Home | TrendTracker | PowerBlog Reviews | The Experts | Newsletter
ABOUT
SMALL BUSINESS TRENDS brings you daily updates on trends that influence the global small business market.
Anita Campbell, Editor
Past life: CEO, corporate executive, tech entrepreneur, retailer, general counsel, marketer, HR ... (more)
email me
free business magazines
FREE BUSINESS MAGAZINES
Trade publications FREE to qualified professionals. No hidden offers and no purchase necessary.
On Wall Street
The Deal
Computing Canada
CIO
Employee Benefit
Oracle Magazine
100+ additional titles. Click to browse.
ARCHIVES & SEARCH
Previous Small Business Trends articles can be found at the links below:
October 2003
November 2003
December 2003
January 2004
February 2004
March 2004
April 2004
May 2004
June 2004
July 2004
August 2004
September 2004
October 2004
November 2004
December 2004
January 2005
February 2005
March 2005
April 2005
May 2005
June 2005
July 2005
August 2005
September 2005
October 2005
November 2005
Or, use the search box below to find a
specific post:


NEWSLETTER
Sign up for our FREE Small Business Trends newsletter. (View Current)

We publish regularly and promise we won't share your email address with anyone. (Privacy Policy)
SMALL BIZ INFO & RESOURCES
BLOGS TO READ DAILY*
* Don’t have time to read several dozen blogs a day? Pick two or three. Your brain will thank you for it.
ONLINE COMMUNITIES
BLOG DIRECTORIES
THE BUZZ

SPECIAL RESOURCES
Small Business Trends Radio
Tuesdays, 1:00 PM Eastern U.S. time
on Voice America network
Click to listen

November 1st: Torsten Jacobi, CEO of Creative Weblogging, joins host Anita Campbell. Sponsored by Six Disciplines. Show details.
Thursday, October 09, 2003
The Electronic Crimes Task Force and You
The U. S. Secret Service today kicked off the Cleveland Electronic Crimes Task Force. Created under the USA Patriot Act, this is one of 13 task forces in cities around the country.

The task forces are partnerships between government and the private sector to fight high-tech crimes. The emphasis is on preventing cyber-crime from happening, rather than relying on law enforcement activity after the fact.

As was pointed out by one of the speakers at today's kick-off, over 85% of IT infrastructure resides in private business. To prevent cyber crime, the government and business have no choice but to work together.

Dr. Melodie Mayberry Stewart, CIO for the City of Cleveland, pointed out how the impact of cyber-crime on businesses has grown dramatically simply because so much more business is conducted using the Internet. She stated, "As more and more services become Web-based, companies have greater exposure to hacker attacks and other disruptions."

This exposure is escalating. According to Carnegie Mellon University's CERT Center, the number of cyber incidents in the first 6 months of 2003 nearly equalled the number of incidents for all of 2002.

The takeaways from this task force kick-off? You've probably heard them before, but they bear repeating:

(1) Make sure all your business computers and networks are protected by firewalls and anti-virus software.

(2) Stay up to date with software (e.g., Windows) security patches and anti-virus definitions.

(3) Make sure your employees understand the importance of protecting their home computers. That way, if they log in from home, they won't inadvertantly create a "backdoor tunnel" into your business systems for a hacker or worm to enter.

(4) Keep an eye out in major media for alerts about worms, viruses and other attacks. Monitoring agencies such as the CERT Center notify the media with practical instructions on what to watch for and, importantly, how to recover from attacks.
More news... more trends... more insight...

Home | Privacy | Terms | SmallBizTrends
(c) Copyright 2003 - 2005, Small Business Trends LLC. All rights reserved.