Security for SME's and Symantec-Messagelabs Email Security

Attacks and Intrusions into Small & Medium Enterprise business networks have increased over the previous twelve months. In the last issue of this news letter Comcity reported on the Microsoft Internet Explorer vulnerability which was used to attack and intrude into large companies such as Google, Intel and other US companies. Below we will outline one of the threats facing small to medium businesses.

In a recent report in The Age newspaper, a Symantec security report indicated that attacks on small and medium business are increasing rapidly. This relates to SME’s because the technologies used for functions such as web browsing and security are similar, and yet in general, are less managed and scrutinized by internal or outsourced IT.

"..Hackers are beginning to focus on smaller companies because they have less sophisticated IT security and remain more vulnerable - Australian Institute of Criminology research analyst Raymond Choo."

It is important to make sure that businesses utilise multi-layered protection against threats internally (such as end point protection) AND externally to the network. By implementing a hosted email filtering service to your external security layer, your business is protected from threats that enter the network through messaging such as virus, unwanted content and spam, which are pro-actively filtered before they reach your network.

Symantec have recently purchased Messagelabs, the number one message filtering organization worldwide. Messagelabs is now the primary product of the Symantec Hosted Mail Security stable, and is currently being utilized by small business to enterprise for hosted mail filtering globally.

By offering mail filtering services to Small to Medium Businesses with reasonable prices, Messagelabs is providing Enterprise grade mail filtering security technologies & redundancy, which SME’s could not normally afford to implement and maintain locally.

Comcity is a Messagelabs and Symantec Partner and implements hosted mail filtering solutions to our clients. If you would like further information regarding potentially utilising these solutions for your business in future please feel free to contact your account manager.

Worker Productivity - Office 2010 is Coming

Worker Productivity Applications are key tools purchased by business to be used by their employees to perform their day to day tasks effectively and efficiently. These tools need to be individually effective for their unique purpose (such as a document editor like Word), integrate in a desktop suite, and integrate with server or mobile platform tools to provide a truly effective solution.

Microsoft Office is the world’s most utilised Work Productivity Application Suite with integration to other Microsoft Platform technologies such as Microsoft SharePoint and Line of Business Applications such as Microsoft Dynamics CRM, delivering reliable and robust solutions.

Microsoft will soon be releasing the Microsoft Office 2010 application suite, which has been developed to focus on three key areas for worker productivity; Desktop, Web Browser and Mobile.

Desktop users will be better able to:

• Collaborate and edit documents as teams
• Manage large amounts of email with ease by compressing your long e-mail threads into a few conversations that can be categorized, filed, ignored, or cleaned up.
• Communicate quickly with PowerPoint Broadcast Slideshow feature allows you to share presentations through a web browser, meaning users will not PowerPoint installed
• Organise easily with Microsoft OneNote for tracking, organising and sharing text, picture, video and audio notes.

For users on the move, Microsoft has added Web Application versions of Office products, allowing you to extend your Office 2010 experience to the Web. Store your Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote files online and then access, view, edit, and share content through a web browser.

For mobile users, Microsoft allows you to stay current and respond quickly using enhanced mobile versions of Office 2010 applications, specifically suited to your Windows Mobile-based Smartphone.

As Comcity is both a Microsoft Gold Partner and has current Microsoft competencies in the collaboration space, we have deployed many collaboration and worker productivity solutions to our client base. If you would like further information regarding potentially utilising these solutions for your business in future please feel free to contact your account manager.