Is that how you want to save money ?
This just in: small businesses are feeling pressure from the economy and are looking for ways to save money. Just kidding. Everyone knows this by now, but new data from a study conducted by the Federation of Small Business and DYMO shows just what these businesses are doing to cut costs:
- 23% of respondents have cut staff
- 36% of respondents have decreased business travel
- 36% of resondents have minimized marketing efforts
- 29% of respondents have put a freeze on bonuses and raises
Ouch. These are not things that any small business wants to do.Cutting staff ?It's one thing for a large corporation to cut staff, but the smaller the business, the more impact cutting staff is likely to have on the business itself. If you have 15 employees and have to get rid of 5 of them, you're looking at losing a third of your workforce, and along with that, a third of your business's productivity (provided that these employees were indeed productive and not total slackers). Interestingly enough, productivity is one of the main things businesses are looking to increase.
Decreasing Business Travel ?I can actually see this as a reasonable way to save some dough. Some business trips are unavoidable and are of the utmost importance to your business. You don't want to sacrifice these, but how many of your trips can be forfeited in favor of other forms of communication? Networking has gotten easier online in recent years with social media. Web conferencing may suit some scenarios as well, whether that be in the form of text communication, audio, or video conferencing.
Contact Loughtec about our Remote Access Solutions +44 (0) 2882 252 445Minmizing Marketing Efforts ?I can't say that I condone this action. To me, it seems that marketing has never been more important for the survival of a business. For one, if you are not marketing, people might forget about you, or even assume that your business in trouble because they have not heard from you lately. Marketing shows potential customers that you are still there for them even in these rocky times. Secondly, you have to drive people to your business.
How else do you intend to attract customers ? Freezing Bonuses and Raises ?If it's unavoidable, it's unavoidable, but this is another area that I would suggest steering clear of if you want to keep your most valuable employees. If employees feel like they're not going to be able to get ahead and make the money that they could be, they're not liable to stick around very long. Losing key employees can really put the strain on a business, and such a freeze could very well put you at risk of losing more than just one.
U.K. businesses ban IM over security concerns
Nearly three-quarters of U.K. businesses have banned the use of instant messaging (IM) citing security concerns, reports IM supplier ProcessOne.
The research noted that 88% of IT directors were concerned about the security risks created by employees using Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo Messenger and other IM services, with 56% citing the loss of sensitive business information as a primary concern.
Despite this, only 12% of those surveyed said that their company kept an audit trail of IM messages sent by employees using free public IM software.
The research also shows that 74% of those surveyed think IM could provide valuable collaboration benefits to their organization. According to ProcessOne, the research indicates that currently security fears are overriding the opportunity that U.K. businesses have to increase collaboration and business productivity.
"It is a shame that more businesses in the U.K. aren't taking advantage of the benefits that instant messaging can bring," said Mickaël Rémond, CEO of ProcessOne.
"Many organizations are torn between wanting to maximize security or gain collaboration and productivity benefits, and clearly maintaining security is winning at this point. However, businesses need to ask themselves whether taking such a knee-jerk reaction as completely banning the use of IM is really the best option for the company.
"Clearly, everyone recognizes the benefits that IM can bring. However, the challenge will be for businesses to look for strategies that enable them to reap the rewards without putting themselves at risk of a security breach," added Rémond.
Rising fuel prices increase cost of IT
IT departments are facing higher costs following a decision by the world's largest IT distributor to pass on the cost of rising fuel prices.
Ingram Micro has said it will charge its reseller partners for freight - an extra cost that willl inevitably be passed on to end users.
"Past practice has seen Ingram Micro absorb significant annual freight costs for shipping the products it distributes to resellers. Rapidly rising fuel costs mean that this practice can no longer be continued. Accordingly, Ingram Micro will from now on recover the full cost of freight by means of a freight charge on all [reseller] orders," the company said.
The cost of a
barrel of oil is rising, pushing up transportation prices. Crude oil is over $145 a barrel on world markets, compared to $90 in January, according to the AA fuel report for that month.
Doss Etter, director of external affairs at the
Freight Transport Association, said there has been a 40% increase in the price of diesel over the past year as a result of increasing oil costs.
"It is inevitable that the extra costs will be captured by an increased price," added Etter. He said transport costs probably make up 1% to 2% of the overall cost of high-value goods such as computers.
Stephen Alambritis, head of public affairs at the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) said the extra costs of transportation of products and services is already being passed on to businesses.
"They are feeling the pinch and are being charged more for receiving products," said Alambritis.
He said in a recent poll of FSB members, 90% said the rise in fuel costs were impacting their business enough for them to predict no business growth over the next 12 months. A total of 40% said if the fuel costs continued to increase they would have to lay off staff.
The FSB has called on the government to cancel the proposed 2p rise in fuel duty.
Goldmine for cybercriminals
Cybercriminals are not only using new technologies to propagate cybercrime, but are also turning to social engineering to snare victims.
According to Trend Micro's latest threat round-up and forecast report, the first six months of 2008 saw an upswing in web threats, but steady decreases in adware and spyware.
The tools and technologies used to create popular social networking sites have become a goldmine for cybercriminals, said Trend Micro.
In March, Trend Micro discovered that more than 400 phishing kits for generating phishing sites were targeting top Web 2.0 sites in the areas of social networking, video sharing and VoIP.
Recently, a new form of phishing e-mail warned about phishing e-mails before attempting to trick readers into clicking on a link that led to a fraudulent site.
Spammers are also recycling old techniques. In February, Trend Micro investigated a voice phishing ('vishing') attempt.
The voice message appeared convincing, with all links leading to legitimate target pages, but included a fraudulent phone number for recipients to call to reactivate their account, which had been supposedly placed on hold.
When they called the number, users were asked for their bank card number and Pin, unwittingly opening their bank accounts to the phishers.
Arrests predicted to increase in ‘08
An increasing number of bloggers are being arrested for criticizing governments and exposing human rights abuse, according to a report from the University of Washington.
Since 2003, 64 citizens have been arrested for expressing their views on a blog. In 2007 three times as many people were arrested for blogging about political issues than in 2006. Over half of the arrests in the last five years were made in China, Egypt and Iran.
The
report said the increasing number of arrests was evidence of the "growing" political importance of blogging. It found that arrests typically increase in times of "political uncertainty," like elections or large protests.
Many bloggers faced jail time after being arrested. The average prison sentence for blogging was 15 months. The longest sentence was eight years.
The actual number of bloggers who are arrested is probably higher, since many arrests in China, Zimbabwe, and Iran are not reported. For example the Committee to Protect Bloggers has released details about 344 people arrested in Burma, some who are thought to be bloggers.
The report said that many countries, possibly as many as 30, have implemented technological restrictions on what people can do online. In countries such as China this has made it challenging for people to use a blog as a way to protest.
The report estimated that the number of bloggers arrested in 2008 would surpass the 36 seen in 2007 due to the popularity of blogging, more enforcement of online restrictions, and elections in China, Pakistan, Iran and the U.S.
Economy doubts hit consumer technology retail
Consumer
spending on new technology is likely to plummet as consumers' confidence in the economy plunges to record lows, the British Retail Consortium - the retailers' trade body - said today.
British Retail Consortium (BRC) director general Stephen Robertson said one in five consumers, more than ever before, said consumers were reporting having no spare cash. "Clothes, footwear, furniture and new technology are the biggest casualties as consumers attempt to manage their money," he said.
Mike Watkins, senior manager of retailer services at
Nielsen, said the UK Consumer Confidence index was now at 79. "This time last year the index stood at 91, which was the lowest score we had seen since we began polling this survey in 2003. That the score is a further 12 points lower says how much consumers are being stretched," he said.
A survey last month by market research company Nielsen and the BRC asked over 1,000 consumers about their thoughts and feelings on job prospects, personal finances, spending intentions and major concerns.
People are most worried about the economy (31%), followed by debt (26%), work/life balance (20%) and immigration (16%).
It found 55% ranked inflation as their main concern while 39% said it was high interest rates. Sixty percent said job prospects were either not so good or bad compared with 50% in 2007. Fifty-seven percent now think that their own personal finances will be not so good or bad over the coming 12 months compared with 46% six months ago.
Security – Top 10 Mistakes
Security management has a lot to do with details — staying on top of the latest threats and patching flaws. But sometimes, it has more to do with the big picture and how you approach security management. Here are the top 10 security mistakes I've seen people make:
1. Trusting people: The biggest threat to your IT security is ALWAYS the trusted employee. This is especially true of executives because poor personal security practices are just as dangerous (or more dangerous) as having a dishonest employee. If you ever need to cite an example, remember that one former CIA director actually accessed "company" files from his unsecured home PC. President Bill Clinton had to give Director John Deutch a Presidential Pardon to prevent prosecution.
2. Thinking your OS/server/Web app/wireless network/whatever is already secure: Having confidence is a wonderful thing in business and life in general, but paranoia is KING in security.
3. Failure to confirm that your disaster recovery plan actually works: Is that backup comprehensive? Is it scheduled (and actually done!) frequently enough? Can you restore your business from those backup tapes? And, most critical of all, is the backup kept physically secure and physically separate from your servers?
4. Incorrectly prioritizing the protection of specific assets: Few of us have the resources to protect everything completely. In the real world, you need to know what the most important things are to your company so you can protect those assets the most. One size does NOT fit all.
5. Failing to convince upper management of the need for security -– especially integrated security: If management doesn't support your measures, you might as well just take your paycheck and ignore real security. You can't have real security if you just add it AFTER designing and developing your network and applications.
6. Forgetting that road warriors WILL use unsecured wireless access points: It doesn't matter what rules you make or how draconian the punishment, road warriors WILL ignore security rules when they feel it hurts their bottom line.
7. Not properly managing passwords: Make them long and easy to remember -– initial letters of words in a favorite quotation are often a good choice; final letters of those words are even better.
While we are on the subject of passwords, you need to balance the need to re-enter passwords against the fact that the more often users have to key them in, the simpler the passwords they will pick. Once a day is the minimum, but how about after lunch? Or each time a critical application or database is accessed? The answer is that it depends, and it is up to YOU to decide what it depends on.
Keeping passwords, even strong ones, for too long a time is a major mistake. Not only does this give attackers a lot of time to test your system, but once you're hacked, you'll remain vulnerable for a long time.
8. Supplying help desk support without thoroughly authenticating callers: Social engineering is still a serious threat.
9. Mistaking obscurity for security: People WILL find that Web page you think is hidden -– even if you don't have a search function. Many search engines let people search just a specific URL.
10. Writing down ALL your security measures and failing to properly secure that document: There's nothing like finding a guide to hacking a particular network. While you should write everything down, you have to protect that document better than anything else in your company.
