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Showing items tagged with "cyber crime" - 23 found.

Articles of note – August 2015

Not surprisingly most articles which have caught our attention relate to the challenge of whether or not to disconnect whilst on holiday.  Here are a few which should give you food for thought about why and how to go for an email detox and disconnect.

• How to switch of from work when you go on holiday.  A good read with excellent advice on what to do before and during your holiday.
• What obsessive-compulsive phone checking is doing to your brain.  In a word – destroying it.  We have been saying this for years based on UK data.  Now an American psychologist has proved it conclusively.  All the more reason to switch off whilst on leave.
• Going on vacation – don’t pack your email.  Taking an email free vacation gives you space to relax properly, work on relationships which will benefit from some TLC and think more at a higher level.
• Hotels offer you a digital detox.  If you don’t quite have the will power to switch off yourself, then find a hotel which will help you have not just email free vacation and completely disconnect.  Scary.
• You’ve got mail (all the bloody time).  And its not just business related, but social matters too. Draws on the work of various leading email management gurus with tips and hints on how to switch off and calm down.

And  just in case you are careless with your Out of Office message.

• Cyber insecurity: when 95% isn’t good enough.  This reinforces the fact that the weakest link in the battle against cyber crime is us the human being.  More often than not a breach of security begins with an email and our careless email behavior.

So before you take your vacation, be sure to set a safe and simple Out of Office message which discloses as little information as possible.  Then switch off and have a proper break to re-charge the batteries.

Tags: cyber crime, Digital detox, email cyber crime, Email detox, email free vacation

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Articles and Blogs of Note – April 2015

Over the past few weeks three themes have dominated – the resurgence of writing to reduce email overload, email scandals and cyber crime.

Articles of note

1. Hilary Clinton like Michael Gove used her personal email account for Government business.  Was it either naivety as she claims or like Gove an attempt to hide certain emails from public scrutiny?
2. A leaked memo suggested that Nicola Sturgeon was prepared to work with the Conservatives despite what she said in public.  The lesson from all these scandals is to use your personal email account only for personal emails and vet very carefully what you put in business emails before hitting send.
3. There have now been several examples of where people and organisations are reverting to writing to reduce email overload.  For a summary see our recent blog post –Is the writing on the wall for email?
4. A recent survey revealed that the cost of a breach of security is often less than the cost of the technology to protect properly your data.  So where is the incentive for companies to take cyber crime seriously when the biggest cost is usually personal reputational damage?

Tags: cyber crime, pen and paper, Writing

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Articles and Blogs of Note – February 2015

January into February are often lean months for good news stories outside of real major world events.  From a technology standpoint, three threads really stood out, security, email etiquette and the effect of mobile devices on our wellbeing.  In the light of the Sony hacking offensive the emphasis on cyber crine and email etiquette is not surprising. Here are our top five articles and blogs of note.

Articles of note

1. Sony hacking saga – the true reputational damage as Amy Pascal steps down.   A summary of events and the cost to personal professional lives when a hacker finds email which should never have been sent in the first place.
2. Being a good diplomat takes more than Ferrero Rocher.  Appalled at the lack of language and social skills, the Foreign Office set up a new Academy to enable its Diplomats to regain their standing overseas.  They will be taught not only languages such as Mandarin but also how to use social media.  Will the courses extend to email etiquette and when its more effective to use pen and paper rather than email?  There is also a very good article in The Times with some tips and hints which might give anyone a competitive advantage during sales negotiation (but you need a subscription to read it).
3. FTSE 350 cyber governance health check tracker report.  Although aimed at larger organisations, it makes excellent reading for every business owner and IT Director.
4. Symantec cyber crime survival guide.  A short video on how to reduce the risk of a cyber attack and manage the after effects.  You can download a handy aid memoir.  Interestingly user education is a key point.
5. Switching on outside office risks relationships. A new study from Surrey University has found that the long hours culture predicated by mobile devices and email overload is increasing levels of stress.

If email security, email etiquette or the impact of email overload on well being are on your agenda for 2015, why not contact Mesmo Consultancy now for a free consultation? Either call us on +44 (0)1202 434340 or email us.

Tags: Articles of note, cyber crime, email etiquette, email overload, email security, Sony hacking, well being

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Email – will it survive 2015?

A year from now, will we still be using email as the prima face business communications tool?  That is the question I am always asked at this time of year.  In a word ‘yes’.  It is not only the most durable technological innovation, but in essence it has changed little in its thirty year life cycle.  It is still a lean and mean messaging system, all be it we have bent it to be all things to all people, (from a channel through which to manage people, make them redundant and invite them for sex tonight).   However, here are five things I do foresee with respect to email which may also help reduce email overload.

The future of email

1. The trend towards pen and paper will continue and especially as upmarket fountain pens and beautiful writing paper become objects of desire.
2. Increasingly people will disconnect whilst on leave and after working hours following the example set in 2014.
3. Pull rather than push information cultures will be more common as organisations switch to using social media and internal discussion forums to replace email conversations and share knowledge quickly.
4. Email software such as Unified Inbox which can aggregate your electronic messages will come of age (from email to social media messages).
5. Standards of email etiquette will improve as organisations seek ways to limit the fall out from cyber crime attacks like the Sony one.

Consequently, email overload may become less of a drain on people’s productivity as we learn to change our email behaviour. However, it will be important not to replace one set of bad behaviours with another.  A change in email behaviour needs to be carefully managed and we at Mesmo Consultancy will be pleased to share how with you how we have helped other organisations make this transition.

Where do you feel we will be with email by the end of 2015?  Will it still be the dominant backbone of  business communications?

Tags: cyber crime, disconnect on leave, Email behaviour, email overload, Mesmo Consultancy, pen and paper, Unified inbox

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Sony hacking saga – lessons to learn

Email etiquette for reputation and brand preservation

What can we learn from the Sony hacking 2014 saga? First and foremost no one is immune from cyber crime, regardless of the technology you put in place.  Second is just how nasty, vengeful and determined are today’s hackers.  Third, nothing is confidential once committed to email.

It is not just the scale of the attack (possibly costing Sony up to $200M) and the stealing of corporate confidential data which should be ringing alarm bells.

It is all the in-fighting and bickering which the leaked emails disclosed which should be raising the fire alarm in every CEOs ears (regardless of the business’s size and sector).

Why is that email seduces us into committing vituperative words to the archives?  We would never put them down on pen and paper and if we did they would most probably be shredded before they were ever sent.

Perhaps one reason is the 24 x 7 x 365 world in which we live and the feeling that we must either respond and say what’s on our mind regardless of what might happen to these words. Equally email does not have the tactile sense of permanency of paper.  Although that might change now with such a high profile hacking incident.

What lessons can lesser mortals and smaller businesses learn from such a malicious attack?  From the email perspective here are my key learning points.

1. Adopt quiet and slow email in 2015.
2. Before hitting send ask yourself what if hackers found this email?
3. Build in a cooling off period before sending emails which contain controversial content.
4. Encrypt emails which contain controversial and/or confidential information.
5. Train members of your organisation in business email etiquette best practice to reduce leaking sensitive and potentially damaging information.

We have helped many clients prevent emails wars.  For a free consultation on how we can help you and your organisation reduce the risk of damaging your brand and professional reputation please contact us by email or phone us now.

Tags: business email etiquette, cyber crime, Quite email, Slow email, Sony hacking 2014, Sony hacking scandal

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