Worry-Free IP

Certified Cyber Solutions’
elegant residentia l
network security fix

Dotting the 'i's and crossing the 't's is de rigueur for the best
integration companies in our business. After all, you employ checks and balances in every vulnerable phase of your company—background checks, vehicle insurance and your phone number
on the sides of the van so your guys know they'll get busted for driving like madmen. You may even use outside CPAs to double-check your in-house accounting staff.

But in today's home, where IP-addressable products are ubiquitous, at the end of the day, there are no checks and balances

currently for CEDIA dealers to employ, and they are exposing their clients to the possibility of network intrusions and cyber crime that could easily morph into a negligent liability nightmare for the business and its employees.

That reality was illuminated by a series of events that, three years ago, confronted Russ Pritchard, a founding dealer member of CEDIA and proprietor for more than 25 years of Charleston, S.C.'s award-winning Audio Warehouse.

"One Saturday night at around 10 p.m., I was called by a client who demanded a list of my employees and copies of their background searches we have on file. Some sensitive information had been leaked to the Internet and since my guys had access to his system, they were the first to be blamed. As it turned out, it was not our employees who were at fault; it was someone who worked for the client and had been fired," says Pritchard.

Even so, this episode—one of a series touching upon residential network security—brought into sharp focus for him the need to shield his employees and his company from the potential for undeserved blame, should a client's privacy ever be breached in any manner through IP-addressable access.

"It made me realize the exposure and liability both myself and my employees have, just because we have access," he explains.

And that is how Certified Cyber Solutions, Inc. (CCS), a new company founded by Pritchard, its CEO, and Doug Weinstein, its president, came to be.

Fringe Benefits Beyond Security

CCS exists to provide CEDIA dealers with the ability, in-house, to monitor their clients' networks and the devices that reside on them, to ensure against cyber security intrusions and grant permissible access to the network for normal remote servicing. But the benefits beyond that are manifold for integrators, says Pritchard.

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