SYRACUSE — Dressed in a workman’s uniform, he blends into the office. Unnoticed, he locks onto his target’s computer, and, within moments, gains access to critical files. These files, if put in the hands of a competitor, could wreak serious financial damage to the company.

As unobserved as when he arrived, the workman leaves and returns to his computer, where he now has access to his target’s computer, and begins his work. His mission, however, isn’t what you think. Yes, he’s a hacker, but in this case, the hacker wears a white hat. His goal is to ferret out workplace fraud such as corporate espionage. He works for Secure Network Technologies, Inc., located at 115 E. Jefferson St. in downtown Syracuse, and his job is to find the corporate bad guys.

“There is no shortage of bad people,” says Steve Stasiukonis, president and owner of Secure Network Technologies (SNT). As hackers for hire, it’s his company’s job to find those people and stop them.

Take the case of a New Jersey company that contacted SNT after terminating its systems administrator. The employee of two years, who came to the company from a staffing agency, showed a lot of promise and the business was poised to offer him a full-time position when the employee made some troubling statements during his interview with human resources, Stasiukonis recalls. The employee indicated that if the company didn’t hire him, it would regret that choice because he would be able to hack the company’s computer system. The employee was immediately terminated, Stasiukonis says, but the company knew it needed to take steps to ensure that he could not, in fact, hack into its system.

That’s when it called SNT (www.securenetworkinc.com), which came in and discovered the employee had secretly loaded remote Trojans onto the network that would indeed give him access. “His complete intent was retaliation,” Stasiukonis says, and the story is not an uncommon one.

When most companies think of the threat of hackers, they think of outside sources — shadowy hacker groups from China or Eastern Europe — looking to break in. So often, Stasiukonis says, companies forget to consider employees, who are already in, moving sensitive information outside of the business.

It could be as simple as a salesperson that leaves to join a competitor and takes his client list with him. Or it could be as complex as an engineer set on starting her own company who has been secretly copying research files and other sensitive information, Stasiukonis says. It happens more often than people think, Stasiukonis says. He and his team of seven employees have seen incident-response calls triple over the past year alone.

“Companies call up and say, ‘We’ve got a bad guy on the inside,’” he says. His job is to find them.

Stasiukonis does it with an array of tools including the expected rooms full of sophisticated computers and technology. The array of tools also includes a room full of costumes and vehicle signs that allow Stasiukonis and his employees to move about an office without suspicion.

Along with finding the bad guys, Stasiukonis also works with clients to help them reduce their future vulnerability to such inside attacks. The easiest way to do that, he instructs, is by limiting what information employees can access.

Not every employee needs access to every file, he says, and technology is available to help employers limit access. Those limitations should be in place not just for company files, but also for Internet access in general, Stasiukonis says. For example, an employee who is allowed to access his Gmail account now has an easy means to email company information elsewhere.

“You want to be a good employer, and you want to be fair to your employees, but there have to be strict policies,” Stasiukonis cautions.

Policies should also include measures to protect the company from outside attacks as well, he says. Teach employees not to open attachments or click on links in emails from unfamiliar sources. One popular means of gaining access to computer systems right now, he says, is to send a “phishing” email telling recipients they have a package waiting for them that was undeliverable. If they just click on the link, they can arrange for delivery. If an employee clicks that link, malware is loaded onto their computer, giving the bad guys access not only to that computer but to the company’s whole system.

Hackers, both internal and external, are constantly switching up their game and coming out with better programs to help them gain access. Companies have to work to stay ahead of the game, Stasiukonis says, with strong policies that are strictly enforced. “If you don’t have protection in place and do your due diligence, you’re going to be a victim.”

And that’s when you can call Stasiukonis and his team of white-hat hackers to save you.

Secure Network Technologies’ (www.securenetworkinc.com) full array of services includes network security, social-engineering assessments, application security, physical security, computer forensics, mobile forensics, digital investigations, incident response, and real-time network investigations. The firm’s website boasts that it has been “hacking networks since 1997.”

NEW HARTFORD — Smart Business Solutions is a young New Hartford–based firm that aims to help its clients develop the strategies necessary to obtain and grow “optimal” profits, according to the home page of its website.

Company president Michelle Tuttle, who has more than 19 years of corporate-management experience, is the sole owner of Smart Business Solutions.

The firm’s offerings include a review to ensure a client complies with certain federal rules regarding identity theft, protected against cyber crime, and complies with rules regarding financial records.

When she launched the company in early 2008, Tuttle conducted identity-theft seminars and discussions with clients and individuals because that was part of her background.

“That … grew into, on its own, this whole other revenue stream for the business,” she says.

Her interest in the compliance area began in a previous job, she says.

Prior to starting Smart Business Solutions, Tuttle served in a marketing role for Rome–based AmeriCU Credit Union.

The credit union’s product-manager position was “dissolved one day,” Tuttle says, and at the same time, AmeriCU had been promoting a series on identity theft that it promised to different businesses.

The series became Tuttle’s responsibility and she had less than a day to prepare for her first presentation, she recalls.

“That’s when I became very passionate about the compliance side,” Tuttle says.

When Tuttle launched Smart Business Solutions, the business initially offered marketing and public relations, website design, strategic planning, budgeting, and needs assessment, and those services remain, Tuttle says.

She didn’t add the compliance services until 2009 and it has generated success for her firm.

“The compliance piece has really taken off,” she says.

Tuttle is now in the process of separating the two parts of the company (Internet marketing/social media/web design and compliance) designating Smart Business Solutions as a limited-liability corporation.

“I kind of want to be able to market them differently and it’s becoming more and more challenging trying to tie all them together,” she says.

Both parts will remain under the name Smart Business Solutions, but the Internet marketing and website design will become a subsidiary, Tuttle says.

Most of her recent marketing efforts have targeted the compliance and cyber crime service.

The company’s reconfiguring is part of Tuttle’s focus in the fourth quarter, she says.

Compliance offerings

Smart Business Solutions can review a company’s operations to ensure it’s in compliance with the Red Flags Rule, which the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) created to help prevent identity theft.

Tuttle explained it as a way for companies to make sure they’re not dealing with an identity thief when they’re extending credit.

“The [federal] government says that anyone, financial institutions, car dealers, anyone extending credit has to develop and implement a program and continue to monitor and audit the program and keep their employees trained,” Tuttle says.

The federal government didn’t provide businesses with much guidance beyond that explanation, she adds.

Tuttle’s firm also offers help complying with the Safeguards Rule, which is another FTC regulation that’s intended to prevent identity theft through the protection of “physical, tangible information,” she says.

The rule requires companies to have safety measures in place to protect the information an individual provides for a medical record, a credit application, or a credit-card purchase, Tuttle says.

Tuttle explained it using the example of cloud computing, or operating a program over a several connected computers at the same time.

With all that information sitting in databases somewhere, companies need to make sure they’re compliant and protect that information, she says.

“They have to minimize the amount of people who have access to it,” Tuttle adds.

In addition to the Red Flags and Safeguards rules, Smart Business Solutions also offers a compliance review of stipulations from the Office of Foreign Assets Control, which is part of the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

Firms, no matter how large or small can’t sell their products or services to anyone that the government has identified as a terrorist, a money launderer, or a risk to the country, Tuttle says.

Business owners risk fines totaling in the millions of dollars, or even imprisonment, if they sell to anyone or company that the federal government has deemed a threat, she adds.

“A lot of these small companies they have no idea that this stuff is out there or how to navigate it or how to set up a program or what they need to do, but ignorance is not an acceptable excuse,” Tuttle says.

Smart Business Solutions’ compliance work generated a revenue increase of 5 percent in 2012, compared to the previous year, according to Tuttle.

About Tuttle

Tuttle is the lone full-time employee at Smart Business Solutions, but Jon Williams, a business consultant and certified fraud examiner, subcontracts his services to the company, she says.

Tuttle would like to add one or two additional full-time employees in 2014.

Smart Business Solutions is a state-certified minority and women-owned business enterprise, she says.

Tuttle earned an associate degree in business management from Mohawk Valley Community College in 1986. From there, she worked in several roles at the the Bank of New York in Oriskany.

She then returned to school at SUNYIT in Marcy, where she earned a degree in professional-technical communication in 2001.

Tuttle’s career also included stints at Dart Communications of Utica and Mountain Media, Inc. of Saratoga Springs.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com