Security

There are three primary aspects of securing your data: keeping unauthorized users from accessing the data, ensuring that authorized users see only the data they are permitted to see, and preventing interception of data while it is being transmitted.

Controlling access to the data is a function of a server application, such as the Titan FTP Server or GroupDrive. A requirement for a user name and password prevents unauthorized users from getting into the server. Controls such as limiting the number of invalid password attempts decreases the chances of someone "hacking" into the system. Titan FTP Server also supports complex passwords, in which administrators can define specific requirements, such as length, requirement for numeric or mixed case values.

Once an authorized user has gained access to a system, appropriate controls must ensure that they see only the data that they have permission to see. These access controls associate folders or files to certain individual users or groups of users. For example, Fred may have access to documents that he created, and as part of the marketing group, Fred and his fellow workers in the marketing department may have access to a marketing folder of documents. Fred can only access these groups of documents, but cannot see documents owned by the Human Resources and Accounting departments.

Frequently, the discussion of security refers to the transmission of data across the Internet. When data is transmitted across the Internet, precautions must be taken to ensure that data is not intercepted and read. To accomplish this, data may be "encrypted" and sent to another computer, and then "decrypted" so that it can be read and understood.

Encryption is the converting of data into a type of secret code. Once the data has been successfully transmitted, it is converted back to its prior form. A common method of encryption is the use of Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). SSL creates an encrypted tunnel or pipe through which data is transmitted. In order for this type of encryption to work, both the sending computer and the receiving computer must understand SSL.

All South River Technologies' products use SSL 128-bit encryption for secure transmission of data across the Internet.