Tech Essentials

Imposter Email Lures White House Staff Email Prankster Threatens National Security Why was the newly minted White House communications director, Scaramucci, fired? We don’t know for sure. But an examination of his emails would have shown that he spent the weekend responding to spear phishing emails purported to be sent from Reince Preibus, former White […]

Should You Trust Your Fax? Habits are often hard to break. Some professional offices, particularly in the health care sector, when there is a need to send something private, send by fax. Their belief is, if they send by fax, the transmission is secure and private (HIPAA compliant).

Foreign Journalists Discover Treasure in Bermuda As enchanting as the Bermuda sea is, during rough weather, Bermuda’s beguiling reefs have been the source of many lost ships over the past hundreds of years during trans-Atlantic journeys shipping treasures and taxes from the Americas to Europe. However, no one could have anticipated the rough waves that […]

James Bond Enters Cyber Security Enter 2018. A new generation of cyber security risks bear names that make it sound like they were implanted by James Bond villains (“Spectre”), with worldwide doomsday impact (“Meltdown”), coupled with anti-virus programs used for international espionage (Kapersky Labs allegations).

Is “Security by Obscurity” An Obsolete Concept? The term “security by obscurity” has been around for a long time. Traditionally, this has referred to the idea that the best way to keep a system safe is to keep its design (and any potential vulnerabilities) a secret. To many, “security by obscurity” has also represented the […]

Email Security Beyond the Soundbite The ubiquity of smart phones and their apps have reduced the attention span for the masses. People now expect their information in big fonts, nice colors, and pretty pictures.

Your Spit Is Your Real Government ID The DHS is using Congress’ “Real ID” Act of 2005 to require all US states to issue new, more robust IDs for air travel originating in the United States.

Pig Latin, Russian Spies and Email Encryption With the recent media focus on cybersecurity, whether it is talk of Russian hackers scheming to influence US presidential elections, or the pervasive pressure to comply with GDPR or HIPAA (healthcare privacy regulations) or other consumer data privacy requirements, “encryption” is one of the solutions that is often […]

Folklore of Opportunistic Privacy There is a wide body of people that believe they are sending information private because they are sending using Microsoft Office 365, Gmail, or using a third-party service that sends all messages using transmission layer security.

Your Friends Siri and Alexa Have Changed IT Security Your close friends Siri and Alexa may have done more to change how IT staff are re-inventing how they think about Internet security than years of tech tips and training sessions.