Skip to content

Archive for August 17th, 2011

Aug 17

Can you destroy your former employer from a McDonalds? Apparently, yes.

A former IT worker for the United States subsidiary of a Japanese pharmaceutical company availed himself of some free McDonald’s wifi connection in Georgia (and possibly an irresistible $1 sweet tea) to hack his former employer’s computer system.

According to msnbc.com, in doing so, he successfully deleted the contents of 15 virtual servers (the equivalent of 88 non-virtual servers).  On those servers, were the company’s e-mail and Blackberry servers, “its order tracking system, and its financial management software.”  The attack effectively froze the company’s operations for days costing it more than $300,000 in damages.

It is pretty unbelievable that one employee could have so much power over a company’s IT infrastructure – especially one who no longer works there.  This is a strong reminder that every company needs to re-examine to ensure they are not so vulnerable to a any one individual.

Aug 17

The New TLDs – What Does it Mean to Your Company?

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (better known as ICANN) approved the use of 100′s of new customizable top-level domain names a few months ago.  Since that time, companies and internet prognosticators alike have been debating the ramifications of such a dramatic change.  Here are the basics:

  • Applicants (who pay $185,000) will be able to apply to, in essence, become a registry of a new TLD of their choosing.
  • Applicants can request a generic word such as “.pizza” or a trademarked word such as “.Dominos.”
  • There will be an opportunity for the public at large to object to an application (but such an opportunity could be costly).
  • Based on how the system is set up, there will probably be a rush to file for new extensions – especially with generic words.
  • ICANN promises to evaluate applications and not award top level domains subject to another company’s trademark.

These new TLD extensions could open a can of worms the internet has not seen for awhile.  First, what happens if multiple companies hold the same trademark (think Delta Airlines and Delta Faucets) and both apply for .delta?  What happens if Pizza Hut and Dominos both apply for the generic “.pizza” at the same time?  ICANN has a process and evaluation factors to resolve these issues, but they do not seem to be specific enough yet to answer these questions.

I would not be surprised to see trademark suits spawning from the new TLDs.  We will have much more on this in the coming months.

What are your thoughts?

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 214 other followers

%d bloggers like this: