MJ's Business IT Blog

More Evidence of Increasing Cyber Threats

Following up on yesterday's post, I read an interesting post this morning about a new report from the FBI that shows a 33 percent increase in cybercrime last year, making 2008 the worst year yet for cybercrime.  2009 is already shaping up to take over that claim to fame.

According to the report, as well as information from Reuters, cybercrime climbed to an all time high of nearly $265 million in losses!  There were over 275,000 compaints filed, mostly fraud related and mostly having to do with auction sites and undelivered merchandise.  Interestingly, a Ponzi like online fraud is also one of the noted events.  Most of the cybercrime originates from the United States, Canada, Nigeria and China.  Identity theft is also listed as one of the main threats.

You may read the post here and more about the FBI report here.  All this underscores my post from yesterday that we must all be vigilant with our network security and take these threats seriously.

GhostNet Is A Real Concern

You may have heard some of the recent reports about a suspected international cyber-espionage ring called GhostNet.  Whether or not this is real or not is yet to be confirmed by the proper authorities, but there is mounting evidence to suggest that it is.  If the reports are correct, it is a network of nearly 1,300 compromised PC's across over 100 countries.  These may be personal, home computers, or business computers in a variety of company types.

Some of the reports strongly suggest that this cyber-espionage initiative has originated from China and is part of a larger cyber threat that China is developing as part of a military initiative.  Others suggest it is cyber-terrorism.  Whatever the case, if you are not concerned about something like this, you should be.

The reports suggest that this network of compromized computers has been growing since 2004, over 5 years!  The infected PC's show no signs of threat and are used to gather information from various sensitive sources, whether those be business or government and are assembling that infomation for some unkown purpose.  This could be sensationalized and it could be paranoia, but it certainly underscrores what IT professionals have been saying forever.  Security threats are real and need to be protected against.

I remember a client, years ago in the late 90's, who got Internet access and insisted they did not need a firewall.  Despite my protests and compelling information to back up my concerns, this client said no.  Until one day, they got a visit from a law enforcement official who informed them that one fo their computers was being used to attack a high profile web site.  My phone rang immediately after that visit and guess what, they implemented a firewall along with other defenses.

If GhostNet is real, it further confirms that proper network security is a must.  The cost of the remediation, not to mention the horrible PR, of your business being compromised by something like this pales in comparison to insuring that your network is properly secured and protected.

UNH Hockey Lives STRONG!!!!!

Another non-technology post, so I apologize, but yesterday afternoon two of my kids and I, along with thousands of others witnessed what may very well go down as the greatest men's hockey game in University of New Hampshire history.  I've been a UNH hockey fan since my days in Durham from 1982-1986.  Over that span, I've seen my share of great hockey games, but yesterday takes the cake.

UNH was the underdog number three seed in the matchup against the number two seed, the Fighting Sioux of the University of North Dakota.  UNH struck first, which everyone knew would be a huge boost to the team and the game that ensued was a hard fought one on both sides.  Some of today's media reports characterize UNH's win as a come from behind effort, but personally, I didn't see it that way.  It was a back and forth game with great play from both teams.  With 5.7 seconds left in the 3rd with UNH trailing 5-4, the faceoff was ruled into the North Dakota zone after a lengthy official review.  UNH Goalie Brian Foster was drifting far in front of the defensive circles, itching to get to the bench and give UNH the extra skater if it controlled the face off.  I took note of Coach Lassonde trying to motion Foster back further into the defensive zone and Foster straining forward against his Coach.  The crowd at Manchester, NH's Verizon Wireless Arena was loudly behind their home town Wildcats and the intensity of the moment was something you just had to experience.  UNH got control of the puck, Foster hit the bench and with 0.1, yes you are not misreading that, one tenth of a second on the game clock, UNH tied the game and forced overtime.  Just look at the picture I snapped of the scoreboard just before they posted UNH's tieing goal , it tells the whole story.  The place erupted like I've never seen or heard in all the games that UNH has played there over the years and I was so glad for the team and the fans.  It was poetic.  Just 45 seconds into overtime, Peter LeBlanc scored the game winner and sends UNH to the Northeast Regional Final this evening at 5:30 PM.  All NH is a buzz about the win.  My phone started buzzing the moment the tieing goal was scored, including a friend from OH who was hoping for an Ohio State upset for a UNH/Ohio State matchup, but that was not meant to be.  Instead, we face #1 overall seed BU.  Who knows what will happen.  What I do know is that I am grateful to live in a state that loves it's college hockey.  I grew up on the pros, watching the Boston Bruins in their hey day.  And while the Bruin's are turning Boston into a hockey town again, once I got the UNH Wildcat fever in me, I haven't looked back.  There is nothing like Division 1 college hockey.  We are very lucky to have a great University that supports a great hockey program, both men's and women's.  We are fortunate to have such excellent coaches and such great players.  They work hard and year after year put a top Division 1 team on the sheet.  UNH has one of the premiere college hockey programs in the nation and last night underscores that fact.  Check out this awesome post from the UNH Hockey Blogger and check out this fantastic video clip from last evening.  I can't say it any better.

Jenaly is going...GREEN

That's right, we're going GREEN.  We are proud to announce our membership in the Green Alliance.

Last week, at the direction of our own Ellen Sargent, we met with Sarah Brown, the dynamic and passionate Project Director of the Green Alliance to learn more about the organization and whether Jenaly was both a fit and candidly, a realistic business to be a member of an organization like this.

I must say, I was pleasantly surprised with Sarah's take on my concerns about Green IT.  Let's face it, IT is not necessary the most inherintly green industry out there.  We consume a ton of electricity, produce a lot of hazardous waste and contibute to a lot of wasteful practices, like post consumer waste and seemingly endless paper waste.

As we talked, I was impressed by the realization that the Green Alliance is about making good choices and about businesses that want to improve their environmental footprint and impact, even if they won't ever be able to meet some of the strictest standards.  It's about the intent, the sincerity and the willingness to do what you can to improve your operations and educate and help others.  We are doing this and will continue to do so.

We have taken several steps to move our business and that of our clients into greener territory.  We leverage virtualization to do more with less hardware, which translates to lower cooling and power needs and less waste in the long run.  We are moving to a paperless environment, even though our office manager is less than comfortable with the notion, but it's the right thing to do for a lot of reasons, including improving the overall integrity of how we manage and secure our records.  We have transitioned to solid ink print technology from Xerox Corporation, which produces dramatically less printer waste and we are leveraging emerging technologies like Intel VPro to reduce power consumption by computers yet still insure that we can perform the regular maintenance and updates required to keep the computers running well.  We have also done away with tape backup and the endless waste and unreliability of magnetic tape media.  We've also replaced most of our lighting with more energy efficient bulbs.

We're undertaking a serious effort to promote Green IT, greener business practices and awareness of the Green Alliance and the excellent work they are doing.  We're proud to be a new member and encourage you to check out their web site, blog and Facebook page.

I hope to post more about Jenaly's green initiatives in the future, so stay tuned.

Sharepoint Workspaces - Underutilized and Full of Potential

Almost every Microsoft Windows Server, beginning with Windows Server 2003 has a gem hidden within it, Sharepoint Services.  Sharepoint Services is a "lite" version of Microsoft's Sharepoint Portal Server product, however, don't let the "lite" fool you.

Sharepoint has a wealth of functionality available, more than I can possibly cover in a simple blog post, so I encourage you to browse the endless online resources related to Sharepoint technologies.  Document Libraries are one of the key pieced of Sharepoint that most people find easy to use and understand.

Somewhat of an extension of Document Libraries, Workspaces are like mini sub-sites of the primary Sharepoint site.  For example, a Marketing Workspace may contain documents, spreadsheets and other related files that are used by all those in the marketing department.  The powerful piece of this is not the simple storage of these documents but the fact that multiple users can collaborate on these files in real time and work together, remotely, in a secure web environment.  The system will also version the documents, so you know who has done what to the file.

It's intuitive and very efficient to work with.  I definitely recommend you check it out as I have yet to speak with a business that can not take advantage of this hidden little gem.

Some Wise Words For Our Times

While not IT related, I wanted to share a couple of articles I came across this morning that are both timely and insightful.  Warren Buffett was recently quoted as saying we are in a time of a crisis of fear, or something to that effect.  I personally believe this to be true.

Clearly these are unprecedented times, but at the same time, we all need to remain focused on the long term picture and look for the positive and not overly accentuate the negative.  This morning, I came across two articles that support this theory.  One published by the New York Times titled "How To Lead In Tough Times" and the other from the Family Business Institute titled "Be a strong, visionary leader in tough economic times".  I hope you find some value in one or both of these interesting articles.

Simple, Cost Effective Video Conferencing

In todays climate of closely watching expenses, video conferecing is seeing a surge in interest, as it can offset travel costs yet still provide a rich meeting experience.

We recently implemented a very cost effective solution using Polycom and Sony equipment to connect two offices for a client.  This client spends a significant amount of money on travel expenses for personnel to travel between the two offices, which can happen as frequently as one or two times a week.  To improve efficiency and allow for meetings to happen with less difficulty in scheduling and less cost in travel, we designed a solution using Sony Bravia 42" LCD TV's and Polycom V500 video conferencing cameras connected across a secure and encrypted VPN tunnel between the two offices.

The setup is clean and quite elegant for the users.  It's as simple as powering up the equipment and initiating the interoffice connection.  The remote end immediately connects and both audio and video flow, providing a more personal meeting experience and also saving on the cost of long distance phone calls as the audio is also flowing across the secure connection.

While it may cost several thousand dollars to implement a system like this, the savings may be several times that, in just a few short months.  Regardless of the economic climate, video conferencing is a technology well worth considering.

Excellent Social Media Article

If you regularly read this blog, you know that I update my Twitter status almost daily and post to this blog as often as I find useful information to share.  You may also know that I am a fan of the Getting Things Done methodology developed by the David Allen Company.

There is a great article about social media in Business Week today.  You may read the article online here.  As I was reading this, I thought that this article really should talk about time management too and how Getting Things Done is a good time management methodology.  I hadn't taken note of the author when I began reading the article, but when I got to then, I saw that it's written by David Allen, so no wonder I had that thought.

If you're interested in social networking sites and time management, this is a good article to read.

More Fuel for the Netbook Fire

InformationWeek has an interesting article today that you can read online here, talking about how both Apple and Microsoft are potentially getting in to the netbook business.  The resources of these two major technology companies will surely change the landscape of this emerging class of portable computers.  You may want to scroll down to my posts on this topic on the 3rd and 6th of this month as well.  This will be an interesting space to keep an eye on.

Following Up On Netbooks

Following up on my post from the 3rd about netbooks, I have written my latest column for The Portsmouth Herald on the subject as well.  You may read my latest column here.  Have a nice weekend.