WyzGuys Tech Talk

One way that cyber criminals use to get personal information, such as user IDs and passwords, from unsuspecting computer users is to trick them out of it.  These sorts of methods are called “social engineering” in the computer security trade.  Social engineering is using trickery, deceit, or fraud to get the victim to help the cyber criminal in their exploit, and relies on the natural human tendency to help, cooperate, or comply with authoritative sounding requests.  Unfortunately, the weakest link ...

I have been writing about the latest threat, CryptoLocker, and promised I would report what ever Carbonite replied to my inquiry about whether CryptoLocker could encrypt online backups.  Here is what they said:

Computers infected with the CryptoLocker virus would indeed be at risk to having their online Carbonite backups also encrypted. In fact we see this on a daily basis unfortunately. Carbonite recognizes when a file previously backed up changes and automatically seeds it for backup. Assuming the client software ...

I recently wrote about the threat that CryptoLocker is to your personal files and data.  After doing more research into it, this is what I know so far:

Information I am reading about this says that CryptoLocker only can encrypt local drives (those installed in your computer and USB external drives attached to your computer) and connected shared network drives (drives located on another computer or shared drive that shows up on your computer as a mapped drive).

I am not ...

I got a fake “your email box is full” message from my “Email Administrator.”

I know this is fake, because we have our own email service and I am the administrator.   One of the things I like to do is hover (DO NOT CLICK ON LINK) over the link to discover the actual destination of the link.

In this ...

Trend Micro has a nifty series of 9 – 5 minute videos that show just how dangerous the world could become with everything becoming network connected and moving to “the Cloud” (the Internet).  Check it out here.  With names like Switched Off, Stay Calm, We Didn’t See It Coming, it makes for interesting viewing.  Trend Micro is releasing one episode a week during Cyber Security Awareness Month and into November.

Go check it out.  This is very, very possible.

The weakest link in your security program is always going to be your employees.  Most people are too trusting, too gullible, and too uninformed when it comes to computer and network security.  A hacker does not need great skill or fancy software tools if a simple social engineering exploit such as a phone call will get them the user credentials of one of your employees.

The best solution, and possibly the only solution, is to provide training to your employees so ...

Many, if not most, small businesses keep customer information on their computers or servers.  When you collect and store customer information there is an expectation that the information will remain secure.  In some cases there are legal liabilities to the small business if client information is released.  Credit card information is regulated under PCI-DSS, and releasing this information is a $25,000 fine PER CARD NUMBER.  This can be double in the case of willful negligence.  There are other regulatory requirements ...