Archive for November 2018

So you feel relatively comfortable that you have created cyber security around your data and your employees are trained to avoid security errors in their day-to-day business ( a MAJOR source of security breaches, by the way.) However, you may be overlooking one area where you are exceptionally vulnerable. What protection do you have from…

Did you know the illicit trading of personal data was worth $3.88 billion last year? Cybercrime is a growing industry known for its innovation. It goes far beyond the image many of us have of some hacker kid in his basement. Many who engage in this activity are professionals and work in large teams. Some…

Any business that stores customer payment information must comply with a number of state and federal regulations. The legal, healthcare, and financial sectors have a number of laws tailored specifically for them (such as HIPAA or CISPA). If you run almost any kind of professional practice or agency you probably have very specific data security…

If you are a smaller Not-for-Profit, it is likely that your organization has been driven from its inception by individuals strongly motivated with a passion for their cause or humanitarian goal. As a result, it is also possible that the leadership has little interest in developing the administrative technology infrastructure that is necessary for any…

You can have all the locks on your data center and have all the network security available, but nothing will keep your data safe if your employees are careless with passwords. Change Passwords – Most security experts recommend that companies change out all passwords every 30 to 90 days. Require passwords that mix upper and…

For many, the idea of offloading their data to another physical/virtual location can seem like a security risk. It seems counter-intuitive that moving data away from “ home” is safer. But is that really true? Any server stored at your location is probably more physically vulnerable than one protected in a large server farm. If…

OK. You pay someone to store all of your data in the cloud, as opposed to keeping it on your own server and backing it up. And you pay on an ongoing basis. How is that possibly going to be cheaper than just making a one-time investment and keeping it your self? Let’s count the…

Small firms are probably aware that there are laws regulating the handling of data, but they probably assume that these apply only to larger firms and that they are too small to have any data that is worthwhile or protected under state/provincial or federal laws. Think again. Data protection laws generally worry about the content…

 Statistics are showing that each year over 50% of small firms are victims of a cyber attack or data breach. Why does this matter? Most smaller firms have not prepared business continuity plans to keep their IT infrastructure going in the event of an attack. Failing to do so often leads to the failure of…

Don’t steal. It isn’t nice. And… it makes you extremely vulnerable you security hacks if you “steal” software packages. Smaller firms often will use unlicensed software packages to save money. This is especially true if they only need a program for a specific task. Aside from the legal and ethical issues involved here, there is…