Business Solutions & Software Group Blog

Artificial intelligence has been making waves in the world of cybersecurity, as machine learning could potentially make the solutions we have today smarter and better at their intended jobs. However, artificial intelligence has also appeared on the other side of cybersecurity, as cybercriminals have begun to leverage A.I. as well.

Seemingly every day you read of a new Internet threat affecting users. As a result, people are more cognizant than ever. What they do fall for time and again are scams that are seemingly person-to-person. The latest one is especially rubbing people the wrong way.

Zero-day threats are all over the news when they are discovered, but what are they exactly? In short, zero-day threats are vulnerabilities found in software that are currently being exploited in the wild without the developers having found a fix for them. In other words, the developer has zero days to prepare for such an exploit. One of the latest vulnerabilities of this nature utilizes Internet Explorer, and thankfully, there is now a patch for it.

Email is a modern classic as far as business solutions are concerned, and you’d be hard-pressed to find an office that didn’t use it in some capacity or another. However, because email is so popular, it has become a favorite attack vector of malicious users. Fortunately, there are some basic practices that will help keep your email account secure and your communications private.

Follow Password Guidelines
As you might imagine, one of the most important, basic ways that you can lock down your email account is to ensure that your password is sufficiently strong. Too often, breach statistics (and similar data sets) reveal that passwords are still overwhelmingly insecure. Pet names, birthdays and anniversaries, and favorite sports teams are used as passwords far more than they should be, as are common keyboard patterns, like qwerty, asdf, and the like. Some minimal social engineering could very easily provide someone with access to an email account they have no business being in.

To counter this, avoid the temptation to resort to formulaic, easy-to-guess password systems - like, for instance, smushing your alma mater’s mascot together with the number of your childhood home. Again, these password conventions are the first things that a cybercriminal will try if they want to get into your email account. Instead, do your best to rely on an as-random-as-possible string of numbers and letters - creating a different one for each of your accounts. This will ensure that your passwords are as strong as possible with the added benefit of protecting the rest of your accounts if one of your passwords is discovered.

Of course, for the sake of pragmatism, is it totally realistic to remember a completely random string of alphanumeric characters for everything that requires a password? For many, it isn’t. That’s why many resort to using, rather than a password, a passphrase. A passphrase takes a sentence memorable to the individual and turns it into a mnemonic device. So, a fan of films by Rob Reiner could take a line from one of his works and create a password from it, like “uRdBS” or “HFSTC” from The Princess Bride, or “UCHTT” from A Few Good Men.

Avoid the Unknown
Once you’ve accessed your email, there are a few ways that you can avoid putting yourself at risk. One very important way is to avoid the links in email unless you have verified that they do, in fact, go to (and come from) where they appear to.

First, where will the included link direct you? Links can be tricky things, which makes them a favorite of cybercriminals to use in emails. If the link is attached to text, you should hover over it and peek at the status bar that pops up before clicking on it. While the text might say that it brings you to the sender’s official webpage, the link could very well actually direct you to a domain that uploads a virus into your system. If the status bar says that you will be directed to someplace that doesn’t look quite right, skip the link.

You also shouldn’t blindly open an email that hasn’t come from a known or verified source, and even that can now be dangerous. There is a tactic that can be used to great effect as a way to snare even the most cybersecurity-mindful targets called email spoofing. As its name suggests, email spoofing is the act of forging an email’s header so that it appears to have come from someone else, likely someone trusted enough that the email will be opened, read, and interacted with.

As a result, it is best to verify the email with the cited sender whenever possible, through a different means of communication. Whether that means a quick phone call or instant message before you open the email, it is better to be safe than it is to be sorry.

What are some other ways that you keep your email from becoming a security risk? Share them in the comments, and make sure you take a moment and subscribe to this blog!

The 2017 Equifax leak was a disastrous scenario, but recent revelations have discovered that even more victims were affected than was previously thought. Nobody ever wants to hear this kind of news, but there is an upside to this that shouldn’t be ignored - learning from the mistake. We’ll start with a refresher on what happened exactly, and what these new developments mean for your organization.

If you’ve ever felt as though someone was watching what you were doing while you were working remotely, either at home or in public, there’s a chance that you were right. Without a private Internet connection, it is a simple matter for others to watch your processes and steal the data you’re generating. Is there any way to protect your data as you work outside of the office?

There is a famous thought experiment devised by physicist Erwin Schrӧdinger, describing a very particular paradox in quantum physics through the experience of a cat. While Schrӧdinger’s cat was initially intended to demonstrate a very different phenomenon, it can also be applied to something that all businesses need to consider: their email security.

The password isn’t nearly as secure as it used to be. Hackers have begun to take advantage of extremely powerful solutions designed to brute force their way into accounts by using software to rapidly guess thousands of passwords per second, making it extraordinarily difficult to prepare yourself for them. What’s the best way to guarantee that passwords aren’t going to be the downfall of your company? A great start is by taking a close look at password best practices and two-factor authentication.

Mobile devices are one of the greatest tools available for business use today. However, because society has come to rely so much on mobile devices, these devices have become a treasure trove for cybercriminals to obtain information from. For this week’s tip, we’ll go over some simple ways to protect yourself from such threats.

While the Internet of Things has increased in use, that doesn’t mean that its users necessarily trust it just yet. Furthermore, many of these users aren’t fully aware of the actual extent that the IoT has in their lives. These results, from a recent survey by Cisco, could be pertinent to your business and how you manage it. With so many new devices connecting to your network, how can you expect them to affect operations?

With every new year comes great new opportunities, and 2018 is no different. However, change can be a good thing, and with a new year also comes more perspective and knowledge that you can use to make considerable improvements to the way you run your organization. Here are four ways that you can use developments in cybersecurity to help your business succeed in the new year.

If you were considering increasing your investment into your information security in 2018, you certainly aren’t alone. Gartner released a report that indicated a considerable rise in plans to invest in key security considerations.

To many, email scams have become a joke. Sitcoms have throwaway punchlines that reference a character getting an email from a rich uncle in Nigeria, or some friend needing funds to get home from an overseas trip. One of these scams may not at first seem to be amusing, as it threatens the recipient’s life, but if read further, proves to be quite the drama.

For the modern business, having a strategy to manage your employees smartphone use is essential. This is because most of the people that work for you have smartphones. One study shows that upwards of 90 percent of people under 30 own a smartphone. If you have any design on running a business, or employing millennials (who are the largest generation in the current workforce), you’ll need to know what you are doing to protect your business from the increasing amount of threats that are out there targeting smartphones.

The holiday season is coming to a close, with meals shared and gifts opened. You may have even received a new gizmo or doodad that you’re looking forward to trying out. Not to burst your bubble, but there is unfortunately a chance that the gizmo you had hoped to get (or purchased for a loved one) may lead to a security breach.

Running a business isn’t cheap, which results in budgets becoming strained under their operational needs. A major contributor to this strain is often the security-focused line items. However, there are a few means and methods to getting the most out of your security budget.

How many applications does your business use on a daily basis? Managing and maintaining them all can be quite the challenge for a number of reasons--particularly if your organization doesn’t have a dedicated IT technician. It’s important that you take a look at your current situation and determine what roadblocks there are that could cause problems for your organization's securty.

In yet another widespread ransomware attack, Eastern European countries saw an assortment of their critical establishments and infrastructures struck by an infection known as Bad Rabbit. Government buildings, media establishments, and transportation centers were among the targets of this attack.

As you run your business, you need to remember a few things. First, your digital security is an incredibly important consideration, as your crucial data could be tampered with or stolen outright. However, you can’t forget the shared importance of your physical security systems and how they will keep your business safe as well.

As much as we personify the items in our life, we should remember that they are just that: items. However, technology has made it so that these items seem to be getting smarter through artificial intelligence. The first computer to play chess against a human opponent was introduced in 1956, and ever since, humanity has strived to make progress in the field of AI. In fact, AI is so valuable that even hackers are trying to take advantage of it.