Buckeye IT blog

The modern threat landscape is filled with horror stories of people that have been the victim of software vulnerabilities, hackers, and situations that could have been managed differently. Today, we will go over some of the best ways to keep your business from being a victim of a data breach, data theft, or malware attack.

As the quantity of Wi-Fi compatible devices increases, the demand for wirelessly-transmitted networks follow. While wired connections might seem inferior, Wi-Fi’s accessibility brings a new challenge -- security.

Ransom: a sum of money is demanded in order for the release of goods.
Software: the programs and other operating information used by a computer.

What do you get when you combine the two? Ransomware. 

People’s exposure to cybercrime has been increasing for some time. Today, people with very little coding experience can infiltrate systems and steal data. There is demand for data, and now there is a supply of low-cost--or even free--hacking tools available on the dark web that allows people to get closer to that data. In fact, according to a report by Deloitte entitled Black Market Ecosystem: Estimating the Cost of “Pwnership”, there is a complete economy built around these readily-available hacking tools that are relatively easy to use.

Let’s run through a quick scenario: your company’s computing infrastructure is infected with ransomware. Fortunately, you have an offsite backup, so you are able to restore your systems without too much trouble, other than the time you’ve lost. As you investigate the root cause, you discover that one of your employees allowed the ransomware in by falling for a phishing email. So, do you fire them?

You’d be hard-pressed to find someone nowadays who hasn’t heard of malware, although they may have difficulty identifying different threats as they encounter them. Does this sound like the people that you work with? We’re here with a simple solution to assist you and your team in spotting the different kinds of threats - a malware guide to distribute among your staff so they can better spot the usual suspects.

Imagine a scenario where your password has been stolen by a hacker. Now your accounts are completely at the mercy of them. What do you do? Obviously you want to change the password, but are you going to learn from this mistake or let it happen again in the future? Thankfully, two-factor authentication offers a solution to this dilemma, and it’s one that you might not have considered in the past.

Robocalls plague the world’s smartphone users, but have you ever stopped to ask why you receive them in the first place? Why are robocallers able to hide behind a local number so that you pick up the phone? Scammers are actually using a business tool you may have heard of… Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, a modern phone solution that in the hands of anyone else is extremely helpful.

The man in the middle has a lot of power and influence over the end result, and this is true even in the technological world. In fact, there are attacks dedicated to this vector, twisting and turning something that your organization needs into what amounts to a threat. We’ll discuss what a Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) attack is, as well as what you can do to combat these threats.

Social media has overtaken both the professional and personal aspects of online communication and connection, and while it might provide a considerable boon for both, it increases the odds of being contacted by scams and other malicious attempts. The best way to make sure you don’t fall prey to a scam is to remain vigilant. Today we’ll discuss the various scams that are created for use with social media.

Over 90 percent of people in the United States feel like their data is out of their control, and judging from the impression that the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation left on the world, it’s surely not going to be the last piece of privacy legislation that is issued. Still, will it be enough to urge certain governments and organizations to practice what they preach? The results could have long-lasting effects on businesses, as well.

What has proven to be one of the more effective ways of preventing phishing attacks may be under fire from more advanced threats designed specifically to penetrate the defenses of two-factor authentication. This means that users need to be more cognizant of avoiding these attacks, but how can you help them make educated decisions about this? Let’s start by discussing the phishing attacks that can beat 2FA.

Earlier this week, you may have seen the first part of this article, where we discussed how robocallers collect your information. Today, we continue our discussion on data privacy and what you can do to keep your organization and personal data safe.

Protecting your business’ data is no simple task. To make it as secure as possible, you’ll have to understand how personal data flows through online channels. We’re digging pretty deep with this one, so get ready for an informative and, if nothing else, interesting read. This topic is especially important in an age where Facebook and Google exist, but there are countless other threats to data privacy out there that we all experience on a regular basis--business or not.

If you have an internal IT administrator, they might be pretty stressed about your business’ security. Why? Simple - there’s a good chance that they feel trapped in a few common situations. Let’s review some stresses that influence IT employees, negatively affecting your security.

It wasn’t so long ago when your business could get away with protecting your computer with a simple installation of antivirus software. There were only around 50,000 known computer viruses in the year 2000, but that number has since skyrocketed to an astounding 185 million unique variants of threats.

Sometimes threats come to light only after they’ve been around for long enough to cause concern for the public. This was the case with a new bug found in Apple’s FaceTime app that allowed users to spy on others without their consent through group FaceTime calls. Thankfully, a patch has been issued that resolves it, but perhaps the way that it was implemented is the most interesting of all.

Data security isn’t the easiest thing in the world to plan for, especially if your organization doesn’t have any dedicated security professionals on-hand. While protecting your data with traditional methods, like passwords, firewalls, and antivirus, is important, what measures are you taking to make sure a thief or hacker isn’t just walking into your office and making off with your technology?

It’s nice to get away every now and then, but if you have stayed at any property under the Marriott umbrella, including St. Regis, Westin, Sheraton, or W hotel since 2014, there is a good chance that your personal information has been leaked, a spokesperson from parent company Marriott has said. They said the multinational hotel corporation will begin emailing users impacted by the leak in the coming days.

What’s a smartphone without some apps to download to it? With millions of apps to choose from, developers might often have less-than-virtuous motives that put their users at risk for their own benefit. Recently, Google has removed 22 apps from the Google Play Store that were found to contain automated click-fraud scripts. We’ll delve into what these developers were up to with these fraudulent applications, as well as how they would affect the two-million users that downloaded them.