Category Archives: Thinking Aloud

November 12, 2014 · 2:03 pm

Let’s Go Phishing!

Google put out a fascinating white paper on phishing attacks. No, it has nothing to do with a great jam band. If a title like Handcrafted Fraud and Extortion: Manual Account Hijacking In The Wild doesn’t get your attention, you’re not curious enough! It’s an interesting study on how online accounts are hijacked, usually leading to financial losses, stolen identities, and lots of other bad stuff.

The short version is that it’s basically human engineering – no fancy software involved. Taking advantage of people’s good natures, thieves mislead the recipients of their emails to give up details such as account login credentials or bank card information. Yes, there may be fake web pages involved (you DO know how to spot a fake, malformed URL, right?) but most of how these thieves hack in is based on ignorance, laziness, or both.

What can you do about this? Google recommends you should report suspicious-looking messages and you should type in URL’s to visit websites directly to login, rather than clicking through a link in your email program. As it turns out, there is also a pretty effective method for combatting phishing attacks called 2 step authentication.  Most platforms – Google, Facebook, Twitter, and others – use it and you should activate it for your accounts.  It means you’ll get a code texted to you which you must input to log in.  Does it add 15 seconds to a log in?  Yes, but it makes it extremely difficult for someone to hack your account unless they steal your phone too.  As the study shows, device theft is not at all a prevalent issue for hacking and this method has allowed Google to stop 99% of hijackings in the last few years.

It’s a good business lesson too.  We should spend more time thinking about systems that will prevent issues.  I suspect many of us think a lot about backups to repair damage but not enough about how to prevent it in the first place.  It may not be technology or software we need.  As with phishing, a bit of training and a heightened awareness of potential threats to the business can prevent a lot of fixing later on.

You agree?

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November 7, 2014 · 1:13 pm

Pumpkin Eggnog

Foodie Friday and suddenly, it’s late Fall. The leaves are mostly down, the weather seems worse (and a lot colder), and a trip to the supermarket reminds us that the holidays are nigh. One of the most in your face manifestations of this is the sudden, overwhelming appearance of eggnog. Taking it “one louder” is something out of a horror movie called Pumpkin Eggnog, which I suppose is a reason to put what is a traditional Christmas drink out on the shelves at Halloween.

This got me thinking about seasonal spices and flavors.  If you were to shut your eyes and think about the flavors of this time of year it’s all ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice with a handful of poultry seasoning thrown in.  Peppermint rears its head in December.  Those are not seasonings you’d think of for a Fourth Of July party.  Which is a good business thought on which to end the week.

Tastes change.  Consumer’s appetites for certain products is not a constant.  Something as simple as the weather or time of year can have a dramatic effect on sales.  Not much news there.  What is worth thinking about, however, is because those ebbs and flows take place over time it’s critical to compile years of data and look at the year over year pacing.  Yes, eggnog sales fall off when Spring rolls around.  But is the fall off any different from how it was the year prior or are we taking the easy path of saying”oh, it’s just a seasonal change.”  That can mask danger signs.

I won’t be drinking any pumpkin eggnog.  I will, however, be doing a lot of data analysis over the next couple of months as my clients and their businesses change seasons.  I think I’ll enjoy that more than a mug full of pumpkins and eggs.

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November 6, 2014 · 12:04 pm

Inbox

I got an invitation to use Google’s new email app, Inbox, yesterday. I installed it on my phone and that allows you to use it with a web browser as well. My first impressions are all positive. It’s a very intuitive interface and is much more visually appealing (and friendly) that the standard Gmail interface.  I’m not sure if any of you have got it yet (it’s still invite only) but I’d love to hear your thoughts and/or tips if you have.  You can email inbox@google.com to request one.

One thing I noticed pretty quickly is how much easier it is to deal with older mail. You can label mails as lower priority, snooze them (they go away from your mailbox for a bit), make them add themselves to “bundles” and other nice features.  This article from Lifehacker does a decent job explaining it.

Naturally, I had a broader business thought as I was using it.  The activities – reading and responding to email – were things most of us do every day (all day in some of our cases!).  But because I was approaching the activities in a new way and was looking at the information in a new way, I was suddenly getting more done.  My inbox is cleaned up and there is a system in place to ping me with reminders.  The information I use daily is better organized and much more findable.  That, to me, seems to be an approach we can all try out in many of our other business activities.  Look at the same old things in a different way with a different approach and maybe, just maybe, we become more productive.

What do you think?

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