Tech Tidbits

Protect Your District from Business Email Compromise

Please join us *tomorrow - Wednesday, October 12th* for an upcoming webinar focusing on Business Email Compromise. Jason Whitehurst, a cybersecurity professional, ...

Weekly Tech Tidbit – Paper's Please

 

The first line of email defense is a properly formed SPF record

"Paper's Please"

Those words ...

Tech Tidbit - The pain of changing passwords

"Treat your password like your toothbrush. Don't let anyone else use it and change it every six months"

-Clifford Stoll

Password security ...

Vulnerability Disclosed in HPE BIOS

Recently I wrote about the increasing vulnerabilities in BIOS/UEFI underneath the operating system and encouraging you to update your devices ...

CSI is hiring. Come join our growing family!

CSI is growing again.  We are looking for high-quality individuals to work with our service delivery team.

For more information on the positions available ...

Tech Tidbit: No More Local Admins!

Your techs *should not* be local admins anymore. It is simply too dangerous.

 

I have personally been a limited user on all ...

Tech Tidbit: Scott' Secret Sauce

How I manage the storm of information and how you can quickly know what I think is important.

 

A few thoughts on how I manage ...

Tech Tidbit: Mind The Gap

 

"Mind the Gap"

As the war unfolds and these "Hacktivist" Guerillas take their shots at both sides of the fight, the details ...

Tech Tidbit - UPS + Surge Protector = Disaster

Surge protectors need to be banned from your wiring closets

Hi Lisa,

A few thoughts on UPSes and Surge Protectors.

If you need ...

Tech Tidbit: Rejection is hard

 

"Everyone fears rejection"

-Derek Jeter

It finally happened. I got kicked in the head and rejected.

Here ...

Tech Tidbits - Happy New Year!

 

"I am watching you...Always watching"

-Roz Monsters Inc.

For New Year's we once again had a holiday crisis. ...

Your Weekly Tech Tidbit...Boring is good

 

Boring Email Formatting = Improved Reliability

We love to use graphics and links in our emails. There are lot ...

Tech Tidbit: Patching your Holy of Holies

Your technical staff's equipment needs to be the best maintained in the district

 

Some thoughts on patching your holy of holies.

If ...

Your Weekly Tech Tidbit...It is probably DNS

 

I have something hard that I really need you to do - audit your DNS. It takes a lot of time. It is boring to do. However, it ...

Tech Tidbit - What I am afraid of

 

As I have gotten older I have developed claustrophobia. MRI machines are now my nemesis. Fortunately, I have not needed one ...

Tech Tidbit - Back to School to Basics

 

I think by now everyone is officially open. I know some districts locally and in the Northeast had horrific transportation issues. ...

Bob's Top 5 for Cybersecurity

 

 

Back in April, I had sent Bob and Scott's top 3 solutions you should have in place NOW to best protect against ...

Your Weekly Tech Tidbit...Beware of "Zombies"

 

"A chain is only as strong as its weakest link"

-Thomas Reid, "Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man" - 1786

The SolarWinds ...

Your Weekly Tech Tidbit... NIST Data Recovery

 

Today's NIST topic is data recovery. The most obvious example of meeting this NIST standard is maintaining good backups. This ...

Weekly Tech Tidbit - Secure Remote Access

As I write this on Tuesday, March 24, 2020, I do hope that this message finds you well and staying safe as we all adapt to our new normal under the COVID-19 ...

Weekly Tech Tidbit Extra - VPN Best Practices

As part of our client school district's response for Corona virus preparedness, we see an uptick in requests for VPN access into the school district's ...

CSI is hiring. Come join our growing family!

CSI is growing again.  We are looking for high-quality individuals to work with our service delivery team.

For more information on the positions available ...

Weekly Tech Tidbit - Thank You!

As 2019 comes to a close, on behalf of everyone here at CSI, I would like to say thank you for entrusting us with your technology needs.  We appreciate ...

Are Printers The Trojan Horse In Your Network?

We have all heard the story of the Trojan Horse.  The Greeks built it and left it in front of Troy.  The Greek army left.  The Trojans went outside ...

Weekly Tech Tidbit - Implementing DNS Security

Most of can easily agree that our IT universe has been dominated over the past several months by cybersecurity discussions as we daily (sometimes it feels ...

CSI is hiring. Come join our growing family! Copy

CSI is growing again.  We are looking for high-quality individuals to work with our service delivery team.

For more information on the positions available ...

Weekly Tech Tidbit - Ransomware and Backups

We have been having a lot of discussions about how to better protect against ransomware and other threats with the recent attacks that have happened in ...

Weekly Tech Tidbit - Cyber Safety for Students

This week’s Tech Tidbit is shorter on my thoughts and words since the attached link below contains lots of reading on its own.

For the start of the ...

Weekly Tech Tidbit - Managing Switch Stacks

Over the past few years, we have been recommending the use of switch stacks in all your MDF and IDF locations.   This has been done to aid in simplifying ...

Weekly Tech Tidbit - Preventing Data Leaks

In my 20s I went to Tahiti and went on a sunset cruise on the famed "Liki Tiki".   It was an amazing sunset.  Hula girls, and music.   Along the ...

Weekly Tech Tidbit - Do you know your SA Password?

A constant frustration of ours is ensuring "clean" backups.   If you corrupt your data or have a server failure, we need to reliably get that data back.  ...

Weekly Tech Tidbit - Rethinking SSLs

We harp on the fact that if you have *ANY* VPN, or remote access capabilities into your district, you *MUST* use a commercial SSL certificate and not ...

Weekly Tech Tidbit - Patch 3rd Party Applications

I was recently reading a security study that said that 25% of applications are unpatched for an entire year!  As you approach the summer remember that ...

Weekly Tech Tidbit - Network Time Matters - Fix It!

One of the most important principles of a good network design is accurate time.   Windows time is a whole lot like the 1960s car clock - always drifting ...

Weekly Tech Tidbit - External Vulnerability Scans

Do you know how secure you are from the outside world?  Maybe you're new and inherited a network, or there has been so much churn over the years with ...

Weekly Tech Tidbit -Reboot before Updates

Another short and sweet tidbit.

When you are installing software, updates, patches, etc., reboot your server.   I can't tell you the number of times ...

Weekly Tech Tidbit - Vendor Support Contracts

This one is short and sweet.

Once in a while we encounter equipment or software that you have purchased elsewhere, but you want CSI to actively support ...

Weekly Tech Tidbit - 4 Hour On-Site?

Often we all don't get true clarity on the importance of certain issues until you are living them.  That is why for instance Dutchess County BOCES attempts ...

Weekly Tech Tidbit - Secure your DNS

Keeping up with my theme on DNS related posts, this week I will again reprise a post from over a year ago on the importance of implementing proper control ...

Weekly Tech Tidbit - Thanks!

As 2018 comes to a close, on behalf of everyone at CSI I would like to say thank you for entrusting us with your technology needs.  Unlike most of our ...

Weekly Tech Tidbit - The FBI Came To Visit...

The FBI came to visit us last week.  No it wasn't an investigation.  It was for CSI's 3rd annual Security Event.  I have talked about the topic of ...

Weekly Tech Tidbit - 2020 Is Coming

As you go through your normal yearly planning cycles remember that in January 2020 Microsoft will be retiring Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows 7, and Microsoft ...

Weekly Tech Tidbit - FRS vs. DFS-R - Time To Convert

In an Active Directory domain, we generally rely heavily on group policies.   Microsoft best practices say that you should have at least two domain ...

Weekly Tech Tidbit - Air Gap Backups

When all else fails we reach for the backups.   However, increasingly the bad guys are consciously seeking out your backups and deleting them as part ...

Macs Need Advanced Endpoint Protection Too

I can't tell how many times I have heard from non-technical Mac people that, "they don't need anti-virus." The Apple person that sold them their Mac told ...

Weekly Tech Tidbit - Data Leaks

We have to be constantly vigilant to prevent malware, trojans, and other bad actors from taking root in our school networks to steal personally identifiable ...

CSI Fall / Winter Event Schedule

The school year has started and we're anxious to update you on what our webinar, seminar, and Tech Talk schedule for the Fall and Winter.

Wednesday, ...

CSI is hiring. Come join our growing family!

CSI is growing again.  We are looking for high-quality individuals to work with our service delivery team.

For more information on the positions available ...

Weekly Tech Tidbits - Kill the Zombies

During our May Tech Talk meetings one of my summertime recommended tasks was for everyone to find and eliminate “zombie” servers.   Zombie servers ...

Weekly Tech Tidbits - Baby steps to better security

We have been discussing a whole lot of security issues over this past year.  Many of you are already moving forward to address many of our recommendations.  ...

Your Weekly Tech Tidbit - Are your printers secure?

We spend huge amounts of time thinking about server and workstation patches, firewall and switch patches and software patches, but when was the last time ...

Microsoft Licensing Webinar - Wednesday April 25th

 One of the most confusing things we all encounter is Microsoft software licensing.   You hear one explanation and then another.  We are left mystified ...

Your Weekly Tech Tidbit - Spectre and Meltdown

I wanted this week to take a few minutes to share with you our latest thinking on the Intel Spectre and Meltdown fiasco. In a nutshell, ...

Your Weekly Tech Tidbit - Group Policy and Security

You will find on our web site under Webinar recordings, Hardening Active Directory Part I and also Part II. If you haven't watched those presentations, ...

Your Weekly Tech Tidbit - Proper DNS Control

In this week’s Tech Tidbit I want to talk a bit about the importance of implementing proper control of DNS as part of your malware protection program.
DNS ...

Why You Have to Eliminate Local Administrator Rights

Welcome to the second installment of, "Weekly Tech Tidbits".    This week I am going to answer a very common question, "Why do we have to remove local ...

Scott's Tech Tidbits - November Edition

The October Tech Talk meeting was jammed packed with information.   There was more information than time allowed us to present.

Therefore, Scott ...

CSI Tech Talk Dates for the 2017-2018 School Year

We wanted to let you know the CSI Tech Talk meeting and webinar dates for the 2017-2018 school year.

Our Tech Talk free knowledge transfer sessions ...

Apple Releases Security Updates

Apple has released security updates to address vulnerabilities in multiple products. A remote attacker may exploit some of these vulnerabilities to take ...

Microsoft's Education Presentation

Today Microsoft made some announcements regarding education.  At the core of the announcements was the announcement of Windows 10 S on $189 laptops that ...

CSI Tech Talk meeting Tuesday May 9th - Sign Up Now!

**NOTE: Due to ALL THE WINTER SNOW cancellations we pushed this final tech talk of the school year back one week**

Our Tech Talk quarterly, free knowledge ...

CSI is now an authorized Nimble Storage partner

CSI is pleased to announce we are now a Nimble storage partner.  There is a critical need for low cost, high speed, expandable, reliable storage.  Nimble ...

CSI is now an authorized Veeam partner

CSI is pleased to announce that we are a Veeam authorized partner.   CSI believes that Veeam Backup and Replication is the ideal way to backup and restore ...

CSI Tech Talk Webinar - Tuesday April 19th 10:30am

CSI is pleased to announce the second of our Tech Talk webinar series on Tuesday April 19th at 10:30m.  This is in addition to our quarterly Tech Talk ...

Cisco Next Generation Cloud Networking Seminar

CSI cordially invites you to join us for a Cisco Next Generation Cloud Networking Seminar.  If you're considering an upgrade of your wireless infrastructure, ...

Small Business Saturday November 29th

For the third consecutive year, the Dutchess County Regional Chamber of Commerce is proud to partner with American Express to bring Small Business ...

CSI is hiring. Come join our growing family!

CSI is growing again.  We are looking for high quality individuals to work with our service delivery team.   For more information please click here.

 

 

  ...

Tech Talk Quick Hits Presentation Now On-line

Tech Talk is a quarterly, free knowledge transfer session that CSI offers four times a year.  This session is designed for technical staff responsible ...

CSI and internal IT departments - perfect together

One of the questions we often get from in-house IT staff is, "aren't you trying to replace me?".    The answer to that question is NO.  While CSI's ...

Leveraging technology to balance work and family

If you have a family with children in sports,  you probably occasionally struggle balance your personal and business responsibilities.  In my case my ...

Why CSI is different

At CSI we are constantly reading, learning, evaluating, and training on the latest technologies and best practices.  I personally read at least 1,000 ...

Small Business Saturday

For the second consecutive year, the Dutchess County Regional Chamber of Commerce is proud to partner with American Express to bring Small Business Saturday ...

Web & Video 101 Seminar - Tuesday May 14th 8:30am

The Dutchess County Regional Chamber of Commerce IT Committee is presenting a seminar entitled "IT Security 101" on Tuesday May 14th from 8:30am-12pm ...

IT Security 101 Seminar - Tuesday May 7th 8:30am

The Dutchess County Regional Chamber of Commerce IT Committee is presenting a seminar entitled "IT Security 101" on Tuesday May 7th from 8:30am-12pm at ...

CSI is hiring. Come join our growing family!

CSI is growing again.  We are looking for high quality individuals to work on our sales team.   For more information please visit: https://bit.ly/10yH9ux

 

 

  ...

Great Tech Talk Meeting Today

Thankfully the re-scheduled CSI Tech Talk meeting happened on probably the nicest day of the Spring.   The weather was great and the turn out was great ...

Dropbox for Teams

https://bit.ly/13M66YE

 

ESX 5.1 SNMP Issue

https://bit.ly/13YrQ3p

 

 

Exchange Server 2010 SP3

Exchange 2010 SP3:

Co-exists with Exchange 2013 CU1
Exchange 2010 can now be installed on Windows Server 2012
Exchange 2010 now supports Internet ...

IPv6

https://bit.ly/WArmOw

 

vSphere Alarms

https://bit.ly/XQpLC2

 

One to One Laptop Academic Pilot

In 1978 I brought the first Apple II computer into John Jay High School in the Wappingers Central School District.   It was the first PC ever in school. ...

Security updates available for Adobe Flash Player

It seems like it has been just days since the last critical Adobe patches.  Here's the latest Adobe Flash Security Update Advisory: https://adobe.ly/WjMclm

 

  ...

March 2013 Tech Talk - Save The Date March 19th

 

It is three weeks until CSI's March 2013 Tech Talk quarterly, free knowledge transfer session on Tuesday, March 19th at 8:00AM.  This ...

DNS Root Servers

https://bit.ly/Us7kDU