Tag Archives: firewall

Lessons learned from the Target PCI Breach

More information has been trickling out regarding the massive Target PCI breach that took place during the 2013 Christmas shopping season. Forensic researchers first learned that hackers penetrated Target’s network by means of a business transaction portal. It appears that Fazio Mechanical Services was the source. Fazio is a Pittsburgh-area nationwide mechanical contractor that services […]

Defend Against the CryptoLocker Virus

The “CryptoLocker” virus has been making a great deal of noise lately. Though we at Thom Infotech have not personally encountered it, we know others who have. We’ve written this post to help you to understand and defend against the CryptoLocker virus. What is it? CryptoLocker is an insidious twist on the all-too-familiar virus or […]

179 Reasons to Upgrade Before January 2014

As of this writing there are roughly four useble business weeks left in the current year.  As 2013 winds down, businesses should consider performing needed upgrades sooner rather than later. At the risk of creating a lengthy blog post I’m planning to provide 179 reasons to upgrade before January 2014. First, we should discuss the […]

WordPress now offers automatic updates

There is welcome news for web developers this week as WordPress now offers automatic updates to the uber-popular web development platform. Starting out as a blogging tool, WordPress has morphed into a full website development ecosystem. Like many, this author has embraced WordPress due to its simplicity, flexibility, and easy search engine optimization. The importance […]

Idaho State University fined $400,000 for skipping HIPAA Security Risk Analysis

Skipped HIPAA Security Risk Analysis costs ISU $400,000 IT consultants and Managed IT service providers have been warning their clients that the HIPAA Security Risk Analysis is a very necessary component in their efforts to comply with the HIPAA rule. Some of our medical clients and prospects agree, while others are skeptical about the need […]

Anti-virus software alone is not enough

“Anti-virus software alone is not enough”… so says the number one antivirus provider Symantec in this post. A rather stunning admission I would say, and something many in the security industry have known for quite some time. The admission comes on the heels of the successful infiltration of the New York Times by Chinese hackers […]

Apple also a victim of targeted malware attack

Apple revealed today that they were targeted by the same malware attack leveled against Facebook on February 1st. The earlier comments by Facebook hinted at a working group of high-value targets and Apple now appears to be among them. The attack took advantage of a previously unknown Java zero-day exploit to infect the engineers’ computers […]

Facebook is apparent victim of a Java zero-day attack

Facebook has confirmed that they were a victim of a targeted attack that leveraged a previously unknown Java vulnerability. The zero-day exploit was used to infect the laptops of several engineers with malware that apparently was used to attempt a full-scale infiltration of the inner sanctum of Facebook. Facebook reported that all of the infected […]

New Adobe Acrobat Zero-Day Reported

Researchers from the respected malware research firm FireEye today reported a zero-day flaw that is actively being exploited in the wild. They reportedly observed successful exploitation of the latest Adobe PDF Reader 9.5.3, 10.1.5, and 11.0.1. It is assumed that earlier versions are also vulnerable though this has not been confirmed. In the words of […]