IPhone Apps Every Road Warrior Entrepreneur Needs

The Blackberry has been the mainstay of the business world for years. But as we know, the IPhone is eating away at market share. There are over 75,000 apps for the IPhone now and growing steadily. For those who have Blackberry Thumb, you can probably look forward to IPhone Index Finger at some point in the future as you switch away from the Blackberry.

Why should you switch from the Blackberry? Well there may not be a good reason. The Blackberry has a number of apps and it is secure, it has encryption and has been beaten up on the security front like network security assessment and application security testing. It’s ingrained in businesses and Blackberry Enterprise Server is well known to many IT administrators.

The Entrepreneur can use both devices. Let’s assume there are at least some people using the IPhone, what apps should they have in their toolkit? Of the thousands of apps, how can you pick a few that would be beneficial to the Entrepreneur Road Warrior? Well the way I picked them is through word of mouth , that are of benefit to me and comes with network security assessment tools. I travel, work in my car, have meetings at all times of day, I am away from the office for days or weeks.

Take these with a grain of salt and do not send any flame emails. But please send in the apps that you think should be shared with the world or at least readers of this Blog.

Urban Spoon

First up is Urban Spoon. You are thinking, well that’s not some kind of spreadsheet or financial app. What is the business purpose? The lifeblood of the Entrepreneur is networking , managed security services, application security risk assessment and deal making. Where deal making most of the time involves some kind of meal. Urban Spoon can find you restaurants by cuisine, by neighborhood, by cost, by distance. Everything you need for a meeting is the most random city.

AroundMe

In the same vein as Urban Spoon, is AroundMe . Say you are on your way to an important lunch you have setup with a restaurant you found on Urban Spoon but you are almost out of gas. Use AroundMe to find the closed gas station. Or if you need cash to pay for that gas because your Amex Card has been cancelled, find the closest bank.

GoogleMaps

Well this is pretty obvious. But when you are traveling and maybe forgot to bring your Garmin GPS and do not feel like paying the rental company an extra $11.99 a day to rent their GPS , this is just as good.

ReQall

This is a pretty useful app. The developers were one of the www.TiE.org Top 50 companies this year at TiECon. The app captures your voice, translates it to text, organizes your calendar based on your voice messages, integrates into Outlook or Google Calendar and provides memory assistance. It’s great when you have no pen or driving in a car or need a memory reminder.

FlightAware

For the true Road Warrior, there is no road, there is the sky. So when you are rushing to the airport or think you need to rush to the airport, track down what is going on with your flight. Check out FlightAware to get an update and help you plan that trip to the airport.

TweetDeck

Social Media, the latest buzz word, actually has some teeth. Small companies and the Entrepreneur have to be connected to the work whether you like it or not. Twitter is a way of life these days even if people seem to be twittering their lives away. How do you tell your followers that you are stuck in an airport in Baltimore? Try using TweetDeck.

These Apps don’t seem very business-like, but the Entrepreneur is practical, cheap, requires network security audit tools and has to get things done today . These help you achieve your million tasks on a timely basis.

Gary Bahadur

http://www.kraasecurity.com/

http://blog.kraasecurity.com/

http://twitter.com/kraasecurity

*Managed Security Services

*Vulnerability Management

*Compliance & Policy Development

*PGP Security

This Time Its Network Solutions Reporting a Data Breach

For a long time, various well known companies have been the target of hackers. This has resulted in huge data losses for the company as well as the client's that are associated with the company. Many companies have faced several financial charges by the government or by business partners to satisfy penalty fees.

Network Solutions, which specializes in the domain name registration industry, has recently reported an incident of a breach of data. The breach occurred during March 12 to June 8 2009 and was detected in a check carried out by the company. Though this breach was detected in June, the company took around a month's time to decipher the code that was used in hacking the domain. By that time the hackers had hacked their e-commerce services and had already diverted the transaction details of more than 500,000 registered companies. This shows that industries are still lacking in security measures to prevent the loss of important data.

Network Solutions company issued a statement saying that till now no incidence reporting misuse of information has been reported by any merchant company. The company is now enlisting all those merchant clients' who had made any transaction in between that period. These clients will in turn notify their customers who will then inform their banks to block the credit cards to avoid any misuse.

Network Solutions has offered to bear all the expenses that the customers have suffered. But isn't it more correct to take a few precautionary measures beforehand than facing such incidents? Data loss prevention and a network security assessment are the best tools available for the security assessment of any website and it also helps in avoiding such incidents.

There have been many such companies reporting breaches in the past that have resulted in the bad reputation of those companies. Heartland Payment Systems and RBS WorldPay are a few examples of such breaches. Both these companies had been removed from the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI Audit) services' list. The loss of clients and market value was an additional issue.

These incidents indicate that various other similar companies are exposed to such risks. But if they take certain measures to keep their network system in check, they can surely avoid experiencing these kinds of losses. This also ensures the goodwill of the company in the market thereby attracting more clients.

An expert with knowledge of Information Security Risk Assessment has written this article.


Gary Bahadur
http://www.kraasecurity.com
http://blog.kraasecurity.com
*Managed Security Services
*Vulnerability Management
*Compliance & Policy Development
*PGP Security
*FREE Website Security Test

Encrypt Your Laptops to Safeguard Information

With the advancement of technology come its disadvantages as well. As the technology is improving, the number of thefts and fraud activity is on the rise. To hear about stolen laptops has now become a normal news story. Companies usually store their data in their systems or laptops and forget to keep a backup copy of the same data or even to encrypt that data. This data includes all information regarding the employees of the company, business clients and the valued customers of the company. Recently, Oklahoma’s Department of Human Services (DHS) had reported that an unencrypted laptop containing information regarding millions of customers was stolen by an employee of the agency. The laptop contained their all important information regarding their complete background as well as their social security numbers, though the agency is somewhat sure about the safety of the data as the laptop was protected by a password.

The personal data stored on the laptop should be on an encrypted share or drive, i.e., it needs to be there in a way so that no one other than the assigned person can get access of this highly valuable data. You may have highly confidential details that should not be disclosed. The customers share their information on the basis of the fact that as per the guidelines of the company, the data would be safe within the company only.

There have been many laptop thefts reported by many reputable companies. The laptops containing sensitive information get stolen, posing a security threat to the company. Whether the amount of customer data on the laptop is for one or one hundred, it can have a very damaging affect on the company and the customers. IN most cases, the records number in the thousands or even millions. not like only one or hundred clients are associated with the company. But the client base encompasses a mass of millions of people and certainly involves huge risks if they face any security breach.

There are many ways to ensure safety of the data even if the laptop gets stolen. First of all, it should be encrypted with PGP Encryption system which helps in protecting all the data by offering various encryption applications. the chances of growth and profitability of any company. Automated patch management is another way of keeping your laptop's sensitive information safe. Firewall protection is also necessary for protecting your laptop against harmful attacks or when surfing suspicios sites. To keep it safer, you should also protect your hard disk with a password as it makes the cracking very tough for the fraudsters.

on increasing. Recently, Oklahoma’s Department of Human Services (DHS) had reported that an unencrypted laptop containing information regarding millions of customers was stolen by an employee of the agency. The laptop contained their all important information regarding their complete background as well as their social security numbers, though the agency is somewhat sure about the safety of the data as the laptop was protected by a password.

So, it is better to take some measure beforehand, rather than facing such risks in the future. These are easily available tools that need to be used by every organization so as to maintain their clients and growth.

An expert with the knowledge of Application Security Risk Assessment has written this article.