Hacking Continues to Follow Economic Models By Charles Parker II In economics, there are the basic supply and demand curves. As these move up or down, and left or right, dependent on the circumstances, the price point changes. For instance, as the supply increases, the price decreases. This has been occurring with the price of healthcare or medical records. When the healthcare industry began to be targeted more than others, the attackers saw this as an opportunity to genera

Think Twice Prior to Connecting Your Smartphone to Your Vehicle By Charles Parker II Most people are affected by connected vehicles in some form or another. This may take the form of the user driving their car to the grocery store or to work, the cabs driving people home, the rental vehicle from the airport, a driver using the map function in the infotainment center, and buses being driven through the suburbs and city. Most of these vehicles being seen every day are connected

Select small business audiences need focused cybersecurity training By Carolyn Schrader Now that everyone in your company has participated in basic cybersecurity awareness training and your IT people have done several phishing email exercises, it might be time for you to consider focused training for select employee audiences. Hackers continue to get more sophisticated, so your training needs to continue to expand. Nigerian payment scams still exist, but new innovative scam

When, not if... By Charles Parker The number of businesses through the nation is rather large. Many of these know they are regularly targeted. Too many of the remainder businesses are hoping that security by obscurity works. It does not. Small- and medium-businesses (SMB) are actively targeted by the attackers due to this lack of sufficient focus on Infosec. One symptom of this is a lack of a security policy, or one in place on the shelf with a large amount of dust due to a l

The Generic Blanket Training is not Appropriate or Effective By Charles Parker II Every year corporations and businesses go through the annual, employee dreaded security training. Their eyes become glazed over and the staff’s mouths slowly begin to open even so slightly as the physical manifestations of the apathy being to appear. To simply check the box that the training had been without usability focus is a fallacy of actual security. The training needs to be different fr

Cell Phone Towers Are Also Vulnerable By Charles Parker The typical cell phone towers are omnipresent through the countryside and in the cities. In the cities they may be located on parking structures, buildings, in vacant lots, or near buildings. These cell phone towers or base transceiver stations (BST) function to facilitate the communications between the user’s equipment and the network. This communication is the transmitting and receiving of signals. Issue This equipme

Tax time frauds can harm small businesses By Carolyn Schrader Tax filing due date for individuals is April 18th this year, which is soon approaching. The IRS recently alerted taxpayers to be watchful for last-minute phishing email scams. Cybercriminals continue to send phishing emails requesting employee W2 information. They are also sending scam emails to tax preparers asking for a change of disbursement of refunds to a prepaid debit card or to a different bank account. Sc

WCC14 Domain name privacy for small businesses By Carolyn Schrader Domain names are a must-have in today’s business world. Many businesses own multiple names, even if they only use one actual website. Some businesses neglect to ensure privacy of the registration information, unfortunately. A personal address, email address or phone number are visible to anyone looking, unless the WHOIS data is marked private. What is WHOIS? WHOIS is a protocol used on the Internet. It is

Cyber-Vigilantism By Charles Parker There have been a number of scams perpetrated over the years. These have preyed on the elderly, less than tech savvy, grandparents, and others. They could steal intellectual property, money, staff member data and information, or simply be an annoyance. This could cost thousands of dollars and hours upon hours of work to correct. The effects could last years. With all of the cost, stress, and anxiety this generally causes, people affected

PDFs: Still be wary By Charles Parker Phishing is no different than other attack methodologies. These evolve over time. Initially the attack may be a bit unsophisticated and rough. These attacks tend to work for a bit, until a defense is put in place. At this point, the attack improves its operations or mode of attack, much like a business would improve its operations if the need presented itself. Phishing has exhibited this trait as well. Phishing began, and to an extent,