WinMagic(R) Inc. ,an innovative leader in full-disk encryption (FDE), today announced at the RSA Conference in San Francisco that it has teamed with Intel Corporation /quotes/comstock/15*!intc/quotes/nls/intc  (INTC  20.70, -0.17, -0.83%)  to support Intel(R) Anti-Theft Technology (Intel(R) AT) in its latest version of SecureDoc(TM). WinMagic also announced that it has teamed with Seagate /quotes/comstock/15*!stx/quotes/nls/stx  (STX  21.01, -0.34, -1.59%)  at RSA to showcase how SecureDoc supports the Seagate(R) Secure(TM) Self-Encrypting Hard Drives. Intel, Seagate, and WinMagic will demonstrate these pioneering new data-security solutions for the first time at the WinMagic booth (Booth 939).

WinMagic and Intel will demonstrate SecureDoc with support for Intel Anti-Theft Technology, which is now available in select systems with the all new 2010 Intel(R) Core(TM) processor family. As an added layer of protection, and acting as a laptop theft-deterrent, Intel(R) AT provides the benefit of issuing a “poison pill” to lost or stolen laptops whether they are connected to the internet or not. Laptops equipped with Intel AT have hardware-based intelligence to detect potential theft situations and respond according to an IT policy. When a notebook is reported lost or stolen, Intel AT also allows organizations to remotely disable the computing platform and lock access to its data. SecureDoc adds full-time sector-by-sector FDE which ensures data is protected at all times as well as central management of Intel AT. This ensures data cannot be accessed in the time it takes to report the loss and disable the laptop — even if the hard drive is removed and installed on another computing system.

If the laptop is recovered, the notebook can easily be returned to its pre-theft state via a typical help desk challenge/response scenario. Since the data on the recovered laptop is not deleted and the protection is non-destructive, it can be retrieved securely upon routine pre-boot authentication — and the hard drive remains protected by SecureDoc the entire time.

A notebook secured with the latest version of SecureDoc can now take advantage of Intel AT deterrent mechanisms to enhance security and set a new benchmark for positive end-user experience and ease of management for both standard and self-encrypting drives. Combining the two technologies will ensure organizations can comply with privacy and security regulations by making it simple to manage their entire suite of security functionalities in a heterogeneous IT environment from a single central SecureDoc(TM) Enterprise Server management console.

“This collaboration with WinMagic provides new ease-of-management and protection for data security,” said George Thangadurai, general manager of Intel PC Client Services Division. “Now organizations looking to deter PC theft and, more importantly, protect the data inside — the loss of which can have very serious consequences to a business — have a simple and intuitive solution that seamlessly combines the two technologies.”

WinMagic and Seagate will demonstrate for the first time how SecureDoc supports and manages the Seagate(R) Secure(TM) Self-Encrypting Hard Drives, which provide a highly-secure computing environment for independent data processing and private code execution in certified software applications. SecureDoc adds organization-wide encryption key management, multi-factor pre-boot user authentication, file/folder encryption and other capabilities that lock down digital information assets. This provides organizations with the flexibility to deploy any combination of hardware/software-based encryption, or to transition between the two, with full transparency for users and a consistent management interface for administrators, which makes it easy to customize data protection to meet any security protocol and to “future-proof” investment in encryption.

“Seagate(R) Secure(TM) disk drive technology is a security platform combining strong, completely automated hardware-based full-disk encryption and security, with a programmatic interface that makes it easy to add other software security applications,” said Michael Danielson, Director of Security Software Engineering at Seagate. “WinMagic’s SecureDoc supports Seagate Secure hard drives to deliver robust data protection, flexibility and end-user transparency under a single, extensible management console and policy framework,” Danielson continued. “Our combined goal is to reduce or eliminate the risks associated with unnecessary data loss or data exposure from unprotected desktops, notebooks and other portable storage media.”

WinMagic will also demonstrate full support for TCG’s OPAL specification drives and its all-new software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution. At the same time, the company will debut exciting new features for SecureDoc’s Mac OS X (including Snow Leopard) and Windows 7 — which, in response to feedback from U.S. government agencies, integrate seamlessly with CAC and PIV cards.

“According to the 2008 Ponemon Cost of a Data Breach studies, compromised customer records cost U.S. companies $200 per record and U.K. companies GBP 60 per record,” said Thi Nguyen-Huu, CEO and President, WinMagic Inc. “The best way to eliminate this risk is for vendors to work together in order to provide complete end-to-end data security solutions,” Nguyen-Huu continued. “Our collaboration with Intel and Seagate will make it simpler for organizations to implement comprehensive data protection practices to ensure lost or stolen devices don’t provide unwanted access to company data.”

WinMagic’s SecureDoc enterprise-class “always-on” full-disk encryption is compatible with Microsoft Windows, Mac and Linux platforms and protects all data stored on servers, desktops, laptops and removable media, such as USB thumb drives and CD/DVDs. In the event that a password is forgotten, or if the user is not available, centralized escrow and management of encryption keys ensure that critical data can still be accessed.

Four girls have been targeted in the Shadwell Lane, Moortown and Roundhay areas between 13 January and 28 January, West Yorkshire Police said.

The man is said to have tried to hug and kiss one teenager and touched two other girls inappropriately.

In a further incident, he tried to get a girl inside his Vauxhall car.

West Yorkshire Police said it believed the same man was involved in all the incidents, which happened on the city’s Shadwell Lane, School Lane, Harrogate Road and Eastmoor Crescent.

‘High-visibility patrols’

He is described as Asian, 5ft 6in and aged in his early 30s.

Police said the man has dark, short cropped hair and was wearing a jacket and tracksuit bottoms.

Sgt Iain McKelvey said: “These incidents are concerning which is why we are making every effort to track down this man and bring him before the courts.

“High-visibility patrols are being conducted in the areas. I would urge anyone who may know this man or who may have seen anyone fitting his description in the area to contact police.”

Search engine optimisation achieves results in a number of ways. There are techniques implemented throughout a site, and moves made outside of the site, which add up to boost the site’s ranking. No one technique can work on its own. Every site requires several approaches to its SEO to succeed.

This multi-faceted approach can benefit your business in more ways than one. While it’s true that the main goal of SEO is to draw traffic to your website, implementing various off-page techniques spreads the word about your business itself. The benefits come from achieving saturation within your niche in your industry.

Market saturation has been used by businesses as a marketing strategy ever since markets were first discovered. In marketing speak, ’saturating the market’ is when you put your message before as many people as you can. Big brands most often use this method, combining television advertisement slots in prime time with prominent sports sponsorship, street advertising and magazine and newspaper ads to ensure that their target customers can’t get away from the marketing message.

The approach to market saturation online is necessarily different. For big business, it involves a combination of paid advertising and press garnering, using the online equivalents to their real-world approaches. It’s not usually cost-effective for smaller businesses to take this approach. There are ways that you can take advantage of the benefits of saturating your market on a smaller scale.

The way to achieve this is to aim for control of as many places for your keywords as you can. For most businesses, control of the first page of their brand’s keywords is already part of their SEO strategy. Achieving control over the top ten positions for your brand in the search pages is a good way of managing your reputation, and handy if you ever encounter bad press. If reputation management is not already part of your SEO strategy, it should be. You can talk to us at SEO Consult about working reputation management into your SEO plan.

Competition is obviously stronger for keywords that aren’t directly related to your brand. After all, most businesses struggle simply to achieve a high ranking for their own site, without trying to control multiple spots. However, you should be aiming for a mention on multiple spots for your keywords in any case as part of your inbound links strategy.

Achieving control over more than one spot in the rankings doesn’t have to be the ultimate aim of your SEO plan, but it is a good idea to take it into account. In statistical terms, for every search, there are over twenty links for a user to choose from. Every time you get control over another link, it increases your chances of being clicked on. Not only this, but the more times your business appears at the top of results, the more likely it is a user will deem you the most relevant to their search. This increased opportunity is certainly worth the effort.

Article source:
Saturating The Market: Strategic SEO

Irbtrax, an SEO Internet marketing company, recently concluded a comprehensive independent study revealing that online press release submission services offer measurable SEO and traffic-building results. This independent study took several months and was the culmination of comprehensive research, feedback, and refinement.

According to Scott Moir, Irbtrax founder, “There was a time when we were very skeptical and felt that press release distribution services were only good for increasing Internet exposure and brand awareness. However, after having our releases SEO enhanced along with other creative touches, we witnessed just how effective they can be for increasing website traffic.”

For testing purposes, Irbtrax took its market research an extra step. The company created a standalone resource website then promoted it solely using press releases. The results were not only clearly visible, they were extremely easy to track – and left little room for debate.

After the standalone website was indexed by Google, it had a US Alexa ranking of over 14 million. Within a week of submitting a couple SEO enhanced releases, this number dropped to around 1.2 million. Less than a week later, with the continued distribution of releases, the site had a US ranking of 740,000 and traffic was increasing daily. Four weeks from the time it was indexed, the site’s US traffic rank was less then 197,000, with similar or better rankings in other countries.

This ranking represents a 5000% percent gain in ranking that was achieved without any additional advertising or link-building efforts. Moir comments, “More importantly, we have no doubt this traffic is of a very high quality because if, while reading the release an individual decides to click on our website’s link, it indicates the reader had a compelling reason.”

Moreover, Irbtrax was pleasantly surprised by these results because the company relied solely on press release distribution. The company carefully observed as each individual press release multiplied dramatically after being picked up by feeder sites, in addition to the added benefit of being retransmitted by social media users.

“We feel compelled to announce these findings to potential clients and media sources – which is why we chose eReleases? for press release distribution. We believe eReleases offers us the best opportunity to accomplish these goals because they offer tier-1 newswire distribution, media targeting, and SEO enhancements, as well as being renowned for their positive ratings, market reach, and affordability,” Moir concludes.

Lanquist elected president of Waddey & Patterson

Attorney Ed Lanquist has been elected president and managing partner of Waddey & Patterson P.C. Lanquist succeeds Jack Waddey and Mark Patterson, who are continuing their full-time legal practices with the firm they established in 1992.

Lanquist, a registered patent attorney, will continue to focus his practice on patent and trademark litigation, intellectual property counseling, and trademark prosecution. Lanquist graduated with honors from the University of Tennessee Law School. He earned an honors degree in civil engineering from the University of Tennessee.

Cornelius & Collins adds Murrie

Jason K. Murrie has joined the Nashville firm of Cornelius & Collins LLP as an associate. Murrie has a general civil litigation practice, with a concentration in tort and insurance defense, medical malpractice defense, personal injury and worker’s compensation.

Prior to joining the firm, he practiced in the Bowling Green, Ky., office of Kerrick Stivers Coyle & Van Zant PLLC. Murrie received his law degree from the University of Louisville School of Law in 2006, and earned his bachelor of arts in history from the University of Florida in 2002.

Two associates join Stites

The law firm of Stites & Harbison announced the addition of nine new associates to the firm. Two have been assigned to the firm’s Nashville office:

Jeremy Brook is a member of the business & finance service group. He is a 2009 graduate of The University of Georgia School of Law. Prior to joining Stites, he was a summer associate for the firm in 2008.

Corinne Elizabeth Martin is a member of the creditors’ rights & bankruptcy service group. She graduated from The University of Tennessee College of Law in 2009. Prior to joining the firm, she was a 2008 summer associate for Stites & Harbison.

O’Connell joins Page One

Ryan O’Connell has joined Page One LLC, a Nashville-based litigation support and computer forensic company, as the electronic discovery manager. O’Connell will be responsible for business development and project management within Page One’s electronic discovery and litigation support service lines.

O’Connell has five years of information technology experience, most recently with Deloitte Financial Advisory Services. At Deloitte, O’Connell served in a project management capacity responsible for supporting complex electronic discovery and litigation support projects.

O’Connell is a graduate of Trevecca Nazarene University holding a bachelor of arts degree in management studies.

Raven Internet names marketing manager

Raven Internet Marketing Tools announces the hiring of Taylor Pratt as product marketing manager. Pratt will work with the Raven team to continue to provide cutting-edge enhancements and new features to the advanced multi-user toolset for researching, managing, monitoring and reporting on SEO, online PR and social media.

Pratt’s career began at LunaMetrics, where he was in charge of all SEO and social media efforts, as well as working closely on usability projects. Pratt joined nFusion as a senior search specialist in April 2008 where he headed up nFusion’s SEO and social media programs.

SEOContentLab.com was first launched in October 2008 and had a very simple and basic design. As the company’s business grew, it felt the need of having a website with a corporate look. The company recently launched a professional and stunning website that is very appealing in terms of design and also adheres to all usability and SEO guidelines to boost search engine rankings. The website layout and design is not just engaging but also user-friendly. It is sleek, stylized and very professional.

Don T, the owner and Chief Marketing Director of SCL said, “I am really glad about the new corporate and sizzling look of the website of my company SCL. In fact many of my clients have even complimented me on this new design. Since the launch of this new site about couple of months ago, we have received more business too. We are continuously paying attention to website promotion and are already ranking on Google for quite a few keywords and we aim at maintaining and enhancing those rankings through our marketing efforts. We invite more business owners to be part of our list of regular clients.”

SEO Content Lab offers cost-effective solutions for complete online marketing needs of small, medium and large sized businesses. The company offers affordable and high-quality solutions that include Content Writing, Web Design and Development, Link Building, Search Engine Optimization, Reputation Management and Content Submission services.

The website follows a very lucid navigation; and just as the user lands on the site, he knows what SEOContentLab.com is all about. There is no beating around the bush. The top navigation has standard links and the left navigation structure clearly mentions complete lists of services and as users visit the home page, they can check out the services they are interested in.

The quality seal at the top gives a clear message to its end users that the company believes in quality. The new company logo enhances branding and is definitely noticeable.

Private Bin got sent a rather strange email from Westpac New Zeeland yesterday asking customers to re-enter online banking details.

The email was spam (the incorrect spelling of New Zealand was the first give away) but apart from that and a weblink directing customers to a UK address, the email could have passed for authentic.

Westpac spokesperson Craig Dowling said such emails were “annoyingly common” and that its fraud department had been alerted and the website had been shut down.

Mr Dowling said as far as he knew no customers had had their accounts compromised. “This is fairly common, customers need to be alert (for such emails). These types of emails have increased over the past year.

This is the email;
Dear customer,

Our records show that your online session has been locked due to the
following reason.

1. Log On attempts with invalid information.

2. Inadequate Update on your Westpac New Zealand Online Account.

December 2, 2009. SecureWorks, one of the leading global security services providers, reports that their research team, the Counter Threat Unit (CTU) has seen an increase in the number of malicious email scams being launched at computer users. CTU security researcher Joe Stewart, who monitors activity from the top spam botnets, said that in the last month he has seen a general increase in malicious email campaigns trying to infect online users with the Zeus Trojan (one of the most pervasive financial-credential stealing Trojan) on the market. One of the recent email campaigns, spamming out the Zeus Trojan via the Cutwail botnet, is made to appear as if it were sent by the CDC. The bogus email asks users to click on a link so they can create a “Vaccination Profile” which is purportedly required by the CDC’s “State Vaccination H1N1 Program”.

Several of these email scams are not in only sent out in mass but have been very targeted, appearing to come from a person or organization the recipient knows or involving a subject they are familiar with. In the last three weeks, the CTU has also monitored a large increase in the number of email lists being sold on the underground hacker forums, coinciding with the start of the holiday shopping season.

“Online shopping always increases during the holidays and with this comes more criminal activity so consumers need to ensure that they take precautions, whenever they are making online purchases,” said Don Jackson, security researcher with the CTU. “We expect to see an array of scams including those involving fake holiday gift cards, coupons, electronic greeting cards, etc. Shoppers need to be on the lookout for any type of suspicious email or online offer.”

Security Tips from the Counter Threat Unit for Online Shoppers

1. Be wary of holiday gift cards and holiday coupon offers sent via e-mail-these often have malicious links within the offer which lead to downloads of info-stealing trojans or the hackers try to scam you out of your bank account information. 2. When visiting your favorite online retailer to purchase gifts, be sure to type the actual Web site address of the retailer into your browser. Do not follow links provided by e-mail offers or pop up ads. Many times these are fraudulent sites made to look like the legitimate retail sites. 3. When making online purchases, always use a credit card that limits your fraud liability. Avoid using debit cards to do online purchases when possible so as to limit your personal exposure to any possible fraudulent transactions. 4. When making online purchases, always look at your Web browser for the https (as opposed to http) protocol that proceeds a Web address. The “s” let’s you know that the Web site is providing a layer of security for transmitting your personal information over the Internet. 5. Be wary of unsolicited e-mails, even from senders that you know, that include links or attachments. Before clicking on links or attachments, ALWAYS verify that the correspondent sent you the e-mail and enclosed link or attachment. 6. Be wary of e-mails notifying you that your banking certificate or token is out of date and to download a new certificate or token. Before taking any action, verify with your financial institution by calling them on a number that is not provided in the email. 7. Online computer users should avoid using weak or default passwords for any online site.

About SecureWorks SecureWorks is a market leading provider of world-class information security services with over 2,700 clients worldwide spanning North America, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and the Pacific Rim. Organizations of all sizes, including more than ten percent of the Fortune 500, rely on SecureWorks to protect their assets, improve compliance and reduce costs. The combination of strong client service, award-winning security technology and experienced security professionals makes SecureWorks the premier provider of information security services for any organization. Positioned in the Leader’s Quadrant of Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for MSSPs, SecureWorks has also won SC Magazine’s “Best Managed Security Service” award for 2006, 2007, 2008 & 2009 and has been named to the Inc. 500, Inc. 5000 and the Deloitte lists of fastest-growing companies.

Gov. Deval Patrick is rolling out a new $150 million loan fund designed to help create more affordable housing units in Massachusetts.

The fund, created primarily using private resources, is intended to fill the funding gap faced by affordable housing developers unable to get financing for their projects from traditional lenders.

The announcement follows Patrick’s decision last week to sign a bill aimed at preserving the state’s existing supply of subsidized housing units.

Patrick said about 17,000 units are at risk over the next three years as their owners pay off publicly subsidized mortgages and are able to seek higher, market-rate rents.

Some tenants groups say the new law is too weak and doesn’t offer enough protections.

Computer nuisances keep changing, not to say evolving over time, and the latest is being flagged as a spammer, with the dire consequence of being denied e-mail service.

Years ago users would mainly worry about hard disk failures, screens that would break and similar technical issues; it quickly became the least of their worries. After the price of basic hardware fell to incredible lows people stopped losing sleep over replacing it.

Then came viruses and life with the machines and the web would never be the same again. Still, with good antivirus and Internet security programmes, products that are inexpensive and easily available, the risk of infection can be reduced virtually to nil.

Though it has been affecting e-mail traffic and annoying users for a while now, this year spamming has acquired a new, more dramatic dimension. It has now grown into a most irritating e-mail issue and the worst is not when you receive these unwanted messages but when you are “flagged as spammer” by the Internet authorities! For once you are, you stop being able to send e-mails, or receive any, or even both; partially or completely.

How do you get “flagged as spammer”? There are three possibilities.

The first is when you ARE a spammer. Over a rather long period you keep sending messages to very large mailing lists, typically to parties and people you don’t personally know and who have not asked for your messages in the first place, this to promote various products, services or events. This is when you are the cyber criminal.

The second is when a third party hacks your e-mail address and sends massive spam in your name, without you being aware of it, of course. Your very e-mail address is therefore detected as a source of spam e-mail. This is when you are the victim.

The third is when you send legitimate mass mailing to large lists of people you know, or parties you have business with. Whereas this is justified, perfectly legal and does not qualify as spamming, it can sometimes be detected and flagged as such. This is when you are the victim because of the system mistakenly putting you in the spammer category.

If the first group deserves the punishment the other two don’t of course. Unfortunately cases where users are unfairly treated as spammers are dramatically increasing, the Internet authorities often being unable to tell the victim from the criminal, the legitimate from the legitimate.

Large organisations, businesses and corporations who have a server computer in their setup, especially with their own Internet domain name (@mycompany.com for example), are more at risk that private users who use straightforward e-mailing and services such as Microsoft’s hotmail, Google’s gmail or Yahoo’s mail.

The ugly part of being flagged as a spammer and being therefore denied part or all of the e-mail service lies in the difficulty of reversing the situation and going back to normal status. It takes the intervention of IT professionals with the Internet authorities and the ISP (Internet Service Provider) to remove the dreaded flag. It is neither a quick nor an easy procedure.

If sometimes things would go back to normal in a just a few days, in some cases it can take up to three or four weeks to undo the damage done. In the meantime the user suffers from e-mail service denial, something that nowadays is not much different from lack of oxygen to the brain – for some people at least.

Are there any preventive measures to take to avoid the shame, the frustration and the interruption of e-mail service, assuming naturally that you are not a cyber criminal who is planning to send spam intentionally?

Firstly ensure that you have not only a good antivirus programme but also solid Internet security software tools that will reduce the risk of seeing your e-mail address, mailbox and password stolen. Then avoid sending huge mass mailing too frequently, even if it is to those you know, just to avoid being suspected of being a spammer. Life with Internet and e-mail comes without any warranty, even for the innocent and the well-intentioned.