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The New Year is upon us, which means we all get a fresh opportunity to consider what’s important for the next 12 months. In the small to medium-sized business world, technology routinely tops that list — you can’t work well without technology, and technology that doesn’t work well will only hold you back.

As many news outlets have reported over the last few weeks, the major trend in e-commerce this year has come from mobile device use. Over the three-day period encompassing Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday:

•    33% of Thanksgiving Day sales came from mobile devices, as did 52% of online shopping traffic

•    Mobile drove 50% of all Black Friday shopping traffic, up from 40% from last year

•    Mobile sales accounted for 28% of all Black Friday online sales, up from 22% last year

•    41% of Cyber Monday traffic came from mobile devices, up from 30% in 2013

•    22% of all Cyber Monday sales came from mobile devices

•    46% of emails on Cyber Monday were opened on mobile devices

What do all these numbers mean for the average small to medium-sized business owner? A January 2014 Pew Research Internet Project study found that 90% of North American adults have a cell phone; 58% have a smartphone; 32% have an e-reader; and 42% have a tablet.

A new virus is flexing its corrupting muscle on computers and users worldwide. CryptoWall first appeared in February, but attention surrounding the ransomware spiked this summer, when researches at Dell SecureWorks reported on it. In October, the UK Register revealed that 830,000 victims had been infected — a 25% increase since August.

Lost amidst the recent avalanche of news concerning data breaches, system insecurities, and other external cyberattacks was a joint Department of Homeland Security/FBI alert about insider digital retaliation. Defined as the destruction of data, theft of proprietary software, removal of customer information, restriction of access, and/or extortion by disgruntled current or former employees, federal agents say such instances have spiked lately.

Technology is often heralded as the be-all, end-all of our existence. Upgraded smartphone models come out every few months. Fresh apps pop up every week. New methods of doing business — in the cloud, with Big Data, or on mobile point of sale systems — overtake old ones on a daily basis.

Tuned in to any IT-related news over the last month or so? Then you may have noticed the avalanche of cybersecurity revelations. First, in mid-September, Home Depot admitted that a malware-based data breach had compromised the credit card information of more than 56 million customers — the largest retail data breach ever.

On Thursday, October 16th, more than 20 million people participated in the latest Great ShakeOut Earthquake Drill. Most surprising about this figure, though, is that nearly 10% of the participants exercised disaster preparedness in the Southeast, a region of the country no one ever associates with earthquakes.

One of the most famous quotes in the business world comes from Founding Father and early American Renaissance man Benjamin Franklin: “Lost time is never found again.” But in today’s digital-driven, connectivity-obsessed world, it’s easier than ever to waste time.

In late September, cybersecurity experts discovered the latest in a long string of software bugs that threatened millions of operating systems, including Mac computers and Android smartphones. The bug, dubbed Shellshock by researchers from Kaspersky Labs and other firms, was initially compared to the Heartbleed vulnerability, only far worse — while Heartbleed stole passwords, Shellshock was able to take over entire machines via remote code execution.

Scammers have been calling computer users claiming to be Microsoft technicians for at least five years. But the pace of the fraudulent phishing attempts hasn’t slowed down, and many of our CMIT Solutions clients have reported receiving them in recent weeks.