Q&A Q: While in the process of updating your company's web site, your Marketing Director leaves you an excited voice mail message that the job will take half the time originally expected, as he just found some "great stuff" on the Internet that will be perfect for your site. How should you respond? A: Many people mistakenly believe that everything on the Internet is 'fair game.' Not so-- the vast majority of material on the Internet is protected by federal copyright laws. Copying content from someone else's web site, without their permission, is generally prohibited and could expose your company to costly infringement litigation. Your response to the Marketing Director should be to first find out what the materials are and where he found them. Depending on the source, your company may try to seek permission from the copyright holder to use the materials. If you find out that the materials originate from a competing business, using them could expose your company to additional claims, including unfair competition. Q: How much should I spend on Internet Security? A: According to July 29th panelist Andre Roy of Abilita, the most basic thing you can do in security is a firewall, with that you're instantly getting both protection for your network and for your servers. In addition to the firewall an anti-virus software should be installed on all computers and kept up to date. Modern anti-virus software is available by subscription and has built-in auto update features, so your administration headache is minimized. Those are just the basics for keeping people out, what about the internal security threat? Internal threats include disgruntled former employees who may have access to your networks, compromised of poorly protected/conceived passwords, out-of-date security programs and new technologies introduced without proper protection. With costs ranging from a few hundred dollars to tens of thousands of dollars it is impossible to say what a company should spend on Internet Security. Better technology and more competition equals lower costs to keep the security systems up to date, but with better technology comes more ways for hackers to infiltrate your systems.