Fresh articles from Articles Insighthttp://www.articlesinsight.com/Tue, 07 Sep 2010 18:44:16 CDTArticleFriendly.com http://www.articlesinsight.com/Art/18652/39/Online-Backup-Features-List.html
Online backup services, many companies and many products, the differences between these companies are in the features they provide, here are the most important features you will need when you choose your online backup services provider:

Easy to Use software, Online Backup must provide you with an easy to use software client that is installed on your system

Flexible and Easy to use Restore Options online backup must come with easy to use restore window

Automated online backup, the backup process must be automated, you setup your initial backup once and the system will do the backup automatically

Online Access to Files, it must give you the ability to access and restore the backed-up files via a normal web browser on the website

Fast Synchronization continuously replicates data from the source system to the backup one

Scheduled backup allows you to run the replication according to your own time schedule This could be daily, weekly, or certain days of the week

Data Compression Online Backup must provide you with the option to compress data before have it pushed to the backup server; it will reduce the time of backup process

Differential data compression a way to further minimize network traffic is to transfer only the binary data that has changed from one day to the next

Bandwidth usage and this one of the advanced features used by services providers and it is user-selectable option to use more or less bandwidth

Data Encryption for Secured Transmission the data must be encrypted while transmission between source machine and backup one using two standard security algorithms

Transfer Data Encryption to prevent interception of data This does not mean that the data will necessarily be encrypted during storage

End-to-end Data Encryption your data will be encrypted on your machine and then it will be transmitted and stored on the server This requires a client-generated key

Good online backup companies make session encryption is not optional, it is mandatory all the time and that for your security

Data saved on redundant servers in case one server becomes unavailable, you can quickly access the other server for data restore
Advanced Archiving Online Backup must support file archiving where files being overwritten or deleted could be kept in a separate archived location for future reference if you need them

Advanced Reporting Online Backup must provide detailed report includes complete information about the backup session which includes folders/files that have been backed up, backup size, duration of backup and success/failure status reports A summary report includes success/failure status report

File Sharing it must allow you to share your files with your friends This is very helpful for end users specially when dealing with large size files

Opened File Backup it must give you the ability to back up files that are frequently left open, such as Outlook files (* pst) or SQL database files This feature allows IT administrators to run backup jobs at any time of the day

Locked File Backup it must give you the ability to back up locked files when they are opened or closed

Network Backup it must give you the ability to backup multiple computers, servers or Network Attached Storage appliances on a local area network from a single computer or device

Multi-Site Backup it must give you the ability to backup data from many sites like at home and at work, or at the primary site and data located at remote

Your Privacy they must be committed to you that your data could not be opened by any mean, only you can open your data using password provided by you


Remote Data Wipeout in case your device is lost or stolen, your critical data will be erased from your lost device and no one including who has you devices can access them

Remote IP Address Locator when your device is lost or stolen it locates the IP address of your device and find exactly where it is and the contact information of the owner of the internet connection used in your device, these information will be used to get back your device again

The last two features are very important and they are the newsiest features in online backup technology They are available only in MDI Online Backup

Hak Majali, Secure Data Replicator. Inc online backup and data protection services Please visit My Data Image MDI Online Backup to get more information.]]> http://www.articlesinsight.com/Art/18652/39/Online-Backup-Features-List.html http://www.articlesinsight.com/Art/18651/39/Advanced-Online-Backup.html
Online backup service is not just a place to store data on it; it must come with many important features to satisfy our needs Here are the most important and advanced features that are not available in all online backup services providers:

Advanced Archiving Online Backup must support file archiving where files being overwritten or deleted could be kept in a separate archived location for future reference if you need them This helps system administrators to retrieve accidentally deleted or overwritten files This adds an extra layer of security by protecting against your unintentional errors

Advanced Reporting Online Backup must provide two types of reports for each replication session A detailed report includes complete information about the backup session which includes folders/files that have been backed up, backup size, duration of backup and success/failure status reports A summary report includes success/failure status report Both kinds of reports can be saved in a certain folder if logging is enabled Also, it must have the ability to email the report after each replication session according to email addresses provided by the user

QoS Support Online Backup must support quality of service QoS feature This allows the user to throttle the bandwidth consumption along with the CPU utilization according user's selected thresholds This guarantees the availability of resources for other applications and services running on the user's system or network

VSS and None VSS Backup for online backup on windows, backups can be generated form a Microsoft Volume snapshot copy service or directly from disk The good service is VSS aware and can benefit from this technology to generate a consistent point in time backup it can control the VSS process by allowing the user to specify if VSS writers to run or not In addition, it can backup directly from disk if needed Direct disk backup would be the only option in case we deal with backing up from External USB drive, network drive, and FAT32 volumes
More Important Online Backup Features
File Sharing it must allow you to share your files with your friends This is very helpful for end users specially when dealing with large size files

Opened File Backup it must give you the ability to back up files that are frequently left open, such as Outlook files (* pst) or SQL database files This feature allows IT administrators to run backup jobs at any time of the day

Locked File Backup it must give you the ability to back up locked files when they are opened or closed

Network Backup it must give you the ability to backup multiple computers, servers or Network Attached Storage appliances on a local area network from a single computer or device

Multi-Site Backup it must give you the ability to backup data from many sites like at home and at work, or at the primary site and data located at remote

Remote Data Wipeout in case your device is lost or stolen, your critical data will be erased from your lost device and no one including who has you devices can access them

Remote IP Address Locator when your device is lost or stolen it locates the IP address of your device and find exactly where it is and the contact information of the owner of the internet connection used in your device, these information will be used to get back your device again

The last two features are very important and they are the newsiest features in online backup technology They are available only in MDI Online Backup

Hak Majali, Secure Data Replicator. Inc online backup and data protection services Please visit My Data Image MDI Online Backup to get more information.]]> http://www.articlesinsight.com/Art/18651/39/Advanced-Online-Backup.html http://www.articlesinsight.com/Art/18650/39/Features-Make-Online-Backup-Easy.html
We hear that online backup solutions are not the same in fastness and easiness to use, and that because the advanced features that some companies apply to make their services better, faster, and easier to use Here are the features that make the process different

Easy to Use software Client Online Backup must provide you with an easy to use software client that is installed on your system The interface must not require many steps to configure your initial backup Good soft wares ask you to provide a user name and a password Then you select the folders to be backed up The backup process starts and simply your work is done

Flexible and Easy to use Restore Options online backup must come with easy to use restore window The restore window must be flexible and supports unzipping, de-encrypting, one file restore, one folder restore and multiple file/folder/volumes restore

Automated Online Backup Service Execution must run the replication process using windows services running in the background This increases the reliability of the backup solution There is no need for you to be logged on in order for the backup to run Also, system restarts will not require any user intervention to re-enable the backup It will be enabled automatically as it runs as a service

Online Access to Files, Online Backup must provide Online Portal for Data Access that gives you the ability to access and restore the backed-up files via a normal web browser on the website

Two Types of Replication Online Backup must provide two types of replication: Fast Synchronization and Scheduled Backup Fast Synchronization continuously replicates data from the source system to the backup one It must allow you to specify the time to wait between every two synchronization sessions

Scheduled backup allows you to run the replication according to your own time schedule This could be daily, weekly, or certain days of the week With multiple profiles supported, you can define two different backup profiles and have each one run according to a total different schedule or replication type

Features make Online Backup Fast
Compression Online Backup must provide you with the option to compress data before have it pushed to the backup server This can help tremendously in saving space along with speeding up the backup process Files will be encrypted in zip format which can be open by traditional windows explorer, WINZIP, WINRAR and other compression tools

Differential data compression A way to further minimize network traffic is to transfer only the binary data that has changed from one day to the next, similar to the open source file transfer service Rsync The good services use this advanced online backup method rather than transfer entire files to make the backup process faster

Bandwidth usage and this one of the advanced features used by services providers and it is user-selectable option to use more or less bandwidth; it may be possible to set this to change at various times of day

Hak Majali, Secure Data Replicator. Inc online backup and data protection services Please visit My Data Image MDI Online Backup to get more information.]]> http://www.articlesinsight.com/Art/18650/39/Features-Make-Online-Backup-Easy.html http://www.articlesinsight.com/Art/18649/39/Online-Backup-Security.html
Online backup is very important, it provides us with the best solution to protect our data from being lost or damaged But it's very important to be secured; transmitting you data from your device to an online server must be secured before, while, and after transmitting the data Here are the most important features that make the online backup process safe and secured:

Data Encryption for Secured Transmission good online backup service encrypts all data transmission between source machine and backup one using at least two standard security algorithms For example: BlowFish 448 bit encryption for data encryption along with Diffie-Hellman for secured dynamic key generated for each backup session In addition, it must encrypt the files (second level of encryption that is additional to the Blowfish one) before being sent using standard AES encryption with ZIP format using a password provided by the user This makes the files saved at the backup server saved in an encrypted format so no one can open them unless they know the password provided by the user User is required to enable compression if they want to use this second level of encryption

It supports session encryption using blowfish 448 bit encryption along with dynamically secured generated key for each backup session Session encryption means encrypting all the traffic of the data between the user's computer and the backup servers This makes the user feel safe about his data going over the Internet

Transfer Data Encryption to prevent interception of data This does not mean that the data will necessarily be encrypted during storage Good online backup providers applies more encryption to protect the data during storage

End-to-end Data Encryption of data at the client the encrypted data is then transmitted and stored on the server This requires a client-generated key, and precludes data recovery should the key be lost Depending on implementation, it has also preclude certain optimization techniques (such as recognition of common operating system files which don't need to be stored multiple times, and removal of duplicate user files across different users —'reduplication')

Good online backup companies make session encryption is not optional, it is mandatory all the time and that for your security

Data saved on redundant servers in case one server becomes unavailable, you can quickly access the other server for data restore
Advanced Archiving Online Backup must support file archiving where files being overwritten or deleted could be kept in a separate archived location for future reference if you need them

Online Backup Privacy good online backup services providers protect your privacy by offers a second level of encryption that allows the users to encrypt their files with their own selected password before files are pushed to our servers This is on top of session encryption The user selected password for encryption is known only to user which means only users know how to open the files ( even the online backup providers can't open files)

Remote Data Wipeout in case your device is lost or stolen, your critical data will be erased from your lost device and no one including who has you devices can access them

Remote IP Address Locator when your device is lost or stolen it locates the IP address of your device and find exactly where it is and the contact information of the owner of the internet connection used in your device, these information will be used to get back your device again

The last two features are very important and they are the newsiest features in online backup technology They are available only in MDI Online Backup

Hak Majali, Secure Data Replicator. Inc online backup and data protection services Please visit My Data Image MDI Online Backup to get more information.]]> http://www.articlesinsight.com/Art/18649/39/Online-Backup-Security.html http://www.articlesinsight.com/Art/18648/39/Search-Engines-Submission.html
Search Engines submission is very important to get targeted traffic to your website When you submit your website to all major search engines and more 1000 search engines your website pages will be indexed in all search engines and that will help you to get high ranked in major search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN So let us talk about search engines traffic importance, search engines submission importance, and Search engines Submission benefits to add good information to our search engine optimization SEO knowledge and use it to success online

Importance of Search Engines Traffic
Search engines traffic is the most important traffic because it's the most targeted, 95% of people use search engine to find what they are looking for online that's why we see big companies pay huge money for search engines optimization companies to make their websites high ranked for important keywords Search engines generate over that 80% Websites Traffic and this traffic is the most targeted and the most profitable because theses visitors are seeking for certain content and if you do not have this content you can put ads to lead to what they are looking for and that will make you good money just for receiving search engines traffic

Importance of Search Engines Submission
Search engines submission importance comes from the importance of the search engines traffic and from the importance of being listed in the search engines, search engines submission will help your website to be listed on the search engines and being high ranked on the major search engines to receive massive targeted traffic to your website If your website listed in search engines that will increase it's value and if it receives targeted traffic from search engines it will make you good money in addition of giving your website a big value to your business


Benefits of Search Engines Submission
When you create a website and upload a good content you will be mentally moved from creating business website level to telling customers about it level, creating website is much easier that advertising about this website if you do not have huge margin like most online business owners when they start, Search engines submission is the first step to make of that difficult level, when you submit your website to search engines you declare your website to search engines and you tell them that you have uploaded a new website it is about this topic please take it on your consideration and list it Search engines submission will increase your website link popularity, traffic, and ranking all these important things will improve yours business and make it more profitable and more valuable


We have talked about the importance of search engines submission as first stem to make when you upload a new website to declare about it When you submit your website to all major search engines and more 1000 search engines your website pages will be indexed in all search engines and that will help you to get high ranked in major search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN We have talked about search engines traffic importance, search engines submission importance add good information to our search engine optimization SEO knowledge and use it to success online

Hakim Majali SEO Expert, Online Business and make money at home education Website URL Submission Search engine submission]]> http://www.articlesinsight.com/Art/18648/39/Search-Engines-Submission.html http://www.articlesinsight.com/Art/18647/39/Online-Backup.html
Online Backup is what we do to protect our data from being lost or damaged, making a copy of your data in a safe and secured place that you can access it from anywhere at anytime, you can restore it when you need it, and you can share it with your friends, you will not care anymore about losing data whatever happened to your system, because you have a safe copy online But online backup is not just space to save data on it, what about your security? What about your privacy? What about the easiness and the fastness of online backup process? What about your stolen data your privet photos, videos, critical information related to your business or your personnel life, credit cards information, website private accounts For sure who steals others will enjoy revealing your privet information and it might be used in very bad ways

The right online backup solutions must has many features to avoid being in all of these troubles:
-It must be secured, your data and your device must be safe and secured
-It must be remote; your data must be available for you wherever you are whenever you need
-It must be easy, you setup your initial backup once, and system will do automatically
-It must be fast by applying data compression and deferential data compression
-Your data must be private your files must be private by encrypting your files using a password you provide; even Online Backup company employees can not open your data and files
- It must provides you with all important features available in the market like; Access files online, file sharing with Friends, network backup, multi-site backup, opened/locked file backup and more features

Typical online backup companies can protect your data from being lost but they can not protect your data from being stolen, who has your system can reveal all your secret and private data, all what they offer you is to get you a copy of your data but they have nothing to do with your stolen data, who has your system knows many privet information about you, these information could be used to damage your business, or your personnel life The new solution of MDI online backup will get you a safe copy of your data and wipe out your data from your stolen or lost system, once your system get connected to the internet the data will be erased within seconds and no one can access it but you

When your device gets lost or stolen, who has your device will take it home or at work, MDI Online Backup can locate the IP address of your device and find exactly where your device is and the contact information of the owner of the internet connection used in your device, these information will be used to get back your device again These two features; IP Address Locator and Remote Wipe out are available only in MDI Online backup a product of SDR inc

Hak Majali, Secure Data Replicator. Inc online backup and data protection services Please visit My Data Image MDI Online Backup to get more information. Please visit My Data Image MDI Online Backup to get more information.]]> http://www.articlesinsight.com/Art/18647/39/Online-Backup.html http://www.articlesinsight.com/Art/18646/39/Website-URL-Submission.html
Website URL submission is the most important part in Search Engine Optimization SEO, SEO experts call this part off page optimization which is getting links pointing to your website from relative websites indexed on the major search engines SEO experts do this part to get high ranked on major search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN Let's talk about the most important three website URL submission services we need to get our websites high ranked on major search engines for important keywords related to our website topic

Search Engines submission is very important to get targeted traffic to your website When you submit your website to all major search engines and more 1000 search engines your website pages will be indexed in all search engines and that will help you to get high ranked in major search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN Search engines traffic is the most important traffic because the majority of people use search engines to find what they are looking for online, search engines generate over that 80% Websites Traffic and it is the most targeted traffic

Web Directories Submission is one of the most important things that each online business owner needs this service to promote his/her business to rank higher in major search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN and get all website pages indexed in all major search engines Manual web directory submission is very important to websites owners to high ranked their websites in major search engines for their keywords it could not be automated because the web directories owners prevent automation submission to avoid spam, you can get this service as an advantage over your competitors instead of giving this advantage to them over you and give them better chance to get their websites ranked higher than your website and lose traffic and money

RSS Feed Submission is the best way to let your visitors know about your web site new contents and to let them come back to your website when you have new offers or any topic you want to share with your visitors keep in mind that there are always new useful contents in your websites that your visitors have visited before and they want to access this information on your website but they do not remember the websites URL, that is happened with all of us but when you provide RSS Feed Subscription from your website you give your visitors a perfect tool to receive your website update the minute you upload it When your visitors subscribe with your RSS feed once you add new contents, it will be sent to your visitors by e-mail to let them know that you have uploaded new interesting or important content to let them come back to your website and generate you more money, leads, or sales We submit our feed to all RSS feed readers to make our visitors able to subscribe with their favorite feed reader

Website URL Submission is about to get more links to your website to help your website get high ranked on major search engines and we have listed the most important three ways of website URL Submission; search engine submission, web directories submission, and RSS feed submission these services are imperative to get high ranked on major search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN

Hakim Majali SEO Expert, Online Business and make money at home education Website URL Submission Search engine submission]]> http://www.articlesinsight.com/Art/18646/39/Website-URL-Submission.html http://www.articlesinsight.com/Art/18645/39/What-to-look-for-in-an-Online-Backup-Solution.html
Nowadays, the concept of online backup became common and many people started using it due to the many advantages it offers like automatic backup, no need to buy flash or external drives, data is accessible from anywhere, and many other features
Online backup solutions are not all alike In general, all online backup solutions backup the data online allowing users to restore it when needed using some mechanism However, some solutions offer advanced features set that makes the user's job a lot easier when it gets to restoring or finding lost data Here is a list of some main features a buyer should look for:
Continuous Backup vs Manual Upload
Many solutions offer continuous backup by replicating folders/file additions, changes, and deletion to the online backup site in a continuous fashion seamlessly In this case, a user does not have to worry about remembering to backup files; it is done behind the scene seamlessly Some solutions allow user to control the frequency and time of data backup like setting a schedule or update period length
Other solutions do not backup data continuously; instead they offer the user the storage space and leave it up to the user to upload his data files each time he needs This requires the user to upload his data files/folders manually each time he wants the new copy online This makes it inconvenient to the user as he has to do this manually each time there is a change in the data

Files/Folder versioning or archiving
Some solutions offer the so called file versioning (also known as archiving) where the system keeps the old files versions that have been overwritten or deleted and timestamp them for future archive in case user needs to get them This allows users to access an old file version that has been deleted or overwritten which can save a lot of user time in case he accidently deleted or overwrote a critical file or data

Data Privacy Options
Generally Speaking, most online backup solutions perform data encryption on data while it is getting backed up (or uploaded) to the online backup store This is called session encryption Solutions use a variety of encryption options for backup session such as SSL, AES and Blowfish This protects the privacy for data while being transmitted from user's PC to online backup store
On the other hand, some solutions offer additional layer of protection to data privacy by giving the user the choice to store files encrypted using user's own selected password This means no one can open the file but the user since he will be the only one to know the password

Compression Support
Some solutions offer data compression before or after the backup process Compressing backed up data can achieve two main good things for us: Makes backup consume less space, and performs backup quicker Depending on user files types (documents, images, databases, etc), compression might not be helpful if user decides to backup files that are already in a sort of compressed format like (JPG images, some EXE files)

Hak Majali, Secure Data Replicator. Inc online backup and data protection services Please visit My Data Image MDI Online Backup to get more information.]]> http://www.articlesinsight.com/Art/18645/39/What-to-look-for-in-an-Online-Backup-Solution.html http://www.articlesinsight.com/Art/7687/39/Todays-Spearphishing-Attacks-Email-Attachments-Can-Kill-Small-Businesses.html
For years, spear phishing attacks relied on the foolishness and naivete of computer users to trick them into revealing passwords and other sensitive information to individuals posing as legitimate parties via spoofed emails or fake websites Today's spear phishing attacks effortlessly rob even cautious cynics with expensive name-brand security software Small business owners can literally be wiped out with a single email!

What Are Phishing Attacks?

Phishing attacks are launched by cybercriminals upon consumers primarily to gain a few pieces of important data that can be used for financial gain, such as a person's user ID and password to their online bank account Typically, consumers receive emails that appear to be from their bank or some other legitimate organization that trick the recipient into literally telling the criminals their user ID and password, for example One class of phishing attacks increasingly prevalent today no longer relies on tricking end-users but instead employ what security practitioners call a 'man-in-the-browser' attack

Basically, 'man-in-the-browser' attacks exist because the security within a web browser is alarmingly flawed from the perspective of stuff separate from other stuff So, that other tab in your browser, or that web page you visited prior to your online bank website, might leave malicious code inside your web browser that allows cybercriminals to eavesdrop or insert financial transactions such as a bank payment to an overseas account

This is why I strongly recommend that all computer users utilize two or more different web browsers, not separate web browser windows or tabs from the same web browser software, but use Internet Explorer, Firefox, or whatever all at the same time but for different types of websites BTW, the web browser that you use for financial activities should not be the one that renders a web page after you've clicked on a link in your email, instant messenger, or PDF reader!

What Are Spear Phishing Attacks?

Phishing Attacks sound pretty scary Fortunately, using two or more different web browsers radically reduces your risks from phishing attacks There are additional risks when web browsing from a hotel room or public Wi-Fi that I'd have to address in another post if anyone is interested (let me know)

Spear Phishing Attacks are phishing attacks that target a specific person or organization For the most part, spear phishing attacks are carried out via email, though instant messengers and social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn can be used also These attacks exploit the trust that we all have with our familiars: friends, family, and business associates We'll read an email or some other kind of message from a familiar More importantly, we're quite likely to accommodate a request or recommendation from a familiar to:

* Open a document

* Play a multimedia file

* Click on a hyperlink

* Install software

* Add a Facebook app

Any one of these actions is intended to install malicious software into the targeted user's PC Attacks do so by exploiting programming mistakes in the PC software that we use every day Once this malware has infested a PC, it systematically steals anything of value Computers users do not have to be tricked into revealing their bank account number, user ID, and password to be robbed

Small Businesses Are "Out of Luck"

As Brian Krebs of The Washington Post wrote in a recent article on Spear Phishing Attacks, American consumers who bank online are covered by a statute called "Regulation E", which "generally holds the consumer harmless for money stolen from their accounts via cyber crime" However, business owners that are victims of Spear Phishing Attacks would "more than likely be out of luck if a scammer empties their business account"

I strongly recommend that business owners talk to their banks immediately! If your business seldom involves payments to overseas accounts, see if you can require such payments get verbal or other approval prior to processing

Ineffective Protection from Today's Spear Phishing Attacks

Those of you with up-to-date anti-virus/spyware software from Symantec, McAfee, or other well known vendors have less than 50-50 odds of deflecting a Spear Phishing Attack That is because they rely on malware detection technology invented over a decade ago that utilizes signatures, which are like electronic fingerprints Cyber criminals effectively alter the fingerprints of their Spear Phishing Attack instruments (malicious PDF or PowerPoint document, spiked JPEG or AVI, etc ) in minutes, orders of magnitude faster than vendors add new fingerprints to the 'most wanted list'

AppGuard and EdgeGuard Block Spear Phishing Attacks

Adding AppGuard (http://www blueridgenetworks com/products/appguard php) or EdgeGuard (http://www blueridgenetworks com/products/edgeguard php) to a computer with any anti-virus/spyware security software boosts protection to 90% Without AppGuard or EdgeGuard, anti-virus/spyware software, which only stop OLD malware, only block about 45%, including Spear Phishing Attacks

Engaged in the development and management of information security products and managed services for over a decade, earlier involved in other information technology and national security endeavors.]]> http://www.articlesinsight.com/Art/7687/39/Todays-Spearphishing-Attacks-Email-Attachments-Can-Kill-Small-Businesses.html http://www.articlesinsight.com/Art/6919/39/The-Security-Risks-Associated-With-Instant-Messaging-In-The-Workplace.html
Instant messaging (IM) is an increasingly popular form of text-based communication, allowing written messages to be passed between two or more people over the internet, and offering a range of other ways to share data, such as voice calls, video calls and file transfers

As services such as such as MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger and Skype are free, they have become popular with many businesses as a way to collaborate on projects and keep in touch with remote employees But in the corporate workspace, IM can pose a number of serious risks, including time-wasting and threats to security, many of which can be avoided with the introduction of an acceptable use policy

For example, it is wise to prohibit the sharing of personal opinions by IM as conversations can be saved and made public, just like emails This danger was highlighted by financial training software provider eFront, which suffered serious damage to its reputation when the CEO's IM conversations were made public and revealed personal comments about shareholders and partners

IM also carries all the same threats as emails when it comes to phishing scams, which seek to illicit personal information, and viruses, which can be hidden in transferred files An acceptable use policy could simply prohibit the practice of sharing files and links, but many businesses prefer to simply advise all users to avoid clicking on any unsolicited links, to only accept file transfers from trusted sources and to avoid giving away personal information via IM at any time

For staff intent on stealing or spreading confidential information, IM offers a means to transfer information by text or file transfer without the user of a browser or email that would leave a more obvious trace With typical upload speeds currently in the region of 296 kb per second, it is possible that a user could transfer up to 8 gigabytes of information in a single working day

Sensitive company information can even be spread unintentionally via IM, as illustrated in a survey from security firm Akonix which revealed that 16% of employees have accidentally sent or received business information that was meant for someone else To help avoid this, your acceptable use policy should require that business and social chats are kept separate This could mean either having a separate IM ID for work, or sorting contacts clearly into business and social groups to reduce the risk of hitting send to the wrong person

Of course, an acceptable use policy is only effective if it is understood and adhered to by all employees, so however you decide to regulate IM usage, it is important that this is fully communicated to staff and that behaviour is monitored to ensure that misuse is detected

If you are concerned that an employee may be sharing information inappropriately via IM, it is wise to engage the assistance of a computer forensic analyst, who will be able to recover evidence from the suspect's computer without corrupting the evidence, thus preserving its admissibility in court or at an employment tribunal

IntaForensics a BS EN ISO 9001:2000 registered firm providing Computer Forensics, Expert Witness, Mobile Phone Forensics, and Forensic Data Recovery to the Legal Sector, Police Forces, Local Authorities and Commercial organisations internationally. Visit Computer Forensics for further information.]]> http://www.articlesinsight.com/Art/6919/39/The-Security-Risks-Associated-With-Instant-Messaging-In-The-Workplace.html