Gartner is one of the world’s foremost and widely respected technology analyst companies. The User Authentication MQ was authored by Ant Allen who is Gartner’s research Vice President focussed on Identity and Access Management solutions with over 28 years of industry experience.

Chris Russell Swivel’s Vice President of Engineering commented “Being included in the Gartner Magic Quadrant is recognition of Swivel’s maturity and importance in the overall user authentication sector. Being singled out as offering the broadest range of deployment options amongst all the other vendors is highly significant for us. We designed Swivel to meet the full range of user and security requirements of large scale organisations so it is great to hear that this approach has been recognised in this hugely influential industry report.What is also gratifying is the recognition of the quality of support we give to our customers and partners.”

Read full press release here

These roles would suit anyone looking for the first step into IT sales or those looking for a return to this area.  Flexible working hours may be possible for the correct candidates.

The role will provide a pro-active resource to our sales team and also to our vendor partners promoting such programmes as;  new product launches, event attendance, training courses and sales incentives.

A commitment to workrate and a friendly telephone manner are required.

If you are interested in these roles, please send full CV and salary expectation to careers@cohorttechnology.com

Working as part of our successful team, you will receive specific training and the ideal environment to achieve high sales performance.

Experience of IT Sales in a channel environment would be a definite benefit, although not essential. Salary would be in keeping with the successful candidates experience, and On Target Earnings are industry leading and uncapped.

Send full CV to careers@cohorttechnology.com

The position will be based out of the Basingstoke office and will be required to provide pre and post sales support technical assistance to our resellers on all the products in our portfolio.

Candidates must have a strong IP and VoIP background including Knowledge of Shoretel or other technology would be an advance. Excellent customer facing, in addition to lateral thinking and problem solving skills and will be subject to training on all our current products as well as any new products in the future.

If you are interested in this role, please send full CV and salary expectation to careers@cohorttechnology.com

Gartner also reports that, “Organizations with roughly 200 or more documented X.509 certificates in use are high-risk candidates for unplanned expiry and having certificates that have been purchased but not deployed.”

Download the Gartner report and learn more about the “X.509 Certificate Management Functions”:

• Discovery

• Ownership

• Validation

• Renewal/provisioning

• Audit

Download full report here

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Venafi (Venafi Director Series)
Venafi, named a Gartner “Cool Vendor” in 2010, is a point solution provider. Venafi is the leader in X.509 certificate management for internal and external systems and applications. Unlike certificate authority certificate management solutions, Venafi supports virtually all certificate issuers natively and can renew certificates from nearly any type of certificate issuer, providing flexibility for complex heterogeneous environments composed of certificates issued by various certificate authorities.
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For more information contact a Venafi sales representative today on 0845 094 8828 or email venafi@cohorttechnology.com

With only a slight question mark over the pricing model knocking us into second place out of 11 (this is something we are aware of and are addressing in the next release) this is a fantastic endorsement for the technology and confirms our place as leaders in the tokenless authentication space.

View SC Magazine product review

30% off select licenses for NEW customers
ShoreTel is helping you kick off the new year with up to 30% discounts on our most popular software licenses – including IP Telephony, Enterprise Contact Center, Mobility and Collaboration.

But act fast – the discount is reduced after Feb 29^th

January 4 to February 29th – 30% off list price
March 1st to March 29th –  15% off list price

30% off select licenses for ALL customers
ShoreTel is helping you kick off the new year with discounts on our most popular collaboration and desktop software licenses for ALL customers – including Collaboration Licenses for our SA100 Service Appliance and our award winning Professional Access License.

But act fast – the discount is reduced after Feb 29th

January 4 to February 29th – 30% off list price
March 1st to March 29th – 15% off list price

 10% off new customer trade-in
We’re helping you kick off the new year by extending our program for displacing all of the old legacy power eating systems in the market. Take advantage of special customer incentives for channel partners to replace these systems, with our all IP based ShoreTel solutions – which reduce power consumption resulting in a lower total cost of ownership.

All details, terms and conditions are available at the ShoreTel promotions page on the Channel Partner Site

Alternatively, contact a ShoreTel representative today;
Tel: +44 (0)845 094 8828
Email: shoretel@cohorttechnology.com

Concerns about data breaches and privacy violations would spur enterprises to adopt encryption and use it effectively, according to security experts.

Organizations are beginning to assume that the firewall has already been compromised and are relying on ubiquitous encryption to protect data across the enterprise, according to Jeff Hudson, CEO of Venafi. In the past, security measures assumed that firewalls and other perimeter defenses were enough to keep the bad guys out. Recent high-profile data breaches proved that attackers were able to still get into the network, and had free rein because the data was not protected at all, according to Hudson.

Venafi predicted that 2012 would be the “year of ubiquitous encryption.”

Organizations that have adopted encryption still encounter problems because they are not following best practices for encryption key management, according to Hudson. Organizations struggle to keep track of what keys are being used and who has access to them. Encryption would be a “defining issue” in the year ahead, he said.

When employees leave, they may take the keys with them, leaving the organization unable to access the data, Tim Matthews, senior director of product marketing at Symantec, told eWEEK. A recent Symantec study found that poor key management and lack of control over the technologies being used could cost the organization an average of $124,965 a year.

Read full article here

Even the largest corporations have had difficulty defending themselves against targeted data attacks from ‘hacktivist’ groups, highlighting the importance of ensuring sensitive data is kept secure.

With a significant rise in the popularity of cloud-based CRM and other corporate applications, many companies have devolved responsibility for the security of their data to the cloud application’s user access infrastructure. However, this can often be insufficient – particularly when only a password and username is required to access critical data.

IT security expert Chris Russell, offers some advice on locking down access to cloud applications, enabling your business to lever the benefits of cloud-based services:

1. Ensure users’ credentials are not stored within the application

Storing user information along with a cloud-based application is risky. Just one successful hack can leave the digital identities of your entire database compromised. The only way of ensuring that users are protected is by retaining local control of users’ digital identities within the corporate environment.

2. Do not rely on usernames and passwords to protect critical data

Many hack attempts are successful because attackers only need to crack a simple username/password combination. This makes it easy for anyone, even those with not much more than basic IT skills, to crack a system’s security shield.

3. Two-factor authentication should be the minimum standard

Strong authentication solutions add an additional layer of security to a corporate network. Adding a second tier of authentication – based on something that only the authorised user knows, combined with something that they have – means that IT managers can be confident that anyone accessing the network is the person they say they are.

4. Authenticating mobile devices is not enough

Increasing numbers of organisations have started migrating from token-based legacy systems, in favour of cheaper and simpler mobile phone-based options for their two-factor requirements. A number of solutions send a one-time-code as a text message to the user’s phone.

While this is a more secure approach than that offered by usernames and passwords, it does not confirm the identity of the user – only that the phone was present. For maximum security the user needs to apply something only known to them, to confirm they are who they say they are.

Read full article here

LEARN MORE ABOUT SWIVEL SECURE
To learn more about Swivel’s PINsafe two factor authentication platform click here
Alternatively, contact a Swivel sales representative today on 0845 094 8828

Enterprises are using encryption in more places than ever, but they are not properly securing the keys or using consistent products, a recent report found.

Despite using encryption, poor key management and lack of control over the technologies being used can cost the organization an average of $124,965 a year, according to the 2011 Enterprise Encryption Trends Survey report released by Symantec on Nov. 30.

Business groups and employees are often independently encrypting the data without involving the IT department, according to Matthews. While the move to encrypt is a good thing, these unauthorized deployments are a challenge for IT because the data is lost and irretrievable if the employee loses the key, forgets the passphrase or leaves the company without passing on custody of the encryption keys. If IT doesn’t have the key, it also becomes harder to properly backup the data or to access the information as part of an e-discovery request, he said.

Rogue projects pose a “recovery issue” for organizations since that’s data the IT department has no control over and if told by the courts to hand over data, the “enterprise can’t really say ‘I can’t,’” Matthews said.

Read full article here