Discover how "SAFETY NET" can assist you letting customers in and fending off unwanted intruders

The statistics are startling: Computer crimes cost U.S. companies roughly $10 billion last year alone according to the FBI. An astounding 69 percent of information technology professionals at Fortune 500 companies experienced computer breaches in 2001, says a recent survey by the Computer Security Institute and the FBI.

Even with these security issues, U.S. business-to-business online transactions are expected to reach $1.3 trillion in the year 2003. Despite the fact that roughly 72.4 million web servers are connected to the Internet and about 25 million servers are dedicated to commercial web sites, online security is too often dealt with in an ad hoc fashion and without corporate vision. Still, online businesses remain vulnerable to electronic warfare in the forms of fraud, sabotage, espionage, piracy, identity theft, and more. While securing networks and web-based businesses is a critical new area of management, most information security manuals serve only the technical community. SAFETY NET: Protecting Your Business on the Internet can assist the following types of enterprises from the types of risks listed:

Small Businesses: On September 7, 2001 the unique engineering plans stored on the computers of Fabricated Metal Products were delivered to their chief competitor and other entities by a former employee.

Government Agencies: On May 24, 2002 hackers broke into the California State computers that contain personal financial information of 260,000 State workers, including top officials, such as Governor Gray Davis. Personal information included last names, first names, middle initials, social security numbers and possibly bank details.

Non-For-Profits Organizations: On December 21, 2000 USA Today reported that an intruder broke into the University of Washington Medical Center and downloaded confidential information about thousands of patients. The stolen information included social security numbers, birth dates and physical descriptions. The stolen information can be used for insurance fraud. For example, if the identity thief knows an individual is terminally ill, he or she can take out a life insurance policy in the victim's name, and then designate themselves as beneficiaries.

Enterprises with Networks and anyone with a Web presence: According to a May 28, 2002 CERT Incident Report countless enterprises are subject to hackers using "social engineering" On March 19, 2002 CERT reported that thousands of IRS (Internet Relay Chat) and IM (Instant Messaging) users received an e-mail message similar to the one below:

You are infected with a virus that lets hackers get into your machine and read ur files, etc. I suggest you to download [malicious url] and clean ur infected machine. Otherwise you will be banned from [IRC network].

The victim goes to the bogus URL and downloads what he or she believes is a security patch. In fact, this new program can be a Trojan horse or backdoor program that can make the user's computer a "zombie agent" for a Denial of Service (DOS) attack. Note that the malicious, downloaded program evades the company's intrusion detection, firewall and virus protection systems. This is purely a social engineering attack since the user's decision to download and run the software is the deciding factor in whether or not the attack is successful.

Overall, SAFET NET: Protecting Your Business on the Internet is designed to assist business managers in gaining a greater understanding of the vulnerabilities of their networks and Web-based enterprises.

About the Book:

SAFETY NET Protecting Your Business on the Internet is a first-of-its-kind book offering recommendations for hardware and software tools that can assist managers in protecting their web-based enterprises against security breaches. Cutting through the technical jargon and navigating the complex field of information security, no one is better able to demystify security on the Internet than Kathleen Sindell. With large corporations now doing business online and the surviving dot.com companies maturing into serious businesses that need steady management, SAFETY NET fills a critical void in a new area of business management. Whether it is a matter of protecting customers' credit card data and personal information or confidential business processes and intellectual property, without effective security online businesses cannot compete.

In addition to SAFETY NET, Dr. Sindell is the author of Loyalty Marketing for the Internet Age (2000); The Unofficial Guide to Buying a Home Online (2000); Investing Online for Dummies, 4E (2002) and numerous popular, academic and professional articles, and Web sites.

Opportunity:

An e-commerce expert, Dr. Sindell is a highly regarded professional public speaker, workshop facilitator, consultant and author who can deftly navigate the technical waters of online security. In accessible, non-technical language, she can explain just how managers can assess their current systems and create effective security policies tailored to their online businesses, including prevention, detection, and recovery countermeasures.

Programs/Topics:

Not if, But When: How do business managers can protect their networks and web-based businesses from invisible crimes and fraud.

Getting to the Bottom Line: Determining the monetary and non-monetary impact of security breaches.

Managing your public relations after a cyber-attack.

Who's Minding the Store?: Understanding and preventing insider threats.

How to develop meaningful information security policies to protect your bottom line.

Creating and sustaining security awareness within the organization to sustain your competitive advantage.

Bio:

Kathleen Sindell, Ph.D. has over twenty years of management experience and is the founder of a firm that provides authoritative books and management consulting specializing in business, finance, real estate and e-commerce. Her clients include Fortune 500 companies, mortgage lenders, professional associations, and academic institutions. Sindell is regularly taped as an e-commerce expert on CNNfn, The Nightly Business Report, and at popular online and print outlets. She has spoken for various consumer and professional organizations, including The Kansas City Star's sponsored MoneyWise Conference, Crittenden's Meet the Lenders Conference, Freddie Mac, National Credit Reporting Association, International Quality and Productivity Conference-Net Mortgage 1998 and 1999, among others.

Dr. Sindell is on the adjunct faculty of the Johns Hopkins University School where she teaches graduate level financial management in the MBA program. Prior to this, she was the Associate Director of the Financial Management and Commercial Real Estate Programs for the University of Maryland, University College Graduate School of Management & Technology, College Park, MD. She has taught over thirty graduate level courses in financial management, lectures for the New York Institute of Finance, and is a well-known speaker for regional and national conferences.

Dr. Sindell holds a BA in Business from Antioch University, an MBA with a concentration in Finance from the California State University at San Jose, and a Ph.D. in Administration and Management from Walden University, Institute for Advanced Studies.