A few weeks ago, I was surprised to get a call from Microsoft offering to help “fix my window”.  This was surprising because:

1. My window wasn’t broken and having worked at Microsoft for a while, I’m pretty sure we don’t do home repairs.
2. Microsoft doesn’t call people out of the blue to offer technical support (I knew what he was really talking about).

When I replied that I didn’t realize that Microsoft had anything to do with the windows on my house and there wasn’t anything wrong with them, the caller quickly set me straight.  This was about my computer and he was going to help me, all I had to do was give him some information and then install a program on my PC.

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Here is a great website for anti-fraud in Canada.

Here is a great information graphic produced by Microsoft.

Federal agencies that have adopted cloud computing have already saved approximately $5.5 billion, according a federal IT consortium that McKendrick quoted in his article. The real question here is where will those savings go? Will they be distributed evenly among programs like Medicare and Social Security, or will they go to pay for things like education and struggling state governments? Obviously, we’ll just have to wait and see. Still, the federal government’s decision to embrace cloud computing will set the tone for the entire country.

According to a report issued in February 2011 by the federal government’s chief information officer Vivek Kundra, “cloud computing has the potential to play a major part in addressing inefficiencies and improving government service delivery. The cloud computing model can significantly help agencies grappling with the need to provide highly reliable, innovative services quickly, despite resource constraints. For the Federal Government, cloud computing holds tremendous potential to deliver public value by increasing operational efficiency and responding faster to constituent needs.”

As with any organization, the federal government also worries about security. Government agencies have fallen victim to hackers in the past and probably will again in the future. For this reason, it’s important that the U.S. government follow the same advice that many MSPs give to their own clients: Be careful what you put in the cloud. Although government agencies make use of safety features such as complicated passwords and encryption, they still would be wise to avoid putting classified information in the cloud. There’s no such thing as a fail-proof safety measure.

In many ways, storing documents in the cloud can be safer than locking paper documents away in a file cabinet. For one thing, paper documents can easily get misplaced or misappropriated if they’re left lying around. When they’re in the cloud, something as simple as a password prevents unauthorized individuals from accessing important documents. Encryption, of course, makes transferring those documents between departments or organizations faster, safer and less expensive than using FedEx or a personal courier.

According to McKendrick, who quoted statistics from a survey of 108 federal IT managers, 48% said their agencies were moving collaboration tools to the cloud, 47% said that they were moving email to the cloud, administrative applications (43%), conferencing software (28%) and “mission applications (25%) rounded out the top five cloud-based applications that federal agencies and organizations are currently implementing.

Many in the U.S. would say that it’s about time the federal government started taking serious strides to cut spending. Others might worry that adopting cloud computing is a bad move. Honestly, it’s an inevitable move. How can the United States ever hope to remain competitive either in business or politics if its led by a government that clings antediluvian ideals.

Federal agencies that have adopted cloud computing have already saved approximately $5.5 billion, according a federal IT consortium that McKendrick quoted in his article. The real question here is where will those savings go? Will they be distributed evenly among programs like Medicare and Social Security, or will they go to pay for things like education and struggling state governments? Obviously, we’ll just have to wait and see. Still, the federal government’s decision to embrace cloud computing will set the tone for the entire country.

According to a report issued in February 2011 by the federal government’s chief information officer Vivek Kundra, “cloud computing has the potential to play a major part in addressing inefficiencies and improving government service delivery. The cloud computing model can significantly help agencies grappling with the need to provide highly reliable, innovative services quickly, despite resource constraints. For the Federal Government, cloud computing holds tremendous potential to deliver public value by increasing operational efficiency and responding faster to constituent needs.”

As with any organization, the federal government also worries about security. Government agencies have fallen victim to hackers in the past and probably will again in the future. For this reason, it’s important that the U.S. government follow the same advice that many MSPs give to their own clients: Be careful what you put in the cloud. Although government agencies make use of safety features such as complicated passwords and encryption, they still would be wise to avoid putting classified information in the cloud. There’s no such thing as a fail-proof safety measure.

In many ways, storing documents in the cloud can be safer than locking paper documents away in a file cabinet. For one thing, paper documents can easily get misplaced or misappropriated if they’re left lying around. When they’re in the cloud, something as simple as a password prevents unauthorized individuals from accessing important documents. Encryption, of course, makes transferring those documents between departments or organizations faster, safer and less expensive than using FedEx or a personal courier.

According to McKendrick, who quoted statistics from a survey of 108 federal IT managers, 48% said their agencies were moving collaboration tools to the cloud, 47% said that they were moving email to the cloud, administrative applications (43%), conferencing software (28%) and “mission applications (25%) rounded out the top five cloud-based applications that federal agencies and organizations are currently implementing.

Many in the U.S. would say that it’s about time the federal government started taking serious strides to cut spending. Others might worry that adopting cloud computing is a bad move. Honestly, it’s an inevitable move. How can the United States ever hope to remain competitive either in business or politics if its led by a government that clings antediluvian ideals.

It’s unclear how New Jersey authorities intend to enforce this new law, but if someone is caught texting while walking, he could be cited for jaywalking and fined as much as $85. This may sound silly, especially to those who regularly commit this offense, but it really isn’t.

If it hasn’t happened already, it’s only a matter of time before someone carelessly steps out into traffic and gets hit by a car, truck or bus or causes an accident. Watching people walk into walls and stumble into water fountains because they’re more focused on looking at their cell phone screens than looking where they’re going is amusing. So is seeing people walking down the street and bumping into trash cans and lamp posts. What wouldn’t be funny is to see someone disappear into an open man hole or fall down a flight of stairs. But these things can and probably do happen, whether we get to see them on YouTube or not.

So far, texting while walking hasn’t caused as much pain and suffering as texting while driving has. Still, it can’t hurt to stop, step aside, send your message and then continue walking. There really are times when multi-tasking isn’t a good idea.

Search Security defines spear phishing as “an email spoofing fraud attempt that targets a specific organization, seeking unauthorized access to confidential data.” Spear phishing emails can look like résumés from job applicants, invoices from vendors or invitations to conferences. The hacker’s goal is to get the recipient to share confidential information such as usernames and passwords, click on links to malicious websites, open tainted documents or get involved in some kind of underhanded activity.

In her article for Entrepreneur.com, Riva Richmond warns that spear phishing emails are crafty. Hackers will address the emails to specific employees and even go so far as to mine LinkedIn for enough information to lend the emails greater credibility. Both large and small companies have fallen victim to frighteningly plausible spear phishing emails, which resulted in the loss of intellectual property, among other things.

Because it’s so difficult to discern a spear phishing email from a legitimate one, Carnegie Mellon University associate computer science professor and founder of Wombat Security Technologies Jason Hong created a phishing filter. Hong also provides free email training demos to help you and your employees to become more adept at recognizing nefarious email messages.

Nobody wants to fall victim to a spear phishing email. There are ways to recognize them such as receiving a résumé when your small business isn’t hiring. Trying Hong’s phishing filter could certainly be helpful, but it’s still a good idea to teach your employees how recognize and report dubious emails. Because even a phishing filter can make mistakes.