Archive for the 'Help Desk Trends' Category
Security Risk of Help Desk Employees Demonstrated at DEF CON
Last week’s DEF CON revealed just how easy it is for hackers to obtain critical business information from cheerfully unsuspecting help desk services. In a demonstration, “Wayne,” a top social hacker from Australia, managed to acquire enough information that could ruin the Fortune 500 company’s IT systems through an obliging call center operator. He came second in a close race of “capture the flag,” in which hackers raced to get the 30 flags, the answers to 30 questions that can devastate organization security. Wayne accomplished this within a 20-minute phone call.
Wayne is a white-hat hacker (security tester) for the Sydney-based consultant firm Securus Global. The hacking event was run by social-engineer.org, a group that warns how human employees can be liable to reveal confidential company information. Despite improved computer security, people can still be an exploitable liability within the system. The event was overseen by the U.S. FBI.
“Big companies are very protective about their brand and corporate secrets and this is a perfect way to exploit that quickly,” said Wayne. “With the information I gathered on that day, we could have easily broken into the company in a matter of minutes.”
“You need to think [on the help desk], why does the caller need to know what browser I’m running? People are so worried about whether they’ll lose their job they’re so happy to help. The guy I spoke to was fresh off his security training and he didn’t question anything, he wanted to believe what I was saying.”
Wayne’s attack on the company security was well-planned and researched in advance. The competition
allowed for two week’s worth of research leading up to the attempt. On the help desk line, Wayne masked himself as someone new to the company. “I was at the head office and had just had a meeting with the vice president and I was told the IT desk was the first place to call – the IT guy was pretty chuffed,” Wayne says.
Wayne conversed in a lighthearted, easygoing way that disarmed the help desk operator. Wayne managed to obtain information that there was no need for any new employee to know, such as browser and mail client versions running in the organization, anti-virus security, and the radio-frequency identification badges needed to gain access. “The guy on the phone told me what badges, firmware, brand and model number they were running. He told me who their cleaners were; do they shred their rubbish or throw it in the bin? Their data backup and how it works and how the tapes go to the data processing and archiving company.”
Help desk security tips:
• Be suspicious of callers with unusual demands or questions
• Don’t be intimidated by the caller’s claimed organization status; check caller credentials with their manager
• Ring the caller back using details from the internal phone book
• For confidential questioning such as audits, the caller should come in person to show his identification
• If in doubt, transfer the caller to the help desk manager
Justin Gasparre, a specialist of IT infrastructure management on the board of the IT Service Management Forum, says that help desk workers should be more alert and not take what callers say for granted. Representatives shouldn’t be so intimidated or overeager to help just because of the authority the caller claims.
Wayne hopes that this exhibition will make companies think more about IT protection and do more security audits on its employees. As cyber-terrorism becomes more of a reality, companies will have to test their help desk staff to make sure their training holds against malicious hackers.
No commentsZendesk Leveraging Twitter for Help Desk Tweets
Help desk software maker Zendesk struck a deal with Twitter to let companies monitor tweets to connect with customers over customer service questions and concerns. Many businesses use Twitter, which has more than 100 million users, to see what their customers are saying about them. Employees have e-mailed tweets, the short message methods popularized by the microblog, into existing ticketing systems to connect with customers.
Zendesk customers can now find tweets that reference their company and use Zendesk’s hook into Twitter’s favorite button to answer questions or address complaints. The integration extends to any desktop or mobile Twitter client employees use, including TweetDeck, HootSuite or Twitter for iPhone and Android.
Maksim Ovsyannikov, VP of product management, explained that Zendesk “listens” to, or monitors Twitter accounts Zendesk customers configure and converts key tweets into Zendesk “twickets” by favoriting tweets in Twitter. Users may also command that any Direct Messages sent to these accounts be automatically converted to favorites.
Agents responsible for converting tweets into twickets will log into Twitter.com or a Twitter client created by the company. Users and agents can decide to continue their discussion about problem resolution on Twitter, within Zendesk or both until the twicket is closed.
Users can also record Twitter conversations on a ticket and copy and consult with colleagues privately while interacting with Twitter users publicly. Users may also elect to move the conversation off Twitter to e-mail.
Once the twicket is created, Zendesk will pull in the conversation with the requester comment by comment until the twicket is closed. Users may send a tweet back from their Twitter client without logging into Zendesk, or add a comment from within the Zendesk twicket. The entire conversation will be recorded until the twicket is closed.
Zendesk customers may also turn on an out-of-the-box trigger that automatically tweets to the requester with a message and a link to the twicket. Requesters can log into Zendesk using their Twitter credentials.
If requester’s Twitter account has already been associated with their profile in Zendesk, requester can also view the twicket by logging in with their Zendesk e-mail address and password.
Though just launched broadly, Zendesk’s integration with Twitter sports several early participants, including HootSuite, TweetDeck, Seesmic and Twitpic.
No commentsBMC Software and Salesforce.com Fuel Adoption of Cloud-Based IT Management
Business thrives when IT runs smarter, faster and stronger. That’s why the most demanding IT organizations in the world rely on BMC Software across both distributed and mainframe environments.
Salesforce.com is going to resell BMC ServiceDesk on Force.com to further accelerate momentum. BMC Software and Salesforce.com, the enterprise cloud computing company, announced their strategic alliance is fueling the adoption of cloud-based IT service management and Cloud 2 applications by IT departments.
Customers are rapidly adopting the BMC ServiceDesk on Force.com solution for IT service management (ITSM), an indication of the need among IT departments for cloud-computing apps that are collaborative and deliver access to data in real-time.
Further strengthening the strategic alliance between the two companies, salesforce.com is now reselling BMC ServiceDesk on Force.com to accelerate the momentum for Cloud 2 within IT departments.
Since its announcement, hundreds of companies have signed up for a free trial or demo of the cloud computing solution, BMC ServiceDesk, which will help them increase the value of IT operations and improve customer service without costly hardware or software. BMC has also secured new customer wins, including Allied Wireless Communications Corp and Lumen21.
As a cloud-based ITSM solution from two industry leaders like BMC and salesforce.com, the companies are confident that the pay-as-you-go pricing and lack of hardware or software costs will help reduce costs and improve service levels for their customers.
The BMC ServiceDesk on Force.com solution offers customers consolidated service desk, self-service and inventory management capabilities delivered on the Force.com platform. The addition of Chatter social capabilities in Force.com, such as real-time feeds, status updates and profiles will foster stronger collaboration within IT departments and with internal users.
No commentsWhy Help Desk Software…Helps
Help desk software is a necessary improvement in customer support. Service that relies on direct phone contact is inefficient and unpleasant. Effort is wasted when call representatives must handle a multitude of questions without prior information, in a process repeated with each customer. Any information sought by caller support is done after the fact, through multiple spreadsheets and databases with a pen and paper. Perhaps another phone call has to be made to clarify certain information, and the customer is delayed even longer.
Alternatively, help desk software takes advantage of available customer information to give immediately personalized support. The design of help desk software makes for more efficient data centers that pull up relevant, organized customer information. Web-based help desk software with cloud computing can retrieve this information quickly from single locations. Regular errors brought up by frequent customer calls can be tracked more easily. These efficiency solutions reduce costs and the number of representatives required to manage the help desk.
Help desk software also brings in new tools and ways of support. Additional, web-based media can aid customers: email, video, graphics. Menial, software-based support, like software updates, is readily given. Online business portals allow for self-service, automatic updates, customer postings, comments, and even social networking connectivity.
No commentsService-now.com Exceeds Projected Annual Revenue in Q1
Service-now.com announced their record customer and revenue growth for the first quarter of 2010. Service-now.com is an IT Service Management SaaS and IT Service automation provider. The company revealed that after only three quarters of business, the company was able to increase revenue by 154%. In the last three months, Service-now.com was able to beat the annual revenue plan for the 2010 fiscal year. Is Service-now’s first quarter success a forecast for the upcoming year?
The dramatic success achieved by the company in Q1 was driven by a demand for modern IT service management and IT service automation. The Service-now model is focused on providing a practical SaaS and approach to automating the IT service process.
The CEO of Service-now, Fred Luddy, describes his product as a “modern, pragmatic and baggage-free ITSM tool.”
Other Service-now.com highlights for Q1 2010 include:
- Added new customers, including a dozen “Fortune 1000″ accounts
- Positive cash-flow for three years
- 100% subscription renewal rate
- Added to Wall Street Journal’s Next Big Thing List for the Top 50 Venture backed firms.
- Added to OnDemand Top 100 technology companies by AlwaysOn.
- 2010 Pink Elephant Innovation of the Year Award finalist
- New online data center in Australia
Service-now.com boasts 400 customers and 100,000 IT professional users who use their product to provide IT services for nearly five million end users worldwide. The SaaS is fast becoming the go-to ITSM for companies that want to optimize the efficiency of their IT services. For more information visit: http://www.service-now.com/.
No commentsMorse and iWave Team up for Service Desk Success
iWave Software and Morse launched a new “virtual” service desk for a leading worldwide bank. The goal of the new service desk is to optimize customer service and lower operational costs for the bank.
Morse, an IT services and technology company, teamed up with iWave to create a scalable, cost effective solution for the banking leader. iWave is a provider of Data Center Orchestration, Automation and Cloud Management Software. The bank turned to the automation specialists at Morse to optimize customer service and allow for seamless entry and routing from three service desks in three different locations. The bank also required the solution to be invisible to the bank’s network of customers.
Morse’s solution was to create a “virtual” service desk using IT process automation and iWave Software’s framework. Morse’s Marketing Director explains: “iWave was the clear solution and partnering choice, fitting seamlessly into our services methodology and maintained our vendor independence. The 30+ adapters and pre-built ITIL process accelerators gave our teams the flexibility to quickly meet the bank’s needs. This also helped ups with improved predictability of service engagement cost and time.”
Morse and iWave have improved the Bank’s customer service process through automation. The “virtual” service desk allows calls to be taken at each location with tickets created and routed to the appropriate locations without having customers hang up to dial the correct number. The mean-time-to-repair (MTTR)Â times have decreased as well as operational costs. The “virtual” service desk’s success is proof that IT automation is efficient as well as fiscally responsible.
No commentsHelp Desk & Email Marketing: Peas in A Pod? Zendesk Joins with Contactology
Zendesk prides itself on being a help desk company that pushes the boundaries of help-desk technology, and earlier this month they added new functionality to their platform with an email marketing integration from Contactology.
North Carolina-based Contactology offers email marketing and online surveying technologies, and the integration with Zendesk’s on-demand product will allow users to manage email marketing campaigns from directly within Zendesk. Contactology has been integrating heavily with platforms in different segments, from CRM with Zoho and Salesforce.com to web analytics with ClickTale. Other integrations are planned for the year, and we’re curious to see if Contactology’s competitors in the email-marketing field decide to jump on the help desk bandwagon, because it is a seemingly unlikely partnership.
Specifically, the result of Zendesk’s collaboration with Contactology is a widget that can be activated by anyone with accounts from both providers, and it can be enabled within a few minutes. Within the Zendesk interface, customer service reps can access a contact’s current email marketing list status, and from there they can add or remove help desk customers to selected distribution lists or opt-ins to receive special offers or newsletters.
This new email marketing widget offers an interesting enhancement to help-desk processes—it’s not critical that companies have email marketing support for their help desk platforms, but if they do have a need for both it’s a convenient addition. Likewise, if companies have disparate help desk and email marketing processes, it probably isn’t imperative that their service reps have access to email marketing information at that very moment, but how nice is it if they do have that information?
This is a new, nuanced facet to the customer-service procedure, and considering how aggressively Contactology has pursued partnerships recently, we’ll likely see more of this kind of improvement.
No commentsMatrix42 Finds 80% of Organizations Would Likely Use Self-Help Portals for Data Migration
Matrix42, a company providing client lifecycle and IT service management, announced a survey study of theirs concluded that 80% of companies would be deploying user-self-help portals for software requests and/or IT services.
The survey specifically asked participants whether their organization would allow end-users to begin Windows 7 migration themselves, through a self-help portal, and of the 126 participants, 101 answered in the affirmative. Self-help portals would offer companies cost savings, yet their deployment is currently not possible in Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM).
Microsoft SCCM is typically employed for inventory, software distribution, and management of end nodes, but survey respondents suggested their IT departments need more flexibility and functionality. Martix42 announced survey results through a press release, and though their motivation in doing so is to hawk their IT-Commerce suite—which allows users to “redefine†how IT departments interact with their customers—the survey findings are still interesting.
Matrix42 was founded in 1992, and by technology standards is not a young company, and they seem to have carved a decent niche in the self-help portal market. We’re curious to see if they generate some serious competition this year with these kinds of surveys. Only time will tell!
No commentsHelp Desk Software Up-and-Comer: Alloy Software
Alloy Software, a company providing service and asset management solutions, is a young company that’s starting to make a big impact on the IT service desk market. This week it was announced that, for the second consecutive year, Alloy was named one of the fastest growing private companies in America by Inc. Magazine.
Plenty of companies struggled to stay afloat in 2009, but thanks to Alloy’s Navigator, and Discovery, products, they did not experience the same crushing amount of stress. In fact, the company noted that most of their growth can be attributed to Alloy Navigator, the comprehensive IT service management solution that is also the company’s flagship product. Last year, Alloy extended Navigator by offering a Navigator Express product for SMBs; the express platform gave users help desk, hardware, and software management tools.
The other product contributing to the company’s success is Alloy Discovery, a network inventory solution offering accurate and up-to-date information for every computer connected to a particular network. Alloy has also successfully maintained a good rapport with existing customers, in part through their JumpStart program, which is a free and intensive technical tutorial service offered to all new and prospective customers to help them become acquainted with the program quickly.
This recognition from Inc. Magazine is not the first Alloy has received. Last year they were also awarded the CRM Excellence Award by Customer Interaction Solutions magazine, and Navigator Express was named “Best New Product†at the American Business Awards. Considering Alloy Software isn’t one of those companies trumpeting the benefits of cloud computing on every turn, they must be offering a really sharp product to have gained such ground in 2009, and we are certainly curious to see how they’ll do in 2010.
No commentsThe Next Big Thing inIT Help Desk: Live Chat
The slow economy has left many IT departments having to “make do†with help-desk software investments that are becoming antiquated. Luckily, there are companies like the Israel-based help-desk software vendor SysAid, which recently launched integrated IT help desk live chat.
The latest version of their help desk platform, SysAid 6.5, will feature the live chat integration. This newest addition will help IT departments make their technology last longer, and more specifically, will help them manage the influx of inquiries via phone and email. SysAid surveyed customers globally, and found that a large percentage weren’t utilizing a live chat platform for their help desk needs. However, the vast majority of users are familiar with SMS services, so the integration allows IT technicians to support multiple channels and end users much more easily.
It is interesting that this solutions pretty much eliminates the need for phones in help desk, but an IDC research director notes that live chat capabilities are essential to any company offering a SaaS help desk solution. Having the ability to support five to six users at once—far more than can be helped via phone support—offers a great competitive advantage. SaaS help desk software is very young right now, but live chat integrations could be the innovation that helps it mature, and quickly.
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