Microsoft MyDoom Bounty

It's good to note that Microsoft has offered a $250,000 reward for the conviction of the originator(s) of the MyDoom worm. This is now regarded as the most damaging worm ever and setting a high bounty will hopefully route out these people.

I doubt whether anyone or any business has been spared from the attack and this will have caused incalcuable loss of time in just deleting detected messages. But of course the greatest disruption is for those people and businesses who did not have the detection software or, worse still, had protection but poorly understood procedures by staff who opened the attachments.

Scottish Enterprise Broadband Support

If you are considering applying for the Broadband installation incentive scheme, word is that the deadline for new applications is 15 February 2004. For information on the scheme click here.

Easy Guide

Any non-technical person wanting an easy-to-read guide on virus protection should take a look at the documents in the Security Office of Wrinklies - click here.

Email Disruption

Very few users will have been immune to the wave of virus (actually ‘Worm’) emails that have been flooding the Internet this week. The main source is the Mydoom (officially called W32.Mydoom.B@mm) mass-mailing worm that arrives as an attachment with the file extension .bat, .cmd, .exe, .pif, .scr, or .zip.

When a computer is infected, the worm will set up a backdoor into the system, which can potentially allow an attacker to connect to the computer and use it as a proxy to gain access to its network resource and enable someone to download and execute files.

The Mydoom worm will perform a Denial of Service (DoS) against www.microsoft.com starting February 3, 2004 and other specific targets. While the worm will stop spreading on March 1, 2004, the backdoor component will continue to function after this date.

The main security companies have now issued a category 4 rating (5 is the highest threat) against a similar worm called W32.Novarg.A@mm, which has the same effects as the Mydoom and other Denial of Service targets.

We all recognise just how disruptive these incidents are when you have adequate and up-to-date virus software and firewalls, but the disruption for those without protection is far greater. Don’t be blind to these threats and let’s hope that will all the sophisticated tracking methods now available, the authorities will start to come down very hard on the instigators of these problems.

Google Search Results

One of greyest areas of Internet marketing is trying to understand the algorithms used to establish search engine results. At the end of last year, Google - the major search engine - carried out what has become known as the 'Florida Update'. This has lead to widespread confusion amongst website owners and Internet marketing companies because prevoiusly high ranked sites have suddenly disappeared of the radar, in other words instead of appearing high in the rankings, they may now be on page 4,5 or worse.

Whilst Google is saying nothing, one of the conspiracy theories to emerge are that Google has found a way to lower the position of high ranking sites to encourage marketeers to use the Adwords campaigns. Other theories are that Google is penalising sites that employed ways to 'spam the search engines'. On this latter point, there does seem to be validity in seeing sites that overplayed the use of keywords - repeating them or using them as the site navigation links - being downgraded.

The fact of the matter is that gaining a high search engine position is crucial to getting visitors. Yesterday's approaches may not be the best for today.

Search engine and directory owners will inevitably start to seek ways to capitalise on their strength and you should try to maintain an understanding of whether your marketing budget is being well directed. But at the moment, even the marketing 'experts' are a little confused.

WiFi Hotspot Locator

With the growing level of use of wireless systems in laptops and PDAs we have added a useful WiFi Hotspot locator. Click the link on the right of this screen.

Supporters or Competitors?

Most small organisations involved in providing business development services, including training, will have expressed frustration over the fact that many of the business support organisations are their strongest competitors - this certainly applies to the Chambers of Commerce and Enterprise Trusts, who step out of their principal role to simply to generate revenue beyond membership fees or central funds.

Now I see that the organisation Learn Direct Scotland has stepped out of its role providing support to individuals and a centralised register of training providers, to establish Learn Direct for Business. The sales force use the phrase "I have been appointed your training adviser" making it sound very official.

Guess what, they are providing the same training services as hundreds of small training providers, but the strength of their purchasing power means that they can undercut the market.

Aren't the support organisations which receive tax payers money or membership fees supposed to stimulate the economy by helping small businesses to grow?

The Enhance PC Programme

Following our post from last Tuesday we have just registered our first client for the continuous support service. At less than 10p a day per employee this new service is cheap and chearful but nevertheless spot-on for developing basic skills of office computer users. Contact me for details.

UK Online for Business

The government has announced that it is closing the UK online for business operation "because it has not reached its targets". I think that's both a pity and unsurprising.

It's a pity because they have produced some excellent materials and the concept was reasonably good. But the national and local marketing strategies have been way off the mark. Even their website is cumbersome to navigate and slow and, worst of all, they have made the same very basic errors on internet marketing as made by millions of other websites. Yet they have spent millions on marketing budgets.

Who set the targets in the first place? I bet it was by civil servants and politicians who had little understanding of eBusiness issues in the first place. Take a look at Singapore if you want to see integrated education and business strategies chaps and lasses!

Low Cost IT Training

One of the most effective ways of building skills over time is to use a trickle-feed approach. In conjunction with Training Masters Limited we have just started to offer a two-level aimed at achieving productivity gains using computers and softawre already on most office workers desks. The base level service comes at less than 10p a day. Read more...

UK Spam Laws

We have been getting quite a few calls for information regarding the new UK/EU Spam laws. The main point is that the law applies to private mail addresses not business addresses. There is a very well worded DTI/Scottish Enterprise leaflet available - click here to find your way to it: Spam Guide