The hits just keep coming, with Disqus being the latest company to issue a breach disclosure. If you’ve never heard of it, Disqus is an incredibly popular, plugin-based comment service for blogs. Although the breach was only just discovered, it occurred five years ago in July 2012 and impacted more than 17.5 million users. Evidence of the breach was initially discovered by an independent security researcher named Troy Hunt. It was then reported to the company and disclosed 24 hours later … Read more
Disaster Recovery Plan: Preparing for the Storm Ahead
How Long Will It Take to Get Your House in Order When it comes to a proper disaster recovery plan for your business, do you feel satisfied and secure with simply having your data backup on a hard drive or in-house server? If you said yes, then you could be setting your business up for failure. Simply having your data backed up doesn't account for the time and effort it's going to take to get things back up and running again. Many business owners fail to take into account the time needed to … Read more
The IRS Awards Security Contract To Equifax Even After Hack
You’ve probably heard about Equifax’s recent troubles. More than 145 million consumer data files were exposed, including names, addresses, social security numbers and more. The problem was viewed as so serious that Equifax’s CEO stepped down and congressional hearings were launched, but then, a funny thing happened. Equifax got awarded a no-bid government contract worth millions ($7.25 million, to be exact) to help the IRS verify taxpayer identities in order to prevent fraud. One might … Read more
Sonic Drive-In Latest Company With Credit Card Breach
Another week, another data breach, and this time, popular fast food chain Sonic found itself in the crosshairs. The breach came to light when a Brian Krebs, a journalist for Infosec, spotted a large batch of credit card data for sale on an underground website. IBM’s “X-Force” division confirmed Krebs’ findings, and later that same day, Sonic confirmed the report, offering all of its customers two years of free fraud and identity theft protection. At this point, the company has released … Read more
Even Minimal Exposure Can Result In Huge Fines
Data security is no laughing matter, and even small exposures can lead to hefty fines, no matter the size of your company. Last year, the federal government sent shockwaves through the industry when they began an aggressive campaign of investigating and punishing companies for HIPAA infractions, logging more than a dozen high profile settlements. While it’s true that this particular case did not involve a HIPAA violation, it has much in common with the hefty fines the federal government … Read more
WiFi Security Flaw Affects Millions Of Users And Devices
Security researchers have found a new critical security flaw dubbed “Krack” (Key Reinstallation Attacks) that affects literally every WiFi router and smart phone in use today. The reason? The security flaw resides in the WiFi standard itself, rather than in a third-party product. In addition to being vast in scope and scale, Krack is a particularly nasty, versatile flaw, allowing hackers to intercept credit card numbers, passwords, photos and a whole host of sensitive personal … Read more
Not Monitoring Internet Usage Could Be Risky Business
A Big Part of Your Business Can Cause Big Problems The internet and email are tools we use in business so fluently we can't imagine the world without them. However, more and more businesses are discovering that these tools are being used by employees for activities that aren't business related. Employers are quickly discovering that unmonitored internet use by employees is severely hampering productivity and can even result in serious legal consequences. In order to reduce or even eliminate … Read more
Are You Protected From A Data Backup Disaster?
What Are You Waiting For? When it comes to protecting the critical files and documents for your business or company, are you taking the necessary precautions? Many small to medium sized businesses are faced with the same problem when it comes to data backup, and that problem is that they haven't done anything to prepare for it. To go from bad to worse, the necessary steps to protect your business from being down for days due to data loss are often over looked. Just because you haven't suffered … Read more
Windows 10 ‘0-day’ exposed by Google is being exploited by Russian DNC hackers
Microsoft said the Windows zero-day is being actively exploited by the same APT group that is responsible for the DNC hack. Microsoft issued a warning about the APT group most commonly known as “Fancy Bear,” or APT 28, and how it is exploiting the zero-day disclosed by Google on Halloween. Microsoft agreed that the zero-day is being actively exploited and pointed a finger of blame at a hacking group that is believed to be tied to the Russian government; the same group is believed to be … Read more
