The bMighty Blog -- Government

There'll Always Be An England -- It Just Won't Have Any Secure Laptops

Posted by Keith Ferrell 10:13 AM ET | Jul 21, 2008

The news that more than 650 of the British Ministry of Defence's laptop computers have been stolen over the past four years, along with dozens of thumb drives over the last few months, all containing sensitive information, offers a startling reminder of just how mobile your mobile devices can unfortunately be.

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Business & E-Business | Government | Mobile | Security

San Francisco Network Lockout: Who Controls System Access -- And Who Controls The Controllers?

Posted by Keith Ferrell 11:39 AM ET | Jul 16, 2008

San Francisco's misadventures (to put it mildly) of being locked out of part of its own computer network by a disgruntled but password/access-controlling employee raises one of IT security's oldest and still thorniest questions: who has the authority to grant or deny system access, and who has authority over the authorizers?

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Small Businesses Hate Government, Like McCain

Posted by Fredric Paul 08:11 PM ET | Jul 14, 2008

A whopping 86% of small businesses believe that the government is doing "little" or "nothing" to help them, according to a new survey. So what else is new? Well, the survey also reveals that small business owners lean significantly farther to the right than does the general public.

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Company Size: 1-49 | Economics | Entrepreneurs | Government

Justice Breyer's Data Exposure A Reminder Of P2P File Risks

Posted by Keith Ferrell 12:24 PM ET | Jul 10, 2008

The news that Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer's personal information was among thousands of other personal data files compromised as a result of a file-sharing snafu raises a couple of issues, chief among them whether or not peer-to-peer file sharing via public programs is ever appropriate for business info.

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Telecoms: Should Content Carriers Become Content Cops?

Posted by Keith Ferrell 11:08 AM ET | Jun 16, 2008

The thing about the so-called Information Superhighway, as it used to be so-called, was that once the telecom companies deployed the wire and fiber and wireless roads, they pretty much left businesses and consumers alone in their travels along them. That may be changing.

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Our Readers Speak: Get Even Smarter About Storage

Posted by Naomi Grossman 11:04 AM ET | Jun 5, 2008

We posted an article on "Storage Smarts" last week which examined various data storage options -- one of which is outsourcing your data storage. One of our readers, though, pointed out that there are liability issues that smaller businesses need to be aware of if they choose that option. We are listening.

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Government | IT | Storage

Ready For Help From Big Brother?

Posted by Paul Korzeniowski 04:54 PM ET | Jun 2, 2008

Cybersecurity is an issue that impacts everyone. The bad guys do not care about whom they hurt as long as they take advantage of someone. So, sentiment is growing for private enterprises and the government to work together against the hooligans.

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Government | Security

Mob Making Cyber Moves: Organized Crime Versus Disorganized Defenses

Posted by Keith Ferrell 12:58 PM ET | May 27, 2008

The news that organized crime is now a bigger cyber-havoc player than independent hackers isn't surprising: as Willie Sutton said of banks in the last century, the Net is now "where the money is."

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TVA 's Scary Security Lapses Have Big Lessons For Small And Midsize Businesses

Posted by Keith Ferrell 11:09 AM ET | May 23, 2008

The news that the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) -- the largest U.S. public electric utility -- is riddled with security lapses should give pause to cybersecurity watchers and worriers everywhere. And the nature of those lapses should be a reminder to every business in the country.

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CEO Spam Scam: Phishing For Big Fish

Posted by Keith Ferrell 12:19 PM ET | Apr 16, 2008

A new targeted spam campaign uses fake federal subpoenas to trick CEOs into clicking on a malware link. One source indicates that 15-20,000 spams went out. And amazingly, about 10 percent of the recipients responded!

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FBI Cybercrime Figures: Losses Up, Crimes Down

Posted by Keith Ferrell 10:27 AM ET | Apr 4, 2008

The new FBI cybercrime figures offer plenty of statistics to scare us, even more to keep us on our toes, and a smidgen of hope among the bad news.

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Business & E-Business | Government | Internet/Web | Piracy | Security

Passport Privacy Problem Offers Business Lessons

Posted by Keith Ferrell 09:58 AM ET | Mar 21, 2008

The current news cycle hot-button -- State Department contractors poking into Barack Obama's passport files -- will give the pundits plenty to spout and sputter about from all sides. It should give small and midsize businesses pause to consider some of their own security procedures, policies and potential vulnerabilities.

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Government | Hardware & Software | Security | Storage

Ballmer's Remarks Inspire A TCO Trip Down Memory Lane

Posted by Matthew McKenzie 06:50 AM ET | Mar 7, 2008

Earlier this week, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer had a few things to say about the never-ending Windows vs. Linux total cost of ownership debate. It's an interesting interview -- but not quite as interesting as some internal Microsoft email on the same subject that turned up last year, as a result of the company's involvement in yet another antitrust lawsuit.

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Missing White House E-Mail -- Politics Or Bad Tech Policy?

Posted by Keith Ferrell 10:07 PM ET | Mar 5, 2008

The White House's assertion that as many as 5 million e-mails have gone missing has raised a lot of political hackles on both sides of the aisle and throughout the pundit-sphere over the last couple of years. Far less attention has been paid to a far more serious (and less politically secular) question: just what is the tech infrastructure underlying the White House's electronic communications?

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bMighty's Tech Look at the Candidates (Hint: It's Primary Day AGAIN)

Posted by Naomi Grossman 11:55 AM ET | Mar 4, 2008

Who could have predicted that the primaries would still matter this late in the presidential game? Well they do -- at least for the Democrats. But the real question for us is: Do they matter in the tech sense? The answer, unfortunately, is not really.

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Government | Technology/Telecom

Will Office Open XML Slam The Door On Accessibility?

Posted by Matthew McKenzie 07:17 PM ET | Feb 27, 2008

Microsoft's bid to turn its Office Open XML (OOXML) format into an ISO standard is a bad idea for any number of reasons. One of those reasons, however, strikes me as especially troubling: If OOXML wins ISO approval, it could make life much harder for millions of disabled people who rely upon accessibility-enhancing tools and technologies.

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Government | Hardware & Software | Non-Profit | Open Source

It's Super Tuesday: Vote Early, Vote Often!

Posted by Fredric Paul 03:20 PM ET | Feb 4, 2008

Among other things, this election could have a profound effect on the technology industry and the prospects of small and midsize businesses. It's up to you who you vote for, but please, if you live in a Super Tuesday state, please make sure to vote.

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Government

Free Identity Theft Webinar Tomorrow

Posted by Keith Ferrell 01:39 PM ET | Jan 29, 2008

This week's release of a new report on Identity Theft (and strategies for avoiding and combating it) will be accompanied by an online Identity Theft Webinar tomorrow, Thursday, January 31, at 2 pm EST.

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Security Threats Keeping You Up Nights?

Posted by Keith Ferrell 12:44 PM ET | Nov 9, 2007

Nice new approach to security survey questions: what threats cost you the most sleep? For government workers the answer includes bots, spyware and breaches.

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Lawmaker Embarrassed by Nude Pix on Flash Drive

Posted by Cora Nucci 10:03 AM ET | Oct 5, 2007

Is someone at the State Library of Ohio giving out free memory sticks loaded with hidden porn? How else to explain how a state lawmaker's PowerPoint presentation to a high school class Tuesday was briefly punctuated by images of topless women?

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Government | Storage

Disaster Recovery: Plan for Recovery, Not for Disaster

Posted by Keith Ferrell 10:27 AM ET | Sep 27, 2007

So many elements to business IT operations -- so many elements that can get sliced, diced, slammed, flooded, flamed, hacked, attacked, smashed and just plain hammered that your disaster recovery plan has to be universal to be effective.

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What ISPs Are Scared Of

Posted by Keith Ferrell 11:15 AM ET | Sep 20, 2007

A new study of Internet service providers (ISP) and their top security concerns lets us know what they're most scared of: armies of zombie computers mounting huge distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

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Botnet Storm Surge: Insecurity In Numbers

Posted by Keith Ferrell 02:18 PM ET | Sep 10, 2007

Whatever the summer heavy weather season has been like in your neck of the woods, the cyber-season saw the explosive growth of a monster security storm. After building strength all year, the Storm botnet worm has created a zombie grid so large that it could be a threat to... pretty much whatever the hackers who created it want it to be a threat to.

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