Enhance Security with a Comprehensive Data Protection Framework

Data protection and reliability issues are one of the top priorities for any business with critical digital information. While the importance of data is based on its value to an organization and effort spent to create it, the costs involved and often the significance of the data/information is not realized until it is temporarily or permanently unavailable. With the advancement of world-spanning computer technologies, if data or information is not secured properly, it can be easily accessed by almost anyone. Technology can add value but without proper strategy and execution solution, data protection can become a convoluted issue.

The digital era has brought with it exposure to more threats from every direction than ever before. Organizations have realized that the investment required to provide information protection, is far less than the cost derived from the lack of information availability, accessibility or recoverability. Organizations that are not protecting their data are highly vulnerable, as private and sensitive information can easily be misused. Threats can come from both internal and external sources. As companies today have become dependent on the efficiency and security of their data, a good data protection solution can help prevent data loss.

Besides putting systems, processes and policies in place to reduce the chance of a data protection breach, a business must also deploy a comprehensive data protection framework solution across the information lifecycle. Technological improvements have brought about various data protection mechanisms to protect personal as well as organizational data from loss. Proper usage of all available data protection technologies helps contribute to business continuity and quick recovery during unexpected disasters.

Implementing a holistic framework that includes data classification, data flow analysis and tools like data loss prevention (DLP), information rights management (IRM) is the key to effective data protection. A good data protection solution keeps information safe and   ensures that the business complies with relevant data protection rules and regulations.

Security risks need to be managed effectively, collectively and proportionately, to achieve a secure and confident working environment. Partner with a service provider who can exercise adequate risk management frameworks. With a comprehensive analysis of data flow within and between organizational processes, organizations can identify and protect confidential information by building a governance framework, and implementing an effective data protection strategy.

Enterprises can effectively implement data protection solutions to ensure regulatory compliance, prevent the significant impact to business and reputation that is possible because of data loss.

Read more on - cloud security, mobile security

Social Gaming Markets Facilitating A Broader Customer Base

Success for any business enterprise whether a large conglomerate or a small and medium one, is dependent on the tactics of getting customers closer to your products and retaining them. Over the ages, a number of strategies have been designed by the marketing teams to deep root the customers. However, as the new generations go techno savvy and business organizations become more dependent on e-commerce, the enterprises need to design marketing strategies to get hold of customers online.

 

One such effort on part of the new age global organizations with e-commerce footing is the use of social networking sites as a part of their marketing strategies.  To maintain a flow of customers to the sites and ensure they are back every time, the organizations have designed and developed social gaming sites. The generation next already glued to gaming through electronic media, the social gaming market along with the social networking sites paves way for the next gen consumers to compete and compare the goals and come back for a better performance every time. For the enterprises, this ensures an invaluable method of building a customer base. Analytics facebook reviews showcases nearly 200 million Internet users connected through social gaming zones of Facebook and other social networking portals.

 

However, with the industry facilitating significant revenue generation, enterprises are investing more and more time and money into the channel. Nevertheless, though the social gaming market holds a great promise for the future, all this is possible only with good social intelligence and a clear understanding of the social gaming metrics. The leading social intelligence solutions providers for application developers and e-commerce business enterprises provide their clientele with solutions for robust web tracking and engagement metrics on real-time mode. Such drill-down social media analytic tools help the enterprises in planning out strategies to expand its reach, increase customer engagement and retention tactics as well as increase revenues.

 

For a dynamic online environment, the social media analytics tools help business houses adopt success bound decisions. The vast potential of the social gaming market and the real-time information from the social media analytics tools provides enterprises with innumerable opportunities to expand customer base. The increased visibility and cost effective marketing campaigns, and the aggressively assertive approach not only paves way for a profitable revenue generation system but also leverages organizations to gain optimum benefits from the social media platform.

 

However, with all the options available, engaging a customer is no easy task. This requires a constant flow of information in the form of feedback from the customer. The social gaming markets rely on this feedback, customer expectations and analytical tools while designing and developing games and applications for mobile devices and improve earning opportunities.

 

Phishing Trends to Look Out For in 2012

Phishing attacks that targeted at consumers on the Internet remained at a high in 2011. A recent new report shows that attackers increasingly are going after consumers with highly refined Phishing attacks based on social networks. With the CSM (Cloud, Social and Mobile) phenomenon becoming more prevalent in the enterprise, it is believed in 2012 the Phishing attacks may get more sophisticated as new technologies will be adopted.

Social engineering tactics include fooling people with rogue security software that pose as legitimate protection products, impersonating friends to steal passwords to online gaming accounts, conducting Phishing using social networking as the lure, and tricking users to download adware.

Social Media to spread Phishing attacks

With most people being connected Facebook and Twitter from almost everywhere, these channels are most likely to be successfully used to spread Phishing attacks. It makes good sense to be cautious before re-tweeting or sharing on Facebook.

Enterprise Mobility to contribute increase in attacks

With an enterprise mobility increasing, many organizations are offering different means by which employees can connect and work remotely. The likelihood of receiving Phish mails or SMS on your handheld devices like iPads, Android etc. Is very high. The chances of revealing  information or install malicious malware or Trojans on your system increases as it gets more convoluted  to recognize Phishing messages on a handheld device. It is therefore imperative to pay extra attention when you open emails or text messages on your mobile devices as the infected device connects back to the enterprise network, and can attack the entire network.

The cloud platform to spread spear phishing

As the concept of cloud computing is becoming an accepted reality now, it is very likely that cloud would become one of the platforms to reach the maximum number of employees inside the organization for (targeted) spear phishing. This could be used to engineer Phishing attacks. For organizations that use services that are in the cloud, a phisher could send out Phish emails targeting specific groups inside organizations. It is therefore advisable to always check back with your IT department if there is an unsolicited contact or requests for data.

Successful Phishing protection and control needs to include law enforcement and employees of targeted businesses so that they are able to recognize scams. Organizations need to look beyond traditional technology controls, and look to continuing education and awareness to fight Phishing attacks.

Preventing Phishing attacks can be an arduous challenge for organizations as these attacks cannot be controlled by merely implementing filters and firewalls. Countermeasures, like reliable anti Phishing software need to be implemented to tackle the increasing technical sophistication of criminals conducting Phishing scams exploiting human vulnerabilities.

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A Definitive Supply Chain Management Leverages Your Business Progress

A perfect supply chain management process is mandatory in every business to obtain rich results. High degrees of collaboration, coordination and systems integration are necessary to maintain a smooth workflow despite any changes, challenges and risks. The current business environment has turned into a war zone with numerous strong contenders in the arena. If you want to beat your competitors you must ensure that you have advanced solutions that provide you with intelligent and insightful supply chain management practices that help in reducing costs and leverage productivity that bear prolific results.


The supply chain management solutions help in optimization of processes and resources for delivery of quality and prompt order fulfillment services. They provide you with wise strategies that help reduce costs on obsolete inventories. The solutions can be configured and customized to meet the requirements of your business and furnish you with highly productive results.


The supply chain solutions ensure a comprehensive, streamlined and centralized management process that encompasses all the aspects of the business right from warehouse management and  inventory control to order management, lot control, retail packaging, distribution, serial number capture, freight management and tracking, point of purchase display manufacturing, online inquiry and reporting.


They facilitate you with a highly efficient reverse logistics management process that enables you to refurbish, test and debug, repackage and deliver the recycled products to the market at faster rates thus making your products highly valuable assets. They provide you with highly integrated rack and stack capabilities to enable the critical processes to function efficiently and economically. The solutions help with the material planning and procurement, network cabling server components, capturing of information, serial numbers, MAC addresses and asset id’s, imaging, testing and rack integration.


The supply chain solutions also provide you with a proficiently superb evaluation system to keep track of new products that you have loaned to the customers for a trial. The evaluation system increases the visibility and helps you to see whether your products are being mishandled or misused or whether the customers are following the instructions.  They provide you with real-time reports and reduce the costs invested in monitoring the products. The solutions ensure that customers that fail to return the loaned equipment on time are sent reminders and that all the returned goods are in good condition and delivered to the inventory.


If you want to see your business grow emphatically you have to deploy a distinctly refined supply chain management process that delivers ultimate results.


Read more about : Supply Chain Consulting

Means To Secure Your Critical Data

In today’s digital age, reliability and data protection concerns are the top priorities for any enterprise having crucial digital information. With the advent of revolutionary technologies certain platforms got created from where all kinds of data can be accessed easily if not appropriately safeguarded. Today most companies store critical data like contact details and client name, transaction records in computers. This has resulted in the development of multiple data protection softwares for securing the same.

In order to properly secure digital resources, security components comprising of access protection, archival services, disaster recovery etc. need to work together. Simply put, reliable data needs to be safeguarded from unauthorized access, loss of physical devices and must be readily available to cater to business requirements at the same time. Solutions for securing digital data should exist at various levels while providing business continuity and data management efficiency.

Furthermore, another essential reason for data protection is the increased amount of social engineering attacks in the form of phishing emails that steals private as well as corporate data. A Phishing email presents an individual with certain links or asks the user to share personal data that results in hacking of  data and information that leads to revenue losses, data theft and brand erosion.

Therefore, keeping in mind all these concerns today leading brands specializing in risk management frameworks have introduced innovative data protection solutions. Services offered by them include:

  • Strategy and Design
In this phase the solution providers analyze your data protection requirements and develop efficient data classification policies and strategies. They analyze the crucial data based on who owns and creates it, how it is used and shared and other similar aspects. Depending on the assessment of these risks, a data protection framework is designed.

  • Control and Integration
In this phase, the solution provider assists you to implement apt security and data protection technologies, such as; information/digital rights management, data leakage prevention and other encryption tools. They also provide project management and technical deployment expertise for efficient implementation according to the design criteria.

  • Sustenance and Optimization
During this phase, the solution providers help optimize and fine tune the execution of technology in order to minimize false positives, KPI reportings and deploying a robust consequence and incident management framework for end-to-end vigilance.

With an expert data protection solution provider, organizations will be able to implement a comprehensive data protection framework across the information lifecycle. Most service providers today have taken on a holistic approach that includes data classification, data flow analysis and tools like data loss prevention (DLP), information risk management (IRM) is the key to effective data protection.  

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Optimistic Responses with Exemplary Order Fulfillment Services

The credit for delivery of high quality services on time goes to a structured and efficient supply chain management process in business. A business runs with the help of an expansive and complex network which is difficult to control. Several issues arise due to incompatibility amongst the IT processes and applications and the objectives remain unfulfilled. More investments are drained on employment of newer technologies and the costs shoot up. A business with misaligned and dispersed processes will not be able to display commendable feats that can impress customers and expect their loyalty.


Quick and precise decisions matter the most in today’s competition. If you can deliver compelling services without any risks or fatal errors you are sure to remain in your customers’ memories for a long time. You need the assistance of innovative IT solutions that render mind-blowing performances and deliver highly committed order fulfillment services. The solutions are focused on attempts that raise the customer satisfaction levels with consistent and reliable support, prompt responses and resolutions. The tools provide you with access to the latest information instantly with real-time reporting capabilities. This gives you the advantage to make critical decisions and enjoy the benefits.


The order fulfillment solutions provide you customization and configuration facilities so that you can fulfill your business requirements and achieve your targets easily. The services are provided in a highly secured environment with real-time information accessibility. The solutions provide you with effective systems integration for conducting tests and debugging the products. A proactive solution ensures that required quantities of products with limited shelf lives are ordered so that resources and costs are not wasted. The solution ensures a streamlined process through automation right from procurement to the retail packaging and delivery stage. The order fulfillment solutions that you employ maintain a high level of quality control to ensure that the customers are delivered only quality products. The solutions help in reducing the overhead and inventory costs. They deliver an extremely responsible and responsive supply chain process.


Every business experiments with unique approaches to leverage their efforts. The latest trend is providing customers with products for trial. If the customers are completely satisfied then your products will become extremely popular. However loaning your products for trial involves a lot of risk such as loss or damage of products or delay in returning the products. It is necessary to have an evaluation system that can track all the loaned products to ensure that the products are being used appropriately and returned on time in their original condition. Running a business with prudence will save you from financial losses. It is imperative to have solutions that help in running a safe and sound business operation.


Read more about : Supply Chain Solutions

Importance of Filing Individual Tax Returns

Income tax authorities help you to assess your income and accordingly clear of taxes. There are many people who believe that their individual tax return is a drop in the ocean for the income tax authorities. Hence, they sometime opt in form not filing their tax returns in order to save money. Hiding your individual tax return deliberately in order to minimize your tax liability is equivalent to tax evasion. Instances of tax evasion comprise not declaring interests received on fixed deposits in a bank or accepting income in cash.

A common perception that many people paying taxes through TDS have is that filing of returns is not essential. This is because the government’s main agenda is to make sure that the tax share is getting its due revenue. This is a  misconception and it is important to know that it is a constitutional obligation to file in for tax returns. Hence, the job is not over only by paying taxes, you also need to file your individual tax returns.

Best practices for filing individual tax returns

As you partner with an expert tax planning agency or consultant you have access to some of the best practices for filing your tax return. They are:-

 

* Disclose the income from tax free dividend that you have received on long term capital gains on stocks in the stock market and mutual funds

* Disclose every investment and transaction that falls under Annual Information Return

* Include all the dependant family members’ income in the section of Specified person’s income. In case you have a refund from income tax department then you need to enter the cross check bank account number and MICR Code.

Impacts of Tax Evasion

Under the tax rules and regulates individuals that are found guilty of tax evasion will be charged a penalty. The penalty amount might just go up to three times higher than the initial tax amount. This means if the tax evasions amount is Rs.50, 000 and your account is under scrutiny, then you might just end up paying a penalty between Rs.50, 000 and Rs. 150,000 depending on your individual case.

Falling under the tax man’s scanner is definitely not a nice feeling. Hence, it makes better sense to comply with the income tax regulations and file your returns appropriately. However, as you seek advice from an expert tax planning consultant you can have access to legal and systematic methods for lessening your tax bill that makes filing tax returns easy for you.

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Effective Compliance Risk Management Solutions to Control IT Risks

Risk, is part of business, but can be detrimental if it is not managed correctly. The biggest possible danger to a business is failing to identify a risk until it's too late. This can be costly in terms of reputation, security, money and internal morale. To contain risks effectively, companies have to meet regulatory demands while focusing on increasing revenue, managing cost and enhancing shareholders' value. With a multitude of new regulations and legislations, regulatory compliance has become increasingly important for organizations in recent years and non-compliance can lead to the risk of hefty financial penalties.

Early identification of threats empowers a business to categorize and prioritize risks and to deal with them in a timely and effective manner.There are various risk categories and control frameworks to coordinate and evaluate, which makes managing risk and compliance simultaneously, tough. This leaves enterprises wondering how to manage complete compliance and remain cost-effective at the same time.

From 1999 to 2002, there were many accounting and corporate governance issues around the world involving large public companies including Arthur Anderson, Enron, WorldCom and others. These frauds cost investors hundreds of billions of dollars and jobs for thousands of employees.

To comply with regulations businesses and organizations must protect sensitive information from unauthorized access, disclosure, copying, use and modification. To be effective, risk management should be an integral part of everyday business management, as only when risks are identified and controls put into place, can risk be mitigated.

Implementing a successful risk management solutions with the necessary controls and procedures in place ensures that an enterprise operates in an environment of sound governance. To centralize and integrate policies, processes, procedures and controls, an effective governance, risk and compliance (GRC) strategy can help.With the correct combination of software and organizational culture, it also helps to identify legislation and regulations as areas of risks of non-compliance, helping to ensure compliance. A regular and robust process must identify and manage acceptable levels of risk before they turn into disasters. Without a robust procedure for identifying and dealing with risk, the information, reputation and finances of a business are all in danger.

Effective compliance management solution help in automating and creating ‘workflow’ for procedures associated with risks and risk events. The risk of human error is also curtailed when it comes ensuring that processes are followed accordingly. With Governance, Risk management and Compliance (GRC), companies can adopt a more effective approach to reduce business risk, ensure better compliance and thereby, gain competitive advantage.

Organizations are looking to secure efforts and improve the visibility of risks throughout the enterprise. While an effective compliance risk management program involves people, policies, processes, and technology, it is only by deploying a comprehensive end-to-end compliance and risk management software, that an organization can reduce business and IT risk, cut compliance costs, and help increase ROI.

Click here to read more on - vulnerability management, meaningful use of electronic health records

Meet Compliance Requirements with Compliance Management Software Solution

As business environments became more competitive and more complex, the U.S. state and federal agencies had to act to prevent privacy breaches, inaccurate reporting, misconduct, fraud and corruption prevalent in the industry. When such incidents reached epidemic proportions, the government decided to act tough by implementing tougher regulations and policies such as SOX, HIPAA, PCI, ISO, HITECH, COBIT and so on. With government adopting a carrot and stick approach, enterprises have no other choice but to ensure that IT compliance requirements are met. Let’s look at some of these regulations in detail and understand the means of achieving compliance with these regulations easily and effortlessly.

HIPAA
The Health Insurance Portability Act (HIPAA) protects the health insurance coverage of employees and their families when they lose or change their jobs. This act also addresses the security and privacy aspects of the patient health data by encouraging the use of electronic data interchange and thereby enhancing the efficiency of the healthcare system.

HITECH
Enacted as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) deals with the privacy and security issues associated with the electronic transmission of health information.Compliance with HIPAA and HITECH act's is very necessary in the wake of growing incidents of healthcare frauds.

SOX
The Sarbanes–Oxley Act was enacted to protect investors’ money in the wake of major corporate and accounting scandals.

ISO
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) develops voluntary international standards to ensure that the products and services are safe, reliable and of good quality. For business, it serves as strategic tools that help in reducing costs and increasing productivity.

PCI DSS
The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is an information security standard for checking credit card fraud. PCI compliance is necessary especially for those organizations that store, process and transmit credit card information.

COBIT
Control Objectives for Information and Related Technologies (COBIT) is an IT governance framework that helps management and business process owners to bridge the gap between control requirements, technical issues, and business risks.

Apart from these, there are several regulations, policies and standards that companies need to comply to avoid penalties. With the help of effective enterprise compliance management software companies can:

  • Achieve accountability and effective governance
  • Minimize legal and financial issues through compliance
  • Simplify and reduce the time required for regulatory compliance and certification process
  • Automate security, compliance, assessment, audit, and risk management needs

Thus, the compliance management solution with built-in frameworks for all security and compliance frameworks and other country-specific regulations demystify complex regulations and standards.

Read more on - IT Compliance, meaningful use in healthcare

High Noise Communication Solutions for Effective Communication and Enhanced Productivity

Protection against the effects of noise exposure needs to be provided when sound levels exceed 85 decibels, as per the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Workplace noise is a major health hazard and occupational hearing loss is a common problem in the workplace today. With approximately 30 million workers exposed to hazardous noise on the job and an additional nine million at risk for hearing loss from other agents on the jobs, employers need to devise a hearing conservation program and provide audiometric testing, which measures a person's hearing ability over time. Continued exposure to high noise levels can result in permanent hearing damage, which is why there are strict regulations for the mandatory wearing of hearing protection.

 

If you work in a high noise environment, wearing a hearing protection device will not only protect your hearing but also aid in concentration and focus. Usually when workers cannot communicate seamlessly and accurately in high noise environments, productivity suffers. There are many types of hearing devices that include.

 

Earplugs – The earplugs block the ear canal with an airtight seal and come in various shapes and sizes so that they can fit snugly or can be fitted into a headband. Earplugs are available in unobtrusive designs combined with unparalleled communication functionality. They are cost effective and Bluetooth enabled, offering optimized hearing and speech clarity when used with cell phones. Attuned with all the features of premium hearing protectors, they have an added benefit of making communication compact and easy in high noise environments.

 

Earmuffs –Earmuffs need to fit firmly over your entire outer ear to form an airtight seal. They are usually held in place by an adjustable headband. Employees can obtain excellent earplugs with immense benefits that are reasonably priced. These ear plugs cancel background noise to the most minimal level that is comfortable while also retaining original sound quality. This helps the users and employees retain awareness of the surrounding resulting in optimum safety.

 

Earplugs and earmuffs can be worn together when noise exceeds 105 dB—louder than a chainsaw or pneumatic drill. The combination adds 10 dB to 15 dB of protection. There are also noise-canceling earphones available that actually cancel, by destructive interference, background noise.

 

Permanent hearing loss may occur from ongoing or recurring exposure to excessive noise levels. There are many companies driving new approaches to high noise communication and hearing protection by combining the most innovative communication systems with the very best hearing protection technologies to ensure users can hear the speech and stay protected in high noise environments. Invest in the best solutions to ensure effective communications and enhanced productivity.

 

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