Tips to Increase Your Chances of Winning the Next Jackpot

Winning a lottery is a dream so many amongst us have. It is a dream of a world where every single wish of the player has come true. It could be to own a luxury villa or a sports car or travelling around the world. The list could go on forever. Everyone has their own private set of dreams, which they dream every single time they play. Who does not want to retire at thirty and then not ever have to work again. How good would that be? Such dreams have come true for some and for some they come true every so often a lottery winner’s name is announced.

Lottery playing and winning is no rocket science. In fact, all you need to win one is to have the lucky stars on your side. It is as simple as that. You could play it with your eyes closed or open it makes no difference, since there is no way to predict the random number that will be the winner of the entire jack pot. Having said that there could be some tricks one may use to increase their chances of winning. For example, some people select the numbers in their date of birth and hope for this to be their lucky number once again in life. Some players play in a team. For example, a few colleagues may come together and play a large number of tickets. The chances to win are slightly increased with this strategy since a block of numbers belongs to the group. In this scenario the winning money is promised to be equally divided amongst the whole group. As the saying goes one does not need millions of dollars to be happy. One million could be more than enough to achieve this goal. So if you are not after the whole jackpot and could be happy with a little less, it might be a really good idea to increase your winning chances by playing with a group. Lottery tickets often can be bought for a dollar or so. This makes it affordable for all to play and dream of a number that may transform their fate for ever. Another good idea to consider is to play the local lotteries. The prizes are not as impressive sounding as the national lotteries but the chances to win are greatly increased when a smaller number of players are involved.

It really is up to you to play or not to play. You may decide not to waste your dollars every month or you may decide to play it week after week and who knows the next ticket might open the door to your dream world.

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Is IT Security Just an Illusion?

A recent survey by the Ponemon Institute found that the threat from cyber attacks is nearing statistical certainty -- 90 percent of U.S. businesses were hit by at least one security breach in the last 12 months. Almost one in two said there was a significant increase in the frequency of cyber attacks over the past year, and 77 percent said attacks are more severe or difficult to contain.

So is security just an illusion? Is it possible any longer to truly be secure, or is all corporate data only one click away from walking out the door?

Ponemon Institute chairman and founder Larry Ponemon said, basically, yes. “When we think about our endpoints, like cell phones and smartphones and tablets and notebooks, these things are getting very hard to secure completely,” he said.

Similarly, Bob Walder, chief research officer at security research firm NSS Labs, said breaches are all but inevitable. “We have to accept that it’s going to happen, no matter what defenses we put around our network. All the firewalls and IPSes in the world are not going to stop these guys if they really want to get into your network.”

So rather than seeking an impossible level of perfect security, Walder said, the answer lies in active monitoring. “Know what your network traffic should look like, monitor for anomalies, and track those back and figure out exactly what’s going on … good security is about minimizing the risk, realizing what risk you are still exposed to, and monitoring where that risk may be exploited,” he said.

One mistake many companies make, Walder said, is to equate regulatory compliance with security.

“Most smaller businesses will go through the motions of becoming compliant. They’ll install a UTM [unified threat management] or a firewall at the perimeter of their network and then they can just check a box, and they’re certified as complaint. But, compliance doesn’t guarantee security, it just means you’ve got a piece of paper with a few ticks on it.”

Edward Hamilton, head of Information Security and Assurance at research firm Analysys Mason, said the biggest security risk ultimately lies in a company’s employees. “Most security breaches still happen because of your employees doing something silly, like leaving a laptop on a train or accidentally e-mailing the wrong document to the wrong people."

And so, security breaches of some kind are unavoidable. “All you can do is have in place the right technology, processes and training to try and minimize the impact of them, be able to detect when you’re losing data, and have the team in place to rectify that and close down the loophole as quickly as possible,” he said.

 

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