Security

For most small businesses reading this article, I�ve lost them with the headline. A Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) is likely to be something they�ve never heard of, let alone considered. Yet more small businesses are becoming Cloud-friendly, especially with their adoption of Software as a Service applications. Funny thing is, some security-focused IT professionals would never consider using Cloud services without a CASB.

I had the pleasure of spending some time with a company called Forcepoint, in Austin, Texas, as a Tech Field Day delegate. David Coffey (VP Research & Development) says �How do you secure things that you don�t own or manage?� IT Pros understand that challenge. Traditionally we�ve focused on securing the devices that you use and the networks that you access. We�ve put firewalls between your PC and the Internet and we�ve prevented you from using random USB sticks. Today�s challenge for IT is ensuring security from your iPad in an airport lounge, to corporate data in the Cloud.

For small businesses, Cloud solutions seem to deliver innovation, productivity and profitability with ease.

You don’t have to sit around and wait for the “I.T. guy” to install something on a server, then install something else on your computer. It’s all enabled by just signing up to a service in your web browser and entering your credit card number. The secure access, reliability and backups are all handled behind the scenes.

Just a quick heads up on this one. I was sent a LinkedIn connect request by someone from a state-level sporting organisation who had a title of Finance Manager. We had a Group in common, so I accepted.

This was quickly followed by a message from him, stating that he was interested in our IT services. I was a bit surprised as he was in a different state, but the main alarm bell ringer was the slightly poor English phrasing. He made a point of telling me that NSW is in Australia. Would you seriously do that to someone you connect to who is in Queensland?

Disturbing email doing the rounds over the long Easter weekend in Australia, pretending to be from BigPond. I?m blogging about this in the hope that you?ll find this entry?if you receive that email and Google it first.? It?s a scam, and a very clever one.

First the details: sender address?ebilling@bt.com?(that?s your first alarm bell-bt.com is not a bigpond or telstra domain name)

Subject: Your ADSL Service Cancellation Notice?(second alarm bell ? I am not and have never been a BigPond ADSL customer)

Our friends at the Kaseya NOC have decided not to rollout out a Microsoft security patch just released for Internet Explorere 7 machines (on Windows XP).� They�ve seen some issues once it�s been installed and there are a few blog sites with people reporting problems.� Suggest hold off installing this one for a while until it�s sorted:

�Post: We have noticed that after applying the patch KB2416400 (MS10-090), when browsing a particular site, all links stop working following clicking a link to open a java script pop-up window. Hitting F-5 to reload the page restores functionality of the links. So to avoid this miss-functionality we have denied this patch from all Virtual Manage machines.

Not an original blog entry this time, but advice definately worth sharing from the security experts at AVG � thanks Lloyd!

Melbourne and Amsterdam, 13 August 2010�� It should go without saying that the best way to deal with malware is, of course, not to get infected in the first place.

Lloyd Borrett, Security Evangelist�for�AVG (AU/NZ)�says, �Being aware of what products are being targeted by the bad guys may help you as well, so it may be useful to know that at the moment Adobe products are virtually the number one target across the world with millions of PCs being hit by infected Adobe PDFs. Others are being pwned via Adobe Flash ads via Facebook and other social media web sites.�

Today�s MYOB/Vista trick � logged onto my lapatop with a new user account that is NOT a domain administrator (trying to be all security conscious and the like).� Then MYOB v17 refused�to see my custom forms (incidentally, the business fie is on a shared�drive).

Log on as the old, domain admin user � no problem.

Turned out to�be file security (surprise).� By default, the local Users group (which contains the Domain Users group) does not give full control or modify access to the Forms directory and files.� Change this to allow full control to the forms, and hey presto, my non-domain admin user is now accessing branded invoices in MYOB once again!

Once upon a time, internet chat rooms were pages of text that you had to �refresh� to see a new message, and anyone could intrude on.� Fast forward to today, and instant messaging gives us our own private chat rooms (or are they private?) with only the people we want to communicate with (if we select the right settings).� There are many pros and cons of instant messaging, and I for one am a believer that it can benefit businesses, if done properly (i.e. securely).