World #Tech #Startup News Roundup
May 7, 2013
Canadian Tech Startups More Focused on Revenue than a Big Exit
Techvibes (blog)
According to a PwC report released last week, fewer Canadian tech startups are looking for buyers in order to exit the market, choosing instead to find ways to reach their next growth stage and generate revenue in Canada.
Ben Franklin Technology Partners helps startups arrive.
Lehigh Valley Business
CyOptics, once a startup that received funding and help from Ben Franklin, is just one success story, according to Laura S. Eppler, director of marketing for Ben Franklin Northeastern Pennsylvania.
7 startup lessons from the film industry
Ventureburn
At first glance you might not think there is much in common between the film industry and tech startups. I’m here to tell you differently. Both industries have their own set of challenges, whether you’re starting out, or refining your craft/company.
Database Startup Clustrix Builds Up its Bankroll
Wall Street Journal (blog)
Tech watchers once considered the database market pretty stagnant, at least in terms of new technology and new entrants. Suddenly it is anything but that, with Clustrix a prime example.
1871 anniversary spotlights Chicago startup growth
Techli
Leaders of the Chicago startup community released figures Friday regarding the city’s start-up growth coinciding with the first anniversary of 1871, one of the city’s start-up incubators. “Over the last year, the tech community has really come together.
Biz Stone’s new mystery startup Jelly nabs ex-Twitter veteran Kevin Thau
The Next Web
Rumors about the move have been circulating since late last month and follows the announcement that Ben Finkel is also involved at Jelly as Christopher Isaac “Biz” Stone’s fellow co-founder and Chief Technology Officer.
A start-up’s cool solution to manage heat – The Business Times
Business Times (subscription)
Thermal management solutions for lithium-ion batteries are also exactly what Gcorelab, a local clean tech startup, specialises in. Gcorelab is developing what it calls a “small liquid-based thermal management system” for electric vehicles.
Bowei Gai: A Worldwide Crusade to Connect the Global Startup Community
Tech in Asia
Gai When you’ve been co-founder and CEO of Snapture Labs, held the same titles at CardMunch, Inc. and are currently founder and chief ambassador at World Startup Report, you tend to attract attention when you enter the tech and startup community.
Tech Startup Develops Two-Click Checkout. – Yahoo! Finance
Finance: ALBUQUERQUE, N.M., May 2, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — Tech start-up @ Pay released its first public Application Programming Interface (API) today.
Silicon Valley based high tech start up in the Golf business, developing a cool product, is looking to expand its team in different disciplines including R&D.
AUSTIN, Texas — A divided House vote provides momentum for Texas employees who wish to shield personal text messages, email passwords under a bill backed by Democratic State Rep. Hellen Giddings and given preliminary approval Thursday.
Proponents say Texas workers need the same social media protections provided in several other states. The bill prohibits employers from asking job applicants or employees for passwords to access their Facebook, Twitter or other personal accounts. Opponents argue it will provide “safe harbor” for employees to steal proprietary information at the workplace through their personal accounts.
No specific penalties are spelled out for employers who would violate the law.
The Texas law is another reminder of the ongoing evolution of Social Media law and regulation as legislators and private businesses struggle to understand how these technologies affect everyone’s rights, obligations and remedies.
If you or your business is concerned about social media legal and regulatory compliance, contact David Adler at Leavens, Strand, Glover & Adler. 866-734-2568 dadler@lsglegal.com.
VIDEO: The Evolving Insider Threat- Dawn Cappelli, Randy Trzeciak of CMU’s Insider Threat Center
This video from RSA Conference 2013 discusses:
- Who typically commits insider crimes – and how;
- How employees are being victimized from outside;
- Why our critical infrastructure is at heightened risk.
Even if you are an employer using standard commercial verification measures, you should be cautious about misuse of any information by employees, managers and contractors. Accordingly, you should be careful with training and education and not on only newly-hired employees. Further, plan on how login credential and access to sensitive information will be handled and/or turned over when training or when terminating, suspending, withholding pay, lowering pay, or taking any other adverse action against an employee.
Intel Mobile Device (Photo credit: Frank Gruber)
On February 22, 2013, the FTC announced a settlement with HTC America over charges that HTC failed to use adequate “security by design” in millions of consumer mobile devices. As a result, the company is required to patch vulnerabilities on the devices which include #Smartphones and #Tablets. The settlement, the first action involving a mobile device manufacturer and the new “Privacy By Design” guidelines, sheds some light on the legal risks for mobile device manufacturers and, to some extent, mobile application developers.
The FTC alleged that HTC failed to take reasonable steps to secure the software it developed for its smartphones and tablet computers, introducing security flaws that placed sensitive information about millions of consumers at risk. The resulting vulnerabilities posed risks to sensitive functionality, including the possibility that malware could send text messages, record audio, and install additional malware onto a consumer’s device.
Here are four key take-aways for mobile device manufacturers and application developers from the FTC’s complaint:
- provide your engineering (programming) staff with security training
- review or test your software on mobile devices for potential security vulnerabilities
- follow well-known and commonly accepted secure coding practices
- establish a process for receiving and addressing vulnerability reports from third parties
Smartphones and tablets are powerful, popular, and continue to find their ways into our personal and business lives. New mobile apps hit the market each day. In this fast-moving era of entrepreneurship and creativity, mobile device and app developers need to keep up with evolving privacy and security. Apps and mobile devices that tap into consumer data — including contact information, photos, and location to name a few — pose a heightened risk to digital snoops, data breaches, and real-world thieves.
Please contact us if you are interested in learning how to evaluate your mobile security and privacy risk or to help develop a “Privacy By Design” approach mobile app security.
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Related articles
- FTC moves against mobile device makers over security (networkworld.com)
- AT&T to usher in split-personality mobile devices (reviews.cnet.com)
Three Things I Learned About Personal Cybersecurity At RSAConference That You Should Be Doing Right Now
February 28, 2013
Image via CrunchBase
I just returned from RSAConference 2013 where I had the privilege and honor of giving a presentation of the legal risks caused by social media in the workplace. As a speaker-attendee, I had the priceless benefit of access to all the other speakers and programs held during the conference.
One such program I attended was “We Were Hacked: Here’s What You Should Know”. The speakers, Matthew Prince (@eastdakota) CEO of CloudFlare, and Mat Honan (@mat) writer for Wired Magazine, shared their common experience as targets of high profile hacks. Hearing the details from them first hand, including information from interviews with the hackers themselves, I learned how easy it is to be the victim of hacking and how it’s the little things that create exploitable seams in our information security barriers.
Rather than rewrite their stories, I thought I would share three simple lessons I learned that I’ve already implemented and you should too. Besides, Matt does a better job telling his own story which can be found here.
Here are the three things I learned about how you can protect yourself and others in your organization.
First, security attacks go after the “low hanging fruit” and that often means figuring out a way to exploit your personal email address. With so many web-based services and so much login information to remember, many of us use our personal email as our username for everything from the web sites on which we comment, to our online photo gallery, to our online banking service. Unfortunately, this is probably the address we use for password recovery if we forget. Given that our digital lives are easily mapped, hackers already have one piece of the two-piece login puzzle: they know your user name.
TIP NO. 1: Use a private, obscure email address for your more sensitive information.
Second, once a hacker has accessed your accounts, your computer and your files, the fun has just begun for them. As Matt Honan described, these often adolescent script kiddies simply don’t understand the value of your stored memories and other information. In his case, all the photos of his children were permanently deleted. Regardless of a hacker attack, stuff happens and you don’t want to lose everything because you we’re too lazy to back up.
TIP NO. 2: Back Up your digital life, early and often.
Third, today’s’ Internet is an interdependent ecosystem. Just because you or your organization takes security seriously, doesn’t mean that other do as well. Your internal systems are not enough. Like it or not, the seams of your security perimeter are intertwined and permeated by the services and systems of customers and vendors. For most consumers, the there is a Hobbesian choice of Security v. Convenience. Multiple login usernames and super long passwords are difficult to remember and tedious to use. As a result, most people choose the least secure means of authentication on the assumption that using astringent password is enough. Unfortunately, some people don’t even bothers with that. A recent ZoneAlarm study found that “password” was the fourth most commonly used password by consumers.
Google, Facebook and others have started using two-factor authentication. Two-factor authentication requires that one enter a code after entering the username/password combo. The code is sent via, text message, voice call or email. This greatly reduces the chances of unauthorized access because hackers would need to have your phone, in addition to your username/password combo.
TIP NO. 3: Whenever possible enable two-factor authentication.
Please understand that there is no “magic bullet” when it comes to Cybersecurity. Taking these precautions does not guarantee that you won’t be attached or that your account information won’t be accessed. However, these are important and easy steps that you can take to improve your personal data security.
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Related articles
- Twitter looks to add two-factor authentication to stop password hacks (arstechnica.com)
10 Tips For Improving Your Security When Using Public WiFi Hotspots
February 23, 2013
Ah, public WiFi. nothing beats sitting in Union Square, San Francisco, with a Latte, a scone and free, public Internet access. I’m here attending RSA Conference 2013 where I’ll be speaking on security risks related to use of social media in the workplace. Thinking about information security started me thinking about how secure I was as I checked my email over a free, public WiFi network.
These days, Wi-Fi hotspots are ubiquitous. One can find free access in airports, universities, public parks, hotels, coffee shops, and libraries. While convenient, these hotspots are usually not secure. Hackers know this and may be sniffing the network for their next unwitting victim. so, how can one protect oneself? Short of ensuring a fully-encrypted VPN connection, one may never be truly secure. Here are some tups for improving your security and privacy when using a public hotspot.
Don’t Assume a Wi-Fi Hotspot is Secure
As noted above, most public Wi-Fi hotspots are not secure. They don’t encrypt information you send over the internet.
If you use an unsecured network to log in to an unencrypted site – or a site that uses encryption only on the sign-in page – other users on the network can see what you see and what you send. They could hijack your session and log in as you. New hacking tools – available for free online – make this easy, even for users with limited technical know-how. Your personal information, private documents, contacts, family photos, and even your login credentials could be up for grabs.
An imposter could use your account to impersonate you and scam people you care about. In addition, a hacker could test your username and password to try to gain access to other websites – including sites that store your financial information.
Protect Yourself When Using Public Wi-Fi
So what can you do to protect your information? Here are a few tips:
1. Make yourself a hard target. Take precautions to minimize risks associated with free public networks.
2. Limit information sharing to secure web sites. When using a Wi-Fi hotspot, only log in or send personal information to websites that you know are fully encrypted. .
3. Don’t stay permanently signed in to accounts. When you’ve finished using an account, log out.
4. Do not use the same password on different websites. A recent story about a journalist illustrates how once hackers access one account, say Gmail, they can use that info to access all your other accounts.
5. Many web browsers alert users who try to visit fraudulent websites or download malicious programs.Pay attention to these warnings and avoid sites that cause red flags to go up.
6. Keep anti-virus and browser software up to date. If you get a notification that an update is available, install it. Typically updates patch vulnerabilities that have been identified.
7. Use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection when available. Many commercial ISPs and corproate networks offer a VPN connection to provide secure access for their employees who work
remotely. VPNs encrypt traffic between your computer and the internet, even on unsecured networks.
8. Some Wi-Fi networks use encryption: WEP and WPA are the most common. WPA encryption protects your information against common hacking programs. WEP may not. WPA2 is the strongest. If you aren’t certain that you are on a WPA network, use the same precautions as on an unsecured network.
9. Some browsers offer “add-ons” like Force-TLS and HTTPS-Everywhere for Firefox. These add-ons are free and force the browser to use encryption on popular websites that usually aren’t encrypted. They don’t protect you on all websites – look for https in the URL to know a site is secure.
10. Be aware of your surroundings. Don’t leave devices unattended. Don’t key in user names and passwords in plain sight of IDE sitting around you.
I don’t guarantee that just by following these steps you will be totally secure. But, the harder you make it for would-be attackers to access your information and device, the more likely they will be to move on to an easier target.
Managing Risk: Legal Issues for Merchants & Affiliate Managers
February 19, 2013
I will be speaking at Affiliate Management Days SF 2013 (April 16-17, 2013) on the topic of “Managing Risk: Legal Issues for Merchants & Affiliate Managers.”
Affiliate marketing is one of the most cost-effective techniques for monetizing web site traffic and driving sales. Unfortunately, it has a reputation for high risk. While the industry is unlikely to ever be risk-free, it is possible to manage risk by: (1) understanding how techniques like behavioral and contextual targeting affect consumers, affiliates and merchants, (2) understanding the legal and regulatory environment, (3) understating risks involved with prospective marketing partners, (4) using and maintaining proper contracts that allocate risk and provide appropriate indemnifications, and (5) keeping informed about the changes in technology, marketing practices and the regulatory environment. Attendees will learn how to identify these issues and develop policies and procedures to keep informed about the current technology, marketing strategies and regulatory compliance.
Topics covered include:
- Behavioral/Contextual Advertising
- Regulatory/Industry Compliance : FTC Guides & Enforcement Actions
- CAN-SPAM compliance
- IP Law: Rules governing use of others™ Trademarks/Keywords, Right of Publicity/Endorsement Issues.
- Identifying, protecting against, and disputing accusations of Click-Fraud
Geno Prussakov, the Founder & Chair of Affiliate Management Days and the CEO & founder of AM Navigator LLC did a pre-interview with me on Small Business Trends that can be found here.
Related articles
- Bad Affiliate Programs: Cheating and Stealing from Affiliates (earnblogger.com)
