The holiday season isn’t usually a time we like to spend dwelling on unpleasantries, but unfortunately, cybercrime is too prevalent for us to ever let our guard down. However, in light of the holiday, we can tell a (somewhat) happier story that nevertheless reminds us what to keep an eye out for.
As such, please enjoy our version of Charles Dickens’ lesser-known holiday story.
Allied codebreakers didn't just win with math in WWII; they won with psychological warfare. They manipulated German systems into giving up their secrets. History proves that manipulating a system to expose its inner workings is a timeless, effective tactic.
Now, that same art of manipulation has found its highest-tech target: the Artificial Intelligence your business is starting to rely on. It’s called prompt hacking, and it's a new form of digital social engineering aimed directly at your most valuable AI models.
The Internet is an incredible asset, and while it connects the world and allows organizations to innovate in previously unseen ways, it houses a dark side that is difficult to ignore. We’re talking, of course, about hacking. It’s interesting to learn about how laws are interpreted as they relate to hacking, and the consequences are dire if you get caught.
It’s been said several ways, but it’s true that small businesses are the lifeblood of our community. They are the local diner serving up comfort food and the hardware store that has everything you need. Unfortunately, there's a growing, insidious threat looming over these vital enterprises, a digital assailant that's becoming increasingly sophisticated: ransomware.
Ransomware, for those unfamiliar with this digital menace, is a type of malicious software that blocks access to your computer systems or encrypts your files, demanding a ransom payment—often in cryptocurrency—to restore access. It’s something the iconic character Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers movies would unleash; with a pinky-up “Riiiiight” in tow.
If you think cybercrime doesn’t affect you or your business, think again. It’s more real a threat than you probably realize, especially with how common data theft is these days. Today, we want to highlight some of the ways that data theft can affect you, even if your data hasn’t necessarily been stolen.
There are all types of threats on the Internet, but one of the most interesting that has been in the news recently is the SS7 attacks that have the U.S. Department of Homeland Security scrambling to find a solution. In today’s blog, we’ll go through how an SS7 attack works and why they can be so dangerous.
Recently, it was revealed that Slim CD, a payment gateway provider, experienced a data breach affecting nearly 1.7 million credit card accounts from August 17th, 2023, to June 15th, 2024.
Here’s a breakdown of the situation and the key takeaways that you can use to safeguard your own business.
Sextortion scams are anything but sexy. These attacks are when a scammer contacts a victim claiming to have captured photo or video footage of their target partaking in some adult debauchery—including on-screen content. They threaten to release the footage to their contacts unless they pay.
Scams are so common that everyone should fear them. That doesn’t mean we should be paralyzed by them, though. They’re mostly easy enough to spot, provided you know what to look for. Today, we’re covering these red flags and how you can identify a scam and consider all warning signs to make it out of such a situation unscathed.
Encryption is a vital tool for small businesses to protect their sensitive data from hackers. At its core, encryption converts readable data into an unreadable format using a specific algorithm and an encryption key. This means that even if a hacker gains access to the data, they cannot understand it without the corresponding decryption key. This layer of security is crucial for small businesses, which often handle sensitive customer information, financial records, and proprietary business data. By encrypting this data, businesses can ensure that it remains confidential and secure from unauthorized access.
For those of you who are fans of American football, you are familiar with the interception. When your team’s quarterback throws a pass that ends up in the other team's possession, it can be one of the most frustrating plays for a fan. Let’s discuss the man-in-the-middle (MitM) attack, which is effectively a hacker intercepting data as it is passed from one person to another. Let’s get into it.
It’s hard to vouch for the idea that someone is constantly being attacked by cyberthreats when there is no real tangible evidence to support this notion. People won’t trust words of warning against threats that they cannot see and won’t feel threatened by them until they’re knocking on their door. Today, we want to discuss how you can turn around these challenges, particularly when it comes to training your staff on the importance of cybersecurity.
There are many important elements to cybersecurity, but some mistakes are significantly more costly than others. Today, we want to highlight some of the particularly egregious infractions that you can make regarding your cybersecurity measures.
Data security is an ongoing challenge, given the evolving tactics of hackers and scammers. IT administrators face a complex situation as these threats become more sophisticated. Employing security measures such as multi-factor authentication (MFA) or two-factor authentication (2FA) has emerged as an effective means to enhance organizational data protection. In this discussion, we will go into the advantages of this approach while acknowledging its limitations in providing comprehensive security.
Hackers and scammers are everywhere and are continuously littering your business with situations that could put its operations in jeopardy. One of the most hacked industries is healthcare, as hackers make a point at going after patient information. Let’s go through some of the reasons why hackers find health data so attractive.
What happens when the tools designed to keep organizations safe from network breaches, are the victim of a cyberattack? After all, these tools are just applications, albeit sophisticated pieces of security software, they can run the risk of being exploited much in the same way any other software is. This is exactly what happened to cybersecurity giant Barracuda as it was the victim of a zero-day exploit. Let’s take a look at the hack and how you can protect your business from sharing the same fate.
A modern network, when properly configured and protected with modern cybersecurity tools, can be extremely secure. Since that’s been the trend for some organizations over the years, hackers have been looking for ways around the security many businesses have in place. If hackers can’t break in through normal means, they will turn to other, more insidious methods, like phishing attacks, to get what they are after.
Phishing is a pressing issue for everyone, not just businesses. The main problem is that the phishing messages keep getting more and more sophisticated and keep coming and coming until, eventually, something negative happens. For this week’s tip, we wanted to discuss the different types of phishing you can encounter.
Last week, we went through why training is such a crucial part of your business’ cybersecurity process. This week we will turn our attention to some of the tools and other strategies that your organization should be using to mitigate security threats.
Admit it, you don’t know all that much about cybersecurity. In this blog, we spend a lot of time discussing security issues. After all, today there are more threats than ever and many different types of problems that IT administrators, business decision-makers, and even individual employees have to deal with. Over the next two weeks, we have decided to discuss the reality of cybersecurity and what you need to know to get out in front of it.