Financial Times Says Cybercrime is costing UK £10 bn a year.

April 28th, Today I learn with no surprise, from Maija Palmer, FT Technology Correspondent that there has been a sharp rise in hacking attacks costing UK businesses “at least £10bn” a year – more than double two years ago.

PwC Research - published yesterday
Most of the large British businesses questioned – 92 per cent – experienced some kind of information security incident in the past year.

These included attacks by cybercriminals and accidental leaks of confidential data.

Soaring Costs
The cost of dealing with these incidents is soaring, with the worst cases costing between £280,000 and £690,000 to remedy on average.

Large companies are dealing with an average of 45 incidents a year – up from 15 two years ago.
Dangers of the Cloud
Many companies are shifting to so-called cloud computing, for example, by which business data is hosted remotely in a third party data centre and accessed over the internet. Failure of a net connection could severely disrupt business for such companies.
PwC estimates that about 34 per cent of British companies are critically dependent on externally hosted software services accessed over the internet. However, only 17 per cent of companies using cloud computing are encrypting their data.
“There are some blind-spots. Clearly there are some fundamental issues that companies need to get better at dealing with,” said Mr Potter.
Sixty-one per cent of large companies said they had detected an attempt to break into their computer systems – up from 31 per cent two years ago. About one in six companies said an intruder had managed to get through defences.

British companies are also increasingly concerned about leaks of confidential information, particularly after the national information commissioner was given new powers this month to fine companies up to £500,000 for any breaches of the Data Protection Act.

Layered Approach

Companies need to look at their whole security set up to ensure they have the layers they need to protect their information, their reputation and their users.

FULL articlehttp://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/976f675a-521d-11df-8b09-00144feab49a.html

People are becoming too relaxed about privacy on social media!

People are sharing so much on social networks, new services on these sites look appealing and it is human nature to try them according to The New York Times Yesterday :

"This is all part of one big trend: People are becoming more relaxed about privacy, having come to recognize that publicizing little pieces of information about themselves can result in serendipitous conversations — and little jolts of ego gratification."

But no one on social networking sites expected to have their credit card numbers publicised. Except that is what happened this week — or at least what was discovered this week.

Many people are quite rightly wary of sharing intimate information online because they are not sure how it will be handled, users assume they are secure. The 'Blippy' story highlights how the data protection laws have not yet started protecting our transactions on line and online services are not implementing effective online security.

http://econsultancy.com/blog/5802-bippy-publishes-credit-card-information-on-google

Social Media - Are you at risk of Identity Theft

I am one of the advocates of twitter, linkedin and to a certain degree facebook, with the meteoric rise in social media use comes a whole new opportunity for identity thieves.

“Social media identity theft happens when someone hacks an account via phishing, creates infected short URLs or creates a page using photos and the victims identifying information” explains Siciliano. The Identity Theft Expert.

His prediction for 2010 is that the increase in social networking activity, along with a user’s failure to implement security and privacy settings and protocols, will lead to an increased exposure of not only the user’s personal information but possibly that of their “friends”.

Quite simply, all the experts are saying there will be an increase in identity theft crimes and the number of victims unless significant changes are made in information security. “Our most important asset is our identity. And we are functioning under a completely antiquated system of identification with wide open credit and few safeguards to protect the consumer. ” according to Siciliano.

Companies now need to invest in identity theft protection and prevention as part of their online/ mobile security.

Have you been a victim of identity theft, please click our survey so we can get a real feeling for who is being affected.

Protecting Vaccination Records Online

Why is it everyone else has the good ideas! Like today this new portal we are working with for vaccination records, this is a GREAT IDEA in action not only is this well constructed site a place for all the advice a traveller needs about vaccinations but you can save your vaccination details on the site free.

Vaccination records are important and increasingly required for global travel. If like me over the years you have lost the red child record book for your children, or the pieces of paper in purse detailing the date of tetanus or hep b shots have become illegible or lost. MyVaccs provides a free web-based solution to store vaccination records for you and your family. MyVaccs complements rather than replaces the records systems used by your medical professional and allows you to access your records instantly for reference or in medical emergencies.

www.myvaccs.com

My Vaccs is talking to us about our authentication they want to protect the identities of people using their free online storage portal. I am looking forward to working with more companies who are beginning to understand they have a responsibility for looking after visitors identity on their sites.

Building a Portal

Marketing, particularly globally is never dull on the phone to the US until early hours then tasked with content provision for our exciting new portal.

There are three areas for solutions, the "context" for the site is information (the offering, the technology, pricing, integration, ). The classics don't change a site visitor, just like a shopper is a consumer, what have you got? how is it better? how much is it? Will it work with what I already have? Can I have it now?

Our site will be very simple 3 main sections, the site content is a framework -- which points to external content for detail, supporting material, etc - like blogs, video testimonials, white papers, case studies, twittter etc.Ha Ha so it will point to Securati to add content, so I best start a weekly technical/legal update.

Features & Benefits- the challenge is to keep all text short and make this appealing.

Verticals:

- E-commerce

- Social Networking

- Mobile Applications

- Multimedia

- Education

- Gaming

- Healthcare

Case Studies real video one, this is the bit I am most looking forward to working with our customers with no budget possibly a box of Krispy Kremes and my new camera.I have purchased the latest Flip HD Camera and walked around yesterday taking video lets just say Steven Spielberg need not be worried.

Let the fun begin.

First Entry - a toe dipping exercise

I have started this blog because like writing, I have spent my adult life in industries where it has been essential to be able to write clearly. This is my first business creation it is a blog about safety on-line, the boring word is security. I will try to write things that people who need internet security will find useful.

I am working for a new technology company in the sphere of internet security, in government terms we are a micro company... yes 4 cornerstones and then a team of developers. I am the marketeer grappling with social media to launch the new proposition.

Keep it short and sweet, it says in the tips list... so short it is.