Bells and Whistles are nice but its belts and bracers that will stop you from having a very embarrassing exposure. As computer systems have become ubiquitous it is only human nature that people have taken the basics for granted. That is until the systems eventually fail, as they predictably do, and then an avoidable manufactured crisis becomes a real disaster. The methodologies that we cover transcend environments, weather you are a college student with a thesis paper, a small business owner with an accounts receivable system or a large global manufacturer with a materials resource and inventory planning system, the fundamentals are the same and the magnitude of the impact is very real to those personally involved. Let us help you avoid falling into these traps, perhaps you can avoid many of the problems and mitigate the impact of the rest with just a few simple cost effective steps. 1) Tested backup offsite – Worst case scenario you can go back to a hopefully relatively recent known point. The backups need to be encrypted, offsite, current and periodically validated. This one procedure alone will get you out of most problems. 2) Patching – The latest patches should always be applied, especially the security patches. This applies to both the operating system as well as the applications. 3) Network security - From the pc firewall settings to the router need to be secured and access locked down 4) Anti Virus / Maleware / Spyware needs to be installed and updated with the latest engines and definitons. It should be active all the time and scans should be performed on a routine basis. Especially for rood kits. 5) User training – Don’t share passwords or ID’s, don’t respond to unsolicited email or phone calls as they are usually attempts at phishing or social engineering. Most security breeches occur simply because information was "Given" away. 6) Audit – Review what you have in place periodically and see if it needs updating. Things change and it gives you a change to spot any flaws in your current enfironment before it becomes a problem * Editors note: For web hosting solutions we recomment WWW.LANOPS.COM and for startup turnkey internet business solutions WWW.ITHOG.COM