Flexnet Networks LLC Blog

The 2016 United States presidential election was an ugly one for multiple reasons--chief among them the accusation that hacked voting machines could have altered the outcome of the election significantly. Thankfully, there are steps being taken to alleviate the worries that third parties might alter the outcome of such important events.

In the last few months, there have been several high-profile data security breaches that resulted in the theft of millions upon millions of non-public information records. Though much of the focus in the aftermath of the breaches was on personal identity theft and prevention, it’s important to keep in mind that not all the stolen data records target individuals. Business entities are also at risk. Vendors and partners that you do business with regularly will probably have record of your company’s non-public information, payment information, or tax ID number.

Businesses can benefit from the use of personal mobile devices in the workplace, yet there are also potential dangers in allowing mobile and Internet of Things devices to access your network. In order to reduce these dangers, you need to put some limits and guidelines on the use of such devices in the workplace.

Phishing scams have had a supporting role in many of the latest cyber threats, often as the means the attacker has used to start off their attack. This attack vector is relatively easy to avoid in most cases, but requires education for the end user.

Chances are, you’ve heard of spam, but many don’t know how to identify it in the first place, let alone work around it. Frankly, spam can cause some serious damage to your business if not properly dealt with. In today’s blog, you’ll learn what makes spam, “spam,” and how you can keep it from infecting your inbox.

Over the past several months, while watching the news or reading about business and technology, you’ve probably encountered a few words, such as ‘ransomware’ ‘exploit weakness’, and ‘security patch’. These terms are used often, and you may be confused as to what they really mean, and how they relate to you and the security of your business’ data.

When your organization is implementing a new project, there are a lot of expectations and deadlines that are watched with a close eye. While it might be ideal to get the project finished as quickly as possible, doing so can put a lot of pressure and stress on it that can ultimately be its downfall. For example, if you don’t think out the planning phase carefully, the entire implementation process can suffer--particularly when working on new IT initiatives.

With the mountainous success of Game of Thrones, the BBC-produced show has always been understandably concerned with their security. However, with the show officially overtaking the original source material, A Song of Ice and Fire, there is an increased presence of curious fans and members of the press with an eye out for a sneak peek at the action. This has led to more; somewhat more modern measures being adopted to keep the production’s secrets safe.

It doesn’t matter which industry your organization falls into. Your business will always be susceptible to threats in some way, shape, or form. Therefore, it’s your responsibility to ensure that your business understands how to protect itself from these threats, before it’s too late. We’ll help you learn more about the various issues that you need to watch out for, and what you can do to stop them.

The Internet of Things is all around us, in our homes, our offices, and even our cars. While this connectivity can provide a more unified and automated approach to daily tasks, it has the downside of enabling certain security threats to go unfettered. A prime example are the IoT-driven botnets that seem to be increasing in popularity.

Run your Windows Updates and be very skeptical about opening unsolicited emails. Failure to do so may result in a very dangerous strain of ransomware that could infect your entire network and spread to your clients, partners, and prospects.

ATMs are, surprisingly enough, not the most secure pieces of technology out there, though there are efforts to improve security by taking advantage of mobile devices. Granted, this won’t be enough to protect against the considerable vulnerabilities in ATMs. In order to maximize security and minimize the amount of damage done by vulnerabilities, the user needs to understand how to protect themselves while using ATMs.

Security issues can have any number of causes, meaning that every business needs to have a comprehensive security solution. This doesn’t mean, however, that there aren’t additional, small measures to implement that can give your organization’s security an added boost. Here, we’ll talk about two: keeping your software patched, and identifying social engineering attempts.

Occasionally, some Samsung smartphone users might see something strange appear at the top of their device’s screen--an eyeball. It will show up for a brief second and then disappear. What gives Samsung? Are you spying on me? For this blog, we’ll get to the bottom of this, as well as go over the symptoms of a device that is compromised.

Based on the headlines you see today, it’s no question that cybersecurity is something that every business owner should be concerned about. As attacks become bigger and more frequent, all decision makers must ask the question: who needs to step up and ensure my IT resources are secure?

What you watch on TV says a lot about you; so much so, that you might be creeped out if we told you there are others who know exactly what you watched, without your consent. Sound too invasive to be true? Well, for the 11 million owners of Vizio televisions, this practice has been going on for some time now.

On average, how many people do you think are affected by identity theft? According to the United States Bureau of Justice, about five percent of its population; about 11.7 million people, are victims of identity theft. Their methods might vary, but the one thing that all victims have in common is that they hold information that presents value to hackers. Among these victims could be a few that hit close to home: your employees.

Encryption has become a very important part of maintaining an acceptable standard of security while browsing the web and storing data. Large enterprises and organizations have been using encryption for a long time, and even the average consumer uses encryption each and every time an online purchase is made. Did you know that the protection afforded users by encryption is made possible thanks to security certificates?

IT security is a major pain point for all businesses in all industries. Is your organization doing a good enough job at keeping your data safe? The reality of the situation is that the majority of threats make it through the tiniest of vulnerabilities, even those that seem to be benign. By understanding a concept called the 80/20 rule, you might be able to better address your business’s network security weaknesses.

Ransomware is a dangerous malware that all businesses fear. Although, if the right precautions are taken, a ransomware attack can be completely thwarted. A recent hack attack of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency provides us with a real-world example of this, which helps make ransomware appear a lot less formidable.