What do Innovative Vulnerability Management Systems offer?

Over the past few decades advancements in information technology has had a profound impact on the global landscape. It has become a key component of an organization’s global business strategy. Technological developments have transformed the way enterprises operate today. Enterprises with their multiple desktops, servers, storage devices, laptops and networks have paved the path for storage and a seamless flow of vital data all through the network. However, the possibility of cyber threats, infrastructure deficiencies and wireless network loopholes have increased with data and customized applications becoming vulnerable and exposed to third party attacks from both internal and external sources. Moreover, organizations further depend on the advanced IT landscape to communicate, collaborate and share information through web applications, social networking sites, and blogs. This in turn can also become the source for security breaches, data leakages and other vulnerabilities.  Therefore, enterprises that are concerned about their IT security and IT compliance must resort to an efficient vulnerability management system.

What is Vulnerability Management?
Vulnerability management is a quantifiable and ongoing process that helps enterprises to understand the hazards of vulnerabilities being present in its IT environment. It further helps to secure the critical data, network assets, customer information and intellectual property. Digital information needs to be managed efficiently, as it is an important organization asset and is the core of Governance, Risk, and Compliance management process.

High level of information security paradigm requires risks to be evaluated and appropriate controls established to mitigate the risks. In simple terms, lesser the vulnerability on the network, lesser is the chance of something getting compromised. Hence, organizations need to invest invulnerability management solutions that aim at reliability, transparency, and sustainability, throughout the enterprise management process. An Innovative vulnerability assessment solution provides enterprises with a baseline of action towards attaining the appropriate balance between business intelligence and technology.

Innovative Vulnerability Management Solutions
Vulnerability management solutions offered by leading compliance management solution providers are compliant with government regulations and have PCI compliance/ ISO compliance as well. According to Gartner, an efficient vulnerability management solution includes:

  • Execution of IT compliance policies, recognizing device configurations, resource access and user identity
  • Prioritizing on vulnerabilities depending on risk influences and efforts
  • Comprehending vulnerability and security status based on the enterprise’s environmental baseline
  • Utilizing network security tools to secure an enterprise’s vital information
  • Alleviating external threats and internal security concerns with efficient strategies and end-to-end monitoring and managing of the IT environment
Keeping the above mentioned facts in mind, the latest vulnerability management solutions offer the following services:

Precise asset discovery – Ensures network mapping and discovery and asset prioritization

Centralized and single repository for every asset and vulnerability – There is automated compliance related information collating from technology and non-technology sources

Schedule audits – Provides a comprehensive audit trail for all compliance related practices through the overall process

Remote vulnerability scan – Scans and incorporates compliance related data from multiple sources

Maps vulnerabilities and assets to regulations – This offers document management, control, asset repository, and fine grained access control through a safe web based interface

Remediation tracking – Helps to Identify, prioritize and remediate IT risks

Reports and dashboards – Provides management dashboards for compliance status along with the capacity to drill down into various territories and departments

With the right threat and vulnerability management systems running in sync, the threat and exposure of the network is greatly reduced thereby bringing security, reliability, and availability to the enterprise network.

Read more on - governance risk and compliance, meaningful use of electronic health records

Reverse Logistics for Hassle-free Supply Chain management

Decline in revenues for an organization on the growth path may be the result of any  damage or theft.  However, for identifying the root cause of the issues, there are no better sources  other than  the organization’s own customers, prospects and “lost” customers. The supply chain being the  vital component for managing  cash flows and cost savings, lack of inventory planning, ineffective techniques and inefficient supply chain processes will have  a major effect on the company’s profitability.

 

The  world-class supply chain  solutions from leading  supply chain consulting service providers help client organization  face the challenges put forth by all other parameters including  human parameters, handle infrastructure and logistics operations  and allow organizations to focus on core business issues.

 

Evaluating a company's supply chain to understand it's strengths and weaknesses these service providers works out successful supply chain management solutions which will help them  optimize their operational environment with customized solutions for their business needs. These include fulfillment solutions, systems integration, forward logistics as well as reverse logistics.

 

However , to understand the term reverse logistics, it is first necessary to understand the term Logistics. As defined by the Council of Logistics management, Logistics is defined as “ The process of planning, implementing, and controlling the efficient, cost effective flow of raw materials, in-process inventory, finished goods and related information from the point of origin to the point of consumption for the purpose of conforming to customer requirements”. Reverse Logistics on the other hand refers to the flow from the point of consumption to the point of origin for the purpose of recapturing value or for disposal.”

 

Re-manufacturing and refurbishing activities  being included in the definition of reverse logistics, is more than reusing containers and recycling packaging materials. Redesigning packaging to use less material, or reducing the energy and pollution from transportation are important activities, but they might be placed in the realm of “green” logistics. Reverse logistics also includes processing returned merchandise due to damage, seasonal inventory, restock, salvage, recalls, and excess inventory. It also includes recycling programs, hazardous material programs, obsolete equipment disposition, and asset recovery.

 

The leading service providers offer their clientele integrated reverse logistics management system which  effectively refurbishes a vast array of products in minimal time and gets them back into the field tested and up to standards. The services include RMA support, warranty returns, Lease returns, test and debugging, repackaging, fulfillment, disposal and web based inquiry and reporting thus saving the organizations time, money and effective management of unused assets.

 

Read more about : Order Fulfillment

 

Reasons for improving social intelligence

Social media interaction and networking sans social intelligence does not yield the best that social media has too offer. Most brands today are present in social media sphere in order to stay connected with their audience and also generate mass awareness about their products, services and initiatives. The social intelligence that is gathered through initiated discussion, blogs and articles offers a brand various perspectives about their marketing and branding strategies. If a brand is able to garner greater social intelligence and make the most of it then it can attain much success in the forthcoming days.

 

However, improving social intelligence too is an essential element of making the most of social media monitoring.  In the recent past, there have been eminent companies specializing in social media analytics tools that have introduced social intelligence applications. These applications help to track information from various social platforms to tap into the consumer behavior. The strategy followed by these companies is to concentrate on a broader market for social commerce and attain actionable, valuable user information on real-time basis with these applications. Other benefits of these applications are as follows:-

 

·         Simple to set up and operate

·         Helps to evaluate the effectiveness of acquisition campaigns and carry on funnel analysis on viral features and promotions

·         Manage virtual currency monetization and trend metrics such as ARPPU, ARPU, payment type, conversions and so on

·         Attain actionable insights into the most-used application features and the aspects that generate monetization to make quicker, smarter operating decisions

·         Helps in having a clear understanding of trending metrics such as as ARPPU (Average Revenue per Paying User) over the last 30 or 60 days, or drill-down by payment type (Amazon, PayPal, Facebook Credits, etc.)

·         Helps to set up user profiles to target and personalize application content to the most valuable and engaged users, for instance frequent purchasers and frequent visitors

·         Attain deeper insights into user demographic with data offered through Facebook metrics and other social analytics

 

Whilst making the most of social intelligence you can also enhance the same through social analytics tools. This helps you to assess the social effectiveness of your brand and also helps in determining, whether the initiatives taken for improving social intelligence are working for you or not. Other benefits that social analytics tools offers are:-

 

·         Offers actionable insights and real time information that helps end users to arrive at smarter operating decisions

·         There is an easy-to-use visualization interface that offers both trending views and drill-down capacities

·         Offers results in seconds for companies to keep a track of user behavior in real-time and attain instant feedback on what is working and not working for a brand. This information helps in optimizing features, products, campaigns and communications on the go.

 

With innovative social intelligence applications and tools you leverage your social media monitoring to its full potential. Your brand attains a competitive edge over others and better brand recall value.

 

Read more about :  Facebook Analytics & social game monetization

 

How to improve Vendor collaboration with effective Vendor Management Solutions

With increased outsourcing and heightened regulatory concerns, it has become imperative for enterprises to manage their relationships with vendors. The regulatory concern has heightened dramatically in recent years, mainly because enterprises are outsourcing more services and technology. There are significant penalties for not adhering to these regulations or protecting the highly sensitive information. In the light of this, organizations need to organize their vendor relationships and create robust vendor management policies, while achieving and maintaining compliance and adhering to increasingly stringent regulations.

While the most important part of vendor management is to share information and priorities with your vendors, a sound vendor management program will better prepare your business for dealing with such third party vendors.A sound Vendor Management program helps build relationship between the customers and vendors and contributes to the overall financial health of the enterprise.  A well-managed vendor relationship will result in increased customer satisfaction, reduced costs, better quality, and better service from the vendor. The true purpose of a vendor management program is to maintain quality vendors and quality relationships.  

To ensure successful implementation of a vendor management program, it is important to:

  • Conduct a Risk Analysis
Enterprises need to identify the importance of the vendor to the organization, the nature of the activities that will be performed and the inherent risk of the activity. It is only when the risks are known that effective measures can be implemented to counter them.
  • Document the Vendor Relationship Contract
To properly manage relationship, a strong contract with the vendor is essential. All vendor relationships,irrespective of the risks must be defined in written contractsto avoid disagreements later. Scope of service and performance standards should be included in the contract.
  • Supervise and Monitor Vendors Continuously
Automated monitoring and supervision need to include the vendor's financial condition. The vendor's policies relating to internal controls and security should be reviewed and some method of determining whether the vendor is following such controls should be developed. It is also necessary for the vendor's contingency plans to be reviewed.

Vendor management is complex and at times can be cumbersome too. When properly implemented, it can help the organization save money, reputation,and deal well with regulatory issues. To ensure successful Vendor Compliance Management and to improve collaboration with vendors, it makes good sense to invest in a sound Vendor Management solutions that enables you to effectively leverage and manage vendor management process.

Know more on - HIPAA and HITECH, vulnerability management

Innovative Features of HPC Clusters

Software technologies and applications that help computer technology to expand beyond its limits arrive from various fields that include medical imaging, data mining, financial analytics and scientific computing. Each of them has got various program needs. What the high performance computing (HPC) clusters have in common is a crucial need for a secure speed of program execution.

What is a high-performance computing cluster?

The term high performance computing cluster was used originally to describe a competent, robust and number crunching super computer. Today as the range of applications for HPC’s have increased, the definition too has evolved. Today HPC is also comprised of systems with any combination of increased and speedy computing capacity, excellent quality data throughput and the capacity to combine substantial distributed computing power.

Requirements for HPC applications

Therefore, any solution that intends to boost HPC application needs to cover a wide spectrum of computing requirements. For instance, there is genome sequencing, business data mining that processes huge amounts of structured information making use of logical testing, string matching and numerical accumulation of operations. On the other hand, there is scientific visualization, medical imaging and computational chemistry that includes the operation like mathematical transformations, mapping and filtering. All these applications require a certain mix of logical and mathematical operators that are coupled with effective memory access.

Industry Solutions for HPC

Today eminent service providers of custom computer systems introduced high performance computing clusters that enable users to have a speedy access to data, minimize risk and handle growth more easily. Going by design, a selection of application platforms will be benefited and includes the one optimized for industrial design and manufacturing, life sciences, financial services, government and education.

Regardless, whether your work load needs huge intricate structures or only a cluster in office, eminent solution providers will enable you to set up well incorporated and dynamic HPC cluster architecture that is both easy to manage and implement. These companies with their high quality services have set up association with other top notch hardware providers. This integration of services assists the customers to attain a host of benefits, from a single point of contact to an overall cluster solution, for minimizing hassles.

High performance computing clusters have become popular because of its high-quality service and cost-efficiency. Instead of depending on custom processor elements and proprietary information pathways of SMP and MPP infrastructures, cluster computing also entails standard commodity processors as well.

Read Also On: Data Centre Solutions , Storage Server

Enhance Online Effectiveness with Actionable Intelligence

If you though that social network monitoring or marketing is all about being present in a social networking platform and recurrent posts, then there is more for you to know. Simply sharing new posts and interacting is not sufficient. Companies today need to engage their audience and conduct efficient engagement tracking along with monitoring. This will offer you a vast pool of data that has both social and actionable intelligence, which when put to use will yield positive results.

 

What is actionable intelligence?

Simply put, actionable intelligence is essentially any information that is instantly accessible and helps you to understand, enhance and makes you capable of dealing with any situation at hand. Simultaneously, it also enables you be more effective on your online marketing initiatives.

 

Today enterprises are concentrating much more on quantitative analysis and social analytics tools that assist them to improve and optimize. The appropriate information can offer actionable insights to guide you on what is working on your online social networking strategy and so that you can plan it accordingly. Advanced business analytics, is a crucial aspect of business life, but having the apt tool for a task and utilizing it effectively, is where lies the challenge.

 

Role of actionable intelligence in smarter operation decisions

Today eminent service providers in social analytics offer important and actionable user insights for making multiple relevant business improvements. These companies offer actionable insights instantaneously to assist the users arrive at smarter, faster operating decisions and set up automated business procedures. Actionable intelligence also allows you to:-

 

·         Evaluate data instantaneously from all over mobile, social and web platforms to enable ecommerce companies and game developers to continuously enhance customer acquisition, engagement and monetization campaigns

·         Use visualization interface that enables you to completely understand business performance so that you can make better operating decisions

·         Track end user behavior in real-time and have access to instant feedback on what is working versus what is not for you to optimize on the fly

·         Monetize your capacity to capture broad data, uncover perceptive insights and close the loop with automation in real time

 

Furthermore, top notch service providers of social analytics tools today provide robust SaaS applications that help in making integration, implementation and maintenance easy and fast. It also offers the power for processing vast amount of data having 99.95 percent uptime for this no resources are needed. Furthermore, actionable intelligence modernizes the social analytics you are using to go beyond mainstream metrics enabling you to concentrate on a wide selection for understanding content, event and user segment to generate more revenue.

 

Read more about : intelligence social & Facebook Analytics

 

Easy Reporting of Foreign Bank Accounts

If you are an American citizen then the Foreign Bank and Financial Account Report (FBAR) is a form that IRS needs you to file in order to comply with the needs of reporting foreign bank account and financial accounts to the United States tax authorities. This is applicable to any person residing in United States having a financial interest, signature or any other authority on any financial account in a foreign country. Furthermore, it is applicable if the aggregate value of all these countries surpasses US$10,000 anytime in the year. The form that you have to fill out per year is officially termed as Treasury Department Form 90-22.1.

 

Incomes that are generated inside these foreign bank accounts are reported on the person’s individual tax return on the year the income is earned. Therefore, you will have to report the foreign income based on the kind of income that is being generated, For instance, dividends and incomes would be reported on Schedule B, capital gains on Schedule C and so on. Hence, if you are going to earn on interest and dividends on these accounts then is it important to check the box in Part III Line 7A of Schedule B and indicate the country/countries where you hold accounts.

What kind of foreign bank and financial accounts can be reported?

The following kinds of financial accounts us required to be reported on the Foreign Bank Account Report, if you qualify for it:-

 

* Bank accounts (checking and savings)

* Investment accounts

* Mutual funds

* Retirement and pension accounts

* Securities and other brokerage accounts

* Life insurance and annuities having cash value

When do you need to file the form?

The Treasury Form 90-22.1 is due June 30th every year when American citizens are asked to report the foreign bank accounts they are holding. Quoting the Internal Revenue Manual section 4.26.16.3.7 it is highlighted that the “The FBAR is considered filed when it is received in Detroit, not when it is postmarked."

What happens when you miss the filing deadline?

An individual needs to file the TD F 90-22.1 to report about the foreign bank accounts that he is holding presently, even if he missed the June 30th deadline. This is because the state has formulated stiff penalties for willfully failing to file this report. This is where you need help from expert tax planning service providers in United States to avert the penalties and smoothly conduct the process of FBAR.

Read Also On: Entity Formation

Mobile Security Services- Ascertains Growth of Mobile Workforce

Today's business environment is  highly technology oriented with cloud computing services, world-class software applications and  widely   networked IT infrastructure. With globalization paving way for such technology growth,  IT giants are faced with challenges of asymmetric threat environment and  providing security to organization's mission critical information.

 

Viewing the challenge from the vantage point of the corporate network's reach reveals that in the globalized environment  the new technology innovations have paved way for  easy  access to the corporate vital data and information from any device and any location. This has made the mobile devices such  as laptops, smartphones and tablets new devices to access the network.  However, organizations need to cater for the end point security issues  with the help of mobile security services,  even as the  accessibility levels help organizations to face the aggressive competition.

 

For the mobile workforce, the smart phones and laptops with accessibility to the corporate network has come as a boon.  For the organizations, their network is pushed beyond boundaries. However, with high level hardware platforms these organizations need to ensure that the software professionals have worked on secure application development methodologies to provide anytime anywhere access through the mobile devices.

 

Today, mobile computing is a reality and organizations failing to recognize threats and vulnerabilities faced by the new age technology are negligent about the losses that they may incur.   The loss of mission critical data and private information of customers may lead to disastrous results for the  organization.  Implementing  security policies through educating the workforce to use secure application development methodologies. With open source source software turning into a major player in the software industry, professionals and workforce accessing  the open source software need to ensure use of open source security solution. This  will help organizations to manage the risks.

 

However, with the expansion of the business to wider locations, the number of mobile users accessing the corporate data  tends to grow, which makes security breaches inevitable. Besides the process of application development, any design flaws, protocol failures and well as failure on part of mobile infra components can impact the security status. Thus mobile security services should be one that would cater with a holistic view of the situations.  

 

Leading IT service providers have worked out mobile security services to help organizations deploy secure mobile applications on various platforms to enable mobility to the workforce. Such services are designed with an aim to facilitate the clientele with secure data storage, deploying data securely through various protocols and reduce software re-engineering and compliance costs.  The services such as mobile application security,  application store security, mobile payment and banking security, mobile data management security for the enterprise all aim towards access control, usage and authentications of corporate data.  Security being a challenging issue for the software developers such holistic approach is required to ensure good risk management frameworks.

 

Know more on - cloud security, Banking IT security

 

The Best Strategy for a Secure Application Development Process

Numerous security issues can crop up when developing software applications. Security attacks have become sophisticated and can easily pervade your processes making the entire operation a failure. Due to lack of practical designs and proficient strategies your development teams will continue to commit mistakes in developing effective security controls and this can cost you a heavy price. Various technologies and applications are used in the application development process. As security is top priority you have to adopt a holistic approach that provides you with comprehensive and effective security policies.

 

The use of open source codes is a common phenomenon in application development. There are hardly any restrictions and you can use these codes freely which helps in reducing costs and provides the advantage of accelerated time-to-market. But you must also be wary of the high potential risks prevalent in the open source codes. There may be innumerable risks within the multiple layers of the code that is not easily detectable by you. If you are not aware of any security risks how can you apply remediation measures?

 

The open source codes are developed by unknown developers with no records of when and where they were created.  You may not find any patches and upgrades also to fix the bugs. This is extremely lethal as you have to have a solution to debug the codes. Sometimes you are in such a hurry to complete your mission within the stipulated time that you choose to use the codes without testing them thoroughly making your applications extremely vulnerable to the open source security threats.  Open source codes can also lead to leakage of codes when it is used with any other proprietary codes resulting in violation of copyrights and can put you through a legal mess.

 

You may even contemplate adopting the privileged identity management strategy. In this strategy the IT administrators have special permission to manage the applications. However, this decision can be risky as the administrators can misuse their powers because they have the authority to reconfigure, restart and install new applications without any restrictions. The privileged IDs are meant to be used during emergencies where the normal security procedures are easily overridden, and these IDs are rarely taken back which makes it difficult to track who has handled which account and which accounts can cause detrimental effects to your business.

 

The only solution to a secure application development process is the deployment of an intelligent risk management framework that provides you with leveraged services such as an analysis of how the application is going to be used, whom is it going to be shared with, who has the ownership rights etc. The framework will help in assessing the requirements of your business, the security risks in the environment and provide you with simple solutions that will help to enhance the performance and security of the applications. The risk management framework covers the entire lifecycle of the privileged identity management process such as planning, designing, implementation and support. It provides user accountability reports, audits any suspicious movements, and applies effective measures proactively to prevent any abuse. It provides you with records of the individuals that have made changes in the applications, at what time and for what reasons. A foolproof security framework helps you develop secure applications without any expensive risks.

 

Read more on - data protection solutions, application security

Importance of Medical and Phase 1 Studies

Medical research and studies are an essential aspect that helps doctors and other clinical technicians find important answers. In this regard, numerous ways have been set up to assist clinical educators and aspiring medical students to search and study in order to find out essential medical truths about ailments and the overall human system. Other than acquiring more information, it is also essential to opt in for interesting facts concerning any unexplained phenomena. This means that the total process of clinical research and studies involves interviewing chief people, library work and also individuals who are involved directly/indirectly to gather information. Another important aspect about medical studies is that they should interest the readers about the subject matter.

In the recent past, eminent clinical research organizations (CRO’s) have been conducting multiple medical studies on various issues and have been encouraging authentic medical practice. The original purpose and intent of these studies is to examine the effects of drugs, treatment regimen and health devices on certain patients. Another objective was to improve the standard of overall medical treatment and drug development process.

Medical studies have improved manifold significantly over the last few decades and have resulted in discovering vital cures. Though there are still certain flaws that the medical professionals take care and aims to eliminate with future research and studies. To name one such noteworthy branch is the Phase 1 study that is conducted in eminent Indian CRO’s that is further supported by their experience in clinical trials. These CRO’s are well equipped with state-of-the-art infrastructure to carry on phase 1 study with volunteers. Some of the components of this study are:-

* First-in-human

* Single Ascending Dose studies

* Multiple Ascending Dose studies

* New Chemical Entities

* Dose Escalating studies

Indian CRO’s provides specialized service for Phase 1 Studies such as First-in-Man for new chemical entities (NCE’s) and new biological entities (NBE’s). They also provide a wide selection of clinical pharmacology studies that comprises of Proof of Mechanism & Proof of Concept, Food Effect, Pharmacokinetic / Pharmacodynamic studies, Drug Interaction studies, TQTc studies, and exploratory studies for various biomarkers and various Special Population studies.

This apart, when it comes to infrastructure Indian CRO’s are furnished with well managed bed units for Phase 1 Study trials and have a well trained team of professionals to manage the same. They have the latest medical equipments to practice with and also have experienced nursing staff to assist them. These staffs have complete experience in First-in-human and other clinical pharmacology studies.

Read Also On: Phase I Study, Biometrics, Clinical Laboratory