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International Women’s Day: 8 empowered woman in the computing world

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8 empowered woman in the computing world to celebrate International Women’s Day

Often seen as a male-dominated industry, women have played an important part in driving developments in the computer industry. As we celebrate International Women’s Day, these eight women have blazed a trail in IT, setting an example to us all.

Ada Lovelace

Despite being the daughter of the well-known bohemian hell-raiser George Byron, Ada Lovelace’s own life was incredibly successful, albeit slightly less “colourful”. Encouraged to study maths and logic by her mother, Ada’s studies soon brought her into contact with Charles Babbage, ‘the father of computers’.

As part of her work with Babbage, Ada created what is believed to be the first ever computer program – an algorithm to be run by Babbage’s legendary Analytical Engine.

 

Grace Murray Hopper

As well as being a Rear Admiral in the United States Navy, Grace was one of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer. Her work led to the creation of the first compiler – a tool used to change computer code into a fully-functioning application.

Grace was also instrumental in creating COBOL, one of the first programming languages, and one that is still in use today.

Henrietta Swan Leavitt

During study for a graduate degree, Henrietta began working at the Harvard College Observatory. Her job – as a human computer was to help grade photographs taken through the observatory’s telescope, and to perform complex mathematical calculations.

Henrietta’s work paved the way for the techniques used by astronomers today to calculate the distance between Earth and distant galaxies.

Hedy Lamarr

Best known as a Hollywood actress, Hedy Lamarr was also an accomplished inventor in between roles. During World War II, Hedy helped to create a jam-proof radio guidance system to be used with torpedoes.

Although this signal-hopping technology was deployed by the US Navy until the 1960s (where it proved to be particularly effective), it is still in use today. The same basic principles are also used in modern WiFi and Bluetooth radio technologies – like those that make your smartphone and tablet work wirelessly.

Dame Stephanie “Steve” Shirley

After leaving school, Stephanie went to work for the Post Office Research Station where she helped build computers from scratch. She also learned to program machine code – the very low level language used by computer parts to work properly.

In 1962, Stephanie founded Freelance Programmers, a software company with the intention of helping women get into IT – just 1% of her programmers were male. The team worked on a broad range of projects, including the black box recorder for the supersonic jetliner, Concorde.

Jude Milhon

Having taught herself to program computers, Jude’s first job was in the IT department of a US food manufacturer. She also helped to create the Berkley Software Distribution (BSD) operating system which is still in use today.

Jude was also a committed social activist and hacker, going by the name of “St Jude”. Coining the term “cypherpunks”, St Jude helped to promote the idea of using cryptography to protect personal information as a route to social and political change.

Mary Allen Wilkes

Despite majoring in philosophy and theology, Mary became a computer programmer at the Massachusetts University of Technology. Initially she was programming IBM systems as part of a speech recognition project.

Later Mary was moved to a team working on LINC, widely believed to be the world’s first “personal computer”. As far back as 1964, Mary was using the LINC computer at home to refine the system’s design.

Lynn Conway

After a very successful period at university, Lynn was recruited by IBM to work on a project designing an advanced supercomputer. Known as the Advanced Computing Systems (ACS) project, the resulting computer is believed to have been an example of the first superscalar design.

Later Lynn worked for major organisations including DARPA and Xerox, and MIT as an associate professor.

Examples to us all

Although these women may serve as examples to women considering a career in IT, their experiences and achievements are actually a lesson for all young people – regardless of gender.

The post International Women’s Day: 8 empowered woman in the computing world appeared first on Panda Security Mediacenter.

Avast

Small and midsize businesses are targeted most often by hackers

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“SMBs are not just targets of cybercrime, they are its principal target”

says a U.S. Security and Exchange Commission report from last fall. In fact, the majority of all targeted cyberattacks last year were directed at SMBs.

The New York Times, in its article No Business Too Small to Be Hacked, said that 60% of all online attacks in 2014 targeted small and mid-sized businesses. Of those attacked, more than half (60%) would go out of business within 6 months of a data breach. That’s a lot of broken dreams and heart ache because of a lack of security.

Avast for Business autoshop

Small and mid-sized businesses use Avast for Business to protect from cyberthreats.

Small businesses lack IT expertise and budget

SMBs make attractive targets because they often neglect their security or rely on older consumer security software for protection. Money is always an issue, and sometimes the budget doesn’t allow for an expensive security package.

Just recently, our free, cloud-managed security solution, Avast for Business, passed a milestone – more than 1 million endpoints protected in less than a year. From our relationship with IT admins in sectors as diverse as Education, Non-profits, Retail, IT consulting firms, and SMBs, we have learned that many organizations lack in-house expertise or resources to install costly and complex security solutions.

“All we wanted was a simple security solution that worked, and I knew we didn’t have to pay a fortune for it,” said Tyler Hisel, an IT technician in Ohio.  “Avast was cost saving and had lots of features that I was surprised came free,” he said, “I’ve got to hand it to you, it’s really an impressive product and it being free just makes it better.”

How to protect your organization from cyberattacks

  • Install Avast for Business to protect your PCs, Macs, and servers from hackers and data breaches. Avast for Business is easy to deploy and monitor. Our customers tell us that even IT-challenged staff have no issues using our security solution.
  • Create strong passwords. This is an easy piece of advice that many small business people fail to take. We understand that using passwords which are 20 characters with a mix of capital letters, numbers, and symbols is challenging to manage. That’s why Avast has created Avast Passwords, a free password management system which creates strong, unique passwords for each of your accounts. It’s free in all Avast Antivirus programs, and synchronizes across your devices.
  • Train your employees. Many hacks originate from employees clicking on malicious links or websites. Explain the concept of social engineering to your employees, what the most recent methods of attacks are, and the latest malware threats. Follow this blog or Avast on Facebook or Twitter to stay informed.

Avast for Business is available for every business worldwide

Avast for Business is free for every organization worldwide. Visit Avast for Business to learn more and sign up.

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Help others with their computer issues using Avast Remote Assistance

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Avast Remote Assistance gives you access to any other computer with Avast installed.

Do your friends and family always call you when they run into a problem with their computer? Forget driving across town to help them out – if they are also Avast users, you can remotely access their computer.

remote assistance with mother

Avast Remote Assistance makes it a lot easier on the family IT person.

 

How to use Avast Remote Assistance

If you are the IT expert, the person in need of help has to request assistance from you. Instruct them to open the Avast user interface. The easiest way to find it, is to go to one of the four tiles on the Overview screen, and click on the small menu icon in the top right corner. A drop-down selection will open. Choose Remote Assistance.

remote-assistance-UI

Customize your Avast Overview screen for fast access.

Next, tell them to click the blue Get Assistance button. Avast will generate a code that they need to provide to you.  They can transfer the code to you by telephone, email, or chat. Make sure they understand that by sending the code they are granting you remote access to their computer. After you take control, this dialog disappears automatically.

When you receive the code, you will copy it into the box on your Avast’s Remote Assistance screen.  Follow the directions to connect. When the connection is established, this dialog disappears and the remote desktop window appears.

To close the connection, press the Alt+Shift+End shortcut.

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Business owners rejoice – you can now get business-grade security for free from Avast

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Avast is pleased to offer the World’s First Free Business-Grade Security to small and medium-sized businesses.

Avast for Business protects SMBs for free

In a move that will make a difference to the security of local businesses across the USA and the UK, Avast launches Avast for Business—a free, easy to use, cloud-managed security offering that protects small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) from viruses and cyber attacks.

This is the first free information security product built specifically for businesses with cross-platform protection, meaning that it protects both PCs and Macs. It solves a problem that many businesses have: No IT staff, lean IT budgets, lack of know-how, or even any security at all.

“Since 2001 we’ve delivered great, free security products for home users,” said Vince Steckler, Chief Executive Officer of Avast. “We believe the time is right to provide great security that is not only free, but also simple for SMBs to implement and manage. A small business may not view their customer database or online orders at the same level as data of an enterprise. Avast for Business addresses the problem of those businesses using consumer products and not being adequately protected; it gives those enterprises a business-class solution they can grow with.”

Avast for Business is easy for SMB owners to install, configure and manage advanced security solutions with or without the help of a full-time IT manager. Users are able to effortlessly monitor, manage and protect devices anywhere, anytime from Avast’s cloud-management console.

“Anybody can use the interface,” said Kyle Barker of Championship Networks, an Avast partner in North Carolina, USA. “If you’ve ever seen a simple installment of Avast, you’ve seen the interface, you know the controls. Anybody that ever used the small office console already knows every feature that’s in this product. It’s a simple transition.”

From the easy-to-navigate console, users have the ability to configure robust reporting and alerting to easily stay on top of what is happening inside of their environment. Avast for Business features include:

  • Free Essential Antivirus protection (File Shield, Web Shield, Mail Shield)
  • HTTP and HTTPS Threat Scanning & Integrated Browser Protection
  • A Web-based management console that is accessible anywhere, anytime.
  • Robust reporting and alerting engine
  • Cross-Platform Support including Windows and Mac OSX.

For advanced security requirements, Avast for Business also offers premium services. There are no limits on the number of protected devices, and businesses can activate and deactivate licenses as needed. This allows them to grow comfortably without the concern of overwhelming costs.

“It’s very easy to choose on a month to month basis the number of licenses you want. Any number of licenses can be mixed from free and premium and you can change this on a month to month basis,” said Barker.

Later in 2015, Avast will introduce programs for managed service providers and the reseller channel, to benefit from the power of free. In the spring, Avast will form its first ever partner advisory council in order to bring partners closer to Avast, to discuss features and functions specific to their needs.

Avast

U.S. schools give an F to 2014-15 IT budget

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AVAST Free For Education saves school IT money

AVAST Free for Education protects schools while significantly decreasing IT costs for security.

The beginning of the 2014/2015 school year is here. Parents and children are ready after a long summer break, but are schools prepared for the start of the new academic year?

AVAST surveyed more than 900 school IT professionals who participate in the AVAST Free for Education program and found that in terms of technology, schools are not as well equipped as parents expect.

  • 8 out of every 10 schools surveyed by AVAST said they do not feel they have adequate funding to keep up-to-date with technologies
  • 1 out of 5 schools still run Windows XP, and 12% of these schools said they do not intend to upgrade the unsupported operating system

Failing to upgrade to the most up-to-date software not only makes machines vulnerable to attacks, but also hinders the amount of programs that can be used by teachers and students. Keeping up with the most current technology is vital, as it has become ubiquitous in daily life, making it a valuable skill for children to have for the future. Despite technology’s important place in education,

  • 4 out of 10 school’s IT budgets are slashed for the upcoming school year
  • More than a quarter of schools have a $0 IT budget for this year

Technology in schools is not limited to instruction. Sensitive information about faculty, staff, and students is stored on administrative computers. This information needs to be protected from cybercriminals, which is difficult for schools with little to no IT budget. Schools without adequate protection put local families, faculty, and expensive hardware at risk.

AVAST Free for Education helps schools by providing them with enterprise-grade antivirus protection for free, saving school districts an average of $14,285 a year. The AVAST Free for Education program saves school IT departments money they can spend on software and hardware upgrades or use for supplies and salaries.

EDU infograph August 2014

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