Lessons from a growing company ... especially around public holidays ...

Public holidays are great, but a chinese-torture to employers. Not only do holidays need to be paid for, but staff on "stand-by" need to be scheduled and backup plans put into place.

What can you do to minimise downtime and make the most out of public holidays:

• Know your staff schedule
  It is important to know who takes time off in between public holidays but assume staff not on your scheduled leave list will also call in "sick".
• Have a "backup-backup" plan

  For public holidays where "stand by" staff are not on call, have two or three alternate numbers clients' can call for assistance.
• Re-adjust deadlines

  The month of consists of 18 working days. Of these the 8th, 15th and 29th are Fridays and the 9th, 16th and 30th are Mondays.
  
  Scenario 1: 25% of your staff call in sick on either the Friday or Monday, this leaves your workforce very thin. Communication to clients' that any projects in April will add "X" amount of days to the project deadline will save any shouting matches from happening later in the month.
• Plan ahead of time
  The two major disruptions in the year are April (Easter) and December (Christmas). Knowing this and planning ahead will save you from those stressful situations arising during the holiday time.

Either way, in between the back up plans public holidays exist and if you can, try and enjoy it.

Highlights from the ITWeb Social Security Summit

Attended the ITWeb Social Security Summit at the Southern Sun, presented by Kaspersky Lab and ITWeb. Stefan Tanase, Senior Security Researcher from Romania, flew in just for the event and delivered his presentation.

The top tips highlighted were:

• Malware is becoming more complex
• Networks have three layers of ways targeted attacks can happen.
• Company networks
• Devices connecting to the networks
• Social media platforms
• Kaspersky Labs process 70 000 malicious programs daily
• More and more worms are created for additional platforms such as Mac

Top 5 threats for business:

1. Targeted attacks
2. Information leakage
3. Social networking account gets compromised
4. Malware distribution ("customers" can post to your wall and their machines are infected)
5. Social networking - information available freely available 

Tips for staying safe:

• Know your "social" friends
• Be "security aware"
• If you're not sure about something, don't post it
• Companies need to realise that blocking these sites is not the best idea. Educate your staff and create policies around usage
• Scan your pc for Malware every few days
• Update your Anti-Virus software every few days

View the Kaspersky Lab products here.

For information on eNetworks Anti-Virus products, visit our website www.enetworks.co.za