Win Two Free Nights at Country Inn & Suites in ‘Technology Keeps Me Working When I Travel\' Contest

Smallbiztechnology.com is teaming up with Country Inn & Suites to offer the ‘Technology Keeps Me Working When I Travel‘ contest.

The contest will run now through November 30, 2012 and two lucky participants will win a free 2-night stay at the Country Inn & Suites of their choice.

To enter for your chance to win, please post a quick description of the one must-have, innovative technology solution you use when you travel on our Facebook page.  Perhaps it's remote access or maybe it's an app that keeps you churning out results.  Whatever it may be, let us know about it in a brief (100 word) description or 2 minute video that tells us WHY it's a technology solution you can't travel without.  All entries must be posted on our Facebook page by 11:59pm EDT on November 30, 2012.

The team at Smallbiztechnology.com will review all the entries you post, as will all of our fans and two winners will be announced on December 7th, 2012. We'll be looking for the best technology travel solutions: best meaning creative, effective and efficient!

Country Inn & Suites by Carlson is known for providing a caring, consistent and comfortable hospitality experience delivered with a touch of home.  With 483 hotels throughout the world, Country Inn & Suites delivers high levels of service and unique amenities like the complimentary ‘Be Our Guest Breakfast', all within a comfortable atmosphere suitable for both business and pleasure.

From now until November 29th, 2012, qualify for the Country Inn & Suites ‘Free Night Fall Offer‘.  Book in advance and stay on the Free Night Fall rate for two or more consecutive nights, Sunday-Thursday, at participating Country Inns & Suites hotels in the U.S. and Canada between October 1, 2012 and completed by November 29, 2012. Then, register that stay on or before December 22, 2012, and they'll send you a Free Night Reward Certificate that you can use for a free night between December 15, 2012 and February 15, 2013.

So enter the ‘Technology Keeps Me Working When I Travel' contest now on Facebook!

What technology solution keeps you working when you travel?  Good luck!!

Two Reasons Your Business Must Be a Publisher (5 Min With JJ Ramberg, Brian Halligan (Hubspot), Rieva Lesonsky and Ramon Ray)

I'm a black guy so I can't get “blue in the face”, however, if I keep saying this, I probably will get blue in the face:

All small business owners must think, act and be publishers.

I discussed with JJ Ramberg (MSNBC host), Rieva Lesonsky and Brian Halligan (Hubspot) this past Sunday on MSNBC Your Business.

In short, my bully pulpit is that ALL small business owners must create lots of great and relevant content in order to move the needle from just being “in business” to being talked about by customers and prospective customers and overall INCREASING PROFIT.

It's a GIVEN that prospective customers are talking about you, your product/service or the overall industry online â€" Twitter, Facebook, or some other form (in a blog post, etc).

It's a GIVEN that your customers are sharing with others about their recent purchase of your product or service and of course about the market your product/service is in.

With all of these conversations happening you need to ask yourself â€" are YOU in these conversations in some way.

The only way to digitally be in this conversation is to ensure you are publishing content so that search engines and social networks pick up your content â€" which in turn will be read and engaged by customers and potential customers in these networks.

Be a publisher. Boost customer engagement. Boost your business. Boost your profits and revenue.

Check out this past Sunday's show here.

Check out this “behind the scenes' bonus video with JJ Ramberg and myself with more on this discussion of small business owners as publishers

 

 

Two Reasons Mobile Payments Are Critical For Small Retailers (4 Min with JJ Ramberg and Ramon Ray on MSNBC)

This Sunday I had the pleasure of being on MSNBC's Your Business with JJ Ramberg to discuss why it's important for small businesses to consider mobile payment solutions.

There are two main reasons:

1. The FIRST REASON â€" Many of your customers are using their mobile devices for EVERYTHING. This includes mobile payments â€" especially younger and more technically savvy mobile users. Although the mobile payments market is still very, very young, it's growing and growing quickly. Many companies, large and small, are already on the mobile payment bandwagon. Either Starbucks joining with Square or United Airlines enabling customers to buy tickets through their mobile app, more and more companies are enabling mobile payment solutions.

So that's reason number one: Your customers are increasingly going to WANT to pay via their smart phones.

2. The SECOND REASON â€" When you are on the road (out of the office) and want to sell â€" you need a mobile payment solution, of which there are MANY. There is no reason that you should have to tell a potential customer, “sorry we can't sell you this now, can you come by our office”, or “can I write your credit card number on a sheet of paper?”.

Check out the video here - MSNBC's Your Business with JJ Ramberg

Featured on the show were: Intuit GoPayment, AT&T Appriva, Sqaure, Levlup (devices â€" Apple iPad, two Sprint Samsung Galaxy‘s and a Verizon Wireless Jetpack)

iPad mini unveiling expected Wednesday

Those who follow Apple believe they have figured out most of the particulars of a smaller iPad expected to be revealed on Tuesday (Wednesday NZ). One big question remains, though: What will it cost?

Apple hasn't said anything about the device, but the veil of secrecy it throws over unreleased products has been a see-through affair this year. Most of the details of the iPhone 5 were known well in advance of its launch a month ago.

In the case of the "iPad Mini" (the real name is not known), tech bloggers and analysts expect a device with a screen measuring 19.9 centimeters on the diagonal, making it about half the size of the regular iPad. It would be slightly larger than the 17.5-centimeter tablets it's presumably designed to compete with, including Amazon's Kindle Fire and Google's Nexus 7.

The Kindle Fire starts at US$159, and the Nexus 7 at US$199. Meanwhile, Apple sells the iPad 2 for US$399 and the 10-centimeter iPod Touch for US$199. Company watchers are pegging the price of the smaller iPad somewhere in between.

Most of the guesses range from US$249 to US$299, but the blog Boy Genius Report said Monday that the price would be US$329. That would make the iPad Mini twice the price of the cheapest Kindle Fire and leave plenty of room for other manufacturers to snap up value shoppers this holiday season.

Boy Genius did not disclose its source and has had a mixed record in predicting details on unreleased Apple products.

Analysts such as Brian White of Topeka Capital Markets believe that Apple will also sell a step-up version of the iPad Mini, one with the ability to access 4G cellular networks for an additional monthly fee. That's a feature the cheaper, 7-inch tablets don't have.

Apple is holding the presentation at a theater in San Jose, California starting at 10am local time (Wed 6am NZ).

Apple has sold 84 million iPads since their debut in April 2010. One of the first competitors to appear was a Samsung tablet with a 7-inch screen. Apple's late founder, Steve Jobs, made a rare appearance at an October 2010 conference call with analysts his last to deride the concept.

"The reason we wouldn't make a 7-inch tablet isn't because we don't want to hit a price point. It's because we don't think you can make a great tablet with a 7-inch screen," Jobs said. "The 7-inch tablets are tweeners, too big to compete with a smartphone and too small to compete with an iPad."

He said the resolution of the display could be increased to make up for the smaller size, but that would be "meaningless, unless your tablet also includes sandpaper, so that the user can sand down their fingers to around one quarter of the present size."

"There are clear limits of how close you can physically place elements on a touch screen before users cannot reliably tap, flick or pinch them. This is one of the key reasons we think the 10-inch (25-centimeter) screen size is the minimum size required to create great tablet apps," he said.

Jobs didn't mention that Apple has had great success developing software that used taps, flicks and pinches on the iPhone, with a screen one quarter of the size he was attacking.

Jobs, who died last October, had strong opinions, but he also changed his mind frequently. The production of a smaller iPad would not be the first time Apple has made a product that Jobs initially dismissed as ridiculous.

In an internal email sent in January 2011, Apple senior vice president Eddy Cue said that a 7-inch tablet would work well and that Jobs was starting to come around to the idea. The email surfaced as part of Apple's patent trial against Samsung Electronics Co. this year.

Apart from the smaller iPad, Apple is also expected to refresh some other products. There's speculation that the MacBook will come in a version with a 13-inch, high-resolution "Retina" screen. The 15-inch (38-centimeter) MacBook got an option for a Retina screen this summer.

-AP

Lack of skilled security pros challenges CISOs to fill specialties

While the broad job market has been in a funk since the credit bubble burst in 2008, the market for information security professionals has been anything but.

I highly recommend companies implement a mentoring program for young security professionals.

Dan Waddell, senior director of IT Security, eGlobal Tech

According to job market business intelligence firm WANTED Analytics, employers posted more than 4,500 IT security job ads last month. That's up about 20% from the same period a year ago and roughly nine times as many jobs that were sought in September 2008.

WANTED Analytics said the ten most commonly sought positions that require IT security experience include:

• Cyber security analyst
• Cyber security engineer
• Software engineer
• Systems engineer
• Senior cyber security analyst
• Information technology security specialist
• Program manager
• Information security analyst
• Information assurance engineer
• Systems administrator

Talent pool dwindling

“We're at 100% employment in IT security,” said Eric Cowperthwaite, chief security officer at Providence Health & Services. “This is very similar to the IT hiring environment that existed in the late 1990s. Back then, if a candidate knew how to install a Windows NT server they could get hired as a sys admin."

Jay Leek, SVP, chief information security officer at The Blackstone Group would agree. Earlier this summer, Leek had challenges trying to successfully fill an open security position at his firm.

“It's extremely difficult to find good people. It's been a challenge to work with every recruiting agency I know to even get resumes in front of me that would result in interviews. It's crazy,” Leek said.

Cowperthwaite said that the tight market forces him to focus on efficiency with the resources already in place. “This talent market nearly causes you to not consider opening a new position when you may ordinarily need to. Instead you find other ways to get it done,” he said. “It's definitely about becoming good at doing more with less."

Dan Waddell, senior director of IT Security, eGlobal Tech and (ISC)² North American Advisory Board Member, advises companies start looking for talent from within, and cultivate them to be the next generation of top-notch security talent, as well as provide the additional training that may be required for entry level candidates.

“We are starting to focus on bringing in young talent (recent college grads with computer science degrees) and offering paid security training as an added incentive to join. We see this as a short-term investment with long-term gains,” Waddell said.

Additionally, to make sure the necessary talent remains available, Waddell recommends a long-term concerted effort to obtain those gains.

“I highly recommend companies implement a mentoring program for young security professionals. Set them up with a mentor to help guide them as they start down their career path. Young professionals will appreciate the mentorship. Senior professionals interested in moving up the management chain can use this experience to help develop leadership skills,” he said.

With most businesses still challenged when it comes to putting proper IT security initiatives in place, and the increased national focus on cyber-espionage, nation-state backed attacks, as well as the need to continue to harden the systems in critical infrastructure industries security expertise is primed to be in demand for some time to come.

“We're seeing in the federal contracting marketplace a renewed demand for hands-on, technical security engineering skills (reverse malware engineering, penetration testing, vulnerability assessments, etc.). We're seeing a decrease in demand for security professionals with broad-based skills in areas such as policies and compliance,” Waddell said.

About the author: 
George V. Hulme writes about security and technology from his home in Minneapolis. You can also find him tweeting about those topics on Twitter @georgevhulme.

Borrowing Startup Money from Family Members

Starting up with just the next big idea is just that: an idea. In reality, new businesses need money, usually more than that amount initially calculated alongside that very first draft of the business plan. And sometimes, those funds can come from family.

However, borrowing capital from family members is risky business. Sure, you can always cut bonds with an external investor when a deal goes sour, but you can't exactly burn bridges with relatives, especially just before seeing them at family gatherings. Even more so, these well-meaning lenders don't always know what they're getting into - and what they may not be getting out it in the end.

We asked members of the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invitation-only nonprofit organization comprised of the country's most promising young entrepreneurs, the following question to find out their advice for funding through family ties:

“What's one piece of advice for entrepreneurs who want to raise money from family without ruining relationships?”

Here's what YEC community members had to say:

1. Be Transparent ‘Til It Hurts

“It's tempting to paint an eternally rosy picture for investors, but the reality of any startup is that there are difficult times. All of our first investors were friends and family, and we've managed to maintain strong, positive relationships by being completely honest - for better or worse. Transparency honors the risk early investors took and allows space for them to provide advice or help.”  ~ Martina Welke, Zealyst

2. Remember, It IS Personal

“It is easy to think that if we are upfront about the terms, transparent in our discussion, and even fair in our valuation that this will “just be business.” Unfortunately, it rarely is in the case of raising money from family. Chances are, there is going to be some type of emotion involved and it is going to be personal at some level.”  ~ W. Michael Hsu, DeepSky

3. Stay Professional

“Structure it like any other investment, and try to separate your professional self from your family self. Draw up contracts, act professional, and send formal “investor” updates each month.”  ~ Abby Ross, Blueye Creative

4. Manage Expectations

“Always manage expectations when it comes to borrowing money from family. At the time you “pitch” your family to be investors, don't over promise on potential returns. By being transparent and continuing to keep them in the loop after they invest, you give them a sense of connection to the business - and less resentment if things go bad.”  ~ Blake Beshore, Tatroux

5. Explain the Real Risks

“Family needs to understand that they should only invest money that they are willing to lose. If they have disposable cash, then it will not be a large financial hardship if the money is lost. If family members can't afford to lose money, they shouldn't invest. It's the entrepreneur's job to be upfront and cl ear about this.”  ~ David Ehrenberg, Early Growth Financial Services

6. Do They Like to See Money Burn?

“The default state for a startup is death (http://paulgraham.com/hubs.html), according to Y Combinator founder Paul Graham. So be honest with your family. Ask them if they would be okay lighting their money on fire. If they can live with it, then let them invest. If not, then a relationship has been saved.”  ~ Wade Foster, Zapier

7. Treat Them Like Real VCs

“Pitch them as they were a high-level VC by bringing real presentation tools, a thorough business plan and facts to the table. Don't skip on these important aspects to eliminate any bad feelings of abuse or problems down the road.” ~ Raul Pla, SimpleWifi and UseABoat

8. Represent All Outcomes

“Prepare them for the worst. Let your family know that there's a high likelihood that they'll lose their money, and that they should think of the investment as a gift. Most startups fail. If they aren't willing to invest under those terms, then don't take their money. Avoid overselling them so they don't feel duped later.” ~ Bhavin Parikh, Magoosh Test Prep

9. It's Strictly Business

“Taking money from friends and family can be tricky. It's important to treat the deal with the professionalism as you would when dealing with a VC. Be transparent and make sure your friend or family member has done the proper due diligence, read all the documents and is investing because he or she believes in not only you, but also your business.”  ~ Kevin Tighe II, The Brand Stars

10. Maintain Communication

“Families are a tricky bunch. Having worked with mine for the past 5 years, I've learned some of the nuances necessary to keep relationships healthy. Make sure you designate one person as your point of contact and by all means communicate with them. Even if it feels like court reporting, they appreciate being kept in the loop. It can feel like an extra job, but it is. You wanted family money.”  ~ David Cohen, Round Table Companies

11. Sell Your Idea

“Ideally your supporters are investing in your idea and not just in you. Tell your family and friends your idea and if they are interested and able, they will want to invest. If you know a donor is investing solely for personal reasons, accept the donation with no strings attached, but know where you stand with them and replace them with donors that care about your idea.”  ~ Melissa Kushner, Goods For Good

12. Smaller Amounts Are Key

“Don't talk Grandma into investing her entire pension. Just make sure your family members invest a comfortable amount, in case things go sour. It's better to have more people put in small amounts than to share your parents' basement with Grandma after you both go bankrupt.”  ~ Nicolas Gremion, Foboko.com

Borrowing Money Photo via Shutterstock

Need To Confirm Your Freelance Workers Time? Here Are Two Apps That Help Keep Track

Managing telecommuters can be one big pain in that one place where the sun don't shine. There's no doubt that you'll get a finished product, but how long are they really working on it? Have you ever wondered whether your freelancers are giving you their undivided attention? That's kind of hard to determine when they're all the way in, say, Malaysia or the Philippines.

Freelancers come in many forms. Some of them, admittedly, aren't as sincere as others, especially when charging hourly rates. How do you know that your contractor is working during the billed hours? Short of making them screencast the entire work session, you're pretty much out of options. There are task management solutions like 14dayz and Easy Time Tracker, but they're tailored more for freelancers that run their own teams and coordinate. Of course, you can also use them, but they do very little to ensure that you are getting four hours of work when you pay for that amount. Without that kind of reassurance, how do you know that you're getting full value?

The Internet is beautiful in many ways, but one of its most elegant assets is the man hours that are always put into finding new solutions to old problems. Two services in particular cater exclusively to people employing the help of telecommuters to get a task done. One of them, called Worksnaps, makes clever use of snapshots to show you what a particular freelancer is doing at the time. These snapshots are taken at random intervals that are not predictable to the person being monitored. It helps you see whether the person you hired is actually on task or distracted with other things.

Another similar service you can use is Tahometer. Just like Worksnaps, it takes screenshots randomly within 10-minute intervals. It also lets you manage hourly rates across the board and coordinate all of your contractors within one neat interface.

Whatever your taste, just make sure that it suits you and what you're trying to accomplish. With these solutions, you'll get more value for your buck and finish projects within a more acceptable budget!

Fraud identifying tool launched by Featurespace

Featurespace has launched a change management and fraud detection tool named ‘Snowdon'.

Designed using Featurespace's behavioural change recognition engine ARIC (Adaptive, Real-time, Individual, Change-recognition), the company said Snowdon utilises intelligent analytics to reduce losses and aggressively grow business, with cutting edge fraud protection.

It has also realeased a next-generation solution called Nevis that it said enables businesses to protect their investment in customers by identifying the ones that are likely to churn.

David Excell, co-founder and director of Featurespace, told SC Magazine that ARIC had been developed to identity fraud needs to identify the known techniques of fraud and unusual behaviour. He said: “It does three things: it builds up a complex strategic profile of the user and learns about their normal activity and what it expects them to do.

“We developed the technology on a virus scanner and learned about normal technology so it can identify different behaviour to see a potential threat and see a user profile of the user to see instances of fraudulent behaviour. This is done in real-time.”

Developed by Featurespace and its extended team at Cambridge University, Excell said that both Nevis and Snowdon solutions use a step-change in technology embedded within ARIC to deliver a combination of real-time analysis, self-learning, change prediction and the ability to build and maintain individual profiles alongside the profiles of their peer groups.

HP asks researcher not to present for fear of vulnerability disclosure

A researcher who was planning to disclose major vulnerabilities in Huawei and H3C routers at a security show this weekend has decided to scrap the presentation.

Researcher Kurt Grutzmacher was scheduled to deliver the talk on Saturday at the ToorCon 14 security show in San Diego, but agreed to abandon it after being contacted by HP, the parent company of China-based H3C and a partner of Huawei.

Grutzmacher revealed the flaws to the US computer emergency readiness team (US-CERT) in August and it said it would coordinate with the affected vendors, he said in a blog post. US-CERT's disclosure policy dictates that the researcher must then wait 45 days before going public with the vulnerability details.

A month later, Grutzmacher checked on the progress and learned that the companies needed more time. Grutzmacher told them they could have until ToorCon. This week he received a "very cordial and apologetic voicemail and email" from HP's software security response team, requesting that he does not present at the show.

“The vulnerabilities are apparently too big for them to be ready,” he wrote. Even though he said he planned to offer mitigation recommendations to the audience, Grutzmacher agreed not to do the talk.

“While this was understood, they still felt the information was too much of a risk and again requested I delay the talk until they could be ready,” he wrote. “I'm guessing someone [at HP] woke up on Tuesday morning and went, 'Oh hell, is ToorCon this Saturday?'”

Grutzmacher said customers of H3C and Huawei network gear remain at risk, though they should already have taken measures to limit threats in light of a DefCon talk given over the summer by German researcher Felix Lindner, who also detailed vulnerabilities in Huawei routers.

“If you value your network and its data then you should already have taken steps to protect it,” Grutzmacher wrote. “These protections will most likely keep you safe from me as well.”

Accelerated Depreciation Isn\'t the Cure to Small Business\'s Problems

As part of an election year effort to show that he's friendly to small business, President Obama has been claiming recently that he:

“. . .has signed in to law 18 tax cuts that directly help small businesses [including] …. extended accelerated bonus depreciation for two million businesses.”

Accelerated depreciation allows immediate expensing of investment costs. By increasing near term tax deductions, the White House explains, small business owners get to keep more of their income.

Small business advocate, Dorothy Coleman, Vice President for tax and domestic economic policy with the National Association of Manufacturers, agrees, saying depreciation tax breaks:

“Clearly lower the tax costs for investments made by smaller companies.”

But policies like accelerated depreciation are doing little to get small business owners into the President's camp.

A Manta poll conducted in the beginning of August has 61 percent of small company owners supporting Mitt Romney and only 26 percent supporting the Barack Obama. Moreover, the same poll reveals that 54 percent of small business owners believe that the Republican party is the biggest supporter of small business as compared to only 19 percent who think it's the Democrats.

While small business owners, no doubt, favor the Republicans for many reasons, one is surely the fact that the President's policies help few small business owners.

Consider Accelerated Depreciation

The National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) surveys have persistently shown that small business owners believe that weak demand for their products and services is biggest problem they face.

With revenue weak since the start of the Great Recession, few small business owners making capital investments to expand. And if your business isn't making capital investments, being able to write off their value immediately does little for you.

Moreover, Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data shows that sole proprietorships (which make up 72 percent of all small businesses) in very few industries have much depreciation. In 2009, the most recent year of data availability, the depreciation deduction averaged only 6.8 percent of net income for sole proprietorships with net income. In four out of five small businesses operate in industries in which the average depreciation deduction was less than 10 percent of net income.

If You Don't Have Much Depreciation Expense

Accelerating it doesn't do much for you.

By the President's own admission, accelerated bonus depreciation only benefits only 2 million small businesses. With the IRS reporting 31.6 million business tax returns filed in 2008, that means only a little over 6 percent of small businesses benefited from this tax cut.

That's just not enough small business owners to sway the polling data.

Thumbs Down Photo via Shutterstock

Eight Tips to Improve Online Sales

eBay has proven a very valuable outlet for small online retailers, bringing customers that might not normally have found these businesses. IzzoNet specializes in helping online retailers improve their e-storefronts. With more than ten years of experience in online selling, IzzoNet has discovered a few tricks that make eBay selling work better for you.

“IzzoNet helps you integrate your online store to eBay and vice versa,” IzzoNet CEO Tallya Rabinovich says. “Manage both stores with one control panel, help make order and supply management easier, generate traffic with IzzoNet's build-in marketing tools, distribute products through multiple channels easily, increase SEO, and integrate with coupon sites, among many other benefits.”

Rabinovich has provided eight tips to help small businesses succeed online:

• Try different keywords. Rabinovich recommends listing your item several times using different descriptions and keywords. This will maximize your exposure in searches on the site.
• Integrate with other sites. Your regular store should be on your .com, which should link to your eBay page. This makes your business look professional, as well as helping with SEO. Also upload your products to services like Google Product Search to increase your exposure.
• Provide multiple images. According to Rabinovich, having up to twelve photos of your product on your eBay listing can increase your eBay site conversion by as much as 80%. Be sure you put all this imagery in your product photos, though. Your product description needs to be as clean and easy-to-read as possible.
• Utilize your About Us section on eBay. This is the perfect place to let customers know about your company.
• Accept multiple payment options. Rabinovich stresses the importance of retaining customers at checkout by accepting all payment methods. On eBay, this should be covered by PayPal but do a quick inventory to make sure customers who visit your website or your eBay listings won't be forced away by not being able to pay.
• Encourage return customers. Many successful eBay sellers include coupons with shipments to bring customers back. Use eBay Tools and other apps to cross-promote your listings.
• E-mail Marketing. eBay offers free e-mail marketing to store owners on its site, allowing you to create newsletters or promotional e-mails to former customers. Be sure you use this feature sparinglyâ€"too many e-mails and your customers will simply unsubscribe.
• Don't limit your sales to domestic customers. eBay allows you to sell internationally, getting your product to places you might not normally reach. Take full advantage of this functionality to receive the maximum sales you can through the site.

IzzoNet helps businesses create successful online storefronts. With prices starting at only $19.97 a month, small businesses can set up an online store that integrates with a variety of websites, including social media sites and eBay. IzzoNet charges no setup fee and no transaction fees, allowing small businesses to extend their reach without paying exorbitant fees. For more information on IzzoNet's services, visit its website.

Seculert launches tool for Big Data analysis of threats

Seculert has announced the launch of Seculert Sense, a Big Data analysis tool that collects data to identify advanced persistent threats (APT) and undetected malware.

The company called it a "big data analysis cloud for malware" and said that the engine combines the use of customers' on-premise logs and Seculert's outbound intelligence gathered from live botnets to identify threats.

Users can upload log files using a Secure FTPS tunnel, upstream logs through syslog from a secure web gateway or web proxy device or via a log aggregation solution for real-time detection and forensics investigation. It also said that by leveraging precise botnet data, threat detection rates are improved and false positives are reduced.

According to the company, over time Seculert Sense will digest huge amounts of data in order to identify persistent attacks that are going undetected. “Every day, we are collecting over 40,000 samples of unknown malware which originate from in-house research, customers and third party sources,” said Dudi Matot, co-founder and CEO of Seculert.

“Because cyber attacks don't target just one entity, we would be doing a disservice to our customers by not sharing our research and knowledge across the board. Seculert Sense was created based in part on the theory that we are all part of interconnected systems and should collaborate as such.”

According to the company, Seculert Sense identifies malicious activity in any log source and automatically detects similar activities in other sources, even if the logs originate from different vendor products. Users are provided with forensic information that details attacks detected in reports that are available in the Seculert web dashboard.

Microsoft closes the book on Kelihos

Microsoft has closed the case on Kelihos after reaching a confidentiality settlement with a programmer it believed was responsible for the botnet.

According to the company, it has reached a confidential settlement with Russian programmer Andrey Sabelnikov, which effectively closes the case.

Richard Boscovich, assistant general counsel for Microsoft's digital crimes unit, announced that Sabelnikov was "not the operator of the botnet or involved in its activities", although he did write code for the large network of compromised PCs.

Microsoft reported the takedown of Kelihos in September 2011, saying that it primarily sent out the MacDefender virus. In January, Boscovich named Sabelnikov as the writer of the code and said he was responsible for either creating, or participating in creating, the Kelihos malware.

A few days later, Sabelnikov protested his innocence. In a statement, he said: “I am a programmer with nine years' experience, graduated from St. Petersburg State University of Aerospace Instrumentation in 2003, [and have worked] in highly respected Russian and international IT companies.

“I did not commit this crime, have never participated in the management of botnets or any other similar programs, and especially not extracted from it any benefit.”

In March, a quartet of companies including Kaspersky Lab and Dell SecureWorks took down Kelihos.B, which they said was almost triple the size of the first incarnation and had been built using the same coding as the original botnet.

Last October, Microsoft dismissed its case against another defendant, Dominique Piatti, and his company, dotFREE Group SRO, after a settlement was reached. As part of the terms of that settlement, Piatti agreed to delete or transfer subdomains connected to the Kelihos botnet, which led to Microsoft uncovering additional evidence that led to action against Sabelnikov.

“Today, I am pleased to say we have reached an agreement with Mr. Sabelnikov and have officially settled and closed the Kelihos botnet case," Boscovich wrote.

Apple Releases Tweaked iPad While Details of iPad “Mini” Emerge

Business owners must consider all the variables whenever a new product or service is introduced. These can include price, cost, marketing, and customer response, and any one of them may spell the difference between success and failure. As Apple introduces another series of tweaked and new products, we look at some of the factors that separate the winners from the losers.

This Just In

We'll do you one better. Apple is expected to announce an improved version of its full-sized, 9.7-inch Retina display iPad, just half a year after the company's third generation iPad was released. The device is expected to be announced at a media event this week. It's an example of tweaking a product to get it just right, rather than a complete revamp, and will be offered at the same price. 9 to 5 Mac

Downsizing. Meanwhile new details have emerged on a rumored 7.85-inch iPad, dubbed the “iPad mini,” also expected to be unveiled at this week's media event. The smaller device could retail for about $299 according to analysts, making it, like its big brother, the iPad, among the company's lower profit margin devices as compared to other, high profit margin mobile products like the iPhone. Apple Insider

Listening Closely

Lessons from Zuckerberg. There are thousands of successful entrepreneurs who have advice about how to create better products and services. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, for example, advises businesses to listen to their customers both qualitatively and quantitatively before developing their next offerings. Tech Crunch

One bad experience. Failing to listen can have other unfortunate consequences. For example, one bad customer experience, like the one described here by blogger Jeff Yablong about customer service at Virgin America, can easily gain traction. If that negative experience is shared in the right context and spreads to enough other customers, the results could be serious. The Answer Guy

The Marketing Part

Selling margarita pizza. Marketing CEO and blogger Gee Ranasinha insists that the successful marketing of a product must start with the product itself. For example, starting with a boring product that is already very popular may be a bad idea since there's most likely someone already providing that product. Maybe it's time to find something a bit more unusual to sell. Kexino

The keys to success. Business success goes far beyond the products themselves. Issues like your brand, profit margin, and company culture also come into the mix. Don't forget the importance of all three when developing your products and your marketing plan. Customers take all of them into consideration when choosing whether to buy from you, says digital marketing consultant Brad Smith. Social Media Today

Two simple things. When using social media, or any other marketing channel, for that matter, finding the best way to communicate with your customers and measuring that interaction have become best practices. Susan Oakes shares this post about considering both issues when creating your marketing plan. M4B Marketing