Pandemic Pressures

Happy Friday All!

This company was created due to pressure brought on by the pandemic. Say hi to my wild, informative, and fun project: The Bastion Brief.

I created the Bastion Brief to help protect the way of life that we cherish. Our guides will offer tips, tricks, and information that you can put in play today.

There are so many things that we will cover related to cyber security but let us start with one word- data.

Data can be used to describe the information that is created, transferred, manipulated, and stored for use by people. Data is the lifeblood of companies, transactions, communications, and creations. The number of orders you requested from your couch during lockdown—data. The credit card number and credentials you used to pay—data. The time the delivery took, miles the driver went, and the tip amount—data. There are people with positions solely devoted to analyzing, you guessed it, data.

When we think about cyber security, we are really thinking about protecting our data and the interconnected networks it flies around on. Information at its core is valuable. The newest, best design for an application is valuable. The social security number of your aunt is valuable. The personal identifiable information stored on your favorite restaurant’s server is valuable. While I can exhaust you with examples, I wanted you to view data from the many angles and lenses it can be seen from.

Just as you have thought about data for the past few seconds, so have people that look to exploit this data for profit. Now many of you might assume that the gang of hackers seen in the news lately are out to get you and that’s why there are people like me, a cyber security geek. While you would not be wrong that hackers pose a threat, the biggest threat is us humans.

Human error is the largest source of cyber security risk that we can observe according to, of course, the data. The pandemic has brought on many large concerns for those working in technology. To begin with, we must consider availability. After all, cyber security is deeply rooted in making sure that our data is accessible by authorized individuals when we need it. If for any reason we cannot access our precious data, it is considered an attack on availability.

The stress of the pandemic while shifting every enterprise and local/federal government system to being accessible while remote is a large burden on systems. We also must consider natural disasters as a major stressor. As the world struggles to get on top of climate change on the horizon, the availability of our remote systems may be reduced by flooding and wildfires. Even a simple mistake can be a threat to availability, like a recent cargo ship caught in a canal backing up global shipping. Attacks on the critical infrastructure like the power grid, a pipeline, or dam could devastate regions of the United States grinding our normal logistics to a halt. Cyber security professionals are here to help prevent the threats to our technology use and the precious data stored on the information systems we use.

So, who really cares if there’s a low chance you will be affected? Data is the reason you should care.

With new automated systems attempting to use data to predict each like, dislike, and desire as you may have seen in examples like Netflix suggesting your next show or Amazon your next purchase… Attackers want to use automated systems to do the work of grabbing data from every available source too.

So, a quick tip? Create strong, different passwords for all your accounts. Stay alert while online where your data is involved.

“Security in IT is like locking your house or car – it doesn't stop the bad guys, but if it's good enough they may move on to an easier target. — Paul Herbka”

Weak passwords, poor habits, and opportunity to make money create an environment that rewards cybercrime. Attackers can use cheap, easy to set up bot computers to test vulnerabilities in your organization all while they go have a cup of coffee or deploy another attack vector. Creating a weak password like your dog’s name, using it for all your logins because it is easy to remember, and not paying attention to the look-alike mirror login page the attacker set up may just catch you in their web. While a normal person like myself may not house too attractive of data, consider a top executive at a large company or a government official. If we can improve our behavior, we might be able to keep attackers at bay—well that is until they change their attack method again.

The only truly safe device is the one that is never powered on.

Thanks for taking the time to read this one, see you next time.

P.F.