it security review Archives - Mike Foster, CEH, CISA, CISSP

Mike Foster's IT Security & Best Practices Blog

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Protect Your Network Even when Attackers Trick Your Users

A business contacted our office last week because a bad actor tricked an employee to give them full access to their computer. The bad actor immediately took over the network and started performing highly illegal activities that appeared to come from the victim’s systems. User training is not enough. It is essential to take additional […]

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Microsoft Will Stop Protecting Windows 7 on January 14, 2020

Windows 7 computers will still run, your anti-virus will still work, as will your other programs. But you are taking a significant risk because Microsoft will no longer provide security updates that help keep attackers out of your network.

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Never Permit Tech Support to Access your Computer

A company had a problem with their bank’s remote deposit software. They called technical support, and the bank’s software support person announced, “First, I need to connect to your computer to see what is going on.” Fortunately, the company’s team member told the bank’s technical support person,

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Protect your Company from the Imminent Threat called Eternal Blue

In 2017, the NSA made headlines after developing a hacking tool called Eternal Blue. The NSA did not notify Microsoft of the stockpiled vulnerabilities, so Microsoft didn’t know what holes to seal. The hacker group called Shadow Brokers acquired this powerful hacking tool developed by some of our nation’s best and brightest.

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You Do Not Need to Understand Computers to Make Ransomware

There is a new program that is designed to help even non-technical people to create ransomware. The tool is called Inpivx, and it is designed to provide easy point-and-click functionality.

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What to Do if Someone Hacks Your Email Account

How to protect yourself if, or even before, an unauthorized spammer uses one of your email accounts to send out spam:

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How to Stop the Annoying Phone Calls

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How to Best Protect Your Mobile Devices

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Tesla Will Give a Car to a Hacker if they can Break In

Hackers will compete for prizes from Tesla. In addition to the first winner who gets the car, Tesla also pays… $250,000 if they can hack the autopilot$100,000 if they can hack the modem or tuner$100,000 if they can hack the key fob or phone-as-a-key Microsoft, VMWare, and other companies are offering big prizes to someone […]

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773 Million Passwords Exposed – Were You Exposed?

Today Troy Hunt announced that a collection of 773 million usernames and passwords were released. This release of passwords, dubbed Collection #1, contains usernames and passwords

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