SystemExperts - ASP Security Services

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Tel 978-440-9388

Application Service Provider Security

Over the past several years, many organizations have taken advantage of the wide range of specialized IT services available through Application Service Providers (ASPs). In some cases these organizations are outsourcing functions previously handled in-house. In other cases, they are using ASPs to provide new and innovative capabilities to their customers and employees.

While the use of ASPs has proven beneficial at a business level, integrating these ASPs into the network and processing environment raises obvious security concerns. SystemExperts has performed dozens of ASP reviews and has developed a rigorous methodology to do these reviews quickly and to do them well. We offer three specific ASP-related services.

For Consumers of ASP Services

When an organization contracts with an ASP, it needs to be able to fully utilize the ASP's services while not putting its own private data or internal IT infrastructure at risk. Further, in situations where employee or customer-private data is actually transferred to the ASP for processing, it needs to know that the ASP is safeguarding that data to the same standards that the contracting company would itself. Organizations also need to be sure that their data is properly protected from the ASP's other customers which may be sharing the same processing environment.

SystemExperts conducts ASP security reviews, evaluating the design of the service, the skill of the personnel, the security of the infrastructure, and the adequacy of the processes and mechanisms that are used to maintain the production service and respond to threats.

ASP Security Architecture

For organizations that use many ASPs, building a specialized connection to each one, itself, creates a security problem; everything is a special case so there is no stable baseline by which to measure the security of the ASP connections.

SystemExperts helps organizations solve this problem by developing an ASP Architecture. This architecture consists of criteria for determining the business and functional requirements of the ASP link, and a set of well designed, secure connection models. Using this approach, the previously chaotic and unsecurable situation is simplified to a handful of well defined, well understood, connection models that properly satisfy the business requirements.

For Application Service Providers

As consumers of ASP services begin to take security seriously, ASPs are constantly being asked, "How secure are you?" Many customers insist on regular independent security reviews. Consequently, an increasing number of ASPs are taking proactive security measures. They are having their environments professionally reviewed on a regular basis and are sharing the results of these objective reviews with their existing and potential customers.

SystemExperts is highly skilled at performing such reviews and preparing documentation that addresses the security concerns of ASP customers.