By: Joseph Imperato, Sr., Partner, XSolutions Consulting Services, LLC Introduction Are you cyber smart? This is a loaded question. Most people “think” they’re savvy when it comes to security—but they aren’t. They have dangerous offline habits that they unconsciously practice online. Let me explain. A True Story Recently, my wife and I were in a store buying a kitchen appliance. Our salesperson’s desk, was in the middle of the store, with potential buyers only a few feet away. Also, pinned to the wall was a BIG piece of paper with a list of logins and passwords. Undaunted, the salesperson asked for our names, addresses, telephone numbers, and credit card information. We refused to answer and walked out. More alarming was that the store’s management didn’t know any better. Foolishness Is More Prevalent Than You Think Put on the TV, radio, or open your favorite browser. News of hacks and breaches abound. You can hardly ignore it. Want proof? Next time you walk into your doctor’s office, observe what is in plain sight on the receptionist’s desk. I’ve seen sticky notes with social security numbers, credit card information, telephone numbers, names and addresses, medical account numbers, and logins. What do you think happens when they’re finished with these pieces of paper? They probably go into the trash. A boon to dumpster-divers everywhere! Question: How confident are you that your information is safe once you hand it over to establishments like this? It doesn’t surprise me that identity theft is on the rise. What surprises me is that more people haven’t been victimized! Your Information Is Online—Even Data You’ve Completed Offline Access to information is one of the main driving forces of business. Most businesses scan physical forms, and place them online where they can be correlated with other online databases by other companies. A skilled hacker can use one piece of information to create a complete profile on you. Cybercriminals do this for a living, and they’re good at it. Plugging Physical data Leaks Purchase and use a micro shredder. Do not buy the cheap strip shredders that cut paper into long strips that can be reconstructed. There’s even software to do this. A micro shredder cuts paper into tiny morsels that are impossible to piece together. Shred everything with information, such as name and address, financial records, unneeded company data, etc. Businesses should institute and enforce a clean desk policy. Do not leave company and customer data in plain sight of others. Keep all file cabinets locked. Install locks in all restricted areas. Access should be by key or code that identifies who entered and when. Businesses should follow an established security protocol. NIST is one—there are others. These protocols cover physical security, cybersecurity, and training. Keep a keen eye on the news. If you hear of a data breach that affects you, act immediately to change passwords, place alerts on financial accounts, etc. Watch what you post online. Don’t give away personal or company information on social media. Be wary of giving social security numbers and other personal information to companies where it doesn’t make sense (online or offline). Security Awareness Is The Key People are the weakest link in security—online and offline. That is why businesses should invest in a Security Awareness program for their staff. A good program will highlight bad offline and online behaviors and teach your employees how to protect themselves and, ultimately, your business. Do not discount or dismiss Security Awareness Training. It is just as crucial as any hardware and software you purchase. Conclusion Security is not only for the internet. I can see why many people think so because that’s all we hear today. Hackers are professionals, and they use information from all sources to harm you. Don’t let them. Remember: others can compromise your security even if you do everything right. Act accordingly.
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By: Dr. Tero Ojanperä & Professor Timo O. Vuori, AIMS International Organizations need not be structured as hierarchies. Hierarchy was needed because humans have limited attention capacity. A manager can manage roughly ten subordinates. Hence, an organization of 100 people needs to have two layers of management: the top leader, who has 10 subordinates, who each have 10 subordinates. AI is helping us transcend human limited attention capacity. AI can pay attention to and manage hundreds or thousands of individuals, all at once. Hence, there is no need for hierarchy anymore. Rather, AI will replace the hierarchy and manage the activities of all organization members at once. It’s a radically new way of organizing. AI and data are at the center. Activities and tasks constitute the second layer: What needs to be done and in which order. The third layer are the humans and tools of the organization. AI finds the best people and tools for each task and makes sure they are done in the right sequence. It might sound like it’s far away, but it is actually happening already. AI-driven organizing in the delivery services Several delivery companies have already replaced most of the formal hierarchy with AI. Uber does not have middle managers telling its drivers where to drive. Instead, AI keeps track of the location of each driver and each potential passenger. AI automatically matches a driver with a customer. As it does this all the time, AI is organizing and coordinating the work of thousands of drivers. AI is also learning all the time from the operations. Uber’s algorithms predict the duration of each ride. Then, AI compares the actual duration of the ride with the prediction. It improves the algorithm based on the result. Hence, the AI gets better with every ride. Food delivery companies like Uber Eats and Wolt likewise rely on AI. In their AI, there are more elements: the couriers who deliver the food, the restaurants who prepare the food, and the customers. Again, AI is aware of the status and needs of each. It predicts the time needed for preparing the food and ensures the courier picks it up at the right time and delivers it to the customer. Again, the activities of thousands of people are coordinated without formal Matching expertise and tasks The taxi and courier examples are easy in the sense that each employee has the same skills. But companies are using AI also in domains where employees’ skills differ. In such a setup, the AI also needs to take into account who can do what. Medical companies are using AI to find the best professional for each patient’s needs. A patient enters their basic information and symptoms. AI then scans through the activities of the company’s professionals and finds the one who has best expertise for the task. Then the AI arranges an appointment between the patient and the professional. A radical element here is that the expertise is not determined by formal training or role in the organization. Rather, it is determined what each professional has actually done. AI can read all records of each professional and find the one who has done most work that is needed for the focal patient. Hence, no managers are needed to find the best expert and the need for formal hierarchy is removed. Including the human element An argument against AI-driven organizing is that you also need to consider the personality of the professional. The assumption is that a manager can better feel who can work with whom, but AI is making fast progress also in this domain. Algorithms can determine people’s personalities with e.g., social media data quite accurately. And natural language processing can be used to determine the communication style and conflict tendency from emails and other materials written by an individual. In addition, AI can infer additional traits and tendencies from voice and video material. Various algorithms already recognize emotions accurate from such material. And we are not far from a situation in which AI can infer interpersonal patterns from recorded meetings. Hence, it will be possible to predict ever better the inter-personal fit between people. Coordinating between tasks Most disasters in organizations happen when coordination fails. One activity is delayed and this causes major ripple effects in other tasks, which assume that the first activity has been performed appropriately. For example, if an airplane checkup is delayed but the captain is not informed, he or she will take off with a potentially faulty plane. Coordination between activities therefore takes a lot of managerial effort in most organizations. Someone is keeping track of what activities have been performed and what can therefore be performed next. While airlines excel in safety related coordination, due to obvious reasons, many other organizations poorly coordinate their activities. For example, construction projects are often delayed significantly because a single delay gets amplified due to complex interdependencies. If cement dries two days slower than planned, wood frames for walls cannot be built when scheduled. Hence, an electrician who arrives at the construction site according to the plan has no frames on which to install the cords and sockets. And because the electrician also has other commitments, he or she cannot return exactly once the frames are ready, but only a week later. Hence, a two-day delay becomes a nine-day delay. However, when AI is keeping track of the activities, the amplification of delays is avoided. Censors predict early on that the cement drying is delayed. Hence, AI automatically informs all subsequent task performers of the need to readjust the schedule. This helps in avoiding additional delays. Fear caused by AI AI-driven organizing is scary for many. Especially for those people whose job is to allocate tasks, find the right expertise for the right task, or to coordinate between tasks. They may worry that their skills become irrelevant. And this fear can trigger defensive reactions. Fortunately, you can turn that fear into energy. Think how you can leverage AI best for delivering results. This helps you become better and stronger. A world without hierarchy We are not there yet, but more and more organizing can be done without hierarchy. It’s better to be a forerunner than a late mover in this trend. By: Glenn Laga, Founder & President, Guardian Data Destruction Whether your company boomed due to increased laptop and webcam sales for work-from-home zooming or impatiently waited for the safety “all clear” to re-energize your business, COVID has diverted the typical IT asset program. And, the upcoming Right to Repair act is going to add another layer of change. Guardian has pinpointed eight post-COVID market changes that will grow our relationships with ITADs, VARs, resellers and MSPs. Each prediction is followed by the services it will impact.
Any IT asset that holds data will require data destruction before recycling, redeployment or remarketing. 1. As workers remain offsite (perhaps permanently), physical office space will decrease. Or disappear completely as leases are rethought. Secure services like remote hard drive erasure, packing and secure logistics programs will be required for data destruction and asset retrieval. And, for offices that are downsized or just eliminated, full cleanouts of abandoned IT assets (desktops, servers, phone systems, copiers, printers, etc.) will need to be audited and processed.
Data destruction for obsolete or resellable equipment, data center operations knowledge as well as secure packing and logistics will all be in demand.
Printer, copier, auto, kiosk and point of sale devices will be included in the data destruction plan (erasure, degaussing, factory reset) before lease return or replacement.
Data destruction of private devices will be included as part of asset disposition.
Each cycle of ownership will require secure data sanitization to ensure that personal, proprietary and information aren’t inadvertently passed along to the wrong person.
With smart devices and distributed IT setups, secure data destruction and data center services (decommissioning, lift and shift) increase to include anything with a hard drive. How did we arrive at our predictions? We’re seeing a shift in work requests from ITADs, VARs, MSPs and resellers across the country. As confidence in worker safety has increased:
Conclusion What’s clear is that company management, HR, operations and IT departments are rethinking everything as they “catch up” after a forced, extended hiatus. The realization that the workplace environment is unlikely to resume pre-COVID configurations (on every level) means new strategies for workplace IT architecture and computing. As a result, a growing number of varied IT assets will need secure data destruction, packing and logistics before recycling, redeployment, decommissioning or remarketing. And new IT setups and upgraded equipment will be employed as companies worldwide respond to security, IoT devices and increased data storage needs. And global, viral pandemics. We’re interested in what you are seeing in the marketplace. Do you agree with these trends? How are you responding to your customers? If you’re interested in learning more about Guardian and how we support our channel partners, reach out. |
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