A Cautionary Tale
From a security perspective there are two types of business owners; those who have experienced a ransomware outbreak in their business, and those who haven’t. Conversations with either group are drastically different. People who’ve had the misfortune of being at the mercy of a ransomware virus will tell you how surprisingly disruptive it is to their business continuity.
Every year hundreds of thousands of nerds descend on Las Vegas for the annual Consumer Electronics Show. 2018 was no exception as attendance records were shattered across the board. Here are some quick numbers; 4,000 companies exhibited across a sprawling 2.6 million square feet of show floor and entertained and interacted with 185,000 attendees.
For the past several months it’s been difficult to tune into any news outlet without hearing the words “Net Neutrality” and the discussion surrounding the FCC’s intention to repeal, which it did on December 14th. The entire issue is a political one, with passionate opinions on both sides of the argument.
As the IT landscape continues to change we make changes to security settings that are always intended to help, but sometimes the result is a bad user experience- most specifically remote connections. Some of you may have asked yourself lately, “Why do I have to open two programs now when I want to remote into my office?” Indeed that is a very good question.
What is it?
The attack is called a Key Reinstallation Attack, or “KRACK” for short (nerds love a tortured acronym as much as the next person). This attack takes advantage of a flaw in the handshake that Wi-Fi devices use to establish trust between one another.
I was speaking with a client last week and I mentioned the phrase “terminal server” and shortly followed by referring to is as a “Server.” He stopped me cold and asked the question above.
You might wonder the same thing or if not, you have already gone on the next cat video on YouTube.
If you skipped Part 4 → go back.
I mentioned at the first part of this blog series to take a multi-tiered approach. This approach is necessary with today’s landscape.
ANTI-VIRUS is not enough. Traditional anti-virus is a signature-based product.
If you skipped Part 3 → go back.
Patching, Patching, and more Patching.
Adobe came out with this product years ago as a way to transfer documents with a central format. PDF - Personal Document Format. They made this product and started getting requests for forms, signatures, drop downs, macros, and other options.
Our administrative assistant, Heidi, just received a phone call from an anonymous caller.
The man on the phone said he was “Windows IT Support”, that her computer was sending them “signals”, and it needed to be fixed immediately.
He could fix it for her.
