Bah Humbug…
Tis the season to be jolly and all that, but should I open any of these e-cards? I seem to be getting stacks of e-cards this year for Christmas. Most of them are from news feeds I subscribe to, or at least they look like they are, but should I open them? The answer is that I don’t. OK, so most are from news feeds, and while I would like to think that I’m special as a reader, I know that this is just a piece of junk mail, that quite frankly I could do without. Furthermore with the latest zero day exploit in Internet Explorer making headline news then I am happy to reduce my risk and not open the card. I may miss out on some fancy flash animation, but at least I know where I am… and it’s not on some strange site that is purporting to host a special greeting ‘just for me’.
On that note… it’s only a week until Christmas. So, Happy Christmas, or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or anything else you celebrate to you all. Take care and may 2009 be a good year for you all.
2009: Chaos In The Clouds?
We live in uncertain economic times where money is tough… but the cloud and more importantly, services within the cloud appears to offer value for money. You pay for what you use and so on. But… will this lead to chaos?
A decade or so ago the likes of PC World started to make a big impact on business computing. You could nip down there in the lunch break and buy a wireless router or a printer, pop back to the office and have it all connected up to the corporate network. Hurray. Well, not actually because the IT department eventually got wind of it, OK so it took several years, and decided that IT equipment in the office should be owned and managed by them in order to reduce the management cost, complexity and risk. So, the rogue wireless hubs slowly disappeared (some too slowly as the war driving and data loss incidents have shown) but they went.
Move on to 2009… budgets are tough but businesses still want to deliver new services. Will ‘the cloud’ become the next PC World equivalent, people rushing out to buy services outside of the IT department? As with ten years ago, all appears to be fine while it works – but when it doesn’t, what then? Even when it is working, the service acquired might not be up to scratch with corporate policy when it comes to having data outside the organization.
So… in the last couple of weeks of 2008, IT departments and CIOs need to think carefully about the cloud and how it can be used within their organizations – ahead of the business units. Develop, distribute and educate staff on policies around Information Protection and data loss prevention. Put a process together to rapidly respond to requests for new services which live in the cloud. There is still time to avoid the chaos… and use the cloud to business advantage.
Apple? You Are Not Immune…
Finally Apple has started pushing the fact that their users should take precautions against viruses and other nasties out there on the Internet. There have always been viruses out there but not many compared to those on the PC… But with the increase in popularity there is an increase in activities by cyber-criminals to target the platform. Why… well its simple, the increase in use makes it worthwhile for the criminals to spend the effort, time and money to exploit a vulnerability.
So… protect yourself today rather than wait. After all, peace of mind comes cheaply with a bit a anti-virus / anti-malware software and takes only a few minutes to download and install.
PS Next year we expect to see other new platforms being targeted, iPhones and the Google phone being top of the list… why, because they are popular, always connected and people have information that is worth money stored on them…
Tis The Season To Be… Careful
Our old friend Koobface is back – just as ugly as ever. This is a browser based attack and is targeting FaceBook users. It works like this… the cyber-criminal hacks a page on a social networking site and effectively sends the ‘friends’ a link saying they should visit a link (for a movie in this case)… the friend, visits the link and is asked to install something in order to see the movie (or pictures or anything really). Because it came from a ‘friend’ they do and that’s the machine infected. 1-0 Cyber-criminals.
What to do? Well, its simple really – don’t install stuff you really don’t know where its coming from. If it says its from Adobe or Microsoft, then go to their websites to download it, don’t just click the link – just in case.
But hey, this is aimed at end-users should I worry at work… YES. Many employers allow their employees to access FaceBook so it would be a work machine that is infected… and the chances are there is a lot more of interest to a cyber-criminal on a work machine than a home one. So… send out an email to employees today – warn them of the problem and how to protect themselves at work and at home.
Ensure that your anti-virus, anti-phishing anti-malware is up to date. The holidays are a lucrative time for cyber-criminals as they know people want to see pictures and grab a bargain – so protect yourself… Today.
Time To Innovate?
So the economy is tough, budgets are being cut – what to do? Well, now is the time to revisit budgets and look at whether you can squeeze more out of the money you have. Cost Containment has become the buzz word of the moment and I am speaking at a couple of seminars we are sponsoring on ‘Rapid Cost Containment‘. When times are tough, it is the time to look at all you can do to prepare for the uptick – after all when it does come you won’t have the time to look at infrastructures and architectures you will be running to make sure IT keeps up with the need to support the business and bring in as much money as possible. There is nothing like a shoestring budget to focus the mind and help you think differently how you do stuff… so now is the time for innovation.
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