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These are new product announcements from my main website (Open 24/7/365). We have a life-time warranty / guarantee on all products. (Includes parts and labor). Here you will find a variety of cutting-edge Surveillance and Security-Related products and services. (Buy/Rent/Layaway) Post your own comments and concerns related to the specific products or services mentioned or on surveillance, security, privacy, etc.

Sunday, February 28, 2016

Black Wall Street: A Historical Analysis & Perspective




Black Wall Street
A Historical Analysis And Perspective











African-American Investors Pool Money Together in Clubs



Curtis White likes to sing the praises of investment clubs to groups of young African-Americans. "I tell them the same thing I tell the old folks: There is room in the market for everybody's money," says Mr. White, a 75-year-old retired insurance agent in Detroit.

Mr. White has been pooling his money in grass-roots investment clubs for more than 30 years. He is currently in two. When he joined his first group, in 1966, very few of his black friends shared his interest in investing. How times have changed.

As their income climbs, African-Americans are flocking to investment clubs, joining together to pool money and share ideas about mutual funds, stocks and bonds, retirement savings and, generally, financial security. Often, they also share investment philosophies, preferring stocks in companies whose policies and practices they favor. African-Americans have more money than ever to spend -- and save -- and the National Association of Investment Clubs says it is seeing a surge in the number of groups whose membership is primarily black.


Lost Opportunity


"My generation didn't know enough about wealth or the gap" between white families and African-American families, Mr. White says. "The kids starting clubs now have a chance to really change some things." Mr. White figures that if he had started investing when he was 24 instead of 44, he would now have triple the $26,000 he has accumulated.

"You don't have to be rich and you may not get rich. The goal is to build something to show for your life," he says.

Annie Pierce's decision to start an investment group rose in 1992 from the ashes of fire-gutted businesses near her home in South Central Los Angeles. The aftermath of the Rodney King verdict left her with only one conclusion: "If we don't start initiating change now, this will all be repeated in a matter of years."

So, Ms. Pierce, who edits a small community newspaper, joined with some friends with business backgrounds and officials at black-oriented radio stations to create an investment club. The group focuses on local, private minority-owned businesses in Los Angeles, taking equity positions in them.


Diversified Holdings


Today the organization, Community Financial Investment Groups, has about 200 active members and approximately $150,000 in pooled assets, and it has hired a trader who invests in foreign currencies and commodities. Is Ms. Pierce concerned about the risks associated with such investments? "No, because I understand the method of investment and it's diversified enough that risk is minimized," she replies.

Ms. Pierce says the club remains a grass-roots effort that focuses on drawing in African-American investors "who say they don't have any money to invest. We show them they do." If necessary, she sits down with new members to work out budgets so they can get in the habit of putting aside some cash each month.

Yet even African-Americans of more substantial means have been historically wary of the stock market because Wall Street has never reached out to blacks, some financial advisers say. "Just like the insurance industry, many brokerage firms haven't made it a priority to market to the black community," says Larry Folmar of Folmar Financial Inc., a financial planning firm in Southfield, Mich., which advises black-oriented investment clubs geared to young professionals.


A Nasty Word


At the same time, Mr. Folmar says, "We have a real aversion toward risk. The word "investment" is a nasty word to us. We have more of a bank orientation because that is what was discussed around the dinner table."

Percy Bolton, a financial planner in Los Angeles, estimates that half of his clients, most of whom are African-Americans, belong to an investment club or have started one. For his part, Mr. Bolton spearheads the "Kiddie Club," an investment club made up of the children of his clients.

The Kiddie Club focuses on mutual funds, through a single combined account and through individual custodial accounts held by the parents. Mr. Bolton says his goal is to teach the children about saving and investing while also bringing them together socially. He sees the club as a sign that African-Americans may be starting to pass along investing savvy to their kids.

In New York, Monica Noel, who represents the local chapter of the National Association of Investment Clubs, says she has seen approximately "a sixfold increase in the number of all-black clubs" in the area. Shawn Alder, for one, started an investment club after reading an investing article in Black Enterprise magazine. The New York accountant has among his members an electrical engineer, a pharmaceutical salesman and a nurse. "So many of us don't save money, so the group effort definitely adds value to the whole idea," he says.


Rounding Up Co-Workers


Vincent Miles, a transit worker in New York, took a hint from the Beardstown Ladies Investment Club, a group of older women in a small town who chronicled their investment activities in a best-selling book. Inspired by that tale, Mr. Miles rounded up 13 of his co-workers to form Progressive Friends L.P. in August 1995.

Each member of Progressive Friends is responsible for studying and tracking particular companies in the portfolio. The members read annual reports and news stories, and analyze information from major research firms.

"The club has taught us how to properly evaluate company performance and make informed decisions," says Mr. Miles, the club's presiding partner. Most of the members had no background in investing before joining, he says, and started with only $100 apiece, making $50 monthly contributions thereafter. Today, their combined portfolio is valued at more than $27,000.

When Wayne Hicks of Ronkonkoma, N.Y., joined "The Black Experience," an on-line forum on Prodigy geared toward African-Americans, the importance of investing came up again and again.

"Solutions need to come from blacks themselves, instead of hoping for some external panacea," Mr. Hicks says. The club, which meets on-line once a month, makes a point of investing in black-owned companies like Granite Broadcasting Corp. and BET Holdings , which owns Black Entertainment Television.

Some African-Americans use their clubs as an opportunity to practice socially conscious investing. A recent investment survey of African-Americans found that 51% want to make ethical investments, compared with only 10% of nonblacks.

Edgar Hicks, (no relation to Wayne) who runs a commodities consulting firm in Omaha, says he looks carefully at corporations' policies, particularly when firms claim to promote diversity or offer opportunities to minorities. "We want to see more than just 'lip service' " he says. Procter & Gamble Co., for instance, made a strong impression when it urged local businesses to hire minority-owned advertising firms, he adds.

"If we make it clear to these companies we are investing as a group," Mr. Hicks says, "in addition to buying their products, then we have a greater chance of influencing their policies."






If anyone truly believes that the last April attack on the federal building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma was the most tragic bombing ever to take place on United States soil, as the media has been widely reporting, they're wrong -- plain and simple. That's because an even deadlier bomb occurred in that same state nearly 75 years ago. Many people in high places would like to forget that it ever happened.





Searching under the heading of "riots," "Oklahoma" and "Tulsa" in current editions of the World Book Encyclopedia, there is conspicuously no mention whatsoever of the Tulsa race riot of 1921, and this omission is by no means a surprise, or a rare case. The fact is, one would also be hard-pressed to find documentation of the incident, let alone and accurate accounting of it, in any other "scholarly" reference or American history book.





That's precisely the point that noted author, publisher and orator Ron Wallace, a Tulsa native, sought to make nearly five years ago when he began researching this riot, one of the worst incidents of violence ever visited upon people of African descent. Ultimately joined on the project by colleague Jay Wilson of Los Angeles, the duo found and compiled indisputable evidence of what they now describe as "a Black holocaust in America."



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The date was June 1, 1921, when "Black Wall Street," the name fittingly given to one of the most affluent all-Black communities in America, was bombed from the air and burned to the ground by mobs of envious whites. In a period spanning fewer than 12 hours, a once thriving 36-Black business district in northern Tulsa lay smoldering--a model community destroyed, and a major African-American economic movement resoundingly defused.



Black-Owned Businesses And Other Black-Centric Resources:


Association of African American Financial Advisors


National Association of Black Accountants



Loop Capital CEO James Reynolds (Investment Banker)

Black Enterprise (http://www.blackenterprise.com/) Talks About Successful Investment Clubs

Black / African American Web Designers

Black Male Entrepreneurship Institute (BMEI)










The night's carnage left some 3,000 African Americans dead, and over 600 successful businesses lost. Among these were 21 churches, 21 restaurants, 30 grocery stores and two movie theaters, plus a hospital, a bank, a post office, libraries, schools, law offices, a half dozen private airplanes and even a bus system. As could have been expected the impetus behind it all was the infamous Ku Klux Klan, working in consort with ranking city officials, and many other sympathizers.







In their self-published book, Black Wallstreet: A Lost Dream, and its companion video documentary, Black Wallstreet: A Black Holocaust in America!, the authors have chronicled for the very first time in the words of area historians and elderly survivors what really happened there on that fateful summer day in 1921 and why it happened. Wallace similarly explained to me why this bloody event from the turn of the century seems to have had a recurring effect that is being felt in predominately Black neighborhoods even to this day.







The best description of Black Wallstreet, or Little Africa as it was also known, would be liken it to a mini-Beverly Hills. It was the golden door of the Black community during the early 1900s, and it proved that African Americans had successful infrastructure. That's what Black Wallstreet was all about. 







The dollar circulated 36 to 100 times, sometimes taking a year for currency to leave the community. Now in 1995, a dollar leaves the Black community in 15-minutes. As far as resources, there were Ph.D.'s residing in Little Africa, Black attorneys and doctors. One doctor was Dr. Berry who owned the bus system. His average income was $500 a day, a hefty pocket change in 1910. 







During that era, physicians owned medical schools. There were also pawn shops everywhere, brothels, jewelry stores, 21 churches, 21 restaurants and two movie theaters. It was a time when the entire state of Oklahoma had only two airports, yet six Blacks owned their own planes. It was a very fascinating community.




The area encompassed over 600 businesses and 36 square blocks with a population of 15,000 African Americans. And when the lower-economic Europeans looked over and saw what the Black community created, many of them were jealous. When the average student went to school on Black Wallstreet, he wore a suit and tie because of the morals and respect they were taught at a young age.





The mainstay of the community was to educate every child. Nepotism was the one word they believed in. And that's what we need to get back to in 1995. The main thoroughfare was Greenwood Avenue, and it was intersected by Archer and Pine Streets. From the first letters in each of those three names, you get G.A.P., and that's where the renowned R and B music group the Gap Band got its name. They're from Tulsa.





Black Wallstreet was a prime example of the typical Black community in America that did businesses, but it was in an unusual location. You see, at the time, Oklahoma was set aside to be a Black and Indian state. There were over 28 Black townships there. One third of the people who traveled in the terrifying "Trail of Tears" along side the Indians between 1830 to 1842 were Black people. 



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The citizens of this proposed Indian and Black state chose a Black governor, a treasurer from Kansas named McDade. But the Ku Klux Klan said that if he assumed office that they would kill him within 48 hours. A lot of Blacks owned farmland, and many of them had gone into the oil business. The community was so tight and wealthy because they traded dollars hand-to-hand, and because they were dependent upon one another as a result of the Jim Crow laws. 








It was not unusual that if a resident's home accidentally burned down, it could be rebuilt within a few weeks by neighbors. This was the type of scenario that was going on day- to-day on Black Wallstreet. When Blacks intermarried into the Indian culture, some of them received their promised '40 acres and a mule' and with that came whatever oil was later found on the properties.



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Just to show you how wealthy a lot of Black people were, there was a banker in the neighboring town who had a wife named California Taylor. Her father owned the largest cotton gin west of the Mississippi [River]. When California shopped, she would take a cruise to Paris every three months to have her clothes made. 





There was also a man named Mason in nearby Wagner County who had the largest potato farm west of the Mississippi. When he harvested, he would fill 100 boxcars a day. Another brother not far away had the same thing with a spinach farm. The typical family then was five children or more, though the typical farm family would have 10 kids or more who made up the nucleus of the labor.





On Black Wallstreet, a lot of global business was conducted. The community flourished from the early 1900s until June 1, 1921. That's when the largest massacre of non-military Americans in the history of this country took place, and it was lead by the Ku Klux Klan. Imagine walking out of your front door and seeing 1,500 homes being burned. It must have been amazing.


Survivors we interviewed think that the whole thing was planned because during the time that all of this was going on, white families with their children stood around the borders of their community and watched the massacre, the looting and everything--much in the same manner they would watch a lynching.

In my lectures I ask people if they understand where the word "picnic" comes from. It was typical to have a picnic on a Friday evening in Oklahoma. The word was short for "pick a nigger" to lynch. They would lynch a Black male and cut off body parts as souvenirs. This went on every weekend in this country, and it was all across the county. That's where the term really came from.

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Black Male Entrepreneurs Make Strategic Deposit In Black-Owned Bank

Andre R. Rogers, CFO, Enlightened, Inc.; Antwanye E. Ford, CEO, Enlightened, Inc.;  Ron Busby, President, U.S. Black Chambers, Inc.; Doyle Mitchell, CEO, Industrial Bank; Colonel Jim Paige (RET), executive director, Pioneers In Education Alliance; Randall Keith Benjamin II, co-founder, BME Institute; and Howard R. Jean, Co-founder, BME Institute with members of the 2015 Class of BME Institute Participants


In a strategic effort to continue the movement of “Black-on-Black economics” – circulating dollars in the Black community to every extent possible – a group of Black male entrepreneurs led by the U.S. Black Chambers Inc. (USBC) has opened accounts with the D.C.-based Black-owned Industrial Bank.

“In order for there to be a strong Black America, you must have strong Black businesses. In order for there to be strong Black businesses, we must have strong Black banks. So, from my standpoint, this is just a reciprocation for what Industrial Bank has done for our communities for the last 80 years,” said USBC CEO Ron Busby Sr. “There’s a trillion dollars of spending power in our community and we want to make sure that dollar stays within our community. Twenty-eight days a dollar stays in the Asian community, twenty-one days a dollar stays in the Hispanic community. In our community, our dollar leaves within six hours. We have got to change that…Until we have total control of how we circulate our money, our power and respect will continue to be marginalized.”

The 15 young men who gathered in the lobby of the historic Industrial Bank are members of the Black Male Entrepreneurship Institute (BMEI), which is in partnership with the USBC. The meeting took on a celebratory mode as Industrial President/CEO Doyle Mitchell congratulated Busby for his influence.

“I’m just humbled at the presence of mind that you have displayed since you first came to town and started taking a leadership role with the Chamber of Commerce and came to Industrial Bank and made a $5,000 deposit. You put your money where your mouth is,” said Mitchell. “Our only solution for us to get out of the situation that we are in as Black people is Black on Black economics. I love and appreciate the way you have taken that forward with this effort.”

Busby recalled that when he made that $5,000 deposit five years ago, he was intentionally choosing Black businesses in every area of his life. Buying a house at the time, he said he made sure he had a Black mortgage company, title company, home inspector, pest control company, and moving company. “Everybody that touched the transaction was a Black firm. The service was superior and the price was right.”

Since then, Busby has become a leading advocate for support of Black banks and Black-owned businesses. In that regard, USBC has now launched an ongoing fundraising effort for the BMEI, co-founded by Randall Keith Benjamin, Jr. and Howard R. Jean, who accompanied the young entrepreneurs to the bank.

“This is bigger than just a moment or taking pictures. It’s about how can we go out of our way to make sure that our communities are as strong as possible,” said Benjamin.

According to Jean, a BMEI reception and launch will take place Jan. 15, 2016.



“We know that our community banks are the strongest funder of small businesses, particularly Black businesses in the community,” Jean said. “So this is our campaign, starting here at the Industrial Bank in Washington, DC as we launch nationally with BME to encourage and inspire other entrepreneurs – male and female – of all ages to start banking Black.”



The last remaining African American-owned bank in the Washington area got a boost last month when it received $1 million from the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation.

The foundation purchased $1 million worth of certificates of deposit from Industrial Bank as part of a new initiative to help make loans more readily available to underbanked communities and minority-owned business.

“Minority and women-owned banks have been an important source of credit and other financial services to minority communities,” said A. Shuanise Washington, president and chief executive of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation.

Minority-owned banks have been particularly hard hit during the recession. Many are smaller institutions with less than $100 million in assets that have struggled to stay afloat amid recent financial turmoil.

There were 54 African American-owned banks in 1994. Today there are 21, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

“The crisis had a devastating effect on the economy of the country, but it had even more of an impact on the minority community,” said Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.), the chairman of the foundation.

The investment, among the most substantial given to African-American banks in recent years, reflects a renewed interest among national organizations that are looking to invest in minority-based businesses, said William Michael Cunningham, who helps area businesses find socially responsible ways to invest their money.

“Certainly there is a growing trend here,” Cunningham said. “It is yet another example of how communities are finding resources for dedicated causes, in this case African-American banks.”

A total of five African American-owned banks received $1 million a piece. The other beneficiaries were Seaway Bank and Trust in Chicago, Liberty Bank and Trust in New Orleans, City National Bank in Newark and M&F Bancorp in Durham.

Eighty percent of the funds have been dispersed. The remaining $1 million will be distributed among the five banks in the first quarter of 2014, Washington said.

This is the first time the foundation has invested in African-American owned banks, Fattah said. The organization generally focuses its efforts on advancing the role of African Americans in politics and public policy.

“Given financial needs in the black community, a community that experienced a 54 percent decline in wealth as a result of the great recession, this focus is entirely justified,” Cunningham said.

Industrial Bank, which was founded in Washington in 1934, has $350 million in assets. The bank has eight branches — six in the District, and two in Prince George’s County.

“These deposits provide the liquidity for Industrial Bank and others to make loans in the hardest-hit communities across the nation,” B. Doyle Mitchell Jr., president and chief executive of Industrial Bank, said in a statement.


“We’ve seen investments like this used effectively before,” Cunningham added. “After the Los Angeles riots [in the 1990s], for example, many church groups increased their investments in the inner cities.”




Your questions and comments are greatly appreciated.



Monty Henry, Owner














www.DPL-Surveillance-Equipment.com










































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NOW, look in on your home, second home, lake house or office anytime, anywhere from any internet connected PC/Lap-top or Internet active cell phone, including iphone or PDA: http://www.dpl-surveillance-equipment.com/wireless_hidden_cameras.html

Watch your child's caregiver while sitting at a traffic light or lunch meeting, or check on your business security from the other side of the world. Our built-in hidden video features all digital transmissions providing a crystal clear image with zero interference. With the IP receiver stream your video over the internet through your router, and view on either a PC or smart phone. Designed exclusively for DPL-Surveillance-Equipment, these IP hidden wireless cameras come with multiple features to make the user's experience hassle-free.

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DPL-Surveillance-Equipment's layaway plan makes it easy for you to buy the products and services that you want by paying for them through manageable monthly payments that you set. Our intuitive calculator allows you to break down your order's purchase price into smaller payment amounts. Payments can be automatically deducted from your bank account or made in cash using MoneyGram® ExpressPayment® Services and you will receive your order once it's paid in full. Use it to plan and budget for holiday purchases, anniversaries, birthdays, vacations and more!


DPL-Surveillance-Equipment's Customers can now use the convenience of layaway online to help them get through these tough economic times.

We all shop now and then just to face a hard reality -- big credit card bills. However, our latest financing innovation can help you avoid that. Find out why more and more shoppers are checking out DPL-Surveillance-Equipment's e-layaway plan.

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Our online layaway plan works like the old-fashioned service stores used to offer. But, in Kheen's case, she went to DPL-Surveillance-Equipment.com, found the iPod docking station (hidden camera w/motion-activated DVR), then set up a payment plan.

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DPL-Surveillance-Equipment.com is a world leader in providing surveillance and security products and services to Government, Law Enforcement, Private Investigators, small and large companies worldwide. We have one of the largest varieties of state-of-the-art surveillance and counter-surveillance equipment including Personal Protection and Bug Detection Products.



Buy, rent or lease the same state-of-the-art surveillance and security equipment Detectives, PI's, the CIA and FBI use. Take back control!



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Tuesday, February 16, 2016

How To Maximize Security Training With Gamification




How To Maximize Security Training With Gamification









Rewarding Good Deeds Actually Works!

Getting employees to take security seriously when security is not their job is an old challenge that now has a new answer: Gamification.

That's right; game-like elements can be used to enhance security awareness and modify users' behaviors. The results are tightly connected to the real world.

"Participants in our program were 50% less likely to click on a phishing link and 82% more likely to report a phishing email". Said a customer describing the results the company saw after the first 18 months of an ongoing security awareness gamification effort that's based on positive recognition rather than negative reinforcement.

Building awareness of physical security was also part of the effort at Salesforce, which has 13,000 employees. A campaign to test "tailgating" (when an unauthorized person sneaks through a secured door by following immediately behind an authorized person) drew 300 volunteers who were rewarded if they successfully slipped through a door and took something.

Generally, before security training, 30% to 60% of users will fall victim to a fake phishing email, says Lance Spitzner, training director at the SANS Institute, a security training vendor. After training and six months to a year of a gamification program, the rate can fall to 5%, he says.






Gamification?

"Gamification has nothing to do with computer games," says Ira Winkler, president of Secure Mentem, a computer security firm in Annapolis, Md. "Rather, it's the application of gaming principles to a business problem."






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Winkler says there are four principles to gamification:

* Define A Goal.
Define Rules For Reaching That Goal.
Set Up A Feedback Mechanism.
Make Participation Voluntary.





You can see those principles in action in the game of golf, he notes: The goal is to get the ball into the cup with the fewest attempts, but rules that forbid players from simply dropping it into the cup make the task intriguing. Feedback is provided by the scoring system, and players are there voluntarily.








In the case of corporate security awareness, gamification usually means awarding points to employees who do the right thing, with various forms of recognition, including badges, prizes and a leaderboard listing participants' point totals, he explains.







Security-related behaviors rewarded by such programs include reporting phishing emails, preventing or reporting tailgating, reporting or preventing other attempted intrusions (especially via social engineering), reporting USB memory sticks found on the ground, keeping desktop software properly patched and updated, maintaining strong passwords, attending security seminars, not leaving laptops in parked cars, and (for developers) reporting bugs or vulnerabilities.







But gamification is not a term that has been embraced widely in the business world. "As soon as you use the word 'game' in a corporate environment, there tends to be a lot of pushback, as work is supposed to be serious and games are not," says Jordan Schroeder, IT security administrator for Family Insurance Solutions in Vancouver, B.C. "So I have been using the term 'active feedback' instead. That flew a lot better."







Results

Spitzner at SANS notes that security awareness gamification is not a mature field yet, and the few organizations that have done it have targeted only a few behaviors. Nevertheless, there are success stories, such as what happened at Salesforce.com.




"We wanted to see what would happen if we created a program where employees wanted to do the right things, rather than being pushed to do so," explains Saleforce.com's Heim. After consultations with heads of business units, "We came up with a short list of behaviors that we believed would have the biggest impact, including optional security training, reporting phishing emails and preventing badge surfing" or tailgating.







Security training at the firm is mandatory, but participation in the corporation's gamified security awareness program is not, adds Heim. But employees get points and recognition if they do participate and take security-related actions, like reporting phishing attempts, he explains.




Jordan Schroeder, IT security administrator, Family Insurance Solutions

At Family Insurance Solutions, Schroeder says he relies on positive feedback when users do the right thing (in response to phishing and break-in attempts, real or drills), and showing them correct behavior when they do the wrong thing. Unlike at Salesforce.com, there are no points, badges, levels or prizes, he says. "I am not convinced of the effectiveness of giving away physical things," in a small organization, he adds.






He was not able to supply specific metrics, but he notes that users no longer hide what they did wrong for fear of reprisals. "If they are confident of a positive response they want to elicit that response strongly, and will report emails hoping to get that response. People who are normally reticent are now openly engaging with me, asking if this or that is OK. It's exciting watching them educate themselves. People who were my biggest concerns are now my number one partners in security. I have been shocked at how successful it has been with people who I did not think it would be successful with."

Middle-aged office assistants tend to be the most responsive, while the ones he has the most trouble reaching are younger people who play computer games, he says. "They tend to see through the gamification, but do respond to challenges," he notes.




Tips And Traps

Winkler adds that, before launching a gamification program, it is important to first establish the level of security awareness in the organization, to avoid wasted effort. Then, it is important to set up a rewards structure based on the culture of the organization and its business goals.

"You don't want to reward behavior that has no value," he notes. And "you need rewards that the people actually want." Handing out rewards that rank them as Star Wars Jedi knights may work with programmers, but not with investment bankers, he notes.

Points that can be exchanged for small prizes may prove motivating, or just putting names on a leaderboard may work, Winkler notes. Companies with offices in multiple locations, particularly internationally, may find it best to adopt different strategies in different locations. For instance, in some Asian countries, a chance to shake hands with the CEO may be more compelling, Winkler adds.



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Gaming Security

Points, if used, should be increasingly harder to get, by adding a ladder of levels, also called badges or titles, he explains. Points should be easy to get at the first level, and involve basic steps, such as attending seminars. Points at the next level should require spontaneous activity, such as reporting a phishing email or security incident, and points at higher levels should reward complex security activities, such as participating in drills, he indicates.

"Even if there is a failure (such as falling for a phishing email) you need to reward them for reporting the failure," Winkler adds. "If I know about it I can warn the rest of the firm. Gamification makes it seem that the security department is not there to punish people, but if all their interactions with security are negative, they are less likely to report incidents."






"Never release the names of the victims," Spitzner adds. "Let everyone know that if they fall victim their names will not go to their manager. If they think they will be reported, they will resent the program, since it will impact their career. The only time the manager is informed is if the person is repeatedly falling victim and represents a high risk. But do identify those who do something good," he adds.

Drills of some sort (such as sending out fake phishing emails or having agents attempt tailgating) should be done once a month. "But if it is weekly it becomes noise," Spitzner adds.

"Don't expect miracles; you will need to refine your program based on your successes and failures," Winkler warns. One common error involves rewarding the wrong behavior. He recalls an instance where software developers were rewarded for finding bugs, and so were reporting old ones and sometimes writing new ones just to report them.

Finally, Winkler warns that gamification is not the answer for every organization, especially if security is a regulatory requirement and participation is not voluntary.





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Gaining Traction

Corporate security pros aren't laughing at gamification.

"Gamification is something we are looking at," confirms Ahmad Douglas, senior director of security awareness at Visa Inc. in Ashburn, Va. "There is a presumption that if we hold security awareness week and have a talk and give away pens that somehow it had an impact on people's behaviors. We have not made that presumption." Instead, Visa has brought in a cognitive psychologist to examine how to counter threats by measurably altering behavior.






"Gamification is a tool, but I don't want to presume that it is the solution," Douglas adds.

Ahmad Douglas, senior director of security awareness, Visa

"Gamification, or storytelling, or putting cartoons in bathrooms, whatever channels work for people, that is how we are going to get to them," Douglas adds. "Whatever we do, it will be tied to a specific threat, it will have measurable outcomes and it will be based on real psychology."





The awareness problem actually has two segments, Douglas says. "Do they know what action you want them to take? Are they willing to take some action? You can't solve both with the same solution. If they don't know [something], you have to assess if it is realistically knowable and what is the best way to teach it. If they don't care to take action, you have an incentive problem and need to offer a reward."

Not all security professionals are fully buying into the gamification idea. "We use it to a certain degree, but not to the extent of having levels and points," says Jonathan Feigle, director of information security at Hyatt Hotels Corp. in Chicago. Awarding points to a global staff speaking many languages would involve numerous complications, he notes.



Beyond Gamification


While Winkler and others emphasize that gamification does not mean the users play a game, others are willing to cross the border to actual games. For instance, start-up Apozy is developing a cloud-based computer game to teach security awareness, says co-founder Rick Deacon, who was previously a corporate penetration tester.

"We want to get the users engaged with something they enjoy using," he explains. The game simulates a corporate environment and the users take the part of attackers, who plan attacks based on what they learn during the course of play. Meanwhile, the software analyzes the users' decisions to make sure they understand the situation, he explains.

But whether the choice is gamification or actual games, the implication of the success of these approaches is that the answer to the problem of security awareness is not technology but human behavior. Instead of being victims of social engineering, enterprises are showing that they can protect themselves with their own form of social engineering -- one based on rewarding people for doing the right thing.

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Health-Care CIOs Share Security Best Practices To Prevent Rasomware Threats

Hospital chief information officers say the health-care industry now needs to assume attackers are going to get into hospital networks. The key to avoiding damage, they say, is detection, response and containment.

Attackers encrypted data at Methodist Hospital in Henderson, Kentucky and were holding it for ransom, security blogger Brian Krebs reported Wednesday. Additionally, NBC reported that two other hospitals were also recently victims of so-called ransomware attacks. Those attacks comes a little more than a month after Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center said it had paid hackers 40 bitcoins, about $17,000, after an attack made certain systems unusable for more than two weeks.
Methodist Hospital did not respond to a request for comment.

Traditionally, hospitals have focused on prevention, Darren Dworkin, chief information officer at Cedars-Sinai told CIO Journal. “You still have to do that, but at the same time you need to acknowledge that stuff will come through so you can detect it, catch it, and contain it,” he said.
Another hospital faced a problem with ransomware when a nurse clicked on a bad link, said a CIO who asked not to be identified. By isolating the laptop from the rest of the network, the CIO was able to contain the problem from spreading. These attacks can spread rapidly throughout a network, he said.

The CIO used backups to quickly restore the data. It’s crucial to have data that’s frequently backed up, he said. The difference between a problem that’s caught and quickly handled and one that ends with a hospital paying thousands of dollars to hackers is often good backups.

Malicious software often enters health-care organizations when an employee clicks on a bad link or downloads a bad attachment. The malicious software then targets unpatched software on the victim’s computer. There are many Windows-based systems in health care and the patching of software is notoriously poor, said Scott Donnelly, senior analyst at Recorded Future, a security firm that sells real-time threat intelligence.

According to the company’s analysis, recent ransomware has targeted vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash Player and Microsoft Silverlight. Mr. Donnelly suggests updating that software as well as Web browsers.

The best defense in the short term is to educate employees not to open unexpected attachments, click on any link embedded in an email and not to provide any personal information to unknown callers, said John D. Halamka, chief information officer at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, in an email message.

“Millions can be spent on technical security but you’re still as vulnerable as the most gullible employee who provides their password in response to a phishing email or inserts an infected USB drive,” he added.





Your questions and comments are greatly appreciated.



Monty Henry, Owner














www.DPL-Surveillance-Equipment.com










































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DPL-Surveillance-Equipment.com is a world leader in providing surveillance and security products and services to Government, Law Enforcement, Private Investigators, small and large companies worldwide. We have one of the largest varieties of state-of-the-art surveillance and counter-surveillance equipment including Personal Protection and Bug Detection Products.



Buy, rent or lease the same state-of-the-art surveillance and security equipment Detectives, PI's, the CIA and FBI use. Take back control!



DPL-Surveillance-Equipment.com

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