Craig Peterson - Secure Your Business, Your Privacy, and Save Your Sanity

Soon we will 50 years of the moon landing, why do some think we were never there?

The cybersecurity gap and flaws in both iOS and Android apps.

The U.S. launches a cyberattack on Iran

How much liability do you have for a data breach?

I am planning a Security Summer for my listeners.  I will have some free courses.  I will also introduce you to some of the software that I use for my clients and how you can use it too.  Also, I have some limited opportunities for businesses who have had enough with their security issues to work with me and my team and put their security problems to rest once and for all.   So watch out for announcements on those.

For more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com

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Transcript: 

Below is a rush transcript of this segment; it might contain errors.

Airing date: 07/06/2019

In a few short weeks, we will celebrate 50 years of the moon landing. The cybersecurity gap and flaws in both iOS and Android apps, the cyberattack on Iran and data breach liability.

----

Craig Peterson
Hello, everybody and welcome course, this is Craig Peterson, your host for the next time, give or take 27 minutes, we're going without commercial interruption again, we are going to be talking about some of the details of our lives are digital lives. And with the 50th anniversary of the moon landing coming up, we wanted to go through some of the facts there, because we've had a lot of people who seem to be confused about it. And it's kind of amazing to me because I remember it so well like it was yesterday. But it's amazing to me to think that more than half of the people alive today. Were not alive when the moon landing occurred. And, you know, that's just a matter of perspective. So you're, you're talking to me, and I'm a little bit older, I guess. And then most people if that's the case, but anyways, talk a little bit about that, the cybersecurity gap. And some interesting observations that were in Forbes magazine here this past week about it. flaws in our iOS and Android apps, you might be surprised. But there are security flaws in almost as many iOS apps from Apple, as our Android will tell you why. And what those are. We have some new Mac malware that's out there right now. And this is an interesting one because this could go both ways. You could call this a user error. Or you might want to call it a security problem that Apple has, or maybe Apple created, but it is behaving the way it's supposed to. Third-Party contractors, this comes from this week, I did a big presentation for University of New Hampshire group here. It is a mastermind group of CEOs. And we were talking about the biggest liabilities, and more than 60% scent of your fast is coming from inside. And that includes contractors. So we'll talk a little bit about that couple of warnings here from 3 am, about business travelers, we got to talk about this, the US has launched a cyber attack, instead of launch launching a kinetic attack, and we'll talk a little bit about the implications to you and your business because of that. And there could be some enormous implications there. And a little bit more here about liability for a data breach. So we're going to talk about all of this right now. So let's get into it. First off liability for a data breach. As I mentioned, I had a great presentation, and I think it was created at a lot of compliments on it, as I spoke at this mastermind group for the University of New Hampshire. And it was kind of fascinating because there were several different CEOs, I guess this group has kind of a non compete thing where none of the members can compete with each other. I'm in a mastermind group, a paid group and there, they don't have that restriction, you have to be a good person. But there are people in your same line of work, I kind of like that. As a general rule, there is a lot of business out there for everybody. When you can talk to someone that speaks your language in your line of work about what's happening is important. I had a few people comment afterward, the stories that I will Vin about clients of mine, that have had security problems, we're unable to solve them themselves. You know, they tried, obviously, but they weren't successful, because they got hacked, they got breached. So, you know, I use a lot of stories with some of these things. And when we're talking about a data breach and your liability, I did bring that up this week. But it's huge. And we're talking about an average cost right now, for a data breach of over $7 million. Here in the US, it's 3.8 million average, worldwide. But it's about twice that here in the United States. As we look at some of the data breaches, it's going to continue to grow. There's going to be more and more companies that are failing to assess their systems for security flaws. And that's why you got to have a third party come in, and you can't trust your CIA. So your security person to do these types of audits, you need a third person to do it. And then you have to plug the holes. And sometimes you can have that third party do it because maybe they know what they're doing. Many times, if you're a slightly bigger company, and you have your own IT staff than your it, the staff is going to do it. But you got to think about who when you get hacked. What are you going to do? Your data is gone, you know, are you out of business is your goose cooked is the expression, great article, and Kiplinger that I have up on my website right now about it? And are you as a business person on the hook for any losses sustained by the client, and I spent some time in the presentation talking about insurance. And that is an essential thing to have. for your business. However, more and more of the cyber liability insurance claims are getting cut back or even denied. Because the company hasn't been doing everything that they should have been doing, even not doing things are listed in the contract insurance contract. So two main ways that civil liability for a data breach can occur. One is finding negligence. You have to be aligned with the peers in your industry, the best practices if you will. If you're not if you could have had better protection, then yes, indeed, you may have civil financial liability and some of those governmental fines we've talked about on the show before. And secondly, even if you did everything that was required to prevent a data breach, it could still happen. So then the next stage is, did you do enough after the event to reduce the harm to the people affected? You know, did you notify them right away? Did you take immediate investigation remediation steps? Did you contact law enforcement? What did you do after the fact is considered reasonable? All the things we need to keep in mind as we are business people. And having that plan in advance can save you a ton. I went through some of those statistics as well. Here are some good points for everyone to pay attention to one have a breach coach who can help you put together your breach plan and then run the ball response and get an attorney involved getting them involved early. Everyone should know what their roles are. That's part of what we have, that's going to be part of our security summer this year. So make sure you're signed up. Because we have some documents about what your plan should look like who should be involved whose responsibility is each part of that, then so that it just makes a huge, huge difference. These people who are most liable if you're a consumer, and you've had your information breached, pay attention to this as well, because you have the other side. One, if you collect payment information for online sales, if you maintain a database of personal information on current past or prospective customers, and say you have employees, if you store information about employees digitally, including social security numbers, medical information, guess what we're getting into their the HIPAA regulations, I bet you thought if you weren't a medical practice, you didn't have to worry about it HIPAA while you do if you have employees, if you rely heavily on technology for daily operations, remember, you're going to be out of business out of operation for days, weeks, or even longer. If you are located in any jurisdiction that has a mandatory Breach Notification laws. Right now, that is true of everywhere in the world. Well, you know, the first world countries, if you will, the United States has them. For every state, there are some federal notification laws. Depending on what type of business you have. Same things true in Canada, the same things true throughout Europe. So be careful here too, with cyber insurance coverage. And we talked about that this week with the UNH co people, and what you should have what you can expect from cyber insurance coverage. And again, we'll talk more about this during our security summer, and if you haven't already, make sure you sign up, go to Craig Peterson dot com, and you'll see a sign-up, come up right at the top of the homepage, you can sign up right there. And I'll let you know when the security summer starts. But we're going to be covering all kinds of stuff about firewalls about backups about the liabilities, CEO type things through home users, and what you can do what you should do. Mac This is called malware. As I said, I kind of debate, whether it is malware, because the software is behaving as expected. Mac OS has something now called gatekeeper. And it keeps an eye on the programs on your computer, what you download where it came from, is it signed. And it allows developers to have software that you download that is signed, and then refers offsite to allow you then to get additional files, get it a database server. And in this particular case, that is being talked about over on ZD net. At lunch, you gain access to a file server, and it's called an NFL server. And this is the calling that ZD next call is a security flaw. I'm not so sure it's a security flaw. Apple has known about it for a month, they haven't patched it, it would be easy enough to patch, but it would also break a lot of good software out there. So here's the trick. If you're running a Mac or a PC or anything, do not download software from sites that you are not 100% confident can be trusted. It's just that simple. It's back to the brass tacks. get right back to it. What are the brass tacks and security one of the first is don't click on stuff? In particularly don't look download and run software that is on your, you know, on a web browser that you're putting on your computer. Now we know President Trump said he was going to respond to the Iranian aggression and shooting down is drunk. And there's dispute by Iran whether or not the drone was in the Iranian airspace. And there's some question about that, too, because the United States, for instance, claims a 200-mile jurisdiction. the international agreement says it's a 12-mile zone, and some are 20 miles, and the Straits of Hormuz are I think it's 12 miles there the narrowest point. So was it an international space? Technically, yes. Did Iran claim the space it was in as their own? Well, they did. So President Trump pulled out of this kinetic attack, we were going to bomb, there, the radar installations and the missile launch in facilities. It came out this last weekend that we hacked them. Now, I found out something exciting about this Russian power security breach that happened a couple of weeks ago, don't know if you heard about that. But apparently, we broke into and had control of several Russian power stations located in Russia. We flipped the lights on and off a few times to let them know - Hey, guys, we're here, Quit messing around with our elections and Quit messing around with any other stuff that's out there. We have that capability. President Obama put some cyber offensive capabilities in place, and President Trump has upped the game there. And apparently what he did this was the report from last week weekends he authorized our cybersecurity guys to attack Iran. Now, when Russia attacked Ukraine, of course, that piece of malware spread worldwide and brought down hundreds, thousands of computers, s down, taken off the internet, and many others were ransom because Russia did not have control over that malware. We got malware into some of their missile launch systems. And we were able to shut them down. And possibly it didn't spend any farther. Just like when we got into their centrifuges for making bombs for their purification of uranium, that code did not get any further than the centrifuges and destroyed them. Now, we went after them, and US businesses now should be ready for what's going to be a massive attack from Iran. We remember Iran doesn't have the finesse we do, and they don't have all of the talent that we do. And they don't care if they're hitting a military target or not. When it comes to CYBER WARS, these retaliatory strikes from there are very likely to hit pretty much anybody here in the US. They've already been attacking us before President Trump launched this attack, apparently against them. According to The Washington Post, Iran has been bombarding US businesses with software designed to wipe the contents of networks and computers, rather than to steal their data, which is rather interesting. It was from Chris Krebs, a director of the Homeland Security department's Cyber Security Division. And what that means is if the Iranians get ahold of your business systems are your home system, they are going to wipe it clean. So make sure you have excellent backups.

Again, if you don't make sure you attend my training here my security summer because we're going to be going over that this is free people. It's free for anyone to attend, you can upgrade if you want to that's paid. But you're going to get all of the core information absolutely for free. And I think we're going to do it is no matter where whether they pay you or not, you're going to get all the information for free. The same data, let me put it that way. Whether you decide to get the golden ticket, or Jessica can do it for free, that that's what I'm doing for the radio listeners, anyone can attend because I want to get this information out there. So be prepared for the Iranian attack, they've already started attacking our businesses, we've already had North Korea attack Russia. I mentioned this that the CEO presentation I gave this last week for the UNH group. I was looking at one of our customers, just at their website, and looking at the firewall because we have some very advanced firewalls sitting in front of even web servers. These firewalls that we were looking at just for that one web server, we were logging, five attacks, which was just crazy. Five attacks from Russia! It wasn't as I said, it wasn't only five attacks from Russia, it was five attacks per second, on average, over the last 36 or 48 hours. It was just crazy how they were getting just nailed, nailed, hammered. You guys already know, if you listen to me for a while about a client that we picked up, that had been having email issues. We looked into it, and we ended up we asked the client, it was okay to do this. We ended up bringing the FBI in because we found Chinese back doors into their systems. And they were a manufacturer, they had all of their plans, of course, electronically, all of the manufacturing, etc., etc. So now what now they get to compete against China, with their designs. Amen. To me, that blows my mind, frankly, how could you? How could you do that? It's, but it's ignorance. It thinks you're okay. Going back to this story, let me go back to this is the one from Kiplinger, I was referring to earlier here, here's a great little quote from the author here, Dennis Beaver. He said my father is a dentist, and up in years, his office has all of his patients records stored electronically, which he accesses from home from his laptop by leaving the server always on at the office. I mentioned this to a geeky friend. And the next day, he showed me dental records from my dad's office that he had hacked, he claimed to be doing this as a favor to get my father's attention about cybersecurity, and I believe them. So by the way, be careful, don't just to that without permission. We have ethical hackers in my business here, who are doing penetration testing, but we make sure we've got full approval from the company. So don't, don't just go and do this. So the story goes on. I told that, and he immediately changes passwords but didn't seem too bothered. There was another one. I knew one fortune 500 companies CFO who used the same password for over ten years, most think that it's a joke, but it was improved. It was not so funny after they found his credentials in seven data breaches used to hack the company's email servers, spoof emails, and steal 10s of thousands of dollars without anyone noticing for months. We picked up a client here, a local one here in the northeast who had had $80,000 taken out of their operating account. Of course, they noticed it quickly, but not before the money was gone entirely. So be very, very careful, we're going to cover these things in our security summer, again, just Craig peterson.com. And subscribe right there on the homepage. And we'll let you know when that starts. That's probably going to be mid-July by the looks of things right now. And we're talking about 10 to 15 minutes sessions a couple of times a week. And we're going to keep them up for least a week in case you miss it so that you can watch one of the replays a little bit later on. Okay, man, we are almost out of time here. 76% of mobile apps have flaws, allowing hackers to steal passwords, money, and text. These are some high-risk vulnerabilities that are common across Android and iOS, Android has a little bit more risk than iOS, were talking about, but 5% higher risk. And this is according to a company called positive technology. And they went in and looked at some of these mobile apps and the biggest problem in secure data storage. So be careful about that.

Again, Cisco has an answer to that. And with iOS, it's just phenomenal. Nobody has anything like this other than Cisco. But be very, very careful because there are other products out there that could be useful to you. But remember, any data stored can be stolen, you can't necessarily trust the app developers, they might be taking your data. Great article, you'll see it on my website. It is from Forbes, and this is about the cybersecurity skills gap and how classrooms are not the solution. Have a look on my website for that one. Business travelers, something new called visual hacking coming from the Czech Republic. Again, that's up on my website and in this morning's newsletter, and the US launches a cyber attack aimed at Iranian rocket and missile systems. I'll talk a little bit about that. We've got a couple of great articles, online. I spoke with the UNH CEO mastermind group this week about third party contractors and why they are our weakest cybersecurity link. And they're just not being held accountable. You know, if you ask people who are the biggest cybersecurity threats out there, who have I talked about today? I've mentioned what Russia, China, I mentioned North Korea and Iran. You'd be right. But those countries are the most significant foreign threats. As I said this week at the speech I gave, the real problem is internal. And by internal, I don't just mean your employees, I mean, your contractors. It's one of the things you have to go through you have to consider penetration testing, taking an analysis of your business, and the data security. Here's the Customs and Border Protection. I talked about this a couple of months ago, on May 31. So it wasn't even two months ago, they had a breach where 100,000 people were photographed inside vehicles, crossing the border in a couple of lanes, and included images of the vehicle license plates, maybe some other stuff that was that stolen, it was taken through a third-party contractor that was doing work for Customs and Border Patrol. The most signal severe breaches of the last ten years have also been self-inflicted. So let's look at this one. It appears in The Hill from Flexiera. Patches were available for 86% of the vulnerabilities on the day of disclosure. In other words, when these companies came forward and told people about the hacks that had happened 86% of those hacked, it didn't have to happen, because there were patches out already. Okay, other breaches. They gained access by compromising third-party vendors like were talking about and stealing their credentials to log into the corporate network of the eventual target. Speaking of Target, back in 20 1340 million credit cards lost through a third party air conditioning provider that was hooked up to the corporate network, all they had to do is break into the air conditioning system. And now they had a launchpad. Think of what happened out in Las Vegas, a beautiful big fish tank, and they put a smart controller in it that would warn them when their temperature got too cold because the fish are so expensive. It was hooked up to their network, and it was compromised and used it as a launching pad.

We see that all the time with cameras security cameras. They breached the Office of Personnel Management through Key Point government solutions. A third party used by the Office of Personnel Management. And it gave China 21 million personnel files including background checks on top security clearances. In 2017, Australian defense subcontractor lost 30 gigabytes of highly sensitive data, including information on the Joint Strike for Strike Fighter program. Crazy. By the way, they had not updated their software in 12 months. In 2018 China compromising network of yet another defense contractor doing work for the Navy. Our technology, our advances our military superiority were stolen from us, again, from the hill in an assessment delivered to Navy SECRETARY RICHARD Spencer in March and reviewed by the Wall Street Journal, the Navy and its industry partners are under cyber siege by Chinese and Russian hackers. So think about all of that when you are thinking about your business and even your home computer.

Segment your networks, break them up, use good passwords, this is all stuff we're going to review in our security summer. Again, Craig Peterson calm, you can say him, email me and I'll let you know when it happens. Me at Craig Peterson calm. We're going to cover all of this. So you guys know what to do, whether you're an individual, or small-medium business because in most companies face it, who's the computer guy or gal? It's whoever likes computers the most, or maybe whoever wanted to raise they're not necessarily computer professionals. And it's extremely, rare that their security professionals, security professionals, you know, we're working every day trying to keep up to date. And I've been doing this for 30 years, and I'm still learning stuff. So be careful, hire outside firms.
Okay, blah, blah, okay. On to the Apollo program. There are many people I read a book, and I remember reading this back in the early 80s. And I marked it all up. And it was about how the lunar landing was a hoax. Hollywood has made some films about it. And more and more kids nowadays think the whole thing was a setup. So this is a great article, written by Ethan Siegel. There you go. And we are talking a little bit about the moon landing. So let's go through this. People are saying that the entire space program and NASA is nothing more than a hoax. But let's get go through a little bit of evidence. Number one, we can still see the evidence of the Apollo program on the moon even today. If you walk on the sand on a beach, the waves are going to level it out, and there won't be any sign that you were ever there. Right. But none of that exists on the moon. Even in the Sahara Desert on the sand, you've got the shifting winds that shift that sand around. That is not true on the moon. We have pictures from regular people of the moon of the landing site, Apollo 12,14, and 17. They photographed those from Earth. On the Apollo 12 landing sites. There is a ton of stuff you'll see this article. You can view all of the pictures. It is from Forbes magazine. You can see it up on my website at Craig Peter song calm. I have a link to a number to extensive photographic and video evidence from the Apollo missions themselves. The one I like the best is one that I am most personally familiar is the lunar Laser Ranging retro-reflector, and there are many others. But this is one that we HAM's us we can bounce off of the moon there's a reflector that was left up there by the Apollo missions we can bounce a laser off, and we use that scientifically to figure out how far the moon is away. But there are also lunar sighs month the seismometers there is the solar wind composition spectrum lunar surface Magnum, Magnum, meter, magnetometer, lunar dust collector, many more. All were left up there all ran for years. Some of this stuff is still running so we were there to let them tell you otherwise. Take care, everybody. Make sure you sign up for the security summer. Craig Peterson dot com, take care, everybody. Bye-bye.

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Soon we will 50 years of the moon landing, why do some think we were never there?

The cybersecurity gap and flaws in both iOS and Android apps.

The U.S. launches a cyberattack on Iran

How much liability do you have for a data breach?

I am planning a Security Summer for my listeners.  I will have some free courses.  I will also introduce you to some of the software that I use for my clients and how you can use it too.  Also, I have some limited opportunities for businesses who have had enough with their security issues to work with me and my team and put their security problems to rest once and for all.   So watch out for announcements on those.

For more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com

---

Transcript: 

Below is a rush transcript of this segment; it might contain errors.

Airing date: 07/06/2019

In a few short weeks, we will celebrate 50 years of the moon landing. The cybersecurity gap and flaws in both iOS and Android apps, the cyberattack on Iran and data breach liability.

----

Craig Peterson
Hello, everybody and welcome course, this is Craig Peterson, your host for the next time, give or take 27 minutes, we're going without commercial interruption again, we are going to be talking about some of the details of our lives are digital lives. And with the 50th anniversary of the moon landing coming up, we wanted to go through some of the facts there, because we've had a lot of people who seem to be confused about it. And it's kind of amazing to me because I remember it so well like it was yesterday. But it's amazing to me to think that more than half of the people alive today. Were not alive when the moon landing occurred. And, you know, that's just a matter of perspective. So you're, you're talking to me, and I'm a little bit older, I guess. And then most people if that's the case, but anyways, talk a little bit about that, the cybersecurity gap. And some interesting observations that were in Forbes magazine here this past week about it. flaws in our iOS and Android apps, you might be surprised. But there are security flaws in almost as many iOS apps from Apple, as our Android will tell you why. And what those are. We have some new Mac malware that's out there right now. And this is an interesting one because this could go both ways. You could call this a user error. Or you might want to call it a security problem that Apple has, or maybe Apple created, but it is behaving the way it's supposed to. Third-Party contractors, this comes from this week, I did a big presentation for University of New Hampshire group here. It is a mastermind group of CEOs. And we were talking about the biggest liabilities, and more than 60% scent of your fast is coming from inside. And that includes contractors. So we'll talk a little bit about that couple of warnings here from 3 am, about business travelers, we got to talk about this, the US has launched a cyber attack, instead of launch launching a kinetic attack, and we'll talk a little bit about the implications to you and your business because of that. And there could be some enormous implications there. And a little bit more here about liability for a data breach. So we're going to talk about all of this right now. So let's get into it. First off liability for a data breach. As I mentioned, I had a great presentation, and I think it was created at a lot of compliments on it, as I spoke at this mastermind group for the University of New Hampshire. And it was kind of fascinating because there were several different CEOs, I guess this group has kind of a non compete thing where none of the members can compete with each other. I'm in a mastermind group, a paid group and there, they don't have that restriction, you have to be a good person. But there are people in your same line of work, I kind of like that. As a general rule, there is a lot of business out there for everybody. When you can talk to someone that speaks your language in your line of work about what's happening is important. I had a few people comment afterward, the stories that I will Vin about clients of mine, that have had security problems, we're unable to solve them themselves. You know, they tried, obviously, but they weren't successful, because they got hacked, they got breached. So, you know, I use a lot of stories with some of these things. And when we're talking about a data breach and your liability, I did bring that up this week. But it's huge. And we're talking about an average cost right now, for a data breach of over $7 million. Here in the US, it's 3.8 million average, worldwide. But it's about twice that here in the United States. As we look at some of the data breaches, it's going to continue to grow. There's going to be more and more companies that are failing to assess their systems for security flaws. And that's why you got to have a third party come in, and you can't trust your CIA. So your security person to do these types of audits, you need a third person to do it. And then you have to plug the holes. And sometimes you can have that third party do it because maybe they know what they're doing. Many times, if you're a slightly bigger company, and you have your own IT staff than your it, the staff is going to do it. But you got to think about who when you get hacked. What are you going to do? Your data is gone, you know, are you out of business is your goose cooked is the expression, great article, and Kiplinger that I have up on my website right now about it? And are you as a business person on the hook for any losses sustained by the client, and I spent some time in the presentation talking about insurance. And that is an essential thing to have. for your business. However, more and more of the cyber liability insurance claims are getting cut back or even denied. Because the company hasn't been doing everything that they should have been doing, even not doing things are listed in the contract insurance contract. So two main ways that civil liability for a data breach can occur. One is finding negligence. You have to be aligned with the peers in your industry, the best practices if you will. If you're not if you could have had better protection, then yes, indeed, you may have civil financial liability and some of those governmental fines we've talked about on the show before. And secondly, even if you did everything that was required to prevent a data breach, it could still happen. So then the next stage is, did you do enough after the event to reduce the harm to the people affected? You know, did you notify them right away? Did you take immediate investigation remediation steps? Did you contact law enforcement? What did you do after the fact is considered reasonable? All the things we need to keep in mind as we are business people. And having that plan in advance can save you a ton. I went through some of those statistics as well. Here are some good points for everyone to pay attention to one have a breach coach who can help you put together your breach plan and then run the ball response and get an attorney involved getting them involved early. Everyone should know what their roles are. That's part of what we have, that's going to be part of our security summer this year. So make sure you're signed up. Because we have some documents about what your plan should look like who should be involved whose responsibility is each part of that, then so that it just makes a huge, huge difference. These people who are most liable if you're a consumer, and you've had your information breached, pay attention to this as well, because you have the other side. One, if you collect payment information for online sales, if you maintain a database of personal information on current past or prospective customers, and say you have employees, if you store information about employees digitally, including social security numbers, medical information, guess what we're getting into their the HIPAA regulations, I bet you thought if you weren't a medical practice, you didn't have to worry about it HIPAA while you do if you have employees, if you rely heavily on technology for daily operations, remember, you're going to be out of business out of operation for days, weeks, or even longer. If you are located in any jurisdiction that has a mandatory Breach Notification laws. Right now, that is true of everywhere in the world. Well, you know, the first world countries, if you will, the United States has them. For every state, there are some federal notification laws. Depending on what type of business you have. Same things true in Canada, the same things true throughout Europe. So be careful here too, with cyber insurance coverage. And we talked about that this week with the UNH co people, and what you should have what you can expect from cyber insurance coverage. And again, we'll talk more about this during our security summer, and if you haven't already, make sure you sign up, go to Craig Peterson dot com, and you'll see a sign-up, come up right at the top of the homepage, you can sign up right there. And I'll let you know when the security summer starts. But we're going to be covering all kinds of stuff about firewalls about backups about the liabilities, CEO type things through home users, and what you can do what you should do. Mac This is called malware. As I said, I kind of debate, whether it is malware, because the software is behaving as expected. Mac OS has something now called gatekeeper. And it keeps an eye on the programs on your computer, what you download where it came from, is it signed. And it allows developers to have software that you download that is signed, and then refers offsite to allow you then to get additional files, get it a database server. And in this particular case, that is being talked about over on ZD net. At lunch, you gain access to a file server, and it's called an NFL server. And this is the calling that ZD next call is a security flaw. I'm not so sure it's a security flaw. Apple has known about it for a month, they haven't patched it, it would be easy enough to patch, but it would also break a lot of good software out there. So here's the trick. If you're running a Mac or a PC or anything, do not download software from sites that you are not 100% confident can be trusted. It's just that simple. It's back to the brass tacks. get right back to it. What are the brass tacks and security one of the first is don't click on stuff? In particularly don't look download and run software that is on your, you know, on a web browser that you're putting on your computer. Now we know President Trump said he was going to respond to the Iranian aggression and shooting down is drunk. And there's dispute by Iran whether or not the drone was in the Iranian airspace. And there's some question about that, too, because the United States, for instance, claims a 200-mile jurisdiction. the international agreement says it's a 12-mile zone, and some are 20 miles, and the Straits of Hormuz are I think it's 12 miles there the narrowest point. So was it an international space? Technically, yes. Did Iran claim the space it was in as their own? Well, they did. So President Trump pulled out of this kinetic attack, we were going to bomb, there, the radar installations and the missile launch in facilities. It came out this last weekend that we hacked them. Now, I found out something exciting about this Russian power security breach that happened a couple of weeks ago, don't know if you heard about that. But apparently, we broke into and had control of several Russian power stations located in Russia. We flipped the lights on and off a few times to let them know - Hey, guys, we're here, Quit messing around with our elections and Quit messing around with any other stuff that's out there. We have that capability. President Obama put some cyber offensive capabilities in place, and President Trump has upped the game there. And apparently what he did this was the report from last week weekends he authorized our cybersecurity guys to attack Iran. Now, when Russia attacked Ukraine, of course, that piece of malware spread worldwide and brought down hundreds, thousands of computers, s down, taken off the internet, and many others were ransom because Russia did not have control over that malware. We got malware into some of their missile launch systems. And we were able to shut them down. And possibly it didn't spend any farther. Just like when we got into their centrifuges for making bombs for their purification of uranium, that code did not get any further than the centrifuges and destroyed them. Now, we went after them, and US businesses now should be ready for what's going to be a massive attack from Iran. We remember Iran doesn't have the finesse we do, and they don't have all of the talent that we do. And they don't care if they're hitting a military target or not. When it comes to CYBER WARS, these retaliatory strikes from there are very likely to hit pretty much anybody here in the US. They've already been attacking us before President Trump launched this attack, apparently against them. According to The Washington Post, Iran has been bombarding US businesses with software designed to wipe the contents of networks and computers, rather than to steal their data, which is rather interesting. It was from Chris Krebs, a director of the Homeland Security department's Cyber Security Division. And what that means is if the Iranians get ahold of your business systems are your home system, they are going to wipe it clean. So make sure you have excellent backups.

Again, if you don't make sure you attend my training here my security summer because we're going to be going over that this is free people. It's free for anyone to attend, you can upgrade if you want to that's paid. But you're going to get all of the core information absolutely for free. And I think we're going to do it is no matter where whether they pay you or not, you're going to get all the information for free. The same data, let me put it that way. Whether you decide to get the golden ticket, or Jessica can do it for free, that that's what I'm doing for the radio listeners, anyone can attend because I want to get this information out there. So be prepared for the Iranian attack, they've already started attacking our businesses, we've already had North Korea attack Russia. I mentioned this that the CEO presentation I gave this last week for the UNH group. I was looking at one of our customers, just at their website, and looking at the firewall because we have some very advanced firewalls sitting in front of even web servers. These firewalls that we were looking at just for that one web server, we were logging, five attacks, which was just crazy. Five attacks from Russia! It wasn't as I said, it wasn't only five attacks from Russia, it was five attacks per second, on average, over the last 36 or 48 hours. It was just crazy how they were getting just nailed, nailed, hammered. You guys already know, if you listen to me for a while about a client that we picked up, that had been having email issues. We looked into it, and we ended up we asked the client, it was okay to do this. We ended up bringing the FBI in because we found Chinese back doors into their systems. And they were a manufacturer, they had all of their plans, of course, electronically, all of the manufacturing, etc., etc. So now what now they get to compete against China, with their designs. Amen. To me, that blows my mind, frankly, how could you? How could you do that? It's, but it's ignorance. It thinks you're okay. Going back to this story, let me go back to this is the one from Kiplinger, I was referring to earlier here, here's a great little quote from the author here, Dennis Beaver. He said my father is a dentist, and up in years, his office has all of his patients records stored electronically, which he accesses from home from his laptop by leaving the server always on at the office. I mentioned this to a geeky friend. And the next day, he showed me dental records from my dad's office that he had hacked, he claimed to be doing this as a favor to get my father's attention about cybersecurity, and I believe them. So by the way, be careful, don't just to that without permission. We have ethical hackers in my business here, who are doing penetration testing, but we make sure we've got full approval from the company. So don't, don't just go and do this. So the story goes on. I told that, and he immediately changes passwords but didn't seem too bothered. There was another one. I knew one fortune 500 companies CFO who used the same password for over ten years, most think that it's a joke, but it was improved. It was not so funny after they found his credentials in seven data breaches used to hack the company's email servers, spoof emails, and steal 10s of thousands of dollars without anyone noticing for months. We picked up a client here, a local one here in the northeast who had had $80,000 taken out of their operating account. Of course, they noticed it quickly, but not before the money was gone entirely. So be very, very careful, we're going to cover these things in our security summer, again, just Craig peterson.com. And subscribe right there on the homepage. And we'll let you know when that starts. That's probably going to be mid-July by the looks of things right now. And we're talking about 10 to 15 minutes sessions a couple of times a week. And we're going to keep them up for least a week in case you miss it so that you can watch one of the replays a little bit later on. Okay, man, we are almost out of time here. 76% of mobile apps have flaws, allowing hackers to steal passwords, money, and text. These are some high-risk vulnerabilities that are common across Android and iOS, Android has a little bit more risk than iOS, were talking about, but 5% higher risk. And this is according to a company called positive technology. And they went in and looked at some of these mobile apps and the biggest problem in secure data storage. So be careful about that.

Again, Cisco has an answer to that. And with iOS, it's just phenomenal. Nobody has anything like this other than Cisco. But be very, very careful because there are other products out there that could be useful to you. But remember, any data stored can be stolen, you can't necessarily trust the app developers, they might be taking your data. Great article, you'll see it on my website. It is from Forbes, and this is about the cybersecurity skills gap and how classrooms are not the solution. Have a look on my website for that one. Business travelers, something new called visual hacking coming from the Czech Republic. Again, that's up on my website and in this morning's newsletter, and the US launches a cyber attack aimed at Iranian rocket and missile systems. I'll talk a little bit about that. We've got a couple of great articles, online. I spoke with the UNH CEO mastermind group this week about third party contractors and why they are our weakest cybersecurity link. And they're just not being held accountable. You know, if you ask people who are the biggest cybersecurity threats out there, who have I talked about today? I've mentioned what Russia, China, I mentioned North Korea and Iran. You'd be right. But those countries are the most significant foreign threats. As I said this week at the speech I gave, the real problem is internal. And by internal, I don't just mean your employees, I mean, your contractors. It's one of the things you have to go through you have to consider penetration testing, taking an analysis of your business, and the data security. Here's the Customs and Border Protection. I talked about this a couple of months ago, on May 31. So it wasn't even two months ago, they had a breach where 100,000 people were photographed inside vehicles, crossing the border in a couple of lanes, and included images of the vehicle license plates, maybe some other stuff that was that stolen, it was taken through a third-party contractor that was doing work for Customs and Border Patrol. The most signal severe breaches of the last ten years have also been self-inflicted. So let's look at this one. It appears in The Hill from Flexiera. Patches were available for 86% of the vulnerabilities on the day of disclosure. In other words, when these companies came forward and told people about the hacks that had happened 86% of those hacked, it didn't have to happen, because there were patches out already. Okay, other breaches. They gained access by compromising third-party vendors like were talking about and stealing their credentials to log into the corporate network of the eventual target. Speaking of Target, back in 20 1340 million credit cards lost through a third party air conditioning provider that was hooked up to the corporate network, all they had to do is break into the air conditioning system. And now they had a launchpad. Think of what happened out in Las Vegas, a beautiful big fish tank, and they put a smart controller in it that would warn them when their temperature got too cold because the fish are so expensive. It was hooked up to their network, and it was compromised and used it as a launching pad.

We see that all the time with cameras security cameras. They breached the Office of Personnel Management through Key Point government solutions. A third party used by the Office of Personnel Management. And it gave China 21 million personnel files including background checks on top security clearances. In 2017, Australian defense subcontractor lost 30 gigabytes of highly sensitive data, including information on the Joint Strike for Strike Fighter program. Crazy. By the way, they had not updated their software in 12 months. In 2018 China compromising network of yet another defense contractor doing work for the Navy. Our technology, our advances our military superiority were stolen from us, again, from the hill in an assessment delivered to Navy SECRETARY RICHARD Spencer in March and reviewed by the Wall Street Journal, the Navy and its industry partners are under cyber siege by Chinese and Russian hackers. So think about all of that when you are thinking about your business and even your home computer.

Segment your networks, break them up, use good passwords, this is all stuff we're going to review in our security summer. Again, Craig Peterson calm, you can say him, email me and I'll let you know when it happens. Me at Craig Peterson calm. We're going to cover all of this. So you guys know what to do, whether you're an individual, or small-medium business because in most companies face it, who's the computer guy or gal? It's whoever likes computers the most, or maybe whoever wanted to raise they're not necessarily computer professionals. And it's extremely, rare that their security professionals, security professionals, you know, we're working every day trying to keep up to date. And I've been doing this for 30 years, and I'm still learning stuff. So be careful, hire outside firms.
Okay, blah, blah, okay. On to the Apollo program. There are many people I read a book, and I remember reading this back in the early 80s. And I marked it all up. And it was about how the lunar landing was a hoax. Hollywood has made some films about it. And more and more kids nowadays think the whole thing was a setup. So this is a great article, written by Ethan Siegel. There you go. And we are talking a little bit about the moon landing. So let's go through this. People are saying that the entire space program and NASA is nothing more than a hoax. But let's get go through a little bit of evidence. Number one, we can still see the evidence of the Apollo program on the moon even today. If you walk on the sand on a beach, the waves are going to level it out, and there won't be any sign that you were ever there. Right. But none of that exists on the moon. Even in the Sahara Desert on the sand, you've got the shifting winds that shift that sand around. That is not true on the moon. We have pictures from regular people of the moon of the landing site, Apollo 12,14, and 17. They photographed those from Earth. On the Apollo 12 landing sites. There is a ton of stuff you'll see this article. You can view all of the pictures. It is from Forbes magazine. You can see it up on my website at Craig Peter song calm. I have a link to a number to extensive photographic and video evidence from the Apollo missions themselves. The one I like the best is one that I am most personally familiar is the lunar Laser Ranging retro-reflector, and there are many others. But this is one that we HAM's us we can bounce off of the moon there's a reflector that was left up there by the Apollo missions we can bounce a laser off, and we use that scientifically to figure out how far the moon is away. But there are also lunar sighs month the seismometers there is the solar wind composition spectrum lunar surface Magnum, Magnum, meter, magnetometer, lunar dust collector, many more. All were left up there all ran for years. Some of this stuff is still running so we were there to let them tell you otherwise. Take care, everybody. Make sure you sign up for the security summer. Craig Peterson dot com, take care, everybody. Bye-bye.

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More stories and tech updates at:

www.craigpeterson.com

Don't miss an episode from Craig. Subscribe and give us a rating:

www.craigpeterson.com/itunes

Follow me on Twitter for the latest in tech at:

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For questions, call or text:

855-385-5553

Craig is in the WGAN Morning News with Ken and Matt. This morning we talked about cybercriminals using social media to attack businesses, kids mental health and social media usage, and unified cryptocurrencies.

These and more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPoeterson.com

---

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Transcript:

Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors.

Airing date: 07/24/2019

Cybercriminals using social media to attack businesses, kids mental health and social media usage, and unified cryptocurrencies.

--- 

Craig Peterson
Good morning, everybody, Craig Peterson here. I hope you're doing well today and are enjoying listening no matter whether you're on that gym treadmill, or one of those exercise bikes, walking, or even in the car. Hey, I'd love to hear how you consume my podcast, you can email me at Craig Peterson dot com. I know a lot of people binge-listen on the weekend while they're out doing their chores on Saturday, etc. Hello to everybody out there. This morning, I was on with Ken and Matt, and little inside baseball for everybody with an announcement about a new radio show starting up here in Maine in a couple of weeks, it's going to be on the same stations as Ken and Matt. So that's cool because I'll now be covering just tons of New England when I add it in. That'll be a two-hour show on Saturday. And I'm thinking about podcasting that as well. I don't know what you guys think about that because there's so much stuff I want to share. Is it better on the podcasts or YouTube? Let me know. I will be kind of a simulcast is maybe the best way to put it as I don't have enough hours in the day to take care of my customers and do all of this as well. But do let me know.

Hey, this last week I picked up a new client. So a shout out to Rich and Sue, if you guys are listening. I love going in and helping these businesses. But again, here's somebody that wasn't sure about the state of their security but they did have inklings that something might not be quite right. They had an outsourced firm that was supposed to be taking care of their systems. But there were some issues, right? People usually know when something's not quite right.

We went and had a look. We started with a detailed cyber health assessment and produced a 530-page report. Now the systems are getting all cleaned up, and that's a very, good thing.

If you would are interested in finding out if your security is up to par, get cyber health assessment done for your business. Just contact me if it is something you would like to have done. We will install some software, on one of your machines and then do a poke around and check the security of that machine. Let us know be glad to help, me at Craig Peterson dot com.

Think of this like going to the doctor, right? You think something is not quite right, so you see a doctor. The doctor wants to run some tests, and then they can tell you what's going on. Sometimes they need some more extensive tests, maybe a CAT scan or an MRI. Well, that's what we do when it comes to computers and networks. An excellent place to start is with an assessment. We're not charging for this basic look into one machine, but it can reveal quite a bit but not as much as a Whole Network Scan ( similar to CAT Scan or MRI) which we also offer. Let us know if you need a little diagnosis. Just email me at Craig Peterson dot com. I'll be glad to do a cyber health assessment for you. Let's get into today's appearance with Ken and Matt. Here we go.

Matt Gagnon
He's back, ladies and gentlemen, Craig Peterson. Great American joins the program every Wednesday at this time.

Ken Altschuler
You know he's not like the Americans or that cute Russian spy

Matt Gagnon
I don't know that, but I'm assuming as much for this segment. Craig, how are you this morning?

Craig Peterson
I'm doing well. You know that I'm not one of the Americans because that show is off the air now.

Ken Altschuler
True. Yeah.

Matt Gagnon
Although the actor who was the the the guy spy will appear in that new Mr. Rogers movie, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, where he'll turn up alongside Tom Hanks as a jaded magazine writer assigned to profile Mr. Rogers. I believe he is living with or married to Keri Russell. I think they're married.

Ken Altschuler
I think they are too. I didn't. But it wasn't like that. And don't tell me because I haven't seen the rest of it.

Matt Gagnon
She's got a new show coming out. I forget which one it was.

Ken Altschuler
Keri Russell is in a movie? Isn't she going to be in Star Wars?

Craig Peterson
With six seasons of the American's, you realize it was the end of an era. It was an excellent performance. However, I must say I was so disappointed with the ending of it. By the way. Don't

Ken Altschuler
Don't Tell me, Don't tell me. I haven't seen it. Don't tell me.

Craig Peterson
It was just kind of a letdown. It's the ending you get when you think the show is canceled, at the last minute sort of a thing. Okay, guys, you have to wrap it all up.

Matt Gagnon
You know, you know, within minutes when Eric and I were talking about the best last shows, it's in the ratings of the top 10 best endings of TV shows. Did you know that? The American's? Yes, it is.

Craig Peterson
Yeah, I was disappointed. It frankly was expected. I was disappointed. You know, oh, wow. What are you going to do?

Matt Gagnon
What are we going to do about social media attacks by cybercriminals on businesses, Mr. Peterson?

Craig Peterson
It is a very, big deal. I did a webinar for the FBI InfraGard program talking about this specifically. We've got a huge problem out there. And this problem is reaching into our businesses. I don't know if you saw right now, but there is another warning out. Did you see this about China? And hacking? Yeah. Last week we were brought into a company to scan their network just last week, that small business here locally. Hey, we don't have any secret stuff. Why would they care? Right. Sure enough, there were keyloggers on their CFOs machine. Keyloggers, which means that someone from the outside was keeping track of everything typed. It means they got passwords.

Additionally, we found a password cracker on the machine. It cracked all the passwords on their network on all of their devices. We've got an enormous problem, everybody. Here's is how Social media is playing into what is going on right now. We're still putting things up on social media, and we're even saying stuff on social media that lead the hackers to come after us. You know, we sit around and say why would anybody care about me, as I said, like this, I hear this all the time. I don't have anything top secret. Why would they care? Well, remember, this is an industry in Eastern Europe. It is an industry in Russia. It is the government in North Korea and China. So huge, huge industry, we're talking now 10s of billions of dollars, the last estimate from the FBI that I saw was over $12 billion. It is a vast industry. When we're putting things up on social media, you know, I'm not just talking about Facebook, or you know, the basic ones. I'm talking about LinkedIn, and I'm talking about putting it up on your website. I'm talking about right now this summer, right? The last couple of weeks of August, we're going to take some vacation. We are putting things out there on all these sites saying, Hey, we're going to go on vacation. Yeah, we're taking the kids are going here going there. We link into other people in the organization, making it easy for the bad guys to find all of this stuff about us. That's what I'm talking about right now. And that's what China is using right now. It is also what Iran is starting to use. Iran is using a blunt instrument by probing networks and sending out some of the nasty software that's been available for a long time. But this type of phishing. Spearphishing or direct attacks, it's happening every day.

We've got to be careful everybody about what we put up online. And frankly, if you want to keep up with your family. For instance, we all have iPhones, which I'm sure it comes as no surprise to Matt. But with the iPhones, you've got Imessage, which is encrypted end to end. We use this app to share family pictures, and we use that to share vacation information. You can use an email and make a private little email list that you use to send stuff back and forth. Because at least email unless they hack your email account. With an email, it is not out being posted on the public billboard in the town square for everybody to see.

Matt Gagnon
Excuse me we are talking to Craig Peterson is our tech guru he joins us now as he always does on Wednesdays to go over what's happening in the world of technology. Craig, my son, just went to a baseball camp down in Cape Cod. I still haven't given him a phone yet. I set him up and use a Facebook account, which he never really uses. But I let him use it for this thing. He was sending me messages back and forth while he was there. I guess my point to this little quick mini-story is that he's now using social media, should I be worried that he's now going to end up depressed and suicidal, now? In this social media universe? Should I take it all back?

Craig Peterson
You know, what I did with my granddaughter, who was living with us for many years, is when it was kind of time that she was going to be out at an event. They have these little watches that you can give a kid, and it's highly controlled and allows you to track the kid, and they can send messages they can call a half a dozen members that you preset, so she can call mom or dad or whomever they might need to reach out to, but it doesn't have social media. That's what we did to solve that problem. Check with your phone vendors see what they have. Now, your question is more specific here. And that is about letting kids onto social media. And there was a study that just came out of Montreal. And they studied 3800 kids from 2012 to 2018. Teens. These adolescents were in grade seven to 11 in 31 different Montreal schools. What the team found was, there was an increase in depressive symptoms when the adolescents were on social media. It wasn't just depression when they were active on social media and watching TV. They had increased symptoms of depression, on platforms like Instagram, where teens are more likely to compare their lives with others. Of course, Instagram is way more popular than Facebook is right now. These social media sites are kind of like echo chambers. They are a reinforcing spiral. It is there's a great article I have up on my website from the CBC talking about this. Because they're so reinforcing, and because of the downward spiral, frankly, it's particularly toxic. They found this was true for kids, of the ones that they studied. So basically, middle school to high school-age kids. They are there have been other studies that showed the same thing in adults. However, the thing is that surprised me, and I think it's going to surprise to both you guys they found that okay, TV was kind of showing symptoms of depression and the kids. However, video games did not contribute to depressive symptoms. It is kind of interesting, because, you know, we've seen studies before, I'm sure you guys have heard about them, where video games are shown to be a problem, and the kids get depressed, etc. That those playing video games are loners, etc. Nowadays, and Matt, this is probably true of your video games, they are not socially isolated, but connect with to other kids interactively. Today these video games are interactive. And you're on there playing against other players where whether it's one of these Super Mario Kart type things or one of these military time games, man, you're playing with other people nowadays. So the study found that video games did not contribute to depression.

Ken Altschuler
As you know, our tech guru, is Craig Peterson joins us at 738? Will, I be banking at Facebook or Google? Is it possible that I will have a Facebook checkbook or go to them for a loan? Is that going to happen?

Craig Peterson
Yeah, you're talking about the future here. Of course, we've had some problems. Look at Hong Kong, now with their octopus card where they track everything. In China, they use WeChat, which is their social media. It's fascinating to look at and delve into it. Now we've got Facebook saying, Hey, we're partnering with some credit card companies, and we're going to release our virtual currency our cryptocurrency, then, of course, this is one of President Trump's famous tweets last week, where he said if Facebook wants to do that they should become a bank. I am concerned about it. First of all, I mentioned this when I was talking to you guys before. I love the idea of a universal cryptocurrency. That's what Facebook's new cryptocurrency would become, instantly, 2 billion people worldwide, would be able to engage in commerce. That's the ultimate in capitalism, right. Capitalism is this is the only form of government that is not only just democratized but has brought prosperity to countries and the world. It's a fantastic thing. Now if you have people in the deepest, darkest corners of some country, who can go online, and sell their services, sell their products trade, even within their local community that they couldn't do before. It is phenomenal. The other side, and what I'm starting to get a little more worried about. It boils down to trust. Do you trust Mark Zuckerberg? I don't. Okay. I don't trust him, nor should you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I don't think he can be trusted to keep it secret. I don't trust him doing this at all. Cryptocurrencies aren't that stable yet. I don't trust the government, ultimately. It's like what's happening in Hong Kong right now. Thank goodness, they still have some cash. These protesters are going to these protests are using in cash, as opposed to using cryptocurrencies issued by the government that they track. It is a concern. Can I agree with you? I agree with Matt to we can't t trust Facebook is the bottom line. I don't know where cryptocurrencies are going to go. However, only a big one like this is capable of being solidly backed. Some other cryptocurrencies can do backed by gold, but only to a degree. We'll see what happens here we'll see of Libra, which is the main one that Facebook is proposing, actually comes to be next year.

Ken Altshuler
All right. Craig Peterson is our tech guru. He joins us at this time every single week, and today is no exception to that, Craig, as always, thank you so much. And we will talk to you again next week.

Craig Peterson
Gentlemen, take care. Bye. Bye. Thanks a lot.

Matt Gagnon
All right. We're gonna take a quick break here. When we come back on the land.

Craig Peterson
Of course, we are working about that today and tomorrow working on finalizing everything for my security summer summit. Keep an eye on your email. If you're not on my email list yet, by all means, go to Craig Peterson calm, you'll see it come up at the top of the screen. Alright, everybody, take care. We'll be back this weekend with more. Take care.

---

More stories and tech updates at:

www.craigpeterson.com

Don't miss an episode from Craig. Subscribe and give us a rating:

www.craigpeterson.com/itunes

Follow me on Twitter for the latest in tech at:

www.twitter.com/craigpeterson

For questions, call or text:

855-385-5553

Craig is in the WGAN Morning News with Ken and Matt. This morning we talked about cybercriminals using social media to attack businesses, kids mental health and social media usage, and unified cryptocurrencies.

These and more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPoeterson.com

---

Related Articles:

The Fertile Garden of Social Media is ripe for attracting Cybercriminals to your Business

How DMVs Make Millions – Selling Your License Information

Big Tech Banks, U.S. says Not So Fast

When Governments Demonetize by Force

How Cold? Researchers Predict Large Decrease in Sunspot Activity

Increases in Teen Depression — Check their Social Media

---

Transcript:

Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors.

Airing date: 07/24/2019

Cybercriminals using social media to attack businesses, kids mental health and social media usage, and unified cryptocurrencies.

--- 

Craig Peterson
Good morning, everybody, Craig Peterson here. I hope you're doing well today and are enjoying listening no matter whether you're on that gym treadmill, or one of those exercise bikes, walking, or even in the car. Hey, I'd love to hear how you consume my podcast, you can email me at Craig Peterson dot com. I know a lot of people binge-listen on the weekend while they're out doing their chores on Saturday, etc. Hello to everybody out there. This morning, I was on with Ken and Matt, and little inside baseball for everybody with an announcement about a new radio show starting up here in Maine in a couple of weeks, it's going to be on the same stations as Ken and Matt. So that's cool because I'll now be covering just tons of New England when I add it in. That'll be a two-hour show on Saturday. And I'm thinking about podcasting that as well. I don't know what you guys think about that because there's so much stuff I want to share. Is it better on the podcasts or YouTube? Let me know. I will be kind of a simulcast is maybe the best way to put it as I don't have enough hours in the day to take care of my customers and do all of this as well. But do let me know.

Hey, this last week I picked up a new client. So a shout out to Rich and Sue, if you guys are listening. I love going in and helping these businesses. But again, here's somebody that wasn't sure about the state of their security but they did have inklings that something might not be quite right. They had an outsourced firm that was supposed to be taking care of their systems. But there were some issues, right? People usually know when something's not quite right.

We went and had a look. We started with a detailed cyber health assessment and produced a 530-page report. Now the systems are getting all cleaned up, and that's a very, good thing.

If you would are interested in finding out if your security is up to par, get cyber health assessment done for your business. Just contact me if it is something you would like to have done. We will install some software, on one of your machines and then do a poke around and check the security of that machine. Let us know be glad to help, me at Craig Peterson dot com.

Think of this like going to the doctor, right? You think something is not quite right, so you see a doctor. The doctor wants to run some tests, and then they can tell you what's going on. Sometimes they need some more extensive tests, maybe a CAT scan or an MRI. Well, that's what we do when it comes to computers and networks. An excellent place to start is with an assessment. We're not charging for this basic look into one machine, but it can reveal quite a bit but not as much as a Whole Network Scan ( similar to CAT Scan or MRI) which we also offer. Let us know if you need a little diagnosis. Just email me at Craig Peterson dot com. I'll be glad to do a cyber health assessment for you. Let's get into today's appearance with Ken and Matt. Here we go.

Matt Gagnon
He's back, ladies and gentlemen, Craig Peterson. Great American joins the program every Wednesday at this time.

Ken Altschuler
You know he's not like the Americans or that cute Russian spy

Matt Gagnon
I don't know that, but I'm assuming as much for this segment. Craig, how are you this morning?

Craig Peterson
I'm doing well. You know that I'm not one of the Americans because that show is off the air now.

Ken Altschuler
True. Yeah.

Matt Gagnon
Although the actor who was the the the guy spy will appear in that new Mr. Rogers movie, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, where he'll turn up alongside Tom Hanks as a jaded magazine writer assigned to profile Mr. Rogers. I believe he is living with or married to Keri Russell. I think they're married.

Ken Altschuler
I think they are too. I didn't. But it wasn't like that. And don't tell me because I haven't seen the rest of it.

Matt Gagnon
She's got a new show coming out. I forget which one it was.

Ken Altschuler
Keri Russell is in a movie? Isn't she going to be in Star Wars?

Craig Peterson
With six seasons of the American's, you realize it was the end of an era. It was an excellent performance. However, I must say I was so disappointed with the ending of it. By the way. Don't

Ken Altschuler
Don't Tell me, Don't tell me. I haven't seen it. Don't tell me.

Craig Peterson
It was just kind of a letdown. It's the ending you get when you think the show is canceled, at the last minute sort of a thing. Okay, guys, you have to wrap it all up.

Matt Gagnon
You know, you know, within minutes when Eric and I were talking about the best last shows, it's in the ratings of the top 10 best endings of TV shows. Did you know that? The American's? Yes, it is.

Craig Peterson
Yeah, I was disappointed. It frankly was expected. I was disappointed. You know, oh, wow. What are you going to do?

Matt Gagnon
What are we going to do about social media attacks by cybercriminals on businesses, Mr. Peterson?

Craig Peterson
It is a very, big deal. I did a webinar for the FBI InfraGard program talking about this specifically. We've got a huge problem out there. And this problem is reaching into our businesses. I don't know if you saw right now, but there is another warning out. Did you see this about China? And hacking? Yeah. Last week we were brought into a company to scan their network just last week, that small business here locally. Hey, we don't have any secret stuff. Why would they care? Right. Sure enough, there were keyloggers on their CFOs machine. Keyloggers, which means that someone from the outside was keeping track of everything typed. It means they got passwords.

Additionally, we found a password cracker on the machine. It cracked all the passwords on their network on all of their devices. We've got an enormous problem, everybody. Here's is how Social media is playing into what is going on right now. We're still putting things up on social media, and we're even saying stuff on social media that lead the hackers to come after us. You know, we sit around and say why would anybody care about me, as I said, like this, I hear this all the time. I don't have anything top secret. Why would they care? Well, remember, this is an industry in Eastern Europe. It is an industry in Russia. It is the government in North Korea and China. So huge, huge industry, we're talking now 10s of billions of dollars, the last estimate from the FBI that I saw was over $12 billion. It is a vast industry. When we're putting things up on social media, you know, I'm not just talking about Facebook, or you know, the basic ones. I'm talking about LinkedIn, and I'm talking about putting it up on your website. I'm talking about right now this summer, right? The last couple of weeks of August, we're going to take some vacation. We are putting things out there on all these sites saying, Hey, we're going to go on vacation. Yeah, we're taking the kids are going here going there. We link into other people in the organization, making it easy for the bad guys to find all of this stuff about us. That's what I'm talking about right now. And that's what China is using right now. It is also what Iran is starting to use. Iran is using a blunt instrument by probing networks and sending out some of the nasty software that's been available for a long time. But this type of phishing. Spearphishing or direct attacks, it's happening every day.

We've got to be careful everybody about what we put up online. And frankly, if you want to keep up with your family. For instance, we all have iPhones, which I'm sure it comes as no surprise to Matt. But with the iPhones, you've got Imessage, which is encrypted end to end. We use this app to share family pictures, and we use that to share vacation information. You can use an email and make a private little email list that you use to send stuff back and forth. Because at least email unless they hack your email account. With an email, it is not out being posted on the public billboard in the town square for everybody to see.

Matt Gagnon
Excuse me we are talking to Craig Peterson is our tech guru he joins us now as he always does on Wednesdays to go over what's happening in the world of technology. Craig, my son, just went to a baseball camp down in Cape Cod. I still haven't given him a phone yet. I set him up and use a Facebook account, which he never really uses. But I let him use it for this thing. He was sending me messages back and forth while he was there. I guess my point to this little quick mini-story is that he's now using social media, should I be worried that he's now going to end up depressed and suicidal, now? In this social media universe? Should I take it all back?

Craig Peterson
You know, what I did with my granddaughter, who was living with us for many years, is when it was kind of time that she was going to be out at an event. They have these little watches that you can give a kid, and it's highly controlled and allows you to track the kid, and they can send messages they can call a half a dozen members that you preset, so she can call mom or dad or whomever they might need to reach out to, but it doesn't have social media. That's what we did to solve that problem. Check with your phone vendors see what they have. Now, your question is more specific here. And that is about letting kids onto social media. And there was a study that just came out of Montreal. And they studied 3800 kids from 2012 to 2018. Teens. These adolescents were in grade seven to 11 in 31 different Montreal schools. What the team found was, there was an increase in depressive symptoms when the adolescents were on social media. It wasn't just depression when they were active on social media and watching TV. They had increased symptoms of depression, on platforms like Instagram, where teens are more likely to compare their lives with others. Of course, Instagram is way more popular than Facebook is right now. These social media sites are kind of like echo chambers. They are a reinforcing spiral. It is there's a great article I have up on my website from the CBC talking about this. Because they're so reinforcing, and because of the downward spiral, frankly, it's particularly toxic. They found this was true for kids, of the ones that they studied. So basically, middle school to high school-age kids. They are there have been other studies that showed the same thing in adults. However, the thing is that surprised me, and I think it's going to surprise to both you guys they found that okay, TV was kind of showing symptoms of depression and the kids. However, video games did not contribute to depressive symptoms. It is kind of interesting, because, you know, we've seen studies before, I'm sure you guys have heard about them, where video games are shown to be a problem, and the kids get depressed, etc. That those playing video games are loners, etc. Nowadays, and Matt, this is probably true of your video games, they are not socially isolated, but connect with to other kids interactively. Today these video games are interactive. And you're on there playing against other players where whether it's one of these Super Mario Kart type things or one of these military time games, man, you're playing with other people nowadays. So the study found that video games did not contribute to depression.

Ken Altschuler
As you know, our tech guru, is Craig Peterson joins us at 738? Will, I be banking at Facebook or Google? Is it possible that I will have a Facebook checkbook or go to them for a loan? Is that going to happen?

Craig Peterson
Yeah, you're talking about the future here. Of course, we've had some problems. Look at Hong Kong, now with their octopus card where they track everything. In China, they use WeChat, which is their social media. It's fascinating to look at and delve into it. Now we've got Facebook saying, Hey, we're partnering with some credit card companies, and we're going to release our virtual currency our cryptocurrency, then, of course, this is one of President Trump's famous tweets last week, where he said if Facebook wants to do that they should become a bank. I am concerned about it. First of all, I mentioned this when I was talking to you guys before. I love the idea of a universal cryptocurrency. That's what Facebook's new cryptocurrency would become, instantly, 2 billion people worldwide, would be able to engage in commerce. That's the ultimate in capitalism, right. Capitalism is this is the only form of government that is not only just democratized but has brought prosperity to countries and the world. It's a fantastic thing. Now if you have people in the deepest, darkest corners of some country, who can go online, and sell their services, sell their products trade, even within their local community that they couldn't do before. It is phenomenal. The other side, and what I'm starting to get a little more worried about. It boils down to trust. Do you trust Mark Zuckerberg? I don't. Okay. I don't trust him, nor should you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I don't think he can be trusted to keep it secret. I don't trust him doing this at all. Cryptocurrencies aren't that stable yet. I don't trust the government, ultimately. It's like what's happening in Hong Kong right now. Thank goodness, they still have some cash. These protesters are going to these protests are using in cash, as opposed to using cryptocurrencies issued by the government that they track. It is a concern. Can I agree with you? I agree with Matt to we can't t trust Facebook is the bottom line. I don't know where cryptocurrencies are going to go. However, only a big one like this is capable of being solidly backed. Some other cryptocurrencies can do backed by gold, but only to a degree. We'll see what happens here we'll see of Libra, which is the main one that Facebook is proposing, actually comes to be next year.

Ken Altshuler
All right. Craig Peterson is our tech guru. He joins us at this time every single week, and today is no exception to that, Craig, as always, thank you so much. And we will talk to you again next week.

Craig Peterson
Gentlemen, take care. Bye. Bye. Thanks a lot.

Matt Gagnon
All right. We're gonna take a quick break here. When we come back on the land.

Craig Peterson
Of course, we are working about that today and tomorrow working on finalizing everything for my security summer summit. Keep an eye on your email. If you're not on my email list yet, by all means, go to Craig Peterson calm, you'll see it come up at the top of the screen. Alright, everybody, take care. We'll be back this weekend with more. Take care.

---

More stories and tech updates at:

www.craigpeterson.com

Don't miss an episode from Craig. Subscribe and give us a rating:

www.craigpeterson.com/itunes

Follow me on Twitter for the latest in tech at:

www.twitter.com/craigpeterson

For questions, call or text:

855-385-5553

Craig was on with Jim Polito. We talked about ransomware and what kind of hardware make the most sense for those who are not power-users.  We talked about governments making money off of our personal information entrusted to them and then we also discussed a little bit about my Security Summer Summit.

These and more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com

---

Related Articles:

The Fertile Garden of Social Media is ripe for attracting Cybercriminals to your Business

How DMVs Make Millions – Selling Your License Information

Big Tech Banks, U.S. says Not So Fast

When Governments Demonetize by Force

How Cold? Researchers Predict Large Decrease in Sunspot Activity

Increases in Teen Depression — Check their Social Media

---

Transcript:

Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors.

Airing date: 07/23/2019

The most secure hardware for the general public, Government agencies selling your private information for a profit, Ransomware and a little about my Security Summer Summit.

--- 

Craig Peterson
Hello, everybody, Craig Peterson here. Glad to have you here. I so appreciate you guys and your kind messages. Thanks to Danny to for your kind message this morning, it does my heart good. I can't say enough or thank you guys enough. You know what I do is hard, and it's often negative. We're always dealing with the bad guys who are trying to do to break in damage businesses. I'm trying to help people understand the severity of the situation they're in, and that is tough. It is a tough business. So when I hear helpful little comments from people, I can't thank you enough. I really can't. So, thanks to everybody.

Hey, a mutual friend of Jim and mine whose name is Jordan Levy, has been a journalist for quite a while 25 plus years on the radio, about the same amount of time as me, nailed with ransomware. If you are someone who maybe doesn't need the best, the latest, and the most fabulous computer, I had some great advice, and perhaps surprising things you can look for to save yourself a lot of money, and a lot of headaches. So, here we go with Jim.

Also, don't forget starting up in a little more than a week. You'll be getting emails on it probably a little later this week, my security summer summit, that will be a month of free security training, so keep an eye out for that. It will be throughout August and all on security. We're going to have a track for home users, one for business owners and C-governance type people and a track especially for the non-professional IT guy or gal, you know the employee that just fell into the role because they needed somebody to handle their IT in the business. They knew the most about computers and got stuck with the job. Here we go with Mr. Jim and keep an eye out for that email about my security summer summit.

Jim Polito
I don't know if he's a senior and I don't think he cares, but I'll tell you what, he is a tech talk guru, our good friend, Mr. Craig, Peterson. Craig. Good morning. Thanks so much for calling.

Craig Peterson
Hello. Are we there?

Jim Polito
That I sounded a little odd. Do I sound like a senior citizen? Is that it?

Jim Polito
That might be it. What did she say? 55.

Craig Peterson
She said 55 is a senior citizen. Oh, then I've got decades to go.

Jim Polito
Listen, Canadians don't age, even after they leave the country due to being refrigerated for so long. They don't as they stay fresh. I gotta bring something up about a mutual friend. Speaking of seniors and senior citizens we have there's a guy that we both know who got hit with ransomware. Obviously, he doesn't listen to this segment. We're talking about our afternoon guy on WTG. Jordan Levy. Yeah. Danny, you tell me he got whacked with ransomware. Right? Completely and utterly? Yeah. So yeah, yeah, that's a shame.

Craig Peterson
I wasn't going to mention the name. But here's some must-have advice for those more seasoned citizens listening.

Jim Polito
That makes them sound like they are going to be part of a cannibals meal --seasoned.

Craig Peterson
Here's the essential advice I give to a lot of people. If you're not Mr. or Mrs. Computer, I mean, you use the computer to do some show prep maybe, you send an email back and forth or watch videos, or you have some conversations with the grandkids and kids and stuff, video conversations and that sort of thing then the way to go is to get a Chromebook. It is something that is rarely talked about because there's not a lot of money to be made in it. Many companies make them. Chromebooks are designed to be anything from cheap, under 100 bucks, or all-the-way up through very expensive 1500 to 2000 dollars. The beautiful thing about Chromebooks is they are very safe. They update themselves automatically or attacked frequently and require nothing for you to do except connect them to your Wi-Fi network. Some even come with built-in cellular modems. For Jordan, or other people out there who maybe don't need a computer like they used to need, but still need to be able to do email, web browsing, watch videos on YouTube, or talk to people, then a Chromebook is hard to beat, and they're everywhere. In reality, very few people need windows anymore. So for 100 bucks, and the software is all free. Because you get the full Google suite of word processor spreadsheet, everything now. It's a no brainer. I'll let you in on a little secret that most people don't know about Chromebooks. The secret is that security researchers working in heavily infected environments, use Chromebooks.

This week picked up a new client. They needed help with a cyber compliance report. However, like almost every company we go into -- they were the victim of some pretty severe hacking, including keyloggers. We laid it all out in a 530-page report detailing a massive number of cyber problems.

Craig Peterson
But, that won't happen with a Chromebook.

Jim Polito
OK, so simple, secure, tell Jordan to get a Chromebook. For those of you listening, have a look at it. It's going to be very similar to what you're used to on the windows world. Tablets are great, I love the iPad, but they're a lot more expensive.

Craig Peterson
The Chromebook does have trade-offs. I would probably spend two to $300 on one, and not go for the super cheap one. You're going to be happy with it.

Jim Polito
You know, we've got the possibility of a tax-free weekend coming up. And that's when people will make a purchase. That's, you know, a few hundred dollars and put it off. Until then, what happens though, when you have that, and, you know, like you pull up a Word document or things like that, it can open them up.

Craig Peterson
It does not have word on it. How many of those advanced features do most people need? The same thing with like, if someone sends you an Excel spreadsheet, you can still open it, you can edit it, you can send them something back. But you're not going to have this super-advanced features that Excel has, but you're also not paying the Microsoft tax for their Microsoft Office. You can still send them back and forth or open documents, do your show prep, share them, and sharing becomes even more accessible because I know you use Google Docs to create documents, right? Sharing with those is incredible if you've never tried it. Now, of course, there are some privacy concerns. But here's the bottom line, if you make a document in Google Docs, or a spreadsheet, in Google Sheets, you can share it with somebody else. And you can have 2-3-4 or five people editing it at the same time.

Jim Polito
Yeah, like that. I like that. We're talking with Craig Peterson, our tech talk guru. And at the end of this segment, we're going to give you a phone number, and you can text my name and get other information from Craig. And it is free but standard data, and text rates apply. Alright, let's get to this because I don't want to run out of time, I was under the impression that the registry of Motor Vehicles could not sell my name and my address to third party marketers. Now, I know that way back when, when I worked at a healthcare company. I was marketing specifically to seniors. And I wanted people over the age of 65, or people close to the age of 65. And I bought that information from the registry of motor vehicles. But this was a million years ago. I thought you couldn't do that anymore, especially now with the new smart license. Well, I'm on the RMV site right now. https://www.mass.gov/rmv-records-requests It says right there that you can request personal record information, the RMV records, a copy of most RMV record is available to the general public, but privacy laws and regulations limit access. So without delving into it, it looks like you can do it.

Craig Peterson
In Florida's they are doing it already doing it, Jim, they've made more than $77 million selling the records to bill collectors, data brokers, marketing firms, insurance companies. Yeah. So it's, it's a massive temptation for these government agencies.

Jim Polito
Wow. So they can get that information that so. So, wait a minute. Are you telling me that the state is going to make money off of my name, my address, and my demographic information?

Craig Peterson
Yeah, absolutely.

Jim Polito
Now, we have to know. We should probably get somebody from the RMV involved in this to get all of the details. It's a little unclear from the website, but some states are doing it like Florida, Ohio, and other states.

Craig Peterson
Yeah, they're making a lot of money selling the information. Additionally, there is no way to opt-out of it. You know, in New Hampshire, before we got this new national ID card. It used to be that you could tell the New Hampshire DMV that you did not want them to retain your photo and you did not want them to keep your security number, etc. You could even request that it not appear on your driver's license, including your home address on your driver's license. Now, of course, because of the new federal regulations, New Hampshire had to get rid of those provisions.

Jim Polito
I love that idea!

Craig Peterson
Yes, it says it's another database for somebody to hack. And it's another way for the government to track us. We know that the FBI already has admitted that they have been scanning thousands of records, excuse me millions of records, using DMV records they gained access to from the states. The surveillance society not too far away, frankly, you know, I look at maybe a criminal or someone where they've taken their photograph as part of the sentencing. They've taken the fingerprints and nowadays, their DNA. That's one thing. However, you and I, as sovereign citizens of our society, we should not have our information collected and used in these types of ways to monitor us and track us. Look at what's happened right now over in Hong Kong. They are pushing back against the Chinese government. They don't have a truly cashless society. However, they almost have a cashless society. They have something called an octopus card. And they are being tracked. If someone shows up in an area where there is a protest, the government looks at the records. Plus, they have photos of everybody. They even know if you J-walk. They compare the pictures of you with the ID cards on file and cross-reference with the surveillance cameras that monitor the streets. It is an extremely slippery slope, Jim.

Jim Polito
All right. Now, here's something that's not a slippery slope, getting this kind of information into your hands. Getting it from somebody who's not going to charge you and somebody who's not going to hound you and try to sell you things. That is Craig Peterson. Text my name, Jim, J-I-M, to this number

Craig Peterson
855-385-5553 and I'll send you also details about this my free summer security summer summit we're doing. It is where we're getting back to the brass tacks. The scary summer stuff. Text Jim, to 855-385-5553

Jim Polito
All right, standard data and text rates apply. It's a great list. Craig, thank you so much, my friend.

Craig Peterson
Hey, thanks. Take care, Jim.

Jim Polito
Take care. All right when we return a final word about

---

More stories and tech updates at:

www.craigpeterson.com

Don't miss an episode from Craig. Subscribe and give us a rating:

www.craigpeterson.com/itunes

Message Input:

Message #techtalk

Follow me on Twitter for the latest in tech at:

www.twitter.com/craigpeterson

For questions, call or text:

855-385-5553

Craig was on with Jim Polito. We talked about ransomware and what kind of hardware make the most sense for those who are not power-users.  We talked about governments making money off of our personal information entrusted to them and then we also discussed a little bit about my Security Summer Summit.

These and more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com

---

Related Articles:

The Fertile Garden of Social Media is ripe for attracting Cybercriminals to your Business

How DMVs Make Millions – Selling Your License Information

Big Tech Banks, U.S. says Not So Fast

When Governments Demonetize by Force

How Cold? Researchers Predict Large Decrease in Sunspot Activity

Increases in Teen Depression — Check their Social Media

---

Transcript:

Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors.

Airing date: 07/23/2019

The most secure hardware for the general public, Government agencies selling your private information for a profit, Ransomware and a little about my Security Summer Summit.

--- 

Craig Peterson
Hello, everybody, Craig Peterson here. Glad to have you here. I so appreciate you guys and your kind messages. Thanks to Danny to for your kind message this morning, it does my heart good. I can't say enough or thank you guys enough. You know what I do is hard, and it's often negative. We're always dealing with the bad guys who are trying to do to break in damage businesses. I'm trying to help people understand the severity of the situation they're in, and that is tough. It is a tough business. So when I hear helpful little comments from people, I can't thank you enough. I really can't. So, thanks to everybody.

Hey, a mutual friend of Jim and mine whose name is Jordan Levy, has been a journalist for quite a while 25 plus years on the radio, about the same amount of time as me, nailed with ransomware. If you are someone who maybe doesn't need the best, the latest, and the most fabulous computer, I had some great advice, and perhaps surprising things you can look for to save yourself a lot of money, and a lot of headaches. So, here we go with Jim.

Also, don't forget starting up in a little more than a week. You'll be getting emails on it probably a little later this week, my security summer summit, that will be a month of free security training, so keep an eye out for that. It will be throughout August and all on security. We're going to have a track for home users, one for business owners and C-governance type people and a track especially for the non-professional IT guy or gal, you know the employee that just fell into the role because they needed somebody to handle their IT in the business. They knew the most about computers and got stuck with the job. Here we go with Mr. Jim and keep an eye out for that email about my security summer summit.

Jim Polito
I don't know if he's a senior and I don't think he cares, but I'll tell you what, he is a tech talk guru, our good friend, Mr. Craig, Peterson. Craig. Good morning. Thanks so much for calling.

Craig Peterson
Hello. Are we there?

Jim Polito
That I sounded a little odd. Do I sound like a senior citizen? Is that it?

Jim Polito
That might be it. What did she say? 55.

Craig Peterson
She said 55 is a senior citizen. Oh, then I've got decades to go.

Jim Polito
Listen, Canadians don't age, even after they leave the country due to being refrigerated for so long. They don't as they stay fresh. I gotta bring something up about a mutual friend. Speaking of seniors and senior citizens we have there's a guy that we both know who got hit with ransomware. Obviously, he doesn't listen to this segment. We're talking about our afternoon guy on WTG. Jordan Levy. Yeah. Danny, you tell me he got whacked with ransomware. Right? Completely and utterly? Yeah. So yeah, yeah, that's a shame.

Craig Peterson
I wasn't going to mention the name. But here's some must-have advice for those more seasoned citizens listening.

Jim Polito
That makes them sound like they are going to be part of a cannibals meal --seasoned.

Craig Peterson
Here's the essential advice I give to a lot of people. If you're not Mr. or Mrs. Computer, I mean, you use the computer to do some show prep maybe, you send an email back and forth or watch videos, or you have some conversations with the grandkids and kids and stuff, video conversations and that sort of thing then the way to go is to get a Chromebook. It is something that is rarely talked about because there's not a lot of money to be made in it. Many companies make them. Chromebooks are designed to be anything from cheap, under 100 bucks, or all-the-way up through very expensive 1500 to 2000 dollars. The beautiful thing about Chromebooks is they are very safe. They update themselves automatically or attacked frequently and require nothing for you to do except connect them to your Wi-Fi network. Some even come with built-in cellular modems. For Jordan, or other people out there who maybe don't need a computer like they used to need, but still need to be able to do email, web browsing, watch videos on YouTube, or talk to people, then a Chromebook is hard to beat, and they're everywhere. In reality, very few people need windows anymore. So for 100 bucks, and the software is all free. Because you get the full Google suite of word processor spreadsheet, everything now. It's a no brainer. I'll let you in on a little secret that most people don't know about Chromebooks. The secret is that security researchers working in heavily infected environments, use Chromebooks.

This week picked up a new client. They needed help with a cyber compliance report. However, like almost every company we go into -- they were the victim of some pretty severe hacking, including keyloggers. We laid it all out in a 530-page report detailing a massive number of cyber problems.

Craig Peterson
But, that won't happen with a Chromebook.

Jim Polito
OK, so simple, secure, tell Jordan to get a Chromebook. For those of you listening, have a look at it. It's going to be very similar to what you're used to on the windows world. Tablets are great, I love the iPad, but they're a lot more expensive.

Craig Peterson
The Chromebook does have trade-offs. I would probably spend two to $300 on one, and not go for the super cheap one. You're going to be happy with it.

Jim Polito
You know, we've got the possibility of a tax-free weekend coming up. And that's when people will make a purchase. That's, you know, a few hundred dollars and put it off. Until then, what happens though, when you have that, and, you know, like you pull up a Word document or things like that, it can open them up.

Craig Peterson
It does not have word on it. How many of those advanced features do most people need? The same thing with like, if someone sends you an Excel spreadsheet, you can still open it, you can edit it, you can send them something back. But you're not going to have this super-advanced features that Excel has, but you're also not paying the Microsoft tax for their Microsoft Office. You can still send them back and forth or open documents, do your show prep, share them, and sharing becomes even more accessible because I know you use Google Docs to create documents, right? Sharing with those is incredible if you've never tried it. Now, of course, there are some privacy concerns. But here's the bottom line, if you make a document in Google Docs, or a spreadsheet, in Google Sheets, you can share it with somebody else. And you can have 2-3-4 or five people editing it at the same time.

Jim Polito
Yeah, like that. I like that. We're talking with Craig Peterson, our tech talk guru. And at the end of this segment, we're going to give you a phone number, and you can text my name and get other information from Craig. And it is free but standard data, and text rates apply. Alright, let's get to this because I don't want to run out of time, I was under the impression that the registry of Motor Vehicles could not sell my name and my address to third party marketers. Now, I know that way back when, when I worked at a healthcare company. I was marketing specifically to seniors. And I wanted people over the age of 65, or people close to the age of 65. And I bought that information from the registry of motor vehicles. But this was a million years ago. I thought you couldn't do that anymore, especially now with the new smart license. Well, I'm on the RMV site right now. https://www.mass.gov/rmv-records-requests It says right there that you can request personal record information, the RMV records, a copy of most RMV record is available to the general public, but privacy laws and regulations limit access. So without delving into it, it looks like you can do it.

Craig Peterson
In Florida's they are doing it already doing it, Jim, they've made more than $77 million selling the records to bill collectors, data brokers, marketing firms, insurance companies. Yeah. So it's, it's a massive temptation for these government agencies.

Jim Polito
Wow. So they can get that information that so. So, wait a minute. Are you telling me that the state is going to make money off of my name, my address, and my demographic information?

Craig Peterson
Yeah, absolutely.

Jim Polito
Now, we have to know. We should probably get somebody from the RMV involved in this to get all of the details. It's a little unclear from the website, but some states are doing it like Florida, Ohio, and other states.

Craig Peterson
Yeah, they're making a lot of money selling the information. Additionally, there is no way to opt-out of it. You know, in New Hampshire, before we got this new national ID card. It used to be that you could tell the New Hampshire DMV that you did not want them to retain your photo and you did not want them to keep your security number, etc. You could even request that it not appear on your driver's license, including your home address on your driver's license. Now, of course, because of the new federal regulations, New Hampshire had to get rid of those provisions.

Jim Polito
I love that idea!

Craig Peterson
Yes, it says it's another database for somebody to hack. And it's another way for the government to track us. We know that the FBI already has admitted that they have been scanning thousands of records, excuse me millions of records, using DMV records they gained access to from the states. The surveillance society not too far away, frankly, you know, I look at maybe a criminal or someone where they've taken their photograph as part of the sentencing. They've taken the fingerprints and nowadays, their DNA. That's one thing. However, you and I, as sovereign citizens of our society, we should not have our information collected and used in these types of ways to monitor us and track us. Look at what's happened right now over in Hong Kong. They are pushing back against the Chinese government. They don't have a truly cashless society. However, they almost have a cashless society. They have something called an octopus card. And they are being tracked. If someone shows up in an area where there is a protest, the government looks at the records. Plus, they have photos of everybody. They even know if you J-walk. They compare the pictures of you with the ID cards on file and cross-reference with the surveillance cameras that monitor the streets. It is an extremely slippery slope, Jim.

Jim Polito
All right. Now, here's something that's not a slippery slope, getting this kind of information into your hands. Getting it from somebody who's not going to charge you and somebody who's not going to hound you and try to sell you things. That is Craig Peterson. Text my name, Jim, J-I-M, to this number

Craig Peterson
855-385-5553 and I'll send you also details about this my free summer security summer summit we're doing. It is where we're getting back to the brass tacks. The scary summer stuff. Text Jim, to 855-385-5553

Jim Polito
All right, standard data and text rates apply. It's a great list. Craig, thank you so much, my friend.

Craig Peterson
Hey, thanks. Take care, Jim.

Jim Polito
Take care. All right when we return a final word about

---

More stories and tech updates at:

www.craigpeterson.com

Don't miss an episode from Craig. Subscribe and give us a rating:

www.craigpeterson.com/itunes

Message Input:

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Follow me on Twitter for the latest in tech at:

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For questions, call or text:

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Craig is on with Jack Heath this Monday morning. Jack and I discussed the government profiting from your private information and the dangers of a cashless society.

These and more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com

---

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---

Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors.

Airing date: 07/22/2019

Governments that Profit from your Private Personal Information and the Drawbacks and Dangers of a Cashless Society

---

Craig Peterson
Good morning, everybody. Craig Peterson here. Thanks for joining me again here on the podcast. I like that our numbers are coming up. I appreciate everybody who's made a comment and given me a five-star review over there on iTunes, they are great and very much appreciated. Again, thanks for listening to the podcasts.

I was going through the news and collecting articles, which I do a couple of times a day trying to keep up on everything. I don't know if you've seen what Elon Musk is working on and his latest little bit of technology. It is a computer chip that he wants to implant in your brain. Now we've heard about these types of things for many, many years. However, this is from a startup. I am not sure if he funded it, but it was part of his little empire and is called Neurolink. The goal is to implant a tiny sensor in your brain. And you, by the way, using a robot to do it. Then these sensors will pick up brainwaves so that a person with quadriplegia can control a smartphone or other computer device. It is quite cool technology. They founded the company back in 2016. They've already done some testing with a wired version of the implant in rats. They also did it with a monkey who was able to control a computer with just thought. That I think, is a very cool thing. We'll see how it goes. Ultimately, as I said, a lot of people have talked about this forever, and there have been many, many attempts to try and do it with varying levels of success, I have to say, but it's not new. It could be very, very good, and just being able to send a text message by thinking is a huge step. I cannot imagine being locked in a box as a brain in a quadriplegic body. It's just incredible. So we'll keep an eye on that as time goes on. This morning I was on with Mr. Jack Heath, and we talked about how the US is moving towards a cashless society and why it doesn't make sense. Just look at what we've learned from a Hong Kong protesters out there. Florida's DMV is selling personal information. Is that a good idea? To who are they selling? I compare with what New Hampshire used to do what we're doing now under the new federal laws. So, here we go with Mr. Jack Heath.

Jack Heath
Back on this Monday morning at Craig Peterson, our tech talk guy that joins us live at the AutoFair listener lines and Craig you have some interesting stories on your docket this morning. One is about the Florida DMV, and people's license information that might be out there in the market, as they say, and also the significance of the Hong Kong protest and it's connection to technology. Good morning.

Craig Peterson
Good morning. Yeah, absolutely. You know, one of the things I loved about what New Hampshire did for so many years is with your driver's license, you had the option to prevent them from keeping your picture and not allow them to print your social security number on the card and, and keep all that information out of their databases. I am concerned about two things. First of all, the attribution quote about why did Willie Sutton robbed banks, because that's where the money was. Well, that's the same thing when it comes to these massive databases that governments and some businesses maintain, and also the amount of data many companies collect. So having that information in the database the state has the bad guys can potentially hack is always concerned me? And then of course, there's the concern about what why would you want to why would you want to even collect data that you did not absolutely need, and that's good advice for businesses as well because if you have a lot of data, this kicking around, it gets stolen, you can be in big trouble.

Now. This story, Jack, you brought up down in Florida, the DMV. They have been collecting this information for years. By the way, New Hampshire is now being forced to comply with a federal mandate that came out and requiring us to collect this information. But, Florida DMV is selling the information that they've been collecting on their drivers and ID card holders, to over 30 private companies. It includes bill collectors, data brokers, marketing firms, insurance companies, and Florida's made more than $77 million and selling this data. I think it's very concerning!

Jack Heath
That leads to my next question, how much they get paid for it? Yeah, you answered the question.

Craig Peterson
Yeah, it's $77 million, and that is not a small amount. However, for the Florida DMV, it's a barely a drop in the bucket. In Florida, the DMV can legally sell the driver and ID cardholder information, and there's no way for Florida residents to opt-out. Now NH is collecting this information, and you no longer have the option of not having your photo or some of this other information collected here in New Hampshire. I don't think we have the ability to opt-out, either. If the state decides to sell our data. We know that the FBI and other federal government agencies have been combing state databases nationwide, their DMV records, and have been using that for facial recognition. I'm concerned about that one as well. So, there's a lot of dangers there.

Jack Heath
Interesting. Let's get to Hong Kong, yeah. Yeah. Tell me because you know, that we continue to see these pretty massive protests.

Craig Peterson
Yeah, it's I think this is also quite concerning. Again, you know, that we've had the Treasury for many decades here in the United States and we've minted coin and printed paper money. Going back to medieval days and before, if you forged a coin, it was considered an attack on the king, and you received the worst punishment possible against you. Forgery has, especially with currencies, long been a big problem. Now we've got companies out there, like our friends over at Facebook. They are getting together with other companies, including some financial companies, and they are trying to come up with their own version of cryptocurrency. Well, Hong Kong has something called an octopus card. And this octopus card provides for a completely cashless society. The same thing is true in China, as well. They have something called WeChat. And that's a social media and messaging service that allows them to use that to pay as a primary payment method. These protesters in Hong Kong do not use octopus cards. They're only using cash. When it's time to go and protest against the government because it's just too easy to be tracked. So, now I'm looking at WeChat in China, Jack and it's gotten so bad over there, that if you J-walk, they again, they've got the database of the photos, they have the computers, they automatically debit you. Your E payment card no longer works to even get on a train to get to work unless you obey every law over there. So again, it's concerning. It is what we can expect with a cashless society. It represents yet another risk. What happens if a president you don't like becomes president and starts trying to do some of these things? The same thing is true with Congress when it is taken over by parties that you don't like. We certainly have a lot of protests right now against President Trump. However, this really could give a crazy power to the government.

Jack Heath
All right, good stuff, abstract but good stuff this morning. Thank you, Craig, at least on the latter half. Thank you, Craig. Craig Peterson, our tech talk every Monday. Thank you, Craig. Appreciate it.

Craig Peterson
Take care. Bye-Bye.

Jack Heath
All right. Paul Steinhauser.

Craig Peterson
Hey, thanks to everybody who's listening to this morning appearance Today's podcast was brought to you by my security summer summit. It is coming up in August. If you're not already on my email list, make sure you join. We're only just about a week away from getting started on that. You can join by just going to Craig peterson.com. You'll see right there on the homepage or any page on my site you can subscribe to my mailing list. I am not one of the internet marketers is nailing you all of the time. I am trying to keep you up to date. You can join the thousands of people that get that my newsletter every week and keep up what's going on. I send out all of my show notes, all of the information that I think is the most important of the week. So, if you miss anything, that's where you'll find it. A quick shout out here to John, who this week asked a great question. And yes, indeed, John, the Apollo moon landings did happen. So, shout out to you. I love to give a shout-out to people who go on to iTunes and give me a little ranking there as well as anybody that asks a question by just sending an email to me at Craig Peterson dot com, or quite quickly texting me 855-385-5553. If you're interested in helping your business meet the mainstream security standard, let me know. Take care, everybody. Have a great day. We'll be back tomorrow. Bye-bye.

---

More stories and tech updates at:

www.craigpeterson.com

Don't miss an episode from Craig. Subscribe and give us a rating:

www.craigpeterson.com/itunes

Message Input:

Message #techtalk

Follow me on Twitter for the latest in tech at:

www.twitter.com/craigpeterson

For questions, call or text:

855-385-5553

Craig is on with Jack Heath this Monday morning. Jack and I discussed the government profiting from your private information and the dangers of a cashless society.

These and more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com

---

Related Articles:

The Fertile Garden of Social Media is ripe for attracting Cybercriminals to your Business

How DMVs Make Millions – Selling Your License Information

Big Tech Banks, U.S. says Not So Fast

When Governments Demonetize by Force

How Cold? Researchers Predict Large Decrease in Sunspot Activity

Increases in Teen Depression — Check their Social Media

---

Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors.

Airing date: 07/22/2019

Governments that Profit from your Private Personal Information and the Drawbacks and Dangers of a Cashless Society

---

Craig Peterson
Good morning, everybody. Craig Peterson here. Thanks for joining me again here on the podcast. I like that our numbers are coming up. I appreciate everybody who's made a comment and given me a five-star review over there on iTunes, they are great and very much appreciated. Again, thanks for listening to the podcasts.

I was going through the news and collecting articles, which I do a couple of times a day trying to keep up on everything. I don't know if you've seen what Elon Musk is working on and his latest little bit of technology. It is a computer chip that he wants to implant in your brain. Now we've heard about these types of things for many, many years. However, this is from a startup. I am not sure if he funded it, but it was part of his little empire and is called Neurolink. The goal is to implant a tiny sensor in your brain. And you, by the way, using a robot to do it. Then these sensors will pick up brainwaves so that a person with quadriplegia can control a smartphone or other computer device. It is quite cool technology. They founded the company back in 2016. They've already done some testing with a wired version of the implant in rats. They also did it with a monkey who was able to control a computer with just thought. That I think, is a very cool thing. We'll see how it goes. Ultimately, as I said, a lot of people have talked about this forever, and there have been many, many attempts to try and do it with varying levels of success, I have to say, but it's not new. It could be very, very good, and just being able to send a text message by thinking is a huge step. I cannot imagine being locked in a box as a brain in a quadriplegic body. It's just incredible. So we'll keep an eye on that as time goes on. This morning I was on with Mr. Jack Heath, and we talked about how the US is moving towards a cashless society and why it doesn't make sense. Just look at what we've learned from a Hong Kong protesters out there. Florida's DMV is selling personal information. Is that a good idea? To who are they selling? I compare with what New Hampshire used to do what we're doing now under the new federal laws. So, here we go with Mr. Jack Heath.

Jack Heath
Back on this Monday morning at Craig Peterson, our tech talk guy that joins us live at the AutoFair listener lines and Craig you have some interesting stories on your docket this morning. One is about the Florida DMV, and people's license information that might be out there in the market, as they say, and also the significance of the Hong Kong protest and it's connection to technology. Good morning.

Craig Peterson
Good morning. Yeah, absolutely. You know, one of the things I loved about what New Hampshire did for so many years is with your driver's license, you had the option to prevent them from keeping your picture and not allow them to print your social security number on the card and, and keep all that information out of their databases. I am concerned about two things. First of all, the attribution quote about why did Willie Sutton robbed banks, because that's where the money was. Well, that's the same thing when it comes to these massive databases that governments and some businesses maintain, and also the amount of data many companies collect. So having that information in the database the state has the bad guys can potentially hack is always concerned me? And then of course, there's the concern about what why would you want to why would you want to even collect data that you did not absolutely need, and that's good advice for businesses as well because if you have a lot of data, this kicking around, it gets stolen, you can be in big trouble.

Now. This story, Jack, you brought up down in Florida, the DMV. They have been collecting this information for years. By the way, New Hampshire is now being forced to comply with a federal mandate that came out and requiring us to collect this information. But, Florida DMV is selling the information that they've been collecting on their drivers and ID card holders, to over 30 private companies. It includes bill collectors, data brokers, marketing firms, insurance companies, and Florida's made more than $77 million and selling this data. I think it's very concerning!

Jack Heath
That leads to my next question, how much they get paid for it? Yeah, you answered the question.

Craig Peterson
Yeah, it's $77 million, and that is not a small amount. However, for the Florida DMV, it's a barely a drop in the bucket. In Florida, the DMV can legally sell the driver and ID cardholder information, and there's no way for Florida residents to opt-out. Now NH is collecting this information, and you no longer have the option of not having your photo or some of this other information collected here in New Hampshire. I don't think we have the ability to opt-out, either. If the state decides to sell our data. We know that the FBI and other federal government agencies have been combing state databases nationwide, their DMV records, and have been using that for facial recognition. I'm concerned about that one as well. So, there's a lot of dangers there.

Jack Heath
Interesting. Let's get to Hong Kong, yeah. Yeah. Tell me because you know, that we continue to see these pretty massive protests.

Craig Peterson
Yeah, it's I think this is also quite concerning. Again, you know, that we've had the Treasury for many decades here in the United States and we've minted coin and printed paper money. Going back to medieval days and before, if you forged a coin, it was considered an attack on the king, and you received the worst punishment possible against you. Forgery has, especially with currencies, long been a big problem. Now we've got companies out there, like our friends over at Facebook. They are getting together with other companies, including some financial companies, and they are trying to come up with their own version of cryptocurrency. Well, Hong Kong has something called an octopus card. And this octopus card provides for a completely cashless society. The same thing is true in China, as well. They have something called WeChat. And that's a social media and messaging service that allows them to use that to pay as a primary payment method. These protesters in Hong Kong do not use octopus cards. They're only using cash. When it's time to go and protest against the government because it's just too easy to be tracked. So, now I'm looking at WeChat in China, Jack and it's gotten so bad over there, that if you J-walk, they again, they've got the database of the photos, they have the computers, they automatically debit you. Your E payment card no longer works to even get on a train to get to work unless you obey every law over there. So again, it's concerning. It is what we can expect with a cashless society. It represents yet another risk. What happens if a president you don't like becomes president and starts trying to do some of these things? The same thing is true with Congress when it is taken over by parties that you don't like. We certainly have a lot of protests right now against President Trump. However, this really could give a crazy power to the government.

Jack Heath
All right, good stuff, abstract but good stuff this morning. Thank you, Craig, at least on the latter half. Thank you, Craig. Craig Peterson, our tech talk every Monday. Thank you, Craig. Appreciate it.

Craig Peterson
Take care. Bye-Bye.

Jack Heath
All right. Paul Steinhauser.

Craig Peterson
Hey, thanks to everybody who's listening to this morning appearance Today's podcast was brought to you by my security summer summit. It is coming up in August. If you're not already on my email list, make sure you join. We're only just about a week away from getting started on that. You can join by just going to Craig peterson.com. You'll see right there on the homepage or any page on my site you can subscribe to my mailing list. I am not one of the internet marketers is nailing you all of the time. I am trying to keep you up to date. You can join the thousands of people that get that my newsletter every week and keep up what's going on. I send out all of my show notes, all of the information that I think is the most important of the week. So, if you miss anything, that's where you'll find it. A quick shout out here to John, who this week asked a great question. And yes, indeed, John, the Apollo moon landings did happen. So, shout out to you. I love to give a shout-out to people who go on to iTunes and give me a little ranking there as well as anybody that asks a question by just sending an email to me at Craig Peterson dot com, or quite quickly texting me 855-385-5553. If you're interested in helping your business meet the mainstream security standard, let me know. Take care, everybody. Have a great day. We'll be back tomorrow. Bye-bye.

---

More stories and tech updates at:

www.craigpeterson.com

Don't miss an episode from Craig. Subscribe and give us a rating:

www.craigpeterson.com/itunes

Message Input:

Message #techtalk

Follow me on Twitter for the latest in tech at:

www.twitter.com/craigpeterson

For questions, call or text:

855-385-5553

Craig was on with Jim Polito. We talked about some of the latest warnings and problems people are having. If you are using Microsoft, I get it. I understand why you're not doing the updates but, man, it is essential. We talked about Organized Crime, Russia and Iran and then we also discussed a little bit about my Security Summer Summit.

These and more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com

---

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---

Transcript:

Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors.

Airing date: 07/09/2019

The latest warnings and problems people are having with Microsoft and updates and a little bit about my Security Summer Summit.

--- 

Craig Peterson
Hey, good morning, everybody. Craig Peterson here. I was on with Mr. Polito this morning. We talked about some of the latest warnings and problems people are having. If you are using Microsoft, I get it. I understand why you're not doing the updates but, man, it is essential. That is what I talked about with Jim this morning. We also discussed a little bit about my Security Summer Summit. So, here we go with Mr. Jim Polito.

Jim Polito
The man the myth, the legend, I'm talking about our tech talk Guru Craig Peterson. Good morning, sir.

Craig Peterson
Hey, good morning, Jim.

Jim Polito
Craig, always a pleasure. Missed you last week. It is still a pleasure to have you here. We have to get right down to it. We got like, I must pull out the Godfather theme here somewhere. Do I still have that? Geez, I should have probably should have checked it, beforehand. But I should pull up the Godfather theme. Organized crime is doing some drive-bys. But they're doing them in cyberspace. No more, old Al Capone days that the car pulls up and those machine guns, the Tommy guns, blaze out the windows where mobsters dropped to the sidewalk. Now, this is online, right?

Craig Peterson
Yeah, exactly. We don't have to worry about the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. Yeah. But we all do have to worry about this. Organized crime has been doing some innovative things, at least for them. Right.

Jim Polito
Good. Good. I agree with you.

Craig Peterson
When you think about organized crime and muscle men and paying the protection money and everything. Well, this is just a step up or down for them? Yeah.

Jim Polito
Well, they always go where there's an opportunity. I mean, I used to report a lot on organized crime. Mostly Cosa Nostra, you know, the Italian five families from New York. I used to cover and report on them because we had a crew of the Genovese crime family, out this way. But there are a lot of other organized crimes, Eastern European, Asian and 20 some odd gangs. It's all over. These guys are doing it online. Seizing the opportunity, because that's what did they say to Dillinger? It was a Dillenger or other guys that said "why do you rob banks? Well, that's where the money is," you know?

Craig Peterson
It's a fascinating thing because there are so many vulnerabilities. The NSA made a statement, and that is something they've never done before. You are old enough to remember when NSA stood for "no such agency." They deny the existence and everything else. Well, for the first time, ever, they've come out and issued a warning because there doing drive-by downloads going on. That is where they use your machine to mine Bitcoin. Now, that's just a huge, huge thing. They are using some features in your web browsers, which, again, kind of shows it's time to go to a privacy browser. The NSA issued a warning, now, because apparently, there are at least 10 million computers here in the US that are vulnerable, Windows computers, of course, that are vulnerable to some of these significant drive-by problems as well as attacks. Remember that President Trump pulled back an offensive attack that we were about to launch. It was going to be a kinetic attack against Iran. We were going to take out their missiles and take out those radar installations. What we did instead was we carried out a cyberattack against them. Yeah. And we went after those same installations with cyber attacks. We also went into Russia's power grid a few weeks ago, and we quite literally flipped the power on and off a few times, to let them know, we weren't happy with something they did.

Now, the NSA issued a warning, as well as the FBI. I got an alert from the FBI about this, again right now. They are warning that the Iranians are attacking us directly. They are going after us. They're using some software that they've cobbled together from some open sources, but they're using some software that will wipe computers, it just deletes everything. It doesn't try and hold it ransom or anything. What they're trying to do is strike back at us economically. Iran is now deploying it. It's just amazing. The warning out there right now, that Iran is coming after us in a cyber way. You've got that organized crime was using drive-by downloads and is trying to hack in. We've got nation-states are like Russia and China that are invading our systems. We just found out last week, the FBI and other intelligence agencies are saying that we have had all of our major phone companies records have been taken by the Chinese and have been monitored by the Chinese for years. Then we've got the organized crime going after us using our machines to mind Bitcoin, literally mine money, as well as steal from us. We've got Iran who is on the offensive, right now, attacking our business computers as well as our home machines. You know, here's the disappointing part of all of this, Jim.

80% of the time, the attack can be stopped by just going back to the brass tacks and making sure your machines are up to date and patched. It has to be automatic. We have over 10 million devices now that are out there, Windows machines, that have not still have that unpatched vulnerability. Look at the Equifax hack. The Equifax hack happened because there was an uninstalled patch that was about eight months old. The Target hack, the TJ Maxx target all hacked because of an HVAC contractor. Can you believe we're talking about the system that controls the heating and cooling the air conditioning system for a retail store? A contractor installed them, and that contractor had remote access to track those systems so they could monitor them. The bad guys this unpatched track access point and they went in and hacked target.

Jim Polito
That's a way to sneak in. We're talking with Craig Peterson, our tech talk guru. At the end of the segment, we're going to give you a number. If you text, My name, Jim, to that number, you'll get all the information like how to protect yourself from this and other things. Standard data and text rates apply. So, Craig, it's straightforward. It's just that people aren't doing what's out there and available to protect themselves.

Craig Peterson
I think they have good reason to. You know, I don't want people to feel bad. Lies and misrepresentations have them confused. You go in you, you buy a router at the local Staples store, and you install it in your small business. You think you're all set. Well, no, that has to be patched. Right? Yeah, some routers will automatically apply patches. But the other big problem is they say Microsoft has been mistreating consumers for decades. I mean, slapping them in the face and kicking them around. And they've done worse for small businesses. We could go on for hours on this one. But when you install a patch from Microsoft, look at the last two months look at patches from Microsoft. They broke computers. And I mean, most machines to which they were applied. Microsoft, sometimes it's the first choice. Here's our Patch Tuesday patches. So all these patches hate to install them, there were almost 80 critical patches last month from Microsoft. So when you install them and they don't work, and they break your computer, and you can't get your work done, and you can't get the paperwork out to the court and time, I've had calls from listeners on that one. Right? Law offices, I've got a four o'clock deadline and my machine, I can't do it. My Windows machine is trying to do an update or whatever. So, I don't blame the people. I don't blame consumers. I don't blame the small businesses that aren't doing them because they have a reason to be afraid. However, there is a real and present danger, right. We have the bad guys trying to go after you. That's also a real and present danger. There are some services out there. I'm going to be covering this as part of my security summer summit. That's free summit I'm doing this summer, on what to do. There is software out there that will do the updates for you. Some companies will do it for you. We'll talk about that. But I can't blame them, Jim, because Microsoft has been frankly, lying to them because of how they have entirely just misused people for profit.

Jim Polito
Alright, so look, let's get folks in touch with you. So they'll know about this. And the way we do that is you text My name to this number.

Craig Peterson
855-385-5553. Just get out your smartphone and text, Jim to 855-385-5553.

Jim Polito
Standard data and text rates apply. Craig will provide you with this information plus a lot of other stuff this week, and he won't annoy you. He won't sell your name, and he won't be selling you anything. So, there you have it. What have you got to lose, other than the information? Having a ton of knowledge on how to protect yourself. You'll get that from Craig. Thank you very much.

Craig Peterson
All right. Thanks, Jim. I'm glad you're back and then glad you had a great vacation.

Jim Polito
Thank you, sir.

Craig Peterson
Bye-bye.

Jim Polito
All right, when we return a final word

---

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Craig was on with Jim Polito. We talked about some of the latest warnings and problems people are having. If you are using Microsoft, I get it. I understand why you're not doing the updates but, man, it is essential. We talked about Organized Crime, Russia and Iran and then we also discussed a little bit about my Security Summer Summit.

These and more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com

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Transcript:

Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors.

Airing date: 07/09/2019

The latest warnings and problems people are having with Microsoft and updates and a little bit about my Security Summer Summit.

--- 

Craig Peterson
Hey, good morning, everybody. Craig Peterson here. I was on with Mr. Polito this morning. We talked about some of the latest warnings and problems people are having. If you are using Microsoft, I get it. I understand why you're not doing the updates but, man, it is essential. That is what I talked about with Jim this morning. We also discussed a little bit about my Security Summer Summit. So, here we go with Mr. Jim Polito.

Jim Polito
The man the myth, the legend, I'm talking about our tech talk Guru Craig Peterson. Good morning, sir.

Craig Peterson
Hey, good morning, Jim.

Jim Polito
Craig, always a pleasure. Missed you last week. It is still a pleasure to have you here. We have to get right down to it. We got like, I must pull out the Godfather theme here somewhere. Do I still have that? Geez, I should have probably should have checked it, beforehand. But I should pull up the Godfather theme. Organized crime is doing some drive-bys. But they're doing them in cyberspace. No more, old Al Capone days that the car pulls up and those machine guns, the Tommy guns, blaze out the windows where mobsters dropped to the sidewalk. Now, this is online, right?

Craig Peterson
Yeah, exactly. We don't have to worry about the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. Yeah. But we all do have to worry about this. Organized crime has been doing some innovative things, at least for them. Right.

Jim Polito
Good. Good. I agree with you.

Craig Peterson
When you think about organized crime and muscle men and paying the protection money and everything. Well, this is just a step up or down for them? Yeah.

Jim Polito
Well, they always go where there's an opportunity. I mean, I used to report a lot on organized crime. Mostly Cosa Nostra, you know, the Italian five families from New York. I used to cover and report on them because we had a crew of the Genovese crime family, out this way. But there are a lot of other organized crimes, Eastern European, Asian and 20 some odd gangs. It's all over. These guys are doing it online. Seizing the opportunity, because that's what did they say to Dillinger? It was a Dillenger or other guys that said "why do you rob banks? Well, that's where the money is," you know?

Craig Peterson
It's a fascinating thing because there are so many vulnerabilities. The NSA made a statement, and that is something they've never done before. You are old enough to remember when NSA stood for "no such agency." They deny the existence and everything else. Well, for the first time, ever, they've come out and issued a warning because there doing drive-by downloads going on. That is where they use your machine to mine Bitcoin. Now, that's just a huge, huge thing. They are using some features in your web browsers, which, again, kind of shows it's time to go to a privacy browser. The NSA issued a warning, now, because apparently, there are at least 10 million computers here in the US that are vulnerable, Windows computers, of course, that are vulnerable to some of these significant drive-by problems as well as attacks. Remember that President Trump pulled back an offensive attack that we were about to launch. It was going to be a kinetic attack against Iran. We were going to take out their missiles and take out those radar installations. What we did instead was we carried out a cyberattack against them. Yeah. And we went after those same installations with cyber attacks. We also went into Russia's power grid a few weeks ago, and we quite literally flipped the power on and off a few times, to let them know, we weren't happy with something they did.

Now, the NSA issued a warning, as well as the FBI. I got an alert from the FBI about this, again right now. They are warning that the Iranians are attacking us directly. They are going after us. They're using some software that they've cobbled together from some open sources, but they're using some software that will wipe computers, it just deletes everything. It doesn't try and hold it ransom or anything. What they're trying to do is strike back at us economically. Iran is now deploying it. It's just amazing. The warning out there right now, that Iran is coming after us in a cyber way. You've got that organized crime was using drive-by downloads and is trying to hack in. We've got nation-states are like Russia and China that are invading our systems. We just found out last week, the FBI and other intelligence agencies are saying that we have had all of our major phone companies records have been taken by the Chinese and have been monitored by the Chinese for years. Then we've got the organized crime going after us using our machines to mind Bitcoin, literally mine money, as well as steal from us. We've got Iran who is on the offensive, right now, attacking our business computers as well as our home machines. You know, here's the disappointing part of all of this, Jim.

80% of the time, the attack can be stopped by just going back to the brass tacks and making sure your machines are up to date and patched. It has to be automatic. We have over 10 million devices now that are out there, Windows machines, that have not still have that unpatched vulnerability. Look at the Equifax hack. The Equifax hack happened because there was an uninstalled patch that was about eight months old. The Target hack, the TJ Maxx target all hacked because of an HVAC contractor. Can you believe we're talking about the system that controls the heating and cooling the air conditioning system for a retail store? A contractor installed them, and that contractor had remote access to track those systems so they could monitor them. The bad guys this unpatched track access point and they went in and hacked target.

Jim Polito
That's a way to sneak in. We're talking with Craig Peterson, our tech talk guru. At the end of the segment, we're going to give you a number. If you text, My name, Jim, to that number, you'll get all the information like how to protect yourself from this and other things. Standard data and text rates apply. So, Craig, it's straightforward. It's just that people aren't doing what's out there and available to protect themselves.

Craig Peterson
I think they have good reason to. You know, I don't want people to feel bad. Lies and misrepresentations have them confused. You go in you, you buy a router at the local Staples store, and you install it in your small business. You think you're all set. Well, no, that has to be patched. Right? Yeah, some routers will automatically apply patches. But the other big problem is they say Microsoft has been mistreating consumers for decades. I mean, slapping them in the face and kicking them around. And they've done worse for small businesses. We could go on for hours on this one. But when you install a patch from Microsoft, look at the last two months look at patches from Microsoft. They broke computers. And I mean, most machines to which they were applied. Microsoft, sometimes it's the first choice. Here's our Patch Tuesday patches. So all these patches hate to install them, there were almost 80 critical patches last month from Microsoft. So when you install them and they don't work, and they break your computer, and you can't get your work done, and you can't get the paperwork out to the court and time, I've had calls from listeners on that one. Right? Law offices, I've got a four o'clock deadline and my machine, I can't do it. My Windows machine is trying to do an update or whatever. So, I don't blame the people. I don't blame consumers. I don't blame the small businesses that aren't doing them because they have a reason to be afraid. However, there is a real and present danger, right. We have the bad guys trying to go after you. That's also a real and present danger. There are some services out there. I'm going to be covering this as part of my security summer summit. That's free summit I'm doing this summer, on what to do. There is software out there that will do the updates for you. Some companies will do it for you. We'll talk about that. But I can't blame them, Jim, because Microsoft has been frankly, lying to them because of how they have entirely just misused people for profit.

Jim Polito
Alright, so look, let's get folks in touch with you. So they'll know about this. And the way we do that is you text My name to this number.

Craig Peterson
855-385-5553. Just get out your smartphone and text, Jim to 855-385-5553.

Jim Polito
Standard data and text rates apply. Craig will provide you with this information plus a lot of other stuff this week, and he won't annoy you. He won't sell your name, and he won't be selling you anything. So, there you have it. What have you got to lose, other than the information? Having a ton of knowledge on how to protect yourself. You'll get that from Craig. Thank you very much.

Craig Peterson
All right. Thanks, Jim. I'm glad you're back and then glad you had a great vacation.

Jim Polito
Thank you, sir.

Craig Peterson
Bye-bye.

Jim Polito
All right, when we return a final word

---

More stories and tech updates at:

www.craigpeterson.com

Don't miss an episode from Craig. Subscribe and give us a rating:

www.craigpeterson.com/itunes

Message Input:

Message #techtalk

Follow me on Twitter for the latest in tech at:

www.twitter.com/craigpeterson

For questions, call or text:

855-385-5553