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sandy ingram

Small Business Facts and Figures - 0 views

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    What is a small business? The Ofce of Advocacy denes a small business as an in- dependent business having fewer than 500 employees. (The denition of "small business" used in government programs and contracting varies by industry; seewww.sba.gov/size.)
sandy ingram

Few businesses are likely to be insured against the result of cyber attacks - Security ... - 0 views

  • Businesses are advised to thoroughly review risk management procedures and insurance programmes to ensure they have adequate and relevant cover in place: “The responsibility to get the house in order should lie with an organisation’s Managing Director or Finance Director, and not the IT department alone,” says Simon. “IT defences whilst vital only react to known problems and are not guaranteed to be 100 percent secure. Protection for the whole business and its sustainability is without doubt the safest option.”
  • “The economic downturn has resulted in people of all levels and responsibilities losing their jobs, and those with a detailed knowledge of their former employers’ IT and operating systems may well present a real potential threat, and turn to extortion as a way of taking revenge on their former employer, and of making some money at the same time.
  • According to The Wilson Organisation, insurers and underwriters are predicting a rise in white collar extortion as the recession continues to bite and unemployment figures increase. Worryingly many businesses do not have insurance cover for data or business loss.
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    According to The Wilson Organisation, insurers and underwriters are predicting a rise in white collar extortion as the recession continues to bite and unemployment figures increase. Worryingly many businesses do not have insurance cover for data or business loss. "According to a DTI Information Security Breaches Survey, a third of UK businesses think general business insurance provides full cover for damage to the business arising from data loss," comments Wilsons' Simon Hoare, "but the reality is quite different, with very few businesses likely to be insured against the result of cyber attacks on its most crucial management and business tool - corporate and customer information, most of which is today held on corporate IT systems. "For public company directors, this is in fact in breach of their duties under the Turnbull Report, which requires them to identify, manage and take an informed opinion on the transfer of risks for the business."
sandy ingram

Smaller companies challenged to comply with Massachusetts' data privacy rules - Mass Hi... - 0 views

  • The regulations, which went into force in March, are intended to protect a consumer’s personal information from identity theft and other privacy breaches and to spell out steps that businesses must take to ensure data is secured. Some large companies — particularly those in the finance and health care industries that are already subject to data security laws like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) — had privacy measures in place, which helped get them ready for Massachusetts’ regulations. However, for many smaller and midsize companies that have not been subject to data security laws before, complying with the rules is a longer and often more painful process.
  • some businesses that are complying with privacy regulations for the first time and have limited in-house technology expertise “are running around with their hair on fire, trying to figure out what to do first,”
  • “We’ve seen a substantial uptick in activity in clients seeking guidance in how to comply,” said Carlos Perez-Albuerne, a partner at Choate Hall & Stewart LLP. “There’s a whole swath of businesses that never had to deal with anything like this before.”
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  • Under the regulations, organizations — no matter where they are based — that store personal information about Massachusetts residents have to write security policies detailing how the data will be protected, encrypt the data when it is stored on laptops or other portable devices or transmitted over public networks, and monitor their systems for breaches.
  • Believed to be among the most stringent data privacy regulations in the U.S., the rules have lawmakers and businesses taking note. The regulations are now driving computer security policy agendas across the country, said Mark Schreiber, a partner at Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge who chairs the firm’s privacy and data protection group. “The impact is much broader than we ever imagined. Who would have thought it would have catalyzed so much activity?” he said. “This will be with us for decades or longer.”
  • Since March, Cutugno Court Reporting and Sten-Tel Inc., a Springfield-based firm that provides document management and transcription systems, has spent “easily into the six-figure realm” on technology and consulting services to comply with the privacy regulations, said Blake Martin, the company’s CIO.
  • To date, state regulators have not yet taken any public enforcement actions against organizations that have failed to comply with the rules. The state attorney general’s office, which is charged with enforcing the regulations, and the Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation, which developed the regulations, have been focusing on compliance efforts, reaching out to trade groups, bar associations and others to spread the word.
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    "Eight months after the state's tough, new data privacy regulations went into effect, many businesses are still sorting through the rules and working to bring their firms into compliance. "
sandy ingram

What We're Watching in Cloud Computing - Harvard Business Review - 0 views

  • Yet those data centers, according to EPA figures cited by NIST, consume 1.5% of all electricity generated in the United States (compared with 0.6% worldwide in 2000). Globally, IT produces 2% of CO2 emissions.
  • Businesses that go with cloud computing could improve sustainability in two ways. First, companies maximize servers by sharing them, so fewer machines are chugging away. Second, on-demand usage means that firms needn’t consume way above their needs during slow times in order to be ready for busy times.
sandy ingram

IT worker gets prison after stealing data for online surveys - 0 views

  • Between January and April of this year, Giang filled out 382 surveys before the company that was paying for them, StayWell, figured out what was going on. StayWell had been offering UC employees the gift vouchers as incentives to fill out health surveys, but it grew wise to the scam.
  • Giang only used part of the Social Security numbers of his co-workers while filling out the survey, his lawyer states in a sentencing memorandum. "Mr Giang never intended to steal their identity, and other than losing the opportunity to participate in StayWell's marketing surveys, the victims did not lose anything," says the Oct. 20 memorandum asking the judge for probation instead of jail time.
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    A former IT staffer has been sentenced to a year and a day in prison for stealing sensitive information belonging to his co-workers and using the data to make money filling out online health surveys. Cam Giang, 31, was fired from the University of California San Francisco Medical Center earlier this year after investigators discovered that he'd been using the names, birthdays and Social Security numbers of other UCSF employees to fill out hundreds of online surveys. The point was to collect online vouchers, worth US$100 each.
sandy ingram

Protect your business from the cybercrime wave - USATODAY.com - 0 views

  • According to Conner, cybercrooks are now targeting small business: "We are in an arms race with sophisticated, high tech enemies who are now concentrating on smaller business bank accounts in addition to their continued efforts to steal from large corporations." To combat the risk, Conner suggests that small businesses employ a "triple threat" security package that would include
  • According to Brian Krebs, a journalist who has covered this issue extensively, "Most companies that get hit with this type of fraud quickly figure out that their banks are under no legal obligation to reimburse them."
  • So how does this type of fraud occur, and what can you do to protect yourself? Typically, the bad guys are able to plant malware on the victim's computer and then use that to access the company's online banking profile. They then use that information to transfer huge sums of money out of the targeted accounts.
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  • unlike consumers, small businesses do not get the same protections afforded consumers who are the victim of online fraud. If your credit card is stolen, and you report it promptly, your out-of-pocket loss is capped at $50.
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    small businesses do not get the same protections afforded consumers who are the victim of online fraud.
sandy ingram

Infosecurity (USA) - Passwords becoming risky form of enterprise authentication - 0 views

  • “The fact that passwords remain the cornerstone of enterprise authentication represents a significant and increasing risk. The vulnerability of password-based authentication is widely recognized: From the earliest phishing attacks to the most sophisticated spyware, passwords still represent one of the most common methods hackers target and use to access corporate systems and sensitive data”, the study observed.The way to reduce the costs of lost passwords and the increased vulnerability of similar user passwords is through the use of strong multi-factor authentication, explained Chatterjee. For example, two-factor authentication involves the use of something the user remembers, such as a password, and something the user has, like a token.
  • This approach increases security because a hacker needs both to gain access to a system or account; figuring out the password is not enough. It also reduces the need for users to have multiple, complex passwords. The system's two factors provide the complexity from a security point of view, he explained. Chatterjee used the example of a bank ATM card, which requires the use of the card along with the password for the user to gain access to his or her account.
  • With the two-factor authentication, users do not need to have complex passwords that change frequently. This reduces the burden on the employees as well as on the help desk, he noted.
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    "30% to 50% of help desk calls relate to forgotten passwords"
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