How can you trust your security consultant to recommend what's best for you if they're being compensated by the vendor for recommending their product?

In early 2002, Integrated Computer Solutions, NetworkArmor's parent company, made a strategic shift away from performing as a value added reseller (VAR) and shifted almost exclusively to a trusted-advisor role.  This shift allowed us to eliminate any conflicts of interest related to recommending vendor products while performing security services for our clients. 

As a result, we currently rarely sell hardware and software directly to our clients unless they absolutely insist, or as a convenience to our clients.  Rather, we recommend the best solution for our client's environment and direct them to a qualified reseller for procurement.  At our client's discretion, we will perform the integration services or act as oversight for another integrator.

In cases where the client wishes to deal exclusively with our staff and procure exclusively through us, we can leverage our existing vendor relationships to provide a completely procurement solution at competitive rates.  We maintain VAR status with many vendors in  order to have direct access to their engineering and support team, which is invaluable when we are evaluting and integrating their products.

In addition, in the course of our Information Security (InfoSec) Consulting practice and work with the Department of Defense, we have developed several enterprise-class products which are now in the process of being made commercially available.  The first of these is the ICS Syslog Proxy for Windows product and it's companion product ICS Syslog Proxy Daemon.