Another out of cycle post, this one directed to anyone who is running balloting operations for the upcoming elections. I make jokes all the time about our next president being elected by the Russian Cyber Army, the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army Unit 61398, the ISIS Cyber Caliphate, or the Syrian Electronic Army. But this is a ...
It was 15 years ago that Osama Bin Laden carried out the most dramatic and successful attack against the United States since the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941. The sacrifices made in New York, the Pentagon, and in the air over Shanksville, PA are not to be forgotten.
Solutions seem to be hard to find. Regardless of what side you find yourself on in the larger picture of the continuing hostilities ...
Continue Reading →
Everybody, it seems, is on Facebook, and the numbers back it up, with over 1 billion members worldwide. So naturally, anytime you get a crowd of people this large, the cyber-criminals are going to be all over it.
Don’t even get me started with the oversharing of personal information. Please stop telling me and the crooks that you will be out of town for a week on a Vegas vacation, and your ...
Continue Reading →
I discovered a while ago that my LG smart phone can be used fairly easily to make a surreptitious video of a meeting simply by turning on the video camera and slipping the phone into a shirt pocket. The camera lens clears the edge of the pocket nicely, and there is no indication, at least on my phone, the the camera is rolling. This is a great way to keep a record ...
A recent rule by the Supreme Court has given the FBI authority to hack your computer if it is inadvertently part of a criminal botnet. Recent changes to a procedural rule known as Rule 41 allows the FBI to obtain a search warrant to use “network investigative techniques” or NIT (or more commonly called hacking) to search computers engaged in criminal activity anywhere in the world. This includes innocent computer ...
As we all know, Apple refused to assist the FBI in cracking the iPhone 5c of the San Bernardino “terrorist” killers. The FBI took Apple to court. Then the FBI dropped the case after successfully hacking the phone. Then they successfully hacked another phone in a different case in New York. Information appeared linking Israeli mobile security firm Cellebrite to the successful breach ...
The US House of representatives passed the Email Privacy Act. Finally the Congress passes a bill that actually protects the public from warrantless search and seizure of email records. What makes this vote special is that it was unanimous – 419-to 0! When does that ever happen? Rarely, but considering this bill would protect our representatives too, maybe not all that surprising.
This ...
Continue Reading →
We wrote last year about how the IRS and their Get Transcript service was instrumental in helping identity thieves file fraudulent tax returns for big refunds. The problem was that the IRS used static user identity information that was available elsewhere online. They promised to fix this security problem, but have not. This year, many users of the IP PIN system that was supposed to harden ...
We were recently featured in the January edition of New Business Minnesota. This is a monthly business magazine published by Pat Boulay. You can download a copy of our featured article, Cyber-criminals Put Every Business At Risk, here. There are some additional helpful links below the picture.
Pat also runs a great business networking meeting once a month as well, ...
Continue Reading →
I was surprised to discover proof that my business is a target of cyber-criminals. After installing some security and reporting tools on my websites, I was alerted to the almost constant state of attack that they were under. And all I am doing is writing a cybersecurity blog. And you, dear reader, what of your business? There is a good chance that you are too, but simply don’t know it ...