Blog Opportunities and Risk Management

For the most part, bloggers all want to do the same thing; provide value for, build relationships with, and encourage conversation within a targeted audience. With an estimated 364 million blog readers and 77-percent of all web users reading blogs in 2008, the power, influence, and potential that comes along with blogging is undeniable.

With many deciding to start corporate blogs and employee blogging initiatives, companies are hoping that sending their employees to the front lines to communicate with the public will bring openness and approachability to the organization’s image and to its relationship with customers.

As with any opportunities, there are always related risks and risk management solutions. How do you put that kind of trust in someone to speak openly and freely on behalf of the entire company? What do you do when something goes wrong? What could go wrong?

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Mobile Risk: What are you really carrying with your smartphone?

Kevin Bacon had his stolen in New York, British Major General Gerry Berragan had his pick-pocketed on a train in China, President Obama may still have his hacked, and at any point in time thousands of smartphone owners could be running information-leaking viruses without knowing it.

Living in an increasingly mobile and connected world changes the boundaries and realities of risk. When you carry the world at your fingertips you take with you risks that, if not properly managed, can bring about huge loss.

Of major concern are risks surrounding viruses, theft and loss. These risks can affect the protection of employee and customer information, your company’s reputation, your intellectual property, and your competitive advantage.

How do we put ourselves at risk?

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How to Protect your Company’s Communications with E-mail Policy

In the wake of a large-scale online denial of service attack made possible through the hacking of personal e-mail accounts, we asked the LinkedIn community if employees should be able to use external e-mail addresses for work-related communications. We share their views and insights with you below.

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Twitter Recovered from two Service Interruptions. Can you?

On August 6th, microblogging service Twitter.com was the victim of a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack that kept it offline and scrambling to recover for over two hours. On the 12th of August, it was again the target of a second DDoS attack that this time kept it offline for a mere 30 minutes.

While a politically-fuelled attack on multiple social networking sites may be pretty far down the list of anticipated risks, we wonder – What planning and procedures did Twitter have in place to address and recover from such an event?

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Obama Resurrects Cybersecurity as Important Organizational Investment

In a speech on May 29th, 2009, President Barack Obama presented digital infrastructure protection planning that is hoped to assist the United States in ensuring future cyber security while maintaining net neutrality.

Obama’s plan for the nation largely mimics cybersecurity planning that one would see in SME cybersecurity planning; appoint policy officials, prepare incident response planning, support cybersecurity awareness and education initiatives, designate cybersecurity as a priority and establish performance metrics.

President Obama expressed that 21st century economic prosperity will be dependent on cybersecurity.

It is refreshing to see that Obama has begun to address cybersecurity with an understanding that the internet should remain open and free. The President stressed that the U.S. will protect personal privacy without invasion – a balance that is integral to information technology risk management.

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