Happy Friday,
It's been a rough week for Oahu public transit. You may have seen me on a few news channels this week to talk about the OTS hack and what it means for public safety. In case you missed it, here's a link to one of the segments on KITV.
Click to watch / listen
Dept. of Transportation Services Director Roger Morton stated that "It was pretty apparent it was an outside intrusion, a cyber breach into the system." And, as this is now the second breach OTS has experienced, there's a good chance that they didn't shore up their security posture after the first incident.
In the video I go through some tips to keep this from happening to you or your business. I recommend that you double check:
1) Your password hygiene. In a perfect world, each of us would have a unique, complex password for every website protected by 2-factor authentication (eg. a text message code on login). That's nearly impossible to achieve without the help of a password manager, so I recommend looking at Keeper and Bitwarden, then get to work on changing those re-used passwords!
2) Old software and equipment. There's a reason that software and hardware vendors would declare a product end-of-life. It's usually because they can no longer keep them protected against vulnerabilities that have been discovered along the way. Remember Adobe Flash, ActiveX and Windows XP? All great products in their day but had to be sunsetted because they weren't safe to use. Don't make that mistake - you now know better.
3) Employee Security Awareness Training Program. A structured and proper employee cybersecurity training curriculum is a characteristic you'll find in most every successful company. Not only is it a compliance requirement, but essential since most of the successful hacks and breaches you hear about on the news are because of social engineering. The reputation damage is sometimes too great for many businesses to fully recover from. If you need some guidance on crafting one for your organization, feel free reach out, we can help.
This is not the last hack you're going to hear about. I'll do my best to keep you informed. You do your part to spread the word and help keep the community protected!
Stay safe out there,
-Attila
New Friday Funnies
Q: What did Batman say to Robin before getting into the car?
A: "Get in the car."
Q: Why can't dinosaurs clap their hands?
A: Because they're extinct!