Short Takes
Gangs' Double Threat
Why just scam someone and fill their inbox with junk email, when you can also infect and take control of their computer at the same time? It appears that nefarious activities are being streamlined to offer up a double threat within one email. "These latest techniques are part of a new boldness being shown by certain criminal gangs we are tracking," confirms Mark Sunner, chief security analyst for MessageLabs. "These latest developments also serve to highlight that spam cannot be perceived as just a nuisance and it should be kept away from the desktop."
My Generation
Digitally Immersed
'Generation Y' or 'Millenials' are the biggest generation since the baby boomers, as well as the fastest-growing segment of the workforce and consumer base. Born between the late 1970s and the late 1990s, and 76 million strong, they are the first generation to grow up immersed in a digital and Internet driven world where cell phones, text messaging, TiVO and social networking are part of the fabric of how they live.
Online Retailers Seek Market
Cisco Systems recently announced the results from its second annual ecommerce study. Scion, a marque from Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc., ranked highest providing a stunning example of how to build a unique customer experience for the under-35 consumer. Scion edged out other retail giants such as Sears, Target, Circuit City and Wal-Mart. The study reveals that overwhelmingly, forward-thinking retailers are taking Gen Y into account as 86 percent of the retailers have incorporated some form of video or TV into the shopping experience, up from 52 percent last year. The study also notes that most retailers are not convinced of the value of Customer Interaction Tools: 45 percent offer Click to Chat, 37 percent provide Consult an Expert and just 22 percent offer Click to Talk.
Insider Threats
The 2006 E-Crime Watch survey conducted by the U.S. Secret Service, CSO Magazine, CERT Coordination Center and Microsoft Corp., reveals that 55 percent of 328 respondent companies reported incidents of Internet security breaches attributed to insiders. Of this total, 63 percent involved the theft of intellectual property, 56 percent involved the theft of other proprietary data and 47 percent involved fraud.
Blackout at Blackberry
Millions of BlackBerry users lost email for several hours, due to a massive network failure, the night of Tuesday, April 17 into the next morning. The outage cut off incoming and outgoing email on BlackBerry devices regardless of cellular company, which indicated the problem originated at BlackBerry maker Research in Motion Ltd (RIM). The company had little to say about the incident, except that the outage "may have been caused" by one of its operating centers going down. This did not appear to hurt the company financially, as the stock rose that Wednesday 2.4 percent. The Waterloo, Ontario, company has 8 million subscribers worldwide as of March 3. About 1 million of those were added in the last quarter of 2006.