Servers Unnecessarily Add Risk to Supply Chain Security
Kelly Ungs
Your supply chain is humming along. Shipments are on track, the system is optimized and productivity is up. Then it happens: a widespread ransomware attack is all over the news. Are you protected? Could it knock you offline? Well, that depends on some very important decisions you may have made when you purchased your system. In short, if you selected a system that relies on a dedicated, always connected server, and its architecture can create a single point of system failure, then you may want to begin making backup and recovery plans.
Supply chain mobility doesn’t need to be risky
Some competitive mobility telnet implementations require an always online, dedicated server for mobile applications to flow through. They boast that this server enables session persistence, but that’s not providing anything unique. Every viable telnet host connectivity solution on the market offers some standard means of session persistence. For example, we offer our ConnectPro session persistence as part of the cost of our solution for Terminal Emulation and Velocity users who require it. It turns out that less than 15% ever use it.
Ivanti’s standards-based, serverless implementation eliminates the single point of failure that can also be the target of a threat like ransomware. We offer system add-ons that may run on a PC, but are not required to always be online. You use only the system components your environment and enterprise require.
Instead of relying on an architecture that ties your hands at every turn, and proprietary protocol tricks, Ivanti uses standard, routable protocols to offer an enterprise-strength terminal emulation solution that supports system failover to backup hosts across the network. Even if your main local host fails, workers can move to a backup host. It could even be at a different site, allowing work to continue. This might not seem like a big deal, until a cyber attack threatens and possibly even shuts down your business.
Of course, you have servers, somewhere
Whether you’ve chosen a mobility solution that requires it or they’re elsewhere in your business, you have servers somewhere. There’s good news here too: you can get your patch management solution from Ivanti. In fact, the widespread impact of the Wannacrypt ransomware that hit organizations around the globe has raised the need for this protection. You can prevent this and other malware with a free patch license from Ivanti. We can help protect your organization from external threats using leading products, but we can’t fix the risk from ill-designed telnet connectivity solutions.
Supply chain security is a growing concern. The financial impact of a security breach is well known, placing focus on prevention through both solution architecture and patch management. Don’t let your critical enterprise systems or mobility implementations expose you to unnecessary risk.
