Tag: inspire action

7 Tips to Protect Your Company from a Cyber-attack

Cyber security is a growing concern. In 2014 Apple, Sony, Neiman Marcus, and Target were high profile victims of cyber theft. But for every big company that has fallen prey to a cyber-attack, there are hundreds of small businesses which have also been targeted. The potential for a cyber-attack is real for all companies, big and small, from cutting edge, high-tech corporations to traditional institutions. Phone companies, credit card services, department stores, hospitals, social media sites, and even government offices are possible targets. The scale of cybercrime is growing and no company is safe. It seems the bad guys are forging ahead in this race. It is important for you to understand: Cyber security is your problem.

Many companies resort to hoping that a cyber-attack doesn’t happen to them and fail to prepare for one. Ernst & Young, in its “Get Ahead of Cybercrime” report, says that companies “lack awareness, budget and skills to prevent a cyber-attack.”

The challenge is how do you manage risk, reduce the threat of cyber-attack, and implement sufficient security while budgets for these activities remain static? How do you allocate resources and staff to address the growing concerns of cyber-attack while conducting everyday business? Where can you find trained cyber security specialists to help you begin to build your defenses against cyber-attacks? If you do experience a cyber-attack, how can you minimize the damage it could cause?

Here are some tips for protecting your company and preventing or reducing loss:

  1. Educate your employees through cybersecurity awareness and training. Educated employees reduce breach costs by 76 percent!
  2. Be aware of what data is vulnerable to a cyber-attack. This allows you to focus on the areas of your business that need the most protection.
  3. Work to install multi-factor authentication systems rather than using a single password. Making it difficult for cyber hackers to break through the security wall may deter them from their nefarious tasks.
  4. Be vigilant. Early detection is vital. Notifying your company’s security team and law enforcement in the earliest stage of a cybercrime may significantly limit your losses.
  5. Act quickly. Fast action may hamper the efforts of your cyber-attackers to access or use your information.
  6. Make an effort to secure your data with workable solutions such as setting up segmented networks, deleting unneeded information, or using encryption.
  7. Keep informed about the latest equipment and security systems as they become available. This may require an investment of funds, but managing risk and protecting your company is worth the cost.

Cybercrime is a real threat. “Heartbleed” bugs, “Shellshocks,” and “Sandworms” can penetrate your company’s computers, databases, and security walls. A breach in security can undermine your daily operations, destroy consumer trust, and leave you wondering what to do next. Though it is impossible to protect your company from every threat, there are things you can do and steps you can take to thwart cyber attackers. Is your company protected from cyber-attack?

Check out a cybersecurity stat video we created in collaboration with our partner, Fortalice Solutions.  We partner with Founder and CEO of Fortalice, Theresa Payton, to create dynamic and inspiring cybersecurity awareness solutions for all types of businesses.  Payton is the former CIO of the White House in the Bush Administration.

Get Your Breach Defense On in 2015: Top 5 Security Trends in 2015

It seems like 2014 might be known as the year of the “breach.”  The constant stream of breaking news of data breaches affecting retailers, banks, governments and more kept us wondering, “who’s next?”  As criminals evolve and their targets widen, it begs the question, “what’s next for 2015?  More of the same”?

According to Thor Olavsrud, senior writer at CIO magazine, we can expect the “size, severity and complexity of cyber threats to continue increasing.”  Olavsrud cites the nonprofit association the Information Security Forum (ISF) to explain the top five security trends that will dominate 2015.

Summarized below are the key action items Olavsrud uncovers about each trend, as well as some questions relevant for your organization:

Trend 1: Cybercrime

Because cybercriminals use 21st century tools on 20th century systems organizations must be prepared for the unpredictable, which means:

  1. Know the cost of compliance and a potential breach
  2. Know what your business relies on the most to make a business case for protection

Question to consider:

–      How are you protecting your point-of-sale, networks, and in-store computers?

Trend 2: Privacy & Regulation

Treat privacy as both a compliance and a business risk issue to reduce regulatory sanctions and business costs such as reputational damage and loss of customers due to breaches.

Questions to consider:

–      How are we safeguarding personally identifiable information?

–      As more government regulations are imposed, do we have in-house counsel to help make sense of them?

Trend 3: Threats from Third-Party Providers

Are you remembering your supply chain?  Even the most innocent connections can be at risk. The Target attackers exploited a web services application that a company’s HVAC vendor used to submit invoices.  “Organizations should have business continuity plans in place to boost both resilience and senior management’s confidence,” quoted Olavsrud.

Questions to consider:

–      Do we have a risk assessment for our supply chain?

–      Is it scalable and repeatable for even our smallest vendor/supplier?

Trend 4: BYOx Trends in the Workplace

Remember BYOB?  This is less fun with the acronym “Bring your own box” – meaning employees brining their mobile devices to work.  And it’s a trend that is here to stay.

Olavsrud says that few organizations have comprehensive policies that help manage these devices at work.  Organizations should consider that employees often blur the boundary between work and personal information if they bring their mobile devices to work.  Expect your users to find a way to use their own devices for work even if you have a policy against it.  Instead of trying to fight the inevitable, construct a policy to ensure your organization has some recourse.

Questions to consider:

–      Do we have a comprehensive mobile device policy?

–      Is it followed?  Do we have consequences spelled out in the policy if it is not followed?

Trend 5: Engagement with your people

Everyone’s greatest asset and their most vulnerable target is its people.

Organizations should consider making sure its people are vastly aware of security protocol and the consequences of when it is broken.  Employees should also understand the data security protocol is each of his or her individual responsibilities, not just management. 

But organizations should also be proactive by making security behaviors part of the business process, “transforming employees from risks into the first line of defense in the organization’s security posture.”  Remember, people are the strongest part of control they have.

Questions to consider:

–      Are we addressing the human element of information security?

–      Do we have a comprehensive information plan that inspires people to protect our information?

–      What new behavior can we implement to reduce our risk?

To read Olavsrud’s original article published on CIO.com, click here.

This article was originally published in the Restaurant Loss Prevention & Security Association’s (RLPSA) newsletter, January 2015.

#hashtagpower: Embrace the Power of the Pound Symbol

Experience Hashtag Power

Twitter adopted the use of hashtags in 2007, and it’s no longer just for nerds.  The # (pound symbol) with words following becomes a searchable link within the Twitter community – the vital link between digital marketing and communication.  Because of this, hashtags have exploded into a powerful social media tool.

How do you tap into this power?  Sandeep Sharma shared his decade of marketing expertise at JeffBullas.com.  Sharma is convinced a little creativity and a dash of hashtags will equal instant social media success.

Be a Hashtag beneficiary!

Hashtags will:

-Classify your content, so you can be found easily.

-Expand your brand to have a wider reach online.

-Link you to other previously unreached audiences through association.

-Minimize content generation.  Use the hashtag sparingly, only 1-2 in a post.  Remember, Twitter only has a 140-character limit per Tweet.

-Make you unforgettable.  Hashtags are easy to remember because the power is in the simplicity.

Power Play: Create your own Customer Winning Hashtag

How do you create this social media game changer?  Rebecca Hiscott at mashable.com coaches beginner hashtag creators.

Follow this checklist to create your game changing hashtag:

-No spaces between words, just super squeeze all the words together.

-No punctuation needed.

-Capital letters are irrelevant, but always an option.  The same goes for numbers.

And POOF, #hashtagpower.  Hashtags.org offers a search engine to find available hashtag keywords, but it’s that easy.  No excuses anymore for boring, long winded social media ploys.  You don’t have to be a pro at writing either.  Hashtags break all the rules of conventional grammar!  Enjoy the freedom!  Create.

Hiscott also recommends using hashtags to generate a buzz for your promotion or contest you are hosting. With the holiday chaos in full swing, become the visual voice readers will be drawn to.  Create your own catchy hashtag. Be specific and simple. #powershopperswanted

Lastly, don’t forget to set your tweets to public setting, so everyone can see your fab work!

Harness the Hashtag Power: Measure your Success

Don’t forget to measure your hashtag effectiveness.  Of course, there is a simple way to analyze the effectiveness of your hashtag usage and yes, you can even put the hashtag to work for you while you do less.

Ian Cleary, CEO of Razor Social, reminds his readers that tweeting is a waste of time if you don’t have a purpose.  If it has a purpose that matters it needs to be measured.  Cleary recommends using Google analytics or LinkedIn to track your effectiveness.  Twtrland and SocialBro are helpful social media tools to generate churn rates. Cleary explains the number of people who follow you and then unfollow you is a churn rate.  A high churn rate indicates poor content; therefore, you will know immediately if your hashtag creations are working.

Building your Hashtag Followers: Follow the Leader

If they follow you then you follow them.  Though, Cleary clarifies that an audience does not mean it is the right audience. Twtrland also offers an analysis of followers.  Even more, Twtrland captures if your content is being shared.  Shared content builds and strengthens your social network.

Community Manager and Content Specialist, Sofie DeBeule at Social Media Examiner says the key to building the right audience is maintaining helpful, authentic interactions through your content.  Don’t bog your readers down with clutter.  Be helpful.  Too many hashtags and too many links with lengthy text is not helpful.

Relevant, helpful content matched with the right audience equals hashtag success.

How to Live a Mindful Life

Have you ever seen someone dancing in the airport?

Or maybe they are just grooving ever so slightly with their headphones on?

Maybe they are even mouthing the words to that blaring song so you can only make out the bass?

They are in the moment.  They are taking a relatively ho-hum experience and jazzing it up a bit.

What is that?  How can they be so present?

It’s not surprising that it’s a phenomena that has actually been studied for more than 40 years by Ellen Langer.  Harvard Business Review’s senior editor Alison Beard sat down with Langer to get her take on mindfulness and leadership in the March 2014 issue. 

“What is mindfulness?” might be the first question.  As studied by Langer, “Mindfulness is the process of actively noticing new things.”  Her research reveals that by paying attention to what’s going on around us instead of operating on auto-pilot, we can reduce stress, unlock creativity and boost performance.  Being able to unlock the mystery of mindfulness means we are truly engaged in our present life and not trapped in the regrets of the past or the fear of the future. 

The misconception is this way of life would be draining, but the opposite is true.  What causes us stress is all the mind-space we give to negative evaluations and worry that we’ll find problems and not be able to solve them.  Langer says, “We all seek stability.  We want to hold things still, thinking if we do, we can control them.”

Some may be saying, “Is this yet another fluffy article from Virgillo?”  Maybe so.  But consider this:

We can’t solve today’s problems with yesterday’s solutions.  We need to stand up against learning something until it is “second nature,” according to Langer.  That’s because once we do that, we stop thinking.  It becomes mindless.  How can we really tackle our organizations’ problems by doing the same thing over and over in a mindless state?

According to research, mindful living begets better performance in our work life.  When we are fully present and tackling the day’s challenges in a mindful way it’s easier to pay attention.  We’re more creative.  We’re opening our minds to more creative solutions because we’ve let go of worry and stress about things that haven’t even occurred yet.  A mindful friend of mind calls that “future-tripping.”

Langer has been studying this for nearly 40 years and no matter what the subject matter she tackles, mindfulness generates a more positive result.  It’s pretty simple really.  Every choice we make, every day; we are making a choice to be mindful or mindless.  We are making a choice to be present or not.

Still don’t believe me?  Consider this: If we researched Fortune’s Top 50 CEOs, our most accomplished artists, musicians, athletes, teachers and mechanics, we’d find many are mindful people, according to Langer.  Coincidence?  Nope. Not a chance.

Create a more mindful organization

Mindful people actually consider the perspective of others.  “As a leader, you can walk around as if you’re God and get everybody to quiver.  But then you’re not going to learn anything, because they’re not going to tell you, and you’re going to be lonely and unhappy,” says Langer.  If we are a mindful leaders, we consider that our perspective is not the lone and universal view.

Being able to consider others’ perspectives also yields a side benefit of not jumping to conclusions.  Before we’re quick to label someone as “wrong,” considering another perspective might help us learn something.  Yes, it could be naïve to think that individuals in powerful positions might put their ego aside for a moment to consider another’s perspective.  But what’s wrong with that?  There are a lot of business books out there.  Not one of them demands a prerequisite of successful businesses to be so egocentrically cruel and judgmental.  That might not be a coincidence.

The only way we can legitimately opt-out of being mindful is if two things happen:  we’ve found the very best way of doing things, and nothing ever changes.  As you probably guessed by now, neither one of those are possible.

The first step in creating a mindful organization is to allow our teams to say, “I don’t know.”  If we eliminate a zero-tolerance policy for not having all the answers we might just create a more creative and innovative department.  The second step is asking questions that encourage mindfulness.  Bring our teams into the moment.  If we’re facing a difficult interview or investigation or even a mystifying shrink challenge, ask some in-the-moment questions.  For example, “What process did we change since the last inventory that may have caused this?  What are other stores with less inventory shrink doing that is working?” or, “Based on the exception report today, where should we begin our focus?”

True mindfulness can be accomplished and actually enhance our ability to juggle multiple tasks together.  According to Langer, “You want a soft openness – to be attentive to the things you’re doing but not single-minded, because then you’re missing other opportunities.”

Moments – that’s it

We’re making a choice.  Every day.  Are we living mindfully and truly experiencing the tiniest little joys?  Langer closes with, “Life consists only of moments, nothing more than that.” And another poignant quote that everyone has heard but still remains true, “Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.”

So next time you’re in the airport, throw on those tunes and groove it out a bit.  Sure, everyone might watch.  But it’s your moment, don’t miss it.

A perfect example…

Here’s a perfect example of a group feeling their moment…and going with it.  This video received 4 million views within 24 hours!  It currently sits at 16 million.