Posted on Tue, Mar 09, 2010 @ 04:17 PM
Did you know that a Wi-Fi connection uses a radio link to connect to the Internet or other computers and the connection is not guaranteed to be secure?
What it boils down to is luck. If you are lucky, the Wi-Fi connection you find in a hotel or airport will be safe. If you are lucky, no hackers will be sitting around waiting for easy prey to pop on the Wi-Fi connection you found. Are you willing to risk the safety of your company and the data on your computer just to check in online while you are on the go?
Don’t compromise the security of your data for FREE Internet! It is all too easy to find a wireless hotspot these days. Coffee shops and restaurants even post signs in their front windows to advertise FREE Internet connections. Follow these 4 Wi-Fi safety tips and protect yourself against clever thieves.
1. Disable your wireless card’s ad-hoc (peer-to-peer) mode now! If you don’t know what an ad-hoc connection is, you probably don’t use it. Ad-hoc sometimes called computer-to-computer networking, allows two computers to be linked together. This type of connection may be used during a meeting to share documents or an Internet connection. Turning off this feature on your laptop will prevent hackers from connecting directly to your computer to steal data.
2. Assume you are being monitored by hackers on all free Wi-Fi connections. You can never really be sure if your connection is encrypted or secure when you do not have control over the connection. Turn on your firewall to protect yourself from computer-savvy hackers just waiting to break into your computer, browse your unprotected files or watch your online activity.
3. Don’t connect to your work computer without a Virtual Private Network (VPN). On an unencrypted connection, hackers can easily follow your actions and even hitch a ride with you right into your company’s system if you do not use a VPN. The worst part, businesses usually don’t know that their networks have been breached until it is too late. A VPN allows you to access your internal network or computer at the office using the Internet but through an encrypted tunnel so you don’t have to rely on the hotspot’s security to keep you safe.
What if you need to process a few payments online? While many companies, banks, and online shopping establishments now enforce stringent security policies, be aware that your email providers relaxed regulations could be dangerous. Even emailed financial information on a free Wi-Fi connection can be intercepted. Unfortunately, this kind of theft is difficult to track and even harder to prove. So, be careful out there!
4. Turn off your laptop’s wireless capabilities when you are not using them,
especially when traveling. Most laptops search for Wi-Fi signals automatically and the connection could stay open even when you store your laptop in your shoulder bag to eat a meal at the airport or board a plane. Hackers look for computers that are connected but show no activity so they can dive in and take advantage of the free data buffet. Don’t leave your computer open for hackers to stop in for a bite.
A friend in your corner… If you need help preparing your laptop for your next business trip, give us a call. We can help you turn off the ad-hoc connection, turn on your firewall, and determine if your connection to the office is secure. Don’t risk your company or personal data on a free Wi-Fi connection while you are away from the office.
Posted on Fri, Jun 19, 2009 @ 02:04 PM
As regulatory compliance laws for the financial industry have steadily increased it has triggered an avalanche of email archiving products over the last 10 years. The need for businesses to retain email for legal discovery is driving a new wave of enhancements in the e-Discovery market. xur4yiczj7
regardless if it's a high-profile, high-penalty court cases involving corporate defendants, or simply the amount of data storage that email and its attachments eat up, storage managers are increasingly putting email archiving at the top of their priority lists.
Email archiving is not just for financial companies anymore we are finding companies from manufacturing, healhtcare, legal, entertainment are all wanting to archive email, for regulatory issues, disater recovery or just to cover them selves from disgruntled employees or frivolous law suites.
One challenge for companies is identifying an email archiving policy that makes sense. Saving everything does not, experts say. Having an email retention and deletion policy for email that is based on preservation dates set by state and federal regulations, for example, is a good starting point. Once a litigation hold is placed, or an e-discovery request is made, a company must often change that policy, and start retaining many more documents. But a company is not likely to be held liable for emails or attachments that were eliminated as part of a reasonable retention and deletion policy prior to the existence of a litigation hold -- as long as it was applied regularly across the board without exception.
Best practices for email archiving often start with the prickly issue of establishing retention policies for users. The shorter the retention period, the harder it will be to enforce. A 90-day retention policy, for instance, sounds good in theory, until users balk and seek out other ways to save what they consider important emails.
We at TMS have had a lot of experience it writing and implementing such policies with our clients or any other policies such as Acceptable use, Disater recovery and many more. please inquire with us if your company needs such services.
If you like this article or found it helpful please post a comment or submit to one or more of the above services (Digg, Delcious, Redit, Facebook etc.)