XFER Blog

Businesses need to take security into account and make it a priority. In fact, security is so important that Verizon has compiled a report of the various types of attacks and data breaches that occurred in the past year. This is Verizon’s Data Breach Investigations Report, or DBIR, and it offers insights into how you can protect your business and secure your assets.

There’s a new augmented reality game on the market these days. Perhaps you’ve heard of it - a title called Pokemon Go, which lets you capture virtual monsters that “appear” on your smartphone’s camera. However, hackers have seized this opportunity to infect players’ mobile devices with a backdoor called DroidJack, which uses the mobile app’s immense popularity to its advantage.

“What’re you in for?” a prison inmate asks. “I shared my Netflix password with my sister,” you say. This conversation might be absurd, but according to a recent ruling in accordance with the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, it’s one that could actually happen. Now, sharing your Netflix password to let someone catch up on their favorite TV show can be considered a federal offense.

A vulnerability has been discovered that affects all versions of Microsoft’s Windows operating system, including the long-unsupported Windows XP, going all the way back to Windows 95. The vulnerability, called BadTunnel, allows attackers to directly bypass system defenses and initiate a man-in-the-middle attack. The vulnerability isn’t limited to just Windows, either; it also affects Internet Explorer, Edge, and other Microsoft software.

In a recent hack attack, Twitter had 33 million user login credentials stolen. This is unfortunate, but not surprising; an incident like this routinely makes the headlines. Although, what is surprising is what this hack reveals about people’s poor password security habits.

You may feel like you’re familiarized with everything your smartphone can do; yet, there are still some little-known things about smartphones that may surprise you. Take for example these four smartphone facts from List25.

When it comes to cybersecurity, maintenance is key. Whether you choose human-based security or an automated security solution, running into shortcomings is still possible. Human security tends to rely on the word of experts, and anything that doesn’t fit into the guidelines is missed and may therefore get through and wreak havoc. Network security can be a touch overzealous, in a way “crying wolf,” with an excess of false positives that ultimately require human analysis, leading to human frustration.

We often talk about how important it is that your business use the most recent and up-to-date versions of your software solutions, but it’s not often that we get to say that people using Internet Explorer 11 have the right idea. As it turns out, nearly a quarter of all Windows PCs are still using unsupported versions of Internet Explorer, with half of them being found on computers still running Windows XP. What has this world come to?

If you’re like every other small business out there, you know that the more employees you hire, the more technology that you have to procure. However, when you have more end-users, you provide more avenues for threats to slip into your network infrastructure unnoticed. When all it takes is one simple mistake from a single end-user, how can you minimize the chances of falling victim to an untimely hacking attack?

Hackers have proven to be a crafty and suspicious lot, and can take advantage of even the most benign technology to infiltrate networks. However, we don’t often associate them with objects in the physical world. Now, even something as simple as a decade-old communications device can be used to open the right garage doors.

With approximately 5.5 million new devices being connected to the Internet everyday, the Internet of Things presents the biggest security challenge to date for IT professionals. Essentially, an IoT device that’s not secured can easily fall prey to hackers, and with so many different devices being connected, it’s easy to overlook a device or two, like your security cameras.

The Internet of Things is practically omnipresent in today’s environment, and many commercial products not only connect to the Internet, but they also come with an app. Due to this type of integration growing more popular, the world is starting to see Internet-connected products that really don’t have much to gain from their connectivity.

The fact that so many businesses are rushing to take advantage of two-factor authentication displays how the password has lost its edge as a security credential. Passwords simply aren’t good enough anymore, and hackers are always finding ways to crack even the most complex passwords. This is why many businesses are looking to improve security through alternative means.

Bad news for users still running outdated versions of Internet Explorer - Microsoft has ended support for its legacy web browser. What this means is that Internet Explorer 8, 9, and 10, will no longer be issued critical patches and security updates, making its continued use a security risk.

The average small and medium-sized business has trouble with the implementation of comprehensive IT solutions, mainly due to these organizations having fewer resources to allocate towards these solutions. This often leads to end-users implementing their own solutions, which can be dangerous under the wrong circumstances. By allowing this “shadow IT” to run rampant in your office, you’re putting business continuity, data storage compliance, and security on the line.

Direct denial of service attacks are a major problem for businesses. On one hand, they’re difficult to prevent entirely, incredibly annoying, and costly. Hackers are realizing just how annoying DDoS attacks can be, and are capitalizing on them in order to both make a quick buck, and to take jabs at organizations that aren’t necessarily doing anything wrong.

Every business needs technology in order to function. Yet, if a company’s IT network is overly complicated, then technology will hinder operations, not help it. Enter virtualization, offering business owners a way to simplify their IT infrastructure, as well as make it more secure.

We all know that hackers are never good news. All they want to do is ruin someone’s day by planting a threat in an innocent person’s PC or steal some data from a business. However, some hackers could potentially have much more dangerous (and deadly) agendas, like sabotaging hospital equipment.

Cloud computing started out as a trend, but it’s become a staple in the modern business environment. A recent poll of IT and business executives by Harvard Business Review and Verizon shows that 84 percent of respondents have increased their use of cloud services in the past year, 39 percent of which “increased significantly.” The issue that comes from such an increase is the idea of employees accessing information that they aren’t supposed to.

Password security is quite the conundrum. We want our passwords to be easy to remember, but the problem is that passwords that are easy to remember are often simple and insecure. Therefore, it becomes a best practice to use complicated passwords with both upper and lower-case letters, numbers, and symbols to compensate. The “passpoem” might resolve this issue in the most obvious way.