As P. T. Barnum might put it, there’s a sucker born every minute and a new net user every second. There is never a shortage of targets on a network of a billion users.  And the criminals have developed new scams to trap the net-savvy who won’t fall for the old “click here to verify your account” email scam.  Today, phishing schemes have gotten more sophisticated, and criminals have developed a “scam for every end-user.”

Lost or stolen data is probably the IT manager’s worst nightmare. The problems are real, the consequences are extremely serious, and if you do nothing about it, the likelihood of this happening to your company is increasing. Software-based approaches cannot provide the security required for a totally reliable protection. Hardware-based solutions used to establish a strong digital identity for both computer systems and users take security to a higher level.

Why Records Management?
Recent events are changing the corporate e-discovery climate, causing some business leaders to question the effectiveness of an ad-hoc, “on-the-fly” approach. As high profile cases, including Qualcomm (“Qualcomm and Attorneys Sanctioned for ‘Monumental’ E-Discovery Violations,” Findlaw, 2008  ) and Morgan Stanley (“Morgan Stanley to Pay Millions for E-Mail Mismanagement,” E-Discovery Law, September 2007), have highlighted, waiting until the subpoena arrives and assuming that IT can quickly and easily make the requested materials available--and have the ability to preserve them--is an increasingly tricky bet.

Today’s business environment is more dynamic than ever. As companies seek to provide local services and products on a global scale, they need to be able to deliver information quickly and seamlessly to a workforce that is growing increasingly distributed. IT organizations must adapt to this accelerating business growth and ensure that employees have the tools and information they need to bring products to market—no matter where the supply chain ends and the customer experience begins.

Trust, according to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, is assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something. While trusting your computer can seem like somewhat of an oxymoron, anyone who has been a victim of a computer virus, worm or other malware should certainly appreciate an industry effort to provide an approach to avoid these activities and provide more consistent behavior from their computer. With these goals in mind, the Trusted Computing Group (TCG) was established to develop specifications for trusted computing building blocks and software interfaces that could be incorporated across multiple platforms without compromising the functional integrity of the computer, or privacy and individual rights of the owner. Since critical information is stored or accessible by several means in an enterprise, trust must extend to more components than just the computer.

By Bill Carey, Siber Systems

It sounds counterintuitive, but the idea that strong passwords can actually decrease network security is actually quite simple.

A computer user can be reasonably expected to remember one strong password. “H6u;Y0nc” is a lot more cumbersome than “password,” but after a little bit of work the user’s muscle memory takes over and the odd password flies off the finger tips. Strong passwords take a little while to master, but they’re a lot harder for a hacker to guess!