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"How my Botnet Purchased Millions of Dollars of Cars"
Michael Schrenk, DEF CON 21 |
Companies do similar things with the Internet with websites, social media and email. But to truly leverage The Internet's power, you need to stop doing what you think you need to do and start doing what you need to be doing to gain a competitive advantage.
Many business processes can be improved by moving them online. One area where we like to focus is converting Excel spreadsheets to managed online processes. If your company is like most, you conduct important business process with Excel spreadsheets. These work fine if you're a one person company. But, the more people that depend on these files to do their jobs, the harder it is to verify that everyone is using the correct revision of the file. Convert spreadsheets to custom websites Most Excel spreadsheets can be easily converted to a webpage with a database backend. Once done, you will achieve many advantages over plain vanilla spreadsheets. Make your company's processes available anywhere When you don't have access to you're company's file server, you probably to have access to the Internet. When you securely convert what you used to do with spreadsheets to online application, you can access your important business processes from anywhere.
Once the data is in a proper database, that data can be used to create a variety of reports. In fact, the report can be tailored specifically to the person viewing it.
When placed online, you'll know that everyone is seeing the same data, with concern about multiple versions of the data floating around your company.
Do some people only need to read data, while others should be able to change it? No problem. Online applications can also shield certain data from junior employees while making other information available for all to view.
When you move processes online, you can receive email alerts when process steps are either completed, or not completed in a timely manner. Try doing that with Excel. Automate the Internet with webbots Many solutions can be identified when you stop thinking about the Internet in terms of "using a browser" and start thinking about the limitations browsers impose. A well developed strategy (and maybe a webbot) can solve many of the limitations that you currently experience online.
If you're online extensively for business, you already know that using the Internet manually is a very time consuming (expensive) activity. We can automate most Internet tasks to both save time and reduce error.
ProcurementBots & Snipers watch the Internet and either alert you to buying opportunities or they make purchases on your behalf.
You can also use webbots to test your online products and website. ValidationBots provide a variety of services ranging from testing the rotation of banner ads to reporting unauthorized website changes made by hackers.
Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. SpyBots can send an email notification every time your competitors change their website or make an online announcements. SpyBots are capable of reveling strategic plans through close monitoring of help wanted pages. SpyBots can also provide current market prices of competing products.
A RumorBot is similar to a SpyBot but instead of monitoring your competition, it watches websites, blogs and news groups to see what people are saying about your company and products.
Webbots can display online reports, or they can send daily (or immediate) email notifications when they find (or do) something interesting.