May 17, 2012

Telework Week Demonstrates Big Savings from Home Worker Strategies

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Working from home saves the time and fuel associated with commuting, and thus real dollars, but can also improve employee productivity and make employees happier. Not surprisingly, management is taking notice and becoming more receptive to the idea. Those are some of the key takeaways from Telework Week 2012, co-sponsored by Cisco and the Telework Exchange, a public-private partnership focused on demonstrating the tangible value of telework and serving the educational and communication requirements of the Federal teleworker community.  This was the second year of the weeklong event and participation was up fairly dramatically, with an 80% increase in the… Continue Reading ›

Calls for Cooperation and Threats of Doom from RSA Conference

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The week-long RSA Conference 2012 security confab wraps up in San Francisco today and after hearing several of the more than a dozen keynote speeches, two themes emerged: companies have to help each other deal with threats and getting hacked is now inevitable. Dealing with Threats Requires Close Cooperation In his opening keynote Art Coviello, Jr., Executive Chairman of RSA, was the first to call for morecooperation in sharing data about threats. Of course, RSA itself was the victim of a well-publicized attack last year, the result of a well-executed phishing attack. The sting of that attack was evident, and… Continue Reading ›

Security Breach Roundup: Short Month, Many Breaches

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For this month’s security breach roundup we once again have some big names in the news and perhaps the best headline you’ll ever read in this roundup. A Six-Pack of Security Breaches I love it when others make my job easier, as the fine folks at Ars Technica have with this piece under the headline, “Breaches galore as Cryptome hacked to infect visitors with malware.” (And no, that’s not the gem referenced above; that comes later.) A breach that caused Cryptome.org to infect visitors with virulent malware was one of at least six attacks reported to hit high-profile sites or… Continue Reading ›

BurstPoint Helps Bring Sports and Family to Faraway Troops

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Score two for Carousel Industries’ partner BurstPoint Networks. BurstPoint, an industry-leader providing a unique Video Communications Platform, played a crucial role in two recent sporting events that brought U.S. troops stationed in Afghanistan closer to not only their families back home but to the sports teams they love. In partnership with the USO and TD Garden, home of the Boston Celtics and Boston Bruins, BurstPoint participated in an innovative program that enabled troops in Afghanistan to not only watch live games but meet team officials and family members via videoconference. On Nov. 15 of last year, family members of Massachusetts… Continue Reading ›

IT Security Breach Roundup: Big Names and Big Numbers

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It’s tough to decide where to start with the January IT Security Breach Roundup. We’ve got a major-league Internet retailer getting hacked (and sued), yet another security company suffering a breach and a large community college finding out malware has been collecting personal data – for more than a decade. Zappos Suffers Security Breach – and Promptly Gets Sued We’ll give top (dubious) honors to Zappos, given its high profile, many customers and the fact that it’s owned by Internet giant Amazon. As redOrbit reported on Jan. 16: Online clothing retailer Zappos.com announced to its 24 million customers in a… Continue Reading ›

Carousel Hires Two High Profile IT Industry Veterans for Key Leadership Roles

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Carousel Industries prides itself on industry leadership and consistently offering quality services. In an effort to bolster its expertise in two key areas – service delivery and unified communications – the company recently brought in two executives with a world of IT industry experience. In December, Carousel announced the hiring of Richard Losey as vice president of services. CRN included the hire in its roundup of “notable IT executive moves” for the month: VAR500 power Carousel Industries spent much of the past two years bulking up via acquisition, and also adding to its executive team. In late December, Carousel grabbed… Continue Reading ›

Security Breach Roundup: Anonymous Strikes Again

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For our final security breach roundup of 2011 we’ve got two breaches involving charitable giving and another involving the credit card industry. We’ll wrap up with some numbers and highlights of the year’s biggest security breaches. Robin Hood-like Hackers Breach Security Company Site In an attack reminiscent of the breach of the security firm RSA earlier this year, the hacker group Anonymous is claiming responsibility for a breach of the website of Stratfor Global Intelligence, a company that provides strategic intelligence on global business, economic, security and geopolitical affairs. Their intent, according to a story in The New York Times,… Continue Reading ›

Survey Points to Serious Issues with Firewall Management and Compliance

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With the furious rise in cybercrime, well maintained and audited network firewalls are a critical line of defense.   However, firewalls are apparently spinning out of the control of IT, at least according to a recent survey by Tufin Technologies, which makes software for automating security processes. Given the source you are free to take the survey results with a grain of salt, but if there’s even a modicum of truth to the survey, it points to some real problems. Firewall change management is a sticking point For starters, 67% of the 100 network security professionals surveyed, all of whom… Continue Reading ›

Scary Stories of Data Breaches for a Halloween Night

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What better day to bring you a security breach roundup than Halloween, the day when all manner of ghosts and goblins are up to no good. Come to think of it, that’s pretty much any day when it comes to hackers committing nefarious deeds in cyber space, but work with us here. This month we’ve got another Sony PlayStation breach, real patient data handed off to a job applicant who promptly put it online, new security guidance from the Securities and Exchange Commission and hackers defiling a children’s show, of all things. Sony Admits to Another PlayStation Attack It wasn’t… Continue Reading ›

A Tribute to a True Industry Visionary: Steve Jobs

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At Carousel, as everywhere around the country, there has been a lot of talk about Steve Jobs over the last week.  The outpouring of emotion over his passing has been nothing short of astounding, not unlike Jobs’ career. The word “visionary” may be tossed around too much in tech circles, but there’s little question it applies to Jobs in spades. Probably few households in the U.S., and in many other countries, don’t have at last one Apple product and many have lots of them, reflecting the profound effect that Jobs and Apple have had on so many aspects of our… Continue Reading ›