Security

/Security

Are you aware of the latest online scam that is costing businesses huge sums?

Phishing is the attempt to acquire sensitive information, such as: usernames, passwords, and credit card details, often for malicious reasons, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.
– Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing)

At Aviator IT, we’ve seen phishing attacks on our clients for years, and, recently, they seem to have gotten more devilishly clever. The FBI […]

By | March 11th, 2016|Security|

This Simple Tool Can Protect Your Online Accounts from Getting Hacked

A client of ours recently got an email from a security consulting firm that contained the username and password he uses for multiple websites.  This email explained that they had found his credentials in an online dump of passwords from a compromised website, and they were offering their consulting services to help him tighten […]

By | March 4th, 2016|Security|

IE 9 is the most secure browser all of a sudden?

Internet Explorer got a black eye last week from a widely exploited zero-day vulnerability, but a recent NSS report shows that IE 9 does a better job of blocking malware than the other major browsers.  It looks like the key to Microsoft’s success is their SmartScreen technology, which basically maintains a blacklist of […]

By | September 29th, 2012|Desktop Support, Security|

Yahoo Hacked, Change Your Password and Get a Damn Password Manager

As you might have heard, Yahoo.com was recently hacked and over 450,000 passwords were exposed: http://www.infoworld.com.

Here are some steps you can take to try to protect yourself:

  1. Change your Yahoo password ASAP.
  2. Never use the same password on more than one site.
  3. “Yeah right, how do I keep track of all those passwords?”
  4. Use a password manager like 
By | July 12th, 2012|Security|

Mobile Device Management

The explosive popularity of mobile email devices like smartphones and iPads can lead to security problems if not managed properly. In the corporate world, we want at the very least to be able to enforce passwords on devices and remotely wipe mobile devices if they are lost or stolen.

There is also the […]

By | April 14th, 2011|Email, Mobile, Security|

Hardware based full drive encryption

I have been researching hardware-based SSD Full Drive Encryption (FDE) lately and here are some bullet points to consider:

  • What is it? FDE is a way to protect data on laptops in case of loss or theft.
  • Who cares? If you have any data on your machine that you wouldn’t gladly hand over to any stranger, […]
By | March 19th, 2011|Security|

Use Ordinary Tape to Prevent Webcam Spying

tape-over-your-webcam
A disturbing news story about computer security came out this week. In a high school in Pennsylvania, the students were given laptops with webcams to use outside of school. It was later discovered that the school was turning on the webcams remotely and spying on the students […]

By | February 23rd, 2010|Security|

Google Hacked by China

Google China Google China

If you haven’t yet seen the news that Google was hacked by someone looking (in part) for info on Chinese human rights activists,  then you might check out this summary on the […]

By | January 18th, 2010|Security|