Over the past couple of years, increasing numbers of businesses in Asia have been moving their operations to the cloud. While it used to be expensive – and difficult – for corporations to switch to cloud computing, the services and solutions available today are making cloud computing even more accessible to small businesses across the continent.

It makes sense for small businesses to take advantage of cloud solutions because they bring so much value to the table. There are a number of key cloud services and solutions that can help small and medium enterprises stay competitive in today’s economy.

Streamlined Sales Efforts

One of the most popular cloud-based solutions on the market today is SalesForce, a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform designed to help businesses fine-tune their sales workflow to the very last detail. It is amazing how many tools are offered by SalesForce on its platform, especially considering the same tools used to be offered exclusively to larger corporations.

By moving sales operations to the cloud using SalesForce and other available solutions, small businesses can now have a strong sales team with the ability to work effectively and flexibly. When doing sales visits, for example, sales officers can convey requests from clients directly to the rest of the sales team at the office. In return, decision makers within the business can manually approve or reject the requests and formulate the perfect quotation for the client.

This type of streamlining has an enormous impact on efficiency. Not only does it allow small businesses to be more flexible when facing market challenges, it also helps businesses expand their operations without investing a lot of money in the process.

Better HR with Cloud Solutions

Another popular category of cloud solutions is cloud human resources management or HRM. Companies such as XCDHR.co.uk have been offering their HR solutions to small and medium enterprises while catering to larger corporations at the same time. Instead of developing an in-house HR department, small businesses can now save a lot of money while getting the same level of HR expertise and tools in the cloud.

Cloud HR is a particularly useful solution for small businesses trying to cope with market growth. Anything from managing existing employees to finding new team members to fill key positions can be done in the cloud, with the help of experienced HR specialists catering to the business’s needs.

Cloud-Based Data Management

Last, but certainly not least, we have different data management solutions designed to run in the cloud. Thanks to recent advancements, it is now easy to store a large amount of data securely using affordable cloud solutions. In fact, cloud storage and backup solutions have the ability to offer more storage space – and advanced data management systems – at lower prices than the more conventional offline solutions.

The availability of cloud computing is really helping small and medium businesses be even more competitive in an already competitive market. If you’re looking for ways to expand your competitive advantage and take advantage of market growth, a suitable cloud solution is just what you need.

On January 17, the Department of Public Works and Services (PWS) of Ras Al Khaimah released a new smartphone app which aims to help citizens reserve services from the government agency. The app is part of a broader eGovernment initiative in the Gulf Coast Country which dates to 2004.

According to the manager of the Commercial Affairs Section for the PWS, Mohammed Mahmoud, the new app ‘will significantly ease and expedite official transactions, save time, money and effort, and bring happiness to the customers.’ Mr. Mahmoud also told the Khaleej Times that the app will help the department to conduct its business in a more efficient manner.

eGovernment has been defined by the eGovernment for Development project as ‘the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to improve the activities of public sector organizations.’ While some point out that this covers earlier technologies the push towards Government-as-a-Service has gained steam in the last 10 years with the rise of smartphones and technologies.

The leaders of the UAE have taken the opportunity to implement eGovernment initiatives seriously. In fact, the 2016 UN eGovernment Survey ranked the country has the fifth most development eGovernment framework in Asia - second for eGovernment services.

One reason for the success of these initiatives is that developments in eGovernment services are not restricted to Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Instead, the Federal Council has sought to include all the emirates in the program. In the case of Ras Al Khaimah, this includes its Emir, Sheikh Saud bin Saqr al Qasimi, who has promoted initiatives to improve the delivery of basic services for all.

Besides the newly launched PWS app, other examples of eGovernment services in the tiny emirate include the e-Dirham system. This program allows citizens to pay taxes and other government service fees online and was first launched in 2015. Since then, every department in the Ras Al Khaimah government has integrated with the payment scheme.

Another example of the eGovernment initiative in the emirate is the Electronic Government Authority (EGA). This agency is tasked with leading the conversion to eGovernment and not only ties together other agencies within the emirate but also coordinates with the federal government in Abu Dhabi.

The EGA has implemented many initiatives including online customs payments, utility payments, filing, and tracking of suggestions and complaints online, payment of traffic fines, and many other services. The agency was launched in 2004 by the Emir with a goal of converting Ras Al Khaimah society to an online community.

This even included opening a training center in 2009 to increase the awareness of government officials to the digital tools being implemented by the agency. To date, the EGA has improved hundreds of processes within the emirate’s government and while adoption of eGovernment services by some older generations has been slow, the clear majority of respondents are satisfied with overall direction of the initiatives.

Other features of eGovernment initiatives in the UAE include one-stop shops, chat features and even text-to-speech features of the government’s website to help the visually impaired. By doing so, the normally conservative UAE has become one of the leaders in eGovernment services in the entire world.

Focusing on Ras Al Khaimah, the emirate is one of the sleepier corners of the UAE with a population of slightly over 200,000. Located less than two hours’ drive from Dubai International Airport, the emirate is located at the northeast corner of the country and borders the Persian Gulf to the north and is the city is the closest port in the country to the Straits of Hormuz.

This highlights the strategic importance of Ras Al Khaimah to the country and the region. As mentioned, the goal of the eGovernment initiative in the UAE is to improve the accessibility and quality of government services. The initiative has been so successful that other governments from around the region have come to visit the UAE to see how their programs work.

Another important aspect of the eGovernment program in the UAE is that the country is a federal system - in that the individual emirates retain a certain level of autonomy on domestic affairs. As such, the eGovernment initiatives in Ras Al Khaimah, like the recently released PWS app, not only need to function as a portal for local government but they also need to be integrated with the federal government as well.

Written by Jane Brown

Online learning is a new trend that’s taken over education in both Asian countries and around the globe. Learning online has a vast number of benefits; in many countries the tuition fees are less than those paid to study in a traditional classroom setting, and learning from home with only a laptop and internet connection allows many students to get degrees from top universities that they may not have been able to attend otherwise, with many gaining degrees from institutions overseas. We look at how online education will improve the environment as it gains popularity.

Less Carbon Emissions

With less students traveling to college or university, and instead completing MSN programs online from home, there is likely to be less traffic on the road, leading to a reduction in carbon emissions and road pollution. Since students are one of the groups of people most likely to be using public transport rather than having their own vehicle, the need for public transportation may decrease in popular student cities, reducing the number of vehicles on the road and encouraging cleaner air.

Reducing Energy Use

As students increasingly choose to study from home rather than attend classes, the amount of energy used by colleges, universities and other educational institutions will be reduced. With more students at home studying for their online master of science in nursing from Maryville University, less teaching rooms will be used, allowing colleges to conserve energy. In college libraries, fewer computers will be required, although it’s important to note that many people who study online do so at a nearby campus in order to be able to easily use the facilities available.

Less Paper Waste

Although colleges are increasingly cutting down their use of paper handouts and instead saving lecture notes and other resources to cloud applications where students can access them online, traditional college degree programs are not yet 100% paper-free. However, online courses have managed to achieve this, as their course details are accessed electronically after signing up remotely. As college degrees become more and more digital in format, paper use will decrease.

How Online Students Can Help

If you are currently an online student or think that you would like to enroll on an online learning program in the future, there are many things that you can do in order to use this opportunity to become eco-friendlier and contribute to reducing pollution, waste, and conserving energy. As an online student, you will probably spend a lot of time at home studying, so it’s a good chance to notice things such as where you are wasting energy and making sure that you switch things off that are not in use, for example. Additionally, you might want to take notes digitally and refrain from using a printer to help reduce paper waste. If you do need to use paper, remember to recycle it! As online learning grows in popularity, there are many ways in which it could contribute to a more eco-friendly world in the future.

As any millennial will tell you, there are far too many advantages of using the internet for business to ever consider running an operation without online capabilities. However, while many businesses are truly seeing some of the power that is internet technology, emails, and Facebook groups for marketing, not every company has started to see the light about opening up boundaries and barriers when it comes to connecting real resources across the internet. When it comes to tapping into the online world to conduct business, you can find real solutions in no time at all that wouldn't otherwise be in your backyard.

Finding New Suppliers

While you never want to put all of your eggs in one basket, and you do have to be conscious of who you do business with in any capacity, you also need to know that there is a humongous business landscape that exists outside of your county. Entrepreneur even states the countless ways you can go out and try to find new suppliers, and whether you want to make connections with a distributor, manufacturers, or even find new independent craftsmen, there are countless businesses right now who are looking for individuals and companies to sell to.

If you continue to reach out and find new companies you can work with all of the time, then you should be able to tap into some new efficiency. You might be lucky enough to improve your quality or decrease your prices, but if nothing else, you could minimize some of the levels of risk you bear by keeping all of your suppliers from right around your neck of the woods. That is exactly why smart companies are taking to time to find brand new sourcing options on a constant basis.

New Sales and Clients

The olden days of business meant cold calling was actually about walking into a random door and office and trying to secure business. You didn't even need to know what the company did, let alone who the contact person was. However, when you start to see the power of the internet and how it has replaced the use of picking up the telephone, it can completely make sense to understand why some of the hottest startup companies are all about helping current businesses to connect to other firms as well.

When you consider the different tools such as the power of corporate videocasting by Bluejeans, then you can see why current salespeople don't even need to walk through the door of a company any longer to make a contact and to secure a sale. No one said that they have to drop the cold calling and knocking on doors, but there is a great opportunity to make a contact and close a sale without ever physically seeing the person, especially because video conferencing allows you to see someone face to face even if they are on the other side of the world.

Hiring Remote Employees

Whether you want employees to physically relocate into your corporate environment or you want them to be able to work remotely, the ability to cast a wide net means your organization has a much better selection of possible employees when it comes time to replace or recruit new blood. The old way of seeking out potential candidates was to put an ad in a newspaper and hope that an excellent candidate came along at the right time. However, with top quality recruiting strategists aplenty and with the ability to target potential candidates from all over the world, any organization could wind up interviewing and hiring people from any state, country, or even continent.

The power of being able to cast a wide net to find employees isn’t the only benefit to remote workers. As Mashable states, there can be a chance to communicate more frequently with remote workers than you do with in-house employees. This is partly because you always want to be on the same page as they are, but it also means your communication with those workers could have a stronger quality as well. Throw in the fact that an online workforce full of remote workers means your company never sleeps and is always running around the clock, and it is a component of service that will help to get you even further ahead.

While the internet has continued to propel forward an entire generation of people, it has also catapulted businesses forward in a way that has never been seen before. Whichever method you prefer and whatever reason you start to embrace more of an online focus truly does not matter. However, as long as you are completely aware of all of the possibilities that can be had when it comes to conducting old fashioned operations online, you should truly start to see better results, larger margins, and less effort expended.

If you are the owner of a business that is just starting out, then you know the struggles of ensuring that you are making every single cent that comes out of your pocket will count. There are a ton of things you will have to shell out cash for, and one of these things may have to be the dreaded in-person meetings and conventions. The average cost of airfare these days is not exactly friendly on the wallet, pocket, or bank account, either. According to data outlined in an article by Airlines for America, the average cost for a domestic flight per passenger was around $363.98, excluding the reservation fee and bag fee. What more would you have to spend on an international flight these days, not to mention the need for decent board and lodging?

With that in mind, when should you bother booking a flight to another city, town, country, or even continent? When should you just convince the other person to talk about the subject over a nice cup of virtual coffee—that is, by starting up a video conference with you on a reliable web meeting software? In this article, we will give you a few reasons why you may want to hold off on buying any airfare and hotel room accommodations for certain discussions that you have to participate in.

Book a Flight for That Meet-Up If…

You Want to Have a Better Idea of How a Person Interacts with You.

An article written by Caroline McMillan for the website The Muse notes that there are often subtle body movements you make that could affect how other people see you as a person. You can easily look a person up and down and make your own assessments about their personality from head to toe if you were able to see them in person.

On the other hand, if you rely on a video call, then you will not be able to see the person’s entire body language from the waist down. In most online meetings, you only ever get to see a person from the shoulders up, depending on how they have decided to angle their camera. What if they are actually tapping their foot impatiently because they want you to stop talking already? What if they have their legs crossed because they really do not feel comfortable around you? What if they are actually just lounging around in their underwear because they cannot find any reason why they should take the extra effort of putting on some decent pair of pants? There is a lot that you will not get to see that could tell you volumes about a person’s attitude toward you, so sometimes, it can pay to shell out some cash, especially if you are going to try to seal the deal with a new client or a new business partner.

Do Not Get on a Plane If…

You Need a Really Quick Response to an Urgent Question That You Have

Do you need a super quick reply to a very urgent problem? In cases like this, it will be so much easier for you to relay your message via a quick live chat, a video call, or even by leaving somebody an e-mail if it really cannot be helped. Whether you are in a pinch or want to conduct these types of calls regularly, video conferencing in business can be done over reliable platforms such as BlueJeans. It is super easy to pick up and use, which means less time wasted on troubleshooting any errors.

Are you hoping to meet up to discuss some rather in-depth plans, instead of resolving a potential crisis? Even then, e-mail, chat, or even video calls can still do a better job than all the effort it would take to pack your bags and fly overseas. All you need to do is to make a note of what you absolutely have to tackle in your discussion, and then figure out an action plan by working together on a solution.

In Conclusion: Do You Want a Complete Picture or Do You Just Need a Speedy Response?

Though web conferencing software does allow you to see the other person, you will only get to see them from the waist up, which is sometimes not enough to give you a complete picture of how they are feeling about your conversation. For example, you will not be able to see if they are crossing their legs, which may imply that they are getting impatient or that they are closing themselves off from you. You will also not be able to see whether or not they bothered to put on a respectable pair of pants that day, either. For all that you know, they might actually be wearing their favorite pair of worn-out and cute pajamas.

Anyone who has lived through their teenage years knows that not all trends are good, just think about very thin eyebrows and dramatically flared jeans. The same goes for what may be your chief concern today - distributed denial of service attacks that can take down your website and do serious damage to your business – this is something you need to be informed about.

Defining DDoS

According to DDoS mitigation service providers Imperva Incapsula, DDoS attacks, or distributed denial of service attacks, are malicious attempts to make an online service like a website unavailable to its users. This is typically accomplished by chewing up the bandwidth of the target or overwhelming the network infrastructure with malicious traffic.

The consequences of a successful distributed denial of service attack are felt in both the short and long-term. It causes an immediate loss of traffic and possibly revenue, and can cause diminished loyalty or trust amongst users, affecting whether or not they return to the website or service. A DDoS attack can also cause software damage, hardware damage, or act as a smokescreen to an intrusion that leads to the theft of sensitive data such as financial information, user information or intellectual property.

Truly hideous trends

With the rapid way cyberattacks evolve, it seems as though every few months brings with it new and delightful DDoS trends. These are some of the ones you need to be aware of in 2016.

1. Attackers are turning up the volume

Volumetric attacks that flood a target and saturate the available network bandwidth are nothing new, but these days they’re bigger, more sophisticated and longer lasting. This is significant because even companies that are equipped with large amounts of connectivity and bandwidth could have their capacity exhausted by this sort of attack, leading to major additional bandwidth bills.

2. Combo flooding is the new normal

SYN floods that take advantage of the TCP handshake to request network connections without ever transmitting any acknowledgements in order to open the connections are also nothing new. But what’s new is just how common combo SYN floods have become in which attackers use a concurrent combination of regular SYN packets to exhaust server resources and large SYN packets to cause network saturation. These combo attacks now account for 75% of all large scale DDoS attacks and render traditional distributed denial of service mitigation solutions ineffective.

3. Or are you caught in a hit and run

Instead of the steady onslaught of malicious traffic that you may associate with DDoS attacks, one of the biggest trends going right now is the hit and run attack in which short packet bursts occur at seemingly random intervals over a long period of time. These attacks are designed to get the best of on-demand mitigation solutions that require manual activation for every burst.

4. Botnets are busy

Research has shown that 30% of distributed denial of service botnets are responsible for attacking over 50 targets each per month. This points to botnets – networks of compromised devices used to launch DDoS attacks – being shared between attackers as well as being offered up in DDoS for hire schemes. DDoS for hire has been exponentially increasing in popularity over the last couple of years, and we’re at the point now where anyone with a PayPal account can launch an attack.

5. To the multi-vector goes the spoils

These days a whopping 81% of distributed denial of service attacks use more than one attack vector, typically a combination of volumetric attacks, state-exhaustion attacks and application layer attacks. This strategy is appealing because by targeting multiple network resources an attacker ups his or her chances of success. An attacker may also use one vector as a decoy while doing the real damage with another.

6. Even DDoS attacks are going mobile

Smartphones and tablets are ubiquitous now, so it was only a matter of time before these mobile, internet-connected devices were being used in distributed denial of service attacks. This is largely because these devices have weaker security than a computer would. Mitigating mobile-based attacks is complex because traditional firewalls can’t be used to block source IP addresses on a mobile network as it would interfere with legitimate traffic.

Looking for a good DDoS trend?

If website and business owners could band together and make investing in truly effective DDoS mitigation the next trend, these last six trends would look like child’s play.

If you’re in the market for distributed denial of service mitigation that will protect you and your business, look for a solution that is cloud-based, has a high-capacity network, has automatic detection and mitigation instead of on-demand, is always-on, promises minimal disruption for your website users, and employs visitor identification, risk analysis and progressive challenges for handling suspected bots. After all, if you’ve ever rocked feathered hair, a stonewashed denim jacket or a pair of zubaz, don’t you owe it to yourself to jump on a good trend?

The cloud empowers employees in ways never seen before in business; it provides the tools and services, much needed, by employees to proficiently conduct their work without the limitations of being tied to their terminal. Because of this flexibility the employees can now manage sales, network, market, and conduct customer service at any point in time without the tedious nature that comes with dedicated, localized software or hardware.

What are some of the benefits of using the cloud you may ask?

You’ve heard the buzz about going to the cloud and you may have entertained the idea. Now the basics to bringing your company into this arena and gaining all the wonderful benefits.

A) Perhaps the biggest advantage of using cloud based services is to improve customer service. Through offerings like Astea field service management your company can use cloud-based services to maximize potential through marketing automation, reporting, business intelligence, scheduling, and streamlining areas such as field servicing, CRM automation, and dynamic scheduling.

These services become ingrained and intuitive (though this area may seem intimidating). Once your company have ditched the rolodex, hard copy reporting, and scattered, interlinking software for one that handles it all there will be a major boost toward productivity.

B) Team Management has always been troublesome for any business operating using traditional means and there’s no reason to, anymore, thanks to great cloud-based services such as BaseCamp, Trello, Time Doctor, and those offered by the likes of IBM, Microsoft, Google, and Apple.

Team management services will keep projects in line due to accountability but more so because the tasks can be delegated, divvied, and monitored through just about any device imaginable. A field operator can update those in the office on-the-fly, and vice versa, to keep things moving smoothly.

C) Cloud storage and security are yet another major improvement that come with hopping to the cloud. No longer is the stability of the business reliant on what happens within the brick and mortar. Events such as theft, natural disasters, or cyber-attacks can be thwarted and quickly dealt with through the benefits of cloud-based security services and regular cloud-based backups (off site).

D) Social media and those tools used for its automation and the like has been phenomenal for providing better customer experience and service. Tools like Hootsuite are at the top of their game because they house the social media experience under one, easy-to-use roof that takes the task that would otherwise require a handful of social media mavericks to conduct and condenses it to one that can be handle by just a sole individual.

Before long you will find that much of your sales generation and customer service will come through social media and the use of cloud services in the social media arena will be doubly as valuable.

Bringing your business to the cloud can be a daunting task considering that the systems and hardware in place is already getting the job done. However, this is where your competition has decided to move and with these cloud-based services they will soon gain an edge because of all its value and flexibility. You won’t want to wait too long before making the leap even if it’s just one area of your business at a time.

Is your business ready for the cloud? It is and there’s no better time to start that transition than today.

Written by Jane Brown

The Internet has truly changed business and commerce as we know it. We’re playing in a truly global economy now, and that makes international teams a valuable asset for any business, large or small. The internet is also what makes it possible for such remote, “virtual” teams to exist, allowing everyone to connect and exchange information no matter how wide spread the team members. Of course, keeping a virtual team on task has a set of challenges all its own. Here are the vital tools and skills any online boss needs to keep their operation running smoothly.

The Right Tools for the Job

The first step in facilitating productivity and communication in any virtual team is ensuring that you have the right tools to get that job done. In a traditional workplace, communication is easy: it’s all in person, thanks to everybody being in the same location. Managing a far flung virtual team, however, the quality of your communication will often depend on the quality of your communication software.

With the advent of better networking tools and better internet speeds, video conferencing has exploded into prominence, surpassing voice conference calls as the number one way for teams to stay in touch.

In earlier days, setting up an in house video conferencing network was an expensive, time consuming, and glitch nightmare, requiring expensive equipment and an involved installation process. Fortunately, now every smartphone, tablet, and computer had a video camera and internet access, and video conferencing can be hosted entirely online.

Video conferencing services like Blue Jeans offer entirely cloud-hosted, browser based conferencing, which allows anyone to access a call from any device. Just send an email a link, and your employee or coworker can join the conversation with one click. Blue Jeans also offers localized services, so Singapore companies can get a huge savings on video conferencing equipment with Blue Jeans SG.

Etiquette, Adaptability, and Understanding

Managing remote workers is a challenge all on its own, but when you add in time differences and cultural boundaries, managing a multinational team can be a true tightrope walk. It takes thought, empathy, and tact to manage a multinational team, and any manager will make a few missteps along the way.

The key, according to Donna Flynn of the Harvard Business Review, is to make a point of acknowledging cultural differences and the potential for awkward moments early. It fosters a culture of openness and understanding, and helps ensure your team members feel comfortable speaking up if a boundary has been crossed.

Understanding can turn a cultural misstep into a good laugh for your team, instead of an awkward moment that goes unaddressed and festers into a larger problem.

Adaptability also plays a key role in collaborating across time zones. It may be tempting for a manager to go without sleep to keep everyone on the same page, but Harvard Business Review and Forbes Magazine both say it’s far more beneficial to get your sleep and share the load of late nights. Donna Flynn’s team rotates their meeting schedule so that no one is expected to attend a late night meeting: they’ll have one meeting night off every four months, when the team meeting falls in the middle of the night for their time zone.

Clarity and Communication

When your team isn’t guaranteed to see each other in person every day, keeping a clear set of goals and agendas becomes crucial. Harvard Business Review says to clarify, clarify, clarify: make sure everyone is aware of their tasks and the processes they need to follow to accomplish them, not just overall goals and their role in the team. Make sure you budget time in team meetings to cover details that you might otherwise just take “as it comes.” Simplify your instructions as much as possible so they can be easily delivered and understood without grinding a meeting to a halt.

Wade Foster of Zapier, a very successful remote management team, also recommends hiring people with good writing skills. With only occasional face to face team meetings via video conferencing, almost all communication will be written, so it’s vitally important that your team can exchange information efficiently via email.

This is another area where the right tech will go a long way towards keeping your team on track and running smoothly. Media sharing functions, like Blue Jean’s virtual whiteboard, make it easy to exchange photos, documents, and even video and audio media in process. They’re great for workshopping media that’s still being edited and developed, or for taking notes and minutes, leaving a permanent record for anyone who couldn’t attend the meeting to get caught up. Your team can also treat a virtual whiteboard as a chatroom, keeping each other updated about their progress, asking for help, and socializing and bonding.

A Few Final Words

Any effective team needs good communication, and virtual teams are no different. However, keeping communication up and productivity high in a virtual workspace takes a new set of skills…and a new set of technology to facilitate those skills. However, with the right software at your disposal and the right mindset and agenda, a virtual team could be the boost you need to get your business playing at the truly global scale.

By Staff Editor

The Internet itself is not a safe and protected environment because the early pioneers never imagined the level of malicious activity that has now permeated it. Instead, it was conceived as an open network of computers that communicated freely with each other to share ideas. Information streaming through the Internet like email messaging and online purchasing zips through a number of heterogeneous, loosely-connected computers (usually servers) and networks.

The Dark Side of the Internet

Like a prosperous city with little security, the Internet has attracted hordes of criminals—thieves, predators, and scam artists. Their principle occupation is to either penetrate computers and networks to steal or change information or to intercept data as it travels across the Internet. Realizing that not every computer around the world can be protected, they roam the Internet either individually or in gangs looking for weak links in the chain of information that is constantly being exchanged between computers.

Vulnerability

At one time, most security risks came from inside a company, but now even companies with honest employees are at risk because access to the Internet has made them vulnerable to thieves and industrial spies online.

Individuals tend to be more vulnerable than businesses and small companies tend to be more vulnerable than medium to large-sized organizations with IT staff who are aware of the multiple risks online and have created Internet security measures.
Individuals can protect their computers by using firewalls and anti-virus programs.

However, companies need to do more, besides firewalls and anti-virus software, they also need security policies to protect their hardware and software from employee errors. Hiring network administrators and conducting training for employees are necessary steps to secure their computers and networks.

While it’s impossible for a company to totally secure all computer systems, they need to do the best they can to reduce the risk of conducting business online because their security measures not only impact the company itself , but also partners, suppliers, and customers.
Common Threats
The most common threats are viruses, hackers, and phishing scams.

Viruses

While there are many possible threats online, one of the most popular are viruses. Like biological viruses that attack the human body, these digital viruses can wreck havoc.

One kind of virus may rewrite code to render an operating system or a software program from becoming unusable, another kind may scramble information to make it unreadable, and yet another kind may destroy data.

Viruses often spread quickly throughout a computer and from one computer to the next, and often operate quietly without the computer user or system administrator realizing their presence.

Viruses are often trend-driven. When security experts figure out how to neutralize a particular type of virus, others are invented.

According to Internet Security developers at Trend Micro, “Three trends driving change in the landscape require a dedicated security focus to 1) secure all end-user activity, regardless of device; 2) secure cloud and virtual data centers; and 3) enable advanced cyber security against targeted attacks.”

Hackers

Hackers are usually interested in one of two things—how to break into a computer system to steal or destroy data or how to attack a computer system from the outside by overwhelming it with so much superfluous data so that it forces the computer system to shut down.
Hackers can break into a company’s computer network through an open portal or an Internet connection that is open when it is not being used. They also attempt to steal passwords. When it comes to stealing usernames and passwords, some hackers are expert at guessing weak passwords while others send emails that appear to be from a trust source—perhaps a vendor or a customer—that trick employees into divulging this critical information.

Phishing Scams

One common way of theft has been phishing scams.

Here’s an illustration of how the famous Nigerian phishing scam may be used.

A career girl on a lunch break in a coffee shop in Hong Kong may receive an email on her laptop to ask her to fix a problem with her PayPal account and the email conveniently provides a link to access the website. Unknown to her, her actions are being digitally tracked by a remote thief in Nigeria who records her user name and password so that he can steal her money after she has logged out.

Prevention

Fortunately, there are a number of ways to ensure protection:

1. Installing firewalls. These act like web servers and block external users from connecting to an internal computer system.

2. Using encryption. Information sent across the internet may be intercepted. One way of making the information difficult to steal is by scrambling it. This information cannot be read without a key.

3. Password authentication. A network administrator can verify that the password is being used by the authorized person by using authentication technology. This can consist of handprint recognition, retinal scanning, voice recognition or a coded ID card.

4. Digital signatures. The use of digital signatures verify that an outside document was sent by the person whose name is on the document. This prevents phishing attacks and all kinds of email spoofs.

5. Antivirus software. This keeps updating its security information on viruses to combat newly invented viruses.

Written by Jane Brown

As a company grows in scale and operations, it reaches a point where it becomes a multi-location business. At this point, it is faced with technological challenges that are quite different from issues it faced when it was a smaller, centralized business.

One of these new problems is how to move information from one office quickly and securely through a Wide Area Network (WAN).

Adding to the complexity of this problem is the fact that this information-transference is not simply data, but data that converges with voice and video networks. What’s more, these networks must also offer Quality of Service. (QoS)--high quality calls and videos that don’t skip.

Why Ethernet Is Secure

Ethernet that traverses a metropolitan-wide local area network–called an Ethernet WAN--does not rely on routers for networking. Instead, it is a much more basic transport layer, one that creates point-to-point pathways using switches. Essentially what this means in plain English is that Ethernet technology is simply a long network cable. It can connect one office to another because a company’s Internet technology department builds its own Internet protocol network on top of the existing Ethernet network.

3 Advantages of Ethernet Platforms

There are three primary advantages of having a switch-based infrastructure rather than router-based ones like VPNs and MPLS.

First, an Ethernet network offers lower latency. Latency means the time a packet takes to travel from one point to another one in a network. It is a measurement of the speed of transmission. Since Ethernet is based on copper wire, the packets travel at a fast speed. Essentially, the lower the latency, the faster and more efficient the network when it comes to transmitting data. In real time business operations, where, say, financial transactions are being communicated, milliseconds do make a difference.

Second, a point-to-point architecture means that the information is secure. It is not transferred across the Internet where data could be intercepted.

Third, this type of network also offers dedicated bandwidth. The amount of bandwidth can even be customized to meet the demands of a specific task.

According to Dan Foster, President of Business Markets at MegaPath, a leading provider of managed data, voice, and security services in North America, "The SMB and enterprise markets are demanding more affordable ways to get high bandwidth and Ethernet is delivering a reliable and secure solution at a breakneck pace."

Conclusion

When considering what type of technology to use to connect one office to another across a wide area, a company has to ensure high-speed communication. One solution that has worked very well for innumerable companies, both medium and large, is Ethernet. While it is not the only platform—a WAN can also be supported by Virtual Private Network (VPN) or MultiProtocol Label Switching (MPLS) – Ethernet offers a higher level of security than the other two platforms. While VPN tunneling is often favored by multi-location companies, this is an economic decision rather than one based on maximizing security and efficacy. A VPN platform is lower in cost, but it does not offer the same level of security, quality of service, and speed as Ethernet.

Written by Jane Brown