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Good morning, everybody. I was on WTAG this morning with Steve Fourni who was sitting in for the vacationing Jim Polito. He had a few questions about computer security especially in light of the 129 Microsoft Vulnerabilities that were addressed on Patch Tuesday, I did get up on my soapbox for a bit, but Here we go with Steve.
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Automated Machine Generated Transcript:
Craig Peterson: [00:00:00] Hey, it’s political season. I had to get on my soapbox. Okay. Little stump, speech, going on here, Craig Peterson. Of course this morning. I was on in Mass and south-central and Western mass as well as Southern Vermont and also from parts of Connecticut. So yeah, I guess we’re expanding.
We’re talking about serious computer issues. Steve Fourni was sitting in for Jim Pollito this morning and I like the way he was going with this and what he was thinking about. His train of thought is something that frankly, every business person needs to have. So here we go with Steve, his audio is a little bit low and I reported that over to iHeart because apparently it’s going out okay on the terrestrial AM and FM stations, but it definitely not working so great on the iHeart stuff. So somebody turned a pot down. I think it’s what happened. But anyway, here we go.
Steve Fourni: [00:01:00] All right. You know that music it’s Craig Peterson our tech talk guru always giving us the information that we need. That is important. Now more than ever. We are all on that stinking computer now, and it is more important now than more than ever. Craig. Good morning. How are you, sir?
Hi, I’m doing well. You know If your computer is stinking you can wash it, but be careful.
Not with water while it’s on I assume.
So let’s start with Microsoft, who I handed in their term paper and he handed it back with 129 vulnerability mistakes and now it appears that they have corrected their work and turned it back in.
Craig Peterson: [00:01:34] Wow. Everybody, Pay attention to this one because this is a very big deal. Yes. We had patch Tuesday, 129 vulnerabilities in 15 Microsoft products is absolutely crazy. But here’s the big news, very rarely here does Homeland security issue emergency warnings.
On Friday, the Department of Homeland security gave administrators, system administrators within the federal government until Monday to patch Windows. There is amongst all of these patches, the first patch for this came out last month, and another one’s coming out.
Homeland security saying this is so absolutely critical you’ve got to get it done over the weekend. So that applies to all of us as well. It’s called a zero log-on. This presents what they called an unacceptable risk because you don’t even have to log on to the windows server in order to take control of the silly thing. Absolutely terrible. This is a flaw in Microsoft Windows net-log- on-remote protocol.
Many of our businesses, and Steve you’ve heard me talk about this before, we just don’t understand how to do this stuff. We’ve gotten VPNs we are using windows net log on, it is not configured properly. Now it turns out that if you have not applied these most recent patches, you’re in serious trouble.
Steve Fourni: [00:03:07] Yikes. So we’re talking with Craig Peterson, our tech talk guru. Do you think Craig? It’s a generic question, but do you think that most companies, are prepared for where we are in terms of the remote working, because you have, you have like your bosses who have other more important things to. Do you have your IT department who again, probably has more important things to do? Do you think they’re in, on the whole, staffed enough to keep tabs on all this stuff?
Craig Peterson: [00:03:35] No, I don’t. I really don’t. This whole security thing is a very big deal, very hard for business businesses to do. When you get down to the raw number, businesses are concerned obviously about these business expenses. I think it can be looked at also as a plus to be able to tell your client, Hey, a big hug time here. We’re keeping your data safe.
But until you have about 500 employees in your business, you are very unlikely to be able to afford the type of security that you need. So you get these businesses out there, small businesses, which is under 500 employees, considered by the SBA to be a small business. These small businesses who are there – I’ve got myself, somebody who used to be that and such, and now do you know, they really like computers and they are our computer expert and darn it, we’ve got SonicWall and we’ve got Norton, antivirus installed. We’re all set.
It is not true. They have to, Steve, let go of those reins a little bit, outsource it to a managed security services provider.
I’ve got another article out there right now. The title is it’s time for CEOs to stop enabling China’s blatant intellectual property theft. They are absolutely right. We are not doing anywhere near enough. If you’re on my email list, I’m starting these three-minute training, If you will, three-minute emails that are going to be going out, ultimately, here a couple of times a week to help CEOs, business owners, senior managers understand a little bit about what these problems are and if you’re a home user, you’re going to get stuff out of this as well. But this is a huge deal.
Then you get Jeff Bezos. You get the chairman of Microsoft, Sundar Pichai, and Tim Cook, who is the head of Apple. All in front of Congress denying firsthand knowledge of China stealing intellectual property. Mark Zuckerberg admitted that it was well-documented he’s right. And I have seen it in the majority. Probably the vast majority. I’m thinking better than 90%. Me personally, 90% of the businesses that have called me and my team in, Steve, to have a look at their systems. Emails weird, something’s slow. Can you have a look? They do a scan, do an analysis for us. And we did this for free about two years ago for a bunch of different businesses here, listeners to the radio show subscribers to the email list.
Almost every business out there has likely been penetrated by Chinese or Russian hackers. I have a guy, a friend, I know he’s an engineer, hardware engineer, and he designed a business. for businesses, a system that took care of all of the HVAC, all of the heating and air conditioning ventilation in the building, pulled it all together into one piece of glass. One user interfaces and saved them a lot of money.
And turns out, guess what? It was stolen by China. And now he has all of that. It took them a couple of years to put it all together, tested, and make sure it was working all of that now. Is being stolen by China being made in China. And he has no way to make any money off of this because he just can’t compete.
It’s happening. We’ve got to pull up our socks, Steve, and it’s political time. So I’m up on my soapbox here about this. It’s a very big deal. Yeah,
Steve Fourni: [00:07:28] No doubt. We’re talking with Craig Peterson, our tech talk guru. I know, Craig, we have other stuff to talk about, but on what you’re talking about and those numbers are staggering. We’re doing the whole TikTok thing back and forth. And I heard a clip yesterday from a guy who said, every time I mentioned the word fried chicken, I get ads for KFC. So they already have my information. I don’t really care about TikTok. We talk about all these businesses that, basically, you’re already vulnerable.
Are there actually businesses out there that are sitting there and saying to themselves, you know what, China’s already got all our information they have no interest in Jimmy’s pizza shop, whatever we’ll just roll with it. Are there companies that think of the same way the kid with the fried chicken thinks?
Craig Peterson: [00:08:06] We have a customer right in Worcester, which is a pizza shop and yeah, they do need to be worried about it. Think about your employees. When you’re talking about TikTok thinking about your employees coming into your business, using their phones. Yeah. They’re on break they’re on TikTok on their phones, they’re using your Wi-Fi together. Now, all of a sudden, the bad guys have potential access to data that’s on your network. Then you were talking earlier, Steve, about ransomware accounting for 41% of all cyber insurance claims. Yeah. That’s a lot. How does ransomware work? Most of the time it gets in through phishing attacks.
P H I S H I N G. What does to get you to click on the link? Yeah, one more. There’s an old reference. What do they need to get into you and get you to click on that link? It needs information about you. how about do they send an email that looks like it from a friend because they now know who your friends are because they have access to your TikTok friends and an email looks like it’s from your friend?
It says, Hey, you got to this great new video that and so cause they know that you like you clicked on the link, that link. Now you’ve compromised all of the computers in the business by clicking on that link. That’s why it matters.
That is absolutely why it matters. You’re not wrong in saying that, the bad guys probably have pretty much everything about us. But what they want is really fresh stuff, really new stuff. To get to and trick you into doing something you shouldn’t do.
When you’re talking about ransomware accounting for 41% of all cyber insurance claims less than half of the claims, I’ve seen number saying as little as 10% are actually paid out because the insurance company comes in and says, are you following industry-standard practices? Let’s have a look. And they do have a look.
That’s what happened with the pizza shop right there in Worcester. They had a look and they found out that they weren’t, that’s why they called us in.
But even if you have insurance, cyber insurance, do you really you think that $10 a month rider is going to cover you for the loss of your business cause it got hacked? No, it will not. This is a big deal that people just aren’t paying attention to.
Steve Fourni: [00:10:26] Wolf. When it’s not one thing, it’s something else. It’s unbelievable. We’re talking with Craig Peterson, our tech talk guru. Craig if people want to get to more information and again, the helpful tips and advice. I just think it’s, important enough and especially again, to give it to us at a level we can actually absorb. Given it to us at a fourth-grade reading level, which we need sometimes. How can they get more information from you, Craig?
Craig Peterson: [00:10:46] Just go to Craig peterson.com/subscribe.
That’ll get you on my newsletter list. Comes out once a week. That’ll start getting you these little three minute emails. That’ll help keep you up to date and help you understand this a little bit better. Just Craig peterson.com/subscribe.
Steve Fourni: [00:11:05] Good stuff. Craig. Thanks so much for the time. Good to catch up again and we’ll talk soon.
Craig Peterson: [00:11:11] Bye-bye.
Steve Fourni: [00:11:12] Take care. Appreciate it. There goes Craig Peterson and, yeah, even I was yesterday, my wife and I finally decided where we signed up for one of those, delivery meal things. I mean I do most of the cooking. I just go to the grocery store every day and I get what I needed for dinner that night and I can’t do that now.
So we decided to sign up for one of those things. Which I’d love but, as soon as I signed up, the minute I signed up, all my ads were for other meal delivery places, every single one. Even like I said, this happens all the time.
I’ll buy concert tickets and then I’ll get ad ads, get your tickets. Now, I already did. So there’s that kind of stuff that just drives you nuts too. Well, that’s enough complaining for today.
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