This sounds like a nightmare that could never happen.
US soldiers have been 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. It seems these are common learning tools used in universities to help students memorise facts. That works well so long as the facts aren’t top secret! Even worse, their settings were on ‘public’ not ‘private’!
It is 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 KARE FOUNDATION proactive cyber-security plan helps identify use of these sites in your organisation.
Shadow IT is part of our 10-point cyber-security check list
While there is no single layer of technology that can guarantee you will be safe from hackers, you can reduce your risk by adding layers of protection. How many of our 10-point check list are in place for you?
Those scamming so and so’s
In September, Kinetics held a lunchtime IT security event focused around a presentation by our CTO Bill Lunam. After taking us though an abridged history of the internet, and an update on the current status of Internet crime, Bill explained some specific’s around the...
Microsoft Update – Backup Authenticator (Two-factor authentication tool) and Window 10 1909 ?
Firstly, unless you just delete our emails, or ignore what we (and every other tech professional) have been saying, you should now be using 2FA (two factor authentication) on pretty much everything, especially your Office365. The downside is that you don’t want to...
Bigger than Texas?
Its easy to think of security as something that’s only for larger organisations. They can afford the fancy systems that lock down networks, wireless connections and endpoint PCs & mobile devices. After all, aren't they the only organisations that hackers target?...
Compare two (near) identical Word files, without going insane
Of course, in a modern cloud world, this shouldn’t happen! We should share a link to a file and use versions to maintain it’s history. But we’re not in a perfect work, and we often get multiple people updating copies of the same file. Its all good until we have to...
Scamming your payroll
Keep an eye on your payroll! We're hearing about a bold new scam in the US, but it's bound to come to our shores soon. It's probably more likely to be effective in larger businesses or ones with an outsourced payroll. Essentially, the scammers try to intercept staff...
Would you click on either of these?
You are most vulnerable when you are busy, frantically jumping from call to call, meeting to meeting, distraction to distraction. So when you get a dodgy email, it's very easy to open it. This morning, that was me! And, even as hyper-aware as I am, I still...
Is your phone one of the 25M infected Android phones?
Watch your phone! Agent Smith is the name of the somewhat dry villain character in the Matrix movie trilogy from the late 90's. He appears everywhere, instantly, taking over legitimate personas and replacing them with himself. So is a well-named virus (actually...
Why old versions of Microsoft Windows and Microsoft SQL are putting you at risk
Modernise your infrastructure and future-proof your technology Prepare for Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 end of support With the end of support for Windows Server 2008 fast approaching, and SQL Server 2008 recently expired, now is the time to start...
Why you should care about BlueKeep
Regular readers will know that we are fanatical about updates and patches for all critical software. The world is more connected and the cyber-crime community is more organised and determined than ever. If you think cyber-criminals are teenage kids working from home,...
9 Common Excel Mistakes
We were reminded of the risks of messing up spreadsheets in a recent blog post at Oracle: The scary fact they quote is that 88% of all spreadsheets are wrong! The consequences of relying on bad information as a result can be insane! That reminded me of a couple of...