Washington Works Blog

Your business’ data is often quite sensitive, which is why the professional world employs cryptology to keep it secure while it’s in transit. In terms of computing systems, this is called encryption. It’s the ideal way to secure important assets when you send or store information.

Smartphones are the predominant mode of communication, as well as now being the devices most used to access the Internet. With so much depending on the modern smartphone, it has become one of the largest, and most competitive, markets of any consumer item. As a result, manufacturers are building devices with software that is able to encrypt the phone against unauthorized access.

2FA, or two-factor authentication, is a simple and effective means of boosting your cybersecurity. Despite this, a study performed by Duo Labs suggests that 2FA has not been adopted as much as one might expect, or as much as it should be.

Considering that since January 1st of this year, there has been upwards of 10 million personal information records lost or stolen each day, odds are that you, or someone you know, has had their records compromised by a data breach. With such a high incident rate, individuals and businesses that have never received any kind of notification that their records were included in a breach, generally consider themselves lucky and assume that they are not at risk of identity theft or unauthorized account usage. Unfortunately for them, that is not always the case.

Cybercrime is the fastest growing criminal activity in the world. From the largest enterprise to the individual, it can affect anyone, anywhere. To help ensure the cybersecurity of American citizens and their businesses, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and other agencies work together every October to raise awareness about the threats people face online through a series of educational events and activities.

Everyone has a right to privacy. However, with the popularity of social networks, the Internet is a very hard place to remain a private individual. Digital communication is everywhere. Cybercrime has become a fairly regular event. This week’s tip of the week takes a glance at three websites that you can use to help enforce your right to privacy.

Ransomware is a tricky piece of malware that locks down the precious files located on a victim’s computer, then (in theory) will return access to them when a ransom has been paid. Depending on the files stored on a victim’s computer, they might simply blow it off and not worry too much about losing access to a couple of pictures or videos--but what if this ransomware threatened to expose your web browsing history?

It doesn’t matter if you’re a small business, a large enterprise, or if you're in a rural town, or a larger city. You still have to worry about the security of your data and the integrity of your infrastructure. Thankfully, there are services out there that allow even small businesses to leverage powerful, enterprise-level tools for maximum network security. The most valuable of all is perhaps the Unified Threat Management (UTM) tool.

The term ‘spyware’ has some clearly negative connotations to it, and rightly so. This variety of malicious software can cause no small amount of trouble if left unchecked. What follows is a brief overview of spyware, and what measures you can take to protect yourself and your business from it.

In October of 2016, the Federal Communications Commission designed a set of rules known as the Broadband Consumer Privacy Proposal. These rules had intended to flip the status quo and require Internet service providers (ISPs) to gain their customers’ permission before they harvested their browsing histories to sell to advertisers. This proposal is now moot with the establishment of a new law that passed through Congress and was signed by President Trump in April 2017.

Even webcams are susceptible to infestation from RATs, though they may not be the same creatures that haunt subway tunnels or dank basements. Remote Access Tools can be troublesome and, in some cases, invasive. RATs can be used to remotely access a computer and perform any number of functions, including turning on a device’s webcam.

Data might be the most important aspect of your organization, but how well do you protect it throughout your network? Every organization has data like personally identifiable information and financial credentials stashed away somewhere on the network, so security isn’t something that you can ignore. One of the best ways you can safeguard your data is through the use of encryption.

Do you remember how your bank issued you a new debit or credit card with a built-in, security-enhancing chip? There are now ATMs specially designed for use with these chips. Unfortunately, the same technology that was originally meant to secure your finances can also be used against you in the form of fraudulent cash withdrawals.

Do you loan out your Netflix password to friends so that they can catch up on their favorite shows? If so, you’re in violation of a recent federal court ruling, which declares that sharing a password of any kind is now a federal offense. So, if you plan on watching the new Netflix original series Stranger Things, you may want to reconsider how you plan to do so.

Email is (and has been) a prime method of communication for businesses of all sizes. With email comes a whole slew of issues that are essentially synonymous with the technology; spam, information overload, phishing, and information privacy. Even Maryland small businesses that only do business locally are at risk of these issues. Personal email accounts are equally at risk. Employing proper precautions and practices whenever communicating via email is very important to prevent the risk of security compromises, monetary loss, and even legality issues.

Your identity has quite a lot of value, especially in the wrong hands. Security firm ZoneAlarm put together some numbers in 2011 concerning identity fraud, and it even shocked us. Let's talk about a few of these statistics and what it means.