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Cyber attacks generally refer to criminal activity conducted via the Internet. These attacks can include stealing an organization’s intellectual property, confiscating online bank accounts, creating and distributing viruses on other computers, posting confidential business information on the Internet and disrupting a country’s critical national infrastructure.

Cyber attacks generally refer to criminal activity conducted via the Internet. These attacks can include stealing an organization’s intellectual property, confiscating online bank accounts, creating and distributing viruses on other computers, posting confidential business information on the Internet and disrupting a country’s critical national infrastructure.

During the past few years, smartphones, tablets, laptops and other mobile devices have entered the corporate workplace in increasing numbers. The Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) phenomenon is one of the most visible incarnations of the wave of consumerization surging through IT.

As a result, major cultural, technological and business shifts have occurred in the relationship between company and employee, facilitating unprecedented gains in productivity, efficiency and collaboration while creating new security risks and information governance concerns.

By Jim Ditmore
www.informationweek.com/

Every medium- to large-sized company must understand today's different cloud computing approaches -- and pitfalls.

We're long into the hype cycle of cloud computing. That means clear criteria to assess and evaluate the different options are critical.

www.devry.edu

Our electronic devices are such a big part of our lives today that it’s hard to imagine what we once did without them. But our constant use of technology to keep in touch, pay bills, stay on top of the news, shop and research things has a downside: Our data can be exposed to criminals who commit crimes such as identity theft and credit card fraud – unless we take the proper precautions.

How mobile technology is threatening your network and what you can do to stop threats in their tracks
By ZIFF DAVIS

A skyrocketing increase in mobile malware is giving new meaning to the term, “killer app.” According to a study from the Juniper Networks Mobile Threat Center, mobile malware rose a whopping 155 percent in 2011.

Most shocking was the dramatic growth in Android malware from roughly 400 samples in June to over 13,000 samples by the end of 2011 – a cumulative increase of 3,325 percent.

Source: www.openforum.com
Author: Courtney Rubin

If you're forced to read this on your smartphone or tablet because your computer has been stricken by the blue screen of death, your antivirus software may be to blame. (Don't have antivirus software? Click here and here for some sobering reminders why you may want to consider some.

Source: www.entrepreneur.com
Author: Riva Richmond

Many small-business owners fall below what some people call the “security poverty line." Bootstrapping entrepreneurs can be especially vulnerable to hackers because they don’t have the money or personnel to buy, install and maintain the fancy security products large companies take for granted.

Having the right kind of email system in place can do wonders for increasing productivity, especially for people on the go. It’s important to note the distinctions and feature differences of the email systems available to you, so you can be sure that what you’re using is the most efficient and cost-effective solution. Whether you work from an office or are productive while on the go, email most likely plays a big factor in the way you go about your business. Unbeknownst to many, some types of email systems have certain limitations that by extension can also limit the level of productivity of your business, and especially for people in the organization who must also work while out in the field. One major issue for many people is synchronicity. Many people need their emails to be accessible on their mobile phones, PDAs, or other mobile devices, and they need them to be properly synchronized with their desktop workstations. The need to constantly update conversations and email threads from mobile devices to desktops with certain types of email can prove to be tedious and unproductive– and some email system types don’t include this ability at all. Depending on the way you use your email, especially when on the go, having full access and full control of your account can define how productive you and others in your organization can be. Besides providing a much better degree of synchronization and integration with mobile devices, certain types of email systems also have features for sharing and collaboration features that allow you to set schedules and share files from your mailbox, as well as central storage for emails that allows you to access your account seamlessly with any mobile device, regardless of where you are located. Of course, having a full-featured email system might not be best for everyone. The key is to know whether adapting a more bare-bones system is cost-effective for your business (especially in the long run). Sometimes the top of the line may be needed, and sometimes all you need is a bit of tweaking on your less fully featured system. Not sure which is best? Call us and we’ll be glad to sit down with you and assess what kind of email system is best suited for you and your business.

The proliferation of websites and social media tools is making the job of monitoring what’s being said about you online increasingly difficult to do. But you need to somehow make sense of the sea of information available in these online tools, because depending on what’s being said — it can have either a helpful or a damaging effect on your reputation or your business. Here are some tools to help you. Besides your own eyes and ears, there are plenty of tools — for free or for a price — available to help you monitor your presence online. The simplest of these is your familiar search engines such as Google or Bing . By simply searching online, you can find where your name or your company’s name appears in various websites. With Google in particular, you can set up “alerts” which will email you when a specific word or term appears in their website index. What words or terms should you use? Start with your name, or your company name, then try the name of your products and/or services, and maybe even the names of your employees, directors, and other stakeholders. It might also be helpful to search for the competition as well. As results come in you can refine your search by expanding or narrowing the scope of terms you would like to search or be alerted on. If you want to be able to search across all different search engines and not just one or two, you can use Monitor This . Next you can use specialized website or social media monitoring tools to search only specific sites or services as opposed to the entire Internet. One example is Greplin , which allows you to search all of your accounts or accounts that you own. This is very helpful to be able to execute highly filtered searches on specific information in your Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn accounts, or your blog. Another option is Rollyo , which allows you to set up your own specialized search engines that cull content from public or open websites of your choosing. Other more generalized tools include RSS feed readers—which allow you to consume news or information feeds from news sites or blogs. Examples include Newsgator.com , Bloglines.com , Google Reader or Pluck.com . Other generalized tools include those that monitor specific newsgroups or message boards like BoardReader.com , ForumFind.com , Big-Boards.com , BoardTracker.com , iVillage , Yahoo Message Boards , and MSN Money . Still others track changes to content of specific sites ( Copernic Tracker , Website Watcher and WatchThatPage.com ), as well as their domain information ( DomainTools. com and BetterWhois.com ). The really interesting new services actually give you an explicit idea of the status of your reputation — especially if you are a relatively well known name or your business has an established brand. In this category are sites like Amplicate , which monitors general feelings or impressions about brands, businesses, or services; Klout , which tries to measure the influence of individuals based on their social interactions; and SendLove.to , which focuses on celebrities and media personalities. There are literally dozens more tools you can use to monitor and manage your reputation online. To find out more, a great resource is here at the Duct Tape Marketing blog . If you have any additional suggestions, feel free to let us know!