April was a tough month. As if the burden of tax preparation and payment was not enough, the hacker community went wild.
In just the last month, the following infections and compromises have been experienced by many businesses and end users:
- CryptoLocker email virus
- Heartbleed Bug
- XP retirement and the associated security challenges
- Internet Explorer Zero-Day Exploit
I have been in the IT industry for over 28 years. In my entire professional IT career, I can’t recall a more prolific time for hackers and security breaches. Now more than ever, users and businesses need to be extra careful and proactive with security management.
Breaches are difficult to stay in front of. The bad guys write the nasty software and release it to the Internet. Until it hits enough end users and networks, the virus and security software companies can’t write a program to stop the damage….we are always playing catch up to the criminal.
Security results require a combination of superior process definition and strict adherence, coupled with technology tools, software, and hardware. What really makes the process difficult is that sometimes the end user actually “asks” for the breach by clicking on a link that downloads the virus automatically. Once this happens, it is nearly impossible to stop the damage. Fortunately for our clients, our team has created software in record time that minimizes the damage done by some viruses.
What should you do? Lock your doors tight! Just like you lock your house and car doors, you need to lock the doors to your network. We can’t protect everyone from everything, but we can minimize the damage and tell the criminal to “move on to the next door” by implementing security management.
The real problem is that sometimes you don’t even know you have been infected until it is too late.
I sincerely hope you have not been affected by the latest barrage of criminal action. The pattern is certainly clear; the widespread use of the internet to conduct business will only make the criminals try harder since almost everything is available online now. The stakes are high!
Be careful out there,
Marty
