EventTilt: Crowdfunding for Events

Crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter have already become widely used to help startups and individuals fund new products and initiatives. But now online ticketing startup Picatic is offering a similar opportunity for event planners, promoters, and venues to fund their events through its new service EventTilt.

EventTilt aims to help event planners ensure they'll make a profit before actually going through the whole process of putting on an event. Organizers can even offer incentives like discounted tickets or free merchandise to those who help fund their events.

For businesses that host events, going through the whole planning and execution process can be a huge pain if the event doesn't end up making a profit. This type of site can help avoid the let-down that comes with a less than successful turnout by letting organizers decide on a minimum amount of money or number of attendees needed to make a profit or at least break even before putting on an event. There are fees for posting events on the site, unless the event is free to attend â€" then users can submit it to the site free of charge.

This concept is different than just giving guests the option to pre-order tickets, because it allows people to donate or purchase tickets to an event before its even booked. If the event receives enough funding or donors, it happens. If it doesn't receive enough funding or donors, then the organizer will know it's not worth the trouble and the event doesn't happen.

Upon visiting the Picatic site, users can browse different events to support. They can see how much tickets are, if there is a discount for supporting the event early, and how many more tickets need to be sold in order for the event to take place. Types of events range from concerts to charity fundraisers and even certain types of sporting events.

Picatic, which has been around since 2008, is not the only startup trying to launch this type of site. But so far none has stood out above the rest, making it the Kickstarter of event crowdfunding sites. And it still remains to be seen if this type of project will catch on with the general public, but the idea behind it could certainly be helpful for many different types of businesses.

33 Tools And Resources To Increase Website Trust And Sales

After reading Lisa Barone's incredibly useful and popular post “25 Questions Your Site Must Answer,” I felt compelled to look at my site and my client's sites to see what tools I could find and use to start answering as many of the questions as I could.

I'm not done yet, but Lisa inspired me to find the tools to get the job done. Below, I don't answer all of Lisa's questions, as you'll see.  Because there is no tool to answer how you are weird or what you believe in, that I can find.

But I love the questions:

1. Where is your search box? How usable is the navigation?

I've created many Custom Search Engine search boxes with Google's tools. Here is how to do it.

2. Are you a real company? Do you have a store? Where is it located? What are the hours? Phone number? I need a map.

Lisa is right on with this one: Show your visitor a map.  But first, make sure your site is mobile-enabled.

Frankly, most mobile browsers on smartphones are figuring out how to display even older sites, but it doesn't hurt to take a peek at what yours looks like on different devices. Gomez is one of the best, free tools to test a mobile view. They email you the results. But you can also check out this list from WebDesignerDepot.

Next, go to Google Maps and grab the embed code to insert into your website so that your map is instantly available to a mobile phone user. Here's the Google Maps way to do it.

3. Are you on Twitter? Facebook? Instagram?

Add the social buttons easily with two of the most popular tools: AddThis or ShareThis. If you use WordPress, you'll want to search for plug-ins from within your dashboard, but here's a list to get you thinking.

4. Is there an About page? Are your employees visible? Do you give them a voice?

Easy enough to create an About page. Totally needed. Of course, Lisa is too humble to link to her other post that offers excellent advice “5 Must Haves For That About Us Page.” Here are 12 great examples from BlogTyrant.

In addition to creating a page that profiles employees or your team, make sure your team is connected on LinkedIn by having a Company Page. Head over to their Learning Center to see how to best leverage a company page.

5. What is the culture like? Are you a “good” company?

6. Are there company testimonials? What other people or companies have worked with you? Were they happy with the experience?

I'm going to combine questions 5 and 6 and state ditto on using LinkedIn for testimonials and partnerships. Forget about those testimonials that say, “Susie J. says…” Those are not likely to be believed. Ask your customers to connect and use LinkedIn or use a plugin like this if you use WordPress.

7. What about product or service reviews? What's everyone else saying? Am I making a good decision if I commit to this?

Link to your Yelp profile, if you have one, so people can see what others are saying. If you don't have one, consider getting your business started on Yelp. Possibly even better would be to use GetSatisfaction, the online customer feedback service.

8. If I'm not ready to buy yet, how can I stay in touch? Is there a blog? A newsletter?

One of the main reasons to have a site is to keep advancing the conversation with a customer. Have a Web form to capture names and emails that allow you to stay in touch. I like MailChimp forms as well as Aweber.

9. How do I know if this is the “right” product for me? Is there a sizing guide? A product FAQ? Comparison charts?

You can do this in a spreadsheet, of course, and then embed it or take a screenshot and use that. Read these Microsoft Excel instructions on creating the comparison chart. Or try out Compare Ninja, a Web-based service. You can also take a look at Hongkiat's post on comparison charts which reveal some other tools. Finally, there's a simple HTML chart generator from IzzyWebsite.

10. What's your return policy like? Will I stuck with this if I don't like it?

11. Do you ship to where I live? Where are you shipping from? How long will it take me to get my goods?

If you find yourself overwhelmed with shipping, you might want to check out my review of Shipwire that offers fulfillment at an affordable price from multiple warehouses.

12. What are your payment options? Can I pay with Paypal?

Paypal lets you create custom buttons and while their tools are not always super user-friendly, they work. You can create custom invoices, too. They explain how in this FAQ on Paypal Buy Now Buttons. They let you insert the Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and American Express logos, too.

13. Is your Web site secure? Are there icons that tell me that?

If you run an ecommerce store, you are probably already using an SSL connection or on a secure site, but you can make sure you put the certificates front and center as Lisa suggests. Visit Thawte, Network Solutions, Google Trusted Stores, SiteLock, or Verisign (which is owned by Symantec, makers of Norton Antivirus). Each of these lets you have icons to display, of course. You can also remind customers and visitors to look for the little padlock symbol in their browser address bar when shopping.

14. How will you protect my personal information? If I give you my email address, are you going to respect it or sell it?

Read Pam Moore's Social Trust post on Social Media Today for a few ideas. On top of that, use the security badges/icons to show your site is secure. Of course, you could make your own badge/statement of protection around how you are not a spammer and you won't sell my information. That goes a long way to starting the trust process. See answer to question 13.

15. Do your prices make sense? Are you high? Low?

Comparison chart is the way to go, even if you're only comparing your own services or products.

17. Have any of my friends purchased from this site before? Are they connected with you on Facebook? Do you show that off?

See above to add social sharing buttons. Or, check out TabJuice or Payvment which both look to have robust options for a Facebook storefront.

19. Should I trust you? Are you part of any organizations?

This goes along with the security question above, so you could put that Better Business Bureau logo, if you're a member.

20. Do other people seek you out? Do you speak anywhere? Teach a class? Been featured anywhere cool?

Put a “Press Page” on your About Us page. Again, LinkedIn (sign in to find these) offers ways to share this information with add-on tools like Amazon's Reading List app, LinkedIn Events, TripIt's My Travel app, and Slideshare's Presentation tool. If you are a web or software developer, you can highlight your GitHub Social Coding utility via LinkedIn, too, showcasing how you share your code and coding skills.

24. What does your process look like?

Create an easy-to-understand flowchart in a spreadsheet or use Mindmeister to create a mindmap that others can visually see how you think, how you do things.

25. How is this product different from that other one on your Web site? Which is better for me?

The comparison tools listed above can help you.

I'm grateful to Lisa, and I've said this many times before, for the kick in the pants. She cares about readers and wants to help you succeed in getting people to engage via online means.

What tools are you using to get the work done that Lisa put on your plate? (I may be able to use your expertise in a future post.) Or feel free to email me via my Small Business Trends bio page.

Online Questions Photo via Shutterstock

Little Known Brand Monitoring Search Tricks

Long gone are the days when “Googling” yourself was enough to monitor your online reputation. Things have gotten more complex: there are much more Internet-savvy customers who blog and tweet about your business. Being in the right place at the right time to talk to your customers is the key to the successful social media marketing strategy.

You are most likely to be already tracking your business name mentions online. However there’s much more you want to listen to.Read More

The post Little Known Brand Monitoring Search Tricks appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Network log management on a budget: How to streamline log analysis

According to the 8th annual SANS Log Management Survey (pdf), not only are many organizations struggling to distinguish between normal and suspicious traffic, but also more than one-fifth of respondents

SearchSecurity.com members gain immediate and unlimited access to breaking industry news, virus alerts, new hacker threats, highly focused security newsletters, and more -- all at no cost. Join me on SearchSecurity.com today!

Michael S. Mimoso, Editorial Director

have little to no automation in place because they lack the time and money required to implement it. Logs provide the evidence of what's occurred on a system at any given time, but logs are of little use unless they are collected and analyzed properly.

Logs provide the evidence of what's occurred on a system at any given time, but logs are of little use unless they are collected and analyzed properly.

However, enterprise security teams are often understaffed and underfunded, meaning expensive network log management and analysis systems may not be an option. Even if they were, the manpower to run them simply isn't there. But there is hope. In this tip, we'll examine free tools and simple tactics that, when implemented, can make it much easier for organizations to take advantage of security logging to spot anomalies and potential attacks.

Time-saving tools

Security logging, while essential for any sizable organization, isn't easy. Not only does the effort become more complex when collecting logs from many important systems, but also the time and effort in man-hours needed to pour over data, develop analysis and conduct ongoing tuning can be enormous. Many organizations can't even afford the cost and effort to purchase a commercial system. Fortunately there are free tools they can use to assist with log management and correlation to make life easier for log management systems administrators.

If the company doesn't have the budget to purchase a robust log management system from a large vendor, there are two good free log management tools worth checking out: OSSEC and syslog-ng. Both allow for data to be logged from systems and both also offer log analysis and reporting. A search engine can help find many other free programs available, but these two are the most widely used.

Since many of these free log tools rely on syslog, it might be necessary to install an agent on Windows servers to convert the Windows events logs into a syslog format. Downloading and installing the Snare agent will help the log manager bypass any limitations that might exist in parsing various log types. One thing to remember, though, is that when a logging agent fails, logs will stop being sent. I've seen systems that were up for long periods of time with an agent that crashed or that didn't come back up after a reboot. So it's important to be able to quickly determine when logs aren't being received. Run a weekly report on the events sent by each host. If you see a host's log volume that's lower than its established baseline or isn't sending logs at all, you have an area to focus on. 

Splunk, although not completely free, has a limited version that can be used to review logs that might not have reporting or dashboard capabilities. The free version of Splunk is able to review 500 MB of logs per day, which can be useful as a supplemental log management tool if an organization is missing certain options from its free log manager and doesn't want to go over the limit.

Another trend we're seeing is the emergence of cloud log management systems that allow logs to be sent offsite without the need to manage on-premises systems mentioned above. This can lower the TCO for companies that don't have the resources to manage a log management system in-house or that want to have their logs stored offsite. One service that does this for free is Sumo Logic: It allows for 500 MB with retention for seven days and the ability to have up to three users managing the events; plus users can run reports, create alerts and search logs. It may not be robust enough for some organizations, but it may be worth experimenting with in order to get a feel for log management in the cloud.

Log retention is also important. Even if you don't have a commercial log management system and are storing logs locally, that storage appliance or server needs to have redundancy built into it. You don't want a simple disk failure to erase your logs. Backing up logs and having them sent offsite, or better yet, replicated somewhere else on the network (securely) is important. The Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) states that when viewing logs after an incident, in the majority of cases, the data was there to be found beforehand, it just needed to be viewed. Without stability in the log storage process, that option to go back to the past might be lost.

Signs your company needs help 

Finally, while many of us assume what we're performing is "good enough" when it comes to streamlining log management, below are a few telltale signs that an organization's security log management process is in trouble. If more than one of these apply to your organization and the issues can't be rectified, it's time to call for outside help.

• There is limited or no way of automating alerts of logs within the company.
  •  If there is no way to alert on particular log events, the company won't know when it's had an incident.
• Administrators don't understand what is being logged.
  • Not knowing what logs are coming from the systems is an issue.
  • Not knowing what level of auditing is enabled on the system is also a problem. This might lead to a false sense of security.
  • Not being able to log custom applications. Many systems and applications have custom logs that need to be parsed and stored. Verify that this is possible and happening.
  • Forgetting to log third-party, cloud, mobile and virtualization systems.
• Performance issues are observed.
  • Slow database that doesn't allow for flexible reporting or searching.
  • No drill-down capabilities when searching for logs; speed is an issue.
  • Use of out-of-date equipment or single points of failure in hardware that would allow logs to be lost.
  • Not calculating the proper events per second (EPS) and losing logs due to saturation.
• Correlating logs for search purposes is an issue.
  • Without correlation, log managers will try to create a handful of alerts or reports at best. Without this functionality, they can't see deeper into logs to search for security incidents.
• There's no process in place for monitoring and analyzing logs.
  • No process for adding new systems to the log manager.
  • Unaware of what logs are missing or which systems are not sending logs.
  • No audits of systems to verify that logs are being collected from all systems.

About the Author:
Matthew Pascucci is a senior information security engineer for a large retail company where he leads the threat and vulnerability management program. He's written for various information security publications, has spoken for many industry companies and is heavily involved with his local InfraGard chapter. You can follow him on Twitter at @matthewpascucci or check out his blog at www.frontlinesentinel.com.

This was first published in September 2012

Pen testers should broaden scope, focus more on people, expert says

LOUISVILLE, Ky. --- Many professional penetration testers fail to provide a complete analysis of the enterprise weaknesses they discover, according to a noted security expert, focusing solely on the technology blunders that could result in data leakage. 

We're telling companies that their security program is really good, but we're not doing anything to test how information flows outside the boxes.

Chris Nickerson, CEO, Lares Consulting.

Chris Nickerson, CEO of Denver-based vulnerability assessment firm Lares Consulting, told attendees at the DerbyCon security conference that pen testers often neglect to address the employees themselves, which can be a company's biggest weakness.

"We're telling companies that their security program is really good, but we're not doing anything to test how information flows outside the boxes," Nickerson said. "If we're truly showing them what could be exposed, then we need to open the scope of what we do a little bit." 

Pen testers often simulate attacks from a malicious outsider. They can use various tools to gain access to critical systems, from brute-forcing passwords to finding and exploiting application and network weaknesses and stealing company data. The result is often a lengthy report of the company's weaknesses, giving the firm a snapshot of its security posture from an IT systems standpoint. But that snapshot, Nickerson said, doesn't tell the whole story.

Nickerson said serious pen testers should begin by looking for basic information about various employees, including business executives. Similar information-gathering processes are used by well-funded cybercriminals conducting targeted attacks, he said, starting with names, email addresses, social networks and the various clients employees use. Then, figure out what cell carrier they use, where they live and places they visit most often. Understand their backgrounds and heritages. All of the data is important, he added, because it can be exploited in a social engineering attack.

Tools to gather employee information
Surveillance techniques can often help organizations gain a better understanding of the factors outside the company's systems that can result in intellectual property exposure, Nickerson said. Mapping out a company's financials, its partners and key competitors can reveal useful information that can be used by cybercriminals in a targeted attack. Web services like Hoovers, MarketVisual and Muckety are a good starting point, he said.

"Do the intel to figure out who the competitors are, because one of them is going to come at the company or already has," Nickerson said. "You can get some great visuals and see connections that you never would have seen that could be a weakness."

Hoovers provides information about companies' top management and key competitors. MarketVisual provides similar information using a visual map, making it easier to navigate and connect different pieces of information. Muckety shows relationships between people, businesses, government and various organizations. The site's interactive maps enable users to drill down and view various connections. It was started in 2007 by newspaper reporters and often has stories about political ties and other connections not immediately visible on the surface. 

Nickerson said there are websites that provide more valuable data than social network LinkedIn. He also highlighted LittleSis, a freely accessible Internet database that provides information about connections among people, business and government. In addition, the website Jigsaw ties into Salesforce.com and provides contact information on corporate executives, directors and managers. And EntityCube, a Microsoft project that correlates search engine result data, allowing anyone to easily discover information about specific individuals. Such services, Nickerson said, help take the "false positives" out of gathering human intelligence.

"Watching the entire company isn't feasible," Nickerson said, "but focusing on some individuals can lead to some very important pathways into a company's systems."

Cloud Computing \'101′ Podcast: Is Moving To The Cloud A Good Move For Your Business

Ramon Ray, editor of Smallbiztechnology.com, recently did a podcast with Tegan Jones for the Wells Fargo Business Insight Series on Cloud Computing '101′.

 

In this podcast, Ramon explains the basics of cloud computing and what exactly it means to move to the cloud.  He also speaks of the many benefits of moving to the cloud for small businesses as well as many things that they need to consider before determining whether it's right for your business.  Ramon takes you through all aspects to consider including servers, software and security as well as the importance of finding the right providers.

If you've been confused about exactly what moving to the ‘cloud' means or if you've been trying to decide whether moving to the cloud is right for you, then this podcast can certainly help you to sort out all the details to consider so you can make an educated decision for your business.

IEEE blames proxy server provider for breach

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) said an issue that arose in conjunction with its proxy server provider was to blame for last week's breach.

The breach, which was announced and reported by SC Magazine last week, saw the usernames and passwords of more than 100,000 IEEE members being revealed, leading to the IEEE terminating access to user's accounts under their current password.

The statement said: “The incident related to the communication of user IDs and passwords between two specific applications within our internal network, resulting in the inclusion of such data in web logs.

“An anomaly occurred with a process executed in coordination with a proxy provider of IEEE, with the result that copies of some of the logs were placed on our public FTP server. These communications affected approximately two per cent of our users. The log files in question contained user IDs and accompanying passwords that matched our directory. The primary logs were, and are, stored in protected areas.

Upon discovering this exposure, IEEE immediately removed those files, ceased receiving those log files from the proxy provider and corrected the inter-application communication that resulted in the logs containing user IDs and passwords.”

It said that it does not store its corporate directory information in the clear, does not expose it to the public and denied that the corporate directory was compromised. It also said that after affected user accounts were locked down, only affected users were notified and that institutional account information was unaffected.

It also said that IEEE follows security best practices based on ISO and NIST standards and it reviews these standards to ensure that it follows a certain security methodology in its practices and processes.

“We thank IEEE's more than 2.5 million global users for their continuing support. IEEE takes safeguarding the private information of our members and customers very seriously. We regret the occurrence of this incident and any inconvenience it may have caused,” it said.

Radu Dragusin, a computer science researcher at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, detailed his discovery of the IEEE's FTP site with the clear text details, which he said had been stored unencrypted for at least a month on the public FTP server.

Dragusin said: “If leaving an FTP directory containing 100GB of logs publicly open could be a simple mistake in setting access permissions, keeping both usernames and passwords in plain text is much more troublesome. Keeping a salted cryptographic hash of the password is considered best practice, since it would mitigate exactly such an access permission mistake.”

What Are Sole Proprietors Spending On Payroll?

As you no doubt know, employee compensation is a nontrivial part of small business costs. But what you might not realize is how much that cost varies across industries.

I have taken Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data on sole proprietorships from 2009, the latest year available, to create a chart of payroll expenditures as a percent of sales for the average sole proprietorship in different industries. (I dropped the industries with fewer than 50 tax returns filed because the numbers are too imprecise.)

You can download the chart, it's an Excel spreadsheet titled, “Payroll As Percent Sales.”

While the IRS's tendency to release data slowly makes using its numbers to look at trends over time a bit problematic, its figures are still good for making cross industry comparisons. Moreover, since the IRS data are based on tax filings rather than voluntary surveys, they are more comprehensive and more accurate than non-administrative types of data.

The chart may be useful to people for a variety of reasons I can't anticipate. So it's there for people to use, however they see fit.

But permit me to make three observations about it:

First, the fraction of revenues that the average non-farm sole proprietorship spends on payroll is pretty low, coming in at 8.7 percent. That may reflect the fact that relatively few sole proprietors have any employees.

Second, there's a lot of difference across industries in what sole proprietors are spending on payroll, ranging from 0.6 percent of sales for investment bankers and securities dealers to 28 percent for surveying and mapping services.

Third, even in similar types of businesses, there is a surprising difference in payroll expenditures. For instance, the average sole proprietor in architectural services spends 17.6 percent of revenues on payroll versus 8.5 percent for the average sole proprietor in engineering services. Similarly, the average doctor's office set up as a sole proprietorship spends 13.3 percent of receipts on payroll, while the average dentist's office using the same legal form of organization spends 22.6 percent.

Payroll Photo via Shutterstock

PayPal Offers Professional Custom Invoicing to Members

With competitors nipping at its heels, PayPal recently unveiled an option that many companies have been offering for months. In the past, members have only had the option of sending a generic invoice through the service, with no option for adding letterhead or customizing it to fit your company's needs. PayPal Online Invoicing seeks to provide businesses the best of both worlds.

For most small businesses, the alternative has been to send invoices to clients through e-mail, including a PayPal e-mail address on the invoice as an option for payment. Keeping invoicing within PayPal is a win for all involved, with PayPal able to levy fees, the small business owner better able to track income, and the customer able to pay with one click. If your customer doesn't have a PayPal account, no problem. That client can still send money by entering credit card information or pay using a check or money order the old-fashioned way.

“PayPal Invoices might not be the most feature-rich invoicing option on the web, but it definitely gets the job done,” Matthew Guay wrote on App Storm. “It lets you create invoices right from your browser that your clients can pay via PayPal or any standard credit card, and even lets you print invoices so you can send them on your own and get paid by cash or in any other way that works best for you.”

If you already have been sending invoices through PayPal, you'll notice that the new process isn't all that different. In your PayPal account, click on Request Money. Click on Create an Invoice. Here you'll see all of your information already filled in. All you have to do is add your logo and complete the invoice the way you always have. If you've never used PayPal invoicing, you'll find the process is far easier than generating invoices manually. For one thing, the invoice number automatically changes with each invoice. When your client receives the invoice, they'll be given the option to pay using a PayPal account or to enter their credit card information manually.

For business owners operating primarily from tablets or smartphones, PayPal invoices can be sent directly from a mobile device. When a customer receives the invoice, he or she also has the option of paying through a mobile device, which can help prevent delays in payment.

PayPal also helps small businesses manage finances, sending reminders when payments remain pending for a while and allowing you to easily extract information into an Excel spreadsheet. By automating your small business's billing and payment, you'll be able to more easily track expenses and income while still maintaining a professional appearance for your client base.

While there are other services available, many customers still feel comfortable making payments through PayPal, which protects credit card information. PayPal Invoicing makes this process easier while allowing your small business to customize invoices to look as you need them to look.

Sophos and SecurEnvoy to offer tokenless decryption

SecurEnvoy and Sophos have joined forces to enable two-factor authentication (2FA) using SMS messages for full disk encryption.

The new partnership will develop a tokenless 2FA solution for laptops and other devices meeting requirements for flexible working without the worry of losing the token. SecurEnvoy will use Sophos' SafeGuard Enterprise business-grade encryption to provide users with practical decryption, eliminating the need for physical tokens or smartcard readers

Andy Kemshall, CTO and co-founder of SecurEnvoy, said: “Organisations want to enable their employees to connect remotely using any device, anywhere, any time - and in that scenario a physical device is impractical.

“Partnering with Sophos, we are the first company to bridge the gap. By offering a tokenless authentication solution, organisations no longer have to make the impossible choice between strong encryption and granting employees the flexibility they're craving.”

James Lyne, director of technology strategy at Sophos, said: “It's critical that organisations balance security, usability and organisational costs. Too much complexity in the password or rotation policy drives irritation in the workforce and leads to worse security as people write down their codes on stickies and put them on their desk. SecurAccess integrated with Sophos SafeGuard Enterprise provides a flexible alternative for organisations struggling with help desk costs.”

Imprivata and Texas Instruments collaborate to offer authentication for virtual desktops

Imprivata and Texas Instruments (TI) have announced a partnership to support strong authentication and secure application access for virtual desktop environments.

The new solution will combine TI's DM8148 system-on-chip (SoC) and embedded reference development kit software with Imprivata's strong authentication agent. The two companies said that this offers a solution that delivers strong user authentication into any software application delivered via a thin- or zero-client endpoint.

TI has also developed a software reference design kit (RDK) for thin and zero clients, utilising Imprivata's OneSign authentication functionality. The companies said that this allows manufacturers to simplify their development and ensure Imprivata-ready accreditation for their products.

Kim Devlin-Allen, thin client business manager of the OMAP platform business unit at TI, said: “As interest in desktop virtualisation continues to grow, the need for strong authentication and single sign-on also continues to rise.

“Meeting this demand, TI's DM8148 offers leading-edge performance and power advantages to enable cost-effective thin and zero clients, particularly in the highly regulated healthcare market. We are excited about the opportunity to showcase the DM8148 RDK software optimised with Imprivata's strong authentication technology, and to pave the way for new advancements in the embedded thin- and zero-client markets.”

David Ting, founder and chief technology officer at Imprivata, said: “In healthcare, there is little delineation between the public and private spaces in which clinicians work, and care providers are constantly accessing patient information across shared workstations throughout a hospital. This poses a unique workflow and security challenge.

“Desktop virtualisation, when coupled with no click access, provides clinicians with fast, secure access to patient information, regardless of location. Combined with TI's unparalleled technologies, Imprivata OneSign provides healthcare providers with strong authentication across more devices and operating environments than any other vendor in the industry.”

Did Chinese hackers access the White House\'s nuclear secrets?

Chinese hackers were able to access the White House Military Office.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, defence and intelligence officials familiar with the incident said that the breach was one of Beijing's most brazen cyber attacks against the United States, and highlights a failure of the Obama administration to press China on its persistent cyber attacks.

An Obama administration national security official said that this ‘"was a spear phishing attack against an unclassified network" and confirmed that the type of attack was ‘not infrequent' and that there were unspecified mitigation measures in place.

The report claimed that US officials familiar with reports of the White House hacking incident said it took place earlier this month and involved unidentified hackers who were believed to have used computer servers in China and accessed the computer network used by the White House Military Office (WHMO).

This network is the US president's military office in charge of some of the government's most sensitive communications, including strategic nuclear commands. The office also arranges presidential communications and travel, and inter-government teleconferences involving senior policy and intelligence officials.

The official said: “In this instance the attack was identified, the system was isolated, and there is no indication whatsoever that any exfiltration of data took place.”

They also said that security officials are investigating the breach and have not yet determined the damage that may have been caused by the incident.

A White House spokesperson had no immediate comment on the cyber attack, or on whether President Obama was notified of the incident.

Gangnam Style Video Finds Viral Success

Small business owners and entrepreneurs interested in getting their messages out to the masses had two great examples recently of how that can be done. The first was the incredible viral marketing success of South Korean rapper Park Jae-sang a.k.a. Psy, whose viral video “Gangnam Style” has launched his song by the same name into the top 100. The implications of Psy's success and that of an…er…aquatic star whose photos also recently blew up on the Web, continue to be debated. But clearly, regardless of what your business might be, the stage is set for a whole new style of global marketing.

The Biggest Picture

Next stop is the top. To everyone's surprise (perhaps even his own) South Korean singer-songwriter, rapper, dancer, and record producer Jae-sang went from a singer virtually unknown outside his own country to an international brand. The success happened within the space of only a few months in a way that might have seemed almost impossible a few years ago. One of the most important tools Psy used to promote his song, YouTube, is available to any brand today. Billboard

We all scream for…stingrays? Following Psy's recipe for success, a non-human celebrity achieved viral fame in even shorter time this week, when it photobombed three vacationing women by seemingly spreading its wings around them causing them (apparently) to scream in horror. Granted this may not be the way you want to establish your brand, but it may end up working for Stingray City, a popular tourist destination in the Cayman Islands where the photo may have been taken. Franchise Herald

Phenomenon or flash in the pan. Still, the question raised with Psy and all other such rapid success stories is whether they will have staying power. Clearly all entrepreneurs, whether in the entertainment industry or another market, must consider how to follow up and build upon initial marketing success, gaining momentum and building a sustainable, long-term business. Ad Age

Master Classes

Learning from the Gangnam Style. Besides his amusing dancing style, which has now been copied on numerous parody videos, entrepreneurs and small business owners or marketers interested in replicating Psy's success can learn a couple of things from his viral approach. Blogger Ivan Widjaya has been following the rise of the rapper's star via YouTube for some time now and has these thoughts on creating similar success while marketing your brand. Noobpreneur

The art of being everywhere. A big part of marketing success, whether branding or otherwise, is the art of being everywhere. As blogger Francisco Perez noted recently, this is exactly what Jae-sang has achieved with his brand so far, whether it lasts long-term or not. The question is how to best use viral and other marketing methods at your disposal to bring your business to the next level. iBlogZone

Takeaway Truths

More creative than ever. The key to achieving success with your marketing efforts has less to do with following existing formats and more about being creative and finding new approaches that work for your business. Here Internet marketer Ti Roberts explains one approach for gaining exposure for your content and business that you may never have considered. Use Ti's idea to get outside the box and think creatively about your marketing efforts. The Bus Ridin' Internet Marketer

Headline hegemony. When marketing your business or brand on the Web, blogger and online marketing expert Jonny Ross suggests using the analogy of catching a reader's attention with an unforgettable headline. Think about how a particular headline grabs your interest while you're walking past a newsstand. Now think about how you can generate the same excitement over your brand or message. Apply this approach to the titles of your blog posts too. You'll attract the attention you need and maybe grab enough people to spread your message even further. Jonny Ross Consultancy