Tech Talk – November 2017
A Note from the President
Happy Thanksgiving from LMS Technical Services! We are thankful for our loyal clients and our dedicated support team. We know that we wouldn’t be where we are without them!
Our Tech Talk this month features a selection of articles that relates to Security, which is certainly the most discussed IT topic that we are having with our clients.
If you have any concerns regarding the security of your business, please reach out to me directly. I’d love to hear from you.
We wish you and your family a wonderful and happy holiday!
Scott Shatzkamer
President
Cyber-protecting the 21st century workforce
used with the permission of http://thenetwork.cisco.com
by Jason Deign
Today’s workers are more mobile, free, and flexible than ever before. That makes them harder to protect from IT threats.
Ori Levi apologized as he took the stage at an October 2017 CryptoFriends Netup meeting in Barcelona. He had been up until 6 a.m. the night before, he said, and wasn’t used to public speaking.
Never mind: his speech raised eyebrows among the investors and blockchain experts at the event.
He was there to present Gladius, a venture that aims to use the blockchain to reward PC users for hiring out spare network bandwidth that can be used to deflect distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. With millions of users, the Gladius network could sponge up threats at low cost.
Paying household Internet users to help fight cyber crime might sound extreme. But companies today need all the help they can get. DDoS attacks are leading to losses of US$150 billion a year, Levi said. The average attack costs $500,000.
The dark web: What your business needs to know
used with permission from FTC.gov
by John Krebs
You’ve heard about the “dark web” and wondered how it affects businesses — including small businesses. That was one of the topics addressed at an FTC conference earlier this year on identity theft. Recent headlines about high-profile data breaches have added even more urgency to the discussion. So why should the dark web matter to your company? Unfortunately, when a business suffers a breach, the dark web is often the next stop that sensitive data makes after it’s been stolen.
What is the dark web?
It’s a term that describes places on the internet not indexed by traditional search engines. While not every site on the dark web engages in criminal activity, the dark web is where sites that illegally sell consumer data and other black market goods tend to congregate. For identity thieves, the dark web is a sophisticated marketplace providing one-stop shopping to get the tools to commit cybercrime — whether it’s malware kits, stolen account information, or “drop” or “cash-out” services to help monetize their crimes.
Credit card security courtesy of your body
used with the permission of http://thenetwork.cisco.com
by Anne Field
Increasingly, banks and credit card companies are trying out biometrics to authenticate a cardholder’s identity.
Online credit card fraud is soaring. And, it’s still pretty darn prevalent in the offline world. In fact, global credit card fraud will exceed $35.54 billion in 2020, up from $16.3 billion in 2014, according to The Nilson Report.
Increasingly, one answer that banks and credit card companies are testing is the use of biometrics to authenticate a cardholder’s identity, thereby making it more difficult for thieves to steal an individual’s information. That means using technology which embeds physical characteristics of an individual, from a fingerprint to heart rhythms, into an ID system to authenticate the person’s identity.