Posts by John Mamon
Password Protect Customer Data!
The Republican National Committee hired Deep Root Analytics in 2017 to gather political information on US voters but didn’t secure the data. They had personal information on about 61% of the US population stored on an Amazon cloud server – with no password protection. It was exposed there, open for anyone to access, for about…
Read MoreNo Personal Email Accounts for Company Business!
The Yahoo! Data Breach of 2013 may seem like old news, but 2017 revealed it was far worse than reported. After Verizon acquired Yahoo! in June 2017, they discovered the 2013 breach affected every Yahoo! customer account – three billion in total! That mind-boggling number is three times more than Yahoo! reports when they first…
Read MoreKeep Your Systems Updated and Patched
What some have called “the worse ransomware attack ever” struck in May 2017, infecting an estimated 300,000 computer systems in just four days. WannaCry was similar to many ransomware attacks, i.e. it encrypted files and demanded a Bitcoin payment to decrypt them. However, it differed in one major way: worm tactics. Once WannaCry infected a machine,…
Read MoreNever Hide a Data Security Breach from Your Customers
Uber’s CEO revealed on Nov. 21, 2017, that the ride-hailing service failed to disclose a massive data breach last year. In Oct. 2016, hackers accessed a server containing personal information for more than 57 million Uber drivers and riders. They demanded a $100,000 ransom to delete their copy of the data, which Uber paid. The attackers…
Read MoreNever Overlook Data Security Vulnerabilities!
Credit reporting agency Equifax stores financial data on more than 800 million consumers and 88 million businesses worldwide, so data security is absolutely critical. On July 29, 2017, the company detected and blocked suspicious network activity associated with a web portal used by U.S. consumers to file disputes. Later analysis revealed the portal’s application framework, Apache…
Read MoreShare the Risk
Having an in-house IT person or staff seems like the most efficient way to keep your IT network running. After all – you always have someone on-site to take care of issues. But the reality is, their motivations may be counter to your business needs. IT staff are generally not motivated to perform regular maintenance…
Read MoreBest Practices!
Even the most well-intentioned IT staff is more motivated to use technologies that work best for them, or what they like most, than to use what’s best for your business. The processes and procedures they use may be what they know, but are not necessarily industry best practices. Since your business relies on its network,…
Read MoreMore Services!
Some IT services you need to run your business effectively, such as data backup, email encryption, or hosting just don’t come with an in-house IT staff. Your IT staff will have to procure these services from outside vendors, so you’re already outsourcing. But how do you know if you have the right services to fit…
Read MoreIf you like drama, we’re probably not the IT company you’d want!
Any issue with your company’s computer network sets the stage for drama. It can be as small as an employee not being able to access their email or a file they need – rendering them absolutely incapable of performing their job. It can be as big as a system crash that causes company-wide panic as…
Read More“It’s the Book of the Year for Me!”
I had a wonderful opportunity Monday to be on Laura Steward’s I Heart Radio live show and podcast, It’s All About the Questions. She had read my book, The Extra Scoop, and said, “It’s the book of the year for me!” She even dubbed me Captain Customer Service! Like many of us, she has had those rare…
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