People are the weakest link
This sounds like a nightmare too impossible to happen. US soldiers putting sensitive information online in non-secure third party websites. It defies belief, yet we’re reading that it happened. The story popped up on ‘Gizmodo’
It is alleged that US Soldiers were saving sensitive information on a couple of common flashcard sites, presumably of things they were trying to memorise and learn. Even worse, their settings were on ‘public’ not ‘private’
It’s a classic warning about the risk of people, however well intentioned, saving critical data online in places the organisation is unaware of, and can’t control. That’s why our new KARE for Security S2 plan helps identify use of these sites in your organisation.
US Soldiers Accidentally Leaked Nuclear Weapons Secrets: Report (gizmodo.com)
Shadow IT
Shadow IT is one of the largest threats to data privacy in organisations today.
It’s not necessarily because these sites are going to be hacked, although that’s always possible, but just because if you don’t know the tools are in use, then there is no way that you can manage them!
The first step to maintaining this data is to identify it! That’s why you need new tools that are cloud focused. If you’re still using the same old security tools that you used to use prior to the cloud, then you are not keeping up and we need to talk!
The Worst Hack in US History
In the last week, we’ve seen two major successful attacks on critical US IT management and Cyber security tools. The first we learned about was on FireEye which is one of the leading and most trusted cyber security tools, used by much of the Fortune 500. ...
Windows 7 slips quietly away
There is no doubt about it, 2020 will be a year to remember. COVID : Lockdowns, work from home, toilet paper shortages, return to level 3, hand cleaners, level 2, mask envy, normality (kind of), lockdown again, election(s), housing market and more. Perhaps the only...
DDOS – Distributed Denial of Service Attack (aka what went wrong at the NZ Stock Exchange)
Denial of Service (aka what went wrong at the NZX?) In September the NZ Stock Exchange was the victim of an attempted extortion via a DDOS attack. The attack took them offline serval times over a number of days. Many business are now asking, what is DDOS and could...
What’s new in Microsoft Office for the end of 2020?
There is a pay-off!! While there are few things as annoying as Office occasionally pausing to install new features, there is a benefit in the new abilities you get. While the timing always seems to be terrible, it should save you time in the long run. Here’s three of...
Urgent Security Warning – Nitro PDF
CERT NZ have issued a warning about Nitro PDF. It’s a common PDF tool that users log into to share documents. Unfortunately, there are reports that hackers have breached their database We’re being told that “Nitro PDF, a PDF enterprise document creation and sharing...
Keeping our Security tools up to speed
Cyber-crime is estimated to earn criminals US$7 Trillion a year That sort of money buys cyber criminals a lot of resources. It’s no surprise then that cybercrime has its own support industries. You don’t need to access the "Darknet" to purchase hacker tools. Many...
GOOD PROCESS WASN’T GOOD ENOUGH – SCAMMERS STILL WON
In August we all heard about Team NZ falling prey to a $2.8 million invoice payment fraud. It was the now-familiar story of a fake or hacked email, asking for payment to go to a different bank account. We should all be familiar with these tales by now. I’m sure that...
Hacking the hackers (aka what goes around, comes around)
Even hackers can be hacked! Isn't that serendipitous? There is a website, Cit0Day.in, which hosts 23,000 hacked databases. Access is available at a cost, daily or monthly subscription. Hackers mine this data for passwords and other information. They then use this...
40 years of the IBM PC
For our working generation, desktop computers have been a mainstay of our work life. Its a very different world to the generation before us. In fact this month marks 40 years since IBM signed two young men from a new business called 'Microsoft' to write the operating...
When imitation isn’t flattery!
According to CheckPoint, Microsoft is THE most imitated brand on the internet. We all know that criminals like to pretend to be Microsoft for their phishing attempts, and in the last quarter, misuse of the Microsoft brand for this jumped dramatically – 19% of all...