Today we start a new series where we will touch on a series of practical steps that districts can use to increase your NIST compliance. Looking at the complete set of NIST controls can be a daunting experience. One of the best ways we have found to make these cybersecurity improvements more attainable is […]

  Weekly Tech Tidbit – Guarding The Wall “Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns” -Col. Jessep “A Few Good Men” That classic movie line rings true on all our networks.

  On Wednesday we had some power failures due to that high wind storm coming through the region. There isn’t really anything to for our infrastructure or server teams once we determine there is a power event. Fast forward to Thursday morning.

  “Clean up, clean up, everybody, everywhere, Clean up, clean up everybody do their share” -Barney That song has been stuck in my head recently having two Kindergarten aged kids in the house. However, after many of the conversations I have had with you over the last few weeks, it seems an appropriate message this […]

“When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight” – FedEx As many of you know, Bob and I have been doing this for a while – 41 years in fact.   And through all those years, every day is new and fun.   Thanks for your support and friendship and trust through all those years.

Last time I talked about making email safer.   I focused on inbound email to your users and outbound encrypted emails.   However, I neglected to say that advanced spam filters also work outbound.   That means that your end-users email and attachments will be scanned to protect against an inadvertent sending out of malicious content.

Last week I talked about the importance of Cloud Backup in our new remote teaching and learning and back-office school environments. This week I am going to talk about secure and reliable communications. The reality is that the number one threat to your network is your users clicking on attachments or web links that lead […]

Disk encryption is growing in popularity as a means of better-securing laptops and desktops.   Microsoft is offering BitLocker natively in Windows 10.   Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager has a built-in BitLocker Administration console.  If you don’t have SCCM, then Microsoft offers the MBAM console to manage encryption.

For the last few years Microsoft has been talking about “Modern” this or “Modern” that.  In the quest for improved security they are agressively trying to move everyone to more modern protocols.  The impending LDAPS changes are an example of this.   However, there are more processes and protocols that they are urging you to retire.

Every day I am talking to a school district remotely and the conversation goes something like this, “We can’t get into our buildings” or “We have very limited access to our buildings”. One thing to keep in mind is that with our Paladin Sentinel Monitoring service we are monitoring your equipment 24x7x365.   In addition, subscribing […]