FOCUS TODAY - August 2002

High-Speed Internet Access:
       We Want It NOW!

Gene Howard, Vice President of Client Services
Club Technology Corporation, Dallas, TX

Clubs like the rest of the world are clamoring for Internet access now. Not only do clubs want it for e-mail, but also for online ordering from vendors, doing research on new products, paying bills, giving members calendars on the Web, and doing reciprocal club charging.  This has led to an explosion of clubs getting either all of the computers modems for Internet access or getting a central high-speed connection for the entire company.

Anytime big changes come about quickly in technology, many times we forget this new technology has drawbacks, and we forget to ask what the drawbacks are.  This article will cover the drawbacks of broadband and Internet technologies.

These technologies can bring you closer to your members by letting them access information about the club from anywhere at any time without picking up a phone to talk to someone at the club. You can give them schedules, menus, tee times, account balances and rosters, just to name a few things.  But this comes at a price.  The club must be responsible for protecting itself from malicious outsiders.

Malicious outsiders are not necessarily trying to damage your particular club.  They are just out to cause mischief and they do not care who they bother.  The old saying �My club is too small for someone to worry about,� or �mess with� no longer is true.  Anyone who has a club�s e-mail address or Web link on his or her computer that gets infected by a virus can potentially send that virus on to your club.

There are two things a club needs to be protected from in this context:  Viruses that travel by e-mail and Web sites, and (2) hackers trying to get into your system to do damage. Sometimes these threats come by e-mail; many other times from someone finding security holes in your computer system or network to exploit.  Most clubs these days do not have an on-site management information systems person to make sure these problems arise.

There are two ways to combat these threats properly:

• The first is to protect from viruses.  You need a centralized software program that updates automatically, can manage all of the club computers centrally, and updates all clients automatically.  This is the only way to insure that you have the most current virus protection software on all of your machines all the time.  If this is not handled in the way suggested here, invariably you will end up with one machine that does not have virus software, or the latest virus definition.  It will be it by a virus, which will spread from there.

• Second, to protect our club from hackers and malicious automated programs, a hardware firewall is desired.  This device shuts down all access to your network except what you specifically allow in.  These devices generally have been considered very costly and hard to configure.  But many new devices are coming onto the market that are easy to use and relatively inexpensive.

Viruses?  Hackers?  �This can�t happen to me,� most people tend to say.  They think their Internet service providers are taking care of the situation.  But the reality is, if you do not have it in writing, it is almost never being done.  Most ISPs do not even offer these types of services.

One reason for this article is that a club I know of personally recently was hit by a virus.  The club acquired high-speed Internet access a while ago.  It had no centralized anti-virus software.  Anti-virus software was loaded on most machines.  For one reason or another, however, the software was not updated; it was even removed from a few machines with the controller knowing it.

The backup system was down for a while as the club waited for its hardware vendor to replace the tape drive, and when the vendor did replace the drive he forgot to set up the schedule to do the backup.  The virus struck the next day and the club lost more than three years� worth of information, to which the club could not find a good backup.  The club has no hard copies to replace this valuable information.  The club will have to build the information from scratch.

Needless to say, the club turned off its Internet access until it acquired virus protection�a little too little a little too late.

Gene Howard, Club Technology Corporation
Phone:  972-756-9000 � Fax:  972-756-9010
E-mail:  [email protected]