IT attack Archives - Foster Institute https://fosterinstitute.com/tag/it-attack/ Cybersecurity Experts Mon, 28 Apr 2014 17:38:40 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0.4 https://fosterinstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Favicon.png IT attack Archives - Foster Institute https://fosterinstitute.com/tag/it-attack/ 32 32 As if Heartbleed Wasn’t Enough, Here is Another Emergency: https://fosterinstitute.com/as-if-heartbleed-wasnt-enough-here-is-another-emergency/ Mon, 28 Apr 2014 17:38:40 +0000 https://fosterinstitute.com/blog//?p=1888 Please forward this to your IT Techs immediately. As with Heartbleed, this is a vulnerability that attackers are already using against you and nobody knew until right now. These are called “zero-day attacks.” This blog is aimed at non-technical executives and owners, and this “technical” release is so that you can forward this to your […]

The post As if Heartbleed Wasn’t Enough, Here is Another Emergency: appeared first on Foster Institute.

]]> Please forward this to your IT Techs immediately. As with Heartbleed, this is a vulnerability that attackers are already using against you and nobody knew until right now. These are called “zero-day attacks.”

This blog is aimed at non-technical executives and owners, and this “technical” release is so that you can forward this to your IT Pros. Forward it to every one you care about “not getting hacked” because you and they may already be.

The good news is – you can “turn off the vulnerability” like a light switch.

Credit for this alert goes to our resident Citrix and VMware “Virtualization Guru.” He explains:

A security flaw has been found in all versions of Internet Explorer and this flaw has already been exploited by cyber criminals. At this time, no patch has been provided by Microsoft.

This excerpt from the Microsoft article explaining the exploit provides the pertinent facts:

“…The vulnerability may corrupt memory in a way that could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code in the context of the current user within Internet Explorer. An attacker could host a specially crafted website that is designed to exploit this vulnerability through Internet Explorer and then convince a user to view the website…”

Customers should protect their own Windows computers from this flaw by following these steps:

  • Open a Command Prompt window (hold the Windows key on your keyboard and type “r”, then type CMD in the “Open:” box

    • keyboard

    run

  • In the Command Prompt window that opens up, type the following (it’s probably easiest to copy and paste from this blog): regsvr32 -u “%CommonProgramFiles%\Microsoft Shared\VGX\vgx.dll”

CMD

As mentioned before, Microsoft has not made public a patch to fix the bug. When a patch is made available, install the patch and then reverse the above command, running cmd admin, by re-registering the vgx.dll file: regsvr32 “%CommonProgramFiles%\Microsoft Shared\VGX\vgx.dll”

Please post your comments below….

The post As if Heartbleed Wasn’t Enough, Here is Another Emergency: appeared first on Foster Institute.

]]> What If Your Employees Cannot Come to Work? https://fosterinstitute.com/what-if-your-employees-cannot-come-to-work/ Thu, 18 Oct 2012 06:00:56 +0000 https://fosterinstitute.com/blog//?p=1484 What if an IT attack, or some other event, shuts down water supplies and electricity to a large area including where your employees work? Is your organization prepared? In July, I listened to Shawn Henry, former FBI executive assistant director in charge of cyber-investigations, talk about the dangers of cyber-warfare that could allow terrorists to […]

The post What If Your Employees Cannot Come to Work? appeared first on Foster Institute.

]]> What if an IT attack, or some other event, shuts down water supplies and electricity to a large area including where your employees work? Is your organization prepared?

In July, I listened to Shawn Henry, former FBI executive assistant director in charge of cyber-investigations, talk about the dangers of cyber-warfare that could allow terrorists to attack the SCADA infrastructure and shut down public utilities to large areas.

He didn’t talk about scenarios where first grocery stores run out of food, other stores run out of goods, people get hungry, hospitals are overwhelmed, highways out of metropolitan areas get jammed, tempers flare, people “do what they’ve got to do” to protect their family, police departments are swamped and there is no electricity to pump gas into their patrol cars anyway, spas and resorts are forced to close, etc.—basically the end of the world as we know it.

Eventually, things will return to normal, and how will your bottom line fare the storm?

Whatever the cause, natural disaster, human error, or worse, your employees may not be able to get to your office. This situation could drastically affect your ability to serve your clients.

It is crucial that you have plans in place, practiced in regular drills, to allow your workers to “work from wherever they are.” Workstation Virtualization with products from Microsoft, Citrix, and VMware provide “high availability” for servers. Additionally, they provide ways for your workers to basically “connect from anywhere” as long as they have power for their computer and a connection to the Internet.

Workstation Virtualization is different than “remote control” products such as GoToMyPC and LogMeIn (which are both awesome services) since those services can require computers at your office that “remote users” control from the outside. That means if you have 50 remote users, you would potentially need 50 computers for remote users to connect. With workstation virtualization, the need for those “internal computers” evaporates since users will connect directly to a protected and secure area in your servers.

If your servers are housed in a secure data center with generators then, in theory, your workers can keep working the same way they did before the disaster.

If they are in a metropolitan area, be sure they keep some kind of food in their car and have a plan to “get their family out of town” right away.

Focus, today, on your disaster recovery and business continuity planning.

The post What If Your Employees Cannot Come to Work? appeared first on Foster Institute.

]]>