You may have seen posts in the past about malware, viruses and phishing, but this one is truly inventive. A security researcher was able to hack into an Apple laptop's battery and permanently disable, or "brick" it. No matter what is done afterwards, it cannot be used any longer. The way into doing this is through a chip found on all laptop batteries that tells a laptop how to operate with various operating systems and boot sequences. However, this person was able to get into the chip and put code on it to make it permanently dead. 

Many people think that since their iPhone or Droid is a phone, it can't get malware or viruses like a computer. That is completely wrong. It is estimated that by next year 5% of all smartphones will be hit with malicious code or install an infected app. With these kinds of statistics, small businesses need to consider training their employees that their business phone should be treated like a computer, because essentially, it is a computer. 

Do you have a part time IT person that comes in and checks on computers and your network? Do they shuffle around in the back and leave a while later declaring everything is alright? Do you know if they can be trusted? An article in ITworld.com (link below) discusses how easy an individual can sniff your company's network for logins for websites, grab emails in transit, and even plant malicious code or illegal items on your servers.