Beachhead Solutions Inc., a San Jose, Calif.-based provider of cloud-managed PC and mobile device encryption, security, and data access solutions to businesses and MSPs, today announced the immediate availability of managed password policy serivces for users of its white-label SimplySecure Management System. The new functionality aims to help MSPs and VARs provide deeper, more comprehensive data security support to their SMB clients.
Though incidents affecting corporate giants like Equifax and Deloitte steal most of the headlines, Beachhead says,†70 percent of data breaches occur at businesses with fewer than 100 employees. Such companies are far less likely than enterprises†to have complete security solutions in place as well.
The latest SimpleSecure enhancement seeks to fill that gap by combining password policy management functionality with encryption, a technology increasingly required for compliance with regulations such as HIPAA and PCI-DSS, among others.
“These compliance requirements are arriving in an expanding number of jurisdictions; for example, New York State recently enacted what may prove to be seminal regulations for the financial industry at the state level,” says Brian Clark, president of†CCPlus Inc., an MSP and SimplySecure user in upstate New York. “”In addition to being more commonly required, putting encryption in place is a prudent business practice, protecting data by making it unreadable even in advanced hacking scenarios (such as where a drive is stolen and booted from another system).”
Encryption, however, is only effective if the password users employ to view decrypted data is secure. Passwords with short, simple, or repeating characters, Beachhead notes, can be the fatally weak link in an otherwise robust security chain. Many large businesses mitigate that risk by managing and enforcing password policies centrally on domain servers via Microsoft Active Directory. Smaller businesses without domains lack this capability, however.
SimplySecure’s password policy management feature addresses this issue by enabling administrators to create and centrally administer rigorous password rules that enforce requirements such as minimum and maximum password length, maximum password age, and password complexity, including the use of alphanumerical or special characters and upper or lower case characters. Users can also employ the new offering to create lockout policies that enforce thresholds when account sessions must be re-authenticated, as well as account lockout durations.
“The technology to effectively manage password security policy is critical to the protection of sensitive data at any organization,” says Cam Roberson, director of the reseller channel for Beachhead. “Unfortunately, these capabilities haven’t previously been easy to come by for businesses that aren’t large enterprises. Now, with the introduction of Managed Password Policy to our SimplySecure platform, we’re proud to empower MSPs and resellers serving SMBs with the robust password security required to effectively secure their data.”†
Beachhead added self-encrypting drive orchestration functionality to SimplySecure in January.
