Be Careful What You Share on Social Media People are focused on posting their daily lives on the various social media sites. This may include vacation photos and updates, birthday parties, sporting events, business trips, dinner parties, and virtually any other activity. The users do this without any reservation or concerns. The persons don’t appreciate the reach of the internet into their data. Unfortunately too many people don’t secure their social media accounts. Without

Who is Responsible when the Smart Cities Crash? By Charles Parker II Society is becoming ever-more connected on a daily basis. Consumers are able to check email from virtually anywhere, including the home, other’s homes, work, when getting coffee, when driving, etc. The portals (Wi Fi) are present in the person’s homes, office building, grocery stores, coffees shops, vehicles, and many other types of locations. This rather not exhaustive list does not even include the person’

Your TV is not even secure these days! By Charles Parker II There are a few devices that are as well-known and seen virtually everywhere. They are located throughout our bedrooms, living rooms, kitchens, and recreation rooms. In a commercial environment, these devices are in conference rooms and hallways on the business or news channels. In retail there may be a bank of them on a wall, all showing the same thing. As time has passed, technology has improved significantly. Th

Churches: Large and Small as Targets By Charles Parker II As with so many other non-profits, churches likewise have been listed as a target for attackers. This issue has been exasperated due to churches, along with other non-profits, having issues with cash flow and budgetary constraints. For the church’s management structure, purchases of tangible assets may be a much less daunting task. With cybersecurity having such a new focus in mainstream IT and industry, describing wha

Self-Signed Certificates: What Makes This an Issue By Charles Parker II We have all come across this message.....ALERT! THE SITE'S SECURITY CERTIFICATE IS NOT TRUSTED! For a website to be secure, there needs to be a certificate associated with the website. The user will see this as the locked padlock and https (emphasis on the “s”, referring to website being secure) in the URL area of the browser. This certificate indicates a third party has taken the time and effort to ver

Phishing Continues to be Expensive By Charles Parker II Attackers are often motivated by money. The focus has been the cash flow for their nefarious operation. One area that receives significant attention as an attack method is social engineering or phishing. With either active or passive attacks, the effects can be substantially expensive and costly in terms of expense and hours spent fixing this issue. A sub-attack along this same idea is spear phishing or a targeted phishi

Employee data sharing is still a cybersecurity weak link at small businesses By Carolyn Schrader The statistics from a recent survey tell us businesses still have a challenge with cybersecurity behavior of their employees. The survey revealed that: 54% of employees connected to public Wi-Fi to access confidential work 68% used personal email accounts for confidential work 22% lost a company-issued work device All these behaviors can cause cybersecurity breaches for a small

Ransomware attacking Macs By Carolyn Schrader If your small business uses Macs, you need to be sure you have strong back-up protocols in place. A ransomware, MacRansom, is being used to attach MAC computers. Cyber criminals can get a copy for the asking from the creator, through an email address. The creator is providing the malware to hackers as ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS). According to researchers at Fortinet, a cybersecurity software company, the creator is leveraging

3rd Party and Vendor Lack of Security Still is Creating Vulnerabilities By Charles Parker II No business is an island. At times, they require outside services from vendors to complete their mission. An organization, as a rule of thumb, is not able to have every employee available that is a subject matter expert (SME) on everything that affects a business. The networks and systems are simply too complex with too many parts moving in tandem to have a labor force of experts. It

Not Ocean’s 14: Casinos are also an e-Target By Charles Parker II Casinos are no different than an accounting firm, hospital, or manufacturer in at least one sense when cybersecurity is the common thread. These entities hold data that people want to steal. This data is then sold or otherwise leveraged for their own uses to generate revenue or simply sold. One industry not researched at length has been the casinos. These businesses tend to focus more on the physical security a