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

Welcome!

Today Craig discusses secure communications and how we can keep our information from being used by the bad guys.

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

---

Read More:

Signal is adding automatic face blurring to help protesters

---

Automated Machine Generated Transcript:

Craig Peterson: Have you ever wondered how you can blur the pictures that you're taking on your camera? Maybe also remove location data, GPS, all of that stuff. Well, that's what we're going to talk about right now and how rioters are doing it too.

[00:00:22] Yes. Hello. Hello, Craig Peterson here. Thanks for joining me. We're on every week, you can subscribe online as well. CraigPeterson.com/subscribe and get all of my latest information.

[00:00:35] We've got a bit of a problem out there that you might have heard about. In fact, if you haven't heard about it, you're probably living under a rock somewhere.

[00:00:44] But here's the problem. We have people out in the street picketing, they're rioting. They're really trying to get their voices heard. Now what's behind it all, that's a subject for a completely different show. We're going to talk about technology as we do every week. What we're finding right now is that while they're out there taking pictures, they're doing all kinds of silly/stupid things with them. For instance, we've got them posting pictures on Twitter of illegal things they're doing, or they've done, which allows the police to get at them, right? So they're looking, what can we do? How can we keep our information private and you know what? It's actually a great topic for all of us because.

[00:01:33] All of us are under attack. We've got the bad guys going at us, trying to steal our information and then use it against us. Look at what's been happening with business email compromise with businesses that are responding to emails. They shouldn't have, it happened to Barbara Corcoran. There she is. She's one of the people you think would know better.

[00:01:56] She's on Shark Tank. She's a big-time investor who started her whole career in real estate and has done very, very well for herself. And she got fooled into sending $400,000 to the bad guys. It can happen to you her,  it can happen to you. It can happen to anybody. So how do we keep our information safe? And in this day and age, young kids, you don't want necessarily the pictures online.

[00:02:25] You sure don't want GPS coordinates to be there. Well, that's where some very innovative people have been spending time lately. And. You can have the advantage that bad guys are using as well. And that is using some of these apps that are designed to keep your data safe. Many of us have been using zoom for everything from meetings through weddings, being able to attend remotely.

[00:02:56] Things that we'd never been able to really pay any attention to before because we were so far away. And of course, now we're being forced to be so far away. Well, there is a piece of software called Signal and Signal's, founder and CEO. His name is Moxie, Marlinspike. I bet that's not the name he was born with and he has developed a protocol.

[00:03:21] And an app. Now, this protocol is secure end to end. What that means is if there is someone in the middle, anywhere in the middle of your communications, they can capture data from your communications, but they can't tell what that data is. In other words, they can get the data stream, but it's encrypted.

[00:03:46] They don't know if this is a video. If this is voice, if you're sending files back and forth, they just don't know. And at this point in time, anyways, we've seen that the law enforcement agencies and certainly the bad guys have had a hard time with some of this data. So if you need to try and keep your information safe, how to, how do you do it?

[00:04:10] Well, WhatsApp is one of those pieces of software out there that's using Signal's open-source, secure messaging platform. So is Facebook Messenger, now. They're planning on introducing a new feature. Also, that lets you quickly blur people's faces when you're sharing photos. And what Signal is doing is you can set it up to automatically blur a face, and it will put a little square rectangle over what it deems to be a face.

[00:04:44] And then you can go in and modify that and make it a little bit bigger. Now, maybe you want to get rid of a little bit more stuff in the background, and while it's doing that, it's also turning it into a flat JPEG. It's removing all of the extraneous information about the camera that took the picture.

[00:05:04] What the focal length of the lens was, the lens speed, everything that might help to track it down, trace it down to the originator. It's also removing the GPS information those geocodes. Now that's very important as well because the bottom line that's how some of these bad guys are tracking us down. For instance, there are stalkers out there.

[00:05:29] Ex's ex-wives, ex-husband's ex-boyfriends, girlfriends that have been stalking their ex online. And have been grabbing photos that are posted and then look at the geocode information in it to figure out where they are at.  That is a problem. If you ask me a very, very big problem, because now they have a location down to a street address, right? These things are very, very accurate within a couple of meters.

[00:06:01] So what do you do? Well, you can certainly use Signal if you are an Android user, you can even set up Signal to be your default messaging application. Now, remember if you use Signal to send a message to someone that has a regular phone, or that does not have Signal, it's going to go in the clear, which is kind of like Apple's iMessage. If you're using iMessage, your data is secure end to end, which is great. Right? But not everybody has. I message. However signal is available on all of the mobile platforms and on a few others as well. So you can now use Signal to communicate securely with someone you can use iMessage to communicate securely with someone, both of which are great.

[00:06:53] WhatsApp is also very popular. I have a mastermind group that I'm in and we use WhatsApp for group messaging as well as for individual messaging. Where we'll send a quick note to somebody else in the group saying, Hey, I noticed you sent this out today or you did this, or, Hey, this was in the news. You might want to follow up on it, et cetera.

[00:07:14] Now, with this, the blurring thing, now we're kind of asking if this is crossing a line. What we're seeing is now that there's obviously great use for encryption. Very good encryption. When it's me sending you a message so that a bad guy does not intercept it and then use it against us. Just steal our money or cause all kinds of havoc, right?

[00:07:42] Blackmail, you name. It can happen, but where's the line when it comes to bad guys. You know, on the complete other-side of that scale, you have people who kill people, who mame and rob and steal, the obvious, bad guys. Then somewhere in the middle of, there's gotta be some sort of a line. The problem is you cannot define that line, frankly.

[00:08:08]Where is it? How do they know what you're using it for? And that gets to be a real problem. So if you want to keep your data safe, you can. And probably the best way to do this is to use signal. Use this basic blur face functionality that it has and use it to remove kids faces, or are there people who might be in the shot who might not want their information, you know, their face to be spread out on your Facebook page or wherever it might be a, but.

[00:08:42] Will you remember that it is secure end to end. So unless the person receiving it then shares it, you aren't in any trouble of having shared data. You did not want to share, but if they receive one of these blurred messages, well, It's removed everything from that photo, the date, the time, the camera information, the GPS, everything else.

[00:09:05] So there you go. There's a little bit of about what you can do right now. That is free software. By the way, is open-source. It's turned by the nonprofit signal foundation. And if you don't have Signal installed, you might want to do it.

[00:09:19] I use it to communicate with some of my clients and some of my friends and have for quite a few years, I haven't found any real problems. Now, a word of caution. There are some other apps out there. For instance, I found one online for the iPhone and it's a shortcut. Now Apple's iPhone has this concept of shortcuts, which is really rather cool. It lets you tie apps together to do different things.

[00:09:45]this particular shortcut. Remove some of these geoinformation and other things from pictures. So you might want to set yourself up a shortcut that does that. There are some apps that do that. In fact, on your iPhone. When you take a picture with that here I can mode where it is, including a little bit of video, basically, before the picture, a lot of places have trouble with that.

[00:10:10] So you can use one of these converters to turn it that picture into a regular JPEG and remove all of the personal information that's on it. This blur faces shortcuts, gallery.com. Shortcut that I found I do not as I went through it. I looked at the code that's behind it and it actually sends it up to an Amazon web server.

[00:10:33] That picture. That you've taken, which now means, who knows just how much that, how secure it is, how much that could be shared. Right. It really could be a problem for you. So keep that in mind as well. Don't use some of these things. Be very careful. Be very cautious. Hey, when we come back, we're going to talk about some new security settings that have come into Chrome and are turned on by default in Firefox.

[00:11:04] We'll tell you what they are when you should use them. And frankly, when you should not use them, it is causing. All kinds of fits and panics in the security world out there. So stick around, you're listening to Craig Peterson and we'll be back in just a couple of minutes.

[00:11:22]Also if you do sign up on my website, Craig peterson.com. Subscribe, I will be sending you a bunch of free stuff, some great checklists that you can use some information about what you should be doing to stay safe, including your password. So again, go right now. Craig peterson.com/subscribe and stick around because we're coming right back, talking about secure DNS.

---

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

Welcome!

Today Craig discusses secure communications and how we can keep our information from being used by the bad guys.

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

---

Read More:

Signal is adding automatic face blurring to help protesters

---

Automated Machine Generated Transcript:

Craig Peterson: Have you ever wondered how you can blur the pictures that you're taking on your camera? Maybe also remove location data, GPS, all of that stuff. Well, that's what we're going to talk about right now and how rioters are doing it too.

[00:00:22] Yes. Hello. Hello, Craig Peterson here. Thanks for joining me. We're on every week, you can subscribe online as well. CraigPeterson.com/subscribe and get all of my latest information.

[00:00:35] We've got a bit of a problem out there that you might have heard about. In fact, if you haven't heard about it, you're probably living under a rock somewhere.

[00:00:44] But here's the problem. We have people out in the street picketing, they're rioting. They're really trying to get their voices heard. Now what's behind it all, that's a subject for a completely different show. We're going to talk about technology as we do every week. What we're finding right now is that while they're out there taking pictures, they're doing all kinds of silly/stupid things with them. For instance, we've got them posting pictures on Twitter of illegal things they're doing, or they've done, which allows the police to get at them, right? So they're looking, what can we do? How can we keep our information private and you know what? It's actually a great topic for all of us because.

[00:01:33] All of us are under attack. We've got the bad guys going at us, trying to steal our information and then use it against us. Look at what's been happening with business email compromise with businesses that are responding to emails. They shouldn't have, it happened to Barbara Corcoran. There she is. She's one of the people you think would know better.

[00:01:56] She's on Shark Tank. She's a big-time investor who started her whole career in real estate and has done very, very well for herself. And she got fooled into sending $400,000 to the bad guys. It can happen to you her, it can happen to you. It can happen to anybody. So how do we keep our information safe? And in this day and age, young kids, you don't want necessarily the pictures online.

[00:02:25] You sure don't want GPS coordinates to be there. Well, that's where some very innovative people have been spending time lately. And. You can have the advantage that bad guys are using as well. And that is using some of these apps that are designed to keep your data safe. Many of us have been using zoom for everything from meetings through weddings, being able to attend remotely.

[00:02:56] Things that we'd never been able to really pay any attention to before because we were so far away. And of course, now we're being forced to be so far away. Well, there is a piece of software called Signal and Signal's, founder and CEO. His name is Moxie, Marlinspike. I bet that's not the name he was born with and he has developed a protocol.

[00:03:21] And an app. Now, this protocol is secure end to end. What that means is if there is someone in the middle, anywhere in the middle of your communications, they can capture data from your communications, but they can't tell what that data is. In other words, they can get the data stream, but it's encrypted.

[00:03:46] They don't know if this is a video. If this is voice, if you're sending files back and forth, they just don't know. And at this point in time, anyways, we've seen that the law enforcement agencies and certainly the bad guys have had a hard time with some of this data. So if you need to try and keep your information safe, how to, how do you do it?

[00:04:10] Well, WhatsApp is one of those pieces of software out there that's using Signal's open-source, secure messaging platform. So is Facebook Messenger, now. They're planning on introducing a new feature. Also, that lets you quickly blur people's faces when you're sharing photos. And what Signal is doing is you can set it up to automatically blur a face, and it will put a little square rectangle over what it deems to be a face.

[00:04:44] And then you can go in and modify that and make it a little bit bigger. Now, maybe you want to get rid of a little bit more stuff in the background, and while it's doing that, it's also turning it into a flat JPEG. It's removing all of the extraneous information about the camera that took the picture.

[00:05:04] What the focal length of the lens was, the lens speed, everything that might help to track it down, trace it down to the originator. It's also removing the GPS information those geocodes. Now that's very important as well because the bottom line that's how some of these bad guys are tracking us down. For instance, there are stalkers out there.

[00:05:29] Ex's ex-wives, ex-husband's ex-boyfriends, girlfriends that have been stalking their ex online. And have been grabbing photos that are posted and then look at the geocode information in it to figure out where they are at. That is a problem. If you ask me a very, very big problem, because now they have a location down to a street address, right? These things are very, very accurate within a couple of meters.

[00:06:01] So what do you do? Well, you can certainly use Signal if you are an Android user, you can even set up Signal to be your default messaging application. Now, remember if you use Signal to send a message to someone that has a regular phone, or that does not have Signal, it's going to go in the clear, which is kind of like Apple's iMessage. If you're using iMessage, your data is secure end to end, which is great. Right? But not everybody has. I message. However signal is available on all of the mobile platforms and on a few others as well. So you can now use Signal to communicate securely with someone you can use iMessage to communicate securely with someone, both of which are great.

[00:06:53] WhatsApp is also very popular. I have a mastermind group that I'm in and we use WhatsApp for group messaging as well as for individual messaging. Where we'll send a quick note to somebody else in the group saying, Hey, I noticed you sent this out today or you did this, or, Hey, this was in the news. You might want to follow up on it, et cetera.

[00:07:14] Now, with this, the blurring thing, now we're kind of asking if this is crossing a line. What we're seeing is now that there's obviously great use for encryption. Very good encryption. When it's me sending you a message so that a bad guy does not intercept it and then use it against us. Just steal our money or cause all kinds of havoc, right?

[00:07:42] Blackmail, you name. It can happen, but where's the line when it comes to bad guys. You know, on the complete other-side of that scale, you have people who kill people, who mame and rob and steal, the obvious, bad guys. Then somewhere in the middle of, there's gotta be some sort of a line. The problem is you cannot define that line, frankly.

[00:08:08]Where is it? How do they know what you're using it for? And that gets to be a real problem. So if you want to keep your data safe, you can. And probably the best way to do this is to use signal. Use this basic blur face functionality that it has and use it to remove kids faces, or are there people who might be in the shot who might not want their information, you know, their face to be spread out on your Facebook page or wherever it might be a, but.

[00:08:42] Will you remember that it is secure end to end. So unless the person receiving it then shares it, you aren't in any trouble of having shared data. You did not want to share, but if they receive one of these blurred messages, well, It's removed everything from that photo, the date, the time, the camera information, the GPS, everything else.

[00:09:05] So there you go. There's a little bit of about what you can do right now. That is free software. By the way, is open-source. It's turned by the nonprofit signal foundation. And if you don't have Signal installed, you might want to do it.

[00:09:19] I use it to communicate with some of my clients and some of my friends and have for quite a few years, I haven't found any real problems. Now, a word of caution. There are some other apps out there. For instance, I found one online for the iPhone and it's a shortcut. Now Apple's iPhone has this concept of shortcuts, which is really rather cool. It lets you tie apps together to do different things.

[00:09:45]this particular shortcut. Remove some of these geoinformation and other things from pictures. So you might want to set yourself up a shortcut that does that. There are some apps that do that. In fact, on your iPhone. When you take a picture with that here I can mode where it is, including a little bit of video, basically, before the picture, a lot of places have trouble with that.

[00:10:10] So you can use one of these converters to turn it that picture into a regular JPEG and remove all of the personal information that's on it. This blur faces shortcuts, gallery.com. Shortcut that I found I do not as I went through it. I looked at the code that's behind it and it actually sends it up to an Amazon web server.

[00:10:33] That picture. That you've taken, which now means, who knows just how much that, how secure it is, how much that could be shared. Right. It really could be a problem for you. So keep that in mind as well. Don't use some of these things. Be very careful. Be very cautious. Hey, when we come back, we're going to talk about some new security settings that have come into Chrome and are turned on by default in Firefox.

[00:11:04] We'll tell you what they are when you should use them. And frankly, when you should not use them, it is causing. All kinds of fits and panics in the security world out there. So stick around, you're listening to Craig Peterson and we'll be back in just a couple of minutes.

[00:11:22]Also if you do sign up on my website, Craig peterson.com. Subscribe, I will be sending you a bunch of free stuff, some great checklists that you can use some information about what you should be doing to stay safe, including your password. So again, go right now. Craig peterson.com/subscribe and stick around because we're coming right back, talking about secure DNS.

---

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

Welcome!

Good morning, everybody. I was on with Jim Polito and we discussed how Apple is tracking stolen phones from their stores and a new threat due to the aftereffects of Coronavirus for businesses.  Here we go with Jim.

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

--- 

Automated Machine Generated Transcript:

Craig Peterson: Think about your sales guy, walking out with your entire client list, order history, everything they've done and going to a competitor. Think about your, it, people that might've been designing things or your engineers or the people who put together your systems, whatever it might be, having all of your designs in their hand.

[00:00:22] Hey, good morning, everybody. Craig Peterson here. I had a little bit of a different tack this morning with Jim and talked about the, the real risk here right now to businesses. About Coronavirus, but you know, I've never explained it this way. It came to me yesterday when we were talking about one of the clients and what the right thing was for us to do to help them out. So here we go with Jim. Here he is.

[00:00:57] Jim Polito: Wow. We've got some great stuff for you today. with our tech talk guru and all around. Great guy, Craig Peterson morning, sir.

[00:01:09] Craig Peterson: Hey, good morning, Jim.

[00:01:11] Jim Polito: Hey, you're getting ready for a Canada day. It's you know, July 1st is right around the corner. You gotta, you gotta celebrate.

[00:01:20] Craig Peterson: Yeah, I know. I know. I know you can't even cross the border. Can't do anything. Nothing. Yeah. One of my daughters was married on Friday, out in Kentucky. We were out there in Kentucky and it was interesting times. Let me tell ya.  They were all disappointed. I of course, set up the streaming and we streamed the whole ceremony and stuff.

[00:01:42]You know, Canadians just not allowed down here. You know, some might think maybe they should have done that years ago, before I made it down. I just don't.

[00:01:52] Jim Polito: Well, I meant to ask you about the wedding. Cause I know you were down there in bourbon country and, trying to put on a wedding in the, in the age of the Rona, you know? So I'm glad you were able to share it. With all the folks from Canada, but it seems to me that the Molson trucks are still rolling across the border though, you know.

[00:02:13] Craig Peterson: Important stuff. Yeah.

[00:02:14] Jim Polito: Well, I was just kinda thinking you could have, like they do from Mexico. You could have smuggled the whole family up in a truck.

[00:02:25]Craig Peterson: Laughing

[00:02:25] Jim Polito: Why not? No, it is Royal, crown Royal. Seagram's all that stuff. Alright. Hey, this is, this is making me laugh so hard. the the folks who smashed the windows at the Apple stores and they stole iPhone devices. And now, well, we'll, I'll, I'll let you finish the story, Craig. Cause I think this is, this is sweet justice.

[00:02:57] Craig Peterson: You had mentioned earlier that these stolen iPhones or now essentially useless.  If you asked me Jim, I would say that they're more than useless, much worse, because Apple, in case you don't know, all of the phones that are on the displays in the store, Will only work in the store, ever. They have a special operating system on them that allows the phone to keep track of where it is. If it leaves the store, it will stop working.

[00:03:29] So, all of the phones have stopped working, but there is one part of the phone, Jim, that still works when it's outside the store.

[00:03:37] Jim Polito: And that is the tracking. Isn't it?

[00:03:41] Craig Peterson: You got it? Absolutely. So the pictures that have been posted on Twitter, which by the way, is another great way to find out who the guy that stole the phone is, showing the displays on some of these phones saying, please return to Apple Walnut street.

[00:03:58] This device has been disabled and is being tracked. Local authorities will be alerted. They are passing the information over to the authorities. Unlike some of these cities that have asked, Hey, send pictures of looters and ended up with K-pop pictures and videos coming in to report to the police.

[00:04:18] The police are actually following up on this because Apple will give them the absolute precise location of all of these stolen phones.

[00:04:28] Jim Polito: Oh, I love it. That is fantastic. I love to hear that stuff. All right. Here's something I don't want to hear. You know, Craig, you've done an excellent job on educating our listening audience to, on how to protect themselves, protect their privacy, protect their personal information, all that.

[00:04:50] But, you sent me a piece here that, Basically the biggest threat to your personal data is an employee leaving the company that has your personal data. Is that that's an accurate statement. Isn't it?

[00:05:13] Craig Peterson: Yeah, it absolutely is. In many of our businesses trying to stay alive took some kind of knee jerk actions in order to do that.

[00:05:23]We were just at a pizza shop right out there in a Wooster.  I've fixed a bunch of security problems. This is a pizza shop. I was shocked how much money they're making right now, by the way. Thank God. So many restaurants are just struggling so badly, but their business has doubled since the Coronavirus thing came in.

[00:05:44] And, they have the credit card processing clean machine, a little server there that keeps track of all of their sales, point of sale stuff, et cetera. They got audited by the payment card industry, the PCI people. And they said, Hey, we have two weeks here before they show up again.

[00:06:04]We've got to get all our security together. So we went in there and had a look at that payment card industry, little report, and we cleaned everything up. Now we found on their server had some malicious back doors that have been installed, because again, they just had the local computer guys set it up for them.

[00:06:25] Jim Polito: Yeah, exactly.

[00:06:26]Craig Peterson: Apparently all out the credit card data had been stolen from their machine. That means, now ,that there's, I think it's $120 fine per credit card that they've processed over the last year. So incredible, fine. Well, again, part of this is because people are sent home, businesses set up VPNs.

[00:06:49] We've got another one. This is a government subcontractor that we went to last week. And they had set up a VPN so people could work from home  Isn't this wonderful, isn't that wonderful. It turns out that what he had done was not compliant at all. If they had been audited by the government contractor, they would have lost all of the government contracts because again, malicious software all over the place, backdoors Chinese back doors.

[00:07:19] So I really want to warn businesses. Yeah, you had to stay afloat. You had to do something. Pull up your socks now !This is the time to do it. What Jim was talking about here is employees stealing our business information when they leave your employ. So think about all of the employees that brought it from drive into the office, copied the files onto the some drive and went home to work.

[00:07:50]Well now they have your business, personal information your intellectual property, personal information about your customers, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. more than 80% of employees that are planning to leave their job, bring the business's data with them. Guess what we just did by giving them some drives and letting them have full access to all of this data from home. Number one, they've got the data and 60% of insider threats to businesses are from insiders and they already have your data. And then number two, we allow those employees to connect from home heaven forbid. And do you using their home computers to connect to our business offices? When we are in for a major problem for most small businesses coming up.

[00:08:47] Jim Polito: And, you know, the old expression, it's a cliche. Oh, it was an inside job, you know, like it looks like, a jewelry store was robbed, but it wasn't, you know, somebody who worked there set it up. It was an inside job. this is what you're talking about here. Only the theft of data, which is just as valuable as jewelry.

[00:09:11] Craig Peterson: Yeah. Think about your sales guy, walking out with your entire client list, order history, everything they've done and going to a competitor. Think about your IT people that might've been designing things or your engineers or the people who put together your systems, whatever it might be, having all of your designs in their hands.

[00:09:34] This is huge. And, and we've seen it with Tesla. Where again in the autonomous auto business, people walked out the door with the plan of their employer and took them to the next employer or folks who I can test all of these guys lost due to everywhere they can afford it. How about you? You've got to make sure that you pull up your socks on this thing, because this is another way Coronavirus is going to be destroying businesses.

[00:10:06] This insider threat, where we were just trying to keep our head above water.

[00:10:12] Jim Polito: All right. You heard it all here and there's a lot more and you can get your hands on it easily. All that you have to do is text my name, Jim, to this number.

[00:10:27] Craig Peterson: Well, you can text it to (855) 385-5553, or when you can just email [email protected]. That's M E @craigpeterson.com. That's a pretty easy address. M E at Craig peterson.com.

[00:10:45] Jim Polito: Craig, congratulations on the wedding. And, I'm not surprised that you pulled it off as  a technical celebration and we look forward to catching up with you next week. All right.

[00:10:58] Craig Peterson: Take care of Jim.

[00:10:59] Jim Polito: All right. Take care. Craig, Craig Peterson, everybody all around. Great guy. Okay. Today.

--- 

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

Welcome!

Good morning, everybody. I was on with Jim Polito and we discussed how Apple is tracking stolen phones from their stores and a new threat due to the aftereffects of Coronavirus for businesses.  Here we go with Jim.

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

--- 

Automated Machine Generated Transcript:

Craig Peterson: Think about your sales guy, walking out with your entire client list, order history, everything they've done and going to a competitor. Think about your, it, people that might've been designing things or your engineers or the people who put together your systems, whatever it might be, having all of your designs in their hand.

[00:00:22] Hey, good morning, everybody. Craig Peterson here. I had a little bit of a different tack this morning with Jim and talked about the, the real risk here right now to businesses. About Coronavirus, but you know, I've never explained it this way. It came to me yesterday when we were talking about one of the clients and what the right thing was for us to do to help them out. So here we go with Jim. Here he is.

[00:00:57] Jim Polito: Wow. We've got some great stuff for you today. with our tech talk guru and all around. Great guy, Craig Peterson morning, sir.

[00:01:09] Craig Peterson: Hey, good morning, Jim.

[00:01:11] Jim Polito: Hey, you're getting ready for a Canada day. It's you know, July 1st is right around the corner. You gotta, you gotta celebrate.

[00:01:20] Craig Peterson: Yeah, I know. I know. I know you can't even cross the border. Can't do anything. Nothing. Yeah. One of my daughters was married on Friday, out in Kentucky. We were out there in Kentucky and it was interesting times. Let me tell ya.  They were all disappointed. I of course, set up the streaming and we streamed the whole ceremony and stuff.

[00:01:42]You know, Canadians just not allowed down here. You know, some might think maybe they should have done that years ago, before I made it down. I just don't.

[00:01:52] Jim Polito: Well, I meant to ask you about the wedding. Cause I know you were down there in bourbon country and, trying to put on a wedding in the, in the age of the Rona, you know? So I'm glad you were able to share it. With all the folks from Canada, but it seems to me that the Molson trucks are still rolling across the border though, you know.

[00:02:13] Craig Peterson: Important stuff. Yeah.

[00:02:14] Jim Polito: Well, I was just kinda thinking you could have, like they do from Mexico. You could have smuggled the whole family up in a truck.

[00:02:25]Craig Peterson: Laughing

[00:02:25] Jim Polito: Why not? No, it is Royal, crown Royal. Seagram's all that stuff. Alright. Hey, this is, this is making me laugh so hard. the the folks who smashed the windows at the Apple stores and they stole iPhone devices. And now, well, we'll, I'll, I'll let you finish the story, Craig. Cause I think this is, this is sweet justice.

[00:02:57] Craig Peterson: You had mentioned earlier that these stolen iPhones or now essentially useless.  If you asked me Jim, I would say that they're more than useless, much worse, because Apple, in case you don't know, all of the phones that are on the displays in the store, Will only work in the store, ever. They have a special operating system on them that allows the phone to keep track of where it is. If it leaves the store, it will stop working.

[00:03:29] So, all of the phones have stopped working, but there is one part of the phone, Jim, that still works when it's outside the store.

[00:03:37] Jim Polito: And that is the tracking. Isn't it?

[00:03:41] Craig Peterson: You got it? Absolutely. So the pictures that have been posted on Twitter, which by the way, is another great way to find out who the guy that stole the phone is, showing the displays on some of these phones saying, please return to Apple Walnut street.

[00:03:58] This device has been disabled and is being tracked. Local authorities will be alerted. They are passing the information over to the authorities. Unlike some of these cities that have asked, Hey, send pictures of looters and ended up with K-pop pictures and videos coming in to report to the police.

[00:04:18] The police are actually following up on this because Apple will give them the absolute precise location of all of these stolen phones.

[00:04:28] Jim Polito: Oh, I love it. That is fantastic. I love to hear that stuff. All right. Here's something I don't want to hear. You know, Craig, you've done an excellent job on educating our listening audience to, on how to protect themselves, protect their privacy, protect their personal information, all that.

[00:04:50] But, you sent me a piece here that, Basically the biggest threat to your personal data is an employee leaving the company that has your personal data. Is that that's an accurate statement. Isn't it?

[00:05:13] Craig Peterson: Yeah, it absolutely is. In many of our businesses trying to stay alive took some kind of knee jerk actions in order to do that.

[00:05:23]We were just at a pizza shop right out there in a Wooster.  I've fixed a bunch of security problems. This is a pizza shop. I was shocked how much money they're making right now, by the way. Thank God. So many restaurants are just struggling so badly, but their business has doubled since the Coronavirus thing came in.

[00:05:44] And, they have the credit card processing clean machine, a little server there that keeps track of all of their sales, point of sale stuff, et cetera. They got audited by the payment card industry, the PCI people. And they said, Hey, we have two weeks here before they show up again.

[00:06:04]We've got to get all our security together. So we went in there and had a look at that payment card industry, little report, and we cleaned everything up. Now we found on their server had some malicious back doors that have been installed, because again, they just had the local computer guys set it up for them.

[00:06:25] Jim Polito: Yeah, exactly.

[00:06:26]Craig Peterson: Apparently all out the credit card data had been stolen from their machine. That means, now ,that there's, I think it's $120 fine per credit card that they've processed over the last year. So incredible, fine. Well, again, part of this is because people are sent home, businesses set up VPNs.

[00:06:49] We've got another one. This is a government subcontractor that we went to last week. And they had set up a VPN so people could work from home  Isn't this wonderful, isn't that wonderful. It turns out that what he had done was not compliant at all. If they had been audited by the government contractor, they would have lost all of the government contracts because again, malicious software all over the place, backdoors Chinese back doors.

[00:07:19] So I really want to warn businesses. Yeah, you had to stay afloat. You had to do something. Pull up your socks now !This is the time to do it. What Jim was talking about here is employees stealing our business information when they leave your employ. So think about all of the employees that brought it from drive into the office, copied the files onto the some drive and went home to work.

[00:07:50]Well now they have your business, personal information your intellectual property, personal information about your customers, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. more than 80% of employees that are planning to leave their job, bring the business's data with them. Guess what we just did by giving them some drives and letting them have full access to all of this data from home. Number one, they've got the data and 60% of insider threats to businesses are from insiders and they already have your data. And then number two, we allow those employees to connect from home heaven forbid. And do you using their home computers to connect to our business offices? When we are in for a major problem for most small businesses coming up.

[00:08:47] Jim Polito: And, you know, the old expression, it's a cliche. Oh, it was an inside job, you know, like it looks like, a jewelry store was robbed, but it wasn't, you know, somebody who worked there set it up. It was an inside job. this is what you're talking about here. Only the theft of data, which is just as valuable as jewelry.

[00:09:11] Craig Peterson: Yeah. Think about your sales guy, walking out with your entire client list, order history, everything they've done and going to a competitor. Think about your IT people that might've been designing things or your engineers or the people who put together your systems, whatever it might be, having all of your designs in their hands.

[00:09:34] This is huge. And, and we've seen it with Tesla. Where again in the autonomous auto business, people walked out the door with the plan of their employer and took them to the next employer or folks who I can test all of these guys lost due to everywhere they can afford it. How about you? You've got to make sure that you pull up your socks on this thing, because this is another way Coronavirus is going to be destroying businesses.

[00:10:06] This insider threat, where we were just trying to keep our head above water.

[00:10:12] Jim Polito: All right. You heard it all here and there's a lot more and you can get your hands on it easily. All that you have to do is text my name, Jim, to this number.

[00:10:27] Craig Peterson: Well, you can text it to (855) 385-5553, or when you can just email [email protected]. That's M E @craigpeterson.com. That's a pretty easy address. M E at Craig peterson.com.

[00:10:45] Jim Polito: Craig, congratulations on the wedding. And, I'm not surprised that you pulled it off as  a technical celebration and we look forward to catching up with you next week. All right.

[00:10:58] Craig Peterson: Take care of Jim.

[00:10:59] Jim Polito: All right. Take care. Craig, Craig Peterson, everybody all around. Great guy. Okay. Today.

--- 

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

Welcome!

Good morning, everybody. I was on with Jim Polito and we discussed how Apple is tracking stolen phones from their stores and a new threat due to the aftereffects of Coronavirus for businesses. Here we go with Jim.

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

---

Automated Machine Generated Transcript:

Craig Peterson: Think about your sales guy, walking out with your entire client list, order history, everything they've done and going to a competitor. Think about your, it, people that might've been designing things or your engineers or the people who put together your systems, whatever it might be, having all of your designs in their hand.

[00:00:22] Hey, good morning, everybody. Craig Peterson here. I had a little bit of a different tack this morning with Jim and talked about the, the real risk here right now to businesses. About Coronavirus, but you know, I've never explained it this way. It came to me yesterday when we were talking about one of the clients and what the right thing was for us to do to help them out. So here we go with Jim. Here he is.

[00:00:57] Jim Polito: Wow. We've got some great stuff for you today. with our tech talk guru and all around. Great guy, Craig Peterson morning, sir.

[00:01:09] Craig Peterson: Hey, good morning, Jim.

[00:01:11] Jim Polito: Hey, you're getting ready for a Canada day. It's you know, July 1st is right around the corner. You gotta, you gotta celebrate.

[00:01:20] Craig Peterson: Yeah, I know. I know. I know you can't even cross the border. Can't do anything. Nothing. Yeah. One of my daughters was married on Friday, out in Kentucky. We were out there in Kentucky and it was interesting times. Let me tell ya. They were all disappointed. I of course, set up the streaming and we streamed the whole ceremony and stuff.

[00:01:42]You know, Canadians just not allowed down here. You know, some might think maybe they should have done that years ago, before I made it down. I just don't.

[00:01:52] Jim Polito: Well, I meant to ask you about the wedding. Cause I know you were down there in bourbon country and, trying to put on a wedding in the, in the age of the Rona, you know? So I'm glad you were able to share it. With all the folks from Canada, but it seems to me that the Molson trucks are still rolling across the border though, you know.

[00:02:13] Craig Peterson: Important stuff. Yeah.

[00:02:14] Jim Polito: Well, I was just kinda thinking you could have, like they do from Mexico. You could have smuggled the whole family up in a truck.

[00:02:25]Craig Peterson: Laughing

[00:02:25] Jim Polito: Why not? No, it is Royal, crown Royal. Seagram's all that stuff. Alright. Hey, this is, this is making me laugh so hard. the the folks who smashed the windows at the Apple stores and they stole iPhone devices. And now, well, we'll, I'll, I'll let you finish the story, Craig. Cause I think this is, this is sweet justice.

[00:02:57] Craig Peterson: You had mentioned earlier that these stolen iPhones or now essentially useless. If you asked me Jim, I would say that they're more than useless, much worse, because Apple, in case you don't know, all of the phones that are on the displays in the store, Will only work in the store, ever. They have a special operating system on them that allows the phone to keep track of where it is. If it leaves the store, it will stop working.

[00:03:29] So, all of the phones have stopped working, but there is one part of the phone, Jim, that still works when it's outside the store.

[00:03:37] Jim Polito: And that is the tracking. Isn't it?

[00:03:41] Craig Peterson: You got it? Absolutely. So the pictures that have been posted on Twitter, which by the way, is another great way to find out who the guy that stole the phone is, showing the displays on some of these phones saying, please return to Apple Walnut street.

[00:03:58] This device has been disabled and is being tracked. Local authorities will be alerted. They are passing the information over to the authorities. Unlike some of these cities that have asked, Hey, send pictures of looters and ended up with K-pop pictures and videos coming in to report to the police.

[00:04:18] The police are actually following up on this because Apple will give them the absolute precise location of all of these stolen phones.

[00:04:28] Jim Polito: Oh, I love it. That is fantastic. I love to hear that stuff. All right. Here's something I don't want to hear. You know, Craig, you've done an excellent job on educating our listening audience to, on how to protect themselves, protect their privacy, protect their personal information, all that.

[00:04:50] But, you sent me a piece here that, Basically the biggest threat to your personal data is an employee leaving the company that has your personal data. Is that that's an accurate statement. Isn't it?

[00:05:13] Craig Peterson: Yeah, it absolutely is. In many of our businesses trying to stay alive took some kind of knee jerk actions in order to do that.

[00:05:23]We were just at a pizza shop right out there in a Wooster. I've fixed a bunch of security problems. This is a pizza shop. I was shocked how much money they're making right now, by the way. Thank God. So many restaurants are just struggling so badly, but their business has doubled since the Coronavirus thing came in.

[00:05:44] And, they have the credit card processing clean machine, a little server there that keeps track of all of their sales, point of sale stuff, et cetera. They got audited by the payment card industry, the PCI people. And they said, Hey, we have two weeks here before they show up again.

[00:06:04]We've got to get all our security together. So we went in there and had a look at that payment card industry, little report, and we cleaned everything up. Now we found on their server had some malicious back doors that have been installed, because again, they just had the local computer guys set it up for them.

[00:06:25] Jim Polito: Yeah, exactly.

[00:06:26]Craig Peterson: Apparently all out the credit card data had been stolen from their machine. That means, now ,that there's, I think it's $120 fine per credit card that they've processed over the last year. So incredible, fine. Well, again, part of this is because people are sent home, businesses set up VPNs.

[00:06:49] We've got another one. This is a government subcontractor that we went to last week. And they had set up a VPN so people could work from home Isn't this wonderful, isn't that wonderful. It turns out that what he had done was not compliant at all. If they had been audited by the government contractor, they would have lost all of the government contracts because again, malicious software all over the place, backdoors Chinese back doors.

[00:07:19] So I really want to warn businesses. Yeah, you had to stay afloat. You had to do something. Pull up your socks now !This is the time to do it. What Jim was talking about here is employees stealing our business information when they leave your employ. So think about all of the employees that brought it from drive into the office, copied the files onto the some drive and went home to work.

[00:07:50]Well now they have your business, personal information your intellectual property, personal information about your customers, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. more than 80% of employees that are planning to leave their job, bring the business's data with them. Guess what we just did by giving them some drives and letting them have full access to all of this data from home. Number one, they've got the data and 60% of insider threats to businesses are from insiders and they already have your data. And then number two, we allow those employees to connect from home heaven forbid. And do you using their home computers to connect to our business offices? When we are in for a major problem for most small businesses coming up.

[00:08:47] Jim Polito: And, you know, the old expression, it's a cliche. Oh, it was an inside job, you know, like it looks like, a jewelry store was robbed, but it wasn't, you know, somebody who worked there set it up. It was an inside job. this is what you're talking about here. Only the theft of data, which is just as valuable as jewelry.

[00:09:11] Craig Peterson: Yeah. Think about your sales guy, walking out with your entire client list, order history, everything they've done and going to a competitor. Think about your IT people that might've been designing things or your engineers or the people who put together your systems, whatever it might be, having all of your designs in their hands.

[00:09:34] This is huge. And, and we've seen it with Tesla. Where again in the autonomous auto business, people walked out the door with the plan of their employer and took them to the next employer or folks who I can test all of these guys lost due to everywhere they can afford it. How about you? You've got to make sure that you pull up your socks on this thing, because this is another way Coronavirus is going to be destroying businesses.

[00:10:06] This insider threat, where we were just trying to keep our head above water.

[00:10:12] Jim Polito: All right. You heard it all here and there's a lot more and you can get your hands on it easily. All that you have to do is text my name, Jim, to this number.

[00:10:27] Craig Peterson: Well, you can text it to (855) 385-5553, or when you can just email [email protected]. That's M E @craigpeterson.com. That's a pretty easy address. M E at Craig peterson.com.

[00:10:45] Jim Polito: Craig, congratulations on the wedding. And, I'm not surprised that you pulled it off as a technical celebration and we look forward to catching up with you next week. All right.

[00:10:58] Craig Peterson: Take care of Jim.

[00:10:59] Jim Polito: All right. Take care. Craig, Craig Peterson, everybody all around. Great guy. Okay. Today.

---

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

Welcome,

Good Monday morning, everybody. Craig Peterson here. I was on with Jack Heath this morning discussing the security implications of rioters and their use of encryption. Here we go with Jack.

These and more tech tips, news, and updates visit

- CraigPeterson.com

--- 

Automated Machine Generated Transcript:

Craig Peterson: It is apparently being used by a lot of the protesters right now. And that's causing some questions to come up with the FBI. In fact, talking about that the FBI has been in talks with zoom. Hey, this is Craig Peterson here. I was on with Mr. Jack. Heath this morning, covering New Hampshire parts of Vermont and Maine and Mass.

[00:00:24] Jack Heath: He's got a really big show. And of course, we talked a little bit about what is safe, what's secure, and even my daughter's wedding. All right. Joining us with an update for some tech talk. Craig Peterson joins us on this Monday morning, Craig. Good morning.

[00:00:38] Craig Peterson: Hey, good morning, Jack. How are you? I'm doing well, just got back from Kentucky, had a very small wedding. You know, they're talking about these weddings being delayed, so we're limited to 10 people and it was really fun. . Was nice. Got another daughter married off, which is nice too. So congrats. Yeah.

[00:01:00] Jack Heath: Yeah, it's very, very cool.

[00:01:01] Craig Peterson: You know, we've got five daughters and now three of them are married.

[00:01:04] Jack Heath: Wow. How were, how were things? Just talk a little bit about societally how things, all this healthcare stuff and everything in Kentucky, how was it?

[00:01:12] Craig Peterson: Well, it is very, very locked down.  I was very concerned to buy something.  We went out to a pizza place, out there in Kentucky, and I was there without a mask on, it was outdoor dining. And there was a, probably about a six-year-old young boy who was there with someone, probably his father, and they both had masks on.

[00:01:32]As I approached them, as I was walking past them, that little boy went and hid. We sat in front of his father, hid behind his father's leg at not just me, but anybody that came close if they didn't have a mask on. I'm kind of worried about this thing what's going on, but Kentucky is very, very locked down still.

[00:01:54] They're hoping to open up a little bit more within the next few weeks, but yeah, it was a really fun time.

[00:02:02] Jack Heath: Really interesting. Alright. Let's see what you have for us on the tech talk side of things.

[00:02:06] Craig Peterson: Well, we got a whole bunch of problems. I'll be talking about this Saturday as well, but 1130 right here. But encryption is a very big deal right now.

[00:02:15]Signal is an app I've been using for a few years. It allows you to communicate securely end to end, and it is apparently being used by a lot of the protesters right now. That's causing some questions to come up with the FBI, in fact. Talking about that the FBI has been in talks with zoom. You might know, Zoom is one of the least secure ways to communicate.

[00:02:42] It should never be used for business. Particularly if you are a government contractor at all, it is forbidden.

[00:02:48]Jack Heath: Boom, because businesses have been using it as well as people socially.

[00:02:52] Craig Peterson: Absolutely because it's so easy to use, but it's easy to use because it's insecure. It doesn't have to do encryption. Zoom is adding encryption to it. Free users are not going to get this end to end encryption when zoom finally rolls it all out. Part of the reason for that is that the FBI and local police can access calls. Apparently what's happening is these bad guys are using Zoom to do all kinds of nasty stuff, including child porn. They're trying to hide their identity using free accounts. This is going to really help the catch these bad guys.

[00:03:28] Jack Heath: You know, it'd be helpful, I think maybe next week, not to assign something, but it might be interesting. If we spent the whole segment or a long one, Craig peterson.com. Sort of breaking down the best social media secure platforms. If you're a small business or a large business to do all these calls that sort of dominating the days until more workers physically get back to their workspace might be a good one to break down the three or four

[00:03:48]options, between WebEx, Microsoft team rooms, Zoom, which one you think are the most effective and safest.

[00:03:55] Craig Peterson: You got it next Monday.

[00:03:56] Jack Heath: All right, Craig Peterson. Hey, congrats on the wedding, Craig. That's pretty cool.

[00:04:01] Craig Peterson: Hey, thanks. I'm really  excited.T

--- 

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

Welcome,

Good Monday morning, everybody. Craig Peterson here. I was on with Jack Heath this morning discussing the security implications of rioters and their use of encryption. Here we go with Jack.

These and more tech tips, news, and updates visit

- CraigPeterson.com

--- 

Automated Machine Generated Transcript:

Craig Peterson: It is apparently being used by a lot of the protesters right now. And that's causing some questions to come up with the FBI. In fact, talking about that the FBI has been in talks with zoom. Hey, this is Craig Peterson here. I was on with Mr. Jack. Heath this morning, covering New Hampshire parts of Vermont and Maine and Mass.

[00:00:24] Jack Heath: He's got a really big show. And of course, we talked a little bit about what is safe, what's secure, and even my daughter's wedding. All right. Joining us with an update for some tech talk. Craig Peterson joins us on this Monday morning, Craig. Good morning.

[00:00:38] Craig Peterson: Hey, good morning, Jack. How are you? I'm doing well, just got back from Kentucky, had a very small wedding. You know, they're talking about these weddings being delayed, so we're limited to 10 people and it was really fun. . Was nice. Got another daughter married off, which is nice too. So congrats. Yeah.

[00:01:00] Jack Heath: Yeah, it's very, very cool.

[00:01:01] Craig Peterson: You know, we've got five daughters and now three of them are married.

[00:01:04] Jack Heath: Wow. How were, how were things? Just talk a little bit about societally how things, all this healthcare stuff and everything in Kentucky, how was it?

[00:01:12] Craig Peterson: Well, it is very, very locked down.  I was very concerned to buy something.  We went out to a pizza place, out there in Kentucky, and I was there without a mask on, it was outdoor dining. And there was a, probably about a six-year-old young boy who was there with someone, probably his father, and they both had masks on.

[00:01:32]As I approached them, as I was walking past them, that little boy went and hid. We sat in front of his father, hid behind his father's leg at not just me, but anybody that came close if they didn't have a mask on. I'm kind of worried about this thing what's going on, but Kentucky is very, very locked down still.

[00:01:54] They're hoping to open up a little bit more within the next few weeks, but yeah, it was a really fun time.

[00:02:02] Jack Heath: Really interesting. Alright. Let's see what you have for us on the tech talk side of things.

[00:02:06] Craig Peterson: Well, we got a whole bunch of problems. I'll be talking about this Saturday as well, but 1130 right here. But encryption is a very big deal right now.

[00:02:15]Signal is an app I've been using for a few years. It allows you to communicate securely end to end, and it is apparently being used by a lot of the protesters right now. That's causing some questions to come up with the FBI, in fact. Talking about that the FBI has been in talks with zoom. You might know, Zoom is one of the least secure ways to communicate.

[00:02:42] It should never be used for business. Particularly if you are a government contractor at all, it is forbidden.

[00:02:48]Jack Heath: Boom, because businesses have been using it as well as people socially.

[00:02:52] Craig Peterson: Absolutely because it's so easy to use, but it's easy to use because it's insecure. It doesn't have to do encryption. Zoom is adding encryption to it. Free users are not going to get this end to end encryption when zoom finally rolls it all out. Part of the reason for that is that the FBI and local police can access calls. Apparently what's happening is these bad guys are using Zoom to do all kinds of nasty stuff, including child porn. They're trying to hide their identity using free accounts. This is going to really help the catch these bad guys.

[00:03:28] Jack Heath: You know, it'd be helpful, I think maybe next week, not to assign something, but it might be interesting. If we spent the whole segment or a long one, Craig peterson.com. Sort of breaking down the best social media secure platforms. If you're a small business or a large business to do all these calls that sort of dominating the days until more workers physically get back to their workspace might be a good one to break down the three or four

[00:03:48]options, between WebEx, Microsoft team rooms, Zoom, which one you think are the most effective and safest.

[00:03:55] Craig Peterson: You got it next Monday.

[00:03:56] Jack Heath: All right, Craig Peterson. Hey, congrats on the wedding, Craig. That's pretty cool.

[00:04:01] Craig Peterson: Hey, thanks. I'm really  excited.T

--- 

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

Welcome,

Good Monday morning, everybody. Craig Peterson here. I was on with Jack Heath this morning discussing the security implications of rioters and their use of encryption. Here we go with Jack.

These and more tech tips, news, and updates visit

- CraigPeterson.com

---

Automated Machine Generated Transcript:

Craig Peterson: It is apparently being used by a lot of the protesters right now. And that's causing some questions to come up with the FBI. In fact, talking about that the FBI has been in talks with zoom. Hey, this is Craig Peterson here. I was on with Mr. Jack. Heath this morning, covering New Hampshire parts of Vermont and Maine and Mass.

[00:00:24] Jack Heath: He's got a really big show. And of course, we talked a little bit about what is safe, what's secure, and even my daughter's wedding. All right. Joining us with an update for some tech talk. Craig Peterson joins us on this Monday morning, Craig. Good morning.

[00:00:38] Craig Peterson: Hey, good morning, Jack. How are you? I'm doing well, just got back from Kentucky, had a very small wedding. You know, they're talking about these weddings being delayed, so we're limited to 10 people and it was really fun. . Was nice. Got another daughter married off, which is nice too. So congrats. Yeah.

[00:01:00] Jack Heath: Yeah, it's very, very cool.

[00:01:01] Craig Peterson: You know, we've got five daughters and now three of them are married.

[00:01:04] Jack Heath: Wow. How were, how were things? Just talk a little bit about societally how things, all this healthcare stuff and everything in Kentucky, how was it?

[00:01:12] Craig Peterson: Well, it is very, very locked down. I was very concerned to buy something. We went out to a pizza place, out there in Kentucky, and I was there without a mask on, it was outdoor dining. And there was a, probably about a six-year-old young boy who was there with someone, probably his father, and they both had masks on.

[00:01:32]As I approached them, as I was walking past them, that little boy went and hid. We sat in front of his father, hid behind his father's leg at not just me, but anybody that came close if they didn't have a mask on. I'm kind of worried about this thing what's going on, but Kentucky is very, very locked down still.

[00:01:54] They're hoping to open up a little bit more within the next few weeks, but yeah, it was a really fun time.

[00:02:02] Jack Heath: Really interesting. Alright. Let's see what you have for us on the tech talk side of things.

[00:02:06] Craig Peterson: Well, we got a whole bunch of problems. I'll be talking about this Saturday as well, but 1130 right here. But encryption is a very big deal right now.

[00:02:15]Signal is an app I've been using for a few years. It allows you to communicate securely end to end, and it is apparently being used by a lot of the protesters right now. That's causing some questions to come up with the FBI, in fact. Talking about that the FBI has been in talks with zoom. You might know, Zoom is one of the least secure ways to communicate.

[00:02:42] It should never be used for business. Particularly if you are a government contractor at all, it is forbidden.

[00:02:48]Jack Heath: Boom, because businesses have been using it as well as people socially.

[00:02:52] Craig Peterson: Absolutely because it's so easy to use, but it's easy to use because it's insecure. It doesn't have to do encryption. Zoom is adding encryption to it. Free users are not going to get this end to end encryption when zoom finally rolls it all out. Part of the reason for that is that the FBI and local police can access calls. Apparently what's happening is these bad guys are using Zoom to do all kinds of nasty stuff, including child porn. They're trying to hide their identity using free accounts. This is going to really help the catch these bad guys.

[00:03:28] Jack Heath: You know, it'd be helpful, I think maybe next week, not to assign something, but it might be interesting. If we spent the whole segment or a long one, Craig peterson.com. Sort of breaking down the best social media secure platforms. If you're a small business or a large business to do all these calls that sort of dominating the days until more workers physically get back to their workspace might be a good one to break down the three or four

[00:03:48]options, between WebEx, Microsoft team rooms, Zoom, which one you think are the most effective and safest.

[00:03:55] Craig Peterson: You got it next Monday.

[00:03:56] Jack Heath: All right, Craig Peterson. Hey, congrats on the wedding, Craig. That's pretty cool.

[00:04:01] Craig Peterson: Hey, thanks. I'm really excited.T

---

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Welcome!

Good morning, everybody. I was on with Jim Polito and we covered Warnings from the NSA, Stats on C-Level Non-Compliance, and how companies are handling patching and updating and the problems that it is causing.

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

--- 

Automated Machine Generated Transcript:

Craig Peterson: Al Qaeda has used business servers here in the U.S. Just regular businesses that are online and are trying to, have a nice little website and get their message out to people. Al Qaeda has taken some of those over and is used to spread just horrific propaganda.

[00:00:21]That was me on with Mr. Jim Polito here this morning. I am just totally shocked at what has been going on, how, how bad things are. And in case you didn't realize that we've had some serious problems with security.  That's all we talked about here this morning. In fact, what the old Al Qaeda guys are up to, but what are some of the things that you should be doing?

[00:00:45]If you are a C-level, a business owner, you've got to listen in because I got some stats here about you that your, IT people should probably know about as well as you we've all got to pull up our socks here.

[00:01:01] Jim Polito: This is a Safe Harbor in the world of tech and, all things, all things information. I'm talking about our good friend and tech talk guru Craig Peterson.

[00:01:13] Good morning, sir.

[00:01:16] Craig Peterson: Hey, good morning, Mr. Jim,

[00:01:17] Jim Polito: How are you today, Craig?

[00:01:20] Craig Peterson: I'm doing well. I'm still out in Kentucky. We got the wedding coming up on Friday.

[00:01:26] Jim Polito: Nice.

[00:01:27]Craig Peterson:  Karen and I are out here to help out. Yeah, it's going to be nice.

[00:01:31] Jim Polito: That's nice.

[00:01:32] Now listen, did you get to Bourbon County at all? Cause I understand there's a, there's a couple of things that I would like to see in bourbon County if you know what I mean.

[00:01:44] Craig Peterson: Yeah, they're some amazing tours, but you know, the government here is shut them all down. The governor, they recently elected a Democrat governor who has, canceled everything.

[00:01:55] Her wedding basically got canceled, no more than 10 people in one place.  It's going to be outdoors. I'm going to be streaming it live. So the family and friends can see her. Some of my relatives from Canada cannot get into the US cause it is closed until the middle of this month.

[00:02:15] So it was just a big mess, you know, it's their happy day. I hope.

[00:02:20] Jim Polito: Yeah. Well, here's a good thing. You know, as the father of the bride. Think about how little you'll spend on an open bar.

[00:02:27]Craig Peterson:  I went to the liquor store and they've got some great Kentucky bourbon. Let me tell ya. It's actually cheaper to go to New Hampshire to buy it than it is to buy it here. It's a different world, but it's very, very cool. My daughter works on this big horse farm. They won the triple crown a couple of years ago we're staying with her and it's really pretty.

[00:02:51]You know, what's weird, you're outside. It's beautiful. There are no bugs. There are no black flies. There are no mosquitoes. I don't know what's going on. Maybe the governor quarantined them too I was thinking.

[00:03:05] Jim Polito: Maybe the bourbon distilling process, put something into the air here. They'll get drunk and they can't fly straight. I don't know.

[00:03:12] Well, look, we're happy with congratulations on behalf of everybody and hope you do have a good time.

[00:03:19] Now we're going to talk about something else that you're an expert in, the Russians. What are they doing now? Hacking

[00:03:29] our servers, and I guess actually we left the door open for them.

[00:03:34] Speaking of bugs, didn't we leave the door open for the Russians.

[00:03:40]Craig Peterson: Unfortunately we did and we have. The Russians have been very active.  They have been attacking Ukraine here for two years and one of them really. Big pieces of nastiness. Some of this ransomware was apparently originally aimed at Ukraine, and it kind of took out the whole world. It was absolutely crazy.

[00:04:03]Right now the national security agency has a group of them it is watching really closely from Russia called the Sandworm group. There is a mail server that is in pretty common use. You know, if you're in the Unix world, there are a few servers there's send mail, postfix, and EXIM. Those are the big ones. Those are the ones that handle the world email. then if you're a small business, then you're probably using something like Microsoft exchange server. The NSA is saying now that this EXIM mail. A system that's used in UNIX has a critical bug and it's being used right now by the Russian to allow them to control our US servers. Think of Hillary's server in a closet, if you will where they had access to all of the emails near as we can tell. Now it's looking like they have had access to, some of our communications here in the US and this is directly tied into the GRU.

[00:05:10]Jim Polito: Now this is Ukraine. They were going into Ukrainian utility companies, right?

[00:05:18] They were trying to hack it, which is the big fear we always have. Right. Craig that they get into is a utility infrastructure, gas, electricity, water, all of that. And, and they don't need to send a bomber overhead. They, they, they destroy us that way. Right.

[00:05:38] Craig Peterson: Yeah, exactly. And that's the beauty of them getting control of servers here in the US you know Al Qaeda has used business servers here in the U.S. Just regular that are online and are trying a nice little website and get their message out to people. Al Qaeda has taken some of those over and is used to spread just horrific propaganda.

[00:06:04] I gotta tell you just yesterday. We put a new server online for a client. This is a very fancy server. It's a politically related organization and they need to take donations. They need to get information out, you know, with the email list and everything else. Brand new server and in a matter of 20 minutes, after turning the server on it had 42,000 requests coming in from China and Russia in 20 minutes, Jim.

[00:06:40]Jim Polito: So you put a server online, it's for a political organization, 43,000 hits from those groups in 20 minutes.

[00:06:54] Craig Peterson: Not just amazing. They're probing us constantly. They're getting in. And this particular one that Russian's main intelligence directorate is going after is patchable. Like so many others that we have out there. We had power outages, Ukraine back in 2015, 2016 that you were talking about here again. Patchable. We knew about it.

[00:07:20] Look at what happened two years ago now with the number one credit reporting company in the country patchable six months before it was hacked. We're just not doing patches.  I'm going to be talking about that this weekend here on, on my radio show.  I'm not sure Danny has it on Saturday or Sunday now.

[00:07:43] I'm still not sure

[00:07:46]Jim Polito:  I know it's 11 o'clock it's either Saturday or something. You know what? I'll make sure I get it.

[00:07:53] Yeah. Get a clear answer to that, but no, it's a great show because I've heard it, but I've listened to the podcast. I'll check with Danny. I should probably, you know like I know him in the kitchen, but that's no excuse.

[00:08:08] Craig Peterson: Well, we had this thing happened with the Olympics. You remember the winter Olympics here in 2018 and they were able to, again, we think it was, it was, various intelligence organizations shut down key parts of the winter Olympics. We're not paying attention.

[00:08:26] I think. It's because people are afraid that if they patch, something's going to break, they're going to get blamed. We, as a business, people have to smarten up. Did you know that three-quarters of all C-level people, three-quarters of all business owners, and executives have asked their IT people to make exceptions for them, for security and particularly mobile security? I don't want to have to be out of the office and then use this two-factor authentication stuff. Three quarters, Jim.

[00:09:02] Jim Polito: Yeah. See that's, you know what you're like that until you have a hack and then it's too late, you know what I mean? There are so many other things in life where we're like that. 'll just do this. I'll just do that. and until something happens, then all of a sudden you change your tune.  I'm glad that you spread that word. Cause we have a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of business owners who listen to the show.  I'm glad that you spread that word to them because as, as you said before, you know, the big companies they can protect themselves the small businesses. If, if the Russians and the Chinese were able to take out all of our small businesses, they've taken us out because we have so much of our employment tied up in small business. You've made that point that it doesn't matter if they go after Wells Fargo or somebody else, they got, they got all the small businesses and that's the Achilles heel.

[00:10:07] Craig Peterson: And it's our retirement, Jim, that we're talking about here. And, you know, when a small business gets hacked, they will, the majority of the time they will file for bankruptcy within a week. That's bad. It is. And you think it's bad right now with coronavirus. Imagine never being able to get your business back on its feet.

[00:10:30] Jim Polito: I know that's awful. Well, look, we're glad that you have us on our toes all the time and knowing what the latest is. So if you want to get on that list like me and, get an email from, from our good friend, Craig Peterson, get information. All you have to do is text my name, Jim, to this number.

[00:10:54] Craig Peterson: You can text it to (855) 385-5553.

[00:10:59] You can ask me any questions. Listen, right now we're giving free help. I'm paying for my tech people to help out small businesses for, you know, half an hour, an hour. You can email me M E @craigpeterson.com. I really, I am here to help Jim, me M E @craigpeterson.com.

[00:11:24] Jim Polito: I appreciate that. We appreciate it. And Craig, congratulations.

[00:11:29] Hope you have a great wedding on Friday and we'll talk to you next Tuesday, sir.

[00:11:34] Craig Peterson: All right. Thanks, Jim. Take care.

[00:11:37] Jim Polito: You too. Bye-bye. A little bit of bourbon and branch there with Craig Peterson. Don't go anywhere. We've got a final word. When we return, you're listening to the Jim Polito.

[00:11:47] Craig Peterson: I had a lot of people, a really good response to last weekend's radio show and I'm going to do some similar things this weekend. I really, really want to get into windows updates and things. So maybe we'll get to that a little bit. This weekend. We're definitely planning on doing more of it probably the weekend after we'll have to see how things end up going. Cause of course, you know, busy times as you just heard, I am on with the family, of course, for this wedding.

[00:12:21] So. Oh, man, we'll see how this all ends up going, but anyhow, make sure you tune in this weekend as well, because we will be going over some of those details and helping you understand why it's important to do some of these updates. And then we'll try the weekend after to get into how to do them a little bit.

[00:12:42] I'm not sure I could really do it on the radio. You know, I've done some training on it. It's included with some of the courses that I've put together and I'm going to be releasing some, and I might just do a re-release here coming up in the near term, but, it's, you know, it's just so important anyway, enough rambling.

[00:13:02] And, we'll talk tomorrow. I plan on being back on a WGAN

--- 

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

Welcome!

Good morning, everybody. I was on with Jim Polito and we covered Warnings from the NSA, Stats on C-Level Non-Compliance, and how companies are handling patching and updating and the problems that it is causing.

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

--- 

Automated Machine Generated Transcript:

Craig Peterson: Al Qaeda has used business servers here in the U.S. Just regular businesses that are online and are trying to, have a nice little website and get their message out to people. Al Qaeda has taken some of those over and is used to spread just horrific propaganda.

[00:00:21]That was me on with Mr. Jim Polito here this morning. I am just totally shocked at what has been going on, how, how bad things are. And in case you didn't realize that we've had some serious problems with security.  That's all we talked about here this morning. In fact, what the old Al Qaeda guys are up to, but what are some of the things that you should be doing?

[00:00:45]If you are a C-level, a business owner, you've got to listen in because I got some stats here about you that your, IT people should probably know about as well as you we've all got to pull up our socks here.

[00:01:01] Jim Polito: This is a Safe Harbor in the world of tech and, all things, all things information. I'm talking about our good friend and tech talk guru Craig Peterson.

[00:01:13] Good morning, sir.

[00:01:16] Craig Peterson: Hey, good morning, Mr. Jim,

[00:01:17] Jim Polito: How are you today, Craig?

[00:01:20] Craig Peterson: I'm doing well. I'm still out in Kentucky. We got the wedding coming up on Friday.

[00:01:26] Jim Polito: Nice.

[00:01:27]Craig Peterson:  Karen and I are out here to help out. Yeah, it's going to be nice.

[00:01:31] Jim Polito: That's nice.

[00:01:32] Now listen, did you get to Bourbon County at all? Cause I understand there's a, there's a couple of things that I would like to see in bourbon County if you know what I mean.

[00:01:44] Craig Peterson: Yeah, they're some amazing tours, but you know, the government here is shut them all down. The governor, they recently elected a Democrat governor who has, canceled everything.

[00:01:55] Her wedding basically got canceled, no more than 10 people in one place.  It's going to be outdoors. I'm going to be streaming it live. So the family and friends can see her. Some of my relatives from Canada cannot get into the US cause it is closed until the middle of this month.

[00:02:15] So it was just a big mess, you know, it's their happy day. I hope.

[00:02:20] Jim Polito: Yeah. Well, here's a good thing. You know, as the father of the bride. Think about how little you'll spend on an open bar.

[00:02:27]Craig Peterson:  I went to the liquor store and they've got some great Kentucky bourbon. Let me tell ya. It's actually cheaper to go to New Hampshire to buy it than it is to buy it here. It's a different world, but it's very, very cool. My daughter works on this big horse farm. They won the triple crown a couple of years ago we're staying with her and it's really pretty.

[00:02:51]You know, what's weird, you're outside. It's beautiful. There are no bugs. There are no black flies. There are no mosquitoes. I don't know what's going on. Maybe the governor quarantined them too I was thinking.

[00:03:05] Jim Polito: Maybe the bourbon distilling process, put something into the air here. They'll get drunk and they can't fly straight. I don't know.

[00:03:12] Well, look, we're happy with congratulations on behalf of everybody and hope you do have a good time.

[00:03:19] Now we're going to talk about something else that you're an expert in, the Russians. What are they doing now? Hacking

[00:03:29] our servers, and I guess actually we left the door open for them.

[00:03:34] Speaking of bugs, didn't we leave the door open for the Russians.

[00:03:40]Craig Peterson: Unfortunately we did and we have. The Russians have been very active.  They have been attacking Ukraine here for two years and one of them really. Big pieces of nastiness. Some of this ransomware was apparently originally aimed at Ukraine, and it kind of took out the whole world. It was absolutely crazy.

[00:04:03]Right now the national security agency has a group of them it is watching really closely from Russia called the Sandworm group. There is a mail server that is in pretty common use. You know, if you're in the Unix world, there are a few servers there's send mail, postfix, and EXIM. Those are the big ones. Those are the ones that handle the world email. then if you're a small business, then you're probably using something like Microsoft exchange server. The NSA is saying now that this EXIM mail. A system that's used in UNIX has a critical bug and it's being used right now by the Russian to allow them to control our US servers. Think of Hillary's server in a closet, if you will where they had access to all of the emails near as we can tell. Now it's looking like they have had access to, some of our communications here in the US and this is directly tied into the GRU.

[00:05:10]Jim Polito: Now this is Ukraine. They were going into Ukrainian utility companies, right?

[00:05:18] They were trying to hack it, which is the big fear we always have. Right. Craig that they get into is a utility infrastructure, gas, electricity, water, all of that. And, and they don't need to send a bomber overhead. They, they, they destroy us that way. Right.

[00:05:38] Craig Peterson: Yeah, exactly. And that's the beauty of them getting control of servers here in the US you know Al Qaeda has used business servers here in the U.S. Just regular that are online and are trying a nice little website and get their message out to people. Al Qaeda has taken some of those over and is used to spread just horrific propaganda.

[00:06:04] I gotta tell you just yesterday. We put a new server online for a client. This is a very fancy server. It's a politically related organization and they need to take donations. They need to get information out, you know, with the email list and everything else. Brand new server and in a matter of 20 minutes, after turning the server on it had 42,000 requests coming in from China and Russia in 20 minutes, Jim.

[00:06:40]Jim Polito: So you put a server online, it's for a political organization, 43,000 hits from those groups in 20 minutes.

[00:06:54] Craig Peterson: Not just amazing. They're probing us constantly. They're getting in. And this particular one that Russian's main intelligence directorate is going after is patchable. Like so many others that we have out there. We had power outages, Ukraine back in 2015, 2016 that you were talking about here again. Patchable. We knew about it.

[00:07:20] Look at what happened two years ago now with the number one credit reporting company in the country patchable six months before it was hacked. We're just not doing patches.  I'm going to be talking about that this weekend here on, on my radio show.  I'm not sure Danny has it on Saturday or Sunday now.

[00:07:43] I'm still not sure

[00:07:46]Jim Polito:  I know it's 11 o'clock it's either Saturday or something. You know what? I'll make sure I get it.

[00:07:53] Yeah. Get a clear answer to that, but no, it's a great show because I've heard it, but I've listened to the podcast. I'll check with Danny. I should probably, you know like I know him in the kitchen, but that's no excuse.

[00:08:08] Craig Peterson: Well, we had this thing happened with the Olympics. You remember the winter Olympics here in 2018 and they were able to, again, we think it was, it was, various intelligence organizations shut down key parts of the winter Olympics. We're not paying attention.

[00:08:26] I think. It's because people are afraid that if they patch, something's going to break, they're going to get blamed. We, as a business, people have to smarten up. Did you know that three-quarters of all C-level people, three-quarters of all business owners, and executives have asked their IT people to make exceptions for them, for security and particularly mobile security? I don't want to have to be out of the office and then use this two-factor authentication stuff. Three quarters, Jim.

[00:09:02] Jim Polito: Yeah. See that's, you know what you're like that until you have a hack and then it's too late, you know what I mean? There are so many other things in life where we're like that. 'll just do this. I'll just do that. and until something happens, then all of a sudden you change your tune.  I'm glad that you spread that word. Cause we have a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of business owners who listen to the show.  I'm glad that you spread that word to them because as, as you said before, you know, the big companies they can protect themselves the small businesses. If, if the Russians and the Chinese were able to take out all of our small businesses, they've taken us out because we have so much of our employment tied up in small business. You've made that point that it doesn't matter if they go after Wells Fargo or somebody else, they got, they got all the small businesses and that's the Achilles heel.

[00:10:07] Craig Peterson: And it's our retirement, Jim, that we're talking about here. And, you know, when a small business gets hacked, they will, the majority of the time they will file for bankruptcy within a week. That's bad. It is. And you think it's bad right now with coronavirus. Imagine never being able to get your business back on its feet.

[00:10:30] Jim Polito: I know that's awful. Well, look, we're glad that you have us on our toes all the time and knowing what the latest is. So if you want to get on that list like me and, get an email from, from our good friend, Craig Peterson, get information. All you have to do is text my name, Jim, to this number.

[00:10:54] Craig Peterson: You can text it to (855) 385-5553.

[00:10:59] You can ask me any questions. Listen, right now we're giving free help. I'm paying for my tech people to help out small businesses for, you know, half an hour, an hour. You can email me M E @craigpeterson.com. I really, I am here to help Jim, me M E @craigpeterson.com.

[00:11:24] Jim Polito: I appreciate that. We appreciate it. And Craig, congratulations.

[00:11:29] Hope you have a great wedding on Friday and we'll talk to you next Tuesday, sir.

[00:11:34] Craig Peterson: All right. Thanks, Jim. Take care.

[00:11:37] Jim Polito: You too. Bye-bye. A little bit of bourbon and branch there with Craig Peterson. Don't go anywhere. We've got a final word. When we return, you're listening to the Jim Polito.

[00:11:47] Craig Peterson: I had a lot of people, a really good response to last weekend's radio show and I'm going to do some similar things this weekend. I really, really want to get into windows updates and things. So maybe we'll get to that a little bit. This weekend. We're definitely planning on doing more of it probably the weekend after we'll have to see how things end up going. Cause of course, you know, busy times as you just heard, I am on with the family, of course, for this wedding.

[00:12:21] So. Oh, man, we'll see how this all ends up going, but anyhow, make sure you tune in this weekend as well, because we will be going over some of those details and helping you understand why it's important to do some of these updates. And then we'll try the weekend after to get into how to do them a little bit.

[00:12:42] I'm not sure I could really do it on the radio. You know, I've done some training on it. It's included with some of the courses that I've put together and I'm going to be releasing some, and I might just do a re-release here coming up in the near term, but, it's, you know, it's just so important anyway, enough rambling.

[00:13:02] And, we'll talk tomorrow. I plan on being back on a WGAN

--- 

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