Cybersecurity is crucial for everyone to focus on, both in the professional environment and in their personal lives. That’s why I wanted to put together a list of cybersecurity practices you should encourage your team to follow when they aren’t in the office or working remotely, when their time is theirs.
k_Street Consulting, LLC Blog
All it takes is one oversight to potentially undo any benefits your cybersecurity protections and other best practices may deliver. For instance, even if you have things like multifactor authentication in place, a phishing scam or even some malware varieties could potentially give an attacker access to your email… and all the data your messages contain, just sitting in your inbox.
Nowadays, it is crucial that you make security a top priority. With the right approach, it not only saves you massive headaches, but also a considerable amount of capital—particularly if you leverage the appropriate solutions for SMBs. As a managed service provider, we can ensure that you implement the appropriate IT solutions to maximize the return on your security investment.
Network security is complicated, and as such, you need to have considerable knowledge of it to ensure that your business is as secure as possible against the plethora of threats out there. Thankfully, you don’t have to do it alone. We want to give you some insight into the dos and don’ts of network security.
Small and medium-sized businesses largely rely on their standing amongst their audience, which means their reputations are critically important to preserve. Unsurprisingly, one of the fastest ways to damage—if not eliminate—their reputation amongst the public is to suffer a cybersecurity event. Let’s examine some statistics, and consider what you need to do to keep your business from becoming one.
Technology and digital tools are a hot topic on our blog, but where there is technology, there is also data… and where there is data, there will be hackers trying to steal it. Data breaches are a common thread in all industries, and to prove this, we have put together six of the most notable data breaches from 2023. We hope you can learn a thing or two from them!
In this blog, we continuously try to caution individuals against clicking on suspicious links, but distinguishing between a genuine URL and a questionable one has become increasingly challenging. Malicious tactics have evolved, making it imperative for everyone to remain vigilant. These threats are pervasive, coming from various directions. This discussion will focus on a single punctuation mark that can help determine whether a link is genuinely safe or potentially perilous.
Ensuring the security of your data is extremely important. If you are a frequent reader of this blog, you know that any unauthorized access to sensitive information can result in severe consequences for your business. The problem is that today’s cybercriminal tactics have become increasingly sophisticated, posing a constant challenge to organizational data security. Today, we look at six things you can do to keep your data secure.
Every organization needs to have a certain level of cybersecurity protection in place. That includes firewalls, antivirus, VPNs, encryption, and centrally managed security policies. Even so, many modern cybercriminals know that businesses have these protections in place, and they are working out ways around them.
Email is complex, despite all appearances. It’s easy to overlook its complexities when you log into your account and it just works. However, you’ll need to ensure that your email is managed properly, as well as secured with protective measures for the underlying technology. Let’s go over some of the more effective methods you can use to keep your infrastructure secure from all types of threats, whether they are visible or hidden.
The State of Maine in the United States has been the victim of a cyberattack.
That’s right, the whole state was hacked by a Russian hacking collective.
The state claims that over 1.3 million people’s personal information was compromised via an already known vulnerability in secure transfer service MOVEit Transfer. Unfortunately for the people of Maine, this vulnerability is known to be used by the Cl0p ransomware gang, based out of Russia.
You might think that adding additional security measures can only benefit your business, and this is true in most circumstances, save one: security exhaustion. If you don’t make it easy for your employees to adhere to your security policies, then you could inadvertently be making them perform slower than usual and your solutions could be getting in the way of their work.
Back in July, the White House secured commitments from Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Inflection, Meta, Microsoft, and OpenAI to help manage the risks that artificial intelligence potentially poses. More recently, eight more companies—Adobe, Cohere, IBM, Nvidia, Palantir, Salesforce, Scale AI, and Stability—also pledged to maintain “the development of safe, secure, and trustworthy AI,” as a White House brief reported.
It’s an unfortunate fact that cybercriminals are motivated to attack places that contain large volumes of sensitive data, but typically lack the budget or in-house skills to sufficiently protect it. It’s even more unfortunate that this description directly applies to many schools and school systems.
Let’s talk about what schools have to offer cybercriminals, and what they need to do as a result.
It’s borderline impossible to conduct any business online without seeing potential threats abound. It also doesn’t help that threats tend to disguise themselves to avoid being detected. Today, we want to share a social media threat that one of our employees discovered while going about their day, and we think even a cautious user could have been fooled by it.
The cloud is an amazing tool for just about any business, allowing for countless benefits that span endless possibilities. However, because it involves the Internet and hosting data in an online environment, there are security challenges that naturally come about as a result of utilizing it. Let’s consider some of the security mistakes that businesses can experience while using the cloud.
For today’s business, there are very few threats that are as pervasive as cyberthreats. For this reason organizations that are willing to invest in their cybersecurity seem to have more control over their data and operations. With cyberthreats constantly evolving and becoming more sophisticated, it is crucial to equip ourselves with the right tools to protect our digital assets. In this week’s blog post, we will explore some of the most important cybersecurity tools that every individual and organization should consider implementing.
Viruses and malware are bad. Ransomware is crippling. Data breaches in some cases can more or less shut down a business. We talk about these threats all the time, but for most people, they are just scary-sounding buzzwords. Today, we want to talk about the more personalized threats that are much more cunning, and in some ways, much more dangerous.
Phishing attacks are the most common attack vector used by hackers, and while it helps to know what a phishing attack looks like, it’s also good to know what they don’t look like. The latest example of a phishing attack takes this to an extreme, utilizing blank messages to confuse recipients in a creative take on phishing attacks.
If you have never imagined your business in the crosshairs of enemy hackers, you could be in for a rude awakening. Unauthorized access to important business data could be enough to bring your business’ operations grinding to a halt, among other consequences. You need to focus your efforts on security, including protecting your infrastructure and ensuring its redundancy through data backup systems.
Many web browsers, like Google Chrome, have features that allow for convenient password-keeping, but at the cost of considerable cybersecurity risks. We recommend that all businesses utilize a password management tool, but preferably not one that is built into a web browser. Why? We’re glad you asked!
As time goes on, businesses are doing more and more to protect their digital assets from theft and corruption. Whether that is deploying tools, providing training, or getting the support you need to successfully secure your business from the myriad of threats coming your way, you need to be deliberate about the way you go about deploying your security resources. Today, we want to touch on security training and the role it plays in your cybersecurity.
Phishing attacks are one of the most common security threats to your business, not only because they are effective, but because they can be utilized in many different ways. You can become the victim of a phishing attack through email, instant message, phone, or even your voicemail. These “phoicemail” attacks are quite crafty in their approach, and you should be wary of them.
At the end of January, the Federal Bureau of Investigation went public with an announcement that they had taken down the servers and Dark Web sites utilized by the Hive ransomware gang. This is a major victory, in terms of fighting cybercrime, but a certain statistic from this operation shows a somewhat disconcerting trend.
Passwords, as annoying as they are sometimes, are the front line of defense to almost every account and profile your business depends on. That doesn’t stop security professionals from trying to develop better strategies to secure digital systems. Some of the biggest names in tech are searching for ways to forge ahead passwordless. Let’s take a look at one example that has drawn the attention of the tech community.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning are entering the mainstream technology discourse, and with software developing the ability to learn from datasets, many businesses are using this technology to automate their processes to cut down on costs and better use their current resources. There is a lot of good that comes from this, but only when you look past these benefits can you start to see the drawbacks, including an important one called “data poisoning.”
Despite not wanting to think about cybersecurity incidents derailing your operations, it’s important nevertheless to consider them before it’s too late to do anything about them. These days, businesses need to invest considerable capital into protections, including a cyber insurance policy to cover all of their bases.
Let’s discuss some of your options for cybersecurity insurance and what you’ll need to know to make the most informed decisions possible.
For quite a while it took an actual disaster to encourage business leaders to allocate any time and money to put towards cybersecurity. Many businesses still don’t, in fact. Those that have, while absolutely prudent in their use of resources to help ward off security problems, may forget that there are still things that need to be done aside from employee training to keep their security up. Let’s go through a few things that every organization should be doing to maintain the security of their information systems.
Cybersecurity is one part of your business’ computing that you must prioritize, as the fallout of a data breach could, in many cases, be enough to shutter your business for good. You want to be seen as a company that takes data security seriously, and to this end, you have likely implemented countless security features and measures to protect your organization’s resources and data. However, this all comes at a cost, and it’s not the one you might expect: your employees.
Passwords used to be the law of the land, but in a world where passwords are more at risk of threats than ever before, people have turned to passwordless solutions. In fact, one of the biggest tech companies out there—Google—recently took steps toward passwordless authentication which we think is pretty darn important.
For the most part, Microsoft takes security as seriously as it should, issuing updates and patches to maintain your Windows and Server operating systems. While you can count on receiving these updates for your supported operating systems, what you might not have known is that Microsoft accidentally overlooked a flaw in its own defenses.
When it comes to your network and its security, you cannot give all of your users access to all of your assets. It’s just not a good practice, and doing so can potentially put your resources at risk. Let’s discuss how network segmentation can make a world of difference for the integrity of your network and the data found on it.
In the technology news sector, you’ve probably noticed a trend where Patch Tuesday makes headlines at least once a month. This is generally the day when Microsoft issues patches and security updates for its many different technologies, and it’s important for your IT department to know when Patch Tuesday falls each month.
It can be too easy to think about hackers and cybercriminals in an almost abstract way, diminishing them to little more than a faceless entity at a keyboard. Naturally, this is far from the truth. Let’s examine the reality of the cybercrime industry, which actually does as much harm to the perpetrators as it does to the people they scam...if not more.
Business owners often get unsolicited emails from individuals who want to sell them goods, services, or products. Depending on the message, they might even come across as a bit suspicious, prompting you to question the authenticity of the email. If you’re not careful, you might accidentally expose your organization by clicking on the wrong link in the wrong email, thus falling victim to the oldest trick in the book: the phishing attack.
Smartphones have managed to hold out against ransomware a bit longer than other hardware and operating systems, but those days are coming to an end. It’s important to remember that the average smartphone is not protected with antivirus software and thus remains threatened by your standard ransomware attacks. It is absolutely critical that your business doubles down on its protection against ransomware, especially in the mobile market.
Social engineering is a dangerous threat that could derail even the most prepared business. Even if you implement the best security solutions on the market, they mean nothing if a cybercriminal tricks you into acting impulsively. Let’s go over specific methods of social engineering that hackers might use to trick you.
With so many workers constantly connected to screens and other technology, it is a good idea to disconnect every so often by taking a vacation somewhere. However, it’s not always this easy, especially for a business owner who is still minimally connected to the office even while technically on vacation. We’ve got a couple of tips for how you can make the most of your technology while on your vacation without putting your company at risk in the process.
Sometimes it can be easy to take cybersecurity for granted, especially when you consider that built-in security features are more powerful than they have ever been. Unfortunately, if you think that cybersecurity is something that ends with the built-in security of your desktops and laptops, then you’re in for a rude awakening.
Hacking attacks can be stressful to manage, but when you add in that they can strike when you least expect them to, it gets a lot worse. You’ll never know how you respond to such an event unless you simulate it and replicate it somehow. This is what the penetration test is used for; it provides your business with a way to prepare for cyberattacks.
Botnets are nefarious entities consisting of countless connected devices, all of which have been infected by hackers to perform malicious deeds. One such botnet, a Russian botnet consisting of millions of infected Internet of Things devices, has been dismantled and taken down by the United States Department of Justice and various law enforcement agencies throughout Germany, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands.
Cyberattacks have caused many millions of dollars worth of damage to businesses over the past several years, so it makes sense that your business should invest in its cybersecurity to mitigate these damages. That said, there is only so much you can invest into your cybersecurity budget, as you have to factor in other parts of your business, too. Today, we want to share with you three ways you can invest in cybersecurity initiatives that won’t completely break your bank.
How many devices or points of access do you have for your business’ data infrastructure? Chances are it’s more than you think, at least at first glance. If you count up all the mobile devices, server units, workstations, laptops, and so on that have access to your network, you might suddenly realize how important it is to secure all of these endpoints, as any unsecured device could be a path forward for hackers.
Cybersecurity is something that must be reinforced both in the office and out of the office for your remote employees, and it’s unfortunately quite difficult to maintain. Let’s take a look at the unique circumstances surrounding the remote worker and how you should reinforce security best practices for them, even if they are not physically present in the workplace.
If you aren’t making cybersecurity a priority for your business, then we urge you to review the following statistics to ensure that you understand the gravity of the consequences. Let’s take a look at some of the ways scammers and hackers are making their way around the carefully-laid defenses placed by businesses and how you can protect your own organization.
There are times when you, as a business owner, might receive unsolicited emails from organizations asking you to try a product or asking for your input on something. More likely than not, the one responsible used data scraping to get your contact information. If it’s used appropriately, data scraping can be an effective marketing tool, but it can also be utilized by scammers to make your life miserable.
Businesses largely rely on their information systems and other technology tools, so you need to make sure they stay secure and far from the many threats out there. To this end, we recommend that you implement security systems that prioritize business continuity and data security. Let’s examine three ways you can keep your business’ IT safe and secure.
With Google Chrome being one of the most popular web browsers out there, it’s no surprise that threats want to target it and take advantage of its users. However, up until recently, there have not been very many zero-day threats associated with Chrome. Zero-day threats are attacks that have never been seen before, affecting a new and previously unknown vulnerability. We want to remind you that it’s not always a bad thing when vulnerabilities are discovered in a browser or web application—in fact, it can actually be indicative of good monitoring practices.
Cybersecurity is incredibly important for any organization that requires IT to remain operational (basically all of them), so it’s time to start thinking about your own strategies and how you can keep threats out of your network. One viable solution your business can implement is a Security Operations Center (SOC). What is a SOC, and how can you use it to keep threats off your network?
If you are someone who gets stressed out easily by people having access to resources they shouldn’t, then you probably have heard much about how to keep your data and internal resources safe from external threats. However, access control is much more than just cybersecurity; you also need to take into account the physical space when considering your access controls.
How often do you check social media only to find your news feed clogged with your friends and family sharing the results of quizzes like, “Which Star Wars character are you,” or “What’s your superhero name based on your birthday.” While these quizzes might seem harmless on the surface, they often hide a far more sinister agenda, one which uses the personally identifiable information provided to them for nefarious purposes.
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 isn’t just walking into your office and making off with your technology?
It can be tough to get your staff to care about your business’ network security, especially if they don’t consider it part of their day-to-day tasks or responsibilities. However, network security is not just isolated to your IT department; it matters to everyone, and if you can convince your staff to adhere to best practices, your security will be that much more effective moving forward. Here are seven tips you can use to get your staff to care about network security.
During the first half of the Super Bowl last month, cryptocurrency exchange company Coinbase bought a minute of ad space to broadcast an ad that was just a QR code on the screen, meandering diagonally around the screen like the famous Windows screensaver. Millions of people took out their smartphones and scanned the code and now cybersecurity professionals are publicly decrying the tactic.
How effective is your cybersecurity? It seems like a simple question, but no less important to consider and determine as the answer could be the difference between a prevented breach and a successful one. In order to keep track of your business’ cybersecurity preparedness, it is important that you regularly evaluate it. Let’s go through the essential steps to performing such an evaluation.
We all know at this point how dangerous ransomware can be for businesses. It can lock down files, threaten operational continuity, and in some cases subject victims to brutal fines as a result of privacy breaches. One place where you might not expect ransomware to hit, however, is customer reviews, and it all stems from the big question: do you pay to resolve a ransomware attack or not?
Do you ever see an advertisement for a free download of a popular Windows application and think, “Wow, this sure sounds too good to be true!”? Well, it most definitely is, and hackers use these malvertisements to infect computers with malware and other threats. Specifically, malvertising is used to download three different types of malware, all of which can cause harm to unwary businesses.
Passwords have been a staple in data security and user authentication for many, many years… to the point where the idea of using a password has become nearly synonymous with the concept of security. However, data has increasingly shown that alternative options are in fact more secure. Let’s examine some of these passwordless authentication methods, and their pros and cons.
Protecting your organization’s data is a major focus of businesses these days, especially as threats grow more powerful and they better learn to penetrate the countless safeguards put into place. Let’s go over how encryption can help you cover all your bases—especially if hackers do manage to get through your security precautions.
Network security is challenging for many businesses, and it’s largely because of the large number of various threats that populate the Internet. Some companies simply don’t know what the correct measures to take are, leaving themselves vulnerable to these threats on both a security standpoint and an employee training standpoint. We’ll delve into some of these threats and how they can be addressed.
When we think about security and hackers, it’s easy to think of them all as the bad guys. However, this is far from the truth. Just like with other areas of life, there is a shade of gray involved with hacking, and there are good guys that use these skills to benefit others while the bad guys try to exploit them for their gain.
As modern warfare has evolved, so too has cyberwarfare. There is always a war occurring in cyberspace, where hackers attempt to outdo security researchers. One such example of hackers—often sponsored by government agencies—attempting to engage in cyberwarfare can be seen in the United States and Israeli technology sectors, which have become the target of password spraying.
Earlier this year, there was a string of high-profile ransomware attacks leveraged against major companies. Now, the United States has issued an order that dictates guidelines for how to patch various vulnerabilities in affected systems within federal agencies and organizations. It’s a huge move in an effort to stop hackers and other cyberthreats from becoming more serious problems in the future.
You see the headlines every single day while browsing the Internet: “So-and-So Suffers Massive Data Breach” or “Huge Data Breach Leaves Thousands of Credentials Exposed to Hackers.” Maybe you don’t see these specific headlines, but you get the idea; cybersecurity is a big deal these days, and you need to take it seriously before your business encounters problems that it cannot recover from.
Network security is one aspect of your business that absolutely should not be underestimated. In fact, many companies fail to adequately monitor their networks, and it can lead to many complications down the road. Why is it so critical to monitor your network, and how can you make sure that your business is actually doing it?
Artificial intelligence, or AI, is a technology that many industries have found themselves benefiting greatly from, especially in the domains of cybersecurity and automation. Unfortunately, for every one great use of something, hackers will find two bad uses for it. AI has dramatically changed the landscape of cybersecurity and, more interestingly, cybercrime. Let’s take a look at why these threats are so concerning.
Businesses need all of the advantages they can get against threats, especially considering the fact that many of them adapt and evolve in response to advances in security measures. Some security researchers are seeing great success with artificial intelligence measures, a concept that could eventually become the future of network security in the business world.
Dealing with a hacked computer can be scary, but depending on the severity of the hack, you might not even know your infrastructure has been breached until it’s too late to stop it, putting you in a reactionary position. Let’s go over some of the telltale signs of a computer hack and what you should do about it.
Today’s cybersecurity landscape is dangerous, to say the least, prompting many organizations to adopt what is called a zero-trust policy for their security standards. Is a zero-trust policy the best solution for your company’s cybersecurity woes, and how effective is it toward preventing security issues? Let’s take a look.
A recent trend even amongst ransomware threats is that the FBI is issuing warnings regarding how dangerous it is or how difficult certain variants are. This particular threat—the OnePercent ransomware gang—is no exception. Let’s break down what you need to know about the OnePercent Group and how you can prepare to handle attacks not just from this threat, but most ransomware threats.
One of the most difficult things to do in business is to imagine a scenario in which someone you trust puts your organization at risk. We focus so much on the external threats that the internal ones often go unnoticed. How can you make sure that your organization does not fall victim to the several different types of insider threats out there? Let’s take a look.
You’d think that cybercriminals would use ransomware to target high-profile businesses with loads of money to extort, but this is not always the case. Even a small business can fall victim to these particularly devastating threats. Ransomware, just like other threats out there, has continued to evolve and adjust its approaches based on the current cybersecurity climate, so what are some of the latest developments in ransomware?
To be adept at a task is to say that the one doing the task is a professional, or someone with substantial knowledge that can be used to effectively complete the task. Cybersecurity is one such area where having a considerable amount of knowledge is of particular importance to help navigate the complex environment surrounding it. How can your organization achieve this level of mindfulness and expertise?
The Kaseya ransomware attack targeting VSA servers for approximately 1,500 organizations was another notable attack in a recent string of high-profile ransomware attacks, and while most organizations did what most security professionals recommend and did not pay the ransom, others did not listen. Now those who did pay the ransom are having trouble decrypting their data, and REvil is nowhere to be found to help them in this effort.
Ransomware is bad stuff, and it’s only gotten worse with its recent resurgence that aligned with the COVID-19 pandemic. Phishing attacks and other means by which ransomware is commonly spread have used the current atmosphere as a springboard. This makes it even more critical that these kinds of behaviors and attempts can be spotted and stopped.
The cloud is a popular choice for businesses that need access to tools to sustain operations, but there is an innate flaw that comes from hosting anything in an online environment: security. Do not pretend that security is not an issue for your cloud-based resources—failing to acknowledge the importance of security could be a fatal mistake for organizations that leverage cloud-based technology resources.
Data breaches are a well-known fact in the business environment, and small businesses in particular have many challenges that threaten their operations. It is important that you consider these security issues when putting together your risk management strategy, especially as it pertains to cybersecurity. Let’s take a look at how you can overcome some of the security challenges present for small businesses in 2021.
There is no denying that the cloud has become one of the most popular options for a business to obtain the tools required for their operations. Despite this, it is equally important to acknowledge that there are many ways that the cloud could facilitate security threats if not managed properly. Let’s go over some of the issues that must be addressed if a business is going to successfully leverage cloud technology to its advantage.
In May of 2021, Ireland’s Health Service Executive, which handles healthcare and social services to the Emerald Isle’s nearly five million residents, was the target of a massive ransomware attack. Even as businesses and municipalities from all over the globe have been dealing with this plight, we mention this because of the aftereffects of this situation. Today, we take a look at the situation and what can be learned from it.
If a hacker were to find themselves on your network or within one of your accounts, would you be able to detect them and eliminate them? Today we want to share some of our best strategies for how you can identify the warning signs of a hacking attack, as well as how you should respond. This is particularly important for a workforce that is working remotely, so we hope you take these tips to heart.
With so many high-profile ransomware attacks being launched against manufacturers, pipelines, and even hospitals, it’s no surprise that many companies are worried about what the future of this threat means for their organizations. Ransomware poses a serious threat, one that cannot possibly be ignored, so we urge you to take action now so you don’t come to regret it later.