Cyber Crime Is Focusing On Small Businesses

Symantec's latest annual Internet Security Threat Report reveals a 42 percent surge during 2012 in targeted attacks. Symantec says that the computer espionage attacks are designed to steal intellectual property and are targeting more start-ups and small business. What this means to you is that hardening your security measures is more important than ever. Create a policy for your employees to follow and implement a security refresher training program for employees. We can't actually stop every attack, but we can be a harder target with a lower profile, preventing the majority of attacks. There are a lot of things that can be done that cost nothing or very little. But that go a long way toward securing your business and finances from online threats. The following is quoted from Symantec's web site. 

“This year’s ISTR shows that cybercriminals aren’t slowing down, and they continue to devise new ways to steal information from organizations of all sizes,” says Stephen Trilling, chief technology officer, Symantec. “The sophistication of attacks coupled with today’s IT complexities, such as virtualization, mobility and cloud, require organizations to remain proactive and use ‘defense in depth’ security measures to stay ahead of attacks.”

"According to the report, small businesses are now the target of 31 percent of all attacks, a threefold increase from 2011. Most startups assume they're not targets, but cybercriminals are enticed by these organizations’ bank account information, customer data and intellectual property. Attackers also know small businesses often lack adequate security practices and infrastructure. Web-based attacks increased by 30 percent in 2012."

"Last year, mobile malware increased by 58 percent, and 32 percent of all mobile threats attempted to steal information, such as email addresses and phone numbers. Android had more threats than any other mobile operating system."

In summery the larger companies have turned up the security level making attacking them less effective. So the criminals have turned their focus on less secure, less hardened small businesses. They have to harvest a lot more to get the same amount of what ever it is they are after at the moment. But the targets are softer, so most of it can be automated or farmed out. If you need help battening down the hatches, we are always available.

Reference Links
http://smallbiztrends.com/2013/04/cyber-attacks-on-small-businesses-increase.html
http://www.techvibes.com/blog/huge-surge-in-attacks-on-startups-2013-04-19

Spot the Web Vulnerability

by Miroslav Stampar on Oct 13, 2012

• 191 views

These are the slides from a talk "Spot the Web Vulnerability" held at Hacktivity 2012 conference (Hungary / Budapest 12th–13th October 2012) by Miroslav Stampar.

http://www.slideshare.net/stamparm/spot-the-web-vulnerability

Ouch: Romney Calls Tesla a ‘Loser’

Ouch: Romney Calls Tesla a ‘Loser’:
In the back and forth in Wednesday night’s presidential debate over tax breaks to energy companies, Republican nominee Mitt Romney argued that President Obama’s grants and tax breaks to renewable energy companies equalled 50 years of the tax breaks to gas companies.
Romney then name-dropped a few beneficiaries including the bankrupt solar panel maker Solyndra and Tesla Motors, the car maker that has gotten a $465 million loan from the Department of Energy, which it is paying off.
Romney then quipped that “One of my friends said, ‘You don’t pick the winners and losers. You pick the losers.’”
Snap. And ouch.
It’s a bit premature to call Tesla a loser – especially as the company is building cars it hopes will revolutionize transportation.
Moreover, founder Elon Musk says it will accelerate its payment of the principal in the spring — and the Department of Energy isn’t complaining it’s not getting its money back.
While Tesla Motor’s future remains deeply uncertain, the Tesla Model S has gotten fantastic reviews, and Musk is inarguably one of Silicon Valley’s visionaries.
So calling Tesla a loser might be one of those “zingers” that everyone looks for in these kind of debates, but it’s certainly not a way to win the respect of the tech world.

Try Try F#

Try Try F#: Microsoft has released the beta release of Try F#. which makes programming in F# 3.0 easy to learn, simple to use3, and straightforward to share.

What Comes After the Touch Screen?

What Comes After the Touch Screen?: Gesture control, devices that recognize different people, and tricks to make a screen feel as if it has physical buttons could be coming to your gadgets.

Defense cuts could sink this stock

Defense cuts could sink this stock: L-3 Communications supplies a wide range of products and services used for aerospace and defense platforms. The company in July completed the spin-off of its government-services unit, called Engility Holdings (NYSE:EGL) , and in August purchased ...

Looking Down the Road

Looking into the future isn't really much fun. It has an edge to it that quickly makes those who dare to try to guess what will happen next look pretty foolish. Based on various methods of comparison and projection. We try to predict the future based on what has happened in the past. Very much like predicting what others are thinking based on our own understanding and experiences in similar situations. This will work to an extent, until you meet someone who is not working along the same lines as the average person (often these are people who establish the changes in the future). Another method is to allow a crowd sourcing method to bet on what will happen to a given set of circumstances in order to get an average and it tends to be correct more often than not. The things that are predictable are traveling along a given line of evolution. You can almost watch it evolve day to day as it follows the same lines as its predecessors and similar events.

One of the major problems is that it is easier to predict the evolution of one thing at a time. Technology for example has given limits and directions, so it seems to be easier to predict its future changes. Unfortunately nothing evolves in isolation. Predicting what people will do with the changes in technology is as important to the changes in technology as the technology it's self. So the issue is to predict what the changes will be and the uses they will be put too, which in turn drives the motivation for the next series of changes. For example we know that our desire to be more productive is pushing us to be able to talk and stay in communication with others while we are traveling, at home, at all times in many cases. In order to be more productive and communicate more. We will need to modify our vehicles to do more of the driving, while we are being productive. The automation or robotizing of our lives is in full swing so it seems easy to predict. But what happens next? Do we begin to desire more isolation or more control of exactly when and how and to whom we are in constant contact? Or will things continue to draw us into a mesh of full and open communications? No secrets, lies are not allowed to live? The population of the Earth is drawn ever closer together and the fear and ignorance are banished from existence forever.