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Craig discusses Linux and MacOS operating systems are better at security than Windows for sure, but that does not mean that they are absolutely secure.
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Automated Machine-Generated Transcript:
Craig Peterson: [00:00:00] Hey, if you’re a business person and you’re using or looking for a secure operating system, you might be considering MacOS, or maybe you have Linux running in the server room. At least I hope you do, but now there’s a problem.
Hey everybody. Craig Peterson thanks for joining me. This is the last hour for some of our listeners and for others, we’re going to be continuing on. So make sure you stick around and always visit me online@craigpeterson.com. If you subscribe to my email list, I have a bunch of things that I’ll be sending you to get you.
In your cybersecurity stance, whether you’re a home user or small, medium business, there’s a lot of stuff that you need to know and I’m giving it to you all absolutely for free. Then we have our newsletter every week, and this is a different world, right? I’m not someone who’s going to be sitting there nailing you.
I want to help you out. I’ve been doing cybersecurity since 91, when I was first attacked and I almost lost my business. It was absolutely crazy. It really woke me up to the need for cybersecurity. Then I remembered a lot of business owners had no idea how to do this, or even how much trouble it was in.
So back then it was trying to convince people, Hey, you need cybersecurity, especially if you’re going to be doing anything on the internet, which is how I got nailed was over the internet. If you are just even taking a computer and you’re not hooking it up directly, To the internet you need to do that too.
So it was a real uphill battle. Cause how can you convince somebody of something theme that they don’t want, at all? Okay. Want versus need. You got to want it in order to get something, right. Move your feet and get going in the right direction. They just plain old did not want it. Which is an interesting thing?
So that was my life for the first, really almost 20 years. It’s only been very recent that businesses have decided they want to try and become secure. That’s what we do. That’s what my business does. We stop breaches before they happen while they’re trying to get in, while they’re trying to do the phishing attacks and everything else, that’s what I do. That’s the best way to do it.
So I follow all of the cybersecurity stuff very closely. And I have always been a bit big proponent of what’s called a Unix. Unix is nowadays a general classification of a type of operating system. I’ve been involved with Linux way before any of them became a commercial product. It’s something that I’ve grown to know and love, partially because I helped to develop some versions of Unix, and implemented the internet protocols themselves in the kernels.
So I’ve been. In it for a long time. I understand it really well. I asked people to use Linux. One of the things that I have found when I’m doing these live webinars is sometimes I am misunderstood and I apologize for that. I try and be as clear as possible. Most people say I do a great job with that, but when it comes to things like using a Unix server, that’s a generic statement then. It doesn’t really mean much to most people.
What does that mean to you use a Unix server? So some people have gone out and used Unix like Pat, for instance, he has decided some years ago, 20 years ago. I think I convinced him to get off of windows. He’s been a claims adjuster for a very long time, a high level one too. So he decided I’ve got to get off of windows is just too insecure and he moved to a Linux platform and he’s never looked back. He’s been very happy with it. So I’m very happy for him too.
Just because you’re using Linux or you’re using a version of Unix does not mean you can sit on your laurels at all. Bad guys are going after all of these. And what’s really happening, frankly, is the bad guys are shifting their targets. They realized that many businesses have switched to a Unix like operating system without understanding the implications of it.
Now. I remember sitting down with a company about three, four, maybe five years ago. And I spoke with our it guy who really wasn’t an IT guy. He was a big sports fan. He was a jock in college and now he was ahead of it and they had some Linux machines and he asked a couple of what I considered to be just a, what are you talking about, type questions because he didn’t understand it, but he thought that he did. My response to him led him to say, no, thanks. We’re not going to work with you, which was very disappointing to me because Linux can be great. But you have to be careful.
Now then reminds me of another thing that just happened this week. I got to tell you guys about this is just absolutely, headshaking a rather large company that is in the healthcare industry. Got ransomware about a week and a half ago. That ransomware apparently wiped out everything. I mean everything. Their backups didn’t work, because so many people are doing backups wrong.
That’s why I do the webinars on backups to help you guys understand the right ways to do it. So that ransomware isn’t going to nail you.
All of the records may have been stolen. Now, if you are in the medical field at all, The law requires you to be back online within four hours, you cannot be offline for more than four hours. Macs.
Yeah. I have a small dental practice or a small single doctor’s office and they kept Slack for the real little guys, but in the case like this, where they have lost everything, all of the patients. Think about it. X-rays, medical diagnoses, all of the notes from the doctors that were stored on those servers that are now completely lost. They cannot even contact their patients to tell them that all of their data is lost.
They have to comply in the Northeast with Massachusetts regulations about data loss. They can’t even comply because they don’t know who their patients were. That’s how bad it is. Are you in a boat like that?
Are your IT guys good enough? Right now it’s been revealed here by the FBI and the national security agency that Russian military intelligence has built malware to specifically target Linux systems. Now they have called this thing, Drovorub, and it’s part of their cyber espionage operations and Drovorub, lots of them steal files and take over devices.
This is far from the very first piece of malware to target Linux. There have been lots before. It’s not even the first piece of Russian malware to target Linux devices. You cannot just rest on your laurels, saying we have Linux or maybe you’re on an IBM mainframe and you’re running Linux, it is not enough of protection.
You might remember the lab last year, we talked about this. Microsoft warned about malware that was attacking the internet of things devices as well as their devices, not a month goes by without Microsoft releasing patches because of some attack that’s underway. The 2018 VPN filter malware probably also came from Russia.
They’re trying to do all of this stuff to you. Now malware isn’t just a problem for windows. Remember too, that MacOs for many years have been based on Unix. That’s why I switched to Macs. That was the winner for me before it was a toy operating system, just like windows was, it was just a toy. Cause I was used to systems that ran huge companies like AT and T or Verizon on the telephony side and many others. And it was just a joke to play around with windows and Mac OS
Nowadays it’s based on Unix, which is much more secure out of the box than many other operating systems, certainly than windows.
So Microsoft has been trying to lock down windows much to the chagrin of developers who’ve just developed terrible bad habits over the years.
So you cannot make the assumption. That your organization is not going to be a target anymore. You cannot make the assumption that running some version of Unix or some version of Linux is going to protect you.
Much of what Russia is trying to do is just cause chaos. Now, if they think there’s a profit, they will go for the profit. But simply causing chaos, they consider a win for them.
Unfortunately, this is causing chaos for entire countries, poor countries, third world countries have just been decimated by this and as I just gave you the example. Right here in New England.
Again, this last week, a company in the medical field with hundreds of employees, does it dozens of offices attacked by malware. In this case, it was a type of ransomware that lost everything because it has not been following the five pillars of cybersecurity. So we’ll talk more about that in weeks to come.
I’m going to be having more webinars, more little pieces of training, too. I’m going to try and do these Lives. We’ve got a whole bunch of topics. I have been working my butt off as has the rest of my team, trying to get some of this stuff together. And remember too, that we’re re we are supporting companies already with their cybersecurity. So we already all have full-time jobs. Basically helping the companies out and we only accept so many customers. We’re not somebody that just out there. Yeah. Yeah. Send us some money. We’ll send you some hardware or software and then disappear.
We stop. Malware, That’s what we do. We block these attacks and it takes a lot of time. So that’s on my plate as well as everything else.
But here on the weekends, I like to spend a little bit of time with you guys. I want you now if you’re not on my email list to get on it right away. Everybody on it seems to enjoy it.
I have very few people that unsubscribe and I’m going to be providing, I think, more organized information, some better information, and you’re only way going to get it. Is by going right now to Craig peterson.com/subscribe. Love to see it.
I’m going to be sending you when you subscribe a bunch of great stuff, including my security reboot guide, and there’ll be much more. In the near term coming up.
So have a great day. If you’re leaving us.
If not stick around, cause we’ll be back right after the top of the hour and look for my podcasts as well on your favorite podcast platform, Craig Peterson you’ll see my ugly mug. On that as well.
So stick around, I’ll be right back or there’ll be some other great content I’m sure. On this radio station and online Craig peterson.com.
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