With the COVID-19 pandemic forcing more and more frequently used services to go entirely digital, there has never been a time more important to ‘plant your flag’ than now. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, it essentially means to create an account and claim your spot on this service – before someone else can.

All too often, we hear stories about massive cyberattacks that threaten the safety of a staggering number of consumers. While it may not seem to happen often, the reality is that those large scale breaches are the outliers, and an unbelievable number of attacks are launched against small businesses every day.

On July 15th, a huge number of high-profile accounts on Twitter were accessed illegally by malicious actors, who used that access to advertise a bitcoin cryptocurrency scam, similar to that of a wire fraud scam. Affected users included high profile individuals such as Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Warren Buffet, and many others.

With data breaches continuously ramping up over the years, and massive breaches of consumer data as seen in the Equifax breach -- there is little doubt that the sensitive data of most Americans, such as your social security number, is available for purchase to cybercriminals at a moment's notice.

The Internet of Things is one of the most interesting technological movements since the rise of the cell phone. The ability to add massive amounts of functionality to everyday household fixtures such as lights, thermostats, doorbells or refrigerators, as well as the ability to control them remotely has allowed many people to completely transform the way they go about their day to day life.

Do you have a pandemic playbook?  What does it look like? 

It’s been a long year these last six months.  The theme for 2020, thus far, seems to be bad news, hard truths and, sadly, “What is true?”.  I have a couple more hard truths to offer, but there is some good news to follow as well as a helping hand where needed.

The COVID-19 epidemic has unfolded in a way that most of us did not expect. After a long three months of self-isolation and all of the challenges that accompany something like that, many parts of the state are beginning to reopen, and it appears as though we may be able to return to something akin to the world before the pandemic.

Ransomware has caused significant financial damage to the healthcare industry over the last 4 years, with the total amount of damage surpassing $150 million. We're all familiar with the common, been-there-done-that cyber attacks such as phishing and CEO fraud, but many have not had a personal experience with ransomware.

The Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and Apple's Siri are all fun and semi-useful products that add some degree of convenience to your life. While they certainly aren't capable of all of the things that you might want from the science fiction smart home computer, they can, for example, give you an answer to a question that you may not want to look up right that second.

We live in a remarkable time, where many of the tasks that would have taken an excessive amount of time to complete in the past can now be done much more efficiently, quickly, and cleanly. Communicating with friends and loved ones is possible from anywhere and everywhere, and information on just about any topic is available at your fingertips.