Steal me I cry....

An old song came to my mind when I read this piece of news - Shake me I rattle ...squeeze me I cry and so the song goes.... - but that seems to aptly define what the new generation of handsets enabled with Remote XT do when they are stolen. In fact the new handsets are designed to not only wipes the phone clean and backs up its data, but also causes a shrill, piercing alarm to sound and the message, "This phone is stolen," to appear on its display.

This seems to be the latest gadget going around and doing its bit to ensure Network security. In today’s age of wireless LAN and staying connected 24/7 through your telephone, the telephone has become very much part of our network and one could say Network security begins with the telephone Portal.

Remote XT is the British service provider that’s making this service available in Britain. The firm realized a need for such a device existed after statistics indicated that one phone was stolen every 12 seconds and also that mobile thefts have increased 190% in recent years.

Hitherto, the phones had a method of locking out the thief from accessing the information contained. But with the Remote XT product service which can be bought for just $19 a month, not only does it lock the thief out but also goes one step further to wipe out any data present on the phone. It also provides a daily remote backup. Previously, a signal could be sent to a stolen handset to deactivate it without any backup, rendering it useless. Remote XT is the first company to combine the two services. The Remote XT software can also be used to scan for viruses.

With a large number of people using high-end smart phones (for which this service is designed at the moment), they can be assured of having all their valuable information intact after a single call is made to the service provider to LOCK the product. In time it is expected that the same service will also be available for available on more phones in the next few years.

Secure your net or we don’t have a deal

Net security is no longer pertaining to one own corporate network alone. It has to do with securing your transactions with just about anyone you transact. Imagine the chaos a small airline ticketing office across the world - with access rights to the ticketing database of a major US airline - can create if their system inadvertently let in a spy ware or a virus? It could possibly result in the entire database having to be shut down and cleaned.

It is not surprising then that most big companies are ensuring on certain stringent security measures being put in place by the smaller partners they have business dealings with. According to Scott Larsen, IT director of a small online travel site that has business dealings with majors like Travelocity "Honestly, we do not believe it's an option. If we want to do business with companies like Travelocity and the big hotel corporations, it's a requirement for us to meet their security requirements. Otherwise we're just another small company that wants to play with the big boys but really can't"

With so many Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) jobs being outsourced by western nations to countries in Asia owing to their cheaper labor costs, companies have to be extra careful as there is so much of privacy related data and in many cases even highly confidential data including credit card data and equally sensitive data. With a large number of cyber thieves and hacker presence online protecting such data is of paramount importance in the interest of the customer and that of the company’s reputation.

While most organizations probably understand the need for security, not many are willing to invest the huge amounts required to ensure the levels of net security required for online transactions. Besides theft are the nuisances in the form of viruses entering ones network and resulting in a total wipe out of important data or forcing a shut down.

In the future grabbing a deal will not merely be dependant on having a high speed connection but it will require adherence to laid down security standards. After o one wants a downtime for time is money.

Some other factors affecting network security

Enough has been written about the need to protect the need for a fire wall and updated virus programs to check that malicious Trojan or Virus at work. So much has also been written about spy wares, malwares et al.

Internal network security is potentially the biggest security issue of 2006. While majority of computers surveyed in 2004-05 were found to have malwares residing in them, most organizations tend to over look the fact that this is attributable to a bunch of careless users habits within.

Global statistics indicate losses to the tune of $204 billion dollars in 2005 from such problems. Plugging these loop holes do not require a large investment and mentioned below are points that need correction within every organization:

(a)Email: While it is a necessity of our daily lives, spam mails account for 70 to 95% of all corporate attacks. Opening a Yahoo or Gmail account may not be so safe after all.

(b)IM: Security experts say that instant messaging has now surpassed e-mail for online communications. While they’re convenient, users have to worry about spam links sent over chats.

(c)Physical Access: Whenever users walk away from their desk without locking their PCs down, a security hole is created. Unattended PCs are open for corporate theftaccounting for anywhere between $60-120 billion of damage a year.

(d)FTP: FTPs are one of the most direct routes inside servers. Using FTP from within an organization creates a high security risk for the company server by inadvertently granting users access to areas on the server that should normally be off-limits.

(e)New Hires: Newly hired people coming into an organization constitute a significant risk for corporate theft and mismanagement of network resources. One-third of all employees steal from their employers, and 75% of the time, this theft goes undetected. Data stolen from a call center in Asia has had a number of UK HSBC customers sweating.

The bottom line: Prevention is better than cure and prevention of this nature is not too expensive either. Now you cannot have it better than this.

Net Security techniques to be used in stopping child pornography

There was a time when the Internet boom began when it seemed as if the quickest way to make it to a millionaire was by setting up an adult site. While many made several millions from hosting such websites, it has also seen the web usage going more down the road that once used to be less traveled - Child pornography.

Five major Internet service companies - Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft, EarthLink and United Online - announced that they are joining hands with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children to launch a campaign against child exploitation on the Internet. Together they intend to fund a new technology coalition with NCMEC to develop and deploy tools that will disrupt and stop the predators in their devious acts. Given the rich, vast and varied expertise each of these companies possesses they will collectively be able to address this serious issue.

The Objectives: The Coalition has four main objectives - Developing and implementing technology solutions; Improving knowledge-sharing among industry members; Improving law enforcement tools; and Researching predators' technologies to enhance industry efforts.

Tools that would be developed would in many ways be similar to those we use to fend of phishing, spams or virus attacks. Considering that technology exists today to prompt you before you view adult oriented results on most good search engines, it should not be too difficult to better this technology to crawl the web and accurately pin point pictures pertaining to child exploitation.

As regards individuals privacy issues, it goes without saying there will have to be a tradeoff to keep a tab on what the Internet user is doing yet not get unnecessarily nosey when the user goes about his activities innocently.

While there will always be crooks out there to outsmart any new technology that is introduced, it is opined with the combined muscle power of the five big names on the Internet, the net will in the days ahead be a whole lot safer for the future generations.

Net Security techniques to be used in stopping child pornography

There was a time when the Internet boom began when it seemed as if the quickest way to make it to a millionaire was by setting up an adult site. While many made several millions from hosting such websites, it has also seen the web usage going more down the road that once used to be less traveled - Child pornography.

Five major Internet service companies - Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft, EarthLink and United Online - announced that they are joining hands with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children to launch a campaign against child exploitation on the Internet. Together they intend to fund a new technology coalition with NCMEC to develop and deploy tools that will disrupt and stop the predators in their devious acts. Given the rich, vast and varied expertise each of these companies possesses they will collectively be able to address this serious issue.

The Objectives: The Coalition has four main objectives - Developing and implementing technology solutions; Improving knowledge-sharing among industry members; Improving law enforcement tools; and Researching predators' technologies to enhance industry efforts.

Tools that would be developed would in many ways be similar to those we use to fend of phishing, spams or virus attacks. Considering that technology exists today to prompt you before you view adult oriented results on most good search engines, it should not be too difficult to better this technology to crawl the web and accurately pin point pictures pertaining to child exploitation.

As regards individuals privacy issues, it goes without saying there will have to be a tradeoff to keep a tab on what the Internet user is doing yet not get unnecessarily nosey when the user goes about his activities innocently.

While there will always be crooks out there to outsmart any new technology that is introduced, it is opined with the combined muscle power of the five big names on the Internet, the net will in the days ahead be a whole lot safer for the future generations.