Secure Managed File Transfer: Selecting a Vendor

Your CIO told you that you need to meet compliance regulations around data in motion on your IBM i (AS/400).  It’s not just a good idea, but customers and trading partners are starting to demand it.  So what do you look for when selecting which Managed File Transfer vendor to trust your sensitive data to?  What separates one solution from another?  I recently sat down with Patrick Townsend, Founder & CEO, to discuss what to look for when selecting a Managed File Transfer vendor.  Here is what he had to say:

There are some common business issues that I would look at when selecting a Managed File Transfer product. First, look at the providence of the vendor you are buying from. Have they been around for a substantial amount of time? Are they committed to security? If security is not their core mission, it’s very likely that they are NOT going to get it right, and a Managed File Transfer solution really has to get security right.

I think that looking for solutions that are committed to independent certification of their products is paramount. For example, our commercial PGP product, which in partnership with Symantec, has been through multiple certifications. As a company, we have been through NIST certifications many times. We have a FIPS 140-2 certified encryption key manager as well. If I were looking for a Managed File Transfer solution, I would really want the confidence of knowing that the vendor knows security, is committed to security, and is comfortable with putting their product out there for independent review. That is how I would look at this from a business point of view.

Managed File Transfer and security in general is about building confidence so that your company can move forward, start new initiatives and build confidence with new customers and trading partners. You want to be sure you are deploying a solution from an established security company committed to NIST standards. Looking at a vendor or a solution, I would look deeper than the feature set of the particular Managed File Transfer product and ask myself, am I comfortable with this companies’ security posture and their mission, and do their actions really support what they say is their mission.

Download our podcast “Secure Managed File Transfer on the IBM i – An Introduction” for more information on how your organization can save time and money by securely automating file transfers.