Hackers Go After Small Business!

August 7, 2012

Computer hackers are focusing more on small businesses than ever before, with more than a third of targeted attacks aimed at companies with fewer than 250 employees, says a new report.

The percentage of attacks on small business in the first six months of 2012 is double that of the same period in 2011, according to the report from security software provider Symantec. The company said it blocked an average of 58 attacks per day aimed at small businesses in the first half of the year. Daily attacks on all businesses leaped 24 percent to around 154.

Prime Targets

Companies in the defense industry are cybercriminals' top targets, followed by chemical, pharmaceutical and manufacturing firms. If you're a small company with large company partners or customers, you are a particularly tempting target; hackers know that small firms often are the weakest link in the security chain, and thus use them to gain access to their partners' or customers' data. (Large companies with more than 2,500 employees remain the most popular targets: They account for 44 percent of all targeted attacks.)

Defining a 'Targeted Attack'

What's a targeted attack? Pretty much what it sounds like: An attack that's customized for a specific company and its vulnerabilities. Hackers will use publicly available information—or in some cases, information stolen from other companies—to create e-mails with malicious attachments they hope have a better chance of tricking employees into opening them. This technique, called social engineering, is sophisticated enough that just warning employees about thinking twice about opening e-mails with attachments is not enough.

Staying Safe

What can you do? The report puts some of the blame squarely on small businesses, saying that many are not taking the basic safety precautions that would help them keep out cybercriminals.

Kevin Haley, director of Symantec's Security Response unit told PC World: "[Small businesses] are not prepared, because they don't think they have to be, and that's left them vulnerable."

And Eric Maiwald, an analyst for Gartner says that "SMBs [small and mid-size businesses] tend not to have the resources to implement the same types of security programs large enterprises do."

But small businesses often are not taking even the simplest (and cheapest) of precautions, such as making sure all software is up-to-date and patched. If there is a known crack in the software and you haven't spackled it, you're basically leaving the back door open.

Haley added that "They don't have to be genius hackers, because a lot of small businesses are not taking the basic steps to protect themselves."

How to boost the efficiency of your warehouse

When it comes to a successful supply chain process, warehouse efficiency is a critical key to success. From design to management, an efficient warehouse can improve safety, efficiency and overall quality of a company’s supply chain. While there are many ways to streamline the warehouse-related components of an effective supply chain, we’ll briefly examine a few design and management ideas below.

Design upgrades
Without question, meeting the highest safety and health standards must be part of the warehouse design process from the very start. Location, occupancy, function and potential dangers must all be considered, in addition to the impact of environmental issues, waste disposal, site drainage and neighboring businesses or residences.

Flooring is an important key to warehouse design. What type of floor will best match the specific demands of your warehouse? The best floor will offer the least maintenance while providing the greatest flexibility, performance and safety.
With an increasing amount of products on the market—especially Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) and chemicals—cold storage has become a necessity in many warehouses.

While it may not seem obvious to consider doors in warehouse design, they are a highly relevant component of warehouse efficiency. Doors are in operation constantly and each must provide the best fit for its sole purpose. Will they be used internally or externally? Is insulation required? How heavy is the traffic pattern? Do they meet safety standards?

Improvement management
Keeping machinery in proper running order through scheduled maintenance will save time, money and frustration over the long term. Keep all equipment, such as lifts, in good repair. Don’t neglect regularly scheduled updates and maintenance, especially in regards to machinery that will slow or even stop production if it breaks.

Carve out time to interact with and motivate employees. A short motivational boost can exponentially increase worker morale and consequently, their productivity. Be aware of factors that cause boredom and demotivation.

Encourage a healthy sense of competition among the different zones, facilities and departments by publishing metrics for everyone to see. What types of incentives and rewards can be used to increase overall productivity?
Be sure to have plenty of supplies such as carts, tape, totes, pallets and batteries on hand. Keep track of when items are low and restock regularly.
Minimize how often items are touched in your processes. Consider taking away staging areas and unload, receive and put products away with a single touch. Don’t pick and stage, but live load instead.

The efficiency of a warehouse depends on a wide and varied number of factors. From seemingly simple design issues such as climate, doors and floors to the more complex areas such as meeting safety and health regulations—smart warehouse management and a well-planned design are key for optimal supply chain results. Pay attention to your workers and keep them motivated, invested and interested. Their commitment to the warehouse will inevitably result in the higher production you’re aiming for.
Pete Kontakos is a contributor from Michigan State University.

What biz leaders can learn from astronauts

By Shelley DuBois, writer

Former astronaut Jeffrey Ashby discusses what it takes to make last-minute judgment calls in space and building a solid team.

 

FORTUNE -- The corner office can be a high-pressure environment, but imagine calling the shots in a cramped shuttle in orbit 100 kilometers above the planet.
Jeffrey Ashby made some split-second decisions while space-sick and weightless. He was commander of the shuttle Atlantis on its 2002 mission to bring equipment to the International Space Station. He made the tough choice to manually dock Atlantis to the Space Station, bucking protocol, when he feared the mission might fail.

Yet he felt confident, he says, because of the chemistry he built with his team during the nine months prior to launch. Ashby insisted that his group complete a grueling outdoor course with National Outdoor Leadership School in southeastern Utah's desolate canyon country.

Ashby's resume reads like the dreams of a third-grader: he flew jets in the Navy and commanded a squadron of fighter pilots before he became an astronaut. He's seen our planet from space three times. For now, the career of 58-year-old Ashby has taken a more terrestrial turn. Ashby is the Chief of Mission Assurance for Blue Origin, a company that aims to make commercial space flight affordable. Ashby talked to Fortune about leadership in the Final Frontier at a recent conference at the Wharton School.

Fortune: You don't seem to be afraid of leading in life-threatening situations. So, what scares you?

Jeffrey Ashby: A lot of people ask if I'm afraid during a launch. My stock answer is, not of dying, because you've sort of accepted your destiny at that point, but I am afraid of making a mistake that will either cost lives or cost the mission. Alan Shepard started a tradition where, on the way up to the launch pad, the astronauts recite the astronaut prayer, which is, "Please God, don't let us screw this up."

That is a very team-oriented philosophy to apply in a scary situation.

Oh. I mean, if you put yourself above the cause and your team, you will eventually fail. I see leaders who are screamers, who lead by fear, and that's all ego-driven. You have to be selfless to be a truly great leader. That kind of leader, people will follow, and even if they don't agree with decisions, they'll disagree and commit.

Don't the problems that business leaders face from the safety of their offices seem relatively minor?

No. We all have different sets of talents. I happen to be pretty good at flying off of aircraft carriers and, I like to think, flying shuttles.

Those are inherently more badass than most talents.

Well, they certainly look badass on paper, but you know, I look at my resume, and I'm proud of what I've done, but also recognize that there's a lot of things that I'm not the best person to do. Leaders need to recognize where their strengths and weaknesses are, and where the weaknesses are, they really want active followers to step up and help cover them.

For example, Pam [Melroy] and I were co-leaders one day in the canyons. I got dehydrated. I looked at her, and I said, 'Pam, I feel really bad. You need to be the leader until I can regroup.' Of course, Pam didn't bat an eye. That was a very powerful lesson for me. For a man especially, for a fighter pilot more so. But what a great lesson, to swallow my pride and see how well it comes out, and go, 'Man, maybe I should do that more often.'

You've spoken about how Melroy helped in the crucial decision aboard the Atlantis to manually dock the spaceship at the International Space Station. How did your crew work together?

They key was that she knew me and could tell that I was vacillating. The obvious choice was to do what we were trained to do. She knew it was my decision, and so did every person on that crew. They all fed me information to let me know a) we had enough capability on the crew to pull off a manual rendezvous and b) that it was okay with them. I mean, that is powerful. And it came from a team that had been built only nine months before.

Will you fly again?

I will, but in a new private space vehicle. I'm telling everyone that I'm number one to fly at the little company I work at, and I won't go unless I think it's safe. I'm there to represent the safety of the human beings, so no one else should fly until I do.

Why does space travel matter to humankind?

I think, and this is my personal belief now, that space is written in our DNA as a survival mechanism. It can ignite passion in us when properly incited. I think that we see that passion ebb and flow in society and individuals as they go through their lives and they have other priorities.

Will I go to space?

I would say with near certainty, yes. You'll fly some day. What you should strive for -- because the suborbital thing is easy for you, right? -- is an orbital flight. First of all, you're two to three times as high. You're going to sit there and cross over lines of thunderstorms and the lights of cities and plumes of the Amazon flowing into the ocean. You'll see the Rocky Mountains as a series of tiny little bumps on the surface of the earth. And you'll see the great forests as little strips of green. You'll look at the atmosphere, this thin little band, and you'll say, 'all of human kind lives in that little band?' And you'll think. Wow. First, we better take care of that little band, and second of all, we better have an out. You will be astounded at the fragility of humankind. Life is clinging to the surface of this earth like a little plant would cling to a cliff side in a tiny bit of dirt.

Maybe if we sent our CEOs into orbit, they would put everything in perspective and stop making ego-driven mistakes.

(Laughs) I doubt it.

 

 

Top Level Communications Can Improve Trust, Performance in Companies

The IABC World Conference this week heard from the winner of the IABC 2012 Excellence in Communication Leadership (EXCEL) Award, Irene Lewis, president and CEO of SAIT Polytechnic, Canada’s first publicly funded polytechnic institute.
No stranger to recognition, Lewis was named one of Canada’s 100 most powerful women in 2010. She discussed the transformation of SAIT under her leadership from a “trade school on the hill” in crumbling disrepair with a disengaged workforce to a majestic, award-winning institution that is globally recognized and has received accolades as a top employer in Canada.

Lewis credited communications as a key part of that transformation, emphasizing the role of the CEO in carrying that out. The best things a leader can do are:

• Listen closely and look people in eye.
• Be authentic and lead from the heart.
• Tell and reinforce the organization’s story.
• Acknowledge hard work, never forget to say thanks and give credit where it’s due.

She challenged audience members to create communications structures that help leaders make authentic personal connections and establish relationships. She did this when she arrived at SAIT, when trust was at an all-time low. She called it her “conversation, connection and collaboration” stage, asking employees three simple questions:

• What’s working well?
• What’s not working well?
• How can we fix it?

She read every reply and set up discussion groups, creating a springboard for an employee engagement and participation program that helped define company culture. SAIT compares itself against its own progress and that of other organizations using a survey administered by The Hay Group.

After dismal scores the first time around, SAIT is now at or above the public-sector norm with communications in the best practices category. Lewis credits the success to requiring all departments to submit a plan that addresses weaknesses, is linked to compensation and comes with a commitment to communicate those plans widely.
Lewis says the biggest gains from corporate communications came in 2005, when she separated communications and marketing, as she had yet to see an organization that does both well when they are combined.
Today, SAIT corporate communications’ role is to:

• Provide leadership in telling the SAIT story.
• Safeguard the SAIT reputation.
• Put a face and heart to the organizations’ leadership.
• Tell the employees where SAIT is going and how they expect to get there and how employees can help.
• Recognize organizational and individual accomplishments.

SAIT Communications carries out this role using vehicles such as creative videos and events, a world-class intranet and an ice cream party where the leaders serve up scoops.

The SAIT communications department is able to do this and more because they’ve earned the trust of leadership. As part of earning this trust, Lewis provide resources and makes herself available to carry out communications. The SAIT leadership team willingly participates in innovative communications — including zany things such as parody videos — and they do these things because the communications are authentic and from the heart.

In Lewis’ words, “Employees don’t care what you have to say until they know you care.”

Employee Engagement: 9 Tips to Help

By Timothy R. Clark
Teresa M. Amabile and Steven J. Kramer conducted an interesting study that looked at what employees are thinking and feeling as they go about their work, and how leaders can use this information to help job performance.
Their research concluded:

The most important managerial behaviors don’t involve giving people daily pats on the back or attempting to inject lighthearted fun into the workplace. Rather, they involve two fundamental things: enabling people to move forward in their work, and treating them decently as human beings.”

Tips to help leaders enable employees

Leaders can have a big impact in helping others achieve by taking those principles to heart. Listed below are tips to help leaders do that very thing and enable their employees to achieve more.

• Ask yourself the following questions about how your employees achieve:
• Do I know the goals my employees are working on in their achieving cycles (personal and professional)?
• What are the roadblocks getting in the way of their progress? What am I doing to remove those roadblocks?
• Is there a clear connection between their professional work and the important work of the team? How can I strengthen that connection and help them understand it clearly?
• Are they overloaded with minutiae or busywork? What can I do to eliminate this type of work?
• Do I know how each employee is motivated? What actions can I take to enhance their motivation?
• Set clear goals with employees. People make more progress when leaders are clear about the link between what they do and what matters to the organization. And successful teams are those that have clear goals, and where people know how their work affects those goals. Help your people gain lineof- sight visibility from their work to the team’s goals.
• Help employees break projects, goals, and work assignments into small victories. Small victories tap into motivation. Achieving is fueled by making small amounts of progress, such as accomplishing a task or solving a problem. Help those that work with you jump into an achievement cycle and experience the benefi ts and rewards of moving through all five steps.
• Teach people how to manage time and energy wisely. Coach employees to fully engage in the task at hand, focus on the important rather than the urgent, avoid distractions, and create balance and renewal in the achievement of the goal. Help them learn to say no to urgent requests or terrifi c ideas that aren’t aligned with the important work of the team.
• Commit resources and remove roadblocks. Enable people to move forward in their work by committing appropriate resources, removing obstacles, helping them work across boundaries, and aligning processes, structure, and systems.
• Help employees engage others. Encourage those you work with to reach out and engage others with similar goals. Remind them that goals can be created independently, but achieving them almost always requires help and support from others.
• Identify specific motivators and adjust accordingly. Discuss with employees their extrinsic motivators, and identify opportunities and implications to bolster the achieving cycle. If they are motivated by recognition, identify ways to give meaningful praise, show approval for their work and team behaviors, or commend them for achievements along the way. Find ways to acknowledge them in front of their peers and express appreciation. If they are motivated by rewards, identify both economic and noneconomic rewards that you can give as a consequence of achievement.
• Discuss achieving opportunities outside of work. Have conversations with employees about what they want to achieve in their careers and in their personal lives. Highly engaged individuals fi nd sources of motivation inside and outside of work. Talk about all aspects of achieving, knowing that the organization still benefi ts whether an employee becomes more engaged from working with an outside volunteer organization or from working on a project to solve one of your biggest customer complaints. Genuine interest and a little fl exibility on your part can go a long way toward increasing motivation, achievement, and ultimately engagement.
• Adjust motivators over time. Stay connected with your employees. Remember that people’s motivations can, and often do, change over time. Have achieving conversations with employees regularly, preferably outside of the annual performance review process. Adjust as they adjust.

Excerpted from The Employee Engagement Mindset, by Timothy Clark. © 2012, McGraw-Hill Professional.

Timothy R. Clark is founding partner and CEO of TRClark . He is considered an international authority in the areas of leadership development and large-scale organizational change. He advises leaders and organizations around the world. A former two-time CEO, he writes the weekly column “On Leadership” for the Salt Lake City Deseret News. He' s also the author of the critically claimed book, "Epic Change: How to Lead Change in the Global Age." You can follow him on Twitter, or contact him directly at trclark@trclark.net..

AUSTIN, Texas, June 27, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- iKey®, the world's premier innovator of rugged computer peripherals, is proud to present the industry's first rechargeable wireless keyboard designed for infection control. To date, the SBW-97-TP™ is iKey's most innovative and flexible user-friendly design.


The SBW-97-TP is the first fully sealed, rechargeable, wireless keyboard on the market using QuickPair™ technology. QuickPair is the unique ability to pair to a USB dongle over a 802.11G wireless frequency without interacting with the host PC. Unlike traditional wireless keyboards, iKey's latest product does not require the user to press any buttons on the dongle or interact with the computer's operating system.

"Pairing the keyboard is only a two-keystroke procedure with any PC that has the USB dongle installed," Dave Huddleston, iKey Operations Manager, said. "This is an exclusive feature that allows the keyboard to be moved across various computers or workstations with ease."

Powered by a lithium ion battery, the keyboard has superior battery life of two weeks with regular use, and is easily recharged with its included micro USB cable. The keyboard only takes five hours to fully charge, and maintains full functionality while charging.

As with all of iKey's medical peripherals, the SBW-97-TP is engineered with infection control in mind. Ideal for use in operating rooms, nurses' stations, medical carts, and patient rooms, its case and silicone rubber keys are fully sealed, washable and compatible with hospital-grade disinfectants. Featuring a CleanLock™ key, the SBW-97-TP can be quickly and easily disabled during cleaning procedures.

"iKey's products are built to withstand difficult environments where standard keyboards will fail," Huddleston said. "A keyboard is one of the most commonly touched objects in any environment. As awareness of hospital-acquired infections grows, so has the need for washable input devices."

Measuring only 14.96" x 5.91" x 0.84" (w-h-d), the SBW-97-TP includes an integrated touchpad and 10-key numeric pad. Designed to be user-friendly, it also has three LED indicators for battery life, pairing and charging.

The SBW-97-TP's case is built from rugged, ABS polycarbonate plastic, and has an integrated VESA mounting pattern on the back. Perfect for use on carts and trays, the unit is also available with an optional magnetic mount, providing a hygienic alternative to Velcro, which may accumulate germs.

For more information on the SBW-97-TP, visit iKey online at www.iKey.com or iKey's YouTube Channel for product demos and features About iKey, LP.: iKey designs and manufactures rugged, sealed keyboards, displays, pointing devices for industrial, public safety, medical and military applications. A pioneer in its industry since 1989, iKey is known as an innovator of industrial computer peripherals. For more information, visit www.iKey.com.

SOURCE iKey

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