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- Privacy Policy | GSA
Generic Systems Australia Privacy Policy Generic Systems Australia (“GSA”, “we” or “us) are committed to protecting the privacy of the BUSINESS information we collect. Our Privacy Policy describes how we collect and use your business information where we are acting as a data controller (i.e. where we decide how and why your information is used). This Policy does not apply to personal information we hold as an employer or data processor when acting on behalf of, and in accordance with the instructions of our customers through our customers’ use of GSA services and the software licenced via us. We may make changes to our Privacy Policy from time to time to take account of changes to our standard practices and procedures or where necessary to comply with new laws and regulations. If we make changes, we will update the “last updated” date in the following paragraph, and the latest version will always be available on our website. This Policy was last updated on 1 June 2024 . We encourage you to check our website from time to time to ensure that you are aware of our current Privacy Policy. Types of personal information we collect The types of personal information we collect will depend on the circumstances in which the information is collected. However, the types of personal information we collect and hold about you may include: identifying information, such as your name; contact information, such as your address, email address and telephone/mobile number; usernames and passwords that you create when registering for an account with us; your organisation and position, where your organisation has business dealing with us; information about your occupation and employer organisation; information about how you use the products or services we provide to you; records of our communications with you, such as telephone, email, SMS, online and in person communications; if you visit our offices, images of you which may be captured on CCTV; other information that you provide us during the course of business; and other information that is capable of identifying you. You are always welcome to provide us with comments, queries and feedback in relation to our products and services. We may record and monitor telephone calls and other communications between you and us for training, quality control and compliance purposes. When you communicate with us, we may collect additional information including the languages you speak, how best to manage communications with you, and information about your dealings with us. If you participate in a survey or competition, or respond to a feedback request, we will collect the information that you provide in doing so, and associated information such as when and how you submitted the response. We collect information about people who are our contractors, suppliers and business partners, or who are employed by our contractors, suppliers and business partners. When you do business with us, we may collect information about you from others, such as from others who do business with you. Our website may contain links to third party websites. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of those third-party websites. The privacy practices applicable to those third-party websites may differ substantially from ours, so we advise you to read the privacy policy of those websites before using them. Log data, device and location information When using our products and services (including our website), we will collect information about you and about your use of our products and services, such as which services you use and how you use them. We will collect information such as: user name and password; device information, such as the model and ID of the device you use, operating system, telephone number and mobile phone network; server log information, such as details of how you used the products or service (including our website), IP address, hardware settings, browser type, browser language, the date and time of your use and referral URL; and your browser or your account using cookies (see below for further information about our use of cookies). Our products and services (including our website) may also detect and use your IP address or domain name for internal traffic monitoring and capacity management purposes or to otherwise administer the products and services. The patterns of usage of visitors to the online services may be tracked for the purposes of providing improved service and content based on aggregate or statistical review of user traffic patterns. How we collect personal information We may collect personal information about you in the following ways: when you order products or services from us; when you use our online services and other products and services (including our website); when you visit our sites or offices; when you submit a query or request to us; when you respond to a survey that we run or fill in forms on our website; by tracking your use of our products and services (including our website); from third parties who are entitled to disclose that information to us; from publicly available sources; from online sources (including social media platforms and providers like LinkedIn); suppliers of information products and services (e.g. companies that consolidate data from multiple public sources); or other lawful means. From time to time, we may use third-party online services to collect personal information such as your name and email address or telephone number to administer online competitions, customer feedback and surveys. If you provide us with personal information about someone else, you must only do so if that person has provided their permission for you to do so. Cookies We may also collect personal information about you and your use of our website, products and services using cookies. Amongst other things, we use cookies to monitor and observe your use of our website, products and services, compile aggregate data about that use, and provide you with a more effective service (which may include customising parts of our website based on your preferences and past activities on that website). How we use personal information and our legal basis for using your personal information We use personal information that we collect about you to: verify your identity when you are dealing with us; maintain our relationship with you; determine your eligibility for any of our products or services; answer your queries and requests; enable us to provide you or your organisation with our products and services; use in accordance with any request or instructions from you; make special offers related to our products or services that we think may be of interest to you; keep you informed about our activities and notify you of changes to our products or services; monitor use of our products and services (including our website); provide better products, services and information to our customers and to the community; assess, operate, maintain, upgrade and improve our products and services (including our website); maintain and update our records; carry out market analysis and research; carry out planning and forecasting activities and other internal business processes; manage and resolve any legal or commercial complaints or issues (including debt recovery); meet our obligations and perform our functions under applicable laws and agreements; comply with our legal and regulatory obligations; use as otherwise required or authorised by law or government agency. We may also use your personal information for any other purpose as authorised by you. Our legal basis for the above activities includes: consent; necessary for performance of a contract; necessary for our legitimate interests or the legitimate interests of a third party; necessary for compliance with our legal obligations. . When we have legitimate interests As set out above, in some cases we use your information where it is necessary for our legitimate interests or the legitimate interests of a third party. This includes where the use of your personal information is necessary to: administer our operations and business in an efficient and effective way including undertaking management planning and improving and developing our products and services; for our authorised third-party service providers or others to perform services on our behalf, such as payment processing and data analysis; understand and respond to queries, complaints and feedback; send direct marketing to business contacts; transfer personal information in relation to an actual or proposed sale, transfer or reorganisation of all or part of our business and the acquisition of the business; analyse and optimise our website's content by updating it in accordance with your preferences; ensure network and information security; and enforce our legal rights and manage any dispute and legal claims and take legal or other professional advice. Direct marketing and research If you have given us your consent or if we are otherwise legally entitled to do so, we may use and disclose your personal information for marketing purposes (but we will not sell your personal information to any third party) including contacting you about our products and services (including our website), the products and services of other people, or related special offers from our business partners, that we think may be of interest to you. This information may be sent to you by email, SMS or by other means. We may use your personal information to carry out consumer and market research, compile demographics and perform other research and analysis so that we can develop and implement initiatives to improve our services, improve the design, construction and operation of our products and identify people likely to be interested in our products and services. You can opt-out of receiving marketing communications from us at any time by following the “unsubscribe” link in any communication (or sending a return email with “un subscribe in the Subject line” from us or contacting us using the contact details below. Unsubscribing from marketing communications will not stop service-related communications from us, such as administrative alerts in relation to your account. De-identification We may de-identify information about you so that the information can no longer be used to identify you (anonymisation). We may use and disclose de-identified information in the course of our business (including in any promotional or marketing material). Aggregation We may aggregate information on the use of our products and services (including our website) in such a way that the information can no longer be related to identifiable individuals. We may use and disclose aggregated information in the course of our business (including in any promotional or marketing material). Who we disclose personal information to We may disclose your personal information to: your representatives, advisers and others you have authorised to interact with us on your behalf; controlled entities within our corporate group; our team members and third parties including business partners, consultants, contractors, suppliers, service providers, professional advisers and agents who need the information to assist us with conducting our business activities; prospective purchasers of all or part of our business or shares in our company or a related entity; government agencies or authorities, regulators, law enforcement agencies and other parties where authorised or required by law who ask us to disclose that information and to which we are legally required to disclose your personal information; parties identified at the time of collecting your personal information or as otherwise authorised by you. How we maintain and secure your personal information Security is a priority for us when it comes to your information. We take reasonable steps to ensure that any of your personal information which we hold is accurate, complete and up to date. These steps include promptly updating personal information when we are advised that personal information has changed, checking our contact lists for accuracy, and providing individuals with a simple means to update their personal information. On rare occasions, we also keep hard copy records of this personal information in physical storage facilities. We use a range of physical and technical security processes and procedures to protect the confidentiality and security of the information that we hold, and we update these from time to time. These measures include: implementing physical and technical access and security controls to our physical and electronic databases, such as security procedures for access to our business premises; and technological security procedures including password protection, network firewalls, encryption, intrusion detection and site monitoring where practicable to do so. We also take steps to monitor access to and modification of your information by our team members and contractors, and ensure that our team members and contractors are aware of and properly trained in their obligations for managing your privacy. However, the internet is not a secure environment and no matter what physical and technical security processes and procedures are used we cannot guarantee the security of your personal information. You also play an important role in keeping your information secure by maintaining the confidentiality of any usernames and passwords you use with our products and services (including our website). How long we store your personal information for Personal information is only retained for as long as it is needed for the purpose for which it was collected or as required by law. After the expiry of this period, we will take reasonable steps to make sure its de-identified or destroyed. The criteria used to determine appropriate retention periods for personal information include: the length of time we have an ongoing business relationship with you; the amount, nature and sensitivity of the personal information; whether we have a legal obligation to retain personal information; and whether retaining the personal information is necessary to resolve legal disputes (including the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims). Your rights Depending on where you are located, you may have a right to: request a copy of your personal information. In relation to personal data you have supplied to us, and which is held by us for the purpose of entering into a contract between us or on the basis of your consent, you may be entitled to ask us for a copy of this information in a structured, commonly used and machine readable format so that you can reuse it or share it with other organisations; object to our processing of your data and ask us to restrict the use of your information and to delete it; or correct or rectify any personal information that is out-of-date, incorrect, incomplete or misleading. Such requests should be submitted to us in writing using the contact details below. We may ask you to verify your identity before responding to your request. We will respond to your request in a timely manner and action your request in accordance with applicable data protection laws. You have a right to withdraw your consent where you have previously given us consent to use your personal information (e.g. to receive marketing communications). You can do this by contacting the Privacy Officer using the contact details below or, where the consent relates to marketing, by unsubscribing using the link in any of our communications. Complaints If you have a concern about your privacy or how we have collected or handled your personal information, please contact our Privacy Officer using the contact details below. If you wish to make a complaint, you should forward a written complaint to our Privacy Officer using the contact details below. In the complaint, please include your contact details (such as email address, name, address and telephone number) so we can contact you for further information and clearly describe the complaint. We will respond to your query or complaint within a reasonable time and in accordance with applicable data protection laws. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may contact us to discuss your concerns or may raise a complaint with your local data protection authority through their official channels. In Australia it is the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, in New Zealand it is the Privacy Commissioner. Contact us If you require further information this Privacy Policy or Generic Systems Australia’s management of your personal information please contact us via the following contact details: Privacy Officer Phone: +61 2-9959-2239 Email: info@gensys.com.au
- Companies ignoring hack warnings | GSA
< News Companies ignoring hack warnings 4 Oct 2024 Almost half of the businesses warned by Australia’s top cyber security agency of impending hacks didn’t bother to return the phone call. In an alarming disclosure to The Australian Financial Review, the new director-general of the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), Abigail Bradshaw, said that the agency had contacted organisations 620 times in the last 12 months to tell them it had information “that suggests that you might have a problem”. But of those calls, 280 were never returned. Bradshaw said the agency shared such information because it had been shown to help companies to achieve positive outcomes in the face of escalating threats while enabling The ASD to detect more incidents. Sharing Encouraged The ASD’s alerts are part of a broader government plan to encourage more information sharing. New rules recently announced will permit businesses to share private details with government agencies without concern it will be used against them in future damages claims. That being said, regulators are still tightening the screws on directors and executives to take responsibility for cyber security prevention and recovery. The new laws won’t provide “immunity” for those who fail to prepare in the months or years leading up to a hack. Hacking: this century’s “H-Bomb” Not only is cybercrime financially lucrative for ransomware gangs, but digital attacks are becoming a critical component of geopolitical conflict, Bradshaw said. “The line between state-based actors and criminal actors is becoming finer,” she said. Cybercrime and conflict are set to escalate as quantum computing coupled with artificial intelligence supercharges hacking efforts. The US’s Pentagon described that emerging combination as “the 21st century’s equivalent of the nuclear bomb”. The Australian Financial Review warned that “if you get caught out by a cyberattack which causes broader harm, directors will not be able to talk their way out of trouble by saying they thought their techies had it covered”. Acting on ASD Alerts To mitigate hefty fines and sanctions, directors and executives need to prioritise their time and attention on cyber safety. A Managed File Transfer (MFT) solution such as 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 helping companies deploy Managed File Transfer and Advanced Threat Protection. We’ve assisted hundreds of organisations across Australia and New Zealand to secure their data and keep cybercriminals at bay. If you’d like to discuss how we can help you, 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
- Compulsory Disclosure of Ransomware Payments Looms | GSA
< News Compulsory Disclosure of Ransomware Payments Looms 6 Aug 2024 Australian organisations will soon be forced to disclose their ransomware payments to cyberthieves. The measure is included in a landmark new Cyber Security Act to be brought before parliament’s next sitting. It comes in response to research which shows Australian businesses have been paying untold amounts of ransom to hackers in what is now a mounting wave of ransomware hacks. Ransom payments flourishing The government is reportedly concerned that the practice of quietly paying off cybercriminals has flourished in secrecy. While the government originally planned to place an outright ban on ransom payments, it’s now focused on mapping the scale of the problem. "People are paying criminals money and it is happening in the darkness (and) we need to bring this out into the light," said former minister for cybersecurity Clare O'Neil. "Government cannot win this war alone. We need a whole-of-nation effort here." Every six minutes In its 2022/23 Annual Cyber Threat Report, the Australian Cyber Security Centre confirmed it was notified of a new cyber incident every six minutes on average. Ransomware attacks have increased roughly five-fold since 2020. As worrying as those numbers might seem, they are still only a glimpse of the real problem. "It is believed that in the Five Eyes countries alone - Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States - literally billions of dollars in ransoms is being paid, and criminal gangs are reinvesting that money … to attack us again," O'Neil said. Business groups concerned Cyber security experts say the proposed changes strike the right balance. However, business groups say they are concerned the new disclosure rules could sink some small operators. To help tempt reluctant businesses into transparency, the government is proposing that disclosures will not be subjected to "the glare of regulators". A "Limited Use Provision" will prevent the Australian Signals Directorate and the Australian Cyber Security Centre from sharing the information more widely, except in narrow circumstances. Said O’Neil: "This is a no-fault scheme. We're not blaming businesses … they're victims of a crime." Under the existing proposal, regulators such as the Privacy Commissioner would still be allowed to investigate and prosecute companies that "leave the front door unlocked", but only using their existing powers. "It doesn't absolve business of any of their legal responsibilities or liabilities," O'Neil said. "We expect Australian businesses to take care of their customers … but sometimes things do go wrong." Not just the private sector The problem of ransomware attacks is not limited to the private sector. The Australian Signals Directorate said almost one-third of cybersecurity incidents reported in the 2022-2023 financial year came from the public service. Consecutive audits of the government sector have found it has a "low-maturity level" when it comes to cybersecurity, despite holding the largest store of sensitive data about Australian citizens. As it stands, about 1,000 Australian entities providing "critical infrastructure" such as energy, healthcare and banking services are obliged to report ransom payments. Attacks escalating The new mandatory reporting measures are recognition that there is no end in sight to ransomware attacks. Johanna Weaver, director of the Tech Policy Design Centre at ANU, said "No matter how good our cybersecurity protections are … (attacks) will continue to happen." She applauded the push to establish an ongoing "Cyber Incident Review Board", similar to what exists in the aviation industry, to learn from other major breaches, such as the attack on MediSecure. Avoiding Ransom Payments To be truly secure, an organisation’s data must be protected not only when it’s stored, but also while it’s enroute to and from storage. Managed File Transfer (MFT) solutions such as the class-leading GoAnywhere MFT encrypt data at rest and in transit, complying with the highest data security standards (including the US’s and Europe’s HIPAA, HITECH, PCI DSS, SOX, and GDPR). MFT manages inbound and outbound file transfers across an organisation, using industry-standard file transfer protocols such as SFTP, FTPS, and AS2 to send files securely, and encryption standards such as Open PGP and AES to protect data in transit and at rest. Local Expertise on Hand Generic Systems Australia are your local experts in Managed File Transfer solutions. 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 improving your 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. Attribution: sections of this article were substantially sourced from an item originally published by ABC News Australia. Previous Next
- Case Studoes (List) | GSA
CASE STUDIES How GoAnywhere Helps PMFresh Better Serve Customers & Partners Generic Systems Australia helped Australia’s #1 fresh salad manufacturer better serve its customers and partners, tapping GoAnywhere MFT’s renowned flexibility and automation capabilities. Read More Keeping Ahead of Competition in Commercial Real Estate A leading commercial real estate firm replaced its homegrown single-purpose FTP tool with the versatile GoAnywhere MFT, and now uses GoAnywhere to offer their customers up-to-the-minute mortgage rates. Read More SES Encrypts and Audits Global Client Data SES, a UK-based firm which provides software escrow agreements, intellectual property protection, and cybersecurity risk management globally, relies on GoAnywhere MFT to transfer more than 2,000 client files each day - robustly and securely. Read More Global Insurer Uses GoAnywhere to Replace Legacy File Transfers This global insurance company replaced legacy file transfers approaches with GoAnywhere's flexibility. Read More Bargain Retailer finds GoAnywhere Really “Delivers the Goods” The US’s largest extreme value retailer, Grocery Outlet, was delighted to discover that GoAnywhere MFT could deliver far more than 'merely' transferring 33,000 files daily. Read More Think Mutual Bank finds GoAnywhere to be “the Obvious Choice” Given only a month to find a better way to transfer critical data between disparate banking systems, Think Mutual Bank’s Lead Systems Administrator found GoAnywhere to be the obvious choice. Read More
- How GoAnywhere Helps PMFresh Better Serve Customers & Partners | GSA
< Case Studies How GoAnywhere Helps PMFresh Better Serve Customers & Partners PMFresh uses GoAnywhere MFT to handle its 20,000 weekly file transfers. They initially chose GoAnywhere as a solution to replace problematic custom-written and legacy programs to meet the requirements of their large customer, Domino’s Pizza. The robust solution has since proven itself with its flexibility, functionality, and ease of use both in and out of the organization. “GoAnywhere’s flexibility in being able to interact with the varied systems of our customers, allows us to effectively set up electronic trading partnerships with our customers,” noted Ashish Bhatt, IT Manager for PMFresh. “GoAnywhere is a flexible, secure file transfer tool that makes file transfers and other business processes easier.” “With four manufacturing plants and a small IT staff, GoAnywhere can straddle all the systems easily without specialized skill sets. By using more variable skill sets it’s been easier to manage file sending, receiving, and translating. GoAnywhere allows us to do more with less,” he added. Moving In-House Brought Reliability and Cost Savings Prior to installing GoAnywhere, PMFresh used a mixture of solutions, including a third-party provider, but experienced a lot of issues. “We were under a lot of pressure to bring the Domino’s ordering system and B2B communications inhouse to reduce the manual management needed for these processes. There were a lot of moving parts,” Ashish said. “Every time we wanted to interact with an external trading partner, we had to find a solution they were able to manage. When we started to work with Domino’s, we found our old process gave us lots of errors and our third party charged us considerably to receive those transfers,” noted Ashish. Simon Kuenstner, then a tech consultant to PMFresh, was tasked with finding a solution for PMFresh’s in-house system. “We were very satisfied with the options GoAnywhere MFT provided another customer in terms of reliability, logging, and encryption,” he said. “Since then, GoAnywhere has proved its flexibility and high reliability over many years. It is secure, very fast, and the scalability is great. It doesn’t matter what platform you need to connect to, it can easily communicate with whatever you or your partners have.” What used to take hours or even several days can now be accomplished in minutes or hours. And the Advanced Workflow engine gives PMFresh the ability to do everything from simple transfers to complex automation. Ashish said he also appreciates the logging and ability to integrate messaging and alerts into the file transfer process. “With GoAnywhere, we were able to get the set-up with Domino’s started over a weekend, had the ordering process automated on an FTP site, and that project is still running smoothly today.” A Mission-Critical Solution GoAnywhere is considered mission-critical for PMFresh and is now incorporated in all parts of the business from accounts, purchasing, production, and customer service. PMFresh has been able to reduce many of the manual tasks for processing electronic orders, invoices, business intelligence reporting, and more. “Without GoAnywhere receiving, moving, and translating files, the business would stop,” said Asish. “We are able to both reduce the hours needed for processes and save money. And with multiple systems, many trading partners in the industry, and a complex, distributed factory footprint, GoAnywhere allows us to be more flexible. It is the glue that connects our systems. “We continually look at our processes to see if GoAnywhere can help in any way. Our people – both in and out of the organisation – are very happy with what we have done so far, as it has saved them so much time. It’s a fast, productive environment, is stable, and integrates with all our systems,” he added. On-Premise Transferred Successfully to Azure Cloud In 2020, when increasing their cloud footprint, PMFresh migrated all their on-premises and data centre computer workloads to the Microsoft Azure cloud. Part of that migration included moving their six-year instance of GoAnywhere to Azure. With GoAnywhere implemented in Azure, PMFresh now hosts SFTP and AS2, (server and client) in the Cloud, to securely communicate with their external trading partners. They also run integrations between services hosted in Azure and on-premises, as well as their ERP systems which are also hosted. PMFresh utilizes virtual machines (VM) in Azure for their GoAnywhere instances and utilizes GoAnywhere’s Gateway within an Azure DMZ for optimal security with internet facing trading partners and systems. In addition, utilizing the Azure Cloud’s highly available architecture, backup options, and the ability to replicate the GoAnywhere environment into other regions, gives PMFresh infrastructure reliability that they did not have in their on-premises data centre. It enables PMFresh to serve their customers with reliable orders, invoices, and communications. “I’d highly recommend running GoAnywhere in the cloud if it is a critical component of your business, as it is for PMFresh,” Asish said. GoAnywhere MFT Helps PMFresh Deliver Service Excellence With GoAnywhere in place, PMFresh can process new orders in a timelier fashion and communicate more reliably with their partners. Said Asish: “The simplicity of the software enables us to onboard new customers and suppliers easily, saving us both a lot of time. The streamlined processes help partners as well. Some of our larger customers have large processing sites, and GoAnywhere enables us to align with their existing processes. “The solution’s flexibility gives us an advantage. We can say, ‘we can work with that’ and that flexibility has helped us a lot.” While already utilising many functions of GoAnywhere, SFTP, HTTPS, AS2, and GoAnywhere Gateway, Ashish anticipates adding process automation using Secure Forms. “We have plans to migrate some additional dated processes on old systems to GoAnywhere as well. We want to continue exploring its capabilities as it saves us time and money, and most importantly for our customers, it is highly reliable.” He added that, by using the Advanced Workflow engine, “Our only limitation is our imagination.” --- If you would like to explore how GoAnywhere MFT can help you better serve your customers and suppliers, please feel free to contact our Business Manager, Bradley Copson. He’s always happy to have an obligation-free discussion, explain how quickly and easily we can transition your organisation to the class-leading MFT solution, and offer you a zero-cost Proof of Concept. Previous Next
- Bargain Retailer finds GoAnywhere Really “Delivers the Goods” | GSA
< 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
- Global Insurer Uses GoAnywhere to Replace Legacy File Transfers | GSA
< Case Studies Global Insurer Uses GoAnywhere to Replace Legacy File Transfers Instead of copying and piecing together scripts for file transfers - a process which took 30-60 minutes per script – this global insurance company now uses GoAnywhere to automate and make secure its file transfer task in less than five minutes. Discovering the many other ways they could leverage GoAnywhere’s advanced features was a bonus. 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 global insurance company is saving time and money – and avoiding headaches – by using GoAnywhere MFT , the world’s leading MFT solution . For one global insurance company, having file transfer processes that work seamlessly is non-negotiable. Between needing to share data with the company’s national office, running a collaboration with a car rental company, and catering to more than a million customers, they need their file transfers to run smoothly and securely. However, the legacy systems and processes they had in place prior to 2018 were frustrating, to say the least. One of the company’s applications engineers couldn’t believe the file transfer processes they had to deal with before switching to managed file transfer software. "We had a server where a bunch of batch scripts ran and transferred files to vendors," he said. "We wrote manual scripts — 50 or 60 of them — that all ran from Task Scheduler." Because their setup lacked security and encryption features, critical information wasn’t always protected during batch transfers. Their setup didn’t have alerting or reporting abilities either. It quickly became clear that better cybersecurity strategies were needed to protect their file transfers. Convoluted Clustering The engineer’s team also wanted to cluster their systems, so the bank files they exchanged wouldn’t be interrupted by system failure or downtime. But making Task Scheduler cluster aware required knowledge of PowerShell. "It was this huge, long convoluted process," he said. "And with security in mind, we had to implement a DMZ secure gateway server to go along with a new file transfer server. Jobs would have to be scheduled on two different sets of task schedulers." The design files they created to make clustering work were crazy. There had to be an easier way. Back to Basics For this insurance company, it was time to unravel their processes and systems and go back to the basics that mattered: encryption, automation, alerting, and reporting. If they could find a solution that did all these things simply and efficiently… that would be a win. And win they did. After evaluating several managed file transfer (MFT) solutions, the engineer tried GoAnywhere MFT, the class-leading cybersecurity solution. More than Transfers The engineer and his team discovered many additional benefits during their trial of GoAnywhere: Ease of Use: GoAnywhere was powerful but not overly technical. The software was a breeze to install and easy to use. Focused on What Matters: The team was pleased to see GoAnywhere support extra functionality, like user-to-user collaboration, but even more pleased to find that GoAnywhere never lost sight of their bread-and-butter requirements: automation, auditing, and secure file transfers. Out-of-the-Box Project Designers: GoAnywhere included a drag-and-drop project designer for workflows and automation. This eliminated the need for scripting and programming. Affordability: Finally, the cost beat out the competition. GoAnywhere offered the insurance company a positive ROI that they could achieve quickly and efficiently with less of a learning curve—while still boasting all the features and functionality of other comparable solutions. A Fresh Start with MFT Once GoAnywhere was fully implemented, the global insurance company couldn’t imagine life without it. Now they meet requirements and complete key projects via several of GoAnywhere’s features: PCI DSS Compliance: The insurance company is PCI DSS certified. To ensure their member information is protected as much as possible, they are required to go above and beyond PCI DSS requirements to ensure their file transfers are compliant. GoAnywhere MFT supports PCI DSS compliance efforts through encryption, secure, industry-standard file transfer protocols, access controls for sensitive data, and detailed logging/reporting. Google Integration: After implementing GoAnywhere, the insurance company installed GoAnywhere’s Google Cloud Storage Connector. This cloud integration allows them to pull data from the cloud from two vendors they’ve partnered with. Each month, GoAnywhere transfers a file generated in-house to a Google storage bucket. Once the files are in the bucket, two of their vendors apply logic to the data for marketing purposes. The file finishes processing using the Google compute engine before GoAnywhere pulls the file back into the company’s enterprise data warehouse (EDW) system. AWS Integration: GoAnywhere’s Amazon AWS integration fulfills an important project in their environment. "We’ve used [the Amazon AWS integration] since day one," explained the company’s engineer. "It was one of the selling features for us." Improved Visibility & Centralisation Before GoAnywhere came into the picture, the engineer and a co-worker relied on Task Scheduler and batch file transfers to send and retrieve sensitive data. Their legacy setup did not have alerting, notifications, or reporting functionality. They’d need to spend precious time tracking down issues or digging into different data sources to regain some visibility. This lack of clarity was a source of frustration. A big selling point for this insurance company was GoAnywhere’s ability to provide visibility into all areas of their file transfer processes, including the data movement happening on-premises, within their cloud environment, and to their web applications. Not only does this visibility help the engineer’s team know when and where files are sent, it gives them flexibility to train new employees if needed. "Say I need more help and we’re hiring someone else," he explained. "I can say [to that new hire,] ‘Everything’s in GoAnywhere. All our jobs, anything that’s incoming, all the users. You can see who has access, you can see the agents we have deployed and what they’re doing.’ Having that [data] in a central place is just so much easier than what we’ve used in the past." Remote MFT Agents GoAnywhere’s MFT Agents module allows admins to remotely control automated file transfers and file processing from a central GoAnywhere server. With MFT agents in place, this insurance company has improved its overall security posture. They can move sensitive files between restricted servers without having to rely on insecure methods or window transfers. All of these transfers are automated, secured, and can be audited. Set for Success Instead of copying and piecing together scripts to send new file transfers (a process that took 30-60 minutes per script before), GoAnywhere can create a job in under five minutes. The team has utilised several areas of the software in a short amount of time and have exciting use cases in mind for the future. Of his favourite thing about GoAnywhere, the engineer said: "I love that I’m not on a batch file trying to deduce what’s going on. I can just visualise something [the workflow] and say ‘oh, this is what it needs.’ I can just set up a job and my coworker knows about it because now we get an email notification if it fails... Compared to what we had before, [our file transfer process] is where we need it to be." Previous Next
- Think Mutual Bank finds GoAnywhere to be “the Obvious Choice” | GSA
< Case Studies Think Mutual Bank finds GoAnywhere to be “the Obvious Choice” Decad es 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 GoAnywhere MFT , the world’s leading MFT solution , solved a US bank’s need to integrate with its external partners’ IT systems – extra fast! Think Mutual Bank, located in the US’s sprawling midwest, was searching for a way to transfer data between disparate banking systems. Although their core system runs on the IBMi, much of their broader business banking ecosystem runs on MS SQL. Getting all the data into the one place - their IBMi - then copying updated files back to the MS SQL system, was a daily challenge. Van Sy, Lead Systems Administrator at Think Mutual Bank, was tasked with finding a PCI DSS compliant solution – fast! Finding the Right Fit – Fast! Although Think Mutual Bank had a product that performed some of the functions they needed, Sy began a search for a product which offered greater functionality, and which could be implemented in the short timeframe he’d been given. As Sy explained: “We own another product that has some FTP functionality, but it doesn’t have the data push that we wanted. We wanted to be able to copy just certain fields from a SQL database over to the IBM i, and GoAnywhere does that, all in one package. "Due to our short timeline – literally, we were looking at just a month," he added. "We didn’t want or have time to do any coding ourselves, so GoAnywhere became the obvious choice.” Also key to the project’s success was a product whose technical resource staff were readily on hand to ensure the product was up and running when Think Bank needed it. “The support person I dealt with was very knowledgeable," Sy said. "Every time we had questions, he was there, and it really helped that he was very familiar with the product.” Planning for the Future A year on from the successful installation and transition to GoAnywhere MFT, Sy was planning to extend his use of the solution’s functionality. “We’ve been running GoAnywhere for about a year now, using the database push and the FTP functionality. In the short term, we’ll probably extend it out to other systems than just our business banking side. With GoAnywhere, it’s a secure FTP client, so I’ll be moving some of the older systems over to it.” Added Sy: “Most of the other solutions out there do one or two things, but not the whole package – that’s the reason we went with the GoAnywhere product. It really met all of our specific needs, with the database conversion, the database push and the secure FTP. So far, it’s been really solid.” Previous Next
- Keeping Ahead of Competition in Commercial Real Estate | GSA
< Case Studies Keeping Ahead of Competition in Commercial Real Estate 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 the many ways in which an international commercial real estate firm leverages the flexibility of GoAnywhere MFT . One commercial real estate company has a mission to redefine their industry with long-term investments in people and technology that deliver actionable insights and create the best customer experience. They’ve also made it their mission to ensure any data they’re transferring is transferred securely. This corporation is an industry-leading commercial real estate company that offers a robust suite of services to its multifamily and commercial property clients. They offer services in commercial real estate investment sales, mortgage banking, and mortgage servicing. They now operate worldwide, have over 1,000 employees, and have closed billions of dollars in production volume. GoAnywhere MFT plays a key role in their success. Retiring REST A Senior Engineer provided some insight into the company’s three-year usage of GoAnywhere. Originally, when they needed to wire SFTP files to the bank, they used a homegrown tool, built internally and solely for the purpose of SFTP transfers to wire payments. However, because processes were taking too much time, they decided to look elsewhere for a better solution. What they found exceeded their original expectations. Prior to implementing GoAnywhere MFT, the process of keeping data consistent was a challenge. Stated the Senior Engineer: “Before GoAnywhere, we used the same REST call and put data in the SQL Server, but I was having a hard time with Windows vs. AWS and Azure and getting the same data repeatedly.” With GoAnywhere, Windows can grab data easily and consistently. Daily Deliveries Once the Senior Engineer learned the product, which didn’t take long, they were an expert in GoAnywhere. Now, more than 1,715 jobs are run each day. Most of the file transfers are B2B, moving from the company to a financial institution of some sort. “We wanted something that could go to a database seamlessly. We must get files to the bank in a very timely matter. Every wire file goes to the Federal Reserve and must get a Federal Reserve number before it can be funded to the bank. That all takes time. You don’t want to be at a standstill at 5:00 pm on a Friday trying to figure out why you can’t get a wire file to a bank! They’re funding loans that are $40 million!” Now the Senior Engineer can set up new transfers in just two minutes once they have all the information and can execute transfers in 10 seconds. If it clears, transfers start and stop in about one second! “Currently, we have 63 projects running in the GoAnywhere scheduler. We started with 15 and it has grown from there.” Mortgage Rate Magic Aside from the daily deliveries, the company also utilises GoAnywhere to stay one step ahead of their competition and offering the best mortgage rates possible. Mortgage rates update every minute. Because the company is committed to offering the best interest rate in the steep pool of competition, they avoid offering one single rate per day, as some of their competitors do. It’s especially important for them to pull the data in real time because even a couple of points in an interest rate change can make a big difference. GoAnywhere MFT helps the company’s competitive edge thrive and delivers an advantage by allowing real-time interest rate comparison. “We use MFT to get the latest mortgage rates available,” the Senior Engineer said. “We have several applications that use these rates. Each time you pull the rates, it costs money. Instead of having each application pull rates, we have MFT make a REST call to grab the rates and push them into a SQL Server, for all of our on-premises dotnet applications to use.” All applications that need the updated rates call the SQL Server to get the rates in real time. From there on, the rates are formatted into a JSON file and sent to AWS, where the rest of their cloud-based apps can use them. All applications have the same data source that is updated at the same time; therefore, they only need one outbound call to grab the rates. All the apps in the AWS environment can also get the necessary rates at the exact same time. It doesn’t matter which application connects; it should get the same rate. Exceeding Expectations Among transferring files securely, upgrades and updates for GoAnywhere MFT have served as an additional, yet unexpected benefit for the company. They have been easy to complete, and the Senior Engineer was able to successfully conduct their company’s annual disaster recovery (DR) test without fail. Overall, the Senior organization is very satisfied with their experience using GoAnywhere MFT. At this commercial real estate company, GoAnywhere’s flexibility is exploited for a great many time-saving projects, allowing valuable staff and system time to be directed to other areas. Although the company is typically using GoAnywhere MFT to transfer daily B2B files to financial institutions and provide competitive mortgage rates to their clients, their Senior Engineer said they often find new ways to leverage the product. “In meetings when someone has an idea, or has been doing something manually repeatedly, I know that GoAnywhere can take care of it and do what’s being requested. I always say, ‘We can do that! They can do this!’” Previous Next