< News World Braces for Cyber Retaliation 3 Mar 2026 Cyber security tensions are rising globally following the joint US–Israel strikes on Iran and the assassination of its supreme leader. Security analysts are warning that digital retaliation is already taking shape, with Iranian-aligned hacking groups mobilising, and critical infrastructure operators across multiple regions bracing for disruptive cyberattacks. Offensive cyber operations were a key part of the US and Israeli strikes that targeted Iran over the weekend, with critical infrastructure and media key targets. The Jerusalem Post described the cyberattack as the largest in history, and global internet monitoring firm NetBlocks said that Iranian internet activity has dropped to just one per cent of pre-attack levels. Ballistics and Binary While missiles and drones dominate news headlines, cyber operations offer Tehran a way to strike back asymmetrically - quietly, globally, and with potentially far‑reaching consequences. Security experts say the digital domain gives Iran a strategic avenue to pressure its adversaries. Interconnected critical infrastructure makes even small intrusions capable of triggering broader economic or safety impacts. Retaliation Strikes are already reshaping the threat landscape. Security analysts say they’ve observed reconnaissance activity and early-stage DDoS attacks from groups aligned with Iranian interests, indicating that a more aggressive campaign is being planned. CrowdStrike’s latest threat intelligence also highlights a shift in Iranian tactics toward cloud environments and identity‑based attacks, reflecting a steady evolution in capability. Historically, Iranian cyber operations have aligned closely with geopolitical objectives, targeting sectors such as energy, finance, telecommunications, healthcare, and other critical services. Analysts expect that pattern to continue as Tehran seeks to increase pressure and visibility on its chosen targets. Implications for Organisations The combination of geopolitical escalation, demonstrated offensive capability, and early signs of retaliatory activity suggests a volatile period ahead for governments and businesses alike. Operators of essential services - particularly those with regional ties or exposure - are being urged to strengthen monitoring, validate incident response plans, and prepare for potential spillover effects. Line of Defence State‑sponsored cyber operations increasingly target the systems that move, store, and validate sensitive information. This makes Managed File Transfer (MFT) a critical defensive control rather than a back‑office utility. Modern state actors operate with significant patience, resources, and strategic intent: they infiltrate supply chains, exploit unpatched interfaces, and quietly exfiltrate data to support espionage, political influence, or economic advantage. Government agencies have repeatedly warned that these actors use advanced tradecraft to compromise organisations across critical infrastructure and public institutions, as seen in advisories from the Australian Signals Directorate and its international partners. In this environment, any uncontrolled or ad‑hoc method of moving files - email attachments, unsecured cloud links, legacy FTP - becomes a soft target. MFT strengthens an organisation’s defensive posture by centralising, governing, and hardening all file‑based data flows. Instead of dozens of unmonitored channels, MFT provides a single, encrypted, policy‑driven platform with authentication, role‑based access, and full audit trails. This matters because state actors often exploit the weakest link in a distributed system, including overlooked transfer endpoints or poorly secured partner connections. Strategic Resilience When MFT is deployed correctly, it reduces the attack surface by eliminating shadow IT, enforcing encryption in transit and at rest, and providing the visibility needed to detect anomalies early - an essential capability when facing adversaries who specialise in stealth and persistence. Beyond technical controls, MFT also supports strategic resilience. State‑backed intrusions often aim to disrupt trust - undermining elections, destabilising supply chains, or eroding confidence in public institutions. Australia’s own experience with foreign interference highlights how attackers seek to manipulate or steal sensitive data to influence democratic processes. By ensuring that critical information moves through a secure, predictable, and fully auditable channel, MFT helps organisations maintain operational integrity even under sustained threat. It becomes not just a tool for secure transfer, but a foundational layer in a broader zero‑trust architecture - one that assumes compromise is possible and designs every data movement to be verifiable, controlled, and resilient. Local Expertise Available Generic Systems Australia is Fortra’s #1 GoAnywhere Partner in Australia and New Zealand, with decades of experience enabling organisations to defend against cyber-attacks. If you’d like a no-cost, no-obligation discussion about how we could help you simply and affordably adopt an advanced MFT solution, please feel welcome to get in touch with me. Previous Next

Advanced Threat Protection Take your secure file transfers to the next level. Seamlessly integrate your managed file transfers with advanced threat protection and adaptive data loss prevention to keep your sensitive data secure. The SFT Threat Protection bundle enables you to collaborate safely without malware entering your organisation, and without your employees losing or mishandling data. What Does Advanced Threat Protection Do? Sharing information incurs risks… There’s the risk of opening your systems to threats, such as malware or even threats hidden within file transfers. There’s the risk of exposing the wrong content, whether sent by mistake or hidden in metadata. Advanced Threat Protection enables you to inspect managed file transfer content for threats as well as leakage. Seamless integration between Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT and the Clearswift Secure ICAP Gateway features: Anti-virus and malware protection Deep content inspection Adaptive data loss prevention Media type protection 3 Ways to Enhance File Transfer Security Prevent Files with Malware from being Shared. Simply check a box in GoAnywhere to turn on easy anti-virus protection through the Secure ICAP Gateway to scan all inbound file transfers. Detect and automatically strip out active content like embedded malware, triggered executables, scripts, or macros used to extract or hold sensitive data hostage. Advanced Threat Protection sanitises — without delay in delivery — as only the malicious active content is removed, allowing the file transfer to continue unhindered. This morph-free protection guards against today's leading malware and ransomware (i.e. CryptoLocker, CryptoWall, TorrentLocker, Dridex Dyre, BlackEnergy, etc.) and tomorrow's even more sophisticated threat variants. Block Sensitive Data from Being Shared. Prevent files with Personal Identifiable Information (PII) or other sensitive data from being transferred. GoAnywhere Threat Protection can inspect file contents, then stop and block files from being shared, based on policy. Redact Sensitive Information from Files Before Transfer. Ensure sensitive data is not transmitted or received. Detect or remove geotags, document properties, email addresses, or other metadata from documents, replacing sensitive text with asterisks. Detect and remove text contained in scanned images with Optical Character Recognition. Detect and remove offending content with text redaction. Encryption Isn’t Enough Encrypting sensitive file transfers is vital for ensuring the privacy and integrity of your data and complying with data governance regulations. However, while encryption can protect your files, you can do more to ensure your messaging security, by staying aware of what is being transmitted. Adding threat protection to GoAnywhere enables you to empower some senior individuals the power to transmit PII, while excluding others. Further, even if your transmission process is secure, you may want to audit who is sending what. The Secure ICAP Gateway enhances your encryption by limiting both who can transfer data, and what that data contains. Two Leading Solutions, Seamlessly Integrated The Clearswift Secure ICAP Gateway adds significant value to GoAnywhere MFT because of its threat protection, deep content inspection engine, adaptive data redaction, and flexible policy settings, while managed file transfer makes defining file movements a breeze. Additional features you can add to your file transfer process are structural sanitisation, document sanitisation, data redaction, anti-steganography, and optical character recognition. It’s the best and most thorough security for file transfers. Other Ways Clearswift Can Help You Integrating Clearswift’s core ICAP Gateway and threat protection with SFT can resolve gaps in your process and provide additional benefits. It can audit and control data in file transfers, for example, detecting when customer, employee, or patient records in a file are uploaded to SFT, counting the records, and maintaining an audit log of what data was shared with whom. When you add Clearswift solutions to your SFT instance, you get Lexical Expression Qualifiers, which can detect records based on multi-field matches, and trigger different actions based on number of records detected (e.g., audit, refer to sender, redact, block). Clearswift can also ensure you accept only the correct file types, by enforcing "True Type" controls which ensure you don't receive binaries, executables, scripts, or other unwanted file types. Clearswift solutions defend your system based on file byte pattern rather than by name. And, it works with nested files over 50 levels deep!

About Generic Systems Australia Your local experts in Secure Managed File Transfer Technology Our Story We are independent experts in data transfer - more than just software suppliers. Our curated suite of industry-leading solutions, coupled with our unparalleled experience and expertise, have made us the Asia-Pacific region’s most trusted partners in secure Managed File Transfer technologies. Founded in 1993, we’re proud to count among our clients some of the region’s most iconic brands. Leveraging our unique skills and readily available local support, they rely on us to optimise their IT systems, hone their business processes and integrate their supply chains. A long-term partner of Fortra (formerly Help Systems, and Linoma Software, the original authors of GoAnywhere MFT), we’ve been the Asia-Pacific's regional distributor of the industry leading GoAnywhere MFT suite since 2007. Our in depth understanding of the product’s Advanced Workflows , data translation, auditing and compliance, automation and security enables us to rapidly devise optimal solutions, provide rapid Proofs of Concept, and move ahead quickly with implementation. We have exclusively managed APAC deployments for some of the largest multinational corporations, Government departments and small- to medium-sized businesses as well. Our local technical support service provides our clients with the reassurance that local help will always be on-hand. Generic Systems Australia is a values-led organisation. Our long-term commitment to doing business ethically, being the absolute best at what we do, and keeping our customers’ needs always at the fore, is the foundation of our enduring success. Our company was founded on that principle 30 years ago and continues to this day. If you’re exploring how to boost your efficiency and bottom line by leveraging Secure Managed File Transfer technology, reach out to our Business Manager, Bradley Copson, for an obligation-free discussion. Our People Bradley Copson Business Manager Expert in enhancing organisational effectiveness and efficiency through Managed File Transfer technologies. "My understanding of contemporary business challenges, coupled with my early career experience leading IT operations and support functions, enable me to advise clients from a perspective that’s both business-minded and IT-pragmatic. “By approaching each engagement ethically, assigning technical experts who consistently deliver professional services of the highest quality, and keeping my client’s best interests always at the fore, I’ve been entrusted with opportunities to manage many of our region’s most iconic brands.” Simon Kuenstner Solutions Architect Managed File Transfer Expert "Three decades of experience as a solutions architect enable me to quickly chart a course through any maze of legacy systems and manual processes, to design and implement secure MFT solutions which empower clients to work smarter, smoother and more efficiently. "I love to explore with clients how GoAnywhere can be used in new ways to further boost their business’s bottom line.” Schedule a call with us today!

< News AI Agent Incursions: Lessons for Companies from Recent Government Experiences 28 Oct 2026 October is Cyber Security Action Month in Australia, and this year’s theme from the Australian Signals Directorate is “Take a second.” It’s a good moment to take a second over a recent event which should change how every organisation thinks about data protection. The incident that changed the conversation On 24 September, the Australian Government revealed that an OpenAI agent had gained unauthorised access to files on a government health data portal, the Medicare Statistics Reporting Service. It may be the first known case of an AI agent breaching a government website. The agent got in on 18 June, but OpenAI didn’t disclose it until 10 September. It didn’t stop there. An OpenAI agent was also reported to have accessed a NSW National Parks web app, an incident classified as a “misalignment”. Home Affairs has since ordered a government-wide stocktake of legacy systems within six months. Why it matters for enterprises It’s tempting to file these as government problems, or as a story about one AI vendor. However, that would be a mistake, for three reasons. 1. Intent no longer defines the threat. These agents weren’t built to attack anyone. The agent bypassed access blocks for ordinary research purposes. An autonomous system that treats a security control as an obstacle to route around is a risk whatever its creator intended. Any AI agent operating in or near your environment - whether yours, a vendor’s or a customer’s - can do the same. 2. Your exposure is wider than you think. Agents browse, authenticate, call APIs and follow links at machine speed. Any web app, portal or file share that relies on obscurity, a weak access control or a forgotten configuration is now reachable by something that never tires and never gets bored. Legacy systems, the focus of the new government stocktake, are the obvious weak points. 3. Disclosure gaps compound the damage. Nearly three months passed between this incident and its public disclosure. In your organisation, that kind of delay means customers, regulators and partners learn about a problem long after the opportunity to contain it has gone. The cost of losing customer and enterprise data is already well documented in Australia. Origin Energy reported that a late-July breach exposed credit card and bank account details of around 900,000 current and former customers. Optus, Medibank and Qantas have shown how far the consequences extend: regulatory scrutiny, class actions, lost trust and enormous remediation costs. AI agents add a new way for data to leave the building, and it’s one most security programs weren’t designed for. What should companies do? Start by knowing where your sensitive data lives and how it moves. Then control that movement. Much of the data that gets lost is in transit: files exchanged with partners, customers and systems through ad hoc scripts, shared drives, email attachments and unmanaged web portals. That’s where AI agents, and the people and tools behind them, find easy openings. How a well-configured MFT helps A modern managed file transfer (MFT) solution such as GoAnywhere MFT gives you a controlled, auditable path for data movement in place of a sprawl of informal ones. This helps in several ways: Least-privilege access. Every user, system and agent gets only the access it needs, with strong authentication, multi-factor where appropriate, and IP restrictions. No open doors. Data moves through an encrypted, authenticated channel instead of sitting on exposed web apps or file shares an agent can wander into. Visibility. Full audit trails and alerting show who or what accessed which file, and when, so you can spot unusual behaviour in hours rather than months. Automation with guardrails. Governed, automated workflows replace ad hoc scripts and the temptation to hand an agent broad access to get a job done. Layered defences. Encryption, antivirus and data loss prevention integration add checks that a determined agent can’t simply bypass. An MFT narrows the number of places your data can leak from, and it gives you the evidence to respond quickly when something goes wrong. Take a Second This Cyber Security Action Month, take a second to ask: if an AI agent went looking for your customer data today, what would it find, and who would know? If you’d like to talk through how to tighten up your data transfers, we’d be glad to help at Generic Systems Australia . We have more than a decade of experiencing helping Australian and New Zealand customers install and leverage the world’s leading MFT. Previous Next

< News Accountability Gap Creates Cyber Risk 22 Oct 2024 New research has revealed a concerning gap in accountability for cyber security in many Australian organisations. Security firm Trend Micro polled 100 Australian IT leaders to better understand their attitudes toward Attack Surface Risk Management. They found that most organisations lacked clear leadership buy-in and sufficient resources to measure and mitigate cyber risks. The top three gaps in cyber resilience were: Insufficient staffing for round-the-clock cybersecurity coverage. Inadequate techniques to measure and manage attack surface risks. Not using proven regulatory and other frameworks, such as the NIST Cybersecurity Framework. Only 37% of those surveyed said their organisation had satisfactorily closed each of these exposures. The buck stops… nowhere? Seeking root causes for unclosed gaps in organisational cyber resilience, Trend found that the failures could be traced back to a lack of leadership and accountability at the top of the organisation. More than a third of respondents claimed their leadership didn’t consider cybersecurity to be their responsibility. When asked who does or should hold responsibility for mitigating business risk, respondents gave a variety of answers, indicating a lack of clarity on reporting lines. Nearly a third (32%) said the buck stopped with organisational IT teams. Trend spokesperson, Srujan Talakokkula, said the “lack of clear leadership on cybersecurity, can have a paralysing effect on an organisation, leading to reactive, piecemeal and erratic decision making”. “A lot of that comes down to collaboration and communication across the business,” he said. “Companies need CISOs to clearly communicate in terms of business risk to engage their boards. “Ideally, they should have a single source of truth across the attack surface from which to share updates with the board, continually monitor risk, and automatically remediate issues for enhanced cyber-resilience,” he added. ASIC Cracking Down Trend’s warning comes on the heels of reports that Australia’s corporate regulator is preparing legal actions against some company directors for their lack of governance relating to cyberattacks. ASIC has previously cautioned directors that they need to prepare for hacks, and that sanctions would be applied to those who didn’t. They told The Australian Financial Review that companies wouldn’t get away with paying lip service to cyber defence and must provide evidence they had performed their duties if their organisation was breached by cybercriminals. “With one cyberattack reported every six minutes in Australia, ASIC’s message for directors is to make sure your organisations have appropriate cybersecurity measures in place – this is your responsibility,” a spokesperson said. Not just “an IT Issue” ASIC’s heightened investigations show that cyber security is no longer a fringe issue that can be relegated to technical staff. However, a survey of in-house lawyers by Herbert Smith Freehills recently found many boards are not yet engaged on the topic of cyber resilience. 58% said it would take an actual cyberattack to motivate their organisation to meaningfully improve their data risk management. Owning and managing the risk Rather than letting cyber resilience slip between the cracks in org charts, directors need to put cyber resilience at the top of their companies’ board agendas. Executive management should be requested to report on the measures and investments they’re making to keep cyber thieves at bay. A Managed File Transfer (MFT) solution such as the class-leading GoAnywhere MFT can encrypt data at rest and in transit, complying with the highest data security standards. It manages inbound and outbound file transfers across an organisation, using industry-standard file transfer protocols and encryption to protect data in transit and at rest. Advanced Threat Protection and Adaptive Loss Prevention add a further layer of defence. SFT Threat Protection enables safe collaboration with external parties, preventing malware from entering an organisation, and reducing the risk of employees losing or mishandling sensitive data. Local Experts On Hand Generic Systems Australia are local experts in Managed File Transfer and Advanced Threat Protection. We’ve assisted hundreds of organisations across the Asia-Pacific region to secure their data and keep cybercriminals at bay. If you’d like to discuss how we can help improve your company’s cybersecurity, please feel welcome to contact me , Bradley Copson. I’m always happy to have an obligation-free discussion, explain how simply we can transition you from outdated software and approaches, and offer you a zero-cost Proof of Concept. Previous Next

< News Cybercrimes Frozen Out of Winter Olympics 12 Feb 2026 The competition at the Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics isn’t just between athletes from around the world. It’s also between the Olympic IT team and the hordes of hackers trying to disrupt the event. Today’s Olympics run on technology. Ticketing, payments, transport, broadcasting, accreditation, hotel bookings, and even crowd management all depend on connected systems that need to work flawlessly under intense time pressure. Digital disruptions can snowball quickly into event-breaking disruptions when billions of viewers and tightly choreographed schedules are involved. It makes the Games an attractive target for cyberthieves, hacktivists, and cyber espionage. Speedrun of Familiar Challenges The Olympics mirror many of the same challenges large organisations face. They depend on complex, interconnected systems, a multitude of third-party providers, identity and access controls, peak traffic, and near-zero tolerance for downtime. The threats involved are familiar, too: ransomware, phishing, DDoS, and supply-chain interceptions. Analysis by Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42 shows that recent Olympics have consistently attracted cyber activity, from wi-fi and infrastructure disruptions at PyeongChang 2018 to sabotage attempts around Tokyo 2020 and spikes in DDoS attacks, phishing, and scam traffic during the Paris 2024 Games. Milano-Cortina 2026 is under heavy daily attack, too. The attacks started well before the opening ceremony. Italian officials reported that they had blocked cyber attempts targeting government systems and Olympic-adjacent infrastructure, including sites connected to the Games and nearby hotels. The early activity reinforced a typical Olympic pattern, focusing on foreign ministry offices and hospitality infrastructure rather than competition systems themselves. Since then, Italian authorities have confirmed they have foiled multiple Russian‑origin attacks aimed at disrupting the Games’ digital and physical infrastructure. These attempts have targeted websites linked to the Olympics, hotels in Cortina d’Ampezzo, and even Italian foreign ministry systems, including embassies and consulates abroad. Several Olympic‑related websites in Austria and Germany also experienced temporary outages attributed to pro‑Russian hacktivist groups, underscoring the broader geopolitical backdrop. MFT: an essential defence Major sporting events are, at their core, giant data‑exchange machines. Behind the spectacle of athletes, crowds, and broadcast cameras sits an enormous operational engine moving rosters, medical files, accreditation records, logistics manifests, vendor contracts, security briefings, and real‑time performance data between hundreds of organisations. That’s why Managed File Transfer (MFT) is one of the unsung heroes of events like the Olympics, the World Cup, or the Commonwealth Games. These events aren’t just big - they’re interconnected, with every partner needing to exchange sensitive information quickly, reliably, and in a way that won’t collapse under pressure. MFT shines in this environment because it replaces the messy patchwork of ad‑hoc file sharing with a single, governed, auditable system. When you’re dealing with athlete biometrics, anti‑doping results, ticketing data, or security operations, you can’t afford a file to go missing or arrive late. MFT provides guaranteed delivery, automated workflows, and encryption that meets the scrutiny of international regulators. It also gives organisers something priceless during a global event: predictability. When the world is watching, “the file didn’t send” simply isn’t an acceptable outcome. And then there’s the added protection of MFT in what is a high-risk cyber threat landscape. MFT reduces the attack surface by centralising file movement, enforcing authentication, and providing full audit trails. Local MFT Experts At Generic Systems Australia, we have decades of experience helping Australian and New Zealand organisations take advantage of the security and efficiency that MFT provides. And our Migration Service makes the transition even easier for busy businesses who’d rather spend their time focusing on their customers than their IT systems. If you’d like a no-cost, no-obligation discussion about how we could help you simply and affordably adopt an advanced MFT solution, please feel welcome to get in touch with me . Attribution: this article draws on information shared by The National CIO Review and other sources. Previous Next

RESOURCES INDEX Independent Info-Tech MFT Quadrant Report (2025) For the 3rd consecutive year, respected tech analysts Info-Tech have evaluated the most popular MFT software and vendors, and found that GoAnywhere is the top MFT solution. To receive a complimentary copy of their 2025 report, simply submit your email address below and we'll email you back a PDF. Read More "MFT's Role in Business: IT Leaders Weigh In" eBook In this eBook, nine leading IT and security professionals share their real-world experiences of leveraging GoAnywhere's many capabilities in their businesses. Read More New Cyber Laws Passed - What Australian Businesses Need to Know and Do What Australian organisations need to know - and do - to meet their new obligations under the nation’s new Cyber Security legislation. Read More Use APIs to Accelerate Your MFT's ROI How to boost the ROI of your MFT solution - and scale its deployment - by pairing it with APIs. Enhance automation, integration, and customisation. Read More MFT Local Buyer's Guide Ask the right questions, and consider the key issues, to identify the right Managed File Transfer solution for your organisation. Read More Independent Info-Tech MFT Quadrant Report (2024) Once again, respected tech analysts Info-Tech have evaluated the most popular MFT software and vendors, and found that GoAnywhere is the top MFT solution. Here’s their 2024 independent report. Read More 2024 Cybersecurity Insiders Survey Fortra's "2024 State of Cybersecurity Survey" shares the invaluable insights of more than 400 cybersecurity professionals from across the globe, including many in Australia, New Zealand and the Asia-Pacific region. Read More Best Practices for Cloud MFT Most modern organisations rely to an extent on the Cloud as they transfer files between employees, trading partners, and customers. Here are best practices for safeguarding your data on its way to, from and in, the Cloud. Read More Meeting CDR Requirements Australia’s Consumer Data Right (CDR) requires businesses to carefully plan how they handle, store and disclose the consumer data they collect. This primer explains your obligations, the breaches that can occur, and a strategy to avoid them. Read More Secure Your Cloud Data with MFT How a robust Managed File Transfer (MFT) solution helps protect your data transfers – in transit and at rest – without compromising the convenience or cost-effectiveness of moving your business to a cloud-based environment. Read More Why Automating Encryption and Decryption Makes Good Cybersecurity Sense How does encryption and decryption work? This handy primer explains. Read More Think Like a Hacker To win the fight against cybercriminals, it helps to think like a hacker. Read More Annual Upgrade and Health Check Service Take the time, effort and risk out of ensuring your GoAnywhere environment is up to date and running smoothly! Read More GoAnywhere Product Datasheet GoAnywhere MFT is the world’s leading Managed File Transfer solution. This datasheet summarises its key technical features. Read More Advanced Threat Protection Product Datasheet GoAnywhere MFT is the world’s leading Managed File Transfer solution. This datasheet summarises its key technical features. Read More GoAnywhere Gateway Product Datasheet GoAnywhere Gateway provides an additional layer of security when exchanging data with your trading partners, enabling you to keep file sharing services and documents safely in your private/internal network. Read More GA Modules for Licencing Product Datasheet GoAnywhere is a robust and complete managed file transfer solution. Modules are available that can satisfy a wide array of file transfer requirements –– you can choose to license only the modules you currently need, and easily unlock additional modules if necessary. Read More Threat Brain Product Datasheet “Threat Brain” is a unique and innovative addition to GoAnywhere MFT which keeps the world’s leading Managed File Transfer solution a step ahead of cyber thieves and competing MFT solutions. Read More Compliance Product Datasheet Every organisation needs to meet stringent industry, state and federal data and privacy laws and regulations. GoAnywhere is the secure file transfer solution built to satisfy these demanding Compliance requirements. Read More 'An Introduction to GoAnywhere' (video) In this brief video, our Business Manager Bradley Copson overviews GoAnywhere's key features and benefits. Read More 'Secure MFT Threat Protection Bundle' (video) Our Secure MFT Threat Protection Bundle can automatically catch and kill email threats before they enter or leave your organisation. This brief video shows how. Read More Independent Info-Tech MFT Quadrant Report (2022) Respected tech analysts Info-Tech evaluated the most popular MFT software and vendors. Read More

< Case Studies Bargain Retailer finds GoAnywhere Really “Delivers the Goods” Decades of experience helping Asia-Pacific customers have established Generic Systems Australia as our region’s local experts in secure managed file transfer. In this case study, we share how a US retailer is leveraging both robustness and advanced features of GoAnywhere MFT , the world’s leading MFT solution . Grocery Outlet is a chain of more than 300 family-owned deep-discount grocery stores based in Berkeley, California. The retailer helps more than 1.5 million shoppers each week save big, making it the US’s largest extreme value retailer. Homegrown: Good for Produce; Not for File Transfers Steve Tuscher is the Director of IT at Grocery Outlet, overseeing technology which manages more than 33,000 file transfers each day. “We had always transferred files between our systems with homegrown FTP scripts,” he said, “but knew we needed a better solution. Writing the scripts for these transfers was time consuming. However, the real challenge the IT team faced was tracking down what happened if a file exchange failed. The grocer primarily wanted to send files back and forth reliably and in a controlled manner. They also sought a solution that included error reporting functionality that was platform independent, as they exchange files with multiple vendors, suppliers, and other trading partners daily. “One of our vendors suggested a file transfer tool but it was priced out at US$100,000, and we didn't want to do that,” said Steve. “We knew of GoAnywhere Managed File Transfer (MFT) because they'd been in the AS400 (IBM i) world for a couple decades at least, the same as we have been. So we thought we'd give GoAnywhere MFT a shot. He added: “It's been a great product. It worked from day one and it's worked ever since.” Bargain Retailer Gets Money’s Worth While GoAnywhere does the heavy lifting on the large volume of daily files transferred, Steve discovered another surprising benefit of GoAnywhere MFT — managing the many emails the company received and creating a reporting system for them as well. “After we learned that GoAnywhere could retrieve mail from an Exchange mailbox, we developed an automated script to do that. It checks for incoming mail every three seconds and launches a job based on if there's new mail on the IBMi. We then take that request, run another job, then return the email with a report. It's a handy little reporting system that's very popular,” he said. GoAnywhere not only provides users a way to simplify and secure their file transfers, keeping sensitive data secure both at rest and in motion, it also helps retailers meet relevant security and compliance regulations, with auditing and reporting functionality, as well as strong encryption and security protocols. “All the other extras that came with it, and all of the ways we're using GoAnywhere now have been a bonus,” said Steve. In particular, he called out the solution’s scripting language. “The robustness of that language has been a real surprise – a pleasant surprise,” he said. GoAnywhere’s ease-of-use, and ability to manage the many file transfers occurring each day without the need to write homemade FTP scripts enables Grocery Outlet’s IT team to spend their time on more critical, and less manually intensive tasks. Improved Workflows and Partner Relations Grocery Outlet extracts much of its data from FTP scripts. With GoAnywhere, the previously complex process now runs unattended every night. “It's been great. Just having the ability to run an FTP script to get data, zip it up, and send it somewhere has been phenomenal,” Steve said. The GoAnywhere solution saves Grocery Outlet’s IT team time in two ways: problem resolution and eliminating the problems all together. “Typically, you'd copy some script and create a new script, and it would generally run. The problem is that when it wouldn't run, you wouldn't find out about it until it was too late, or until people were waiting for their orders or in a crisis. “The real time saving in GoAnywhere is that it basically never fails. That thing is rock solid. I can't remember the last time we had a failure due to GoAnywhere. If there's a failure, it's because the receiving side is down or not available.” With GoAnywhere quickly replacing all internal FTP scripts, the grocer transformed their data delivery across all their business partners and all internal systems. Steve noted his surprise at being able to do so as quickly and as easily as they did. The biggest surprise for the company, however, was how they use the email retrieval function. “That has been a huge homerun application for being able to request and report on your phone, and have it delivered back to your phone, like a sales report, within seconds. The response time is amazing! Literally within seconds you’re able to get a nicely formatted HTML email report on your phone, no matter where you are, via GoAnywhere. That has been great,” Steve said. He said he tried to stay up to date on updates to GoAnywhere, so that Grocery Outlet could take advantage of new features. Quick ROI Steve is enthusiastic in his recommendation of GoAnywhere, exclaiming: “It will be the easiest implementation you've ever had. It will be the best value of software that you've ever had. And you'll be sorry if you do not explore this package.” Previous Next

< News Data Tsunami as Black Friday Sales Surge 10 Nov 2025 Data transfer traffic has already begun to surge across Australia ahead of this month’s highly-anticipated Black Friday sales event. Now the biggest sales splurge by Australians annually, Black Friday bargains are expected to generate a record $6.8B before they wind up on December 1. Adding to the momentum this year is consumer confusion over the start date (technically, November 28, the Friday after the American Thanksgiving holiday) and savvy retailers who are getting in early offering bargains. Data Transfer Tsunami The surge in sales will in turn create a tsunami of data transfers, as businesses transact, process orders, and share e-commerce files with their supply chain partners. For some businesses – those still using outdated file sharing technologies like email and FTP – this will be a hugely stressful period. They’ll need to be hyper vigilant for lost orders, failed file transfers, and man-in-the-middle hack attacks. Other businesses - those taking advantage of modern, automated file transfer technologies such as Managed File Transfer (MFT) - will weather the data tsunami with ease. MFT will comprehensively address the risks and challenges of moving information, both within their organisation, and with external suppliers, partners and customers. Through centralised control, encryption, automation and auditing, MFT will provide the security, efficiency, reliability and scalability that FTP and email never could. “Cyber Trust” Consumer trust in retailers’ e-commerce transactions will be an even more important factor in eventual sales numbers this year. High profile hacks of consumer data over the past 12 months are leading consumers to question the security of a company’s systems before handing over credit card and other information. Companies will need to be able to provide reassurance – and proof – that transactions and personal data will be secure. Companies with MFT will be better able to provide that reassurance, keeping a clean history as responsible guardians of customer data. Surf the Tsunami At Generic Systems Australia , we’re Australia’s and New Zealand’s experts in deploying MFT solutions. We routinely help retailers and their supply chain partners effortlessly stay on top of their file transfers, seamlessly scaling up to meet the heightened demands of sales surges like Black Friday, Boxing Day and the like. If you’d like to discuss how we can help you, please feel welcome to contact me . I’m always happy to have an obligation-free chat and explain how simply we can level up your file transfer approaches. I can even arrange a simple, zero-cost Proof of Concept. Previous Next

Best Practices for Cloud MFT Data is the lifeblood of modern business. And most modern organisations rely to some extent on the Cloud as they transfer files between employees, trading partners, and customers. However, permitting your precious data to go “off-prem” increases the risk it will be intercepted or accessed by cybercriminals. To help you guard against cybercrime, here are best practices for safeguarding your data on its way to, from and in, the Cloud. Start with the Right Cloud Provider Cloud providers come in all sizes, capabilities … and risk profiles. Ensure your Cloud provider uses robust security protocols and safeguards. Do they utilise the latest encryption protocols, and offer strong user authorisation and access controls? Do their data transmission and storage approaches meet the regulatory requirements for your industry? What performance levels does your Cloud provider commit to? Can they quickly and reliably receive, store and transmit your business-essential files? Can your Cloud provider easily integrate with your existing systems? Can your Cloud provider offer an appropriate level of technical support when you need it? Select the Right Type of Cloud Cloud computing comes in three basic flavours… Public, Private, and Hybrid. Each offers differing degrees of security and risk. 1. Public Clouds may offer relatively robust security features. However, they must be appropriately configured to offer protection for your files. 2. Private Clouds provide enhanced levels of control and isolation. However, these come at a higher cost. 3. Hybrid Clouds combine elements of both, enabling you to balance security and cost-efficiency. Meet Industry Compliance Requirements Some industries are subject to heightened regulatory requirements regarding data storage and transfer. Even when using an “off-prem” Cloud provider, you remain responsible for meeting those requirements. Failing to utilise an appropriately compliant Cloud environment can lead to fines, law suits, loss of customers, loss of supplier trust, and reputational damage. Maintain Control and Data Sovereignty Governments increasingly require organisations to maintain authority and control of data within their jurisdictional boundaries – aka, “data sovereignty”. Private and Hybrid Cloud environments provide inherently greater authority over where data is stored, access permissions, and retention policies. In this way, they enable organisations to better navigate myriad data sovereignty mandates and evolving compliance standards . Utilising Managed File Transfer as a Service (MFTaaS) MFTaaS is an approach which can help organisations streamline their file transfer processes, while offering robust security, scalability, reliability, anywhere access and cost-effectiveness. However, be sure to confirm your MFTaaS solution offers robust encryption and security protocols, can scale grow with your organisation's needs, and complies with the industry regulations relevant to your business. Technical Best Practices for Cloud File Transfers Ensure secure and efficient transmission of data in a Cloud environment by observing these technical requirements: 1. Data Encryption at Rest and in Transit : Utilise encryption protocols like SSL/TLS for data in transit and encryption solutions provided by your Cloud provider for data at rest. In private Cloud settings, you can also leverage approaches like Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) or Hold Your Own Key (HYOK). 2. Data Loss Prevention (DLP) : A robust DLP solution helps prevent unauthorised data transfers and leakage by monitoring data in real-time and preventing it from being transmitted outside of your organisation. 3. Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) : By monitoring and alerting IT security teams to any suspicious file transfer behaviour, IDS helps nip security breaches in the bud. Employee Best Practices Having your team follow best practices is also essential to secure data transfer and storage. 1. Staff Training : Teach your employees to recognise data security risks, and how to avoid them. Place special focus on phishing and social engineering – two of the most prevalent cybercriminal threats. 2. Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) : Enforce MFA for file transfers, and utilise phishing-resistant techniques. 3. Access Control : Restrict access to files and systems, and provide users with only the minimum level of access necessary to perform their role. Implement a regular cycle of access permission reviews. Audit, Backup and Recovery Best Practices Continuous monitoring and auditing of Cloud file transfers not only maintains the security of your data, it also helps identify and mitigate potential threats, while monitoring on-going compliance. Log Analysis and Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) proactively monitor transfers, and enable your IT team to react quickly to emerging threats and incidents. Data backup and disaster recovery are the final critical components of your comprehensive safeguards against data loss in Cloud file transfers. They ensure that, if a disaster occurs, your organisation can provide business continuity by maintaining the availability and integrity of data. Making the Cloud Safe for File Transfers By following these best practices, the Cloud can be an efficient, reliable and secure element within your organisation’s overall data transfer approach. At Generic Systems Australia, we use and recommend the class-leading (link) managed file transfer solution, GoAnywhere MFT, for the way it integrates with the Cloud and embeds best practices. Providing peace of mind, by securing sensitive files in transit and at rest, GoAnywhere automates and encrypts data between an organisation and its trading partners, protecting it from unnecessary vulnerabilities while improving efficiency and reducing costs. If you’d like to learn more about GoAnywhere MFT , our Business Manager, Bradley Copson, would be happy to offer you an obligation-free discussion , a no cost trial, or even a Proof of Concept for your business RESOURCES HOME