Security Made Simple
VPN A virtual private network (VPN) is a form of network connection between two points which is encrypted. This helps protect the network traffic from being intercepted by others, and helps to keep the message secure. It’s a really good idea to use a VPN if you’re away from home eg in cafes or using … Continue reading V is for …
This story appeared on the BBC website the other day. Basically the town’s borough council was hit with ransomware and their systems were brought to their knees. It’s not unusual for one or two devices in an organisation to be infected with Ransomware. Typically those devices are isolated from the network and all other machines … Continue reading Town dusts off typewriters after cyber-attack
Firewall Computers talk to each other using different protocols (these are just different formats for messages) and different protocols use different ports. Common protocols include http, which is used by most internet traffic, https which is an encrypted version of http, or FTP which is used for file transfers (File Transfer Protocol). Http uses port … Continue reading F is for…
Encryption The process of scrambling a message or data as part of cryptography is called encryption. This is what makes the message impossible to read unless you know how to unscramble it using decryption. As the years have gone by this process has become more and more complicated, and there is heavy reliance on computing … Continue reading E is for…
Dark Web Most of us are familiar with the Internet, and using search engines such as Google and Bing to find information we need. Those operate in a part of the World Wide Web that is often called the Surface Web. It seems like we can find a huge amount of data on the surface … Continue reading D is for…
CAT5 We don’t really hear this term very often any more, but it refers to probably the most common form of network cabling in offices and homes over the last 15-20 years. It’s the cable you may connect from your home router to your laptop if you don’t use Wi-Fi – it’s almost certainly been … Continue reading C is for…
Backup I’ve talked about these in a previous post, but essentially backups are copies of your data or computer which you can use to replace files which are inadvertently deleted, or as an alternative to paying the ransom in a ransomware attack. You should make backups on a regular basis, whether by simply copying your … Continue reading B is for…
I published this article on LinkedIn on Monday 3rd July 2017, and I’ve copied it here for you. If you don’t know what you have, how can you measure it? We read a lot these days about equipment and training to help combat cyber attacks and reduce risks, but I don’t see much about today’s … Continue reading How does your security measure up?
Yesterday, May 12th 2017 saw a mass global cyber attack launched with impeccable timing just before the weekend. Over 75000 machines were affected in around 100 countries – so far. It is believed that a hacking group called Shadow Crew is behind the attack. This is the same group that hacked the CIA in the … Continue reading Global Cyber Attack
A while back I mentioned in my post on Backups that we needed to talk about Encryption, so here we are. First of all, I need to explain what encryption is. At its simplest, its a way of making a message unreadable by anyone other than the intended recipient. I should also point out … Continue reading Encryption
Easy Cyber 