Thursday, July 23, 2015

What Happened to Progress, Listening & Dialogue?

What happened To progress, Listening & Dialogue?
By Nick Ashton, CEO/CTO, CommSmart Global Group of Companies.

It seems some have become “Know It All’s! 

Or, even worse, stating, “Don’t Tell Me What You Know, Have Proven and Works, As I Don’t Care!  “In Fact I Am In Management, A CEO, CFO, Director of Trust & Security, I Am The IT Guru of the Company, I Know It All!

What arrogance!  I spoke with such a person yesterday, in fact every single day, the majority of corporate management have this attitude. 

They are the Blinkered Society! 

Oh, hard of hearing too!

Do you see that we are accelerating the demise of the respect of the clients who make you the money to build you empires and live the lifestyle?  Those that fit this bill, which they will never admit to, have the audacity not to listen and think that their effluent does not stink?

Progress is with us to stay, folks like Alexander Graham Bell, Tesla, Edison, Leonard Kleinrock, J.C.R. Licklider, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Jimmy Fallon, Jeb Bush and so many more.  What is it with this elitist’s attitude and how it is spiraling out of control because of the arrogance or is it just a human factor?

The Internet has become the stable of all we do and should not be brushed aside or just accepted.  It must be nurtured, protected and used carefully as it is the backbone of future.

So where did it all begin?  The initial idea is credited as being Leonard Kleinrock's after he published his first paper entitled "Information Flow in Large Communication Nets" on May 31, 1961.

In 1962, J.C.R. Licklider became the first Director of IPTO and gave his vision of a galactic network. In addition to ideas from Licklider and Kleinrock, Robert Taylor helped create the idea of the network that later became ARPANET.

In the summer of 1968, the Network Working Group (NWG) held its first meeting chaired by Elmer Shapiro with the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) with attendees: Steve Carr, Steve Crocker, Jeff Rulifson, and Ron Stoughton. In the meeting, the group discussed solving issues related to getting hosts to communicate with each other.

In December 1968, Elmer Shapiro with SRI released a report "A Study of Computer Network Design Parameters." Based on this work and earlier work done by Paul Baraon, Thomas Marill and others; Lawrence Roberts and Barry Wessler helped to create the final version of the Interface Message Processor (IMP) specifications. Bolt Beranek and Newman, Inc. (BBN) was later awarded the contract to design and build the IMP subnetwork.

Just a little background on what you are reading this on, in case you think Al Gore invented the Internet and is most probably the cause himself, of so called, Global Warming.

Security is of the utmost importance.  Remember when they invented the motorized buggy?  Maybe a little before your time, but they made a person walk in front of the buggy and wave a red flag, they thought people needed warning of this new phenomenon.  I am not suggesting that we need red flags or do we?

It is the human element that is the problem!  Human errors cause most disasters and right now hacking, phishing and MIIT Brutal attacks are a major cause for concern.

It is All About Attitude Change...




WE are in the NOW and
KEEP YOU; in the KNOW…


Worldwide Call: +1 (614) 655-1247



Copyright 2015

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Schools, Colleges & Universities Are A Breeding Ground For Computer Terrorists, Hackers, Phishers & Man in The Middle Brutal Attacks

Schools, Colleges & Universities Are A Breeding Ground For Computer Terrorists, Hackers,
Phishers & Man in The Middle Brutal Attacks
By Nick Ashton, CEO/CTO, CommSmart Global Group of Companies.

Just like the prison system, schools, colleges and universities are a breeding/training grounds for illegal activities.  Not just gangs, drugs, perverted sexual activity, it includes the lucrative computer hacking, phishing and man in the middle brutal attackers.

The Internet connects them worldwide to every opportunity to access corporate, personal and governmental information.  It is not Six Degrees of Separation anymore!  The connections are solid and available.  If they are not sure, there is an under/above ground support network that will teach and share in the massive revenues that are being accrued minute by minute by these criminals.

Computer infiltration is more profitable then the drug or human trafficking marketplace.  It is not just the money being made by the sale of SSN#’s, Bank Cards, personal information, corporate secrets, patents and the inner most working of the Fortune 500 companies. It is the government information that can be used against us.

It is one thing to lose your Driver’s License or a credit card, it is the energy, time, money and pure frustration of replacing them that is a major issue.
 
Now, if it is stolen via a computer data hack or phishing expedition through someone else, like a retail operation, you still have the same steps to go through with the added concern of all your information is out there being used by criminals.

The sad fact is, you personally and corporations are not listening! 

It is SERIOUS and getting worse day by day. 

It is not IF it is going to happen to you, it is WHEN!  Then it is too late…

Believe it or not, there are companies who have developed the solution for these issues.  Trusted Device is more than one step ahead of the situation and there to assist with virtually zero managerial impact on the day to day running of your IT requirements. Not a new company, they have been protecting Europe for over twenty years.

Although some schools, colleges and universities will have expensive security in place, that sadly is not doing the job that is demanded today, Trusted Device overlays the existing system without having to replace or make radical changes. 

In our case it is Plug and Secure!


Just ask the IT/Trust and Security Director at the University of Maryland how they are feeling regarding the outright criminal act of stealing 300,000 Social Security Numbers and the need now to spending monies on credit protection for those people for at least the next year.  This is a reactive move, which should not be needed if you are PROACTIVE!

Universities have long been a favorite target for hackers bent on pilfering private data for identity theft and exploitation.

Since 2005, when breaches at universities began being recorded, an average of 1,268,394 records have been exposed in the US per year.

Numbers have been declining, however. In 2011, a reported 478,490 records were breached. 2013 it has built yet again and 2014 is not off to a good start!
To complicate matters, higher education has a reputation for employing looser data security protocols in general, making those susceptible to accidental data loss and exposure.

The breadth and volume of personal data collected by universities, coupled with high turnover and a generally technically un-savvy population, makes the problem of data loss at institutions nearly epidemic in nature.

A prominent educational group suffered damages from highly skilled students hacking their network, allowing them to change student grades and accessing upcoming tests and exams.

Investigating the source of the hacks revealed that students hacked the login web-portal installing Trojans on teacher/professor computers to obtain their usernames/passwords.

During an initial pilot program of 30.000 teachers and professors, Trusted Device’ s solutions provided all known and identified laptops, tablets and smartphones with short lived certificates to secure data in motion.

As a result, students who still manage to obtain the teacher/professor’s authentication credentials through Malware or Phishing, are unable to use them, since Trusted Device authenticates the laptop, Tablet or Smartphone instead of the user.

With the Trusted Device solution being software based, cost could be significantly reduced when comparing to traditional physical security tokens.

Maintenance wise the solution required around 0.1 FTE to manage once up and running and could also be offered as a managed service by the providing partner.

Since the Trusted Device solution makes use of standards, existing school and university network infrastructure could be re-used, requiring no additional investments.

Additionally the Trusted Device solution scaled sufficiently to allow the 300,000 students in the pilot group to also make use of the solution, allowing for secure read access to their privacy sensitive school files.

There are three video overviews below, the first is an Education overview of the Trusted Device Solution, the second, a Trusted Device overview and costing, the third, a more technical overview of the system as we know your IT department will have questions.


WE are in the NOW and
KEEP YOU; in the KNOW…




Call: +1 (614) 655-1247

Email: info@commsmart.us


Copyright 2015

Monday, July 20, 2015

Hackers Love You - You Are The Weakest Link!

You Are The Weakest Link!
by Nick Ashton, CEO/CTO CommSmart Global Group of Companies

Life is not a game show! How most are running their lives is simple, they want to have the highest score by the end of the day. It is not the points you amass, furniture or television sets you win, it is about making it through the day, without upsetting your boss, manager or supervisor that seems to count. How times have changed!

The distractions of life are wild enough and just making to another day is a miracle. Values, responsibility and ownership have changed and not for the better. In most cases, they do not exist or even in people’s vocabulary. The pattern of life has altered and not for the better. It is not a social world anymore, the daily rigmarole is a dramatic unsocial tornado that is as wide as the eye can see. What is left behind is not a pretty sight.

Crimes has changed, the statistics we view are presented to us and are far from true or paint the real picture of neighborhoods, business trends or what a government can or want to control. No one is going to help you, if they say they will and they are from government, they are fibbing to you. They are as messed up as you are!

Look what we doing, we are believing what people thumb to us in 140 characters or sadistic bastards that hide behind an email or a blog that creates hatred and lies, attacking others and waiting for them to react, vent, showing that they got to you. Co-workers who get their jollies by putting people down verbally, spreading rumors and lies. This is life today…

The computer has in most cases today, become a liability, an uncontrollable item in our lives. It is also the super highway into our inner lives, business information and a means to make an illegal buck. Once upon a time criminals had to work hard to get to us, steal what we have and mess up our lives.

Not anymore! We leave the door wide open for them to just stroll in and take whatever they want. What has happened to us all? Wait, do we even care? I believe there are some that still do. It is not too late to make change and I do not mean giving someone a quarter, as it is costing us much more than that! It is about us, those that surround us, misleading and altering the facts to suit their arterial motives. Some are as criminal in taking a paycheck and have no intention of being true to their corporate vision or the job description. Sadly, they are in our midst!

Certain crime statistics maybe have been lowered and are single actions, cyber-crime is an action that affects multitudes and in ways that can be devastating to a family, business or even a major corporation.

Ask Ashley Madison, the Hook-up site, who have had some 35 million compromised this month, Walmart Canada, 21.5 + Government Employees and their relativesTarget, Home Depot, PF Chang's, numerous medical facilities, pension funds, universities, WordPress and JP Morgan on how business is and why they (JP Morgan) did not react to information they received ahead the theft that affected between 70-140 million customers, by the hacking of their personal banking information. 


By the way, it will have a tsunami effect for a long time to come.

These cyber terrorists can be stopped by you and your company by having secure protection in place. The attitude of “it will never happen to me” is the failure of all. 



From the Chief Executive Officer, who serves at the will of the Board, to the IT manager who has not listened and thinks they know it all because of their position. They have failed their Duty of Care, the Corporate Governance and are liable as such. 

Sadly, the only winners in litigation are the attorneys. It is like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.

The Cyber side of your business is important as marketing and all involved need to be in total communication at all times!

So let’s cut the chase, answers are here, people know more than you and that part you do not like! Most think they can handle it themselves, delaying the implementation of the solution. Like most, we start on page 43 of the manual, believing we know better than the guy that wrote the manual. After all, we are humans, well some of us at least.

Stop!

New technology is not as disruptive as you think! In fact, that is where we

come, our abilities to use solutions and applications that we have in our technology toolkit is available. Depending on your requirements we have the answers. Locking the front and back door to all computer data by restricting access is a priority, but not in the ways you are thinking. Firstly, we all use passwords, thinking they are secure, but who has the password and is logging-in? Your database hasn't a clue who it is! 

It does when using a TRUSTED REMEDY

We can solve that very effortlessly by making those trusted and authorized by using their Device DNA. 


Transportation is at risk and then even means your own car!  Hijacking is out of date, it is now Hacking!

This next week we will launch in North America and Europe full security with a Smart Phone that is secure, user friendly and utilizes our technologies to not just beat the hackers and corporate spies, it wastes their time in even trying to steal your important messages, emails, texts and conversations. 


Corporate Peace of Mind and Governments Too!  

Secures you for the Data Security Acts that are enforced as January 1st, 2016.  Act Now and Do Not Get caught in A Hacking Nightmare...


WE are in the NOW and KEEP YOU; IN THE KNOW...


Be Smart, with CommSmart Global



www.commsmart.us


Telephone: +1 (614) 655-1247

Copyright 2015