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“Lucky Charm” Keeps Hackers Out Ralph’s been a good employee for you. Shows up on time. Gets the job done. Doesn’t hassle anybody. He’s also a porn addict. When nobody’s looking, he’s visiting sites – on your network – that you’d be appalled to see. IF…you knew about them. Without careful monitoring and filtering, this kind of Internet use on your network can remain hidden. Shocking? Hard to believe it could happen at your company? A survey by International Data Corporation (IDC) revealed that 70% of all web traffic to Internet pornography sites occurs during the work hours of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Ralph’s little visits may seem harmless, but they’re adding a serious level of risk to the financial health and security of your company. A visit to an adult website can be tracked. And if a logged-in user’s identity is leaked, it can be embarrassing, to say the least, to that user. The user may even become a victim of “sextortion” or blackmail. Just ask any of the people who us...

Ryan loved tweaking photos on his Android phone. He’d heard rave reviews from his friends with iPhones about Prisma, a new iOS app for image editing. So when he heard Prisma would soon be released for Android, he logged in to the Google Play Store to see if it was there yet. To his surprise, he found one that looked just like what his friends were describing. Delighted, he downloaded and started using it. Meanwhile, the app—a fake—was busy installing a Trojan horse on his phone. When he got to work the next day, he logged his phone into the company network as usual. The malware jumped from his phone to the network. Yet no one knew. Not yet, but that was about to change… Now, this isn’t necessarily a true story (at least, not one we’ve heard of—yet…), but it absolutely could have been. And similar situations are unfolding as you read this. Yes, possibly even at your company… Fake apps exploded onto iTunes and Google Play last November, just in time for holiday shopping. A...

  If you have any illusions that your company is safe from cyber-attack in 2017, consider just a few findings stated in a recent report by the Herjavec Group, a global information security firm: Every second, 12 people online become a victim of cybercrime. Ransomware attacks rose more than an astonishing 300% in 2016. The world’s cyber-attack surface will grow an order of magnitude larger between now and 2021. The US has declared a national emergency to deal with the cyber threat. There is no effective law enforcement for financial cybercrime today. Clearly, your company’s information and financial well-being are at greater risk than ever in 2017. And you cannot count on the federal or state government or local police to protect your interests. That’s why I STRONGLY SUGGEST that you implement the following resolutions starting TODAY. Resolution #1: Tune up your backup and recovery system. The #1 antidote to a ransomware attack is an up-to-d...