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From the Inside Out: Encourage Employees to Take Cyber Security Seriously You rely on your cyber security company to provide the safety you need to protect the information of your employees, clients, customers and colleagues. However, sometimes the weakest link can come from within your own company, and it comes from the source that is the most difficult to regulate and predict: your employees. You can have anti-virus and anti-ransomware software, firewalls, internet monitoring, and advanced web filtering and proxy settings, but without good and basic internet safety practices among

By now, you must have heard of the WannaCry ransomware. It ranks as one of the most effective pieces of malware in the internet’s history, and it has everyone worried about what’s coming next. To guard yourself, the best place to start is with a better understanding of what made WannaCry different. Ransomware review Ransomware is a specific type of malware program that either encrypts or steals valuable data and threatens to erase it or release it publicly unless a ransom is paid. We’ve been writing about this terrifying threat for years, but the true genesis of ransomware dates all the

Bluesnarfing: what you need to know When buying a technological device today, whether it’s a smartphone, a speaker, a keyboard or a smart watch, one of things people look for is Bluetooth compatibility. And who could blame them when Bluetooth has become a ubiquitous feature of technology that everyone can’t live without. But just like any technology, convenience can quickly turn into chaos when fallen into the wrong hands. With that in mind, here’s what you need to know to guard against cybercriminals when using Bluetooth. Google paid a settlement fee of $7million for unauthorized data

How should a business approach the end of its relationship with an employee from an IT point of view? Having a plan in place for this separation and taking into consideration the cause of this separation – retirement, amicable parting for new opportunities or termination – can help to ward off any IT surprises and put the company in the best possible position to move forward post separation. Hopefully throughout your employee’s development, your business has worked hard to instill a feeling of investment in and commitment to the organization. By balancing the organization’s trust with the

Mortgage professionals nationwide should take note of new cybersecurity rules The state of New York adopted a cutting-edge set of cybersecurity-compliance requirements in the waning days of 2016 that apply to any organization that reports to its Department of Financial Services (DFS). The regulation, known officially as 23 NYCRR 500, will affect a wide array of industries that do business in the state and with New York organizations or residents. This includes commercial and residential real estate financing professionals — such as mortgage brokers and servicers. Key Points New York’s

Hackers have used Skype to conduct various phone scams; but this month, they have found a new way to exploit the popular video calling app. Ransomware, which has predominantly been distributed via email attachments and URL links, is now being delivered through fake Skype ads. The details below will help you avoid business-crippling ransomware. Initial reports found that the fake Skype ad was disguised as a critical Flash update. Clicking on the ad triggers a download of a seemingly innocuous HTML application named “FlashPlayer.hta”. If opened, the app would download malicious code that

Back up your mobile devices now Mobile phones’ sizes and styles went through massive changes in the last few years. And as their looks and dimensions changed, so did their functions. With better capacity and bigger storage, mobile phones turned into veritable mini-computers that businesses were quick to adopt as a vital office tool. Naturally, hackers got the memo. With new schemes targeted specifically towards mobile devices, you’d be well served backing up the files in your mobile device, now. Malware on mobile More than 50% of the world’s adult population use a mobile phone with

Cybersecurity experts stumbled into a ransomware variant late last month, but this one doesn’t target Windows devices. The malware, known as OSX/Filecoder.E, encrypts Mac data like any cryptolocker strain many businesses have seen in the past. However, unlike normal ransomware that release files after the Bitcoin ransom is paid, this new strain makes no such promises. Read on to find out what you can do about this ransomware. According to ESET security researchers, even though the Filecoder ransomware was written in Apple’s programming language, the malicious code is not as potent or as

How many times have you read a shocking headline, only to find the attached article incredibly underwhelming? Over the last several weeks headlines decrying the threat of “fileless malware” have been everywhere, but the truth is a little less scary. Let’s take a look at what’s really going on and who's actually at risk. What is this new threat? To oversimplify the matter, fileless malware is stored somewhere other than a hard drive. For example, with some incredibly talented programming, a piece of malware could be stored in your Random Access Memory (RAM). RAM is a type of temporary