Detecting scams used to be relatively easy. Social engineers nearly always left clues that made spotting and avoiding them easy.
Things have changed. Scammers are enormously more sophisticated. The Washington Post’s personal finance columnist Michelle Singletary‘s top three rules will go a long way toward keeping you safer:
There is a reason Smart Guys like Jim Calloway keep returning to the topic of password managers. Too many lawyers still don’t understand that besides improving security, they can improve productivity. Fellow members of the Smart Guys Club Tom Mighell and Catherine Reach have also weighted in on the subject.
After experimenting with Last
Good work from the Department of Interior Inspector General. Their conclusions apply just as well to law firms. The length of a password is more important than complexity. It’s better to have a phrase like JonesAndSallyLoveBaskingInSunshine than #si30_584JKL.
Implementing this advice is a no-brainer, since a well chosen phrase is easier to remember than
The always-reliable Sharon Nelson and John Simek have lots of good & timely ideas in their article It’s a Good Time for a Cybersecurity Checkup.
Password management programs do not merely make users safer. They make you more productive by reducing frustration and time lost through ad hoc password storage and organization techniques. Pretty nice parley, right? It’s sad that only 20% of people use one.
I’ve been using an app that gets high reviews, 1Password, for a
Too many good ideas & fresh thinking in this article by Sharon Nelson, John Simek and Michael C. Maschke to comment on them all here, but I’ll highlight one. This “social engineering” technique has been around for at least 30 years or so:
[A] current ploy is simply to pretend that they are someone
Certificates of Deposit with a 38% APY. Yeah, right.
Crypto nuttiness is going to end, probably soon. And with a bang, not a whimper. I encountered the sign pictured above touting a 38% APY on a walk in my neighborhood. It reminded me why collapse is inevitable. The flashing red lights are economic, historical and
John Simek of Senseient Enterprises has a good summary of CSO has some good tips on dealing with the ransomware threat.
New York has become the first state to mandate IT security training for lawyers. Let’s hope this starts a trend. An IT security breach can be a basis for lawyer discipline–or destroy a law firm. H/T Bob Ambrogi.
Apple has released security updates for a serious security issue. Hackers are actively exploiting a newly discovered vulnerability in iOS/iPadOS 14 and macOS Big Sur. Each should be upgraded immediately to the latest version:
Lifehacker.com has background information