Four Steps For More Secure Small Business Websites

Four Steps For More Secure Small Business Websites

Cybercriminals increasingly are targeting the blogs and e-commerce sites of SMBs, but a handful of simple steps can make these sites harder to hack

Content management systems run by small and midsize businesses (SMBs) have come under increasing attack by botmasters looking to build high-bandwidth infrastructure for executing denial-of-service attacks or as drive-by download sites for malware campaigns.

In a recent case, dubbed “Fort Disco,” cybercriminals used a 25,000-node botnet of infected Windows systems to scan the Internet for vulnerable sites and then attempt to guess the administrative password using a small set of common passwords. The tactic may have worked in only a small percentage of cases, but it was still effective, claiming more than 6,000 sites.

Read more from Dark Reading…

 

How a botnet works: 1. A botnet operator sends out viruses or worms, infecting ordinary users’ computers, whose payload is a malicious application — the bot. 2. The bot on the infected PC logs into a particular command and control (C&C) server (often an IRC server, but, in some cases a web server). 3. A spammer purchases access to the botnet from the operator. 4. The spammer sends instructions via the IRC server to the infected PCs, causing them to send out spam messages to mail servers. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

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Four Steps For More Secure Small Business Websites

Making a mobile workforce

Mobile Workforce

Whether it’s flexible working hours, or conducting business from multiple places, including at home, there is a trend for employees to become more mobile in their working patterns.

Forester Research’s 2013 Mobile Workforce Adoption Trends shows 37% of European and US employees work from multiple locations. Whilst that’s still a minority the trend is only going in one direction.

For both employees and employers, remote working can improve the business environment and boost performance.

Flexible working

The 9am – 5pm daily work-routine is being eroded by flexible working. Colleagues are increasingly able to build a working pattern around their home lives (for example leaving the office at 3pm to pick up school children, then work for two hours from 7pm when the kids are in bed).

For employees the flexibility helps them maintain an effective work / life balance, and employers benefit from a) less staff churn and b) effectively extending the working day – which helps improve customer response times.

Reduce office space

How many desks does an office need? By encouraging remote working, and introducing hot desking, a business can reduce its office headcount considerably. Smaller office spaces mean lower running costs and can even lead to a company moving into a smaller space; keeping rents as low as possible.

Improve efficiency

A mobile workforce means being able to respond from any location. Customer orders, and queries, can be processed without returning to the office. This gives a competitive advantage and increases company efficiency.

Lower business costs

The benefits already outlined add together to lower running costs for an organisation. Fewer desks, smaller offices, less electricity being used all bring down the day-to-day business charges. Added to this are the potential savings from lower travel expenses, which have both financial and environment benefits.

Read more from our partner – Simply Mail Solutions

 

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Store, Sync and Share with SharePoint

Store, Sync and Share with SharePoint

Get a glimpse at some of these SharePoint features, and see how easy it is to share with others.

Whether you are working on a document by yourself, or a team that needs to collaborate on a project, SharePoint has many ways that help improve productivity across an organization.

Put social to work

Share ideas, discover answers and keep track of what your colleagues are working with new social features throughout SharePoint.

Share your stuff

Publish content to SharePoint from any Office application and share with people inside and outside your organization in a few simple clicks.

Take SharePoint on the go

Share documents, update your activity feed and keep in touch with your colleagues from your mobile phone or tablet.

Think of SharePoint as a central hub for all your content.  You can fill it up with documents, organise them how you want, and easily share them with other people.  There’s only one document you have to deal with—and it’s always in the same place and it’s always up to date.  Instead of lots of people creating multiple versions in different places, you can get everyone to work on the same document—even at the same time—and SharePoint will keep track of everyone’s changes in one place.  You don’t even need to be at your desk to get work done together.  You can keep reviewing and tweaking your content while on the go, even offline and from virtually any device.

Read this blog post, Vivek Narasimhan’s is a product manager for SharePoint.

Discover more here!

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