Google+ Introduces Enterprise Social Networking Features for Businesses

Businesses that use Google Apps received some potentially good news this week. The company announced that it has started testing some new enterprise social networking features for Google+, including some elements that would allow easier collaboration for users of Google Apps.

The public preview of the Google+ enterprise version includes workplace-specific features like more controls over sharing and privacy, improved administration controls, added support for video, and integrations with other products like Google Calendar.

The aim behind all of these features is to make communication between employees and business professional easier.

More specifically, business owners can use the new features to configure Google+ for their employees, restrict the sharing of posts between a company's employees and its full network, launch Google Hangout meetings directly from apps like Gmail, and even edit documents together within a Hangout.

Businesses and organizations that use Google products can use the new business features of Google+ for free through the end of 2013. No details on pricing have been released for after that time period, but that statement does hint that Google plans to charge for the enterprise features in the future.

Google Apps, the online document, calendar, and spreadsheet service, is already used by many businesses. There is also a free version of Google Apps for consumer use.

Google+ was launched in 2011 as a consumer social networking site. The company hinted last year that it would eventually launch a workplace version. The site itself does already offer a few features that could be used for networking or promotional purposes for businesses, but until now it didn't have anything specifically to address corporate needs.

But as with most Google products, the company has continually changed things up to make services tailored for different groups and needs.

In the future, Google plans to add more features like a mobile version of Google+'s enterprise social network and more IT administration features, and then possibly a full distinct enterprise offering by 2014.

A Secret to Green Business Success

On any big corporation's web site these days, you'll likely find their page devoted to environmental sustainability. It typically describes what initiatives the corporation has to lower its carbon emissions, recycle more, or save energy or water. It provides numbers and data that explain how much progress the company has made to reduce its environmental footprint.

Small businesses may feel like such data gathering and number crunching is too time-consuming or not worth the effort. They probably don't have budgets, after all, to hire sustainability consultants.

But for most businesses, it's worth spending a little time measuring green progress: Small businesses can greatly enhance their sustainability progress â€" while adding credibility to their green marketing â€" by using data to better measure and track their sustainability performance.

While it does take time to measure and track your green progress, it doesn't have to be an all-consuming process.

Here are three key steps:

Find Your Baseline

You need to know your starting point to know whether you've made any progress. How many kilowatts of electricity do you use each year? How many miles do your company autos travel each year (and what's their gas mileage).

Do a thorough review of your current environmental footprint. You can find much of the information about your energy use, for instance, by reviewing your electric and gas bills. This will likely probably help you identify opportunities for improvement.

You can keep track on a monthly or quarterly basis using an Excel spreadsheet. Local organizations can also help. Check to see if there's a sustainability networking group, such as a BALLE (Business Alliance for Local Living Economies) chapter in your community.

Some utility companies will also provide free or low-cost energy and water audits that give you a breakdown of your current usage.

Set Goals

Once you know your current footprint, you can identify ways to lower it. Consider writing a sustainability plan, even if just a short one, that lays out your goals. Writing a plan allows you to think through your sustainability priorities and formalize them.

You might even consider publishing that plan on your web site, if you think your customers will care.

Keep Track Of Your Progress

Keep a spreadsheet that documents your company's green progress. If a goal is to reduce electricity use by, say, 10%, write down your monthly kilowatt usage (which is typically displayed on your utility bills). This will make it easy come year-end for you to see whether you've met your goals.

After you've collected all this great information about your environmental footprint â€" and know how much progress you've made in reducing it â€" you have something to brag about. Use that information to engage your customers around your green initiatives. You'll have numbers to back it up, after all.

Eco Footprint Photo via Shutterstock

iPhone tipped as pick of new crop

It's shaping up to be a cold autumn for smartphone makers other than Apple, which is getting ready to release the next iPhone.

Nokia and Motorola, which a few years ago were the number one and two phone makers, revealed new phones at back-to-back press events in New York yesterday.

They appeared to be hurrying to show them off before Apple makes its rumoured iPhone announcement next week.

The phones are impressive in their own right and sport improvements from previous models, but analysts didn't see anything about them that would change the prospect of an iPhone-dominated holiday season.

For Nokia the new phones are especially crucial.

They're the first to run Windows Phone 8, and the Finnish company is hinging its turnaround strategy on an alliance with Microsoft.

But the reveal fell flat with investors, as Nokia's stock plunged 16 per cent.

Nokia's new flagship phone is the Lumia 920.

The lenses on its camera shift to compensate for shaky hands, resulting in sharper images in low light and smoother video capture, Nokia said.

It can also be charged without being plugged in - the user just places it on a wireless charging pod.

Nokia also unveiled a cheaper, mid-range phone, the Lumia 820. It doesn't have the special camera lenses, but has exchangeable backs so you can switch colours.

Nokia chief executive Stephen Elop said the new phones will go on sale in the fourth quarter in "select markets". Investors seem to have expected more specifics, or an earlier launch. Nokia shares fell US45c to US$2.38 in New York. The stock is trading at the same level it had in the mid-1990s.

Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney said the new phones were impressive, but he thought Microsoft was killing the buzz by holding back on details about Windows 8.

He suspects Microsoft and Nokia announced the Lumia phones early to steal some thunder from the next iPhone.

"Microsoft should have spent more time filling in the holes for this product release instead of worrying so much about what Apple was going to do," he said.

Neil Mawston, an analyst with Strategy Analytics, said Nokia's new smartphones lacked a "wow" factor.

"The devices that were launched were more of an evolution rather than a revolution," Mawston said.

"This was a baby step for Nokia and Microsoft and not really a giant leap like some were hoping."

Nokia launched its first Windows phones late last year under the Lumia brand, as the first fruits of Elop's alliance with Microsoft.

Those ran Windows Phone 7 software, which is effectively being orphaned in the new version. The older phones can't be upgraded, and they won't be able to run all applications written for Windows Phone 8.

Nokia sold 4 million Lumia phones in the second quarter, far fewer than the 26 million iPhones that Apple sold during those three months.

So far, the line hasn't helped Nokia halt its sales decline. Its global market share shrank from the peak of 40 per cent in 2008 to 29 per cent last year, and it is expected to dwindle further this year.

For Microsoft, the alliance with Nokia is its best chance to get into smartphones again, where it has been marginalised by the rise of the iPhone and then phones running Google's Android software.

The launch of Windows Phone 8 coincides roughly with the launch of Windows 8 for PCs and tablets, set for October 26.

Gene Munster at Piper Jaffray said Apple might sell 6 million to 10 million iPhones in the last week of this month. That compares with 9 million Motorola sold in the 12 weeks of the second quarter, research firm Gartner said.

- AP

How To Survive Political Campaign Season

If you belong to the growing number of Americans who believe that the federal government is generally useless, then no doubt you are tearing out your hair in frustration right now. After all, this is campaign season, when the federal government is even more useless than usual.

And both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue are never more useless than when they are contemplating small business policy.

An Example

So President Obama has been fighting with the Republican-controlled House this summer over whether or not to extend the Bush era tax cuts for an unspecified amount of time - longer or shorter, depending on who you talk to.

President Obama wanted to extend those cuts but only for the “middle class,” or those households earning less than $250,000 in adjusted gross income. The upper income taxpayers excluded from the extention the President contemplates represent the top 10% income bracket.

You would think that House Republicans would leap at the chance to keep any expiring tax cuts in place, wouldn't you?

After all, if you show yourself willing to work with your political opponents, there is always the possibility that your good faith negotiation will get you more of what you wanted further down the road.

During more reasonable times â€" say about two decades ago â€" members of Congress were statesmen enough to be willing to take half of what they wanted rather than walk away empty-handed. That kind of give-and-take also opened the opportunity for further amendments and other legislative tweaks that could get you evenmore of what you were pushing for in the first place.

That Was A Long Time Ago

Yes, boys and girls, once upon a time, our nation's leaders were more interested in addressing the country's problems than they were in raw partisan political power.  Or, to be more accurate, they were smart enough to understand that those two things were not mutually exclusive.

Predictably, House Republicans voted down what President Obama was billing as a middle class and small business tax cut last month, because said tax cut would exclude those top earning small business owners … and everybody else.

According to House Small Business Committee Chairman Sam Graves (R-MO) “President Obama's proposed tax hike on 900,000 small businesses” would cost jobs, while the limbo in which President Bush's taxes might expire (but we're not really sure if that'll happen yet) produces levels of uncertainty that cause small business owners to be unable to function.

Of course, the 900,000 small businesses to which the Chairman refers are actually 900,000 small business owners â€" or, to be still more accurate, 900,000 taxpayers who report any “small business” income at all on their tax returns.

Some of these small business owners, you may recall from the debates in 2003, include former President George W. Bush, former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. And, of course, the vast majority of the folks that those House members are fighting for have nothing at all to do with small businesses.

Besides all of which, even if we permit Chairman Graves to get away with his “900,000 small businesses,” we're still only talking about roughly 3.5% of all the nation's small businesses. Not exactly a move that is likely to completely crush the world's second largest economy.

Meanwhile

President Obama had another attack of his “We Can't Wait”-policymaking-without-consulting-the-nation's-legislature, and announced a slate of small business initiatives that mostly don't require Congressional approval. By and large, they consist of a passel of tax cuts and loan programs, none of which meet the needs of the vast majority of small businesses.

While most microbusiness owners like the idea of paying less in taxes, many more of them would prefer tax simplification and other forms of regulatory relief. Nobody ever seems to talk about that when they talk about small businesses. But, then again, that's not really the point of any of these exercises.

The point of all these exercises is to give all parties involved something to complain about on the campaign trail.

President Obama gets to propose so-called small business friendly legislation that isn't going to be approved by the House (because the House isn't going to approve anything that'll give the President any sort of legislative victory) and then complain that Congressional Republicans aren't doing enough to help small businesses.

House Republicans simultaneously get to move legislation that they know perfectly well is going nowhere because (they know perfectly well) President Obama is not going to sign it (always assuming they could get it past the Senate, which is unlikely) and then they can complain that President Obama isn't doing enough to help small businesses.

The Best Part Of This Silly Game

Neither side in this kind of mud slinging match has proposed anything that would actually help the majority of small businesses anyway.

You see, that's the nature of political campaign season. If you want to play spectator, a sense of humor helps to avoid high blood pressure and other symptoms of excessive stress.

Otherwise, you could end up with an ulcer just from listening to all that sound and fury that signifies nothing.

Campaign Season Photo via Shutterstock

Security firm warns of Android mobile toll fraud in latest mobile malware report

Mobile security firm Lookout Inc. is warning about the growing prevalence of malicious mobile applications designed to bill an unsuspecting victim through premium SMS services.

Fraudsters are tampering with legitimate mobile tools and advertising systems to achieve broader distribution and make more money.

Lookout Inc.

The San Francisco-based security firm said millions of people have been impacted by mobile malware, a mixture of freely available apps containing spyware and those containing aggressive advertisements designed to collect as much user data as possible. In its "State of Mobile Security 2012," Lookout painted a bleak picture of the threat landscape raising security and privacy concerns in its analysis of threat detection rates for users of its mobile security application over the last 12 months.

"The mobile malware industry has matured and become a viable business model for attackers," Lookout said in its report. "Fraudsters are tampering with legitimate mobile tools and advertising systems to achieve broader distribution and make more money."

Lookout estimates that as many as six million people have encountered malware during the last 12 months. Fraudulent premium-rate SMS Trojans are the most prevalent type of malware, accounting for 91% of the malware, the company said. In addition the firm noted an increase in the frequency of adware â€" apps that push ads out of apps, change browser settings and access personally identifiable information "without suitable notification or transparency."

Security vendors have been documenting a steady increase in mobile malware as people turn to their mobile devices to make purchases and conduct banking and other financial transactions. Finland-based antivirus company F-Secure Corp., issued a report last month finding that third-party Android markets host the bulk of mobile malware. The company also highlighted the prevalence of SMS Trojans.  A report issued this week by McAfee Inc. warned of a sharp increase in mobile malware in 2012.

In its report issued Thursday, Lookout said toll Fraud malware has emerged as the most significant threat category. The fastest spreading malware is identified as FakeInst or RuSMSMarket. The mobile app affects Android devices. It pretends to act as a legitimate installer for popular apps, but instead bills victims through premium SMS messages. The malware is "almost exclusively" directed at Eastern Europe and Russian users, the company said.

The firm said that 42% of new Lookout users in Russia have malware on their Android device, a trend fueled by the lack of regulation over SMS toll services and the lack of monitored mobile application distribution sites.

Some of the malicious activities associated with mobile applications are being driven by app promoters, which attempt to drive up notability and popularity of a specific app at the top of app market lists. Apps can gain the system by gaining root permissions on a device to install malicious code such as a Trojan that registers "active app" events even when the device screen is turned off. The issue is especially problematic in third party app stores based in China, Lookout said.

Also detected by Lookout is malware that uses man-in-the-Browser fraud techniques to intercept Transaction Authentication Numbers (mTAN) to gain full control of a victim's bank account.

Lookout is also warning of Web-based attacks. One in 10 users in the United States will click on a malicious link on a mobile device, according to Lookout.  Some phishing attacks and other threats do not discriminate based on mobile platform, affecting Android, iOS and PCs in the same way, Lookout said. Phishing campaigns mimic trusted sites, such as financial institutions, attempting to get users to give up account credentials.

"The small form factor of mobile devices, coupled with trends such as the use of URL shorteners or QR codes, often makes it more difficult for users to evaluate the reputability of a given website," Lookout said.

Lookout predicts that cybercriminals will get better at embedding malicious payloads within applications. If weaponized applications remain undetected they can do far greater damage than SMS Trojans, giving attackers the ability to maintain full control over an infected device, the company warned. "As the mobile ecosystem continues to evolve, it is expected that malware writers will continue to experiment with new ways to trick existing marketing tools and processes," Lookout said.

Retargeting Doesn\'t Necessarily Imply Advertising: Four Ways to Retarget Without Paying For Ads

When you think of the term “retargeting,” you're probably thinking of an article I wrote earlier on getting your customers back into your site through retargeted advertisements. This is not the only way to do it, though. There are many ways to make them think twice, or at least introduce themselves to your business, without having to see your ads show up everywhere they go.

I was browsing the Web earlier this week and found an ad for an email marketing company I browsed earlier inside of my own site. Every page on my site was loading with that advertisement. That was annoying! Even worse, I went to a completely unrelated website (mine's a comic technology site) with recipes for cookies, and there it was! My screen just got invaded! It can get very annoying and irritating to the point that I don't even want to visit the site advertised anymore. It's like they're pushing everything in my face.

Is there a way to do this so it's less annoying to your site's visitors? Sure, there is! Here are a few ideas:

• Sponsor a website frequented by people who visit your site regularly. In other words, buy ad space from them. Offer them an annual or monthly payment so that the ad's displayed on their site as long as you pay, and watch visitors creep in. You don't have to rely on the big names. This way, you gain a highly-targeted audience. When they leave your site and visit their little gold mine, they will see your ad all the time and just click on it at their own whims. It's a win-win situation, and they won't see your ad when looking up the recipe for marzipan.
• Newsletters are cool! They're in style today, and if you're not running one, you're missing out on a ton. People who subscribe to your newsletter but don't buy a product don't necessarily hate your company. They probably aren't educated fully on what you have to offer and hope that you can offer some reinforcement. Do so discretely, and they'll probably buy what you have to offer. Also, don't forget to post something instructional once in a while. People like it when the companies they trust do more than just shove products and services in their faces all week long.
• If you're offering something big and original, pitch it to a publication. Some people get answers two percent of the time, while others might get an answer every other time they pitch. It depends on the “wow” factor of your product and how you present yourself. As you get further along, you'll get better at pitching. Hire someone to do the PR for you if you're not comfortable. Getting your firm some PR can help draw very attached customers who are more responsive to retargeting methods mentioned above.
• Write guest posts in blogs. This one's really hot and many people are doing it nowadays to try and get their name plastered on the Internet somewhere. The more exposure you get yourself, the more loyal customers will come. Loyalty is just as important as profit. Contact a blog owner and ask him if you can publish a guest post. An ink manufacturer and distributor has done that with me a few months ago. I was more than happy to publish their piece on my blog. This is how you build relationships with good publishers and hopefully retarget people who frequent the blog as you write more guest posts.

When customers see a lot of external activity related to your business, the Ohms drop and current flows. They feel more comfortable with businesses that are talked about. Don't think too much about these methods and just put them into practice. Most of them don't cost you anything compared to what you'll be shoveling in if you get some good practice.

CipherCloud allow data in any SaaS app to be encrypted

CipherCloud has expanded its encryption capabilities to offer security within any software-as-a-service (SaaS) or cloud-based application.

According to the company, its Connect AnyApp can secure data at rest for public and private cloud applications, whilst preserving its own functionality. Within Connect AnyApp, administrators specify which fields on the web pages to be encrypted and users can select from multiple encryption and tokenisation options.

Once a policy is enabled, data entered for the web application is automatically encrypted or tokenised using CipherCloud's format and operations preserving technology.

Vice president of marketing Kevin Bocek said that as long as the data is within a web application, you can encrypt it and all you need is a URL and applications. “You do not have to wait for CipherCloud to deliver it, this is building on the technology that we are delivering but now you can configure it yourself and set the policies yourself,” he said.

Pravin Kothari, CEO and founder of CipherCloud, said: “Every business and public sector organisation CipherCloud has spoken with asks how they can encrypt data for their own set of third-party and custom web applications. This might be a behind-the-firewall application moving to IaaS or a hot new SaaS social enterprise app.

“The industry's wait is over and now millions of IaaS, SaaS, and PaaS and behind-the-firewall applications can have data-at-rest protected with point-and-click encryption and tokenisation policies without any programming required.”

Programme launched by (ISC)2 to encourage young professionals into cyber security

A Young Professionals Programme has been launched by (ISC)2 to offer a pathway into the cyber security field.

According to the organisation, the new group has been designed to help cultivate the information security workforce of the future and will begin with a reception this Sunday. It will begin with eight (ISC)2 chapters around the world and be rolled out across the organisation in early 2013.

Members of the Young Professionals will gain access to services tailored for their career development needs, including mentoring, specialised education opportunities, career support and guidance, as well as networking opportunities.

Mentorship opportunities are available for experienced professionals.

John Colley, managing director for EMEA of (ISC)2,, said: “Getting young people on track to join the information security profession is critical to our future. The Young Professionals group will, not only help young people learn about the benefits of a career in this field, but it will also help the profession, gain much better insight into the needs of the younger generation and how best to engage them.”

To register for the reception, email receptions@isc2.org

Ideas Carry Potential: Action Carries Outcome

An idea is only as powerful as the action that follows it.  In a recent article for AMEX OPENForum, Anita Campbell asked the question that has been on my mind for months:

“Are You The Real Reason Your Company Isn't Innovative?“

In this article she highlights:

“Four signs that you might be your own worst enemy when it comes to innovation.”

One of those signals is when the entrepreneur keeps changing his mind following one great idea on Read More

The post Ideas Carry Potential: Action Carries Outcome appeared first on Small Business News, Tips, Advice - Small Business Trends.

10 Places to Grab Business Tech Advice in a Hurry

What is your absolute favorite place to get business tech advice in a pinch?

The following answers are provided by the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only nonprofit organization comprised of the world's most promising young entrepreneurs. The YEC recently published #FixYoungAmerica: How to Rebuild Our Economy and Put Young Americans Back to Work (for Good), a book of 30+ proven solutions to help end youth unemployment.

1. Quora for Questions

On Quora, the quality of the content is great. You can typically find answers to your questions and others you may not have thought of. Particularly for tech, many of the answers are provided by experts in the industry.
- Karen Moon, StyleMusée

 

2. Hop Onto HubSpot

When I need to learn about business tech in a hurry, the first place that I always look is HubSpot. They have a very complete knowledge base on all things related to Internet marketing. Their white papers and case studies are especially helpful because they give real-life examples of how companies can use different strategies in conjunction to move closer to their organizational goals.
- Lawrence Watkins, Great Black Speakers

 

3. Read Feld Thoughts

Brad Feld is the most consistently awesome source for tech startup advice. His blogs and books explain the details behind choosing co-founders, pitching investors, hiring early employees, compensating board members, and more. And his past and present leadership with top tech startups, accelerators, and venture capital firms lends huge credibility to his words.
- Neil Thanedar, LabDoor

 

4. Keep the KISSmetrics Blog

The KISSmetrics Blog is phenomenal at taking difficult technology and digital marketing techniques and breaking them down into step by step instructions. I love the no-nonsense approach they have to writing how-to, and also how they don't feel any need to pack in a bunch of keywords so they pop up on Google News. They focus instead on writing truly useful content for tech businesses.
- Seth Kravitz, Technori

 

5. Look at Your LinkedIn Network

I have a very smart and diverse network, and within minutes of shooting off an inquiry, I'll get at least a dozen fantastic responses. The best thing about this approach is that I know I can trust these answers because they are grounded in real expertise and experience.
- Alexandra Levit, Inspiration at Work

 

6. Take It to Twitter

I usually turn to Twitter when I'm looking for advice, since I have a vast network there. It's especially helpful when I'm looking for suggestions of new websites and tools either for my company or for a client. I've found people on Twitter to be one of the most immediate sources of advice and often quite accurate in terms of what I'm searching for.
- Heather Huhman, Come Recommended

 

7. Utilize Advisers and Partners

Anytime we run into a “wall”, the first thing I do is pick up the phone to call business advisers and partner companies, like our distributors. We love Quora and other sites for generic answers, but advisers and partners have a much greater feel for the context in which the issue exists. Their intimate knowledge of our business allows us to quickly and creatively uncover the core of the problem.
- Aaron Schwartz, Modify Watches

 

8. Try Zappos Insights

Zappos launched a new site called Zappos Insights where entrepreneurs can tap into the Zappos team and a network of fellow entrepreneurs for support and insights. Whether it's tech advice or culture issues, it's awesome.
- Luke Burgis, ActivPrayer

 

9. Create an Email Group

Rather than wasting time on Twitter, I send an email to a small group of people that have been helpful before. Some are friends, some are acquaintances, others are those who helped me develop my sites. But usually within 20 minutes, not only do I have an answer to my question, but I have some one to help implement it if need be. Consider using social media to find these contacts, and then get more focused.
- Sean Ogle, Location 180, LLC

 

10. Use Community Groups

Join Facebook and LinkedIn groups that have some solid tech experts in them. This way, you can reach out in an emergency to get some quick advice. You're also building relationships at the same time.
- John Hall, Digital Talent Agents

Axway launch file sharing platform for use with desktops and mobile devices

Axway has announced the launch of a secure collaboration gateway and platform to enable secure file sharing.

Named the MailGate SC with DropZone, it said that it provides enterprises with a secure method to share files, email messages and interact with internal and external collaborators from a desktop, tablet or smartphone.

It offers a single administrative interface for complete control over email and file sharing, while a sophisticated internal policy engine and integration with external data loss prevention systems via ICAP allows administrators to apply detailed policies to what is allowed to be shared over both email and file sharing collaboration. It also includes multiple encrypted email delivery options and at-rest encryption for all sensitive information.

Mike Dayton, senior vice president of security solutions at Axway, said: “Most employees don't even realise they are putting the enterprise at risk by using unsecured collaboration tools. We are pleased to provide the enterprise with a unified, secure alternative to the plethora of uncontrolled, cloud based file sharing services and email tools that are cropping up in the workplace.

“ Axway MailGate SC with DropZone enables users to easily collaborate without the risks inherent in these services. As the secure collaboration market segment continues to grow, Axway's secure collaboration platform will enable overall efficiency, flexibility and improved business productivity for security-conscious enterprises.”

Test of London\'s WiFi networks shows lack of security

A quarter of London's WiFi hotspots have been found to have poor, or no security.

Research by Sophos into nearly 107,000 wireless hotspots in the capital found that eight per cent of the hotspots used no encryption and appeared to be both home and business networks, while 19 per cent of the hotspots used ‘WEP' encryption, while the other 81 per cent used WPA or WPA2 encryption.

Sophos' director of technology strategy, James Lyne conducted the experiment by equipping a bike with dynamos and solar panels to power a computer designed to scan for wireless networks, a technique known as ‘wardriving' or in this case ‘warbiking'. In addition, a GPS-enabled device allowed the creation of a ‘heat' map, depicting levels of security of wireless networks around central London.

Of the overall number of networks, nine per cent were using default network names with no random element, such as 'default' or the vendor name, therefore allowing password hacking to be even faster. This figure increased to 21 per cent if networks used the default name but had some random element per device.

Lyne said: “Pretty much every wireless device can be configured to use secure wireless networking out of the box, so poorly configured devices show a lack of awareness rather than a lack of capability to be secure.

“It's easy to take simple steps to protect your wireless network, making it a far less attractive target for anyone trying to snoop on your internet activities or steal personal information. If an attacker gains access to a wireless network they can cause a lot of damage, such as intercepting usernames/passwords, taking control of computers on the network, changing browsing to websites (for example to deliver malware or capture credentials) or using the network to perform any manner of anonymous or illegal activities.”

In the experiment, Sophos only collected high-level data within the confines of the law and it has not way of testing the strength of the passwords used, as no attempt was made to access any of them.

Radio Shack Launches No-Contract Mobile Service

Radio Shack has become the latest retailer to make a foray into the wireless field. The electronics chain has announced a no-contract mobile service that includes some attractive budget features for business. The announcement follows the launch, earlier this year, of a prepaid “casual use” WiFi system from WalMart able to network up to five devices. These tools offer ever widening options for companies and consumers as the trend toward wireless, mobile business continues.

Making a Connection

Upward mobility. The new no-contract wireless service from Radio Shack is $25 a month for 300 voice minutes and $35 a month for 1000 minutes on “feature” phones. Plans are $50 a month with 1GB of full-speed data and $60 a month with 2.5GB of full-speed data for smartphones. Both plans include unlimited voice and domestic text messaging and the $60 plan also includes unlimited international text messaging. PC World

Out of the office. If you want proof a mobile company can be just as effective as one in which employees all share the same space, look no further than Automattic, Inc., the tech titan behind popular blogging platform WordPress.com. The most distinctive thing about the company's main office is that there isn't one. Instead, 123 employees work from their homes spread out across 26 countries, 94 cities, and 28 U.S. States. The Wall Street Journal

Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Turns out that having employees mobile and working from a remote location isn't just convenient for them and less expensive for you. It may actually make them more engaged. If you want to learn about how mobile workers are more productive, simply have a look at this post. Harvard Business Review

Objects in Motion

Mad men. Some of the most important customers are not only affluent and online, but their preference is moving rapidly toward shopping with mobile devices. Rieva Lesonky reveals in this report how statistics show men 18 and over with household incomes of $100,000 or more are shopping online like never before. Grow Smart Biz

The world is flat. Smartphones aren't the only mobile devices customers are beginning to use more frequently. Especially in the world of e-commerce, shoppers are showing a preference for tablets. Knowing this, Web based entrepreneurs need to be thinking one step ahead as they tweak and develop their Websites for a world that is not only increasingly mobile but increasingly flat…the world of the tablet. Unleased Technologies

App Attack

Evernote sets the perfect tone. As business becomes more mobile, app creator Evernote is building a tool especially designed to meet the new challenges companies face. Evernote Business will allow those running a firm of any size to manage company data, share information with employees, create directories, and help in many other ways. Small Business Trends

App Happy. Using apps like Evernote and others to make your business work better in a mobile world takes time and skill. Every tool is different, but some of the basics businesses need to use mobile apps successfully are the same. Here are five tips you might want to consider when trying to make the latest mobile business app work for you. Get App

(ISC)² offers University of Warwick students compact three day course

University of Warwick students have been given the opportunity to join (ISC)² via an Academic Affiliate Agreement with the WMG department.

The agreement will offer a three-day, specially devised CISSP Compact course to attract and develop the next generation of professionals and improve security standards through education. Renowned for its education programmes and courses in the UK and abroad, WMG is an academic department of the University of Warwick and one of the largest MSc departments in the country.

Harjinder Singh Lallie, senior teaching fellow of cyber security at WMG, said: “WMG is proud to have become an (ISC)2 Academic Affiliate. This allows our students to gain a certification that provides a breadth of requisite underpinnings in the cyber security domain.

“WMG's goal is to be recognised nationally and internationally for offering one of the top cyber security courses available and one that expressly meets the needs of industry. We consi der the CISSP certification to be the most highly sought-after in cyber security. It carries international recognition and significance and provides our students with an excellent advantage when seeking employment in this domain.”

John Colley, managing director, EMEA for (ISC)2, said: “It is heartening to see that WMG is committed to supporting its graduates as they move into the working world, and in particular to helping young people discover a career in the growing field of information security.  Young people - even young IT students - are largely unaware of the potential for a career in the field, which is restricting the entry of new talent and contributing to a rising skills gap as the existing workforce ages.

“As a professional organisation, we are committed to working with academic institutions to increase interest in and support the entry of more people into information security, while also ensuring they get the support they need to become product ive despite a lack of practical experience.”