AMS Networks highlights and solves security issues
immigration and legal services
The Law Group represents corporate and individual clients in complex and routine immigration law matters.
The firm provides immigration assistance to clients from all 50 states and works with clients in areas of business immigration (H/K/L/P/R/TN) classifications, labor certifications, intra-company executives/managers, extraordinary ability aliens, outstanding researchers and professors, national interest waivers, exceptional ability aliens, religious workers, nurses/physical therapists, permanent residence through family, citizenship, and related matters.
challenge
For any law firm, data and IT security is a major concern. Our client had received threatening emails suggesting that their account had been compromised and that all their login credentials, passwords, contact lists and data had been compromised. The email asked the firm to make a payment if they wanted to maintain the security of their data.
The Law Group was in search for an IT provider with an excellent reputation that would be able to assess the threat and would also be able to help ensure that the firm’s data security was effective and robust. The Law Group three primary objectives that needed to be met:
- Assess the incident and the ramifications of it:
This objective was one of the primary tasks that the Law Group wanted to have accomplished. Data for any company is the most sensitive part of daily operations and without it a company simply can’t function. The Law Group wanted their business secured. Measuring the security boundary and threat-level of this incident was critical. - Scan the IT environment and determine the security gaps:
The Law Group understood that they had no security plan, no security reporting capabilities or remediation plan for any security incidents. Scanning the IT environment and identifying the security gaps was one of their highest objectives. - Remediation plan for security gaps:
Analyze and remediate any detects of anomalous user activity, unauthorized network changes, and threats caused by misconfiguration or weaknesses.
solution
AMS Networks’ used advance suite of tools to deliver a deep-level analysis of our clients’ network and IT security status. Although most network providers offer some protection against threats, we often find that there are unresolved security issues when we carry out an assessment. Our approach involves a number of benefits to our clients, including:
- A detailed review of the IT environment assessing network security and system performance
- An in-depth assessment of the firm’s hardware and software, providing detailed insight into a firm’s computer networks, servers and storage
- Identification of any data which might be considered to be at risk
- Recommendations to reduce technology costs and improve your environment
- A detailed written report exploring all the issues identified and making follow-up recommendations
The Network and Security IT assessment focuses on a number of common issues which all organizations face, but few are able to effectively deal with. These include:
- Asset discovery: We provide a big picture assessment of all the servers, printers, computers and equipment on a client’s network.
- Password and password policy strength: We assess a firm’s password policy, ensuring it is offering sufficient system protection.
- Operating systems: We check the appropriateness of operating systems, ensuring they are up-to-date, supported by the manufacturer and fully optimized for security
- Antivirus and spyware: We check that suitable antivirus software is installed, updated and correctly configured.
- Hard drive capacity: We assess a firm’s hard drive capacity to ensure it is sufficient for the client’s needs both in the short-term and in the longer-term.
- Security gaps: We assess the way in which websites and IT infrastructure is set-up, checking admin rights and levels of access to the back-office functions.
- Check internet provider speeds: We evaluate internet speed, bandwidth and connectivity to check that clients are receiving the service that their internet providers have offered.
In summary, we navigate our clients through the assessment process, review the results and help them to plan the next steps to improve and mitigate IT performance and security issues.
results
Although the original incident was a phishing attempt, the assessments we carried out did highlight other underlying security issues. Our client was delighted with the results of our analysis which included:
- Performing an external vulnerability scan with comprehensive and detailed outputs
- Assessing computer risk at a high level with the Security Risk Report Card
- Highlighting outbound security deviations from industry standards
- Creating a full review of the client’s security policies
- Searching for PII and presenting a data breach liability report
- Methodically analyzing login history to spot anomalous activity
In addition, we were also able to recover most of the data that was either missing or damaged.
Our client was really impressed with our service. Furthermore, they have subsequently asked us to undertake quarterly network and security assessments.
