New York
| At Athena Systems, one of our main values is to guarantee the protection of all our customers’ information. We take data security very seriously, and as a result we have achieved the best cybersecurity among all our competitors, obtaining the best score in the ranking conducted by UpGuard. | |||
At Athena Systems we are committed to our customers and their data. Guaranteeing their security is one of our main priorities and every day we work to provide them with the best service. That is why we submitted ourselves to the analysis of UpGuard, a complete third-party risk and attack surface management platform, to which all our competitors in the Investment Management Software industry joined, and among which we were first with a great difference to the rest with practically perfect cybersecurity. | |||
Keep all your communications encrypted
With the Covid-19 pandemic, many companies have turned to telecommute as an alternative to in-person groups. With this increasing online communication, it is indispensable to employ platforms that ensure the privacy of conversations and internal business issues. Several applications provide these services, such as Slack. This fee-based platform encrypts all messages point to point, in addition to offering other services that can be customized to your company, such as the generation of links using phrases as codes.
For file transfer, our advice is to use SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol), which encrypts the entire process. Additionally, it allows directories to be viewed, renamed, or limiting rights.
A good VPN is always reliable
An office must be properly equipped. However, and as already mentioned, 2020 and 2021 have not been regular years, and the role of an office has declined considerably. For this reason, we recommend using a quality VPN when you are away from it. This way, your data will always travel encrypted.
A VPN (Virtual Private Network) is a tool of great interest, not only for companies but for any network user. In this post, we are focused on telecommuting, for which VPNs have a clear objective: interconnectivity in non-physically connected networks. Companies with a presence in several countries or several locations within the same country, home-based workers, all need to be connected to a private network, or in other words, they require an Intranet.
Some of the practical uses of the intranet for the employees may be to visit internal webpages, save files or share them with other employees or simply send alerts to the rest of the team in an emergency case in a quick way. A shared VPN allows you to use common programs or solve located problems, for example. When selecting a good provider, efficient encryption, unlimited bandwidth, and fast connections are key criteria to consider. In Athena Systems, we use Cisco as a VPN supplier, although others like ExpressVPN and TorGuard also have a good reputation.
Watch out for strange links and whom you let access to your services
Surely the following has happened to you: you receive an email with a truly unbeatable offer and a link that will take you to a new treasure. “Should I click on it?” “Is whatever is on the other side safe?” Well, why should you even ask yourself these questions? You don’t need to trust blindly, especially not a user you don’t know. There are verification tools for this, like LinkScan. When you click, for instance, on a link from an email, this tool checks for malware or other dangers before opening the page. If it is safe, you can continue. If it is not, you can continue at your own risk, which we extremely recommend you not to.
Two-factor authentication (2FA) is extremely valuable at any login. This is additional security, as it requires, besides your email and password, your access to a second device to which a verification code of a single-use will be sent, and without which you will not be able to access your account. There are other alternatives, like Google Authenticator. Here, you need to download its application and configure the account with your data, passwords, etc. of a given website. This system generates a password every time you try to log in to that website, and it will appear in the Google Authenticator application so that you can enter it and access the site.
 | In our application, Spark, the first login requires a 2FA. User will receive an authentication code in the specific platform previously requested to Athena -usually email- and once the authentication has been approved, the user will be able to see a serial of six digits with a specific countdown. This is the authentication code live, and whenever the time is expired, another number will be showing up to be used in the app whenever a 2FA authentication code is requested. |
And, of course, the use of a secure, varied, and, if possible, periodically updated password will save your account from many risks. For a person to guess a password, no matter how simple, will be a long and complex task. However, for a well-trained machine, it can take only seconds to crack it. Therefore, in addition to not allowing more than three attempts when logging in, we share the following table, which shows how to build a strong and unbreakable password.
Machine with 30 million attempts/second
About Athena Systems
Athena Systems is the provider of Athena Spark, the leading solution for investment decision support and
automation. Athena provides managers and prime brokers with complete front office and back office
functionality to ensure their trading and portfolio management operations are handled as efficiently as possible.
Used by 50+ firms globally, Athena uses state-of-the-art technology to provide Portfolio Analytics, Risk, P&L,
Compliance, Order Management & Accounting while providing security, control and integration beyond
compare. Athena has offices in New York, Boston, Madrid, Austin, Texas, Mexico, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and Málaga, Spain
For more information, please visit www.athenasystems.com, email info@athenasystems.com or call us at +1 866 655 2663.