A famous Monty Python routine contains the tag line “No One Expects the Spanish Inquisition!” As funny and as absurd as the scene may be, we can learn strategies for disruptions that either prevent us from performing less-important tasks or force us to completely recover as best we can from a total interruption of our normal lives or our business operations.
Read moreOne of the main weapons of organized crime on the Internet is the use of junk email, also called spam. Hackers use spam for a number of purposes such as selling counterfeit products (medicines, particularly) to steal your personal or financial information, or to infect your computer with spyware and malware. This malicious software can then hijack your computer and your Internet connection to help propagate itself.
Read moreIf you have a reliable, high-speed Internet connection, you can back up your system and data online. While this isn’t a solution for many, if you live or work in an urban area your cable or telephone provider may be able to supply enough bandwidth for the task.
Read moreWe all get email. We all get junk email. The term that we use is SPAM email. In modern usage, we think of this as the punch line of a “Monty Python” routine. No, I will not sing the “Spam” song for you. The reality is that the term comes from an incident related to the so-called “Robert Morris” worm of 1988. Imagine a piece of Hormel canned meat thrown at the blades of a fan. What comes out the other side?
Read moreIn my computer security classes, I tease my students that “Backups are good; restores are better.” The unfortunate fact of life is that computer hardware wears out and stops working. Software has bugs. Unfortunately, systems sometimes become infested with malware — so-called malicious software. A particularly ugly kind of attack, such as CryptoLocker, is called “Ransomware.” As Cybersecurity professionals, we call it crypto-viral extortion when a malware attack encrypts a user’s files and then demands payment to retrieve the key to restore the data.
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