family.

It was an honor to hear Sentinel be acknowledged for the amazing culture they curate for their employees. I count myself lucky to be part of this team. Thank you for this opportunity!

Congratulations Sentinel! 35 years strong.

By Dr. Mike Strnad, Sentinel Strategic Business Advisor

Complying with PCI and/or HIPAA requirements should be one of the highest priorities for your business. It isn’t something you can simply disregard. If your organization experiences a data breach while out of compliance, it can be subjected to substantial penalties, a public relations nightmare, and many other consequences. This can even occur outside of a PCI audit period should a breach compromise the financial and personal data of your customers as a result of non-compliance.

Changes to compliance rules for PCI DSS and HIPAA have occurred more frequently in recent years due to the sharp increase in the number of data breaches. For many organizations, achieving compliance is considered a chore rather than a necessity, and the hefty fines levied against companies that experience a breach due to non-compliance have only increased the amount of anger and resentment.

The most important reason for compliance is to safeguard the confidential data of your organization, employees, and customers. By following the PCI DSS and HIPAA standards, you can keep your computers, networks, and servers secure, circumventing costly breaches and loss of customer confidence.

Customer confidence can have a significant effect on your organization’s profits. Even if a breach doesn’t occur, you could still lose business if customers are concerned their private information could be stolen. That’s why it’s so important to stay compliant – to show them you’re serious about security and are taking every precaution to keep their sensitive data safe.

Here are 10 surprising compliance statistics from 2017:

1. The number of PCI DSS compliant organizations has increased by 167% since 2012

2. 80% of organizations are still not fully PCI DSS compliant

3. Only 26% of news media executives believe their businesses are compliant

4. Only 29% of companies are compliant a year after validation

5. Fines for non-compliance can reach up to $100,000 a month

6. According to a report from Verizon, none of the companies breached in 2016 were fully compliant

7. 39% of organizations were breached through insecure remote access

8. The average total cost of a data breach is $4 million

9. 69% of consumers feel less inclined to do business with an organization that has experienced a breach

10. At the time of data compromise, the average business wasn't compliant with at least 47% of PCI DSS requirements

Sentinel’s Advisory Services Group has years of experience helping organizations achieve and remain compliant. Our extensive array of assessments includes a yearly maintenance review designed to uncover any compliance gaps within your environment. If you’d like to learn more about that or any of our other compliance offerings, please contact us.

Sentinel is proud to employ veterans and military families at our locations across the country. We are honored they have chosen to bring their valuable skills, knowledge, leadership, and passion to Sentinel. In advance of Veterans Day, we asked U.S. Army Veteran and Strategic Business Advisor Dr. Mike Strnad to share some reflections on his time in the military and offer tips on ways to honor our men and women in uniform.

Spending more than 13 years in the United States Army opened my heart to a new meaning of serving. No individual was different; we were all brothers and sisters aiming for the same conclusion – keeping our country free and safe. Respect was given to all, no matter your rank, origin, religion, or sex.

I continue to practice the tenets and values I learned in the service. Here is the creed I followed then and now:

The Soldier's Creed 

I am an American Soldier.
I am a Warrior and a member of a team. I serve the people of the United States and live the Army Values.

I will always place the mission first.
I will never accept defeat.
I will never quit.
I will never leave a fallen comrade.

I am disciplined, physically and mentally tough, trained and proficient in my warrior tasks and drills. I always maintain my arms, my equipment and myself.
I am an expert and I am a professional.
I stand ready to deploy, engage, and destroy the enemies of the United States of America in close combat.
I am a guardian of freedom and the American way of life.
I am an American Soldier.

This Veterans Day and every day I remember all the brothers and sisters that served with me and honor all those currently serving, who provide us with the freedom we enjoy and hold dear. My deepest respect is given to them all.

Whenever you encounter members of the military past or present, make sure to walk over, give them a big smile, and thank them for their service. If you see them having a meal, pick up their tab if you can afford it. These little bits of gratitude go such a long way, and lets them know how much you value the freedom they fought to provide.

On Veterans Day in particular, I encourage everyone to take the time to be proactive and reach out to any friends, family, or strangers in uniform that have served in the military. Call them on the phone. Write them a letter. Visit a VA hospital or local VFW Post. Attend a parade. Shake the hands of our veterans and say, “Thank you for serving.” Keep current military personnel in your thoughts and prayers every night too, as they walk the fence line and patrol the air, sea, land, and stand ready as needed.

God bless you all my brothers and sisters, and protect your 6…

SFC Mike Strnad 
Proud Veteran, U.S. Army

By Dr. Mike Strnad

Military soldiers sacrifice much, with no reservations, to serve our country. They are prepared mentally, emotionally, physically, tactically, and strategically to fight on the battlefield. Many scenarios teach them how to use terrain and objects to create a strategic advantage in any situation. Their training makes them better prepared for something they hoped would never come: war.

Preparation not only makes them better leaders and friends to many of their fellow soldiers, but it also plays a critical role when dangers arise. Organizations should adopt a similar mentality when developing their IT strategy. It is incredibly important to be ready for anything and everything that might come your way, as the cyber security war is just getting started.

The cyber security war is very real, and acceptance is the first step to protection. A great article from Riley Walters analyzed the cost of all cybercrime from 58 public and private U.S. organizations and determined they spent an average of $15.4 million fighting cyber attacks in 2014. This article not only highlighted on numerous attacks, but followed their aftermath as well.

As you begin to figure out what you can do to prevent cyber attacks from wreaking havoc on your business, it’s important to consult with experts who deal with IT security on a daily basis. While it may seem like large, enterprise companies would be primary targets for hackers, more often than not the opposite is true. This could be a real challenge for smaller organizations that may not have the budget to afford consultants or a dedicated security team.  

Security must be taken seriously by everyone in the organization, from the CEO right down to the lowest level office workers. Everyone plays a vital role. The weakest links in most situations are those that interface directly with private and sensitive data. Identifying potential threats and how to protect your business from them can be a highly daunting task.

No matter what size and budget you have to work with, here are a few protective measures and best practices your organization can implement quickly and at little to no cost:

If you have any reason to believe an email sent to you is not legitimate, don’t open it.

Use extreme caution when opening attachments, no matter how trustworthy the sender might seem. Retailers will never send emails with attachments.

Avoid giving out personal information over the phone or in an email whenever possible. Social engineering is a process of deceiving individuals into providing personal information to seemingly trusted agents who turn out to be malicious actors.

Set secure passwords and don't share them with anyone. Avoid using common words, phrases, or personal information as your passwords. Update and change them regularly

Keep your operating system, browser, anti-virus and other critical software current with security updates and patches. Many are available for free from major companies.

Verify the authenticity of requests from companies or individuals by contacting them directly.

Pay close attention to website URLs. Hackers often create dummy websites that look nearly identical to the real thing, and with a similar URL.

Turn off the option to automatically download email attachments.

Be suspicious of unknown links or requests sent through email or text message. Do not click on unknown links or answer strange questions sent to your mobile device regardless of who the sender appears to be.

Sentinel Technologies can help with these daunting issues. We have an expert sales team that is backed with certified specialists ready to consult with you on any and all of your security concerns. Data loss can cost a company millions, but logical, practical, and concrete solutions are available.. Let Sentinel guide you through solutions that will fit not only your company, but your budget as well.

This Sunday is World Internet Day, honoring the 48^th anniversary of the very first Internet transmission. On October 29, 1969, mere months after Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, UCLA student scientists Leonard Kleinrock and Charley Kline managed to send the letters “L” and “O” to fellow student Bill Duvall at Stanford. While the connection between the two computer terminals crashed before any additional data could be sent, this tiny breakthrough turned out to be the beginning of a new form of communication and information sharing that would completely transform the world as we know it.

Of course what we recognize as the modern version of the Internet wouldn’t be established until decades later. The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) used the initial connection to create a network of four computers, each located at different universities in California and Utah. Funded by the US Department of Defense, this closed network expanded to other select government and university computers around the country throughout the 1970s, with the intent of sharing knowledge and advancing research of all kinds.

Once Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) were invented in the late 1980s, they were combined with the Internet to form the building blocks of the World Wide Web. Sales systems were among the first uses of the web, as people bought and traded a variety of items from one another. However until the mid-‘90s, very few people owned or could afford the technology to connect to the Internet in the first place. Microsoft’s Windows 95 was the first operating system to include a browser, giving millions of people access to the web from the comfort of their homes.

Half of all American homes had a personal computer by 2000, and those early development phases of the web resulted in a lot of chat rooms, email programs, and some very basic websites that often failed to engage with users in any meaningful way. Soon enough though, more people began to learn the intricacies of web development and programming, leading to rapid growth and advancements over the next several years. The number of websites skyrocketed from 100,000 to more than 160 million between the mid-‘90s and mid-‘00s. Web-based businesses such as Amazon and eBay also sharply rose in prominence, leading to heavy investments in new sites and eventually a dot com bubble that would eventually burst.

Yet the web, along with e-commerce, continues to expand at an exponential rate as new technologies emerge and we increasingly incorporate it into our daily lives. It is currently estimated that around 80% of the world will have internet access by 2020, with African and Latin American nations steadily expanding coverage for their citizens. As always, it’s anybody’s guess as to what the next evolution of the Internet will yield, but if it winds up anything like the last couple of decades, we should all be prepared for an exciting ride ahead.

World Internet Day is a great reason to examine how you spend time online, and consider whether your organization is getting the most out of its Internet connection. Sentinel has a wide variety of wireless offerings designed to enhance the way you use the Internet. Please contact us for a quote or additional information.

By Jeff Bell, Sentinel Support Analyst

Digital currency mining has become a lucrative business for many cyber criminals today. It exploits the computers, tablets, and smartphones of users that visit certain popular (and often random) websites, embedding a malicious JavaScript code within those devices that secretly consumes your organization’s resources while attempting to generate new units of bitcoin-like digital currency known as Monero.

Many of the websites being used to spread this malware are unaware they are doing so, as hackers often plant the malicious code known as CoinHive without their knowledge. Other sites are knowingly using the malware to generate revenue for themselves beyond what they would make through hosted ads and sponsored content.

Because this requires vast amounts of computing power, devices and networks infected with this malware will often see a sharp slowdown in operations, impacting productivity and creating frustration. Additionally, if the malware reaches a scalable company resource such as the cloud, it can push against data usage limits and create large overage fees for victims.

Sentinel’s Security Operations Center (SOC) proactively counters web theft attempts of our customers’ resources through digital currency mining such as CoinHive. Armed with high-powered IDS detection, our analysts gather critical threat intelligence and take immediate action in notifying customers of the resource theft. Sentinel also deploys proprietary, preventative countermeasures for all customers to defend against any potential currency mining threats in the future.

Sentinel’s SOC monitoring is available a part of our Security as a Service offering. To learn more about SECaaS and our entire SecuritySelect portfolio, please contact us.

Many companies and organizations are currently operating with an outdated Cisco CallManager. Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Unified CM) gives businesses the ability to bring disparate teams and coworkers together. A leader in the 2017 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications, Cisco CallManager provides unified communications, enhanced mobility, and scalability. The solution is open, interoperable, secure, and compliant, and can meet the needs of businesses of all sizes across industries.

As of November 30^th, 2017 Unified Communications Manager Version 8 will be obsolete. This means all Cisco CallManagers pre-9.x must migrate to Version 10 or above. Licenses/Device License Units (DLU) for these systems are no longer orderable, and Global Licensing Operations will not upgrade newer licenses purchased after July 31st, 2016. To ensure continued support, organizations must upgrade older systems to version 10 or 11 as soon as possible.

After November 30^th, customers will no longer be able to trade in DLUs; the support team will no longer be available to assist with pre-migration reviews or help determine how many licenses are needed at time of migration to be compliant.

If you have any questions about the Cisco CallManager migration, please feel free to contact Sentinel to speak with a collaboration specialist. Our team is ready to help businesses through this transition.

By Dr. Mike Strnad

The term "Health Information Technology" (Health IT) is a broad concept that encompasses an array of technologies to store, share, and analyze health information. More and more, healthcare providers are using health IT to improve patient care. But health IT isn't just for healthcare providers. You can use health IT as a patient to better communicate with your doctor, learn and share information about your health, and take actions that will improve your quality of life. Health IT lets you be a crucial part of the team that keeps you healthy.

Today’s information technology revolves around many levels in business. In health organizations, IT often plays a key role in the creation and management of Electronic Health Records (EHRs), Personal Health Records (PHRs), E-prescriptions, and more. Unfortunately when healthcare budgets are cut, IT is often one of the first areas on the chopping block. This has forced many health IT departments to do more with less, and take on additional responsibilities that extend well beyond their traditional skill sets. Most demanding among these is security.

Data security has been a hot topic in business technology, and will continue to be for many years to come. As ransomware and data breaches become more prevalent than ever, healthcare IT workers are stepping up and fighting to adapt in this ever-changing landscape. Thankfully the number of security specialists has been growing at a significant rate, helping to ease the burden of many IT departments. However if health organizations continue to cut IT staff and resources, they could be placing themselves at significant risk.

The key to maintaining a strong IT department for any business is to not only focus on today’s environment but to look toward the future. As we become better at deterring breaches, newer and more innovative intrusion techniques will arise. IT departments must not become complacent and should consistently invest in education for staff to ensure they are fully prepared for anything that might come their way.

Sentinel offers a comprehensive array of products, solutions, and services designed specifically for the healthcare industry. If you would like to learn more about our offerings and how they can help your organization, please contact us. 

By Dr. Mike Strnad, Sentinel Strategic Business Advisor

The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), also known as the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, was established following several high profile fraud and deception cases throughout the banking, securities, and insurance industries. One of its biggest benefits was that it placed a spotlight on the need to establish a more formal framework to ensure that an organization’s IT investments are fully aligned with their business objectives. This is one of the foundational tenets of IT governance.

By following a formal framework, organizations can yield quantifiable results toward attaining goals more quickly and easily than ever before. A recognized program like ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) provides organizations with a set of regimented processes to follow.

There are many reasons to make IT governance a priority for your business. The sheer number of regulations being imposed on organizations today should be one of the primary motivating factors. Companies also need to reinforce critical areas of their infrastructure such as data retention and disaster recovery. Formal IT governance programs such as ITIL, which utilize best practices, are an easy way to implement this.

If you’re looking to implement an IT governance program, make sure to contact the Strategic Advisory Group at Sentinel. Our consultants are certified experts in ITIL, and can help your organization optimize the relationship between IT and business using five keys to management best practices: strategy, design, transition (change management), operation, and continual service improvement.

In order to ensure a smooth implementation and positive results, it is essential to engage with executives throughout the organization. Forming a risk management committee with top-level management is a great way to get that conversation started. Make sure to share progress and results with as many people as possible so everyone stays on the same page and can closely monitor positive gains and areas still in need of improvement. Communication is where everything begins and ends.

If you would like to learn more about IT governance and how Sentinel can help streamline your technology and business processes, please contact us.

Every 3rd Tuesday of September we celebrate National IT Professional Day! An idea that originated with our partner Solarwinds, IT Professionals Day became a nationally recognized holiday in 2015.

This holiday is very special to Sentinel. Our amazing staff of IT professionals across the country work tirelessly with our partners to create, implement, and manage technology solutions across all types of industries and environments. They truly are the backbone of Sentinel. We are incredibly lucky to have such a talented team of individuals working within Sentinel and with our clients.

Not only do we get to celebrate IT professionals in the Sentinel family, but we also get to honor the dedication and hard work of our amazing clients. Nationwide, we work to create unique solutions hand-in-hand with the Chief Technology Officers, IT Managers, Network Managers, Cybersecurity Executives, and others that make up our clients’ IT departments. These solutions are crafted to meet the needs of their organizations in accordance with industry compliance standards. This creates a very collaborative environment between our clients and our team. Their work together allows them to learn from each other by expanding their knowledge base, exploring different sides of technology, and growing their skill set.

Beyond our clients, we work closely with our partners to ensure we are delivering the most effective and efficient solutions available. This includes participating in trainings, meetings, whiteboard sessions, and the occasional working lunch with their brilliant teams. Without these professionals, we would not be able to deliver the high quality services and solutions Sentinel is known for in the industry.

So today, and every day, we want to say thank-you to all of the IT professionals who help Sentinel to remain Always Leading. We appreciate all you do to keep us connected, running, and relevant. Thank you!