By now, most companies have gotten the message that their data – as well as the sensitive data belonging to customers and partners – needs reliable protection from unauthorized access. The ever growing regulatory environment is making it more and more painful for any company who does not take their data security seriously.

The difference between the desire to keep data secure and actually getting it done, however, has proven to be challenging, especially considering the extraordinary amount of data that is being shared among companies and their customers, health care providers, financial institutions and more as part of daily business activities.

A common approach for sharing information with partners is to deploy a FTP or SFTP server in the “public” area of the company’s network called the DMZ (demilitarized zone) where authorized users can drop off or retrieve files.  Those files will often remain in the DMZ until an internal program or user copies them into the private network for processing.

Industry regulators and compliance auditors are becoming increasingly alarmed at this practice of staging files in the DMZ, because even if those files are encrypted, they are more susceptible to theft by savvy hackers.  Worse yet, if the company decides to move those file servers into the private network, they may unintentionally be allowing unwanted access through open inbound ports.

A solution that’s gaining in popularity is the reverse proxy DMZ gateway, which is used as a secure bridge between your trading partners and your file servers.  A DMZ gateway allows you to move file servers and other public services out of the DMZ and into the private network without having to open inbound ports.  Because it serves both as a reverse proxy for handling inbound traffic and a forward proxy for any outbound file transfer requests originating from inside your network,  DMZ gateways keep the auditors happy and your data safe in the private network.

For more information about how a DMZ gateway works and what advantages it brings to your network security, please download our new white paper DMZ Gateways: Secret Weapons for Data Security.  Then, let us know what you think!

Susan Baird

Susan is the Marketing Manager at Linoma Software, helping promote our secure file transfer and encryption solutions. Her specialty is content creation and social media marketing.

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As more and more companies are seeking a MFT to meet their data transfer needs, the question still arises, what exactly is a Managed File Transfer (MFT)? At a minimum, a Managed File Transfer solution is a product that encompasses all aspects of inbound and outbound file transfers that uses industry proven standards with a central, single point of administration. With a wide variety of products claiming to be a Managed File Transfer solution there are some things you may want to ask yourself (and your vendor).

• Does the solution use industry standards protocols for secure data transfers?
• Is the solution centrally administered or are there pc components required for administration?
• Can I be notified in real time of certain events (e.g. errors) if they occur?
• How will this solution affect my customers, vendors and trading partners?
• Can audit reports be generated?
• What type of security controls does the product have in place to allow separation of duties?
• Are there additional modules or add-ons that might need to be purchased?
• If our needs grow beyond our current platform, how does this solution grow with us?

As you research a vendor to handle your Managed File Transfer needs, make sure you choose a vendor that is able to not only meet your current needs, but the needs of the future. Feel free to contact us to discuss your current and future needs as well as answers to the above questions and more.

Bob Luebbe

Bob Luebbe has worked in the IT field since 1985. During his career, he has worked in a wide variety of roles including software development, project management, consulting and architecting large-scale applications. Bob has been with Linoma Software since 1994 and is currently serving its Chief Architect. His main focus for the last several years has been developing technologies to help organizations to automate and secure their file transfers, as well as to protect data at rest through encryption and key management.

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