Ferrilli Named to Inc. 5000 List for 5th Time

Haddonfield, NJ – We’re excited to announce that Ferrilli has been named to the 2023 Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing privately held companies in America.

This marks the 5th time that Ferrilli has made the list, a distinction which earns Ferrilli a place on the Inc. 5000 Honor Roll! Ferrilli previously made the list in 2009, 2017, 2018, and 2022.

Making the list is a testament to the talent and dedication of the entire Ferrilli team, and the support of our amazing Ferrilli community. Thank you to everyone who has joined us on this journey! Ferrilli is dedicated to becoming the first-choice employer in higher education consulting, while accelerating a path to true transformational change for each of our clients and partner institutions.

As an Inc. 5000 honoree, Ferrilli officially ranks among the top .07% of American companies in terms of growth. Notable alumni include Microsoft, Intuit, Oracle, Under Armour, Pandora, Zappos and more.

Ferrilli, a leading technology services provider exclusively serving the unique needs and challenges of higher education, ranked #3,164 on the overall list. Complete results of the Inc. 5000 can be found here.

See You at Slate Summit 2023!

We’re excited to be attending the Technolutions Slate Summit, June 1-2, in Nashville!

Stop by our booth in the Karl Dean Ballroom Lobby to learn about Ferrilli’s comprehensive Slate support services, including white glove marketing implementation, SIS integration, data reporting, help desk services, personalized portal design, and more.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Connect with Ferrilli at Ellucian Live 2023!

We’re bringing the city inside at Ellucian Live 2023, March 26-29!

Stop by Booth 501 for a true taste of New Orleans, from our real-life food truck serving fresh beignets, to our caricature artist, to our specialty Hurricanes cocktail station.

In honor of our host city, we’ll also be raffling off a trip to Paris, France!

And don’t miss our live sessions throughout the event, designed to help your institution increase efficiencies, reduce costs, and maximize value:

Take off to Ellucian SaaS with Ferrilli

Presenter: Ferrilli CEO Robert Ferrilli; Time: Monday, March 27th at 3:45 pm

Lessons Learned: The Shared Technology Platform for System-Wide Implementation

Presenter: Ferrilli Senior VP Carol Thomas; Time: Wednesday, March 29th at 9:00 am

Optimizing Your Ellucian Colleague® ERP

Ferrilli Vice President of Customer Success Kelly Sinacola; Wednesday, March 29th at 9:00 am

We look forward to connecting with you!

Giving Tuesday

Last Giving Tuesday, we announced that Ferrilli joined Pledge 1% as a corporate partner.  

As part of our commitment, we pledged to donate 100 complimentary hours of security services to institutions that fell victim to a cyber attack. 

One year later and we’re proud to report that we are delivering on that promise.  

In 2021, we donated 3% of our profit back in hours worked; lending our time, expertise, and resources to help several institutions navigate the complex aftermath of a cyber incident.  And we are continuing that great work throughout 2022 and beyond.  

Higher education has increasingly become a favorite target of cyber criminals. That’s why we took the pledge to help protect our community.  

Learn more: https://go.ferrilli.com/l/957602/2022-11-29/bdjyx?utm_source=website&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=givingtuesday22 

[WEBINAR RECORDING] We Are All Part of the Security Team!

Watch as Ferrilli’s Security Experts share some key fundamental cybersecurity best practices in honor of Cybersecurity Awareness Month 2022.

Ferrilli Named to 2022 Inc. 5000 List of Fastest-Growing Private Companies in America

Haddonfield, NJ – We are excited to announce that Ferrilli has been named to the 2022 Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing privately held companies in America.

This is the 4th year that Ferrilli has been named to the prestigious list (2009, 2017, 2018 & 2022).

“Being named to the Inc. 5000 list is national recognition of our hard work as an organization. It is a testament to the talent and dedication of everyone at Ferrilli,” said Ferrilli CEO Robert Ferrilli. “I am incredibly proud of what we have accomplished.”

Continue reading “Ferrilli Named to 2022 Inc. 5000 List of Fastest-Growing Private Companies in America”

Connect with Ferrilli at ACCTC 2022!

Attending the Arizona Community Colleges Technical Conference at Yavapai College, June 1-2, 2022?

Be sure to connect with us throughout the event. Ferrilli is committed to providing the services Arizona Community Colleges need to streamline operations, reduce costs and position students for success.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Stop by Booth 501 at Ellucian Live 2022 and take your shot at $50k

We’re going for the green at Ellucian Live 2022!

Stop by Booth 501 on Sunday, April 10th – Tuesday, April 12th, to play Ferrilli’s $50,000, hole-in-one challenge!

We’ll also be raffling off a once-in-a-lifetime trip to the beautiful Pebble Beach Resorts, located between picturesque Monterey and Carmel, California.

Our team of talented higher education technology experts will be there to cheer you on … and, of course, answer any questions you have about optimizing your institution’s Ellucian technology.

You do not want to miss this! Just look for the massive, state-of-the-art golf simulator and come over to take your shot!

Ferrilli Live Sessions at eLive 2022!

We’re excited to be presenting three live sessions at Ellucian Live 2022:

Solution Showcase Demo: Ferrilli’s Automated Degree & Certificate Evaluator for Colleague

Monday, April 11th – 2:30 PM – 2:45 PM (MDT)

Lead Presenter: Kelly Sinacola, Executive Vice President, Ferrilli

Go Serverless and Take Off to the Cloud with Ferrilli, Ellucian, and AWS

Tuesday, April 12 – 3:45 – 4:30 PM (MDT)

Lead Presenter: Robert Ferrilli, CEO, Ferrilli

Rethinking Student Affairs Roles: Dynamic Technology and Student Populations

Wednesday, April 13 – 9:00 – 9:45 AM (MDT)

Lead Presenter: Kathryn Starkey, Associate Dean of Adult Learning, Colorado State University Pueblo

Co-Presenters: Linda Bloom, Senior Consultant, Ferrilli & Carol Larson, Registrar, Colorado State University Pueblo

Ferrilli Security Alert: Experts Warn to Prepare for More Russian Cyber Activity

By: Armando D’Onorio (CISSP, GSLC, GCCC), Ferrilli’s Chief Information Security Officer & Senior Consultant

As the U.S. imposes sanctions on Russia for its ongoing aggression with Ukraine; security experts at the Wall Street Journal’s virtual CIO Network Summit this week recommended that the U.S. should prepare for possible cyber retaliation.

Recommendations and Awareness

Recommendations that came from the Summit included locking accounts after two or three failed login attempts and being aware that the Russian operatives could be using password spraying attacks; recycling passwords from past password data dumps; and may likely be using artificial intelligence to access networks.

Russia has been known to use hybrid warfare strategies and utilize cyberattacks against their adversaries. Professionals who monitor cyber threats, both for governments and corporations, are concerned that the worst is yet to come, in the form of both direct attacks by Russia and collateral damage from their cyber attacks.

The U.S. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has issued a warning to U.S. business that says they should be prepared to defend against cyber attacks originating from Russia. “Every organization—large and small—must be prepared to respond to disruptive cyber activity.”

Russian Hackers began at least as early as January targeting Ukraine with “wiper” malware which is designed to destroy hard drive data by wiping their contents completely. Professionals who monitor cyber threats, both for governments and corporations, are on high alert because Russia has a history of unleashing cyberweapons that wreak havoc far beyond the computers and networks that were their original targets.

What Can You Do to Protect Your Student and Employee Data?

The House Armed Services Committee recommends institutions be testing procedures for backups and restoring data, enabling multifactor authentication on devices connected to their networks, and ensuring software is up to date on patching to protect their networks from known vulnerabilities.

Here are Some Additional Mitigating Tips and Helpful Layers of Defense

  • Prepare by documenting what you have. Identify every application and asset running in your IT environment. This level of granularity will allow you to quickly map critical assets, data, and backups, and to identify vulnerabilities and risks. By having a complete picture of your network and data environments, you’ll be able to respond and act quickly during an attack or breach.
  • Utilize segmentation and alerting where possible to help prevent ransomware propagation and lateral movement. Create perimeters around critical applications, backups, file servers and databases. Restrict traffic between users, applications, and devices to help block lateral movement. These blocked access attempts become your indicators of compromise. Incorporate reputation-based detection that alerts to the presence of known malicious domains and processes. Set up security monitoring so you are collecting the data that will be needed to analyze network intrusions.
  • Test your backups and recovery methods. Make sure to have backups off-site and visualization capabilities that support phased recovery strategies in which connectivity is gradually restored as different areas of the network are validated as “all clear.”
  • Do not expose management interfaces of network devices to the internet. The management interface is a significant attack surface, so not exposing them reduces your risk. Web based interfaces are convenient for managing networking equipment, but under no circumstances should these be open to the world and the internet.
  • Protect your devices and networks by keeping them up to date. Use the latest supported versions, apply security patches promptly, use anti-virus and scan regularly to guard against known malware threats.
  • Use multi-factor authentication to reduce the impact of password compromises.
  • Treat people as your first line of defense. Tell staff how to report suspected phishing emails, and ensure they feel confident to do so. They are your first line of defense, investigate their reports promptly and thoroughly. Never punish users for clicking phishing links or opening attachments.

Creating a Remote Workforce in the Face of COVID-19: The San Jose-Evergreen Community College District

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, the San Jose-Evergreen Community College District needed to act fast to ensure that its 20,000 students could continue their studies unabated. Job One was finding a way for its 665 administrators, staff, and full-time faculty perform their essential roles from off-campus locations. That meant creating a remote workforce: providing remote access to the technology, tools, and applications they rely on to help support the student body.

Within a matter of days, SJECCD identified the major challenges it needed to navigate – many of which were impacting institutions across the higher education landscape. VPN solutions hadn’t been fully deployed and had to be scaled up. The use of unmanaged devices and unknown WIFI connections created security concerns. There was the potential that employees could unwittingly utilize malicious browser plug-ins. And there simply wasn’t enough hardware to support shifting the entire workforce to remote locations at the same time.

Continue reading “Creating a Remote Workforce in the Face of COVID-19: The San Jose-Evergreen Community College District”

Why Higher Education IT Staff Matter Even More in the Cloud

By Marcia A. Daniel, Chief Client Officer, Ferrilli

Earlier this month, I read a news item that is increasingly common as cloud software becomes more prevalent in higher education. It detailed planned cuts to the IT team at a major institution in my home state. While the financial stresses of the pandemic were cited as a primary motivator, administrators also pointed to the more “cost-effective model” of becoming a “cloud-first organization.”

Those administrators are indeed correct that the cloud is more efficient; but I would argue that they are mistaken as to the reasons why.

Continue reading “Why Higher Education IT Staff Matter Even More in the Cloud”

Ferrilli Does: CRM Optimization

We are often asked “What does Ferrilli do?” Here is an example of what Ferrilli can do to help improve your institution’s CRM:

We have designed a solution that auto closes extra opportunities on a record when a record hits certain funnel stages, such as Opportunity Creation, Application Submission, Denied, Withdrawn, and Enrolled.

This solution streamlines the opportunity management process. And we work with each individual school to ensure the solution is configured to fit their unique business process needs!

Expect more from your technology. Get more with Ferrilli!

On-Demand Webinar: How to Protect Yourself on the Internet

On Safer Internet Day, Ferrilli Senior Consultant Alex Chong shares his top ways to protect yourself on the internet.

Alex offers expert advice on responsible sharing, password best practices, phishing protection, social media privacy, securing your internet connection and more!

This information can be used to protect yourself at home and also at the workplace, whether you work for an education institution or a corporation.

Let’s make a better internet for all!

Ferrilli Does: System Support

We are often asked “What does Ferrilli do?” Here is an example of what Ferrilli can do to help improve your systems:

We migrated one of our CORE System Administration clients from UNIX HP-UX to Linux Red Hat in order to avoid issues with an aging server environment.

Post-migration, the staff saw a significant improvement. In fact, the financial aid auto packager went from taking 12 hours to 12 minutes!

Expect more from your technology. Get more with Ferrilli!

Connect with us at the CISOA Virtual Technology Summit!

We’re excited to be a Platinum sponsor at the 2021 CISOA Virtual Technology Summit, February 8-11, 2021!

There are a number of ways you can connect with us at the conference:

– Virtual Booth: Stop by and check out our awesome content designed to help your college get the most out of its technology.

– Stump the Consultant: Bring your most challenging tech questions to our “Stump the Ferrilli Consultant” session on Tuesday, February 9th @ 12:15 pm PST. We’ll be giving away cool prizes (like a new iPad) to attendees with the toughest questions!

– Breakout Session w/ Q&A: On Thursday, February 11th @ 10:30 am PST, learn how Allan Hancock College increased completion rates and improve efficiencies within Academic Advising and the Registrar’s Office. Featuring a live Q&A with Allan Hancock College’s VP of Student Services Nohemy Ornelas, Ed.D.

– Chat Live with Us: Chat live with Ferrilli team members in our virtual exhibit hall on Thursday, February 11th @ 11:30 am PST.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Ferrilli Does: System Support

We are often asked “What does Ferrilli do?” Here is an example of what Ferrilli can do for students, faculty, and staff:

During the summer of 2020, to deal with the ramifications of Covid-19, we helped several colleges and universities change:

– Fall term dates and all of the related dates throughout Ellucian Colleague®
– Instructional methods for those sections and faculty
– Section days and times
– Buildings and rooms for sections (using custom utilities rather than having to make these changes manually)

Each campus was able to rely on our depth and breadth of experience with Ellucian Colleague to make sure all of the appropriate areas were updated, saving considerable staff hours and resources.

Expect more from your technology. Get more with Ferrilli!

On-Demand Webinar: Securing You Ellucian Colleague Environment Webinar

Wondering how to secure web servers and application listeners for your Ellucian Colleague environment? Ferrilli Senior Consultants Patrick Cunningham and Don Sullivan are here to walk you through the process!

Please join us at Ellucian Live Online 2020!

We are proud to be a Premier Level sponsor at Ellucian Live Online 2020, starting June 8!

Please stop by our virtual booth to view special offers and learn how Ferrilli can help your institution get the most out of its technology.

We will also be holding virtual office hours at Ellucian Live Online every Thursday from 10 am – 12 pm EDT! We look forward to connecting with you!

RECORDED MANAGING SEMESTER DATE CHANGES WEBINAR

RECORDED CIO ROUNDTABLE 5/22

RECORDED CIO ROUNDTABLE 5/15

RECORDED RANSOMWARE WEBINAR

Recorded How to Modernize Your Phone by Moving It to the Cloud Webinar

Daring Leadership

This past weekend, as I was thinking about the many challenges that face all of us in our personal and professional lives, I was drawn to a book that I found quite inspiring. Many of you may be familiar with the work of Brené Brown. Her book Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts is, in my opinion, a book for this time. Big questions about leadership and bravery, openness to feedback, and heartfelt willingness.

Continue reading “Daring Leadership”