Coleman Technologies Blog

While most of us know that Santa Claus lives at the North Pole, fewer know that he’s specifically built his big, rambling castle in the Laughing Valley. It is there that he and his workforce, the elves, sprites, pixies, and fairies that help him make his toys all live, all working hard to give the children of the world their presents each year.

Of course, as magical as Santa and his team may be, it isn’t unheard of for them to need a little help every once in a while.

The Laughing Valley sure does live up to its name. From the brook that winds its way through the emerald green banks and chuckles as it goes, to the wind that whistles a merry tune through the trees, to the cold sun that gives what heat and warmth it can to Santa’s establishments, to the poinsettias and daffodils that smile their way up through the snow. It only stands to reason that the Laughing Valley would be a place of contented happiness, and Santa Claus was proud to know that this contentment could be found in every nook and cranny of the valley he made his home and place of business.

To one side of the valley stood the Forest of Burzee, where all the elves—and even Santa himself—spent their childhoods amongst the mighty trees. At the other side, however, rose a great mountain, riddled with the Caves of the Daemons. In the middle is the peaceful and serene valley, where jolly old St. Nicholas has made his home.

Now, no one could blame you for thinking that Santa, the Santa Claus, the right jolly old elf who worked tirelessly to make the children of the world happy, would have no enemies. For a long time, you’d have been right to think that, too.

However, it wasn’t long before the Daemons who occupied the caves developed a loathing of Santa Claus, and it was largely because the toys that Santa delivered each year worked.

The mountain was home to five Daemons, each with their own cave. Closest to the ground, a broad path leads to the first of the caves, ornately decorated with intricate carvings that could easily draw in an unsuspecting witness. This was the home of the Daemon of Phishing. Just behind this cave was another cavern, much more utilitarian, this one occupied by the Daemon of Ransomware. Just beyond this entrance stood the cavernous hole that the Daemon of Data Theft called home, and if one were unfortunate enough to pass its threshold, they would find themselves approaching the heart of the mountain—the home of the Daemon of Business Failure—and all the weaving snares and traps that littered the caverns within.

Each of these caves had a small tunnel that emerged from beside it, all of which led to the last daemon’s home: the much cozier and safer-feeling cave that the Daemon of Disaster Recovery called home. The trails to this daemon’s home, while not quite as worn and traveled as the others, still showed signs of many a traveler having bypassed the other daemons in order to pay the much more pleasant Daemon of Disaster Recovery a welcome visit.

It was not long before the Daemons believed they had a reason to dislike Santa Claus and his work, and so they called a meeting to explore why that may be.

“I’m so bored,” complained the Daemon of Phishing. “Santa Claus gives all the children such neat toys, they’re happy and satisfied… no, thrilled… and aren’t tempted by my cave and all its glory.”

“I know what you mean,” replied the Daemon of Ransomware. “It’s as though Santa has warned the children about my plans, so many are on their guard whenever I approach.”

“You’re one to talk,” scoffed the Daemon of Data Theft. “I rely on you, Ransomware, to distract and confuse all those silly children so I can take their information without them realizing. If you can’t catch anyone in your web, how am I supposed to steal from them while they’re distracted?”

The Daemon of Business Failure quietly shook its ponderous head, as none of the children were letting it into their parent’s critical data on their business laptops.

“I mean, I guess I’m a little lonely, too,” chimed in the Daemon of Disaster Recovery. “If you all haven’t had any success, there really is no need for my activities.”

“It’s all that Santa Claus’ fault!” spat the Daemon of Ransomware. “His interference simply cannot be tolerated any longer. This might be my modus operandi, but we must concoct a plan to stop him in his tracks.”

All of them agreed (although the Daemon of Disaster Recovery was a little hesitant) and started plotting their strategy. Santa Claus would be easy to find—most of his hours were spent in the workshop, collaborating with his elves to create the gifts he was to distribute on Christmas Eve. The daemons determined that their best bet was to try and use their talents to prevent St. Nick from accomplishing his mission.

The Daemon of Phishing was chosen to try first, and so the very next day, the mountain dweller descended to the workshop and approached Santa and his elves as they merrily toiled away. The Daemon, putting on his most charming smile, addressed Santa Claus:

“Oh my, look at you all, so hard at work! You know, I have plenty of toys up in my cave. I’d be happy to give you all you need to fill your sleigh, you just have to come with me.”

Santa’s eyes brightened for a moment, until a small elf whose eyes had narrowed the moment the Daemon had approached, pulled the old man’s sleeve until he could whisper something in his ear.

“Oh, that’s quite all right,” Santa chuckled. “It is a sincere pleasure to create all these toys for the children of the world, and I wouldn’t want to take any too-good-to-be-true shortcuts.”

Scowling, the Daemon retreated, returning to the anxious faces of the others. He announced, “Santa does not seem to want an easy solution, so my best trap has failed.”

The next day was the Daemon of Ransomware’s turn. Using his influential magic, the Daemon caused all of the workshop’s machinery to suddenly stop. When he saw Santa, the Daemon of Ransomware approached, feigning concern. “Oh, no, your factories! How will you ever make all the toys you need if your workshop is dark?”

Santa, however, seemed unconcerned, and in a few moments the workshop surged back to life as the same small elf from the day before emerged with a triumphant look on his face.

“Ho, ho, ho! I learned long ago that, despite the most important aspect of my work happening on a single night, all the rest needs to be protected in order for me to be ready for that night. It was long ago that I was advised to maintain a backup of all my operations, just in case something were to go wrong.

Thus a second Daemon was foiled, but the next day was the Daemon of Data Theft’s turn. The daemon went straight to the workshop and found St. Nick’s all-important list of all the good children’s wishes, written in Santa’s unmistakable script. Extending his proboscis, Data Theft began slurping, removing all the ink from the document. Once finished, the daemon sought out Santa Claus.

“Santa, wait! I have the worst news! I stumbled upon the list, and I realized it was blank! How could this have happened?”

To the daemon’s shock, St. Nick simply chuckled and gestured an elf over, her hair carefully braided and draped around her shoulders. Once this elf had seen the document, she nodded, and clapping her hands three times, produced a magical whirlwind of text that swiftly repopulated the list, not an apostrophe or suffix out of place.

Santa winked at the daemon. “Good thing I always keep a backup, eh?”

Aghast, the Daemon of Data Theft retreated in defeat, and informed the others of their lack of progress. All the subterfuge and scams they had tried were for naught. However, it was the Daemon of Business Failure’s turn, and they were even more resolute than the others.

So, when Santa next took the sleigh and his crack team of reindeer out for a practice flight, his deep laughs of joy were suddenly interrupted by a lasso that wrapped around his famous belly and jerked him from his bench.

Landing heavily in the snow with a grunt, Santa was quickly bundled away by his assailants… the Daemons, led by Business Failure as his devious strategy came to light. Hurrying to a deep and secret cavern in their mountain, the Daemons soon had Santa affixed to the wall, helpless.

“Aha,” cackled four of the daemons, with Disaster Recovery hanging back, obviously conflicted. “We have him. We have him! No longer will he be able to distract the children of the world from our efforts, and they will grow up to be so vulnerable to all forms of cybercrime! Phishing Attacks will be more effective than ever, leading to Ransomware and Data Theft! Business Failure will be at an all-time high, despite everything that Disaster Recovery tries! We, the Daemons of the Caves, have finally won!”

“Eh, not really.”

Shocked, Phishing Attacks, Ransomware, Data Theft, and Business Failure spun toward the unexpected voice. The Daemon of Business Failure was the first to speak:

“It’s… you.”

Standing at the entrance to the cave was the elf who had produced the backup of Santa’s list. She arched one eyebrow at the huddled group of Daemons.

“Yep. It’s us.”

Us? The word hardly had the chance to register with the daemons before their own lasso arced over and looped around them. Somehow, the Daemons turned, only to see a freed Santa holding the other end of the rope, along with the other elf and—instilling no small amount of rage in the hogtied daemons—the Daemon of Disaster Recovery. This time, the Daemon of Ransomware spoke first.

“You, you traitor.”

Rather than shrinking back, the Daemon of Disaster Recovery fired back. “Yeah, maybe I am. Or maybe I’m just the guy who’s sick of cleaning up the messes you all make as you try to interfere with the happiness of a whole world of children.”

Scowling, Disaster Recovery stepped forward. “Every year, I watch you interfere with the joy and good tidings of people around the world. I see you influence people with little choice to convince them to spread their own misfortune through scams and cyberattacks. I observe as you four treat the world as though it's your own little sandbox of cybercrime.”

Disaster Recovery continued to advance upon his neighbors.

“I’m done watching. From now on, I’m going to do whatever I can to help Santa and his elves here prevent these kinds of issues, teaching those in the workshop the signs of threats of all kinds.”

Disaster Recovery stopped, looking to Santa and the elves. “If that’s okay with you all, of course.”

Santa grinned, and the elves snapped up a quick salute. “Welcome to the Laughing Valley Cybersecurity Defense Squad, friend. I’m sure your expertise will be a great help.”

Now, while we here at Coleman Technologies aren’t the Laughing Valley Cybersecurity Defense Squad, we’d like to think that we can serve a similar purpose for the businesses of British Columbia. Have a very happy holiday, and don’t hesitate to reach out to us at (604) 513-9428 as your resolution for the new year.

2023 was definitely the year that AI became a household name. We’ve barely seen what artificial intelligence is capable of, and while industries are still coming up with more ways to use the technology, we’ve already seen countless examples of how people want to take advantage of AI for less savory purposes. 2024 is already shaping up to be the year that businesses need to protect themselves from AI-generated cybersecurity threats. Let’s take a look at everything you need to know as a business owner.

What’s the State of AI in 2024, and How Can It Be Used?

In case you haven’t been caught up, the tech world has been shifted by some new technology that uses vast amounts of information and complex algorithms to generate human-like text. In the simplest terms possible, engineers wrote a piece of software that was designed to “train” itself by reading a massive amount of text from the Internet. It read about 300 billion words from books, social media sites, news articles, and plenty of other types of content. Because it was able to absorb and index so much information, users can ask it questions and it can understand and respond to those questions in plain English (or Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and more). 

This is called a Large Language Model, or LLM, and the most popular version of this right now is called ChatGPT. Most people commonly refer to this technology and other similar types of systems as artificial intelligence (AI).

These systems can do some pretty remarkable things. They can answer questions quickly, and generate large amounts of content on a topic very fast. You can “brainstorm” ideas with it, and then ask it to give you a task list for everything discussed. AI has been a great resource for software developers, as it can be used to quickly find security vulnerabilities in vast amounts of code before cybercriminals can exploit them.

And that’s where the problem lies.

Any Great Technology Can Be Used By Bad People

Paleontologists have determined that the earliest use of the bow and arrow happened about 60,000-70,000 years ago in South Africa. It’s suspected that this groundbreaking (at the time) device was used for hunting. Obviously we will never be able to pinpoint exactly when or how this happened, but at some point, the world experienced the first prehistoric person drawing a bow and arrow on a fellow prehistoric person. 

This has been the cycle for technology ever since, and when something new emerges, someone is going to figure out how to use it to cause trouble. Over the last several years, we’ve even seen the so-called troublemakers adopt modern technology even faster than the general population in some cases.

This is happening with AI. Cybercriminals are able to use AI to become much more effective. They can use AI to find vulnerabilities in software before developers are able to provide security patches. They can use AI to write phishing emails that are even more convincing and effective. They can use AI to write malware that is more devastating and infectious. 

Cybersecurity has always been a virtual arms race, and AI kicks things into overdrive. To stick with our theme, cybercriminals from 20 years ago were using the bow and arrow, and now with AI and other modern tactics, they have supersonic fighter jets. Businesses and individuals need to be even more vigilant about protecting their data.

Something That Most People Don’t Think About When It Comes to Cybersecurity

We all always talk about cybercriminals and hackers as if they are lone wolf anarchists sitting in a dark basement, drinking store-brand Mountain Dew, wearing a dirty hoodie, and staring into a bunch of screens with green matrix code.

The reality is that most cybercriminals treat their work like a business.

They are always working on getting the most profit for the least amount of effort; they follow and repeat successful campaigns and revamp things that don’t work.

But that’s not the worst part.

Over the last few years, it’s been uncovered that a lot of scammers and cybercriminals are actually trafficked people, forced to follow scam playbooks in order to pay off their captors and regain freedom. In some cases, when you get a scam phone call or text message or phishing email, it’s coming from a victim of human trafficking. 

There are entire compounds that house thousands of people, tricked away from their homes and families and essentially imprisoned to try to scam individuals and businesses. CNN recently did an incredibly eye-opening article that is worth checking out, but be warned, there is some disturbing content.

This gets us a little off topic when it comes to how AI is being used by cybercriminals, but we feel that it’s extremely important to raise awareness about these types of operations, and just how intense they are both in scale and misery. Cybersecurity is an industry all on its own, and every time an individual or organization gets scammed, it fuels something that is causing a lot more harm than simply forcing a business to its knees or stealing thousands of dollars. 

2024 Needs to be the Year We All Take Cybersecurity Extremely Seriously

Between AI, social engineering scams, and a growing industry of reprehensible cybercriminals, doing your part in protecting your business and yourself from cyberthreats will go a long way in ensuring that you can be successful. 

Coleman Technologies can help your business establish a culture of cybersecurity, and implement the tools you need to prevent threats. Get started with a cybersecurity audit—give us a call at (604) 513-9428 to get things kicked off.

Some of the best cybersecurity methods are practices developed over the past few years. This is because social engineering, specifically phishing, has become a major problem. There are billions of phishing emails sent each year, and some of those are so convincing that even people who have had some basic cybersecurity training fall victim to them. To fight this, security firms have started to look to tomorrow’s technologies to help them mitigate risk today. 

Artificial Intelligence - The Future of Cybersecurity 

One of the most effective ways of combating this rise in hacking is to use the most dynamic technology you have access to and make a tool that will help you mitigate the massive risks. One way is to reduce the effectiveness of these hacks. In this case the technology is artificial intelligence.

When we talk about artificial intelligence, we are talking about having a machine that learns as it is continually exposed to threats. This will work to solve common issues at first, but as these systems advance, and are exposed to user behaviors, they will be able to replace access management systems. Since the AI will be constantly monitoring systems, as well as user behaviors, workplace roles, and common actions, it will be able to recognize a person without, the need for password-protected accounts and creating ubiquitously secure endpoints. If the system recognized any deviations, an additional form of authentication such as biometrics would grant or deny access. 

Cost will initially be a factor for businesses, especially small and medium-sized businesses, but as large companies begin to truly trust these platforms, they will have viable endpoint-protection systems for small businesses. 

Cybercrime Accelerates with 5G

5G and beyond will bring a lot of changes to the user experience, of course, but it will also make huge changes to cybersecurity. Before long, the AI systems that are being developed to thwart today’s cyberthreats will become essential systems for the sustainability of mobile computing. Just think about how much cyberthreats have multiplied over the past decade after the jump from 3G to 4G. The jump to 5G isn’t going to any less dramatic.

It will be crucial for cybersecurity professionals to be able to leverage systems that are both ubiquitously available to search through large streams of data while also being capable of learning on the fly in order to ascertain what data is potentially malicious and what data is less so.

Luckily there are still years before these types of systems will be needed. Unfortunately, there are enough threats out there to be a major problem going forward. The IT professionals at Coleman Technologies can help you protect your hardware and data. Give us a call at (604) 513-9428 today!

As we begin, it is important that we acknowledge that the Android operating system has been granted FIDO2 certification. In other words, the FIDO (Fast IDentity Online) Alliance has given the Android OS their seal of approval in regard to the authentication standards that the Alliance has set.

What Does This Mean?

In very simple terms, any Android device running 7.0 or higher with the latest Google Chrome update installed can be used as part of a two-factor authentication strategy - more specifically, as a security key. This includes the support that FIDO2 offers for onboard fingerprint scanners as a means of identity authentication. Currently, this authentication standard is only supported by Android, with no indication of Apple devices incorporating it.

In no uncertain terms, this all means that passwords may soon be phased out.

Abandoning Passwords

Passwords have been the standardized form of authenticating one’s identity for quite some time, despite the potential issues that are present with them. How often have we seen just how many ways a determined cybercriminal has to obtain a password? Between insecure databases filled with credentials and unfortunately successful phishing schemes, millions of accounts have been exposed - and that isn’t even taking all the times an insecure password was guessed into account.

The biggest weakness that any password has is the fact that it can be shared at all, that someone other than the owner can use it. Over any other reason, this is why FIDO2 is likely to become as popular as it is expected to be. When was the last time you successfully shared a thumbprint with someone, after all? Furthermore, FIDO2 keeps all of the information that is pulled from its biometrics onboard the device, keeping it safe from being stolen on the Internet.

As an added bonus, FIDO2 won’t allow the user to input their fingerprint’s biometric data into websites that don’t have sufficient security measures in place.

How to Use Your Android Device as a FIDO2 Security Key

In order to leverage your Android device as a security key, you need to make sure that it meets a few benchmarks. First and foremost, you’ll need to be running at least Android 7.0, with the latest version of Chrome installed. You will also need to have Bluetooth activated, and a Google account with two-step verification enabled.

This is somewhat simple to do. Logging into your Google account, access the Security section. Here, you’ll find the option to activate 2-Step Verification. After a short process, your smartphone will work as a security key.

Authenticating Google Sign-Ins with Your Phone

As long as you have enabled both Bluetooth and Location on your mobile device, any Google service you try to access will prompt you to confirm the sign-in attempt via your phone. This process is exceptionally simple - all you have to do is press Yes on your phone and wait. Once you’ve done so, you can confidently access your Google account, securely. As more developers adopt FIDO2, this enhanced security will only appear more often.

What do you think of this new authentication method? Share your impressions in the comments! While you’re there, let us know if there are any other tips you’d like us to cover!

So you got a new computer for a holiday gift. That’s great! We’re excited that you’re excited. But you also need to consider how you are going to dispose of your old device and how to do so in a safe way. Today, we want to discuss how you can safely discard, or potentially even reuse, your old device so you don’t put your data at risk.

The #1 Challenge: Your Data

Imagine the amount of data stored on your devices over a single day.

It’s a shocking amount, and a lot of people will just throw away a device holding this information just because wiping the device doesn’t cross their minds. We recommend that you back up any data on your old device, then remove it all before you even consider tossing it. A simple factory reset isn’t always enough; we recommend you use a solution that will eliminate any chance at all of a data recovery effort.

If you want to know more about the process, just give us a call, and we’ll be happy to explain it.

It’s Not Always About Functionality

Even if the device is no longer functional, you still need to worry about its data.

Most issues that kill a computer have nothing to do with the storage components. A computer is  a machine with mechanical components, many of which are prone to failure. Data can be saved from a device that has experienced a failure, provided the storage components are intact.

This is great for you, but bad if you’re trying to recycle a faulty device without first taking the time to wipe it.

Ideas for Reuse

If the device is still operational, you have a couple options to consider for reuse.

For one, you can regift the device to someone else in need, like a local business or a family member. Just make sure you have already wiped the device and there’s no sign of personal or professional data on it. Another opportunity, for devices with screens, is to transform it into a digital display.

However you decide to reuse your old devices, we’ll help you ensure you’re doing it in a safe and compliant way.

How to Recycle Your Computer

Once your device is data-free, you can safely recycle it—but there’s still a catch here.

Depending on who you work with for the recycling, your device might not actually be recycled. If you’re not careful, the device could be shipped to a developing nation where it will sit in a landfill, causing serious damage to the environment and the health of its citizens. Your best bet is to work with a recycler with a proven record of recycling your devices ethically and responsibly.

That’s where we come in!

To learn more about how we can help with technology reuse or recycling, give us a call at (604) 513-9428.

Earlier this year, a location data broker called Gravy Analytics suffered a huge data breach that compromised a dataset with 30 million points from devices all over the world. With this data, hackers can track users and their movements through healthcare, government, and military facilities.

While there’s nothing that can be done about the data breach, you can take action now to ensure that your business is protected. Here’s how you can stop applications from tracking your locations and movements.

Prevent Location Oversharing on the App Level

If you want to stop sharing your location, then first you need to understand the mobile advertising ID (MAID), which is an identifier on every mobile device that tells advertisers if users have viewed or interacted with an ad.

MAIDs give ad platforms incredible power to single out and track individual users from location to location. They can create a detailed profile through this data, then sell that data to brokers who can resell it for a profit. This gives third parties the power to track your mobile device behaviors, which is a huge breach of privacy and (potentially) a security risk, as there’s nothing stopping malicious actors from purchasing this data for themselves.

You can delete these advertising IDs from your Android or iOS devices, though, so fret not!

How to Delete the Advertising ID from Android Devices

For users of Android 12 and beyond, users can delete their ad ID permanently using this process:

• Open Settings
• From there, access Security & Privacy
• In Privacy, access Ads
• Select Delete advertising ID, and confirm your choice on the next page.

You should also review your existing app permissions by following this path: Settings > Privacy & Security > Privacy Controls > Permission Manager.

How to Delete the Advertising ID from iOS Devices

Whenever you install a new app, it will request permission to access what’s called an identifier for advertisers, or IDFA. Select the option for Ask App Not to Track to deny this permission.

If you want to revoke permissions, you can do so at any time through your Settings > Privacy & Security. From here, you’ll see the option for Tracking, which lets you enable or disable multiple apps through the Allow apps to Request to Track slider. There’s also a native advertising system that doesn’t feed into the IDFA, which can be disabled by following this path: Settings > Privacy > Apple Advertising > Personalized Ads.

We recommend that you keep tabs on existing app permission through the Settings > Privacy & Security options.

Protect Your Privacy and Security

If you’re worried about security and privacy, we can help you ensure that you’re taking it as seriously as possible. To learn more, call us today at (604) 513-9428.

Passwords are one of the most important parts of keeping any account secure, and if you were to gain access to these accounts, you’d have access to personal data, subscriptions, money, and even the victim’s identity. Today, we want to show you just how easy it is to steal a password and gain access to an account.

You Too Can Steal Passwords to Almost Any Type of Account

All it takes is a little spare cash to gain access to any account, and it’s remarkably easy to pull off. We can’t show you exactly how to do it, but we want to emphasize that literally anyone can do this to your business. Let’s look into some of the intricacies of how stealing a password works.

Learn a Little Bit About the Victim

We’ll use Homer J. Simpson for our example, a name with a singular entry in the United States census from 1940. Simpson was born in 1914, and we are confident that there have not been any babies born with the name since the 90s. That said, we’re making everything up from here on out. If we want to make Simpson’s life difficult, it’s pretty easy to do so, even if we don’t know anything about him.

Imagine that Simpson had a MyFitnessPal account in 2018, which he used to track his health metrics. MyFitnessPal is one of the services that suffered a data breach back in February of 2018 in which 144 million accounts had their emails and passwords compromised. These types of data breaches happen all the time, and users need to be aware of the risks associated with trusting this information to any online accounts, whether it’s Sony, Wendy’s, or even Doordash.

Thanks to the MyFitnessPal breach, Simpson’s password is on the Internet and available to criminals on the dark web. Because of this, we know his name, his email, and the password he likes to use. That’s plenty of information to work with.

From here, you go on Simpson’s social media accounts to find things like his date of birth, the town he grew up in, and his mother’s maiden name. You can also use LinkedIn to find information about his job and his social network. It’s easy to do this in as short a time as 10-15 minutes. You can find out about his kids, his dog, his wife, and potentially even his address. This is also helpful information to know when cracking a password.

Most individuals use information close to them for their passwords, and while we always advocate that it’s just not a good idea, well, it’s easier for people to remember credentials in this way. You can make a lot of educated guesses as to the user’s password simply by knowing a little bit about them.

Use Software to Crack the Code

This is where the fun begins. Using software found on the dark web, hackers can crack even sophisticated passwords. If the user’s password isn’t very complex, maybe 9 or 10 characters long, or without some special characters, it could be cracked in a matter of minutes or maybe a day or two. If the user has an actually random password, though, it will take longer, but the fact that these systems can be cracked is concerning to say the least. Complex passwords will naturally take longer to crack, but most of these tools will try the more common renditions first, just to check if the victim is skimping on their password security.

Alternatively, Just Trick the User

No use beating around the bush; just use phishing attacks to steal the password and let the victim do all the work for you. Around 95 percent of modern cyber breaches are caused by a phishing attack, and it’s such a high rate of success that there’s no reason not to try using it.

All you have to do is send them an email claiming to be their bank. You might make up an excuse like there is something wrong with their account. This is usually enough to elicit some sort of strong response, as people’s money is generally a soft spot. Whatever you do, make the problem important enough to require immediate attention.

Next, send them to a webpage that you built to look like their bank’s website. You can then have them offer up their login credentials on a silver platter as they attempt to log into their account. This happens all the time, and you might be surprised by how easy it is, but the fact remains that it’s simply far too easy to pull off to not take it seriously.

Always Remain Vigilant to Cybercrime

Now that you know how easy it is for someone to crack a password, or even steal it for that matter, you should remain vigilant and always try to stay ahead of hackers through the use of multi-factor authentication tools and other security solutions. Coleman Technologies can help you stay ahead of hackers! Call us today at (604) 513-9428 to learn more.

The GDPR

Prior to the implementation of GDPR, individual data privacy was mostly left up to the individual. In non-EU circles, this is still mostly the case, but GDPR has made issues related to this much more noticeable, such as the way this personal information can be used for corporate financial gain. GDPR was a response to these organizations failing to properly utilize user data. This included people having their personal information like names, addresses, email addresses, and even medical/financial information being utilized by advertising companies or worse. The largest corporate technology companies were using the data of individuals to turn a massive profit--a practice that seemed to be unfair to consumers.

EU member states have been legislating their own data protection laws prior to the establishment of GDPR. The United States has yet to jump on board this trend, though. With GDPR, organizations are seeing themselves as members of the global economy with strict new guidelines to adhere to. The GDPR is essentially an amalgamation of the laws that had previously existed, requiring all businesses to report certain types of personal data breaches within 72 hours to a supervised authority mandated by EU member nations.

This case was a landmark in that businesses were forced to remain more cognizant of how important data management is for the people who take advantage of their services. Before GDPR, many organizations failed to protect the data of their customers, staff, and vendors. In a way, GDPR forced them to begin thinking about data management, training staff, and investing in security.

One Year In

The results of GDPR have been mixed, to say the least. Over 59,000 personal data breaches have been identified by companies notifying regulators. The sanctions for failing to comply with GDPR mandates carry fines of up to €20 million, or up to 4 percent of total revenue from the previous year (whichever is larger), leading to a more targeted and strategic approach to data security, as well as more prompt reporting of when data breaches occur. To take a look at the results the GDPR had in its first eight months, download the DLA Piper GDPR data breach survey, here.

Overall, the GDPR provided a substantial boost to data breach reporting speed. The mandate gave organizations up to 72 hours to notify breached parties, so there were fewer instances of breaches going years before being revealed to the general public. The GDPR has also resulted in nearly doubling the amount of reported incidents.

The fines resulting in these breaches being reported, however, is considerable to say the least. Fines totaling up to €55,955,871 have been levied against the companies responsible for the 59,000 reported incidents, with most of this being struck against Google. A French GDPR calls this year as more of a transitional phase rather than an indicator of the long-term effectiveness of the measure.

Effects Abroad

U.S. companies that do business in Europe aren’t safe from the measures initiated by GDPR, but organizations have started to change up their approach to data privacy. Many legislators are pushing for similar measures to GDPR, and CEOs like Apple’s Tim Cook have labeled data privacy a “fundamental human right.”

Unfortunately, this viewpoint seems to be in the minority of major American tech company leaders. Still, this hasn’t stopped states like California from implementing its own data privacy law. Other states like Colorado, Massachusetts, and Ohio were inspired to pass their own data privacy laws. Perhaps the federal government will consider acting to fill in the holes left by these data privacy laws.

What are your thoughts on GDPR and data privacy regulations? Let us know in the comments.

Numbers are still coming in as far as how widespread this issue is. As of Monday, cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab said potentially thousands of Asus computers were infected, but on Tuesday that number has potentially broken a million.

How Could My Asus Laptop Get Hacked?

This type of attack is called a Supply-Chain Compromise and is one of the most frightening kinds of cybersecurity threats out there. Asus’s software update system was compromised by hackers, putting a backdoor into consumer devices. The scariest part is that this backdoor was distributed last year and it’s just being noticed now.

The good news is this has given Asus plenty of time to plug up the security holes on their end, but if you own an Asus device there is still a chance that it is infected with malware from the initial attack.

What Do I Do Now?

First and foremost, no matter what brand of computer or laptop you have, you need to make sure you have antivirus, and that antivirus needs to be licensed and kept up-to-date.

If you have an Asus device, Asus has released an update in the latest version of their Live Update Software. They’ve also patched their internal systems to help prevent similar attacks from happening in the future. You’ll want to make sure you have Live Update 3.6.9 installed.

Asus has also released a security diagnostic tool that will check your system to see if it has been affected. Click here to download the tool.

We HIGHLY encourage you to reach out to Coleman Technologies if you are running any Asus hardware. It’s better to be safe than sorry.

Why Your Employees Need Training
The most notable reason to provide training for your employees starts from their first day on the job, when they might need to be educated on how to use the solutions your organization depends on. This might be time-consuming, but it is critical if you want to save time in the long term. Training employees as soon as possible will mean you’re not leaving employees to figure it out for themselves.

Even more experienced employees will need training every now and then. The average employee will only retain about 40 percent of what is covered during their introduction to a topic, making education a critical part of maintaining operational productivity. Since technology is changing often, you should take some time to improve your training processes.

Training Options
There are many different ways to approach employee training, but one common factor among them all is pairing a new employee with an experienced one to teach them a thing or two about the process. On-the-job training is a practical way to make sure that instruction is taught by someone who knows what they are doing, and it can even help develop relationships between your workers.

On the other hand, when a new technology is introduced to the workplace, your entire staff might need to know how to use it. In cases like this, you can use webinars to help employees “self-teach” themselves on how to use it. Avoid holding all of this training in a single session, though, as it’s better to spread it out so as to avoid a situation where your employees are stuck in training for a week at a time. Some organizations have had success in splitting their teams up into internal groups to help employees learn as much as possible.

If Your Team Needs Help…
A help desk solution is a perfect way to supplement what your employees already know with what they need to know. You can provide your staff with access to trained technology professionals who can provide assistance when it’s needed. Coleman Technologies can help your business get started with technology training and support. To learn more, reach out to us at (604) 513-9428.

All businesses use email to communicate, but too many organizations haven’t jumped on the encrypted email bandwagon yet. Encryption is incredibly helpful to keep networks and infrastructure secure, and it can do the same for your email solution. In fact, it is likely required to ensure the secure transfer of critical and sensitive information.

Encryption secures data by scrambling it into unreadable form. The data must be decrypted using a key, which reassembles it into a readable format. The key is found on approved devices or accounts, granting your team access to the data, but only when they are allowed access. It doesn’t take a genius to connect the dots and see the value of encryption for email.

Compliance with Regulations

Depending on your industry, you might need encryption to comply with regulations and laws. These include HIPAA, GDPR, and PCI. It’s important to note that this compliance extends beyond the simple transfer of data and also includes storage. If you fail to stick to these guidelines, you could be subject to fines that break your budget. It’s really just a best practice, anyway, so you should be securing your communications to be a good business partner and provider.

Security for Sensitive Information

Your business shares sensitive information with customers and clients through email all the time, even if it’s not personally identifiable information. If this information is stolen by way of an intercepted email address, that’s a serious problem. You should encrypt email messages so that any onlookers or thieves cannot do anything with what they steal.

Preserve Trust with Customers

Encryption with your mail sends a message to your customers and clients that you respect their privacy and care about the security of their information. It means they can rely on you to do what needs to be done to protect their information. This, in turn, creates a culture where you can get maximum earning potential from them.

Encrypt Your Email Today

Encrypted email is a valid way to show your customers that you are the most trustworthy business in British Columbia. To learn more about how to protect your business’ assets, contact us at (604) 513-9428.

Security Considerations

Even though you aren’t in the office, you still need to follow the same security protocols and the processes you would need to follow if you were working in the office. In fact, these processes become even more important, as your home network is likely less secure than the one in the workplace. Here are some tips:

Be Hygienic
We aren’t telling you to brush your teeth or wash behind your ears, we are talking about practicing good security hygiene while you work remotely. Don’t reuse your passwords, use multi-factor (or two-factor) authentication to secure all accounts, and don’t share out information over email if you don’t know for certain who will read it. In other words, all the basics still apply.

Be Mindful
For similar reasons, you also need to be extra careful of online scams or phishing attacks while working remotely. Lost business data is lost business data, regardless of where you were when it was left vulnerable. Make sure you are up-to-speed in terms of identifying and mitigating breach attempts.

Use a VPN
Finally, because you will not be protected by the defenses on the company network, you need to implement a few extras, such as a virtual private network. A VPN uses encryption to conceal the contents of any data you transmit over the Internet, protecting the contents from virtually all attacks.

Business Practices

Again, as you aren’t in the office, your remote work needs to follow the same processes as it would if you were in-house, and you will need to be more deliberate about carrying them out. For instance:

Use Communication and Collaboration
Since you are not working alongside your colleagues and coworkers while you are working from home, you should be extra diligent about remaining in contact with them. Use your email, instant messaging, and phone capabilities to keep the rest of the team apprised as you progress with your tasks.

Follow Processes
As we don’t want anything falling through the cracks as we continue our operations, it is important that each team member sticks to procedures with every task they touch. This will help ensure that all the ‘i’s are dotted and each ‘t’ is crossed, and that things progress productively.

Schedule Strategically
While you should still work the amount of time you would be in the office, you may have a little more freedom and autonomy as far as your schedule is concerned. Don’t be afraid to arrange your tasks around any scheduling conflicts you may have, or shuffle your tasks to better fit your productivity levels throughout the day.

Personal Wellness

Finally, it is crucial that you are able to manage yourself and your time while not in the office environment. Here are a few tips to help you do so, that may be useful to keep in mind.

Set Limits
While the assumption surrounding remote work is that employees are prone to slacking off, it is also likely that you may be tempted to push yourself a little further than you should with your day to try and accomplish as much as possible. While this is an admirable goal, it isn’t effective if you overwork yourself one day and accomplish almost nothing the next as a result. Moderate yourself and stop when it’s time.

Build Patterns
Process is crucial to working effectively from home. This means you need to actively make sure you get into a work routine (even one that resembles the one you follow normally). Get up on time. Make yourself breakfast. Make sure you get dressed (at least most days). Establish a place that becomes your work area. Consistency will help keep you on task and feeling sharp.

Resist Temptation
There are a lot of things at home to help distract you from doing what you need to do. Hobbies, that TV show that you always meant to watch, even household chores can tempt you away from getting down to business. Shut these excuses to procrastinate out, and if you must procrastinate, do so in a beneficial way. Meditating can help you refocus, or even switching to another task briefly can help you refresh your mind.

Remember, your team is here to support you, but they also need that support to be reciprocated. Make sure your remote work is just as productive as your in-house work would be.

At first glance, cybersecurity might seem incredibly complicated and difficult to understand, but even a baseline understanding of some of the principles of cybersecurity can go a long way toward protecting your business. Let’s discuss some of the common-sense ways you can keep your business secure, even if you don’t have an internal IT department to ask for help from.

Keep Your Antivirus and Security Tools Updated

What’s better than eliminating a threat from your network? Stopping it from getting that far entirely. With antivirus, firewalls, and other security measures in place, you can keep your business secure from the majority of threats before they even become a problem in the first place.

Use a VPN

In case you or someone else on your team has to travel, or if you have a team that works remotely, a VPN is incredibly valuable. Public Wi-fi is notorious for being quite dangerous, and a virtual private network can offer a safe haven for you to access the Internet without fear of being observed by any onlookers.

Utilize Multi-Factor Authentication

You can take your security practices to the next level through the use of multi-factor authentication. A password can only do so much in today’s threat landscape, so you should back it up with biometrics, generated PINs, and other secondary measures that can make things much more difficult for any would-be hacker.

Use a Password Manager

We know you’ve heard it a thousand times; “always use a different password for each and every one of your accounts to maximize security.” While this should be practiced, it can be difficult to observe if you don’t have a password manager keeping tabs on each of your credentials. Plus, let’s face it, you don’t want to rely on your browser’s password management options if you can help it. 

Avoid Phishing Scams

While it would certainly be amazing to win the lottery, a free vacation, or catch some juicy gossip in your email inbox, the fact of the matter is that phishing emails know that these kinds of temptations make you want to click on links in emails, regardless of how likely you think they might be. Other tactics used include fearmongering and threats, which aren’t nearly as fun to receive, but are equally as effective, if not more so under the right circumstances. Either way, you should use extreme scrutiny when navigating messages from unknown or unsolicited sources—especially if they contain links or attachments.

Let Us Help Your Business Keep Itself Safe

While you can certainly do all of the above on your own, why not work with a managed service provider like Coleman Technologies? We can take the stress out of managing your network security. To get started, call us at (604) 513-9428.

Malware is everywhere on the Internet and you don’t want it. From spyware and adware to ransomware there is never anything good that comes from this malicious code. Today, we will outline a few ways you can tell that your computer, workstation, or mobile device has some form of malware on it.

Sluggish Performance

One of the first signs that your system may have malware is a noticeable drop in performance. If your computer or device suddenly starts running slowly, freezes frequently, or takes longer to execute simple tasks, it definitely could be infected. Malware often hogs system resources like CPU and memory, leaving fewer resources available for your normal activities. This is what makes the computer seem so slow. This sluggishness is particularly noticeable when you’re not running any demanding applications, yet the system lags or overheats for no apparent reason.

Unusual Pop-Ups and Ads

Another way you can tell that your system has a malware infection is the sudden appearance of pop-up ads, even when you’re not browsing the Internet. These ads may appear frequently, often pushing fake alerts or promotions. They may prompt you to download software or frequently appear as antivirus, but these are typically malicious themselves. This kind of adware can be difficult to close and may redirect you to unfamiliar websites. If you notice more ads than usual, or find your browser homepage or search engine has been changed without your permission, malware is a likely culprit.

Unexplained File or Program Changes

Malware can cause files to be deleted, corrupted, or moved without your consent. You might notice missing documents, new files you didn’t create, programs you didn’t download, or programs that launch automatically at startup. Additionally, malware can alter system settings, disable security software, or prevent you from gaining access to certain parts of your system. If files are behaving oddly—opening with the wrong applications or refusing to open at all—this could signal that malware has compromised your system’s integrity.

Excessive Internet Activity

Malware often communicates with external servers, sending and receiving data without your knowledge. This can result in unusual spikes in internet activity, even when you’re not using your device. You might notice your data usage increasing dramatically or experience slower Internet connectivity. Checking your network activity can reveal suspicious outgoing connections to unknown addresses. If your Internet connection is consistently slower or your data usage exceeds normal levels, it may be a sign that some strain of malware is operating in the background.

It goes without saying that malware is bad for productivity, and terrible for any business. If you want to talk about how the IT professionals at Coleman Technologies deal with malware, give us a call today at (604) 513-9428.

October saw five vulnerabilities patched in Chrome, with two of those vulnerabilities being classified as zero-day threats. A zero-day threat is an attack that is already being used by cybercriminals by the time security researchers identify it. With the head start that the zero-day threat gives them, these cybercriminals have a dangerous advantage.

To add to the issue, two of these zero-day threats were also identified as high severity attacks, one taking the form of a JavaScript engine phishing attack and the other in a corruption vulnerability in one of Chrome’s features. While further details are scarce, the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA) have warned us of their significance and their capability to assist an attacker in taking over an infected system.

Both threats have been spotted, so CISA is officially encouraging that all patches be applied, and updates made, to resolve these threats.

What Makes Updates So Important?

Let me ask you this: let’s say that your office’s front door would no longer lock securely. Would you leave it alone in the hopes that nobody would mess with it, or would you prioritize having the lock fixed?

This is the situation that business owners now find themselves in, and far too many of them simply hope that it won’t be a problem. Consider the fact that Google released a patch for one of these vulnerabilities via an update, but only half of users applied the update within a day.

Regardless of whether this is due to negligence or the possibility that the device they are using is simply outdated, this suggests that many companies are leaving their vulnerabilities exposed.

Coleman Technologies can help through our managed services, as we’ll ensure that your technology is patched and fixed appropriately. To learn more about our services, or to find out how else we can assist you in securing your business’ IT, reach out to us at (604) 513-9428.

Every business relies on technology to function. Some wouldn’t be able to deliver any value to their customers without it, while others would be severely hindered if they suffered a data breach. For this reason, cybersecurity has to be a priority. In today’s blog, we will discuss five issues that business owners run into that can muddle their cybersecurity efforts.

Not Taking Security Seriously Enough

For organizations that think that cybersecurity is just a line item on a budget, things can get dangerous quick. Since your technology effectively runs every part of your business, security issues can have a negative effect on literally every part of your organization. Cybersecurity initiatives are more than a budgetary concern; they are existential ones. Since a breach can happen at any point in your business, you need to consider the ways you can protect your business continuity. This often requires investment throughout your business, and one number on a budget doesn’t provide the context needed to address the issue sufficiently. 

You Are Being Targeted, Whether You Like It or Not

Many decision-makers see these horror stories of companies dealing with multi-million dollar hacks and their reputational fallout and think to themselves, “not us.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Any success a business has just serves to create a bigger target for opportunists. Face it; we live in a time when individuals and groups seek to exploit any business they perceive as “low-hanging fruit.” If taking action to reduce your organizational risk is part of your mandate, paying attention to cyberthreats has to be at the top of your list.

Lack of Training

Training your employees to navigate potential cyberattacks is essential for every business. Not only do they need to know how your organization handles these issues, they need to know some best practices to help your organization avoid them in the first place. Training them on the best ways to build secure passwords, how to identify phishing attacks, what to do when they encounter one, and why your organizational procedures are in place in the first place puts the truth right out there: cybersecurity is a team effort, and it starts with them functioning responsibly in regards to documented policies and procedures. 

Breakdowns in Communication

Say you have a big contract that you need to fulfill. Do you often want a status report to ensure that everything is on the up and up? 

Of course, you do. 

Good communication is a key component to a well-functioning business. Why then would you not have constant, meaningful conversations with the people you entrust to ensure that your business’ digital assets are secure? Every business owner needs to schedule regular meetings with their security team to get status updates and ensure they have sufficient information to protect their business. Going long stretches of time without reaching out can have dire consequences.

IT Support is a Mess

For a great many businesses, technology is a headache. This is why you have an IT department. The people who work behind the scenes to support the efficiency and overall effectiveness of your business. For some organizations, keeping IT staff is not only a challenge; any turnover or inconsistency can leave holes in your network security. Many organizations choose to partner with an outside vendor to look after their IT to remove these concerns. Even if you have an active IT department working for you, you can always use an extra set of eyes on your business’ cybersecurity. At Coleman Technologies, we offer co-managed services that work with your IT department to ensure that you get the coverage and support you need to avoid costly inefficiencies resulting from dealing with cyberthreats.

If you would like to learn more about how we can help you prioritize your organizational cybersecurity, support your training initiatives, and more, give our team of IT experts a call today at (604) 513-9428.

This past January, the Federal Bureau of Investigation issued an announcement that they had targeted and taken down the servers for a Dark Web organization responsible for the Hive ransomware group. While there is certainly cause for celebration here, one major statistic is enough reason to continue being concerned.

Only About 20% of Hive’s Victims Reported Their Problems to Law Enforcement

That’s over seven months, too. This is nowhere near enough, and even worse is the fact that law enforcement officials are under the impression that this number is high. There are several reasons why this might be the case, however. Some of them include:

• Federal investigators would be just another distraction to internal IT teams and complicate the process of data recovery efforts.
• Businesses might just not think to report it in the highly-stressful circumstances following a ransomware attack.
• Some organizations might believe that involving authorities would only escalate the attacks or get in the way of their own investigations.

However, the FBI’s goal is to identify those responsible for a given attack and to recover the data and/or funds, working discreetly to lend its aid to those impacted.

The FBI is putting forth effort to improve relationships with businesses so that proactive measures can be taken, in the event incidents occur. These resolutions can occur much more quickly if the organization has a good relationship with impacted businesses.

If You Work with Us, You Can Bet on the FBI’s Support

Considering the plethora of resources at the government’s disposal, it would be foolish not to involve the FBI in any ransomware attack. Furthermore, information from your attack could prove useful in finding and eliminating threat actors so that others don’t have to suffer the same fate as you—a worthy cause to say the least.

We’ll still work to prevent attacks whenever possible—after all, that is the best way to respond to attacks of any kind, to prevent them rather than deal with them as they happen—but that’s a different story. To get started, give us a call at (604) 513-9428.

In this blog, we do our best to give people the knowledge they need to protect themselves and their organizations while operating online. With all the digital tools that we all have come to rely on, it’s important to understand the result of a data breach on organizations and their customers. In today’s blog, we go through six of the most devastating data breaches that happened in 2023. 

T-Mobile 

At the very beginning of 2023, telecommunications giant T-Mobile announced that it had suffered what ended up being the most noteworthy data breaches of the entire year. Cybercriminals were able to use the T-Mobile API to steal data…for months. When T-Mobile found out about the attack, more than 37 million customers had their personal data exposed. Unfortunately for the company, they were the victims of a second breach only months later that cost the business more than $100 million to remediate. Overall customer names, billing addresses, phone numbers, and emails were leaked online. 

Mailchimp

Also early in 2023, digital marketing company Mailchimp discovered a data breach that affected user accounts and employee information and credentials. They were the victim of a social engineering attack that was unfortunately successful. Victims had their names, store web addresses and email addresses stolen. 

ChatGPT

One of the major innovators of AI was the victim of a serious cyberattack in March of 2023. The attack exposed the first and last names of users and their email addresses along with access to payment addresses and the last four digits of their credit cards. Open AI, ChatGPT’s parent company, was forced to take the service down briefly to address the breach.

Yum! Brands

The parent company of major fast food chains KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut was attacked in April of 2023. When it was discovered, the breach was thought to have only affected corporate data, but after careful consideration, it was found that some employee personal data was exposed in the breach. The result was stark as the company was forced to close down hundreds of locations outside of the United States and continues to pay handsomely for the breach.

Activision

One of the largest and most successful video game publishers: Activision found they were hacked in February 2023, a breach that occurred in December of 2022. The company's release schedule was unearthed and so was some employee data. A third-party security contractor found that the breach was the result of an SMS phishing attack.  Employee emails, phone numbers, salary details, and work locations were exposed in the breach.

PharMerica

In the largest data breach of a HIPAA-covered entity in 2023, the pharmacy provider PharMerica reported that 5.8 million individuals’ personal information was exposed in March of 2023. The breach was the result of a sophisticated attack carried out by the ransomware group “Money Message.” Some of the information exposed in the breach includes names, addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, individual prescription information, and health insurance data. 

These are the extreme examples, but your business is just as (or more) susceptible to a data breach than any of them. That’s why you need to take your cybersecurity strategies seriously. If you would like to learn more about what you can do to keep your business as secure as it can be, including strategies for employee training, data, network security, and much more, give us a call today at (604) 513-9428.

#1: Is security a priority when we build processes?

Your business has a way that it does what it does. Are those processes created with both physical security and cybersecurity in mind? The amount of threats your business is subject to is literally innumerable. Each day new threats are created and used to try and steal money and data from businesses just like yours. When building your business’ processes, the first consideration that isn’t “can I make money this way” has to be about how to secure your business from outside threats.

Some ways you can prioritize security is to train your staff on what threats look like when they come in, ensure that you prioritize access control and proper authentication procedures, and really make sure that your entire staff is educated about the importance in keeping you secure. Making sure that all transferred data is encrypted can also help.

#2: Who has access to my files?

When we talk about access control, we talk about limiting access to data. Not all members of your organization need access to the same data, after all. Doing your best to ensure that some of your most sensitive data is protected not just from people outside your organization, but also inside.

By enabling role-based access and adding in a multi-layered authentication procedure, the security of your organization’s data will be much improved. Another good practice is to keep logs and routinely audit both them and the other protections you put in place. 

#3: How can encryption help my business?

Data in transit can be stolen. Data just sitting there in the open can be too. You will want to ensure that all of your most sensitive data is encrypted both when it’s at rest and when it’s being moved from one location to another. 

Today the most popular forms of encryption are the Data Encryption Standard (DES) or the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). Understanding the particulars of encryption may be complex, but knowing how to use it to better secure your business’ data is not. 

#4: Is my security strategy working?

Obviously, the security that you put on your business isn’t plug and play. It needs to be properly configured to meet your business’ specific situation. The best way to get the most comprehensive security resources to protect your business’ network and data is to have knowledgeable consultants help you find the strategies and solutions that are right for you, implement them, and then routinely test them to ensure that they would stand up under pressure. 

If you would like to start this conversation, call the IT experts at Coleman Technologies today at (604) 513-9428.

What’s the Exploit and Who Does It Affect?

The vulnerability in the CISA’s emergency directive affects all supported Windows Server operating systems. It’s been named Zerologon, and If left unpatched, it could allow an unauthenticated threat actor to gain access to a domain controller and completely compromise your network’s Active Directory services. The vulnerability gets its name because all the hacker has to do is send a series of Netlogon messages with the input fields filled with zeroes to gain access. 

Once in, this essentially gives the hacker a lot of control over your network, and it’s a publicly available exploit (since Microsoft has released a patch for it) which means cybercriminals will be taking advantage of it. The attacker doesn’t need any user credentials to use this exploit.

If your business network is running Windows Server, you need to have updates applied to your servers to ensure that this vulnerability is patched. If you aren’t actively keeping all the devices on your network maintained with the latest updates and security patches, you are essentially leaving the front door wide open.

The Department of Homeland Security (the parent department of the CISA), has issued a directive for all government agencies in the United States that they have until today (September  21st) to apply the patch, to prevent giving hackers control over federal networks. This means all state and local government agencies are required to apply this today and report back to the CISA. Not having this patch installed will also affect other compliance standards throughout other industries, and of course, leave your business and your data at high-risk of a breach. It is highly recommended to apply this patch today, as soon as possible, regardless of the industry you are in. We can’t stress this enough. Apply this patch as soon as humanly possible.

The Good News

If you have an active managed IT services agreement with Coleman Technologies that covers the maintenance of your Windows Servers, you have likely already received the patch, or will be having it installed today. The patch was released by Microsoft as part of their August 2020 Patch Tuesday Update.

If you don’t have an agreement with us, or you aren’t sure if your agreement covers fixing the Zerologon vulnerability, we urge you to reach out to us by calling (604) 513-9428. This is definitely not something you want to risk.

The Department of Homeland Security and the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency don’t issue emergency directives casually. This needs to be taken seriously for all businesses and organizations.

If you need help, or you are unsure about how to protect your organization from the Zerologon vulnerability, don’t hesitate to reach out to Coleman Technologies at (604) 513-9428.