November 6, 2017 - What are Social Engineering Scams? Social engineering scams are tactics that allows hackers to access your systems through direct manipulation of your employees. This is taking cyber-attacks to a whole new level. And it is challenging because it can be extremely difficult to prevent. With social engineering, the hacker will focus themselves on a specific target. They will try to fool their target into clicking on a link and downloading a file. Or they'll try to get them to reveal personal and confidential information like usernames and passwords. What are the main Social Engineering Scams to watch out for? There are 5 main social engineering scams. Read below to find out how to spot them before [...]

October 2, 2017 - That favorite password you love is great. You know it well. It flies off your fingers onto your keyboard with lightning speed and gets you in everywhere. Unfortunately, if you’re using the same one in more than one place there’s a very good chance it’s out there. And not “out there” in a cool way, it’s out there on the dark web, waiting to be purchased by the next cyber-criminal set out to make some cash and ruin your day. So, what’s the right type of password? Passwords should be like your high school relationships. Super special, constantly changing and overly complicated. By special we mean you should treat each place you log in like it’s [...]

September 25, 2017 - We’ve encountered some interesting perspectives when talking with small businesses about ransomware.  Unfortunately what we’ve found is most small and midsized businesses have beliefs about cyber security and ransomware that are anchored more in myths than in facts.  Here’s the two biggest myths we encountered, and why they’re dangerous for your business. Myth #1: I won't be a victim of ransomware The first thing we found is that most small businesses think they won’t be a victim.  After all, who would want to steal their data?  Unfortunately the stats don’t prove that out….according to Symantec’s 2016 Internet Security Threat Report 43% of cyber attacks actually target small businesses.  That’s a startling statistic, but when you break [...]

March 9, 2017 - Hearing “all of your confidential information is extremely vulnerable, we know this because…” can be good or bad news, but whatever follows the ellipses determines just what type of situation you're in. Consider two scenarios. Scenario 1: “All of your confidential information is extremely vulnerable… we know this because a hacker took all of your customers’ credit card info and locked all of your files behind ransomware.” Scenario 2: “All of your confidential information is extremely vulnerable…we know this because we did a vulnerability scan of your network, and have some suggestions on how you can improve.” 61% percent of small businesses are victimized by cyber attacks each year, and one in five victims do not [...]