A few days ago, the Director General of DG Innovation and Technological Support of the Eurochamber, as well as a member of the steering committee of Cert-Eu, during an interview said the officialization of the same: “The European Parliament has created the figure of the Cyber-security officer and recently the birth of Cert-Eu, the interinstitutional committee for rapid response to cyber threats, has been made official”. Viella concludes by saying: “an important change of step that greatly strengthens us in the fight against cyber-crime and political crime in the IT sector”.

What is certain is that, despite the additional security that this operational body provides us with, the risk of a virus or malware attacking our computers obviously remains very high, and no matter how many antivirus programs we may equip our devices with, we will never be immune. The first and most effective bulwark of defense, as well as the biggest security hole, is in fact us.

Marco Serico

Innovation in its broadest sense is what the promoters of this review are proposing. SMAU addresses a wide range of sectors: not only ICT, innovation becomes the imperative for any company that wants to keep up with the times, from agribusiness to trade and retail, from construction and engineering to furniture and design and many others.

During the stop in Milan last October, the staff of IT solution also participated in what has become a real business matching platform for all companies: an opportunity to look to the future by seizing the opportunities offered by new technologies, the digital world and the most promising startups. Not only exhibitors – among them many companies that are already partners of IT solution: SMAU also presents itself as a creative laboratory where ideas, advice, and the most daring and far-sighted insights are presented in numerous workshops that every hour and in multiple locations animate and entertain the curiosity of the participants.

The next stop as well as the closing of the 2016 review will be held in Naples on December 15 and 16 at Pavilion 6 of the Fiera d’Oltremare.

From simple objects to houses, buildings up to entire parts of cities: the range of action of modern technologies seems to have no boundaries and is destined to inexorably simplify the lives of users of these tools connected to the network and not only. All people are in fact users of things connected to the Internet, even if not voluntarily and sometimes not even being aware of it: an example is represented by the Swiss experience of intelligent traffic lights that turn green when they “see” that a car is close to the traffic light and that no car is passing on the other side.

Optimization of time and resources and savings in energy and fixed costs are ensured in the daily life of a private citizen and in the work activity, from the agricultural producer to the village shopkeeper to the big industry. The entrepreneur who finds himself not only remotely managing his burglar alarm and/or video surveillance system (examples of the Internet of Things now well established), can also decide to set his heating and air conditioning system according to the presence or absence of people in the company or even, in the case of producers, it is possible to exploit the growing amount of data coming from equipment and suppliers going to calibrate the production itself according to the needs of the market practically in real time.

Many advantages but also some risks accompany the modern conception of staying connected. For ordinary users, but also for companies, the greatest risk concerns the protection of privacy and the correct use of data. The automatic sharing of data about one’s daily habits and behaviors can make us ideal targets for advertising campaigns or victims of unwanted guests. There are also all the risks related to device security, which if not properly protected could lead to even more serious consequences.

For some, smart working is mistakenly equated with teleworking and is reductively considered a mere work from home. The premise of this modern understanding of work is that employees are evaluated not for the number of hours they actually work, but for the results they achieve. As this ideology is assimilated, the office moves along with the worker himself: from home, from the bar, from the park, from wherever the smart worker remains in contact with employers and colleagues. The term smart refers precisely to the ability to easily stay in touch with one’s work, allowing the worker to reconcile work with family commitments and cope with the so-called unexpected.

Not just benefits for workers: companies that practice smart working have also found significant pros, from the ability to have smaller work environments to significant savings in terms of bills and permits. As for productivity, when you work two days a week from home, on average it increases by 20% (source: smartwork observatory of Politecnico di Milano).

Pioneering this trend was Germany’s Siemens, and it goes without saying that the first sector to embrace this project was IT, technology and consulting. In the wake of these, the major banking groups then joined in, involving a little bit all sectors.

Italy is also showing signs of increasing this work practice, going from 17% in 2015 to 30% in the current year (source: annual observatory of the School of Management of the Politecnico di Milano): a phenomenon that currently mainly affects large multinationals.

IT solution has also embraced this way of doing business by becoming a promoter, but above all by personally using a combination of tools and services for connectivity and telecommunications with optimal performance and at the same time with immediate cost savings. It starts from the need to have a single infrastructure, complete but streamlined: this need can be easily met with VoIPtechnology. (Voice over Internet Protocol) that in telecommunications and in the information technology sector is a technology that makes it possible to make a phone conversation using an Internet connection or any other dedicated packet-switched network that uses the IP protocol. The advantages associated to VoIP are not only economic: the saving is directly connected to the possibility to keep up with the times, favoring working modalities that are slowly taking place also in our country, one of all the smart working (more details in the dedicated article “Smart working: how to reconcile work and free time increasing productivity”).

As far as VoIP technologies are concerned, IT solution is partner of VoipVoice, Florentine company born in 2006 and currently the first Business Oriented VoIP Provider in Italy. VoipVoice is part of Digitel Italia to which it entrusts the technical part of the services provided. All this is made concrete through the use of telephone equipment suitable to support these technologies, with excellent performance in terms of quality of transmissions and multiple features: for this IT solution relies on the German Snom.

Contact us for more information and to evaluate the most suitable solution for your business.

Awareness of what this threat looks like is a basic aspect of avoiding it. The dissemination method adopted by CryptoLocker TeslaCrypt 3.0 is email, specifically via attachments or links contained in the same email message. The main trap is that the email appears to be sent by a friendly contact. However, there are signs that we can pick up to avoid being infected – in addition to having a good antivirus at our disposal. Usually, emails with which TeslaCrypt 3.0 is transmitted not only contain topics that are of no interest to the recipient, but also sloppy text: missing text, grammatical and form errors. If it’s an attachment, it’s a good idea to check whether the sender of the message is actually waiting for some kind of document: if so, pay close attention to zipper files. Another aspect that should not be underestimated and that can help us to avoid the TeslaCrypt 3.0 threat concerns the recipients of the email: keep an eye out if the email is not addressed only to us but to a list of contacts!

Unfortunately, currently no solutions have been found yet to decrypt the data and not even the ransom payment ensures the return of the data. However, we can prevent unpleasant situations like these with Backup. The IT solution staff presents the Synecaresystem, a UTM appliance that integrates in a single hardware solution, a Smart firewall with antivirus, antispam and access control, an advanced storage solution and a 3CX central unit.

In case of CryptoLocker infection, immediately disconnect all peripherals connected to the machine and do not hesitate to contact us!

Marcello Argenti

This plan intends to use the funds in a geographically balanced way – depending on the geographical context – giving priority to those who will apply first, with the intention of satisfying at least 6,000 communities within the member states.

Obviously the user entities will have to respect some agreements, among which guarantee the coverage of the operating costs of the network for a minimum of three years – without resorting to advertising or use of data for commercial purposes – and offer users absolutely free, safe and easy access connection. Institutions located in areas where similar free public or private offerings are already in place will not be eligible for funding.

“The WiFi4Eu initiative,” says Carlos Zorrinho (Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament), “was a strong political vision that will soon become a concrete reality across the EU and will ensure that no matter where they live or how much they earn, every European benefits from a high-quality Wi-Fi connection. This will improve Europe’s gigabit society, making it economically competitive and socially inclusive.”

The initiative – approved with 582 votes in favor, 98 against and 9 abstentions – is “tuned” with the measure concerning the abatement of roaming deliberated in Brussels on June 15, which allows European telephone users to move between member states using the telephone traffic provided by their operator, without additional costs.

Marcello Argenti