< PreviousPLANET’S MICROSOFTCONSULTANTSWE CHALLENGE YOU TO FIND A BETTERMICROSOFT SERVICES ORGANIZATION Contact Us:(301) 721-0100 | www.go-planet.com | info@go-planet.comAWARD WINNING MICROSOFT CONSULTING COMPANY▸Six-time Microsoft Federal Partner of the Year▸Four-time Microsoft State and Local Government Partner of the Year▸Four-time Microsoft Windows Partner of the YearQUALITY, EXPERIENCE AND EXPERTISE ▸ISO 9001:2008 Certified▸100% Customer Satisfaction Ratings in independent 2014 Microsoft survey▸Over 60 Tribal Government and Gaming Customers▸Support over 200 State and Local Government customers▸Servicing clients ranging from100 to 100,000 usersHIGHLY TALENTED STAFF ▸Microsoft Certified Masters▸Microsoft MVPs▸Microsoft Certified Trainers▸US Citizen staffMICROSOFT REACH BACK ▸Access to Microsoft productteams▸Office on Microsoft campus inRedmond, WA▸Microsoft issued credentialsto Planet staffCOMPETITIVE PRICING AND VALUE ▸Our prices average over 40%below competition for MicrosoftSubject Matter Experts▸Ability to offer ZERO costMicrosoft services leveragingyour SA benefits▸Same day expert support▸Fixed-fee deployment offeringsEASY TO WORK WITH ▸Flexible support plans▸Experience working with Tribal organization across theentire United StatesPlanet Technologies consistently demonstratesvalue to Microsoft clients. They are a partner inevery sense of the word both to Microsoft and to our clients. I view them as an extension of theMicrosoft team.– VINCE MENZIONE,Microsoft General Manager of US Public SectorPartner Organization and StrategyAgency Updates - USDA11Spring 2015USDA Rural DevelopmentThanks to USDA investments in rural distance learning and telemedicine projects, rural communities can overcome the barriers of time and distance so residents can benefit from quality health care and advanced educational services. In 2014, USDA was proud to announce $20.4 million in grants awarded under its Distance Learning and Telemedicine (DLT) Grant program. Over $10.5 million of the 2014 awards went to tribal entities or projects serving tribal communities. The DLT program finances telecommunications-enabled equipment and advanced technologies for people who live and work in rural areas. The program helps small, rural communities across the country gain access to communications technologies to improve health, education and other services. Since 2009, USDA has invested over $166 million in rural America through the DLT program. With these funds, USDA has helped hundreds of rural communities deliver virtual health care in remote areas and provide distance education to rural schools. Delivering this program to rural communities that often don’t have access to quality, affordable medical and educational services has tremendous economic and social benefits. We know these investments enable people to live and work in rural areas without having to travel long distances for specialized health care services. We also know the program ensures students in rural schools have access to educational opportunities often not available outside urban areas.In 2014, USDA was proud to offer special consideration under its DLT program for applications that contained at least one end-user site within a trust area or a tribal jurisdictional area. These funds are especially crucial in tribal areas, which are often remotely located and sparsely populated. Distance learning offers tribal schools the opportunity to connect with one another and with other educational institutions. For example, at Choctaw Tribal Schools in Mississippi, students in alternative schools have been able to access content and classes from local high schools via a videoconferencing system. Local students participated in leadership training on the system and teachers were able to take an A+ certification class through the local community college. The distance learning equipment for the schools was upgraded using funds from a 2010 DLT grant.USDA’s investments in rural and tribal communities support the rural way of life that stands as the backbone of our American values. President Obama and Agriculture Secretary Vilsack are committed to a smarter use of federal resources to foster sustainable economic prosperity and ensure the government is a strong partner for tribes, businesses, entrepreneurs and working families in rural communities. For more information on the DLT program, contact information and additional USDA Rural Development programs, we encourage you to browse our recently redesigned website at: www.rd.usda.govLaurel LeverrierOperations Branch Chief Policy and Outreach Division Rural DevelopmentP: 202-690-4673Laurel.Leverrier@wdc.usda.govTedd BuelowNative American CoordinatorU.S. Department of AgricultureP: 720-544-2911Tedd.Buelow@wdc.usda.govwww.gamingandleisuremagazine.cominfo@gamingandleisuremagazine.com702.547.4545G&L Community NewsMonthly Executive Dashboard forthe Gaming & Hospitality IndustryAnnual private G&L Forum hostingindustry CXOs representing amajority of domestic gaming technology spend and select businesspartners who serve the industry.G&L WebsiteYour daily connection to thegaming and hospitality industry.G&L Calendar of EventsGaming & HospitalityResearch CenterRevolutionized the way the industrysources future business partners.G&L IndustrySegmented NewsG&L BusinessPartner andG&L CommunityMember ProfilesBringing together tribes and technology for 16 years focusingon both gaming and federalcomponents of tribes.Coveted annual award series in our industrydefined and evaluated by G&L Board andRoundtable Colleagues.Gaming & Hospitality’s quarterlymanagement periodical delivered domesti-cally and abroad for over a dozen years.gpsinsight.com877-466-6577a 866-477-4321l gpsinsight.comFleet Intelligence forTribal CommunitiesVehicle & Asset Tracking Software• View Your Fleet in Real-time• Cut Operating Costs• Improve Driver Behavior• Reduce Carbon FootprintLOW COST OPTIONS!TRK#02VAN#14VAN#03TRK#12Managing Your Fleet BLINDFOLDED?Gain Visibility with: GPS INSIGHTFeatured Columns - Security Best PracticesDoes the security of your network worry you? My network’s security certainly worries me. Don’t get me wrong, we work hard to do all the recommended things to keep our data safe and systems online like: annual penetration tests, monitoring and filtering for both ingress and egress traffic, network segmentation, web and email traffic filtering, application and operating system patching on a monthly basis, two-factor authentication, and following a “least administrative privileges required” methodology. But it seems like the real world dangers just continue to stack up. We have all been fighting malware and viruses for years, but it seems to me like the stakes are higher than ever and the traditional tools just aren’t enough to combat current threats.When I first started working for a tribal organization, my new boss informed me that, “Our organization is a target for cyber criminals: we run successful businesses and have information that is valuable, making hacking attempts a very real threat.” At the time I didn’t really know what to make of this comment and whether to think of it as a warning or some sort of hidden advice, -- everyone knew that real hackers were going after the “big guys” like Bank of America and MasterCard, not tribal entities right? It reminded me of what I thought was “useless warnings and advice” my parents had given me as a teenager that proved to be unerringly correct as I made the foolish mistakes they tried to warn me about, I have come to realize just how wise my boss’s warning and advice truly was: tribes are being focused on as real targets for hacking attempts and malicious activity. Our financial success and information assets are exactly what cyber criminals are seeking. As a member of the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC), I see on a monthly basis how state and local governments, and tribal sites are affected by cyber security incidents. Speaking with friends at other tribes in Oklahoma, it seems we all have been affected on some level by recent security threats like CryptoLocker, the Dyre Banking Trojan, and HeartBleed. CryptoLocker has affected many tribes in Oklahoma, and I can speak from personal experience that it is painful to deal with. In my scenario, the Service Desk received a call from a concerned employee that was unable to access their files. Upon investigation, it was quickly discovered that the employee’s laptop was infected with CryptoLocker and all the employee’s files (representing three year’s worth of work for an entire department) were encrypted with a key that we might or might not receive if we paid a ransom. Fortunately, this data was backed up so that we could format the laptop and restore the files but if we didn’t have a backup, the damages from the lost files would have been over $100,000.00. Following this incident we began blocking CryptoLocker’s access to its command and control servers, which can prevent it from encrypting files and have continued to educate our customers/”end users” on how to identify malicious emails from untrusted sources (we are blessed with very security savvy customers, but frequent reminders never hurt). My experience with the Dyre Banking Trojan is a little better: we first encountered it last year when the Service Desk received a call from our finance department requesting assistance opening a PDF. We quick-ly discovered the PDF in question wouldn’t open because it wasn’t a normal PDF, it was a weaponized PDF associated with the Dyre Trojan. The employee had received an email with the subject “Unpaid Invoice” containing a PDF attachment with a vulnerability exploit that would install software which targets sensitive banking credentials. The Threat Landscape - what’s your worry?Dustin StarkIT DirectorChoctaw Nation“With tribal organizations requiring more technology to effectively run a government, support their membership and operate business entities, the sheer number of systems in use means that our exposure to potential threats is going to continue to grow.”15Spring 2015Featured Columns - Security Best PracticesDUSTIN STARK, IT DIRECTOR, CHOCTAW NATIONFortunately, the defenses we had in place pre-vented any computers from being infected but it was still a scary situation for a number of reasons: • the Dyre Banking Trojan is designed to intercept log-on credentials (usernames and passwords) for online banking sites so that cyber criminals can steal real dollars right from the victim’s accounts• the attack occurred a few days before detection signatures were developed by the anti-virus firms, which limited the effectiveness of some of our defenses • the attack targeted our finance department directly; this department interacts with banking institutions on a daily basis to support tribal operations so they use the type of credentials the Dyre Trojan is designed to steal • the financial damages could have been astronomical if the attack was successful -- a similar banking Trojan resulted in the theft of $3,000,000 from a school district in up-state New York. To combat the Dyre Trojan, we have continued to update our spam filter with the known email profiles associated with Dyre, segregated and hardened the computers used for banking transactions, blocked access to Dyre’s Command and Control servers, and once again educated our customers on how to spot malicious email and phishing attacks. I could share my wonderful experiences with the HeartBleed, ShellShock, Poodle, and GHOST vulnerabilities but the stories are largely the same – the bad guys are getting better at targeting more and more of the systems we need to support our organization’s daily operations. Our job of maintaining system uptime and keeping the bad guys out is getting harder. With tribal organizations requiring more technology to effectively run a government, support their membership and operate business entities, the sheer number of systems in use means that our exposure to potential threats is going to continue to grow. So the risk is scary and it’s growing. What can we do about it? Start with identifying the exposures. Have you ever spent time considering which of your organization’s critical assets are most likely to be targeted by cyber criminals? What about evaluating the risk mitigation steps you’re taking to protect these assets? Do you feel confident your protection mechanisms and security posture aligned with your organization’s expectations for protection? If you haven’t formally reviewed these things, it’s an exercise that is worth the time. While every organization is unique, most tribes will have banking institution interactions and people records (in the form of our tribal membership information, our electronic health records, and our customer/patron/player lists) that are ripe targets for cyber criminals. And if your tribe operates casinos, you can guarantee that someone is thinking about how they might be able to win their own “jackpot” thru a cyber-attack instead of playing the slot machines and card games. It’s up to us to ensure that doesn’t happen.With the key risks identified, there are many options for mitigating them. Educating your customers and IT 16TribalNetstaff on the importance of IT security and their role in it is fundamental, but processes and technology are key defenses. There are great consulting firms and technology solution vendors in this very issue that can assist with implementing effective processes and technologies to keep attackers at bay, but I would be remise if I failed to mention that there are free resources available to help tribal entities improve their information security. If you haven’t joined the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC) (msisac.cisecurity.org), I strongly encourage you to do so. Membership is free and the benefits of membership include incident response services, advisory services, notification of newly identified threats, vulnerability assessment, information sharing and communication, as well as access to education and awareness programs. For more information on joining the MS-ISAC, please contact info@msisac.org or visit msisac.cisecurity.org . Thinking about my organization’s threat landscape has me a little worried. I should probably do something about that -- I think I will work on updating our incident response plan, check with HR about that security engineer job posting, and call a few vendors to see what new features are present in the latest IPS solu-tions. I also seem to remember someone mentioning they wanted to implement a new web application, so I better see what risks it might introduce into our environment, too. A day in the life of an IT leader…stay safe everyone…Dustin began working in the IT department for the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma’s Tribal Government in 2004 and filled a number of roles before becoming IT Director in 2007. He excels at designing solutions to meet chal-lenging business needs, with key strengths in networking, security, and open source applications and systems. Since becoming IT Director, he and his team have completely redesigned the network architecture, becoming almost 98% virtualized, fostered the adoption of a centralized system to track tribal member information, and implemented a comprehensive disaster recovery program to ensure that IT assets remain highly available. As a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, Dustin takes pride in the opportunity to contribute his efforts to helping his tribe make better use of technology. Dustin has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Computer Science and a Master of Technology Degree from Southeastern Oklahoma State University.www.FireEye.com© 2015 FireEye, Inc. All rights reserved. FireEye is a registered trademark of FireEye, Inc. All other brands, products, or service names may be trademarks or service marks of their respective owners.ONE UNIFIED DEFENSEAGAINST CYBER ATTACKERSDETECTSignature-less and multi-flow virtual machine based approach that leverages superior threat intelligencePREVENTMulti-vector inline known and unknown threat preventionANALYZEContainment, forensics investigation and kill chain reconstructionRESPONDRemediation support and threat intelligence to recover and improve risk postureToday’s cyber attacks are targeted, sophisticated and focused on acquiring your most sensitive information. They also go undetected by traditional security technology. Government agencies and organizations need to reimagine security and adopt a Continuous Threat Protection model. This means having the ability to detect threats in real-time and reduce time to respond, thereby preventing or minimizing business impact. The FireEye Platform provides a multi-faceted approach to security – detect, prevent, analyze, respond. Scan the code to learn more.Featured Columns - Security Best PracticesSpring 2015Mainline Information SystemsMeet Your VendorsProtect your investments with enhanced video surveillanceIn the past, the quality of surveillance solutions was hit or miss, with their fuzzy images and cheap, unreliable recording hardware leaving much to be desired. Our team has developed state-of-the-art solutions that are scalable and customizable to your environment and budget requirements. This flexibility and design quality has helped us to become one of the premier integrators in the industry. A few features of our solutions include:• Plug-and-play compatible – devices sit on your existing IP network• Ability to incorporate existing composite CCTV analog system on new IPbased open systems• State-of-the-art video compression• Automated archiving and retrievalManage your data with superior storage solutionsFrom social, audio, video, email, digital video surveillance and meta-data (data about the data), data analytics, mail logs, machine data to more traditional business data like email, documents, archived chats, backup data, transaction records, it’s a struggle to find the necessary space for on legacy storage solutions. Our experts are some of the most knowledgeable in the industry and can give you valuable advice on the strengths and weaknesses of your entire spectrum of storage solutions. We take 18TribalNetMainline is a veteran owned business serving the TribalNet community by protect-ing your investments, collecting and managing your data and analyzing and predict-ing data trends through our superior and cost effective solutions and services. We have a dedicated team of professionals that take the time to understand your objectives and your challenges and impart strategic solutions within your budget and timeframe.Tyler BurkettAccount Executive - FederalMainline Information SystemsP 480-221-3244Tyler.Burkett@mainline.com www.mainline.com Meet Mainline Information Systems, The Technology Partner for Business ResultsAwards and Accomplishments Mainline was named the 2014 Gaming Market Partner of the Year for North America by Axis Communications, the world leader in network video.Global Desktop Virtualization Partner of the Year Award at VMware Partner ExchangeRed Hat Business Partner of the YearIBM Beacon Award for the Outstanding Optimized Solutions on Enterprise Servers for Business InnovationAxis 2013 Gaming Market Partner of the YearCRN’s 2013 List of Tech Elite 250IBM Specialty Elite Certification: System x, Power Systems, PureFlex and Flex System, System Storagegreat pride in not limiting you to the product range of any single vendor, but to enable you to pick from the best available technologies to build the multi-tiered solution while supporting you with an array of implementation and advisory capabilities.Analyze your data with advanced business intelligence Your business analytics software needs to not only manage your data, but also highlight key insights and predict future trends. With Mainline, you can rest assured that your big data analytics implementation projects are in good hands. Our dedicated team of business analytics experts have unmatched industry expertise with over 300 business analytics software technical certifications – and it shows. We are the first business partner in the U.S. to receive the IBM Gold Accreditation for IBM Cognos business intelligence. Mainline recommends, designs, and supports IT solutions that help businesses increase their effectiveness. With more than 500 professionals around the country, and numerous certified architects across various specialties, Mainline can assist with your most urgent and highly visible IT initiatives.Meet Your Vendors19Mainline’s Industry Partnerships: • IBM • Red Hat • HP • Cognos • Milestone Systems • SAS • VMware • SUSEFor more information about Mainline Information Systems go to www.mainline.comMainline Information Systems has demonstrated their leadership in the gaming industry by promoting the advantages of IP video technology in a traditionally analog market,” said John Bartolac, business devel-opment, segments manager for Axis Communications. They remain dedicated to understanding their gaming customers’ unique and evolving needs and showcasing how IP video can provide the most effective solutions.Spring 2015Next >