Technology Advisor Blog

Facebook is in the news recently for some not so good reasons.  In case you missed it, a research firm called Cambridge Analytica harvested the personal information of 50 million Facebook users, and used this to "influence" the Presidential election.  After days of silence, Facebook executives have finally come forward and would like users to think that this was an isolated case by some bad actors, but the real problem here is that this actually hits at the core of the Facebook business model.  

At the HIMSS Healthcare IT Conference last week in Las Vegas, Roger Severino, Director of the US Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR), the HIPAA enforcement agency, made some news when he said that health care providers may share Protected Health Information (PHI) with patients through standard text messages. Providers must first warn their patients that texting is not secure, gain the patients’ authorization, and document the patients’ consent.  Note that this only applies to communications with patients.

Today is Cyber Monday, and that means that billions of transactions will occur on line.  That also means, as TransUnion puts it, "what's convenient for shoppers can also be a huge opportunity for savvy identity thieves, who steal information provided on Internet transactions for their own monetary gain."  

A new wireless security vulnerability related to WPA2 encryption puts almost every WIFI device at risk for hijacking and eavesdropping.  This was the major headline yesterday and we've been busy updating security on our managed clients.  

Stay alert when reading through your email.  Our Cybersecurity advice focuses on "layers" of security, and even with all the technology in place to protect you, the "bad actors" will always resort to new tricks.  End user education and vigilance are key.

As I am sure you have heard, this past weekend we experienced perhaps the most extensive cyber-attack yet seen, as computer networks globally, in over 100 countries including the US, were infected by the WannaCry Ransomware.  Hopefully, your company was able to avoid this infection, but don’t relax - additional waves of WannaCry are expected, followed by increasingly more sophisticated ransomware variants.  Ransomware has not only become an increasingly profitable activity, but provides a warped sense of technical accomplishment for the cybercriminals who successfully perpetrate it.  WannaCry is just the beginning, and ransomware infections will continue, becoming increasingly more dangerous and difficult to stop, at the extreme threatening the very survival of your business.  You must now take the steps to protect your business.