Social networking, security and your business

You know that social networking is an important communication tool these days and that it can be a vital business and personal tool. You must also then know that your staff are most likely to be involved with it, you don’t have to take our word for it. Go look at the traffic stats for your company and see what sites people visit during a day. Did you know that half the users of Facebook log in on any given day so most likely logs on during working hours. Social networking can have business benefits, but it brings with it serious risks too. As more and more people use it, the risks increase and ignoring them becomes potentially dangerous.

Business benefits
You’ve all heard the one about, if Facebook were a country, it would be the third largest in the world. No wonder it’s an attractive target for company PR and marketing. But social networking goes beyond traditional ‘push’ advertising by opening up a two-way channel between customers and companies. It is therefore a great source of ideas, feedback and a viable option for customer service. It can even provide a route to market for some businesses.
For many young people now entering the workforce; social media has replaced email and the telephone as their primary means of communication with friends. Those bright young graduates you want to recruit may not work for your company if you destroy their social lives by banning Facebook or Twitter! They see access to these services as something close to a basic human right. Their online relationships can have a business benefit too. For example, a vibrant social network around your company can make it attractive to new recruits and it can see new staff settle in more quickly. Similarly, it helps HR with recruitment. For many users and companies, LinkedIn is a kind of CV exchange and services such as
Employees use their networks and online connections to get support for their work. It can act like an informal technical support or training system. Companies like Microsoft encourage their staff to create blogs and interact with customers, informally mixing support, market research.

The Downside
Online criminals are always quick to exploit any popular activity to make money. Social networking is especially attractive because it exploits trust between friends and it is inherently viral by nature. Social networking is easy and fun, with a variety of apps that enable you to interact with friends and play games. So users are very open to seeing new things on social networking that they need to click on and install in order to participate in some kind of activity. For malware writers, it’s a goldmine! Malware distributors are constantly looking for new ways to distribute malware, with their new weapon of choice being malicious apps, which are similar to old-style email worms so that they infect your friends.
Using custom-written malware, criminals or corporate spies trick people into installing virtually undetectable spyware on their computers. Social networks make it much easier to discover corporate hierarchies, groups of friends and so can make targeting personal and professional interests easier, and so makes it much easier to craft an irresistible message containing a Trojan and puts companies at serious risk of data theft.
Social networking teaches users to click on links in emails, making malicious spoof emails even more attractive. There are plenty of opportunities for indiscretion on social networking sites.  Employees, even senior managers, may feel more relaxed about public pronouncements on social networking sites or on their blogs than they would in a press release. Employees don’t always think about what they say or do online. Certainly, most companies don’t vet people’s blog comments before they are published, in the way that they check official pronouncements, something to think about!.
Because people tend to over-share information on social networking sites, criminals and malicious hackers can put together a profile of their victims. They can use this to send targeted spyware attacks. Corporate rivals and other predators can use social networking information to understand the internal workings of your company.
Just as email spam is costly to filter and time-consuming to deal with manually, social networking spam is increasingly a problem. It can waste people’s time and contribute to other problems, such as malware attacks. An example, even though Twitter has improved its internal spam filtering, in 2010, one tweet in a hundred is spam; that’s something like 650,000 spam messages a day. If spam rates increase to the levels of email spam (where 90% of all messages are unwanted), then social networking could drown itself and its users.

A Solution
Businesses have to take a strong, proactive approach to social media, including monitoring, protecting and deciding how social media information flows through an organisation. This is not a problem that will diminish or go away if you ignore it. It is essential to review and update your company policies to take account of social networking sites and their use. In particular, an acceptable use policy can help employees understand that they are ambassadors for the company online and explain what is and isn’t permissible in terms of speaking for and about the company and what kinds of information they can share publicly.
Back this up with technology to notify employees when they try to send confidential data outside of the company. Accumulating data about the social media sites employees visit and when they visit them will help you understand the scale of the issue within your company. However, the Data Protection Acts state that employees are entitled to a degree of privacy at work. Similarly, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 limits your ability to monitor or record employee communications. Monitoring on an individual basis is therefore more problematic – get proper legal advice before you start.
With more and more people working on laptops, iPads and home working on home computers, it is important to make sure that any systems you put in place for office-based employees also extends to people who work outside the office so that everyone is treated consistently and that there are no short circuits.
If you are prepared, understand that social media has its place and is certainly a very useful business tool you’re more likely to use security technology to underpin, support and enforce your social networking policy and to make sure that employees can use it safely. Comprehensive, cost-effective, security software is a must and you must make sure your company has them in place. Remember too, if your company is using a cloud based service to make sure your anti-virus solutions are scanning website requests in real time to give you an extra level of protection against malware on social networking sites.
Social media is huge and the growth of smart-phone ownership is fuelling that growth. With half the internet use in the UK coming via smart-phones, we businesses need to make sure we take our heads out of the sand and embrace it. Embrace its potential, be aware of the issues and be one or two steps a head of the criminals

How Cool is that!

New Audi ad plays with the iPad’s “Slide to Unlock”
[Quote: www.thenextweb.com]

Great, inovative use of techology in advertising is with us!

Audi Magazine Slide Track (Eng) from AlmapBBDO Internet on Vimeo.

How about MacDonalds and their interactive Billboard! Watch this!

Alchemy – National Skill Set – Local Knowledge

We are expert at understanding and integrating new technologies, products and services with existing systems and processes. Alchemy have developed a unique range of market-leading IT and Communications products to help businesses of all sizes achieve their goals!

Alchemy Systems
Orchard Units
Duchy Road
Heathpark Industrial Estate
Honiton
EX14 1YD

Tel: 01404 42882
Fax: 08707 059569
Email: sales@alchemysys.co.uk

…and to my wife; I leave my Facebook password

Come on, admit it! Have you ever thought about leaving internet passwords in your will? Have your family, wife, husband, kids got any idea as to how to get into your online bank or Facebook account?

In a new survey by Goldsmiths at the University of London states, only one in 10 people in the UK now leave thier “Digital Indentity” in their will.

A “Digital Indentity” is the electronic representation of a real-world entity. The term is usually taken to mean “the online equivalent of an individual human being”  However a broader definition also assigns digital identities to organizations, companies and even individual electronic devices.

Various complex questions of privacy, ownership and security now surround the issue of digital identity. At a personal level, growing numbers of people want their digital identities to be controlled after they are gone. They also want their families to have access to personal photos and home videos which are now more commonly being stored in the cloud, rather in a physical album at home. With more photos, books, music and so on being stored online and in digital format, the question of what happens to these when people are gone becomes more important every day.

The European Union is currently working on enshrining a “right to be forgotten online”. Viviane Reding, the EU justice commissioner, who is proposing the law, said earlier this year: “I want to explicitly clarify that people shall have the right – and not only the possibility – to withdraw their consent to data processing. What about a right to be remembered?

Anyone with teenage children will know that websites such as Facebook are essential parts of their day. Our children; having grown-up knowing nothing else but the internet are storing up a whole life online. The need for school reunions has gone! My children have no reason at all to loose touch with any school friend they really want to stay in touch with! Their whole life will be available to them online by the ‘Wall Posts’ they make. Their online time-line will be the whole of their lives, their “Digital Identity” will almost be there identity. Who’s going to look after it?

And it’s not just Facebook this concern is aimed at. With a move to the cloud and mobile based computing, and with more and more services, functions, daily activities haeading to the cloud, how are we to trust with our legacy? Who can we trust with anything on the cloud?

If you have concerns about the “Digital Identity” of your businesses data, about the legacy of it and what might happen to it, or just how to go about it  Check out our website or give us a call.

“Our engineers and technicians are certified and accredited with the world’s major suppliers such as IBM, HP, Microsoft, Cisco, VMware and Citrix allowing them to configure, install and support a full range of equipment. However, it is the relationships we have forged with our customers that are most important to us, many of whom now see us as their Outsourced IT Department”

How to contact us
Alchemy Systems
Orchard Units
Duchy Road
Heathpark Industrial Estate
Honiton
EX14 1YD

Tel: 01404 42882
Fax: 08707 059569
Email: sales@alchemysys.co.uk

Come Hell or High Water

Quote: “The Age” www.theage.co.au

“Australians are among more than 15,000 tourists trapped on holiday islands after storms and floods hit southern Thailand, killing 21 people and destroying villages. Victims were either swept away by the rising waters, or buried in mudslides as the unseasonably wet weather deluged the homes and businesses of around a million people in what should be one of the hottest months of the year.”

Alas not a too unusual quote. Thailand’s worst floods in half a century have killed nearly 400 people since mid-July [Quote from Reuters] Thailand’s capital; Bangkok, a  city of 12 million people is on heightened alert because of threats on two fronts — a seasonal high tide this weekend that is expected to coincide with the arrival of a mass of water from the flood-stricken central plains.

This time, this tragedy, this disaster has effects rippling out around the globe and will affect us all. Many industries now rely on output  from Thailand and, not surprisingly thecountries output has all-but ceased. The worlds electronic industry relies heavily on Thailand’s output.

• Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook says he is “virtually certain there will be an overall industry shortage of disk drives.” Cook warns that Apple’s Mac
  lines will be most affected.
• Seagate Technology PLC, (Hard Drives), says its factories in Thailand have been operational, but it may have difficulty making
• hard drives because of constraints in getting parts.
• Western Digital Corp, (Hard Drives) says flooding damage to its Thailand locations will have a significant impact on its operations and its ability to meet customer demand the rest of the year.
• Emulex Corp. (Data Storage) says a subcontracted manufacturing facility has suspended operations due to flooding.
• Fabrinet, (parts for optical, electro-mechanical and electronic manufacturing companies), says it expects its plants to remain closed through the rest of the quarter.
• Emcore Corp, (semiconductor-based components), says flooding penetrated a contractor’s production facility over the weekend, submerging some equipment and it’s ramping up production in China and other areas.

In an update recently, Toshiba said that water is two meters high on the site and the surrounding area, and more than one meter deep in the buildings at its hard disk facility. The company started alternative production at other factories, but said “the production volume will be limited by available capacity”.

It seems that Hard Drive supplies have been very hard hit, it’s said shipments in the fourth quarter will decline to 125 million units, down 27.7 percent from 173 million in the third quarter. The result in this significant shortage of HDDs is going to mean only one thing, an increase in price of about 10 percent compared to third quarter prices.

The HDD plants affected by the flooding make devices designed for mobile computers, but disruption to notebook shipments in 2011 is not expected, as the PC industry appears to have sufficient stockpiles to last through the fourth quarter. With HDD production disruptions expected to last at least six months, the shortage could impact notebook PC production in the first quarter of 2012.

The floods in Thailand may also cost Western Digital its top position in the HDD market. In the quarter to July 1, Western Digital shipped about 54 million hard drives from its facilities in Thailand and Malaysia, with about 60 percent coming from its sites in Thailand.Given the direct impact of the disaster on its operations, Western Digital is likely to lose its status as the world’s largest shipper of HDDs, with its rank expected to fall to third in the fourth quarter.

The floods will also have ongoing effects on the Thai camera manufacturing operations of Sony, Nikon and Canon.  The supply issues are anticipated to  mean a drop in overall camera shipments in the fourth quarter and possibly in the first quarter of 2012. Sony said last month that it was forced to postpone the launch of its new “NEX-7″ high-end portable digital camera and cut production of another because a factory in Thailand was affected by the flooding.

With floodwaters edging closer to the door-ways of Bangkok, the political and human costs of the country’s worst floods in over five decades are fast becoming evident. Over here in the west we all could do well to cast an eye towards Thailand and help in any way we can. This Asian disaster is our disaster too. Thailand’s economy supports all our economies and the high water hell they are suffering now, could become our economic hell very soon.

Our thoughts are with the people of Thailand

Third-World Internet Country

 China overtaking US for fast internet access as Africa gets left behind - 300 million people in the world have high-speed lines but the gap is growing. (Richard Wray, communications editor The Guardian, Thursday 14 June 2007)

UK is at risk of being left behind (Think Broadband – June 2010)
The UK is at risk of being left behind if it doesn’t rapidly increase its fibre broadband rollout according the Fiber-to-the-Home Council. The UK has only 5,000 homes connected to directly with fibre connections to the home, rising to 2.5 million in Europe, whilst the Far East steams ahead with 38 million connections.
The Next Generation of high speed internet access is likely to come from Fibre Broadband that could deliver broadband speeds of around 100Mb!

BT Press Release Today!
BT today announced two thirds of UK premises will have access to fibre broadband by the end of 2014, one year ahead of its original target of 2015. To help achieve this, BT will recruit a further 520 engineers to assist with the deployment, most of whom will be ex-armed forces.

BT is bringing forward approximately £300 million of investment over the next few years to fund the accelerated roll-out. These funds form part of BT’s total investment of £2.5 billion in commercial fibre broadband.

The acceleration will help the government achieve its ambition of having the best super-fast broadband network in Europe by 2015. The widespread availability of super-fast broadband is expected to help stimulate the UK economy, drive regional growth and please many communities who are keen to experience the benefits of the technology.

Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport said: “Superfast broadband is essential for achieving sustainable growth and it is vital that homes and businesses have access to it as soon as possible.

Fibre Broadband is slowly gaining momentum with the realisation that the UK is going to need this as the next step for high speed Internet access so as not to fall behind other countries.
Fibre Broadband uses Fibre Optic cable to deliver data and is able to deliver it faster and also much more of it than can be done with the existing copper wires currently in use.
Fibre Broadband is the next step in the evolution of broadband and high speed Internet and looks to be the only real way to be able to comfortably cope with users demands. As faster speeds become available people are needing far transferring far more data.
According to a report from the FCC, a single twisted copper pair can deal with 6 phone calls compared to a single fibre pair that can cope with 2.5 million phone calls!

Will we ever be able to keep net speeds up to what the world wants and says it needs? Last year the Telegraph said: Record number of young people leaving countryside due to slow internet speeds. Village life is in danger of dying out as a record number of young people desert the countryside because of a lack of modern services like faster internet speeds, the Government’s rural tsar has warned.

In-Cumbria.com quote: “COMPANIES are not moving to rural Cumbria because of a lack of basic infrastructure.
The claim was made by Douglas Chalmers at one of the last agricultural shows of the year.
Mr Chalmers is director of the Country, Land and Business Association.”

With the UK’s ever increasing demands of the net, for business as well as for personal use and BT only promising us two-thirds fibre coverage and only by 2014  will the UK become a “Third-world internet country” in the mean-time?

If you think you need more speed from your internet connection – give us a call! sales@alchemysys.co.uk

 

 

 

 

 

ADSL and SDSL issues

Not for the first time – BT have  had major ADSL and SDSL issues lately. The circuit is now cleared, it was caused by a routing issue within the BT Wholesale network which affected multiple ISP’s. We suggest affected clients conduct a quick router reboot of any circuits which have not come back up. If the circuit still doesn’t come back up please report it to your support desk.

Alchemy highly recommend back-up circuits for all customer’s where uptime is important. These cost from as little as £6.00 per month. Alternatively Ethernet circuits are designed for customers whose internet access is critical for their business as they are highly reliable, either being delivered over Fibre or over multiple copper pairs and have a comprehensive 99.93% SLA and market leading SLG’s. EFM Ethernet costs from £160.00 per month with a free connection offer currently running until the end of this month.

Contact sales@alchemysys.co.uk

iOS 5

Apple’s newest operating system update to the iPhone, the iPad and the iPod Touch, called iOS 5, is available to download from today!

Have they?
Among the nearly 200 new features to iOS5 are some pretty big ones – such as the reworked notifications system. It was widely agreed that the iPhone and its extended family handled notifications very poorly. An example might be that should say a text arrive whilst you were playing a game then the text would interrupt everything and place a message in the middle of the screen. Alerts that arrived when your device was inactive caused a different problem: unlock the screen without thinking and the notifications would disappear, leaving you wondering which app required your attention. None of these are earth-shatterring problems but upset the user exoerience

Gone is the ‘Notification Centre’ concept and in comes an idea Android users will be very familiar with; ie the swipe down from the top of your screen. You’ll see all of the notifications that require your attention and more than that, extras such as Weather reports, stock prices, and the like can be held in there.

More toys include the ability to ‘unlock’ a notification itself and go straight to the relevant app and the very smart way that notifications roll in at the top of the screen while you’re doing something else are all very sharp, very crisp!

Should you wish; the notification Centre can be customised to show a scrolling ‘ticker’ style presentation of say your share prices, the local weather and, or notifications from the phone, email, text messages, even your Facebook, and Twitter messages Previews of messages and e-mails are shown, and the notification can be acted upon by tapping it.

Camera and Photos
Is the iphone camera in iOS5 ahead of the game or just catching-up with Android phones such as the Galaxt SII? Two things which will make it way easier to take a picture on your iPhone in iOS 5 are the hardware shutter and lock-screen camera access. The hardware button is actually the volume-up button! Features include Android familiar functions such as pinch-to-zoom, single-tap focus, exposure locks and grid overlay. In the Photos app, you can perform edits like cropping, auto-enhance or red-eye removal, and create your own albums – time will tell!

PC Free and Wi-Fi Sync
You can now setup and manage your device completely from the device itself under iOS 5. 

Safari
New to Safari are actual tabs on the iPad, which make browsing much easier, and Reading List/Reader view

Mail and Calendar
HTML-formatted composition makes its way to Mail in iOS 5, as does message flagging and mailbox folder management.

iCloud
A huge part of iOS 5 is iCloud. iCloud replaces MobileMe and provides free syncing of email, contacts, calendars and more for all iOS 5 and Mac OS X Lion users. Later, iCloud will also provide the ground work for iTunes Match, Apple’s cloud music service.

Apple’s new iPhone may have stolen the show today, but iOS 5 is great even for Apple device owners who aren’t planning a hardware upgrade anytime soon.

Feedback so far

Downloading today means that jo-public hasn’t had time enough to say. I did find this on the net from Steve Kovach. Steve Kovach is editor of SAI: Tools at Business Insider. He writes reviews and advice for gadgets, apps, and consumer tech and he spent a week with the beta version of iOS 5 on his iPhone 4.

“Bottom line: I still think it’s awesome. And still the best mobile OS around by a longshot. But that doesn’t mean it’s without flaws. Apple neglected to announce several features we were hoping forsuch as voice control and better multitasking.”

Click here for more from Steve

Tell us your experiences!