Customer Success Story

Nebraska Book Company Inc.

• Industry: Retail
• Products: SecureCRT®
• Summary: Using SecureCRT, Nebraska Book's PRISM software customers securely access bookstore inventory and accounting data, protecting passwords, confidential data, and credit card information.

Organization

Nebraska Book Company, Inc. is one of the largest used textbook wholesalers in the United States, owning and operating over 100 college bookstores and providing textbooks, information systems, and consulting services to more than 3,000 college campuses.

Nebraska Book's computer hardware and software packages, include its PRISM software suites, a comprehensive inventory management and point-of-sale solution for college bookstores. PRISM is installed in all Nebraska Book retail locations and in the stores of many of their commercial market customers. PRISM automates and manages all phases of inventory, ordering, receiving, invoicing, and returns for textbooks, trade books, and general merchandise.

"Because we handle credit card numbers, the inability to secure and protect this data could be catastrophic.... SecureCRT provides the security capabilities needed to support our application." – Walt Timmerman, Nebraska Book Company

Challenge

Each bookstore using the PRISM suites runs the software on an IBM RS6000 server. Employees access PRISM using terminal emulation software on desktop PCs throughout the store. Since PRISM handles sensitive information, including credit card information, Nebraska Book needed to provide its customers with a secure terminal emulator that would protect critical data from misuse or theft.

"We recently implemented new security features in our PRISM application software, specifically encryption, to protect and secure bookstore data," said Walt Timmerman, Manager of System Sales at Nebraska Book. "Because we handle credit card numbers, the inability to secure and protect this data could be catastrophic."

Solution

Nebraska Book now provides SecureCRT with their PRISM software for secure terminal emulation. SecureCRT is installed on the desktop of all PCs connected to the PRISM host system. "VanDyke's SecureCRT solution provides security features unavailable in the emulation package we were using," said Timmerman. "We now have our customers use the VanDyke SecureCRT emulation package on PCs to access our application software. SecureCRT provides the security capabilities needed to support our application."

With SecureCRT, Nebraska Book's PRISM customers can securely access their inventory and accounting data. Because SecureCRT is simple to use, training time is reduced for store employees from store managers to customer service personnel.

Back to Top