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Social Networking Policy - Does Your Company Need One | Techcare IT Services Chicago

Does Your Company Need a Social Networking Policy?

Facebook, it appears, is no longer just for college kids. The popular social media site continues to grow (over 400 million users in February of 2010) with the most substantial growth occurring in older people. The same goes for other popular social media sites like LinkedIn (60 million+ users) and Twitter (over 75 million users). Because the demographic is shifting to include users who are out of college, it stands to reason that more of the users are gainfully employed than ever before.

What does this mean for HR departments across the nation? It’s probably time to enact a social networking sites policy.

There is a lot of debate over what a company can and cannot mandate regarding employee’s off hours activities. However, each employee is a representative of your company, and their behavior on social networking sites can ultimately affect your reputation through:

Disparaging remarks made about the company
Misuse or dissemination of confidential information, and/or
Harassment of coworkers

At the very least, a good social networking policy should include the following:

Accountability. Employees need to understand that they are accountable for everything on their profile that can be publicly viewed – comments, photographs, etc.
Policy Compliance. If an employee can’t engage in certain behavior in the workplace, they should not be engaging in it online either. The two most glaring examples are harassment and confidentiality policies.

How to Address Telecommuting Security Issues

For many companies and their employees, telecommuting is a great benefit. For the employee, it provides a better work/life balance while saving transportation costs and long commutes. At the same time, companies find that telecommuting is an attractive benefit to offer to employees which increases employee job satisfaction. It sounds like a win-win for all parties, but there are certainly some telecommuting disadvantages like telecommuting security that are worth a second look.

Telecommuting security, or lack thereof, is the top disadvantage for companies who allow their employees to work from home. For this reason, some large corporations with confidentiality concerns do not allow telecommuting. This is particularly prevalent in the financial and medical industries, where privacy policies are mandated by federal standards and regulations.

The good news is that there are ways to achieve telecommuting security. First of all, your IT department should have a telecommuting policy in place. If you are a small to medium sized business without a formal IT department, it makes sense to consider IT outsourcing or consulting to help you formulate a policy.

This policy should spell out the circumstances under which an employee may telecommute. Some companies allow telecommuting as part of an employee’s weekly schedule, while others allow it only in the event of illness or inclement weather which prevents travel into the office. There are also situations in which your specific job title and responsibilities might dictate how often telecommuting is permitted, if at all.

Protecting Confidential Information in a Down Economy

reprinted from Symantec

Did you know that an estimated 90% of data loss incidents are accidental?

That may be surprising news in light of the fact that cyber-criminals have never been busier. But according to a recent survey by TheInfoPro Inc., data loss is "more the result of non-malicious activity as compared to malicious actions." ("Why Data Loss Prevention?" TheInfoPro Inc., October 2008)

What does that mean for your business? For one thing, it means that the loss of critical data is more likely to result from the actions taken by one of your users in the course of doing business than from someone hacking into your network.

Now consider the findings of another recent survey, which puts the spotlight on a little-known aspect of the current recession: namely, that as companies downsize, data loss risks increase.

According to a Ponemon Institute survey of 945 employees who lost or left a job in 2008, 59% of them admitted to stealing confidential company information. In addition, researchers found that many of these instances of data theft could have been prevented with better data loss prevention policies and technologies. ("Data Loss Risks During Downsizing," Ponemon Institute, February 2009)

Taken together, these surveys offer a strong and timely argument for re-examining your company's approach to protecting sensitive data.

This article looks at how a great deal of data loss is preventable through the use of clear policies, adequate controls on data access, and better communication with employees.

How to get Treatment for Email Overload

By Craig Davis, SLPowers

How to get Treatment for Email Overload

By Craig Davis, SLPowers

Corporate workers are now spending as much as 40% of their time dealing with email. I personally have come to expect between 100 and 150 emails every business day. From the important, such as a new customer requesting information to the mundane, such as an endless chain of email discussions between colleagues. It's come to the point where the issue can no longer be ignored. I've assembled a list of tips that you can use to help keep the problem at bay, at least until software catches up and solves the issue for us.

1. Get a search tool on your PC or notebook, RIGHT NOW. The three leaders are Google Desktop Search, Windows Desktop Search, or my personal favorite, X1 by Yahoo. These tools index all of the emails, files, pictures, documents, etc. on your hard drive in advance. When you search for them, the files that match whatever you search for get called up instantly and update as fast as you can type or delete another letter.

2. Eliminate SPAM from making it to your inbox. As obvious as it sounds, for many people SPAM was once a small problem and because it has very gradually gotten worse, they've done nothing about it. There are many solutions out there, and though we at Techcare recommend our managed SPAM solution SpamSoap, even Outlook, especially since Outlook 7 was released, can do the job. Simply setting Outlook to its most aggressive setting gets most of the work done for you. Remember that it is always be wise to periodically scan your SPAM and junk folders for false positives.

Why Hackers Hate Windows 7

by Lyle Epstein, Kortek Solutions

A lot of the focus is on security and ways of protecting the network and threats from inside and outside. Every day, hackers work on finding exploits and unpatched systems to break into. In the 1990’s, virus’s were written by kids, and college students more for an annoyance then what they are doing today. Today, groups of hackers usually hired by organized crime purposely write programs to steal data, including credit cards, banking information, or other sensitive data. The landscape has changed, and will keep changing as technology does. As a systems engineer, part of my job is protecting computers and networks from these threats.

If you are a hacker you love when you can dig into a system and start to learn it from the inside out. You take the time and learn every intricacy that is in the system. You know that there are millions of lines of code that you will have to comb through, so you know that an exploit will be found eventually.

IT Business Risk Management

Don't stop fortifying against risk. Four ways to mitigate risk in a tough economy

reprinted with permission from HP

Every business deals with risk. But medium-sized businesses, with smaller IT staff and tighter operating budgets are often more exposed to risk than larger companies. This reality is never more evident than in a down economy: When the repercussions of a business disruption are as grave as they are, how do you insulate your business from risk?

"For mid-sized businesses, the financial impact of business disruptions is tremendous," said Anil Miglani, senior vice president, AMI-Partners. "We estimate that through security breaches and data loss alone, medium-sized businesses worldwide lost approximately US$4.7 billion in 2008."

According to strategy consulting firm AMI-Partners, in 2008 medium-sized businesses worldwide lost approximately US$4.7 billion due to security breaches and loss of data.

However, taking the right precautions with your IT infrastructure can help you steer clear of danger. Here are four steps you can take to mitigate risks to your revenue, your reputation, and your investment – all the things that keep you awake at night as you wait for this storm to pass.

1. Reduce the probability of downtime

Your order system goes down, leaving your e-commerce customers unable to place orders. In addition to lost revenue, this downtime can derail employees, leading to productivity loss. While you're focused on fixing the problem, your competition has a chance to poach your customers. Worst of all, failing to detect and fix the problem means it may happen again.

High availability of critical systems is the medium-sized business's highest IT priority, and it's attainable with a few key changes:

Invest in reliable servers. Look for servers that have been extensively tested and certified to run on the latest operating systems. Couple that with a comprehensive set of server management tools.

Virtualize. Virtualization can improve application availability, reduce costs and simplify IT management.

Build redundancy into your network. Look for routers and switches with virtual router redundancy protocol (VRRP) to eliminate single points of failure.

2. Protect your data

Data breaches might not happen as often as network and application downtime. But when they occur, they can be catastrophic. Implementing a few key protections can greatly minimize the chances of data loss.

Replicate and use deduplication. Look for a storage backup solution that lets you cost-effectively replicate data for quick recovery. Deduplication helps ensure that you don't waste bandwidth, disk space and effort backing up multiple copies of the same data.

Encrypt the data you back up to tape. If you don't encrypt your tape data, anyone can walk off with your tape and access its data. Hardware encryption that comes with the Linear Tape-Open update (LTO-4) for tape drives, will give you the added security you need.

3. Secure the network

Prevent security breaches. Deploy a solution that has automated threat detection and offers a single-screen view of the network. It should allow you to map, configure and monitor both wired and wireless networks.

Don't forget printers and PCs. Improve your data security with print security solutions that can prohibit unauthorised users from accessing information and documents.

4. Reduce disruptive changes

If your own planned maintenance and management tasks are the biggest cause of downtime, opt for automated solutions. Automation simplifies management so you focus on the business.

Automate routine server and PC management. Management software can minimize complexity and lower risks of downtime. As for PCs, it can accelerate installations and deployments of software and operating systems.

Delegate. If you don't have in-house IT staff who can monitor your systems around the clock, consider outsourcing that function.

IT Business Risk Management

Don't stop fortifying against risk. Four ways to mitigate risk in a tough economy

According to strategy consulting firm AMI-Partners, in 2008 medium-sized businesses worldwide lost approximately US$4.7 billion due to security breaches and loss of data.

Technology Helps Meet the Challenge of Multiple Offices by Jane Cage, COO, HTS

Do you have more than one location? Are you considering an expansion? Running a business with more than one office presents a set of challenges all its own. Here are some of the ways to use technology to bridge the distance gaps:

1. A VoIP (Voice over IP) Phone System – Our phone system uses the same network cabling as our office computers. That factor alone has saved us money with every expansion as we set up a new location. We can run one set of wires and connect our computer network and our phones. More important, however, is the capability our system gave us for extension dialing and outside line transfer among locations. Before the VOIP system we had separate phone systems at each location. We discovered that it hampered open communications between staff members who needed to speak with each other. There was just a natural resistance to picking up the phone to tie up an outside line to make a long distance call. As soon as we connected the new system, communications between offices blossomed. Employees who were only “an extension” away seemed much more accessible.

2. Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS) – OCS is the most important tool we use. OCS is a secure internal instant messaging system. It’s big advantage over external systems you might use such as Live Messenger or AIM is that it use “presence”. What is presence? IT’s a way to let me know whether someone is actively using their computer. Before I transfer a call, I check communicator to see if an employee is in the office and available. OCS synchronizes itself with Microsoft Exchange as well to let me know if someone is in a meeting or out for the day. It’s been a real time saver! We also purchased inexpensive webcams for many employees who use OCS for face-to-face conversations as well. The latest release of OCS gives us the ability to share our screen with another user. There is no better way to solve a problem than to actually see what is going on inside our accounting program on another users screen. OCS also becomes a collaboration tool when we are working on presentations, spreadsheets, etc as we can both see the same screen at the same time.

3. SharePoint – Our internal SharePoint side is the repository for company wide documents and messaging. Our HR site contains the employee handbook as well as any form that employees or managers might need. Our marketing site has current brochures, spec sheets and promotion information. Our engineers run a discussion board on their internal site to share information about problems and issues. The operations group uses an RMA tracking system to keep up with returns and credits for every location. There’s never a worry about where information resides because it’s available to all of us.

4. Last – we use Microsoft Outlook as a way to spread the news throughout our company. Each week, we send out a company wide email filled with news about the personal side of each location. It has become the equivalent of water cooler conversations and company bulletin boards as employees share their kids prom and sports pictures, their new dog photos and whose team won at football. It only takes a little work on my part each week to make the connection among employees.

It’s easy for remote offices to feel isolated. These cost-effective measures have produced an return on investment many times over. We’re happy to speak to you about our experiences with any and all of them.

Technology Helps Meet the Challenge of Multiple Offices

by Jane Cage, COO, HTS

1. A VoIP (Voice over IP) Phone System – Our phone system uses the same network cabling as our office computers. That factor alone has saved us money with every expansion as we set up a new location. We can run one set of wires and connect our computer network and our phones. More important, however, is the capability our system gave us for extension dialing and outside line transfer among locations. Before the VOIP system we had separate phone systems at each location. We discovered that it hampered open communications between staff members who needed to speak with each other. There was just a natural resistance to picking up the phone to tie up an outside line to make a long distance call. As soon as we connected the new system, communications between offices blossomed. Employees who were only “an extension” away seemed much more accessible.

Refocus Your Time and Attention with IT Outsourcing

If you are like the majority of financial executives, you are spending too much time on your company’s IT functions. In fact, according to CFO magazine surveys, execs are spending almost 20 percent of their time dealing with issues that could easily be handled by IT outsourcing. If you find that you are spending a significant amount of your time dealing with IT issues, while at the same time additional responsibilities are being added to your job function, it may make sense to look into IT support companies that can provide IT consulting and IT outsourcing. That way, executives can refocus their attention on more strategic initiatives within their job description.

Ok. So where do you start?