Positive Networks Blog

Wow, the crayon drive we did made the Kansas City Star. Cool!

At long last, I’ve updated the icon for the blog. If you re-start your browser you should see the magnificent Positive Networks “P” icon in the address bar.

This is the first post in a series of buzzword clarification articles. Remote access is a complex space, and a lot of technical terms get tossed around. I’ll see if I can cut through some of the jargon, starting with two-factor authentication.

First, authentication is the process that lets Positive find out exactly who is logging in. The traditional way to do that is with a username and a password - just like most programs and services.

However, the username/password combination has a weakness - if your password is discovered, you can be impersonated, and worse, the attacker will have access to your company’s network.

There are lots of solutions to this problem, and one of them is two-factor authentication. Two-factor means that authentication requires something you have and something you know. The something you have is some sort of physical item, and the something you know is a secret PIN.

The security of the system lies in the fact that there is only one token, and without it, an attacker cannot log into your account. On the other hand, if an attacker did happen to get your token (say your purse or wallet is stolen), the system would still refuse to let him or her in without the PIN.

There are several companies that provide hardware and software for two-factor authentication. If your company already has a two-factor solution in place, Positive Networks can integrate with it. Or, if you don’t have two-factor but are interested in trying it out, we have a new two-factor authentication service in beta testing at the moment - give us a call and we can get you into the beta program. I’m really excited about this new offering, and I’ll have a lot more to say about it once we take the wraps off publicly.

Meanwhile, if you have any questions or suggestions for future topics, feel free to leave a comment or drop me an e-mail.

Remote access is a complex area, and we’re constantly on the lookout for ways we can more effectively discuss what it is that we do around here.

Over the past couple of years, we’ve learned that it’s hard to beat a webinar for doing a deep dive on a particular remote access topic. During the webinars, technology experts from around the company give a live, half-hour presentation, followed by a question-and-answer period. The whole thing is then captured and archived for future reference.

If you’re interested in learning about the role VPNs play in disaster recovery, or in the details of rolling out a site-to-site VPN network, or in going deep about Endpoint Security, this is the place for you!

Feel free to browse through our old webinars in the archive, and watch this space for news of when the next live presentation will be.

Kansas City, where Positive Networks is headquartered, is home to one of the finest children’s hospitals in the country, The Children’s Mercy Hospital. Children’s Mercy is also a longtime customer, so when it came time to do our last charity drive, we naturally thought of them. We asked them what sorts of things they needed, and one thing that came up was the need for boxes of crayons.

We set a two-week time limit for the collection of crayons and of colored pictures (which were also requested) and divided the company up into teams to see who could collect the most crayons. Well, we’re a pretty competitive bunch when we get rolling, and over the course of the two weeks, we managed to collect about 70,000 crayons - the most Children’s Mercy has ever gotten in a single crayon donation.

The photo says it all - that’s a lot of crayons! Now I’m ready to get them delivered to the hospital. I never much liked the smell of crayons as a kid, and you can imagine the difference with having 70,000 of them in one spot. besides, that table they’re piled on is the ping-pong table! It’s clearly a must to get that back into service as soon as possible.

Welcome to the Positive Blog!

I’m thrilled to announce the creation of the first official Positive Networks blog. My name is Steve Dispensa, and I’m Positive’s CTO and self-appointed Chief Blogger. Over the coming weeks, I’m going to use this space to introduce some of the team and to discuss some of the big issues in the remote access space.

This may be the first official Positive blog, but several of us have been blogging for a while already. I’ll try to get an exhaustive blogroll put together, but for now, I’ve linked a few developer blogs at the right.

Feel free to leave questions or comments. Our main website is www.positivenetworks.com, or you can reach us by phone at 913-499-4100. I’m easiest to reach on my mobile phone (913-488-4271) or by e-mail (dispensa <at> positivenetworks <dot> com). I’d love to hear from you.

Until next time, happy remote working!