The threat to a business from outside perpetrators is very real when it comes to cybercrime. But sometimes the threat comes from within, and it is even harder to detect or prevent in the first place. Why would someone try to intentionally hurt the very company that provides them with a paycheck? The reasons vary,...
Last week the President met with leaders in the private sector as well as those in education to discuss the need to address cybersecurity threats to the nation and efforts needed across the board. The increase in incidents and the ongoing threat of attack is something that transcends all the invisible borders that we put...
In August of 2019, Facebook was the victim of a data breach that compromised information from 533 million people from 106 different countries. Why is this in the news now? Because the breach was addressed in a recent email from Facebook management, and that email was accidentally sent to a Belgium-based news outlet and, in...
When you’re a small business, you hope for exposure. But recently, we learned that the Small Business Association (SBA) was the victim of an incident that exposed user data in a less than positive way. This occurred at the end of March, about two weeks into the official COVID-19 crisis for the United States, and...
Insider Threat A recent discovery of a breach of customer data at Fifth Third Bank uncovered a troubling truth. It wasn’t hackers outside the United States that had accessed the information, it was intentionally handed over by employees. Starting in 2018, personal information that included Social Security numbers, addresses, and account numbers were provided by a small...
Made in China The 2017 Equifax breach brought individuals and one of the largest credit agencies to their knees. And now, over 2 years later, the United States Justice Department has charged four Chinese military officials as responsible parties in the breach. The Equifax breach compromised the personal information of nearly 150 million Americans, which...
I’d Like a Word with You In fact, I’d like a word with all 218 million of you. Yes, that is the number of users in the popular game Words With Friends, the very one that was allegedly hacked by the Pakistani hacker, who uses the alias Gnosticplayers, on September 2nd of this year. This...
This week I saw a story link come across my newsfeed to “make sure you get your money from Experian” – it was referring to the compensation being offered as a result of their breach. You could either opt-in for credit monitoring or take the $125 payout. Regardless of what choice you made if you...
If you are management, and your employee came to you with a proposal, you’d likely (hopefully) listen. What if that employee proposed to you that by keeping business as is, you’d likely lose millions of dollars – and possibly go under? But if you made one small change, you’d increase your odds of staying in...
When a breach occurs, after the confusion and panic have passed (or merely settled in), the finger pointing starts. Generally, clients assume that since the anti-virus icon in the corner was there, they were protected. Firewall? Not sure what it is, but I get an alert every now and then about it, so it must...