Half of Small Businesses Not Concerned About Security Breaches [INFOGRAPHIC]

One billion data records have been compromised in the last eight years — costing companies about $48 billion — but not all small businesses are concerned about how a security breach could actually impact them, according to a new infographic.

On the heels of the news that nearly 1.5 million passwords were compromised from LinkedIn and eHarmony, information security firm Shred-It released an infographic that looks at how companies view both paper and electronic data breaches.

Shred-It conducted a survey among 1,136 U.S. small business owners with companies of fewer than 100 employees, and 100 corporate-level executives who work for companies with a minimum of 500 employees. It’s important to note that the study was conducted in April 2012, a few weeks before the LinkedIn and eHarmony password hackings came to light.

About 61% of c-level respondents said they have someone at the company overseeing data-security issues, while 46% of small business owners said they do not. Meanwhile, 33% of corporate-level executives said that lost or stolen data would have a severe impact on the business. About 51% of small business owners it would not have that much of an impact.

SEE ALSO: The 30 Most Popular Passwords Stolen From LinkedIn [INFOGRAPHIC]

But more than than half of c-level executives said they would encourage a new data privacy law in the U.S. that would require stricter compliance. Since the U.S. currently does not have a data protection law comparable to the European Union’s Data Protection Directive, Shred-It told Mashable that policy-makers might want to make note of the sentiment for stricter security laws.

For a full look at how small businesses are viewing security breaches, check out the infographic below:

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Small Businesses Will Get New Path To Purchase Lower-Priced Health Insurance

Small Businesses Will Get New Path To Purchase Lower-Priced Health Insurance « CBS Boston /* */var current_url='http://boston.cbslocal.com/2012/01/03/small-businesses-will-get-new-path-to-purchase-lower-priced-health-insurance/';var fauxfb_api_key='e8cf75eaf5eab776445f8d3d04aa48b7';var fauxfb_template_bundle='151074411602712';var blog_link='CBS Boston';var current_link='Small Businesses Will Get New Path To Purchase Lower-Priced Health Insurance';var xd_receiver='http://boston.cbslocal.com/wp-content/themes/vip/plugins/faux-facebook-connect/xd_receiver.php';#wwWrapper { overflow: hidden; }#wwWidget { background: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 5px; width: 170px; }#wwWidget img { float: left; padding-top: 2px; }#wwWidget span#wwTemp { color: #566064; display: block; float: left; font-size: 25px; font-weight: bold; height: 20px; letter-spacing: -1px; padding: 0 8px 0 3px; }#wwWidget span#wwHiLo { color: #566064; display: block; float: left; font-size: 10px; letter-spacing: 0; margin-top: 2px; }#wwWidget a { color: #3478c8; float: left; font-size: 10px; text-decoration: none; width: 90px; }#wwWidget a:hover { text-decoration:underline;}#wwWrapper a#wwTrafficLink{ background:url(http://s1.wp.com/wp-content/themes/vip/cbs-local/images/car.png) no-repeat left; padding-left:30px;font: normal 11px Arial; text-decoration:none; color:3478c8; margin-left:15px;}#wwWrapper a#wwTrafficLink:hover{text-decoration:underline;}.hide-if-no-js {display: none;}.recentcomments a{display:inline !important;padding: 0 !important;margin: 0 !important;}20°H: 23° L: 23°Current Forecast »View Traffic ReportHomeNewsLocalPoliticsBusinessHealthConsumer NewsTechEntertainmentBlogsNationalWorldSportsLatest SportsPatriotsRed SoxBruinsCelticsFantasy FootballSports Hub ShowsToucher and RichGresh & ZolakFelger & MassarottiThe Baseball ReportersThe D.A. ShowBlogsDan Roche’s Sports BlogDie Hard: Bruins BlogNick Cattles Sports BlogMark Feldman’s The Bear EssentialsLevan ReidContestsFan ShopHealthBoston’s BestBoston’s Best HomeArts & CultureShopping & StyleFood & DrinkNightlife & MusicFamily & PetsTravel & OutdoorsWatch + ListenLatest Watch + ListenVideo On DemandSeen On WBZ-TVCentroDeclare Your CuriosityI-TeamKeller @ LargeWednesday’s ChildWhat’s In StoreHeard On WBZ NewsRadio 1030NightSide with Dan ReaThe LeVeille BroadcastThe Jordan Rich ShowJay TalkingKeller @ LargeNew England BusinessCarl Stevens’ JournalMoney MattersBefore The BellThe Parent ReportWomen’s WatchMedical MinutesLooking At The LawCharles OsgoodConnoisseurs Corner93 Financial GroupDisc-CussionsThe Ric Edelman ShowHeard On 98.5 The Sports HubMusicTrafficWeatherWeatherWeatherCurrent ConditionsWeather Map CenterInteractive RadarSchool ClosingsWeather Team BlogDirectoryDealsAutos BusinessSmall Businesses Will Get New Path To Purchase Lower-Priced Health InsuranceBy Anthony Silva, WBZ NewsRadio 1030 New England Business EditorJanuary 3, 2012 6:56 PMShare this1 comment

(Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

Reporting Anthony Silva

Filed underBusiness, Heard On WBZ NewsRadio 1030, Syndicated Local, Watch + ListenRelated tagsAnthony Silva, Division Of Insurance, Health Insurance, Small Business

BOSTON (CBS) – The state Division of Insurance has certified the Retailers Association of Massachusetts and the Massachusetts Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives as group purchasing cooperatives.

That means these groups can offer lower rates for group health insurance to their members.

WBZ NewsRadio 1030?s Anthony Silva reports

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Big businesses and the cloud: How to approach three big hurdles

Takeaway: Thoran Rodrigues looks at three major concerns that enterprises have with moving to cloud services or infrastructure from a provider’s standpoint.

The case for cloud computing is pretty compelling: by moving services and infrastructure to the cloud, it becomes possible to optimize not only costs, but also resources such as processing capacity, energy, space, and time of qualified support people. If the advantages over the traditional model are so obvious, however, why aren’t all companies going to the cloud immediately, especially in these times of economic trouble?

If we look at start-ups and small business, we actually see this move happening. Small businesses are quickly adopting all kinds of cloud-based solutions, from infrastructure to software solutions, and any start-up looking for funding should avoid phrases such as “client-server model” or “purchasing servers” in its business plan. The rate of adoption drops sharply with larger companies, however. They are usually very resistant to taking the plunge into the cloud, citing several concerns as reasons to take a “wait-and-see” approach. After a couple of years offering cloud-based services to companies of all sizes, here are a few of the most common concerns that I’ve heard.

Large companies place an enormous emphasis on protecting and restricting the access to information. The several recent high profile cases of data theft have made security the number one concern when discussing cloud computing. It is important as well to understand that the concentration of data that comes with the cloud makes the main providers ever more valuable targets. If everyone stores their data at Amazon, for instance, then hacking into Amazon servers becomes a very profitable opportunity for data thieves.

At the same time, the concern of these providers is greater than that of any individual company. They depend on being trusted to survive, so they must be much more careful with their security than anyone else. Also, most access restriction technologies can be easily deployed on the cloud, and cloud-based software offers the opportunity for a much more detailed monitoring of user activities. Security, therefore, is probably the easiest concern to address.

It is an universal truth that something will, eventually, go wrong. Accountability, as it relates to the cloud, means figuring out who will take the blame when it does. When all systems are internal, managed by the company, the blame will obviously fall with the IT department (regardless of it being at fault). When things are in the cloud, however, it becomes harder to determine who is responsible for what, and who is at fault when a problem occurs.

Perhaps the hardest part of dealing with this concern is that it will rarely be voiced openly; instead, it will show up as a paragraph in a contract, to be enforced “only when something goes wrong”. The best way to address this concern is to be straightforward: clearly state who will be responsible for what from the start, making sure that everyone involved is on the same page.

This is also the “legacy systems” argument. Most large companies have spent millions of dollars developing and maintaining the systems they already have up-and-running, and it’s very hard for them to justify abandoning this investment for a new thing. But then, this is mostly a financial problem, not a technical one. For traditional systems, the cost of initial development must be offset by future usage, while in the cloud there is little or no initial cost, so the expenses remain steady over time. It’s the same thing as buying a server or hiring a virtual machine: it’s harder to get the money to buy the server in the first place, but after it’s been bought, the monthly cost is lower than what would be paid monthly for a cloud server if we disregard upgrades, technical staff, etc.

How would you feel if you had just spent a million dollars developing something and someone shows up with a cloud-based service that does the same thing for just one thousand dollars a month? How hard would it be to explain this to company shareholders? What makes these concerns even harder to deal with is the fact that a lot of the times the discussion about moving to the cloud will involve whoever made the original investment.

The best way to deal with concerns related to previous investments or legacy systems is to talk about total cost of ownership. By moving to a cloud-based model, where most things are purchased as services based on usage metrics, it may be possible for even large companies to reduce their total cost with different solutions, thus justifying any changes from the existing systems to cloud-based ones.

In the end, dealing with any one of these concerns is a matter of communication. What changes from one to the other is only how to communicate. For security, it’s important to show that the cloud can be just as secure, or even more so, than any on-premises solution. For accountability, speaking plainly and taking responsibility is fundamental. Finally, for financial concerns, showing a detailed cost-benefit analysis can make the difference between getting a large contract and ending up empty handed.

Thoran Rodrigues is a cloud enthusiast and entrepreneur.

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Message Not Sent: Public Eager to Adopt Mobile Buying; Businesses Not So Much

For a three-word sentence, “Message not sent,” does a pretty good job at frustrating text messagers from completing and sending their digital thoughts. And when it comes to m-commerce, ‘M’ for mobile, businesses it seems, haven’t gotten the message either.

A new survey compiled by Empirix reveals a mixed message: 91 percent of American shoppers believed mobile buying for anything from airline tickets, to department store purchases, to all items in between by text message, email or smart phone app, will generally benefit their shopping experience, while nearly two-thirds of respondents expected an improvement in customer service via their mobile outlet.

But like a garbled message trapped in the Internet ether, fewer than half of businesses surveyed in several countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany, said they’d be investing money toward establishing m-commerce networks. The US, which often plays second fiddle (or third, or fourth) to tech-savvy Europe, was a relative “winner,” with 41 percent of businesses saying they would. Better still; more than half of US businesses said they at least had a mobile strategy in place. By contrast only 14 percent of UK businesses were game for upgrading from ‘E’ to m-commerce.

Dealing with the digital disconnect

That’s where PR companies come into play. Playing the watchdog role for our clients means it’s our job to inform them when it’s time to enhance their business and marketing models, offering concrete mobile marketing suggestions and strategy. In short, just having a web page is so last decade. As seen on airlines, mobile onboard buying campaigns have really taken off. (Pardon the pun)

If airlines can be persuaded to the see the benefits of turning a jumbo jet’s cabin into a touch and click sky mall, then why not other businesses?

To be sure, an m-commerce-embracing public and a plugged in communications industry are only the first steps toward success. But they’re not bad starts. In Empirix’s press release on the study, Tim Moynihan, VP of Marketing cautioned companies against quantity of mobile initiative versus quality of effort.

“As more businesses deliver m-commerce applications to an increasing number of consumers, the risk of poor service increases dramatically,” he said. “Investing in an end-to-end service assurance program at the start of this journey will separate the winners from the losers.”

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Mobile Development: 5 Tips for Small Businesses

Giles Goodwin is the co-founder and president of Product and Technology at Widgetbox, a leading platform for mobile and web technologies. Giles has more than 15 years experience in building innovative software products and managing computer technologies.
Savvy entrepreneurs, businesses and marketers know that they need a mobile presence –- either via a mobile site, mobile advertisement or mobile app –- in order to capture the ever expanding and on-the-go mobile audience.
But with so many different smartphone operating systems, it can be difficult to know where to begin with the app development process. The good news is that there are now tools that can take the burden of development off your team and make app development easy, affordable and multi-platform — enabling you to build a single app across multiple devices to reach as many consumers as possible.

If you don’t have a mobile presence yet, you need to get one quickly. If you aren’t tech-savvy and don’t have deep pockets to hire a mobile developer, start here with these five basic rules for business mobile app development.
Take advantage of new tools that eliminate the pain and expense typically associated with app development. App development has, until recently, required custom development knowledge for each platform. It is time consuming to learn the coding for each platform and expensive to execute. Unfortunately, these are the main barriers keeping small businesses away from custom apps because they simply do not have the resources for such an endeavor.
However, new tools have emerged to simplify the process of building an app and to cut the associated costs of doing so. There’s no need to code, you can simply use templates to create an app that is useful to your audience. It’s similar to what blogging platforms like WordPress and Tumblr did for creating your own blog or general web presence.
Some affordable options include iSites, and EventMobi.

Many small businesses don’t need a robust app; they just need something that will help bring their content to their customers on mobile devices in a useful and interactive way. Companies can make app development easier and cheaper by sticking to the essentials. For example, a local realtor might not need an app capable of playing dynamic videos of each home she lists — which would be expensive and time consuming to develop — but the app does need to have quality photos and descriptions of home listings and contact information for the realtor.
Creating an app using text, content, visuals, video and resources you already use in other channels allows you to create an app that mirrors your brand with the same rich look and feel of native iPhone and Android apps.
For example, if you are a restaurant owner, you should include your operating hours, menu and wine list. You could then entice the customer to return to the app by including an RSS feed of the daily specials. You could also leverage existing APIs by embedding mapping and public transportation tools to help diners find your business.

By moving outside the app store, you don’t need to wait for unpredictable app approval hierarchy and processes. For those who have developed an app specifically for the iPhone App Store, you know that the approval process can be lengthy and opaque, giving you no insight into when your app will be approved or denied. And then one day, surprise! It’s published.
If you just plan to bring mobile to your existing customers, it may be a better option to distribute a mobile web app directly to them with a custom hyperlink or QR code. This eliminates the need to participate in the iPhone app store, thus bypassing the headache of approvals. You can build the app you want and quickly get it into your customers’ hands.

If you put a QR code on your menu, your restaurant diners could easily scan the code and access the mobile web app while they are waiting for their meal to come. Business owners can distribute their app to customers by including a link to in their newsletters. Customers can easily view the app and save its location to their phone’s home screen, instead of having to go directly to the app store and searching for it.
Since you’re not going through a specific app store, you don’t need to meet specific standards. This means you can simultaneously develop an app for several platforms rather than spending all your time and money with a single platform before moving to the next. This will broaden your reach to help get your small business in front of more customers via your mobile app.
Instead of simply turning your existing web presence into a mobile site, new advances in HTML5 allow business owners to create a native app-like experience right in the mobile browser.
New frameworks like Sencha Touch and SproutCore allow developers to easily take advantage
of HTML5 and CSS3 web standards, enabling web apps to look and feel like native ones. Web apps respond to touch and interact with native functions on the phone, such as maps, calling and e-mail. Additionally, since they are web applications, they can be easily distributed via text messages, QR codes, or social media channels such like Twitter and Facebook.
By following these five cardinal rules for app development, small businesses can quickly and affordably increase their customer engagement via mobile channels that will keep their business top-of-mind.
What tips did you find most useful? Have your own advice for developing great apps on a budget? Let us know in the comments below.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, pavlen

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