LiveOps Broadens Its Security Leadership Role by Co-Chairing the Technical Development Committee of the BITS Shared Assessments

SANTA CLARA, Calif. , Aug. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- LiveOps, the virtual call center company, today announced that it has joined the BITS Shared Assessments Program and will co-chair with Citibank and KPMG, its Technical Development Committee (TDC). The TDC is responsible for evolving the Shared Assessments standards -- the benchmark by which U.S. and international financial institutions are evaluating the IT security controls of their service providers.

"LiveOps is a trusted provider of enterprise solutions with a proven record of meeting the most rigorous industry security standards -- including PCI Level 1 compliance -- in our technology and business processes," said Niall Browne , Chief Information Security Officer for LiveOps. "Our Shared Assessments Program membership is the next step in continuing to keep LiveOps at the forefront of security innovation and standards."

"As an on-demand call center provider, security is a key area of focus for LiveOps," said Maynard Webb , CEO of LiveOps. "We recognize that a security breach will not only compromise our customer's data, but will have a huge impact on their brand integrity as a secure financial institution or retailer. At LiveOps we deliver multi-tiered enterprise-grade security at all levels of our business operations from technology to people and best practices."

BITS (http://www.bitsinfo.org) was created in 1996 to foster the growth and development of electronic financial services and for the benefit of financial institutions and their customers. A division of The Financial Services Roundtable (http://www.fsround.org), BITS provides intellectual capital and addresses emerging issues where financial services, technology and commerce intersect, acting quickly to address problems and galvanize the industry.

Launched in February 2006 , the Shared Assessments Program was founded by BITS members The Bank of New York Company, Bank of America, Citibank, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo & Company. The Big 4 Accounting firms served as Technical Advisers in developing the program standards. Today, more than 60 major financial institutions and service providers participate in Shared Assessments (see http://www.bitsinfo.org/fisap). Designed to help financial institutions carefully evaluate the security of the systems, processes and controls their service providers have in place, the Shared Assessments Program offers a faster, more efficient and less costly means of conducting assessments.

"BITS' mission is to improve security, reduce fraud and manage risk in the financial services industry," said Leigh Williams , president of BITS. "By participating in Shared Assessments as a member and TDC co-chair, LiveOps is helping on all of these fronts."

Enterprise-Grade Security Approach

LiveOps has invested heavily in security and addresses all the layers of the stack including physical security at the data center, network security, systems and applications security and data encryption.

-- Physical -- LiveOps data centers are protected by five security perimeters including mantraps with two layers of biometrics. In addition, up to 500 surveillance cameras are supported by infrared, ultrasonic and photoelectric motion sensors. The data centers are patrolled by 24x7 armed ex-military and law enforcement staff. -- Network -- Security is enabled by multi-layer firewalls and intrusion detection systems monitored 24x7 by the LiveOps-staffed Security Operations Center. -- Systems and application level -- Security is pervasive through every development discipline -- software development lifecycle, code checks and related disciplines adhere to industry standard security processes. Data is encrypted to the highest industry standard which includes Advanced Encryption Standard.

About LiveOps, Inc.

LiveOps provides the leading on-demand call center platform that frees businesses from the complexity and constraints of traditional call center models. Used by Fortune 500 and major brand marketing companies, the LiveOps on-demand call center platform delivers enterprise-grade availability and reliability with the security infrastructure required in today's mission-critical business environments. The company also runs the world's largest virtual call center, which includes a network of more than 20,000 independent home agents who provide unmatched customer service. The best practices of operating a state-of-the-art virtual call center, coupled with the LiveOps on-demand call center platform, enable LiveOps to deliver breakthrough call center results to its customers. LiveOps is headquartered in Santa Clara, California . http://www.liveops.com.

LiveOps is a registered trademark of LiveOps, Inc. All other company and product names mentioned are used only for identification purposes and may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

SOURCE LiveOps, Inc.