Directive Blogs

Computing systems are always vulnerable to some obscure hack or another, and researchers are always trying to find ways to shore them up and prevent future attacks. One previously undiscovered hack literally sounds far-fetched. It uses the sounds that your hard drive makes to help a hacker steal data from your machine, including encryption keys designed to keep your data safe and secure.

There are benefits to being a small business. Being small provides all sorts of flexibility, including the ability to make decisions quickly and without having to go through so many hoops. Plus, you have a smaller workforce, which makes for a more personal experience. However, this also leads to a rather unfortunate side-effect of believing that you’re immune to being hacked.

What crosses your mind when you think about hacking attacks and data breaches? Do you picture a hacker in a ski mask typing furiously, or do you imagine scenes made memorable like those in television and film in works like Mr. Robot or Live Free or Die Hard? In the latter, hacking attacks are perpetrated by masterminds or those with grand ambition. Yet, this trend may portray an inaccurate representation of the typical hacker.

Social media is a great way for organizations to share information about their products and services, but while it’s great for those who want to reach a new audience, it’s also exposing you to another audience that you may not want to be familiar with: hackers. Believe it or not, there are hackers who are trying to take advantage of the personal information you share on your social media accounts.

USB is a popular technology in all modes of today’s society. You’d be hard-pressed to find a modern piece of technology that’s not compatible in some way, shape or form with USB. Thumb drives, chargers, and even portable drives all use this common technology. However, this also means that hackers can take advantage of its popularity to spread malware and other problems.

Has this ever happened to you? You come across a free app online that seems interesting, entertaining, or helpful so you decide to download it? However, as soon as you click the download button you regret it as it begins to install browser toolbars, adware, and other annoying (and potentially dangerous) software onto your device? How can you keep this “crapware” from getting too out of hand, and why is it so popular in the first place?

Hackers are always trying to come up with new ways to steal or corrupt sensitive data. If you don’t take the opportunity to protect your systems, you could be staring down a major data loss incident or security discrepancy. Here are five ways that you can protect your business’s infrastructure from hackers waiting to steal your data.

Botnets are proving to be a difficult hurdle for security professionals, and it’s easy to understand why. Distributed Denial of Service attacks that can knock down servers or services, as well as hordes of remote-controlled zombie computers, are two of the most dangerous ways that hackers use botnets to serve their purposes. What can you do to protect your business from botnets?

Tomorrow is the big day--the day when the American people cast their votes for the next President of the United States. While there may still be a few undecided voters out there, something that they may not be considering includes the machines that they will be using to cast their ballots. It turns out that there may be a major problem with some voting systems in the form of weak cyber security.

Hackers are always getting their hands into sticky situations, but one of the hot topics in world politics--the 2016 United States presidential election--is one of the nastier ones in recent years. In the past few months alone, hackers have reportedly breached not only the Democratic National Committee, but have also infiltrated at least two state election databases.

Halloween is a time when we celebrate what scares us, like ghosts, goblins, ghouls, and the like. For adults, the holiday becomes more lighthearted with each passing year, due to the understanding that such monsters are fictional. Yet, there exists real monsters who know how to play on people’s fears, namely, hackers.

Halloween is a time when people of all ages dress up as something spooky that they’re really not. For the scariest of hackers, every day is like a reverse Halloween as they try to scam victims by pretending to be someone safe and trustworthy--a persona that they’re really not. This Halloween, don’t get tricked by the haunted hack!

Security is one of the most important parts of running a business, especially today when organizations rely so heavily on their technology solutions. Some of the most dangerous threats lurk on a business’s network, watching and waiting for an opportunity to do some real damage. With the right preventative measures, your business can catch these threats in the act before they can accomplish their goals.

Whether we’re ready for it or not, the Internet of Things is coming, and soon. You might see all sorts of connected devices on the market today that you would never think to connect to the Internet, but it’s our responsibility to inform you that these new devices could potentially put not just your business infrastructure at risk, but even your own life.

Security has never been easy for any business that deals with sensitive information. Nowadays, even a small business that uses an Internet connection has to worry about hackers and malware of all types. This is especially problematic for small healthcare offices that need to keep sensitive information secure and safe from online threats.

One of the biggest hacks of 2016 was the United States National Security Agency, by a hacking group calling themselves the Shadow Brokers. This hack came to light after tools belonging to the NSA were discovered on the black market. How could a data breach of this magnitude happen to one of the most secure IT systems in the world? Newly released evidence may provide the answers.

Wireless Internet signals, referred to most commonly as Wi-Fi, are commonplace in every office. Even organizations that don’t often need access to the Internet, like restaurants and coffee shops, have wireless connections available for customers to use. However, just because you can connect to free Wi-Fi, doesn’t necessarily mean that you should.

Not since the British burned the Library of Congress to the ground in the War of 1812 has there been a more devastating attack on the famous library. Only this time, the recent attack was of the digital variety and King George III had nothing to do with it.

There are many ways to fund a project, but one of the more interesting ways to do so in today’s web-centric culture is through crowdfunding. It’s been so effective that even major companies like Google are using it to their advantage. Google’s latest project encourages users to hack into the Nexus line of mobile devices to collect potential vulnerabilities, with the promise of prizes for those who are successful.

Imagine that you are the CEO of a mass media organization whose Twitter has just been hacked and was now posting 20 spam-filled tweets every second. You’ve just put yourselves in the shoes of Tim Armstrong, CEO of now-Verizon-subsidiary AOL.