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Cover Story: New Trade-Up Offer from Citrix
Content Security - and Why You Should Care
Traveling with Your Grandchildren
New Gift Card Rules
Moose Logic Coming Events
August Recommended Reading

(Moose Views is a monthly newsletter prepared by Moose Logic to bring you information and tips on maintaining a trouble-free network)

(Click on the chart at right to view a larger one that you can actually read.)

Many of you took advantage of the Citrix XenDesktop 4 Trade-Up offer before it ended on June 30. But just in case you didn’t, you can still trade up your XenApp licenses to XenDesktop licenses — it’s just going to cost you about 10% more money than it would have if you had acted before June 30.

Shortly after we went to press on our July issue of Moose Views, Citrix announced a new trade-up offer that will run through December 31. In case you’re a new subscriber (or you just haven’t been paying attention), here are the high points.

First of all, remember that when Citrix introduced XenDesktop 4, they did three things:

1. For the Enterprise and Platinum editions of XenDesktop, they included all of the functionality of the corresponding version of XenApp. So, today, if you buy XenApp licenses, you only get XenApp. But if you buy XenDesktop licenses, you get XenApp and XenDesktop.
2. They changed the license model for XenDesktop Enterprise and Platinum to a per-user (or per-device) license instead of a concurrent use license.
3. They set the per-license price of XenDesktop Enterprise and Platinum to roughly half the price of the corresponding XenApp license.

The net effect of these changes is that if your concurrency ratio (the number of total users compared to the number of concurrent users) is less than 2 to 1, it is now less expensive for you to purchase XenDesktop licenses even if all you want to use today is XenApp! Plus, you’ve got all that cool XenDesktop functionality in your back pocket when and if you decide to deploy it.

Second, if your Subscription Advantage is current, and you trade up all of your XenApp licenses to XenDesktop licenses, Citrix will give you two XenDesktop licenses for every XenApp license you trade it. So, for example, if you used to have 100 XenApp licenses, you would then have 200 XenDesktop licenses. (If you don’t meet these criteria, you only get 1 for 1.)

This new trade-up offer has also been extended to customers who own XenApp Fundamentals (formerly known as Citrix Access Essentials). Even though you don’t get the 2 for 1 deal, this is great news.

So keep the new offer in mind, particularly if you’ve got a Subscription Advantage renewal coming up before December 31. Redirecting those renewal dollars toward the trade-up can help keep down your out-of-pocket expense for the trade-up.

Content Security - and Why You Should Care

I recently read the 2010 Data Breach Investigations Report published by the Verizon RISK team. It was a summary of all of the cases that team handled in 2009, plus some additional information from the U.S. Secret Service. You can find a link to this report in my blog post about the Causes and Costs of Cyber Crime, or in the "Recommended Reading" section at right.

One of the things that really surprised me was that in all of the cases Verizon handled, and I quote: “...there wasn’t a single confirmed intrusion that exploited a patchable vulnerability.”

Of course, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t worry about applying security patches to your systems. What it does mean is that simply doing that doesn’t make you safe.

One of the recommendations in the report is that organizations should be filtering outbound traffic, not just worrying about inbound traffic. Here’s what they said:

"Most organizations at least make a reasonable effort to filter incoming traffic from the Internet. This probably stems from a (correct) view that there’s a lot out there that we don’t want in here. What many organizations forget is that there is a lot in here that we don’t want out there. Thus, egress filtering doesn’t receive nearly the attention of its alter ego. Our investigations suggest that perhaps it should. At some point during the sequence of events in many breaches, something (data, communications, connections) goes out that, if prevented, could break the chain and stop the breach. By monitoring, understanding, and controlling outbound traffic, an organization will greatly increase its chances of mitigating malicious activity."

With that in mind, allow me to introduce you to the WatchGuard “XCS” (eXtensible Content Security) family of appliances.

The XCS series provides bi-directional protection for your network. For inbound traffic (e.g., email or Web browsing), it can:

• Use WatchGuard’s “Reputation Authority” cloud-based service to block more than 98% of hostile traffic. This service uses multiple information feeds, as well as feedback from WatchGuard appliances in the field, to dynamically “score” individual URLs for the likelihood of malware.
• Provide deep content inspection of inbound emails using WatchGuard’s anti-spam engine, which has a catch rate of over 99%, with accuracy approaching 99.999%.
• Screen inbound traffic with an integrated Kaspersky anti-virus engine (plus an optional McAfee subscription for multi-layer protection.

But, just as importantly, it can screen outbound traffic. For email, it can examine the entire message content, including attachments, to determine whether the content and context is in accordance with the policies you set. It can then proceed to send the message unaltered, blind copy the message to a designated mailbox, automatically encrypt the message, quarantine it, re-route it, or block it entirely.

You can create a “dictionary” of words that can be used by the “Objectionable Content Filter” to determine what to do with the message. You can also configure pattern filters to look for things like credit card numbers. You can even “train” the appliance by uploading sample documents that would be allowed or forbidden. The appliance will then assign a score between 0 and 100 to outbound documents based on how closely they resemble the training documents, and you can set the threshold at which action is triggered.

The optional automatic message encryption leverages Cisco’s Registered Envelope Service. The appliance scans outbound messages, and, if the content meets predefined criteria, automatically encrypts them. (Messages can also be manually set to be encrypted by, for example, including the word “encrypt” in the subject.)

If the message happens to be the first encrypted message a recipient has received, s/he will be prompted to register with the CRES site. From then on, all the recipient needs to do is to enter the CRES password, and the message is automatically decrypted and displayed.

Messages can also contain a specified expiration time, and, if not read by the recipient within that time, they can be locked so they cannot be decrypted.

The XCS family of appliances range from an MSRP of $2,995 for an entry-level appliance that can process up to 12,000 messages per hour to a high-end enterprise system at $60,000 that can process up to 150,000 messages per hour. They can be clustered to provide redundancy and/or higher capacity.

The XCS family does not take the place of a firewall—there are still things that you need that firewall to do. Rather, the XCS will work with your firewall appliance to provide additional protection that the firewall alone cannot provide. Like making sure that the stuff that’s “in here” that you don’t want “out there” stays where it belongs.

To learn more, plan to attend our breakfast seminar at the WatchGuard Seattle office on Thursday, September 9. Registration info is at www.mooselogic.com/events.

Traveling with your Grandchildren

Some of us here at Moose Logic are actually old enough to have grandchildren (gasp!). Here are a few travel tips in case you...um...happen to know someone who is also a grandparent:

• Bring a list of emergency contacts, and get written permission to make medical decisions in the event that parents cannot be contacted.
• Plan for the inevitable delays. Have some activities to do when you are waiting at the airport or in the hotel—or when you start hearing “are we there yet?” from the back seat.
• Make your travel plans together. Kids love to be involved, and you will get a good sense of what they like to do. It will also help manage everyone’s expectations from the beginning.
• Make sure you clearly understand any health, activity, or dietary restrictions for your grandchildren.
• Leave room for spontaneity. You may find that you run across an attraction or event that you were not aware of. Plan on doing what feels fun for you and the children.
• Also leave some room for downtime. Don’t try to pack too much into each day. If you or the children are tired and cranky, it will be less fun for everyone.
• Take lots of photos to share your memories when you get home. Make a scrapbook together. Children will remember the trip for the rest of their lives if you talk about your trip with family and friends when you get back.

New Rules for Gift Cards

Do you use gift cards to promote your business? If you do, you should be aware that, beginning August 22, new Federal Reserve rules go into effect governing both store gift cards and gift cards with a MasterCard, Visa, American Express, or Discover brand logo. Under the new rules:

1. Gift cards must provide an expiration date that is at least five years from the date the card is purchased.
2. If there is a fee to purchase the card, this must be clearly marked on the card itself or on its packaging.
3. Fees for inactivity, usage fees, and maintenance fees can only be charged once per month.
4. You can only be charged an inactivity fee if you haven’t used your card for at least one year.
5. Consumers must be given clear and conspicuous disclosure about any fees relating to the use of the card.

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