Tag Archives: companies
Today's Threats and Solutions for USB Storage Devices
USB products have been in market since 2000. The ever-growing nature of personal and business data, has led to exponential demand of USB flash drives and external hard disks. From ordinary people to large organizations, all rely on USB drives to keep, transfer and receive documents, pictures, videos and so on.
The main reason for popularity of these devices is that they are light, small and inexpensive. A few years ago, it was hard to believe that with a piece of hardware half the size of a bank card, one could hold thousands of documents and pictures right in their pocket. It is worth mentioning that a typical 8 GB USB flash drive has enough space to keep more than 15000 photos (500 KB average photo size). In response to this high demand market, manufacturers strive to produce devices with greater storage space, faster transfer rates and lower costs. For example, a 1 TB USB drive will be available during 2013.
USB flash drives use a common standard, which is supported by all modern operating systems, called USB mass storage. As a result, anyone can connect one of them to a Mac, copy some files, and conveniently connect it to a Windows based machine to access those files.
So, are we going to conclude that they have no disadvantages? Absolutely not. They have a lot to offer, but they all have one problem in common: they are dangerous!
Antivirus companies report than the AutoRun feature in Microsoft Windows is still among top ten threats. This feature helps programs that are meant to run automatically when a USB drive is connected to a PC, but obviously a malware can be easily executed by it. Most computer viruses copy themselves to removable USB disks, and sometimes, this is their main method of spreading. When a virus, or any other type of malware gets onto a USB disk, there is a high chance that other systems using that USB drive get infected too.
Moreover, USB drives, because of high capacity relative to their small size, are the first choice if someone wants to steal valuable or confidential data. Companies and businesses are at risk when employees can duplicate corporate documents on USB drives and take them outside the office. One study showed that the average cost of a data breach, can be as high as $2.5 million. And this is not only for companies. Every individual has private files, or even projects on their computer, with doors open to intruders.
There must exist some sort of solution to avoid these threats. In today’s software world, there are a few applications that can help everybody secure their USB ports. But not every software solution, is eligible to increase the security of your PCs at home and work. You should be looking for a software that solves above-mentioned problems, has excellent technical support, and gets updated regularly with new features. There are free solutions around, but they all lack some point or another. They are usually written for hobby, and not from a ‘professional’ viewpoint.
A wise option is USB Security Suite. It has everything you need to protect your PCs from USB-related threats. USB Security Suite automatically scans any USB disk attached to a computer to prevent viruses from spreading. It can also vaccinate your USB drives, so that they never get infected by other computers. If you need to know what activities (copy, rename, delete, etc.) happen on USB drives of your system, USB Security Suite can monitor and log them. Data theft protection made easy.
An introduction to dedicated servers
Cyber space is growing at a very fast pace. The internet has become such an essential part of everyones lives, it is almost impossible to do without it. Businesses use the internet to market their business and reach out to their potential customers. Many individuals use the internet as the primary source of information. Most of the time, people are so inclined on accessing various sites that they never seem to consider what makes this possible. Owners of websites make use of the internet as a medium to reach their customers. We easily access these sites, but do we really know how we are able to access these websites? Website owners use web hosts to host their websites so that their websites can be accessed by their clients.
The whole functioning of cyber space is only possible because of web servers. Whenever you access anything on the internet, whether it is just a website or informative journals and reports, the only thing which makes this possible is the web server which hosts it. Web servers are not given much importance and most people arent even aware of them. Although web hosts and servers are never in the lime light among the common folk who make use of the internet, they are the most important part of cyber space. Web hosts connect sites to the World Wide Web.
There are different kinds of servers:
Business owners and website owners get their websites hosted by trusted web hosts. The web hosts provide a web server to host websites. The servers which are mostly preferred by businesses and online multi-level marketers are dedicated servers. Dedicated servers, as the name suggests, are servers which are dedicated to hosting one client. Although dedicated web servers are used by business and other websites, the owners of the website are not the owners of the web server. Dedicated web servers are owned by web hosts. They are either given on rent or leased out to website owners. Since dedicated servers are exclusive servers, they can be customizable to some extent. Dedicated servers allow the website owner to gain full access over the web server but the web hosts will still remain the main owners of the website.
Why are dedicated servers useful?
Dedicated servers are very complex. Since they handle exclusively one client at a time they can run scripts which are very large. Their ability to run large scripts makes it best suited to big companies which look to expand their business. Big companies need to be hosted exclusively; only then will it be possible for them to have an unlimited bandwidth and attract more web traffic. Another reason why dedicate servers are considered advantageous to big companies is that they have a 99.99% uptime. This means that for every hundred hours you can be connected to the web for at least 99 hours. If there is continuous connectivity, the chances of interrupted service to customers is very low.
Today's Threats and Solutions for USB Storage Devices
USB products have been in market since 2000. The ever-growing nature of personal and business data, has led to exponential demand of USB flash drives and external hard disks. From ordinary people to large organizations, all rely on USB drives to keep, transfer and receive documents, pictures, videos and so on.
The main reason for popularity of these devices is that they are light, small and inexpensive. A few years ago, it was hard to believe that with a piece of hardware half the size of a bank card, one could hold thousands of documents and pictures right in their pocket. It is worth mentioning that a typical 8 GB USB flash drive has enough space to keep more than 15000 photos (500 KB average photo size). In response to this high demand market, manufacturers strive to produce devices with greater storage space, faster transfer rates and lower costs. For example, a 1 TB USB drive will be available during 2013.
USB flash drives use a common standard, which is supported by all modern operating systems, called USB mass storage. As a result, anyone can connect one of them to a Mac, copy some files, and conveniently connect it to a Windows based machine to access those files.
So, are we going to conclude that they have no disadvantages? Absolutely not. They have a lot to offer, but they all have one problem in common: they are dangerous!
Antivirus companies report than the AutoRun feature in Microsoft Windows is still among top ten threats. This feature helps programs that are meant to run automatically when a USB drive is connected to a PC, but obviously a malware can be easily executed by it. Most computer viruses copy themselves to removable USB disks, and sometimes, this is their main method of spreading. When a virus, or any other type of malware gets onto a USB disk, there is a high chance that other systems using that USB drive get infected too.
Moreover, USB drives, because of high capacity relative to their small size, are the first choice if someone wants to steal valuable or confidential data. Companies and businesses are at risk when employees can duplicate corporate documents on USB drives and take them outside the office. One study showed that the average cost of a data breach, can be as high as $2.5 million. And this is not only for companies. Every individual has private files, or even projects on their computer, with doors open to intruders.
There must exist some sort of solution to avoid these threats. In today’s software world, there are a few applications that can help everybody secure their USB ports. But not every software solution, is eligible to increase the security of your PCs at home and work. You should be looking for a software that solves above-mentioned problems, has excellent technical support, and gets updated regularly with new features. There are free solutions around, but they all lack some point or another. They are usually written for hobby, and not from a ‘professional’ viewpoint.
A wise option is USB Security Suite. It has everything you need to protect your PCs from USB-related threats. USB Security Suite automatically scans any USB disk attached to a computer to prevent viruses from spreading. It can also vaccinate your USB drives, so that they never get infected by other computers. If you need to know what activities (copy, rename, delete, etc.) happen on USB drives of your system, USB Security Suite can monitor and log them. Data theft protection made easy.