Internet cures Britain's queuing obsession
The British have always had an appetite for queuing.
Last month was a successful month for the art. There was the
frenzy of early-morning queuing at Boots for an anti-wrinkle serum
that someone suggested might actually work. And at the start of the
month spectacular queuing accompanied the launch of Kate Moss's Top
Shop clothing range.
Online, however, queuing is not so popular. A survey by Packet
Exchange indicates that even if punters are still prepared to queue
in ordinary shops, they have the attention-span of a mayfly on
speed when they shop over the internet.
More than 70% of surfers will bog off if they have to wait more
than 10 seconds for a web page to download, and more than 50% will
leave in high dudgeon if they think the web page is poorly designed
or buggy.
Slow speeds when actually buying also get people riled. More
than 66% say they have cancelled an online transaction midway
through because they are miffed at how long it is taking.
Queuing for half an hour to buy a pint on a Friday night is
fine, though. Go figure.
Golden handshake for IT staff: lifetime
access
Downtime knows only too well that household security is tricky.
Keeping track of the copies of house keys you may have handed out
to friends, family, neighbours, pets and people who just looked
friendly can be nigh on impossible.
Over in corporate-land, companies are suffering from the same
problem: just how do you keep tabs on your IT staff once they have
left with password access to every e-nook and cranny?
A survey from Cyber-Ark, published last week, suggests that a
third of IT staff still access corporate systems after they leave
to sneak a peek at colleagues' information using passwords that
have not been changed.
To stop this happening, says Cyber-Ark, once you have taken back
the access card-key, company credit card, and settled the tab in
the staff canteen, you also need to revoke all system permissions.
Firms should also look for aliases, trapdoors and other entrance
points that might once have given quick and dirty emergency access,
but are now a gaping crack in the security wall.
Changing factory passwords is one quick step to saving you pain
later on, though a speedier quick fix might be to bump off any
soon-to-be erstwhile employees. On reflection, though, it is
possible that this just might have an adverse effect on
recruitment.
Security, unlike charity, does not begin at
home
As if securing your office staff was not enough of a problem, it
seems that those working from home demand even more attention.
Following the fanfare of last week's National Work from Home
Day, it soon became clear that those with most cause for
celebration were our nation's hackers.
According to research from Security firm Sonicwall, home and
mobile workers are more vulnerable to viruses and other forms of
malware than their office counterparts.
While enjoying the privilege of working from home, staff
confessed to storing passwords in easily-discovered locations and
only 56% said they relied on memory to keep track of their network
passwords.
Plenty used the same password for all devices, stored the
information on cell phones or stuck notes with the log-in
information onto their computer.
It seems that the office commute is safe for at least another
year.
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