Top Stories: U.S. Airways Has Twitter Fail, Gen Y Gets Tech Stressed

A big social media faux pas at a big U.S. airline and tech stress in the wired generation lead the news this week. The Small Business Trends editorial team has gathered the stories most important to you. Here’s our roundup.

Social Media & Tech

U.S. Airways Accidentally Responds to a Complaint with an X-Rated Link. Talk about the worst of all customer service disasters. . .#FAIL, anyone? How about responding to complaints from a disgruntled customer with a link to an X-rated photo? Well, that’s exactly what happened to U.S. Airways recently. The airline was responding to a customer complaint about the service the passenger had received on a recent flight.

Who Wants to Unplug? Millennials, That’s Who! Millennials are the always-on, always-connected generation. So your typical Millennial employee who’s multitasking away, managing social media on one window of the desktop computer, IM-ing on a second and surfing the Net on a third while texting on a smartphone and listening to headphones - is as happy as could be, right? Wrong.

Survey: Multi-Channel Marketing Leads to Customer Engagement. A Constant Contact survey by the email marketing firm suggests multi-channel marketing - email, social, mobile, and Web - increases customer engagement. In the survey, Constant Contact asked 1,305 U.S. small businesses and non-profits about the ways they connect with and grow their audience.

Online Services

DSTRUX Lets You Get Back That Document You Shared In Error. It’s happened to the best of us. You hit the “send” key on a document, image, or video, and then have that sinking feeling you shouldn’t have. Don’t worry. A new service called DSTRUX claims to give you complete control over who sees your files.

Can’t Afford Microsoft? Meet Apache OpenOffice. For businesses on a shoestring budget, having to fork out cash for Microsoft Office is an additional expense that many could do without. Fortunately, there are some inexpensive alternatives to Microsoft office out there - and one just celebrated a major accomplishment. Once there was a project called OpenOffice.org.

Dispop: One-Stop For Creating and Placing Banner Ads. If you advertise your business online, you have probably considered the idea of creating a banner ad to be placed on similar sites to your own. But how do you go about making that ad? How do you make sure that visitors aren’t bombarded with your banner 24/7? And what about tracking the ones that got away? It’s enough to make your head spin.

Yes, It Really Is Possible To Create a Business App Without Coding Skills. Our editors here at Small Business Trends saw a segment on Fox News a while back in which Pete Khanna, CEO of Trackvia was interviewed. He spoke about Wired Magazine using the Trackvia service to create an app. But what got our attention was Pete’s assertion that “it’s so easy you can build it yourself.”

Marketing

Meme Marketing Hits Mainstream: Grumpy Cat Wins at MTV Movie Awards. Internet meme marketing celebrity Grumpy Cat hit the red carpet recently at the MTV Movie Awards. And she even left with her very own award, which we imagine didn’t exactly bring a smile to the feline’s face. So what award did she win, anyway? Best cat? No. Best Meme? No. Grumpiest face? Well, sort of.

How Did This Video Get a Million Views in Just Two Days? Creating video marketing campaigns can be a great strategy for spreading the word about your brand. But getting these videos to go viral can be the tricky part. The Independent Journal Review says this Bump to Buzz video, which shows a time lapse progression of a couple’s journey from early pregnancy to the birth of their child, got a million views in just two days.

OfferPipe: A New App For Retailers To Create Mobile Offers. As a small business owner, you know one of the best ways to attract new customers is through special promotions. Everyone loves something for free or at a bargain. It doesn’t have to be complicated. It can be something as simple as 20% off, or two for the price of one. Show your generous side and the customers will come flocking back.

Google Analytics Smart Lists Feature Improves Remarketing Campaigns. Google Analytics has done it again, this time with their new featured centering around remarketing. The new feature is called “Smart Lists” and it was created to help the remarketing section of Google Analytics become a little bit more manageable and less overwhelming.

What Do the New AdWords Changes Mean for Small Businesses? Paid search can be a minefield for small businesses, and any time Google announces a big change to the AdWords platform, people tend to freak out - including experienced search marketers who really should know better.

Sales

Square Acquisition Talk, If True, Leaves Fewer Merchant Options. There’s been some buzz lately that credit card reader Square could be shopping for someone to acquire the company. Square is the popular credit card reader device that plugs into a smartphone or tablet. This technology has allowed the smallest companies to begin accepting credit cards and expanding their potential customer base.

Domino’s Pizza Now Offers Google Wallet Payment on Android Devices. If you’re looking to order pizza, the tech savvy Domino’s may now be your best option. Not only can you use the Domino’s app to customize and order your pizza, but you can now also pay for your pizza in more ways too. Starting today, pay for your Domino’s order using Google Wallet on the Domino’s Android app.

Taxes & Healthcare

Yes, Top Performing Businesses Pay More in Taxes. Do businesses pay their fair share of taxes? Should they pay more in taxes and are they paying considerably less than everyone else? Many consumers seem to believe they’re held more accountable for their income taxes than businesses, especially around tax time. But a recent report from WalletHub shows the average business is paying their fair share and then some.

Using Retirement Accounts to Fund a Business Startup Draws IRS Scrutiny. The IRS is increasing scrutiny into a complex practice for using retirement accounts to fund a business. The practice may trip up business owners who take advantage of it. In the end, it could cost them not only their retirement nest eggs, but open them up to paying back taxes and large penalties to the IRS. The practice is called Rollovers as Business Startups (ROBS).

Lessons Learned From Your 2013 Tax Return. With another tax filing deadline in the rearview mirror, most people don’t think about taxes until the next year. However, take a few moments to review your return before you stock it away. This year’s return can provide valuable information on the financial health of your business, as well as show you ways to improve your tax situation in time for next year’s filing.

Will the Dependent Coverage Provision Raise Insurance Premiums? When the data on enrollees in the federal exchanges is tallied later, the fraction of young people is unlikely to meet the 40 percent target the White House has said is necessary to keep health insurance premiums from rising significantly next year. A major culprit will be the popularity of the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) provision increasing the age of coverage of dependent children.

Entrepreneurship

Finding Success Empowering Lifestyle Entrepreneurs. “Lifestyle entrepreneurship is a beautiful thing,” declares Clate Mask, the founder and CEO of Infusionsoft. The marketing automation software company he founded and heads up has achieved over 50% sales growth the past 2 years by serving the “lifestyle entrepreneur.” Mask’s remarks were made as Infusionsoft kicks off its annual customer event for 2014, called ICON14.

What If Someone Stole Your Website? If you own a business, you probably also own a website. But what would you do if someone stole it? You probably don’t think this could ever happen to you. Blogger Jordan Reid didn’t think it could happen to her either - but it did. It started when Reid received a YouTube notification that someone had signed in to her account using a different device.

Kelly McGuire of SAS: Price Doesn’t Matter If You Have Negative Reviews. It takes more than lower prices to succeed in business today in the world of socially connected consumers - especially when it comes to the travel and leisure industry. It takes understanding and managing the power of ratings, reviews and recommendations.

Employment

3D Printing, Copywriting Are Among the Top Outsourced Jobs. If you’re a freelancer and looking to find out which skills are currently hot, it helps to look at freelance marketplace Freelancer.com. And the latest data on outsourced jobs from there reveals a huge rise in trending tech, with particular demand for 3D printing, and copywriting. The Freelance Fast 50 report analyzed over 270,000 job listings on Freelancer.

Loans

Small Business Loan Approval Drops to 18.8 Percent at Big Banks. Small businesses have a better bet seeking loans with small banks than with big ones. Small business loan approval drops to 18.8 percent at big banks in March. (Those are banks with assets of $10 billion or more.) The new figure represents a drop from 19.1 percent in February. The drop in lending at bigger banks is not part of an overall slowdown in lending either.

Gen Y Photo via Shutterstock

Facebook Will Launch Mobile Ad Network by the End of the Month

The buzz about a potential Facebook mobile ad network may soon become reality.

Facebook will most likely introduce the new network at the end of April, Re/Code reports. That’s when the social media giant hosts its F8 Conference in San Francisco. The conference is geared to third-party Facebook app developers and publishers.

These developers and publishers are presumably the exact kind of small businesses and entrepreneurs most likely to take advantage of the network. It would create another way to monetize third party apps and other publishing platforms with ads supplied by Facebook.

In January, Facebook first hinted it was working on the new Facebook mobile ad network. In a post on Facebook’s official Development Blog, the company said its objective was specifically to help developers monetize their apps. At the time, Facebook’s mobile products leader Sriram Krishnan explained:

“Monetization is a difficult problem for mobile app developers, particularly as people move toward downloading more free apps and advertising dollars lag behind time spent on mobile. We faced some unique challenges when we first integrated ads into the Facebook mobile experience, and we believe we’re now well positioned to help other mobile apps.”

As more developers integrate advertising content from a Facebook mobile ad network into their apps, the reach of that network increases. For Facebook, the new network means an increased inventory of advertising space the social network will be able to sell.

But the network also benefits small businesses in two ways. First, obviously it creates a revenue stream for independent developers who might not have otherwise had a business model for their projects. Second, the network provides an even larger network through which advertisers can reach an even bigger audience.

Facebook reportedly will use its rich database of user data to target ads for the new Facebook mobile ad network. That data could include browsing habits and other social activity as a way to identify the audience most interested in a particular advertising campaign.

Facebook Photo via Shutterstock

More in: Facebook

Try These 5 Simple and Effective Ways to Use QR Codes

Have you noticed that QR (quick response) codes are becoming much more common?

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, QR codes are those little squares of black and white squiggles. People scan them with their smartphones and the codes automatically bring up a web page, photo, phone number, video, music, or text.

This article explains some of the QR code basics. Since it was written there are more smartphone users as well as smartphone users who are savvy to scanning QR codes. Also, the means for creating your own QR codes are readily available and easy to use. If you search for “QR code generator,” you’ll get a lot of listings, including QR Stuff, where you can get free basic codes.

Many small businesses use QR codes to direct people to a web page. If that might be your purpose, you need one more piece of technical information: the difference between static QR codes and dynamic QR codes.

Static vs Dynamic QR Codes

A static QR code will always direct users to the same URL. If you use a static QR code and want to change the web address, you have to change the code, and this could mean printing new materials and/or changing graphics on your website. With a dynamic QR code, you can change the web address that it points to without needing to change the QR code itself. Often paid subscriptions are required for dynamic QR codes and they include analytics that would let you do A/B testing, for example.

With the fundamentals out of the way, let’s suggest some ways you can use QR codes in your business.

Business Cards. We hand out business cards all the time. If we try stuffing a marketing brochure in the person’s hand at the same time, there’s a good chance the card and the brochure will end up in the trash. With a well-designed business card, including a QR code on the back, you can send your prospect to a web page that features all your marketing information. Further, you can keep the information fresh.

Your Front Window. Retailers and restaurants are posting QR codes in their front windows. They could lead to a coupon, a menu, a Facebook check in, a Yelp listing, or more.

Posters. If you’re sponsoring an event you’ll have posters up around town. With a QR code you can make signing up easy and the easier you make it to sign up, the more attendance you get.

Capture Prospects. In the same way as you get participants in an event, you can use QR codes to boost your prospects. Offer a free download, coupon, or some other incentive and use the QR code to direct the user to a landing page.

Boost Your Social Media Followers. You can integrate your QR code campaigns with your efforts to get more Facebook “likes,” Twitter followers, YouTube subscribers, and pinned merchandise on Pinterest. Some retailers may want to have several QR codes posted around their stores.

For a long time, Internet marketing efforts were designed to get customers to do something in the “real world,” e.g., come to you store or use your service. QR codes are often the opposite. They take people from the real world and draw them into your Internet presence. It makes sense because you are investing a great deal in content and social media marketing today.

And once your prospects are connected online with your business, you can more fully develop your brand recognition and allegiance. That should pay off for you quite well.

Megan Totka is the Chief Editor for ChamberofCommerce.com. She specializes on the topic of small business tips and resources. ChamberofCommerce.com helps small businesses grow their business on the web and facilitates connectivity between local businesses and more than 7,000 Chambers of Commerce worldwide.

Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/cocreatr/2211459923/ ”1. Find QR code,” © 2008 CoCreatr, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

CAM Business Solutions: Providing Clients with Technology Services

This week we shine the spotlight on CAM Business Solutions, the Beverly Hills-based technology services company that fills a wide variety of needs. Onsite and offsite tech support, search engine optimization, offsite data backup, anti virus and system monitoring are just some of the services they provide clients.

But CAM also has server co-location services, email and Web hosting services, too. The 4 person team at CAM Business Solutions has many talents.

WHY THE BUSINESS WAS STARTED: There was a need to provide technical solutions that worked.

The company claims CAM Business Solutions was launched to satisfy Founder Michael Bowers’ “inner geek” and his desire to create solutions that worked. However, as he explains in this video from Digital Float, it was also founded out of his desire to find work that satisfied him after being laid off from a corporate job.

WHAT THE BUSINESS IS KNOWN FOR: Excellent technical support and customer service!

The key to CAM Business Solutions’ success is, in part, it’s team’s combined 12 years of experience in providing technology services. It’s a company culture that emphasizes individual attention to a few select clients. The company, in fact, prefers providing quality of service to a few customers to minimal services for a large number of clients.

BIGGEST RISK TAKEN IN THE BUSINESS: Expanding to the Big Apple.

Though based on the West Coast, the company decided to branch out to New York City after gaining a few clients there. The investment was grand including advertising and opening of an office in the New York City area as the company actively sought out more clients. But the effort only ended up drawing attention away from the LA office and ultimately took its toll on the business. Eventually, the company decided to pull back on its aggressive efforts. Though they continued to support the clients they had gotten in NYC, the focus returned to their West Coast home base.

BIGGEST WIN? Supporting Sony Music!

The company’s biggest win, hands down, was its four year contract providing technical support for Sony Music. Though the music giant’s publishing division was based in Santa Monica, it was technically run from New York. And CAM Business Solutions provided the computer support until Sony managed to reorganize the division and reallocate people and responsibilities. CAM Business Solutions was actually referred to the larger company through Dell PartnerDirect.

DID YOU EVER ALMOST GO OUT OF BUSINESS? Yes, but only by choice.

CAM Business Solutions almost shut down for good about five years ago when owner Michael Bowers became interested in pursuing more creative avenues. But, as often is the case, life intervened. After the birth of his first child, Bowers’ need to provide for his new family took precedence and a reinvestment in CAM was begun. Bowers says it has taken a few years and some financial infusions to get the company back to a fully functional state. “But we are on our way to greatness today!” he says.

FAVORITE TEAM FOOD One word: Sushi!

FUN FACT: Biking for inspiration.

The management team at CAM Business Solutions also shares another passion besides offering technical support for businesses. They enjoy cycling together. In fact, they claim to have turned quite a few training rides into brainstorming sessions, too.

Young people do care about cyber security

April 25, 2014

The prevailing view that young people are careless of information security has been challenged by a new UK survey that reveals two-thirds believe security is the number one priority when buying a new internet-connected device.

The survey of more than 1,200 16to 24-year-olds by youth insights consultancy Voxburner found that almost 90 percent of them are concerned about the security of the data they share. And the study, which asked young people's views of the Internet of Things (IoT) and other connected devices, finds more than a third feel that the benefits of new technologies such as IoT do not outweigh the risks.

Analysing the findings, Voxburner says: “There is a popular belief that young people are frivolous with their data and don't have any concerns about privacy, but 67 percent of 16 to 24s say that security is their number one priority when buying an internet-connected product.”

Among those surveyed, Claire, 18, from Medway, says: “I certainly have concerns about data privacy and in some cases I will avoid whatever I am doing if I am not willing to share my information with the company.”

Sean, aged 24 and from Dublin, adds: “The internet can be useful, but we don't always need to be connected to everything. Think carefully if the internet would really improve the functionality or experience or whether it's just internet for internet's sake. And above all, protect my privacy.”

Voxburner's head of insight, Luke Mitchell, believes 16 to 24 year olds have changed their attitude to cyber security from being trusting to being unsettled by factors such as stalker stories, cyber bullying and the Edward Snowden revelations.

He told SCMgazineUK.com via email: “Many observers would say that young people are too careless and open with their personal data, but young people today - rightly to a degree - regard themselves as advanced technology users who are experienced enough to recognise threats.”

But he said: “Because they have good digital literacy and awareness of technology developments, they are beginning to realise the dangers of their data being exposed to so many different platforms and players.

“While they have so far been fairly trustful in the digital environment, particularly of recognised brands (asked if Google is evil, 86 percent of our youth panel have told us ‘no', and 53 percent also disagreed with the statement ‘I believe technology will increasingly be used for evil rather than good') new innovations are potentially moving them out of their comfort zone.

“There is the media back-drop of stalker stories and cyber bullying, Edward Snowden and dark TV like Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror that is starting to unsettle them.”

However, security expert Mark James, technical director at ESET UK, does not believe the new attitude will necessarily provide UK organisations with a new generation of security-savvy employees.

He told SCMagazineUK.com via email: “It's encouraging to see a growing awareness of the importance of maintaining privacy and security amongst young people, but it's important to distinguish between their work and personal lives.

“Whilst they are often the most tech-savvy when it comes to personal brand, when it comes to transferring that same shrewdness to their business lives, they are arguably some of the most unreliable.”

James explained: “In recent research by ESET into the attitudes of Gen-Y professionals, 50 percent believed it is nearly always their organisation's responsibility to ensure the safety of data; 38 percent are also unaware of, or don't believe, their company has an IT security policy, and 30 percent of those aware of its existence don't know what it is.

“IT security teams need to engage with younger employees in the creation of policies that suit the needs of both parties.”

Luke Mitchell at Voxburner also admitted that young people's new caution does not yet extend to their mobile phones.

He told us: “Interestingly our research has shown that while most have protected their laptops, they currently perceive very little threat to their mobiles and few are using security software on their smartphones.”

When it comes to the Internet of Things, 80 percent of the respondents are interested in the concept. But while three-quarters are excited by the prospect of IoT, 16 percent feel scared and 9 percent even say they feel threatened.

Voxburner questioned 1,244 UK 16 to 24 year olds last month for the study, ‘Are young people wild about the Internet of Things', both online and through phone interviews.

ICYMI: Putin\'s rage, DDoS attacks, and post-Heartbleed OpenSSL

April 25, 2014

This week's In Case You Missed It column looks at Vladimir Putin's Internet views, bigger and badder DDoS attacks, and further reaction to OpenSSL and Heartbleed.

Putin the boot into the CIA

Fresh from his interview with Edward Snowden on government surveillance (short answer: Russia apparently does nothing of the sort), Russian president Vladimir Putin claimed earlier this week that the Internet is in fact a “CIA project”, presumably in light of the revelations from Snowden on alleged NSA spying.

This brings up the possibility of a locally-controlled Internet, something that has also been proposed in Germany. However, it comes in the same week that The Guardian reported that the Russian parliament passed a law, requiring foreign social media websites to keep their servers in the country. What's more, the law also requires them to save all information on their users for at least the first six months. It's also the same week that the Pavel Durov, founder of Russia's 'Facebook', VKontakete, fled the country claiming he had been forced to sell out to Putin 'cronies'.

DDoS attacks: 800Gbps and beyond

Distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks are getting bigger and badder, according to three reports published earlier this week.

Black Lotus - which provides solutions to defend against DDoS attacks - published its Q1 report which predicts that attacks will exceed 800Gbps within the next 12 to 18 months. It found that DDoS attacks peaked at 421Gbps and 122 million packets per second.

In the same week, Akamai's Q4 2013 State of the Internet report revealed that there had been a 50 percent rise in DDoS attacks in 2013 and - interestingly - indicated that one in three attacks are likely to be replicated against the same organisation.

In addition, as a sign of how these attacks have become forefront of mind over the last 12 months, Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report gave DDoS attacks its own section this year. It revealed an increase in DDoS attack size from 7Gbps on average in 2012 to 10.1Gbps last year.

Verizon report takeouts: Cyber espionage, data breach recovery

Verizon published its well-respected Data Breach Investigations Report earlier this week, and the 60-page report makes for interesting reading.

One of the standout observations is that cyber espionage has grown three-fold year-on-year, although this in itself could be a lopsided figure - in 62 percent of espionage cases the breach went for months without being detected, and 5 percent went on for years. In 85 percent of cases, the breach was discovered by an outside party.

Almost 50 percent of cyber espionage is believed to have come from East Asia - including China, but a fifth now comes from Eastern Europe.

Indeed, the study - which revealed a steep rise in external attacks - further highlighted how data breach discovery is often ongoing for ‘weeks or months'.

Charities are fair game for hackers

It looks like charities and non-profit organisations are fair game for hackers. Not that long after a hacker stole the names, addresses and phone numbers of thousands of people who had contacted the British Pregnancy Clinic charity for advice, news spread this week on a sub-section of Anonymous attacking a children's hospital in Boston (Anonymous has publicly denounced the attack on Twitter).

Adding to this, two weeks ago it was revealed that cyber-criminals in Ukraine and Russia had used the Zeus malware to steal thousands of dollars from the Franciscan Sisters of Chicago order of nuns.

FireEye researchers this week revealed how hackers are targeting non-government organisations and non-profit groups. By and large, it seems that hackers see charities as ‘easy pickings', with the majority (44 percent) stealing financial and account records.

Post-Heartbleed, OpenSSL gets a boost

A couple of weeks after the Heartbleed bug was first found (if you disbelieve the theories concerning the NSA), and the open-source OpenSSL could be about to get a serious cash injection from those in the technology industry.

The Linux Foundation has formed a new project to “fund and support critical elements of the global information infrastructure”, and the first project under consideration to receive funding will be OpenSSL. The funding for these open-source software projects is just over £2 million in total.

The statement details that the funding would be “for key developers as well as other resources to assist the project in improving its security, enabling outside reviews, and improving responsiveness to patch requests.”

Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised regarding this announcement, considering the 12 big technology companies behind the project, including Facebook, Google, Microsoft, IBM, Dell, IBM and VMware.

Whatsapp-ening with mobile app security

Concerns about security by design rumble on, especially in the mobile developer world. Two of the most popular iOS IM messaging apps, Whatsapp and Viber, were found to have big vulnerabilities.

Researchers at the US University of New Haven's Cyber Forensics Research & Education Group (UNHcFREG) found that when WhatsApp users share their location data, it is left unencrypted and - as a result - could be intercepted in a Man-in-the-Middle (MiTM) attack.

And the same researchers found a similar issue at Viber - a competing iOS messaging app. It too doesn't encrypt data (videos, images and other files), in transit or at rest on Viber's Amazons servers.

ICYMI: Putin\'s rage, DDoS attacks, and post-Heartbleed OpenSSL

April 25, 2014

This week's In Case You Missed It column looks at Vladimir Putin's Internet views, bigger and badder DDoS attacks, and further reaction to OpenSSL and Heartbleed.

Putin the boot into the CIA

Fresh from his interview with Edward Snowden on government surveillance (short answer: Russia apparently does nothing of the sort), Russian president Vladimir Putin claimed earlier this week that the Internet is in fact a “CIA project”, presumably in light of the revelations from Snowden on alleged NSA spying.

This brings up the possibility of a locally-controlled Internet, something that has also been proposed in Germany. However, it comes in the same week that The Guardian reported that the Russian parliament passed a law, requiring foreign social media websites to keep their servers in the country. What's more, the law also requires them to save all information on their users for at least the first six months. It's also the same week that the Pavel Durov, founder of Russia's 'Facebook', VKontakete, fled the country claiming he had been forced to sell out to Putin 'cronies'.

DDoS attacks: 800Gbps and beyond

Distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks are getting bigger and badder, according to three reports published earlier this week.

Black Lotus - which provides solutions to defend against DDoS attacks - published its Q1 report which predicts that attacks will exceed 800Gbps within the next 12 to 18 months. It found that DDoS attacks peaked at 421Gbps and 122 million packets per second.

In the same week, Akamai's Q4 2013 State of the Internet report revealed that there had been a 50 percent rise in DDoS attacks in 2013 and - interestingly - indicated that one in three attacks are likely to be replicated against the same organisation.

In addition, as a sign of how these attacks have become forefront of mind over the last 12 months, Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report gave DDoS attacks its own section this year. It revealed an increase in DDoS attack size from 7Gbps on average in 2012 to 10.1Gbps last year.

Verizon report takeouts: Cyber espionage, data breach recovery

Verizon published its well-respected Data Breach Investigations Report earlier this week, and the 60-page report makes for interesting reading.

One of the standout observations is that cyber espionage has grown three-fold year-on-year, although this in itself could be a lopsided figure - in 62 percent of espionage cases the breach went for months without being detected, and 5 percent went on for years. In 85 percent of cases, the breach was discovered by an outside party.

Almost 50 percent of cyber espionage is believed to have come from East Asia - including China, but a fifth now comes from Eastern Europe.

Indeed, the study - which revealed a steep rise in external attacks - further highlighted how data breach discovery is often ongoing for ‘weeks or months'.

Charities are fair game for hackers

It looks like charities and non-profit organisations are fair game for hackers. Not that long after a hacker stole the names, addresses and phone numbers of thousands of people who had contacted the British Pregnancy Clinic charity for advice, news spread this week on a sub-section of Anonymous attacking a children's hospital in Boston (Anonymous has publicly denounced the attack on Twitter).

Adding to this, two weeks ago it was revealed that cyber-criminals in Ukraine and Russia had used the Zeus malware to steal thousands of dollars from the Franciscan Sisters of Chicago order of nuns.

FireEye researchers this week revealed how hackers are targeting non-government organisations and non-profit groups. By and large, it seems that hackers see charities as ‘easy pickings', with the majority (44 percent) stealing financial and account records.

Post-Heartbleed, OpenSSL gets a boost

A couple of weeks after the Heartbleed bug was first found (if you disbelieve the theories concerning the NSA), and the open-source OpenSSL could be about to get a serious cash injection from those in the technology industry.

The Linux Foundation has formed a new project to “fund and support critical elements of the global information infrastructure”, and the first project under consideration to receive funding will be OpenSSL. The funding for these open-source software projects is just over £2 million in total.

The statement details that the funding would be “for key developers as well as other resources to assist the project in improving its security, enabling outside reviews, and improving responsiveness to patch requests.”

Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised regarding this announcement, considering the 12 big technology companies behind the project, including Facebook, Google, Microsoft, IBM, Dell, IBM and VMware.

Whatsapp-ening with mobile app security

Concerns about security by design rumble on, especially in the mobile developer world. Two of the most popular iOS IM messaging apps, Whatsapp and Viber, were found to have big vulnerabilities.

Researchers at the US University of New Haven's Cyber Forensics Research & Education Group (UNHcFREG) found that when WhatsApp users share their location data, it is left unencrypted and - as a result - could be intercepted in a Man-in-the-Middle (MiTM) attack.

And the same researchers found a similar issue at Viber - a competing iOS messaging app. It too doesn't encrypt data (videos, images and other files), in transit or at rest on Viber's Amazons servers.

Young people do care about cyber security

April 25, 2014

The prevailing view that young people are careless of information security has been challenged by a new UK survey that reveals two-thirds believe security is the number one priority when buying a new internet-connected device.

The survey of more than 1,200 16to 24-year-olds by youth insights consultancy Voxburner found that almost 90 percent of them are concerned about the security of the data they share. And the study, which asked young people's views of the Internet of Things (IoT) and other connected devices, finds more than a third feel that the benefits of new technologies such as IoT do not outweigh the risks.

Analysing the findings, Voxburner says: “There is a popular belief that young people are frivolous with their data and don't have any concerns about privacy, but 67 percent of 16 to 24s say that security is their number one priority when buying an internet-connected product.”

Among those surveyed, Claire, 18, from Medway, says: “I certainly have concerns about data privacy and in some cases I will avoid whatever I am doing if I am not willing to share my information with the company.”

Sean, aged 24 and from Dublin, adds: “The internet can be useful, but we don't always need to be connected to everything. Think carefully if the internet would really improve the functionality or experience or whether it's just internet for internet's sake. And above all, protect my privacy.”

Voxburner's head of insight, Luke Mitchell, believes 16 to 24 year olds have changed their attitude to cyber security from being trusting to being unsettled by factors such as stalker stories, cyber bullying and the Edward Snowden revelations.

He told SCMgazineUK.com via email: “Many observers would say that young people are too careless and open with their personal data, but young people today - rightly to a degree - regard themselves as advanced technology users who are experienced enough to recognise threats.”

But he said: “Because they have good digital literacy and awareness of technology developments, they are beginning to realise the dangers of their data being exposed to so many different platforms and players.

“While they have so far been fairly trustful in the digital environment, particularly of recognised brands (asked if Google is evil, 86 percent of our youth panel have told us ‘no', and 53 percent also disagreed with the statement ‘I believe technology will increasingly be used for evil rather than good') new innovations are potentially moving them out of their comfort zone.

“There is the media back-drop of stalker stories and cyber bullying, Edward Snowden and dark TV like Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror that is starting to unsettle them.”

However, security expert Mark James, technical director at ESET UK, does not believe the new attitude will necessarily provide UK organisations with a new generation of security-savvy employees.

He told SCMagazineUK.com via email: “It's encouraging to see a growing awareness of the importance of maintaining privacy and security amongst young people, but it's important to distinguish between their work and personal lives.

“Whilst they are often the most tech-savvy when it comes to personal brand, when it comes to transferring that same shrewdness to their business lives, they are arguably some of the most unreliable.”

James explained: “In recent research by ESET into the attitudes of Gen-Y professionals, 50 percent believed it is nearly always their organisation's responsibility to ensure the safety of data; 38 percent are also unaware of, or don't believe, their company has an IT security policy, and 30 percent of those aware of its existence don't know what it is.

“IT security teams need to engage with younger employees in the creation of policies that suit the needs of both parties.”

Luke Mitchell at Voxburner also admitted that young people's new caution does not yet extend to their mobile phones.

He told us: “Interestingly our research has shown that while most have protected their laptops, they currently perceive very little threat to their mobiles and few are using security software on their smartphones.”

When it comes to the Internet of Things, 80 percent of the respondents are interested in the concept. But while three-quarters are excited by the prospect of IoT, 16 percent feel scared and 9 percent even say they feel threatened.

Voxburner questioned 1,244 UK 16 to 24 year olds last month for the study, ‘Are young people wild about the Internet of Things', both online and through phone interviews.

The 2014 Small Business ICON Winner is Revealed at ICON14

Each year Infusionsoft recognizes several exceptional small businesses that are doing great things with their sales and marketing software. Businesses submit their inspiring stories and successes and from the dozens of applications, the top three businesses are presented at ICON14. Each company presents their story at the conference to attendees and the final vote is put in the attendees hands, as they text who the feel should be this years winner.

This years ICON winner is Lisa and Hamesh MacQueen, owners of Cleancorp.  Started only five years ago, Cleancorp is an Australian commercial office cleaning company started by Lisa and Hamesh as a way to support their young family. Through a combination of social media, SEO, PPC and direct mail, they attract leads and customers and gone from sifting the leads in a jumbled mess of papers to capturing prospects’ information, measuring ROI, tracking which leads are hot and nurturing them with automated, targeted follow-up campaigns. Using personal touches and ‘humanizing’ their campaigns, Cleancorp receives a staggering 30% of their customers base from referrals. By using these effective strategies, Cleancorp has grown from 2 employees to 8 and has seen their annual revenue increase from $1.2 million to $3.75 million.

Here’s a brief outline of this years other finalists and their story:

Heather Lemere, Salon Success Strategies

Salon Success Strategies is a full-service marketing agency for salons, day spas and medical spas. Prior to starting Salon Success Strategies, Heather operated a salon for 15 years and intricately knew what was needed to effectively market and get new clients. With Infusionsoft, Heather and her team have been able to create a stream of incoming leads, advance prospects through campaigns, gather information about people that visit their site, and much more. This year they’ve seen a 30% reduction in expenses, 300% growth on their high-end services and 150% growth on their subscription channel. In 2014, they are expecting over $600K in revenues - triple their 2013 numbers.

Chrisitan Isquierdo, Leftfoot Coaching Academy

With the goal of merging personal training, fitness and soccer into an awesome experience for children 8 to 22, Christian Isquierdo started LeftFoot Coaching Academy. By using Infusionsoft’s contact management, marketing automation, e-commerce and CustomerHub to segment contacts, build campaigns, score leads and build a paid trial-to-membership process, they’ve seen an amazing increase in trial sales. - increasing from $400 in 2012 to over $50K. More staggering, Christian and his team of 4 full-time employees have grown revenue from $40K in 2010 to $625K in 2013.

Kelly McGuire of SAS: Price Doesn’t Matter If You Have Negative Reviews

It takes more than lower prices to succeed in business today in the world of socially connected consumers - especially when it comes to the travel and leisure industry. It takes understanding and managing the power of ratings, reviews and recommendations.

Kelly McGuire, Executive Director of the Hospitality and Travel Global Practice for SAS, discusses findings in report she co-authored called “Pricing in a Social World: The Influence of Non-price Information on Hotel Choices.” There are plenty takeaways for anyone who’s business depends on reviews and ratings being left on sites like TripAdvisor, Yelp, and many others.

* * * * *

Small Business Trends: Before we jump into the research you’ve done, give us a little bit of your personal background.

Kelly McGuire: Sure. I run our Hospitality and Travel Global Practice here at SAS. I really think of myself as an analytic evangelist for the Hospitality and Travel industry. I speak to the market and to our customers about how analytics can really help them survive, thrive and gain competitive advantage. I also work to make sure our solutions meet the needs of the hospitality and travel markets.

I have a Ph.D. in revenue management from the Hotel School at Cornell, so I have a background in hospitality operations and hospitality technology.

Small Business Trends: Now talk a bit about why you teamed up with Penn State to put out this paper, “Pricing in a Social World.”

Kelly McGuire: I come in more from the pricing perspective in the hotel industry; what we’re challenged with in hospitality is, we’ve got a limited number of rooms for sale every night and if we don’t sell them that night, we lose the chance to sell them.

What we realized is it used to be we’d put a price out in the market and worry about what that price was and what our competitors were charging. But lately, there’s now more information in the marketplace about hotels (and that really is all user-generated content ratings/reviews) the consumers have access to when thinking about purchasing a hotel room.

So we were really interested to find out how the consumer’s using that information along with price when thinking about making a purchase.

Small Business Trends: It looks like one of the things that really became apparent in the study was this line around hotels must proactively manage their online reputation.

Kelly McGuire: What we found was while consumers care about price, users generating content have a significant influence on choice. We did a choice modeling experiment where we ran people through a series of scenarios and asked them to pick a hotel out of three. What became clear from the results is that those negative reviews would remove a hotel from the choice set period.

Small Business Trends: It mentions here that consumers only notice high ratings and rankings.

Kelly McGuire: Yes. Using choice modeling, we had the advantage of understanding the importance of the value consumers put on all those different attributes. The most important were the reviews we just talked about. Price was the next most important.

But there were other elements that mattered to consumers in certain ways. And the ratings were one. They didn’t give any value to the ratings unless they were comparing a medium mid-range rated hotel to a high-range rated hotel.

Small Business Trends: People pay more attention to reviews than the actual ratings?

Kelly McGuire: That was overwhelmingly clear in the study.

Small Business Trends: So if you have a strong online reputation, that should help you build the brand - but if you’re already a hotel that people don’t know about but then they only see you showing up in kind of a negative connotation in some reviews, you don’t have a chance.

Kelly McGuire: We did test brands. And brand was only marginally significant as a factor in choice. So what that says to me is: your brand is not going to get you that much mileage anymore.

Small Business Trends: Do you see the trends for recommendations and reviews changing at all?

Kelly McGuire: Folks really are recognizing the importance of the fact that we’re managing reputation, keeping an eye on it, making sure they’re responding to the comments, encouraging folks to write reviews when they’ve had a good experience. But I think what we’ll see as the next step in this industry is the hotels really taking advantage of all that data more broadly than just in the reputation context.

Small Business Trends: Where can people learn more about your research and the things you’re doing in this phase?

Kelly McGuire: I have a blog - the Analytic Hospitality Executive.

This interview on how price doesn’t matter if you have negative reviews is part of the One on One interview series with thought-provoking entrepreneurs, authors and experts in business today. This transcript has been edited for publication. To hear audio of the full interview, click on the player above. 

\'Acid House King\' jailed for £1.25m cyber theft

April 25, 2014

Security experts are warning of an influx of professional and imaginative cyber criminals after Tony Colston-Hayter, known as the 'Acid House King', was jailed for masterminding bank robberies which netted over £1.25 million using KVM technology.

Colston-Hayter was sentenced at Southwark Crown Court to five-and-a-half years in prison for leading a gang which used a keyboard, video, mouse (KVM) device to hack into computers at branches of Barclays and Santander banks.

The gang also stole credit and bank card details from about one million intercepted letters to buy Rolex watches, designer jewellery and other high-value items worth over £1 million.

Colston-Hayter and eight other gang members were sentenced for their parts in the scams.

Colston-Hayter became known as the ‘Acid House King' after he organised ‘Sunrise' raves during the 1980s which were later banned by then Home Secretary Douglas Hurd. He also appeared on television with Jonathan Ross.

But the court heard that, from being a successful businessman, his life went go wrong after he began abusing class A drugs, and he organised the KVM robberies to fund his addiction.

His gang gained notoriety last year when they launched three cyber attacks on Barclays and Santander, using a KVM switch device to try to access bank accounts remotely.

The first attack was in April when Darius Boldor, 34, walked into Barclays Bank's Swiss Cottage branch, and used the KVM switch to make 128 transfers worth about £1.25 million. Barclays recovered just £543,000.

Three months later, Dean Outram, 32, went into Barclays' Lewisham branch and illicitly gained access to its computers, stealing £90,000.

Two months after that, Outram managed to access Santander's IT system by fitting a KVM switch at one of its branches in Surrey Quays, south-east London. The court heard that Lanre Mullins-Abudu, 25, and another man tried to hack into Santander to steal what police warned would have been "substantial funds" - but the gang were caught in the act.

In the wake of their convictions, cyber crime experts are warning UK businesses to beware of growing numbers of equally sophisticated gangs using new technology - as well as old fashioned subterfuge.

Charlie McMurdie, former head of the Met Police Central e-Crime Unit (PCeU) and now senior crime adviser at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), told SCMagazineUK.com: “These are new-age bank robbers, a really significant team with all their role and remits in place, well-structured, well-organised, and using all the various techniques they exploited the banking system.

“We're seeing more and more of these old-fashioned mainstream criminals using and exploiting technology, and really being quite professionalised about how they're going about it.

“That's the learning to impart back to industry, around the need to join up all these different aspects that are now being used by mainstream criminals - social engineering, the technical exploits, the physical exploits.”

Mark Stollery, an information security expert with PA Consulting, also highlighted the sophistication of Colston-Hayter's gang and the need for UK organisations to try to keep pace with the criminals' innovative use of technology.

He told SCMgazineUK.com: “They came up with a smart idea which worked because it was imaginative and had not been seen before - and a couple of the banks didn't see it coming.

“It is unlikely to work again because banks are aware of it, but the villains always have the advantage - they can always come up with a new idea, and until you spot that new idea you can't put defences in place against it. You're always behind the curve.

“The bad guys will always be trying to come up with something new. Defenders, institutions, need to always be thinking imaginatively. You need to get some imaginative, competent people on your side and think right, how would we attack this knowing what we know - measures which may not occur if you are taking a good linear, logical, structured approach to security.”

Security expert Adrian Culley, a former Met Police Computer Crime Unit detective, agreed about the influx of cyber criminals. “It is sadly clear that organised crime is increasingly moving into this area, and the problem may only get worse,” he told SCMagazineUK.com via email.

But Culley also congratulated law enforcement on capturing this gang: “The sentences issued here represent both the seriousness of the offences committed by these criminals, and the increasing ability of law enforcement in cyber crime. The case shows that those who choose to commit such offences will be caught, prosecuted and face substantial custodial sentences.”

To The Victor Go The Spoils - Sorry Victor

I ran across the phrase “to the victor go the spoils” one day while perusing some books at the library, and that cartooning bell went off in my head. Almost immediately, little turns on that idea started coming:

• Guy named Victor sitting at desk with basket labelled “spoils.”
• Deliveryman with boxes labeled “Spoils” says to receptionist, “Is Victor here?”
• Loud guy says to guy at desk with name “Victor” on nameplate, “Turns out he was dead the whole time!” Caption underneath, “To the Victor go the spoils.”

Ultimately, I went a little darker - but there’s always a lot of ways to look at a joke like this.

National Small Business Week Starts May 12th In the US

National Small Business Week has been announced for May 12-16, 2014.

The week-long, cross-country series of events including forums on entrepreneurship, start-up and growth.

Activities will be held in four separate cities:

• May 12 in San Francisco, California
• May 13 in Kansas City, Missouri
• May 14 in Boston, Massachusetts
• May 15 in Washington, D.C.

A release from the U.S. Small Business Administration, which sponsors the event, says:

“Activities will include forums and panels discussing trends in small business, business innovation, financing, growth, matchmaking events, as well as networking opportunities and award ceremonies.”

The week will include both webinars and live events. Those interested can sign up to participate at the Small Business Administration’s National Small Business Week website or at a separate website for the San Francisco event.

Events throughout the week will also be live-streamed on the Small Business Administration‘s main website.

Another highpoint of the week will be choosing the 2014 Small Business Person of the year. A winner will be selected from candidates in 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Guam.

The first National Small Business Week was launched by the SBA in 1963 as a way of highlighting small business owners and entrepreneurs for their contributions.

The SBA says the week is meant to highlight the important role small businesses play as job creators and innovators and their positive impact on the economy.

Image: SBA.gov