December 21, 2011
Have you ever wondered what you would do if your laptop was stolen? What if it contained sensitive information about your business or your personal life? Is it possible to track it down?
One of our clients found out the answers to those questions the hard way when a Howel teenager went on a burglary spree. In a three month period, the teen broke into cars throughout the township. Thankfully, he is now in jail, awaiting trial for a long list of crimes.
Click here to read the full article.
Our client, who will remain nameless, may have felt unlucky when his laptop was stolen from his car, but it was actually that move that landed the teen in the Monmouth County Jail in Freehold Township. Soon after pilfering the laptop, the foolish teen decided to use his newly acquired piece of technology.
What he didn’t know is that our client had his laptop on AMRCON’s ODS!
Our client called us, and we were able to track down the IP address in no time and lead Colts Neck police to the arrest.
So far, police have charged the teen with 19 counts of burglary, 14 counts of theft, two counts of credit card theft, three counts of possession and dealing in stolen property, possession of forged prescriptions, possession of burglary tools, possession of a controlled dangerous substance, and possession of drug paraphernalia.
That’s a long list! And it’s only expected to grow.
We’re glad we were able to lend police a hand in capturing this troubled teen and that we could help a client in need so quickly. That’s the true benefit of on-demand support—
We’re always here when you need us to lend a hand and get you back on track. Learn more about our ODS Managed Services.
June 24, 2010
In today’s world of heightened security with both foreign and domestic threats on the rise, eternal vigilance now more than ever should be the mantra of all Americans including Small Business owners.
What? What does National Security have to do with me? Well the short and simple answer is that “Security, being a chain is only as strong as its weakest link”. Small Business owners are responsible for not only economic growth, but also contribute to the growth of online computing resources on the Internet.
Small Business owners have been feeling the pinch in the economy and as a result may have not spent the funds necessary to ensure that their networking environments have been secured. We all have heard it before, “If it’s not broken, don’t fix it”.
Communications is a key component in subversive activities both in the United States and abroad. Small businesses and individual citizens have unknowingly assisted in the facilitation of these communications, through poorly secured communications systems including VoIP, Network and Email systems.
A poorly secured communications system deployed on the Internet, not only gives the ability to bounce or even originate communications to anywhere in the world, but it may in fact have legal consequences as well. Minimally Small Businesses or individuals that have been breached may be impacted as a result of governmental computer systems flagging them as a person or an entity of interest for monitoring.
For those of you reading this that have already made capital investments in communications systems, take the time verify that they are secure. Some industry best practices include:
1. The implementation of a hardware firewall that has been well configured
(remember the minimalists approach in access is always the best).
2. Disable unused services on both workstations and servers.
3. Leverage anti-virus and anti-malware whenever possible.
4. As a part of your audit policy, enable logging of all access, and authentication to secured resources.
5. Implement a ridged password policy across all systems.
6. Educate your users, (business related browsing only, deleting unwanted emails
and never opening un-trusted downloads from the Internet).
No one can ever guarantee that a system is 100% secured as long as it has a network cable attached to the world, but taking some simple precautions can go a real long way.
For those of you that are currently ODS Managed Services customers rest assured that ongoing maintenance and monitoring of network resources is an integral part of our service. For those of you who are not an ODS Managed Services clients we are able to provide an audit service to test and report how secure your network is. Any remediation actions may then be performed under a professional service engagement.
By Taras Rudko CIO
April 15, 2010
Over the weekend the remaining Network Operations Center “NOC” was moved from the first floor of the 92 Broad street address. We are now fully operational at 1070 State Route 34 in Matawan NJ. The remaining aspects went very well with no surprises. We like well thought out plans and careful thought. We did the same for ourselves as the many clients we complete similar moves and build-outs for each year. Come over and take a peek.
Half of the NOC desks were already in place but y0u can see here, this Wright Line technical furniture was one of the pieces that needed to be moved. This is a seat pod for 4 technicians, and another 2 on the other side of the room. We have the capacity to fit a total of 10 technicians in our current configuration. We’re ready for the growth. Our current business model also consists of remote and off-site technicians and engineers, limiting the need for a loaded office. This model helps us respond quickly in the field. As you may know 96% of all of AMRCON NOC/Help Desk trouble tickets are closed remotely, meaning without dispatching a technician on-site. This drastically improves the speed in which you receive support and virtually eliminates downtime. When we do need to dispatch on-site, we have someone close by to provide the service or we can dispatch from our NJ HQ. As you can image, the more we can do remotely, you benefit. Since we can speed up the response and resolution times without the need to wait for someone to show up on-site, we also reduce our overhead costs. When our costs can be reduced, these savings are passed to our clients. This is one of the many reasons why AMRCON’s Managed Service called ODS or On Demand Support, is so popular. We can reduce your budget and provide better support. It’s a win-win no matter how you look at it. The next benefit is flat rate IT. AMRCON’s ODS services are provided at a flat monthly subscription rate, so we’re ensuring everything is working efficiently, but just in case something goes bump in the night, you have no additional cost. It’s the best of both worlds, more efficient than hiring your own staff and certainly more cost effective.
Did you know that as CEO I’ve at one point or another worked each and every position at AMRCON? So even when it comes to being able to complete the task of re-cabling, installing, and configuring as simple or as complex a project as our NOC, I’m in there getting my hands dirty and keeping up with my engineering know how. As CEO of AMRCON I thinks its important to know as much as I can about each job, I believe it to provide and edge in leadership, management, and training. These elements are just a few I take very seriously, but at the same time I can’t lie, it’s fun. I love what I do, being involved is just another perk. My clients are generally surprised that I still enjoy doing my own business development, but I just can’t see myself entrusting it to anyone else. Building relationships with our clients is the first step, but it’s my past and present engineering experience that keeps me with an edge in the conference room. I can sell the company but also answer the technical questions. Doesn’t everyone do that? More an more I’ve been told it was the reason why some chose AMRCON, I’m going to keep it that way.
Neatness always counts. So I explained quite a bit in this blog. You probably noticed the pitch in the beginning on our NOC and what separates us. Then I spoke about business development and some of our processes. I smothered it with the status of our move but when it comes down to it we also deliver. Here are a few shots of the beginnings of our new data center. We practice what we preach. We color code and keep things neat everywhere. IT is a very precise field, the way it looks should be as well for many reasons. First you can create a difficult time for troubleshooting, safety concerns and even misconfiguration when things are not in order. Now imagine you have everything right but you have to come back 2 years later to troubleshoot. If you’re not neat and organized, how do you think that would turn out?
Many of us are still trying to catch up from the 36 hour straight work weekend, not to mention 16 hours days thereafter. So I hope everyone can follow my random thoughts. I can assure you however that the new office is ready to go and in fact has been fully operational this entire week. Feel free to stop by and check us out. We’re not to faraway from the rest of our furniture delivery and remaining technical enhancements, but I’ll chat about those later. For now thank you for listening. Dee Rudko – CEO
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