In August of 2021, CISA added “Single Factor Authentication” to its list of practices it considers “exceptionally risky” as it exposes you to an “unnecessary risk from threat actors”. Your district auditors and the NYS Comptroller’s Office technology auditors are most likely pestering you about your multi-factor authentication (MFA) strategies and beginning to ding […]

Tech Tidbit…Risky Business

Tech Tidbit – MFA Fatigue and Other Things to Be Afraid Of…
Last weekend my youngest daughter started a new baton program on Saturday mornings. Sitting there I realized I have been taking at least one of my four daughters to baton for the last 22 years across two different teams in two different towns.

Tech Tidbit – Risky protocols that attackers will use against you
How do you intend to block lateral movement if an attacker has made it into your network? In looking at recent ransomware attacks there are some consistent attack vectors used for lateral movement that are almost always exploited.

Tech Tidbit – The dizzying pace of CVEs for browsers and other installed software
I am sitting here at 6 am doing the morning review of all our Paladin Sentinel Monitoring school districts. The storm came overnight and there are lots of noisy UPSes, but thankfully it is a pretty boring morning. Boring is good.

Tech Tidbit – Your world must be a commercial SSL world
Add the last “S” for security. I remember the old mattress commercials. You left the last “S” of the phone number for savings. In our world, we need to always make sure we have the last “S” for security. In our world, any internet-facing connection simply must use a commercial SSL (i.e. VPN, Secure […]

The Internet is everywhere – Cybersecurity should be too
In today’s school environment, everyone and almost every piece of equipment talks to the internet and run on your network. Your HVAC system, security cameras, phones, bus cameras and communication, attendance, payroll, and many of your teaching tools are all connected to the internet.

Tech Tidbits – Happy New Year – Calibrate Your UPSes
“I am watching you…Always watching” -Roz Monsters Inc. For New Year’s we once again had a holiday crisis. Fortunately, this wasn’t an attack.
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, will be speaking about the significant increase in business email compromises for school systems.

VMware vSphere Users – Urgent End of Life Notice
All versions of vSphere prior to version 7.0 are about to be retired from support I would like to make you aware that on October 15th, 2022, all VMware vSphere versions prior to version 7.x will no longer be supported by VMware.

Weekly Tech Tidbit – I challenge you to prove your backups work
“None shall pass” -The Black Knight “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” Today I would like to challenge you to “test two aspects of your network backups. Most of you have never done this because yPreview (opens in a new tab)ou are “too busy putting out fires”. It is summer.