December is here already and ‘tis the season to be jolly – but not so jolly that we forget to stay vigilant and on guard against the attackers who want to send us the wrong kind of gifts. Unfortunately those who look for software vulnerabilities to exploit rarely take the holiday off, so it’s still […]

Here in the United States, November brings us falling leaves, cold fronts that drop the temperatures – sometimes precipitously – and Thanksgiving, a day of gratitude, family gathering, and eating lots and lots of turkey (at least in theory). Of course, November also brought its share of data breaches, malware infestations, and newly discovered vulnerabilities. […]

The Internet of Things (IoT) isn’t only about cool consumer technologies such as Alexa-controlled light bulbs and Internet-accessible washing machines. Companies have embraced IoT in a big way, using it to gather information from a multiplicity of sources that enable better business decisions and enhance productivity. The IoT makes it possible to offer new services […]

Ransomware has been a constant cyberthreat since the early 2000s, although the first acknowledged instance was as early as 1989 when a file-encrypting Trojan was distributed on compromised diskettes, coupled with demands for a $189 payment. If you thought ransomware was a threat that only impacts technophobic grandmothers, reckless teenagers, and other home computer users, […]

The U.S. doesn’t have a federal comprehensive privacy law like the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), but the legislatures in individual states have been moving to fill in the gaps by passing their own statutes to provide privacy protections to their residents. California’s Consumer Privacy Act (the CCPA) is at the forefront of […]

November is bringing arctic winds to many parts of the United States, but as we sit and shiver and try to stay warm (and in my case, dream of the sunny Caribbean islands where I’ll be sailing later in the month), the hackers keep on hacking and the attackers keep on attacking, exploiting whatever vulnerabilities […]

The Domain Name System (DNS) is a part of the Internet that the typical business or individual computer user rarely thinks about. Many whose everyday work depends on it don’t even know it exists, and even some IT pros don’t really understand how it works. But without it, we would all have to memorize a myriad […]

Compliance is all about adhering to regulations established by governments and industries. The main focus of those regulations as they pertain to IT professionals can be summed up in one word: privacy.  Most of our compliance efforts are directed at protecting the privacy of personal identifiable data coming through our networks, stored on our systems, […]

October is here and fall is in the air, even in Texas. Temperature dropped this past week from highs in the 90s to lows in the 50s (Fahrenheit). The state fair is in full swing here, and the stores are full of Halloween decorations. But to us IT security folks, ghosts and goblins aren’t nearly […]

Who doesn’t love a good spy thriller?  From James Bond to Jason Bourne, the espionage fiction genre has been a favorite of readers and movie-goers since the 1800s. It’s all fun and games until you find yourself in the middle of your own private spy story as the person (or company) that’s the victim of […]