Skip to main content

Cybersecurity

I went to a Cybersecurity conference last week hosted by Data Connectors and I want to give kudos for the job well done in running the conference. 

First of all they held the conference in a very nice Westin downtown, so the facility was great!  The Vendors were very informative and the presentations were very good as well!  There was a good mix of breaks so we could talk with the Vendors and learn more about their products.  The lunch and snacks were good too!  Always a plus!

But back to the subject of Cybersecurity.  It's truly amazing all the cyber attacks made against companies, websites, home owners, smart phones, etc.  I don't remember the exact numbers, but at the time they presented them, I was amazed how high it is, and how high it's going to be.  Everything on the web is exposed and most people don't realize the bad exposure that's out there.  Yes, bigger companies are spending lots of money to protect their data but the regular "Joe" with a smart phone or IoT's at home doesn't really think about the vulnerabilities.

Attending the conference, was a good reminder of the different ways hackers try to get us.  I don't know how many times we've told users at our company to not click on links in emails you're not familiar with, but do!  Last year, it happened to us about 3 times w/n a months span and the attack changed all our pdf files to encrypted files.  One of the presentations at the conference talked about training users at their company and also sending out their own "phishing" emails to test their users, which I think is a great idea!

And I hope if you're a user at home that you have some kind of Anti-virus software on your pc.  There are some free versions out there but spending the extra $80/yr is definitely worth it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Alexa Is Listening, Recording, and Sending!

Check out this story where a couple in Oregon was having a private conversation and Alexa recorded and sent the conversation to one of their contacts!  They were not aware until the contact contacted them about what had happened.  The couple contacted Amazon and they verified the series of events.  But what's even more bizarre is the couple wanted to return their Amazon home devices but Amazon has not agreed to return the costs for the devices! Check out the article here  by Bruce Brown on  Digital Trends

The IT Helpdesk

One of the custom programs we created when I first started working with my current employer was an IT Helpdesk.  This was a program we wrote (ASP classic with SQL Server backend) to help track and manage our IT tasks/work. We managed our work into three categories: Production, Projects and List Items.  Production items were issues that needed to addressed right away ("on fire"), whether it be a system bug, a special report, etc.  Projects were larger tasks that would take a month or more to completes.  And list items where the requests that weren't really critical but could be worked on when Production and Projects were completed. 15 years ago it was more of a management tool for IT tasks, but now it has become a great resource for me when trying to figure out issues that have come up in the past.  This is especially helpful now that I'm the only developer/programmer here at my work.  When you have hundreds of pages and thousands of lines of code it's just har

Superbowl Weekend

Since I'm a huge sports fan I'm going to mostly talk about the big game this Sunday!  But first my rant about the Cincinnati Bengals!  I'm from the Cincinnati area and have grown up a Bengals fan.  When Marvin Lewis took over it was a good move and he did do a good job turning a losing program into a winning program.  But it's been 15 years now, no playoff wins (0-7) and the team has been getting worse the past 2 seasons (along with some really devastating losses).  So the Bengals extend his contract another 2 years?  I used to buy season tix for half the season but until the Bengals make some changes, starting with Marvin Lewis, I'm no longer buying tickets. Anyhow, I want the Eagles to win on Sunday but I think the Patriots will win.  I actually thought the Eagles were done with when Wentz got hurt but Foles has done a great job as the QB.  But the Patriots know how to win, and it doesn't matter who's on the roster as long as they have Brady and Belichic