Hello, and welcome to SMB Trendwire the audio conversation for the small business marketplace. Our online home is www.smbtrendwire.com. My name is Steve Rucinski your co-host for today's conversation. For today's conversation we have a terrific and informative guest, Michael Dees who's president of a company called E-Security Direct. Welcome, Michael.

Thanks, Steve. It's a real pleasure to be here on the show today.

Michael's company helps small and mid-sized businesses manage their technology infrastructure. They specialize in helping offices with as few as five computers all the way up to locations with several hundred computers. Michael himself has many years of experience providing technology infrastructure and security solutions to some of America's largest corporations. He has been a guest lecturer at the Weatherhead School of Management, and a featured presenter on the US Secret Service sponsored, Northern Ohio Information Technology roundtable. You can learn more about Michael's company at www.esecurity-direct.com. Now before we get started, let's give you a little background. We're speaking with you today from Cleveland, Ohio, which is in the Midwest of the USA. Our guest is also speaking with us from the Cleveland area. We'll work hard to make this an informal and conversational conversation today. We want this to be enjoyable as well as helpful to our audience. Ok. Let's get started. Let me welcome my co-host, a well-known expert in the area of small business, Anita Campbell. Welcome Anita, why don't you get us started.

Hey thanks, Steve. And Good afternoon everyone. And we're very glad you could join our SMB Trendwire conversation today, Michael. I'm intrigued by the topic you'll be discussing today, which is computer security and how smaller enterprises can protect themselves and get better value out of the technology they have. Well Michael, I wonder if you could set the stage for everyone listening to you. Earlier you referred me to an Inc. magazine article about a hacking attack that occurred in Arizona to a small e-commerce outfit there. I thought it was an interesting story because it gives good insight into how business first becomes aware they've been hacked. Would you briefly relate what happened?

Well, Anita, I would be happy to. The time of year is between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the time of year when most electronic retailers do most of their business. And a husband and wife team who was specializing in producing animal-related inspirational posters and greeting cards called Ultimutt at ultimutt.com, woke up one morning and found, much to their chagrin, that the credit numbers stored on their e-commerce site had been stolen. The story goes something like this. They received a call early one morning out of the clear blue sky from a gentleman with a very thick eastern European accent, giving them a cryptic message...
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