I know we say it all the time and it begins to sound cliché, but Opengear offers the most secure remote access solution on the market today.  Whether you are accessing the device over the LAN/WAN, a secondary management LAN or a cellular out-of-band management connection you can be assured that Opengear has the most hardened security features to defend against cyber crimes.

Last week a customer of Opengear authorized me to share his experience with Opengear and how it could have blocked a similar cyber attack that Target experienced last year.

With the recent news of the Target credit card leak via the building HVAC monitoring system we learned that it was not secured via multi-factor authentication.  As a result, many companies are looking at how to create secure remote access.

The good news is that we don’t need to create anything new, as we have been using Opengear for the past year for secure monitoring and remote access.  From a building engineering view, I don’t want the risk of an alert message getting blocked by a congested or failed in-band network.

With the chap and RSA keys, the links are authenticated and encrypted.  An example occurred six months ago when equipment failed and needed to be replaced. The new device did not have the matching key and the support tech was not able to connect for diagnostics.  This showed that the device works to stop a man in the middle or other spoofing attack.

As a network admin, I was able to verify authorized hardware, then login to delete the old key, and setup the new key for remote access.

While I write this blog, I am traveling to San Francisco with a new credit card I activated last night.  My credit card company believes my number could have been one of the lucky ones affected.  Although I don’t shop at Target much, I do hope it works at Starbucks when I land.  I will need a full-bodied coffee just as much as retailers need a robust security solution.