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first step is to create a password that is hard to quess but easy to remember.
ThatÂ’s easier said than done, but some guidelines can help users create
passwords that are more secure than what they currently
use. A good
password is a combination of letters, numbers, and symbols that cannot be found
in a dictionary. A password should be at least six characters long and should
not have any personal information such as the userÂ’s name, childÂ’s name,
occupation, telephone number, address or birth date. A combination of letters,
numbers and symbols will work best, although some systems allow a different set
of characters than others, so the use of characters like the semi-colon can be
problematic. It is also important to use a mixture of capital and lower-case
letters to make a password even more difficult to guess. Best practices for a
strong password policy are: A
strong password policy may increase help desk costs and user frustration and
result in lost productivity. To implement a strong password policy that works,
an enterprise should research techniques, establish a policy, train its
employees, and adjust their authentication processes or systems to reflect the
harder password requirements. Many studies show that employees cannot or refuse
to remember multiple passwords, and take shortcuts which create a less secure
environment. 1. Define Record Management and Retention Policy
A record management and record retention policy should cover all
employees, contractors, and affiliates related to the company who create, send
or receive, or use business records, e-mail messages and other enterprise data
files. The policy should manage the retention, storage, and disposition of
business records, whether they are in paper, electronic or other formats or
media, in a manner consistent with applicable laws and regulations. It should be
understood that all computer data is covered, including e-mail messages,
business documents, and application data. As the archiving system is
implemented, issues may crop up regarding the current record retention policy
and schedule. A template for such a policy can be found at http://www.e-janco.com/RecordManagementPolicy.html . The policy should include the following:
2. Educate Employees, Contractors, Suppliers, and
Affiliates Most employees, contractors, suppliers, and affiliates do not know if the
enterprise has a record retention policy or schedule much less where to find it
if needed. To help ensure compliance with the policy and schedule, employees,
managers and any assigned departmental records coordinators should be educated
on the record retention policies and procedures. Create a training plan and
develop the necessary communication tools for training various levels of
employees, contractors, suppliers and affiliates. Policy audit processes and
procedures should also be developed. General elements of employees, contractors, suppliers and affiliates
education and training plan should include: Metrics Guide Sucess For IT Service Management -
Let metrics that matter guide you. - more infoUsers Will Replace Laptops with SmartPhones According to IBM - IBM released a survey results which reveal that over 50% of consumers would substitute their Internet usage on a PC for a mobile device such as a SmartPhone. The survey found that communication, travel and navigation applications, as well as news and information services, are expected to increase significantly in popularity and usage over the mobile Internet. With the world's population of mobile-phone users expected to increase from the current 50% to 80% in 2013, which translates to a staggering 5.8 billion people, the availability of IP wireless broadband and more affordable devices will change the way companies around the world operate and relate to their customers, employees and partners.
IT Job Market Not As Bad As the Rest of the Market - In July, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the seventh consecutive month of negative job growth. More than 51,000 jobs were slashed. Although not as severe as the loss of 72,000 jobs that was predicted, this cut still brought the total number of unemployed in the U.S. to 8.8 million - 5.7% of the population. That's 1.6 million more than in the same month last year, and a four-year high. eBay recently announced to lay off 1,000 workers, a long list of smaller Internet outfits have begun cutting jobs, and most industry watchers expect Yahoo to announce another round of layoffs when it discusses third-quarter earnings. Whatever job cuts occur in the technology sector in the coming months, they are not likely to be as deep or as lasting as the cuts that occurred during the dot-com bust, according to statistics from the U.S. Department of Labor and industry employment experts.
Information Technology Sector includes: software publishers, telecommunications, data processing, hosting and related services, internet publishing, broadcasting, web search, and portals. Manufacturing Sector includes: peripheral equipment, storage devices, broadcast and wireless communication, audio and video equipment, and semiconductors. Call it learning from past mistakes: tech companies have not experienced the hiring binge that occurred in the late 1990s, when a combination of Internet investment, repair work on older computer systems to deal with Y2K transition issues, and massive investment in telecommunications infrastructure teamed to create double-digit tech employment growth through much of the second half of that decade. But although the overall job market continued to worsen in the second and third quarters, employment in the IT sector is not nearly as bleak. In fact, according to the National Association of Computer Consultant Businesses, IT employment is on the rise.This year, businesses have added close to 90,000 IT professionals in theiremploy - a gain that is in contrast to the job market as a whole, which had lost a total of 463,000 jobs by the end of June. What's more, in June the number of IT professionals employed in the U.S. reached an all-time high of close to 4 million. According to a number of survey, including the one published by Janco Associates, wages in the Inormation Technology sector are holding steady. The latest Yoh Index of Technology Wages found that pay remained stable throughout June and even finished up slightly (0.29%) from June of last year. The economy's current struggles are different from those before the dot com bubble, when overvalued tech stocks caused the bubble to burst, sending many technology companies, and the economy, tumbling. This time, the slowdown was sparked by the subprime mortgage crisis, putting contractors and real estate moguls, not Information Technology professionals, at greatest risk. However if IT professionals in the financial services sector in the New York area are excluded from that comment. Second, there are certain skills that a business simply cannot live without, skills that no recession or economic downturn can eliminate the need for. In fact, in many cases, the workers who possess such skills become even more valuable during an economic slump or recession, because they are integral to keeping the company afloat and moving forward. Regardless of the status of the economy, there will always be a demand for Information Technology professionals involved in R&D or product development, since they create or enhance a company's product line. - more infoDefining a Good Password Policy as Part of a Security Policy -
Basic policy requires a combination of letters, numbers, and symbols that cannot be found in a dictionary. A password should be at least six characters long and should not have any personal information such as the userÂ’s name, childÂ’s name, occupation, telephone number, address or birth date. Use a mixture of capital and lower-case letters to make a password even more difficult to guess. Users should change their passwords regularly - once every three months at a minimum. The main benefit of implementing a strong password policy is that it avoids the start-up and implementation cost of some of the other solutions. It may increase help desk costs and user frustration and result in lost productivity. To implement a strong password policy, a company must research techniques, establish a policy, train its employees, and adjust their authentication processes or systems to reflect the harder password requirements. There are many potential downsides. Many studies show that employees cannot or refuse to remember multiple passwords, and take shortcuts which create a less secure environment. - more infoBudgeting for Disaster Planning -
There is a fine line between downtime being merely a
minor inconvenience to internal users and resulting in lost opportunities. When
a system is down, business and employee productivity suffers. An internal
failure, for instance, may impede the ability of a technology company to prepare
proposals or respond to customer queries. If repeated outages prevent employees
from accessing corporate systems or completing tasks, the long-term negative
effects can be significant. If applications are worth running in the first
place, they also are worth protecting. Charged with the task of extending disaster recovery capabilities to cover a broader spectrum of applications in the enterprise, IT departments are beginning to explore new disaster recovery alternatives. An emerging trend is for organizations to leverage server virtualization to achieve disaster recovery capabilities. Once confined to use primarily in software development, test and server consolidation scenarios, server virtualization and supporting technologies can afford significant cost and performance advantages over conventional recovery options. - more infoNetwork Event Viewer is Right On Target -
Trying to add up individual system performance metrics to understand actual application or end user performance does not work either. Due to advances in hardware reliability and performance as well as architecture, the causes of most performance problems today are usually problems with application components, as opposed to individual pieces of hardware. As a result, system monitoring alone, while still critical, will not provide an accurate or complete picture of true application performance. True end user focused monitoring is critical and is an essential piece of todayÂ’s monitoring strategy. - more info |
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Many
organizations allocate as much as 80 percent of their disaster recovery budget
to safeguard only their most business-critical applications - usually as little
as 20 percent of the total IT budget. A recovery budget allocated along these
lines leaves the remaining 80 percent of applications under-protected should the
business experience a failure or catastrophic site disaster. While the loss of
any one of these non-critical applications, which comprise the majority of an
organizationÂ’s IT enterprise, may not bring the business grinding to a halt, the
loss would nonetheless impact business and employee productivity and cost the
organization time and money. 