June 14, 2021

Alex Woodie

With high-profile ransomware attacks becoming the norm and calls for a federal cybersecurity department gaining steam, there’s a distinct uneasiness when it comes to the security of corporate computer systems. That uptick in awareness is helping to drive business for Briteskies, the Cleveland, Ohio-based IT consultancy that has made IBM i security a cornerstone of its business.

Briteskies was founded in 2000 primarily as a JD Edwards specialist for organizations in the Great Lakes region. Over the years, the company has expanded into other niches, including Magento e-commerce systems, custom RPG development, and computer security.

The market for IBM i security services, in particular, was underserved, according to Bill Onion, managing director at Briteskies. “We identified a long time ago that infosec was growing,” Onion tells IT Jungle. “We were looking at that saying, well nobody is paying attention to the IBM i.”

The company has five employees who are dedicated to providing IBM i security services, including conducting security assessments of IBM i installations and remediating the problems it finds.

“Generally, that was kind of okay [that people were not paying attention to the IBM i], but it’s getting more and more to where it’s not,” Onion said. “There’s still a lot of folks that think that because it’s an IBM i server, it’s presumed safe. They think they don’t need to worry about that.”

Briteskies brings all sorts of tools to bear on its IBM i security engagements, most of which are with its clients in the Midwest, but some that are as far as Texas and California. It leans on automated assessment tools from HelpSystems and the new VERIFi offering from iTech Solutions that we wrote about in February.

ALLOutSecurity, which develops JD Edwards-specific auditing tools, is another Briteskies partner. It also works with local Cleveland-based backup and disaster recovery (DR) firm, UCG Technologies, to help prepare customers for ransomware attacks, as well as DXR Security, Carol Woodbury’s new security firm, on penetration testing…