Tabush Group's Cloud & Managed IT Blog

“There are only two types of companies: Those that have been hacked and those that will be hacked.”  --Robert Mueller, former Director of the FBI

If cyber breaches are an inevitable cost of doing business, how a company responds to a breach is of extreme importance. It has recently been revealed that 57 million Uber users and drivers had personal information exposed in late 2016 and that the hackers were paid $100,000 to keep it quiet.  If all stories are true, the biggest issue with the Uber breach may not be the breach itself, but the lack of engagement, management, and delivery of the response. 

Equifax, one of the 3 largest credit agencies in the U.S., last week revealed a security breach which compromised over 140 million individuals’ personal information. While this is not the largest security breach ever in the US, because of the data that was taken, it has the potential to be the most severe, evidenced by the resignation of the company's CEO and the "retiring" of both their CIO and CSO (chief security officer).

Last Friday morning 7am Eastern Time, news started breaking of the internet being down on the east coast of the US. People were having issues accessing multiple websites including Netflix, Amazon, and Twitter during a period of two hours. Later that day, a second shorter outage occurred. 

Did you know that October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month?

It's a great annual reminder for you to take a look at what you and your company are doing to protect your business and systems from potential cyber attacks that could cripple your operations and cost you thousands of dollars in lost revenue.

Phishing emails (emails which appear to be from a legitimate sender, asking for personal or financial information) have been around for many years. However, in the last few months we’ve seen a big rise in spear phishing (scam email specifically targeting a company or person) and ransomware (viruses which encrypt files on your computer and network, and demand a ransom payment to have the files unlocked). These threats are very real for anyone using email.

The Internet is a dangerous place. Unfortunately, due to the lack of central control and ownership, and the fact that the Internet is accessible from anywhere in the world, including many countries without proper law enforcement, there are many fraudulent traps out there looking to steal people’s personal information and money.

While having proper antivirus and anti-malware software is important, it’s also important to always follow safe browsing practices to ensure your data stays private.

Cyberattack = an attempt by hackers to
damage or destroy a computer network or system

Due to several highly publicized data breaches at well-known large brands, cybersecurity has been a hot topic in both tech and main stream media recently. Just because the topic of data protection is currently at the forefront of news reports, it’s important to be aware that it’s in fact always a relevant and important topic. Additionally, it’s just as important for small and midsize businesses (SMBs) as it is for large corporations. A lack of security in your IT infrastructure can lead to an interruption in the ability of your team and business to function.The New York Times recently profiled several small businesses whose operations were put in jeopardy because of cyberattacks.

Your company’s IT system and its performance is at the forefront of your business and the security of your information is of the utmost importance. Whether it is perceived to be relevant to your firm or not, it is important to realize that any organization’s protection is salient.

There are many perceptions, programs and headlines that buzz within the technology industry. Lately, many of those have revolved around one thing: The security of your information and the privacy that it should have.

Technology has been progressing at an amazing rate, especially over the past 20 years. Think back to 1994 and you probably couldn't imagine the Smartphone, DVR, Netflix, Wifi, GPS, or Facebook. Despite these amazing innovations, we seem to be going backwards when it comes to digital security. Viruses, malware, spam, and hacking are much bigger problems than ever before, and it seems to be getting worse. How could this be???

A few months ago I wrote about the Target credit card breach, asking how it could happen. In the past few years it’s also happened to Marshalls/TJ Maxx, the California DMV, Michael’s, PF Chang’s, Neiman Marcus, Sally Beauty, and I'm sure many others that didn’t make the headlines. Then there are the thousands of personal PC's containing years of family photos and videos which may have been maliciously destroyed.