Feature Article: Guidelines on
Protecting your Computer
by Peter Carruthers of
petesweekly.
This
weeks article is late. The short version of the story is as follows. On Friday
the week before last I wanted to install some new software. I needed to disable
my anti-virus software to complete the installation – and then forgot
to re-enable it. Since I seem to be in the address books of about 13,000 readers
of this weekly email – I usually receive about 8 infected emails each
day – which the anti-virus software intercepts. But when it’s disabled
it doesn’t intercept much!
By
Saturday morning the system collapsed into a heap of disparate bits and bytes.
By Monday afternoon I had recovered most of the work onto my backup machine
– but the original system remained stubbornly comatose. The past week
has been a challenge, and I now finally am back – having lost only the
previous weeks emails.
My
system is now covered with a large rubber shield which consists of anti-virus
software to trap anything that does get in, as well as from infected disks;
a personal firewall to prevent anyone connecting to my machine while I am
on the Net; and some tracing software so that I can track the source of any
email or virus. Sounds like overkill, doesn’t it? But allow me to share
a few things I found out this past week.
Let’s
start out with the firewall. In real life a firewall is a thick, fire retardant
wall – usually between your garage and your home – that will prevent
the spread of a fire from one location to another. A firewall in the personal
computer context is conceptually similar. In my case the software firewall
I use is ZoneAlarm Pro – and it monitors every single byte that travels
between my PC and the Internet. As soon as an application on my PC tries to
send any info down that telephone [or LAN or ISDN] line – Zone Alarm
pops up and asks me if it’s OK. This has been a sobering experience because
I found that a few programs seem to want to connect – when I can’t
see why they should. In this way Zone Alarm can stop ‘trojans’ from
infiltrating your system. But imagine my surprise earlier this afternoon when
Zone Alarm popped up a notice that some outside computer was trying to
get into my system. That computer was at the address 217.57.19.30
That
number probably doesn’t mean too much to you – and it didn’t
mean a great deal to me either. But that’s why we have English names
for websites. It’s a heck of a lot easier to remember www.crashproof.co.za
than it is to remember 196.34.233.67 – and I’m not even sure that
that number is correct!
This
is where the tracing software kicks in. Poke that 217.57.19.30 number into
NeoTrace Pro – and after a few seconds it draws a map showing the route
of the call – and where the intruding computer sits. It also lets me
identify every link in the chain – Cape Town – London – Rome
– Venice - right into the ISP of the intruder. So why, do you think,
someone in a small village in Italy is trying to get into my computer while
I am online downloading emails? And more importantly, how honorable are his/her
intentions? And how long has this person being getting into my machine in
the past? Interesting questions that worry the hell out of me and should scare
the heck out of you! Simply having that single piece of information was worth
the US$ 29-95 investment last week. It’s also allowed me to identify
a few strange website locations as well!
There’s
a bunch of good anti-virus software available – but you need to regularly
update them all. My weekly backup routine [every Friday afternoon when all
reasonable people are drinking beer] now includes an update of all the protection
software I use. Currently my machine has Nortons Anti-Virus, Invircible and
McAfee! You shouldn’t need all 3 but you probably don’t get as much
mail as I do – from such a wide group.
Which
reminds me – very time you get a notice from someone warning you about
a virus – have a look at www.antivirus.com
and check out the info for yourself. Interesting stuff – for example
this latest SULFNBK.EXE email is simply a hoax – and here we are desperately
warning everyone who has ever had the misfortune to send us an email!
Never
connect to the Internet and never insert a strange disk into any drive. If
you do this it’s almost impossible to get a computer virus. [If you don’t
yet know what a computer virus really is – it is a clever piece of program
code that normally arrives on your machine as an email attachment and it jumps
into action the moment you open either the email or the attachment. It then
copies itself into some hidden place on your PC, and the most recent ones
immediately try and email copies of themselves to all the folk in your address
book. Chances are that you won’t see this happening in the background.
But all your friends and colleagues will!
Never,
never, never open an unexpected attachment from anyone.
Not even your mother! Chances are that this has been sent to you by a virus.
This should keep you reasonably free of challenges – but it’s still
a long way from safe.
Get
anti-virus software.
This will detect when you receive a virus and will usually help you kill the
little bugger. [I personally feel that we should bring back the death penalty
for the creators of these malicious bits of code because they cost us business
owners an arm and a leg to fix.]
Get
a firewall.
This will stop people messing with your machine while you’re online.
Get
tracing software so
that you can chase anyone who maliciously tries to get into your machine.
Simply posting their details to the www.hackerwatch.org site will start to
slow them down.
Backup
your system at least once a week.
The entire system! The value of my data exceeds the hardware value of my equipment
by miles. For many of us our entire business is inside this clever little
box.
That’s
the end of this weeks tirade! Please protect yourself, or it will just be
a matter of time before your system also gets wiped out.
©
Peter
Carruthers, www.petesweekly.co.za
Find
out about the latest virus threats, definitions and fixes, as well as hoax
information at www.sarc.com.
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Back to Contents
This month's Success Story: Chomping at the e-Bit: Grant Horsfield
of e-Bites
|
Grant
Horsfield, a self-confessed country boy, grew up in Knysna, being schooled
near Port Elizabeth at Woodridge High, before moving to Cape Town to
study Marketing at Cape Technicon. It was during this time that he was
first bitten by the entrepreneurial bug, starting his own yacht chartering
business, before spending two years in England playing cricket for Cheshire
as well as representing the South African Universities back in South
Africa.
On
his return from England, Grant took up a position in the Sales Department
of Ultra Network Solutions (a division of Softline, now owned by Affinity
Logic), progressing quickly to Accounts and then Sales Manager, before
taking over as Regional Manager two years later, managing the Western
Cape Division. It was in this position that he learnt a lot about people
management - skills that would do him well in the future. He also earned
enough to purchase himself a car and a house.
|
|
Grant still however had a strong desire to start his own business, and it
was during the many over-time shifts that he started to formulate a plan:
"I discovered that it was difficult to order a variety of foods directly
into my office, and taking time out to go and buy food would waste precious
business hours". He spent some time studying the business model of a
well known delivery service, and so the idea of e-Bites started to take shape.
Grant
sold his house and car to fund his new venture, and was also supported financially
by his ex directors, many of whom are now investors in their personal capacity:
"I owe a lot to them - they offered not only financial support but
also valuable business advice." Grant put much time and effort into
developing the e-Bites website, initially only offering ordering facilities
online, on an 8am - 5pm basis, focusing his niche on the Cape Town City
Centre.
e-Bites
was officially launched in October 2001, and Grant built up a strong loyalty
with surrounding companies: "I pitched it to them that they could increase
productivity dramatically if they could keep staff in the office - and what
better way to do this than ordering food in." Business took off, and
he soon increased his hours to midnight. Grant expanded e-Bites to include
physical catalogues in October 2002, a move which caused a huge, unexpected
surge in business, and he struggled to cope with the demand, losing some
customers in the process. This did not, however, discourage him: "Being
primarily an online business, customers are kept on a database, so it is
possible to keep track of them and what they are ordering. If they do not
order for some time, we can send them vouchers via email or SMS them the
latest special. I believe that an unhappy customer has the potential to
be a customer for life - it all depends on how you handle their complaints."
Grant
soon developed a loyalty system, which he called love-Bites, which are awarded
to customers who place regular orders or as a small token to make up for
late deliveries. Drivers are also incentivised to deliver quickly, earning
commission on repeat orders. Grant has now got his communications system
down to a fine art, whereby customers receive confirmation of their order
via SMS and email, and are kept in constant contact regarding the status
of their orders. Call centre staff also place orders with the restaurants
while the drivers are on their way to pick up the food, eliminating the
need for drivers to waste time waiting for the food to be prepared. Grant
has expanded this success into launching in the Southern and Northern Suburbs
in April 2003, and now has over 130 restaurants on his catalogues, spread
throughout Cape Town.
Grant
attributes his success not only to his tightly controlled communications
system and speed of delivery, but also to his product being very person
specific - something that he has used to his advantage to develop and increase
customer service and loyalty. His business does of course have drawbacks,
the main being that he hardly has time to himself. He also relies heavily
on his drivers, who he sees as core to his business, but naturally being
a human element, things don't always go as planned and he always has to
make sure that there are back-up systems in place. Running restaurant specific
specials also brings huge challenges, in that restaurants don't always budget
for the fact that SMS's go out to 10 000 customers at a time and sometimes
demand exceeds supply.
Grant
enjoys spending his free time getting away from the stress of the city,
playing sport and enjoying the outdoors: "I grew up in the bush and
like to get back to it, to enjoy the space and beauty of it."
Grant
offers the following advice to aspiring entrepreneurs: "There is no
substitute for hard work. When you think you have hit the worst - don't
give up, just work harder and push yourself. There is always light at the
end of the tunnel. My biggest success is that I am making something work
which people said would fail!".
Email
Grant at grant@ebites.co.za or see
www.ebites.co.za.
Back to Contents
"You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take" -
Wayne Gretzky
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our Discussion
Board.
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