Don't ignore that e-mail from Lynda.com

I received two e-mails in recent days from online training provider Lynda.com customer care, this is because I have had two accounts with Lynda.com in the past. Both were set-up when they had a 30 day free trial offer, which I made use of.

I'm one of the 9.5 million customers/former customers of Lynda.com who have been contacted by them about a breach of their data security. They state that my contact information and courses taken were compromised, however they believe my password was not compromised. Here is the text of the e-mail:

We recently became aware that an unauthorized third party breached a database that included some of your Lynda​.com learning data, such as contact information and courses viewed. We are informing you of this issue out of an abundance of caution.

Please know that we have no evidence that this data included your password. And while we have no evidence that your specific account was accessed or that any data has been made publicly available, ​we wanted to notify you as a precautionary measure.

So this doesn't sound so bad. Right?

Using the Internet Safely. Training from L2 Cyber Security Solutions.

Human Error

Did you know that evil software gets past commercial anti-virus and e-mail filtering products on a worryingly regular basis.

Firewalls and Anti-virus packages lure people into a false sense of security. While they do provide protection up to a point, if somebody opens an e-mail attachment that contains new Malware, these protections are effectively useless.

Cyber incidents, most notably Ransomware attacks have seen massive increases recently. 93% of phishing e-mails in Quarter 1 2016 have carried a Ransomware payload (source - PhishMe Q1 2016 Malware review). 30% of people that receive phishing e-mails open them and 12% of those that do, then open attachments or click on links (source - Verizon 2016 Data Breach Investigations Report).

These statistics highlight the fact that a significant weak link in any organisation, where it comes to using the internet and e-mail, are THE STAFF, but it's not their fault.

The best protection to cover this gap are staff that are aware of what the threats are and how they manifest themselves. Once they are armed with the knowledge of what to look out for, they will be much less likely to cause a security breach.

The training that L2 Cyber Security Solutions delivers is comprehensive, yet simple for all to follow.

Using the Internet Safely

Course Outline

Lecture / Workshop

Duration:

1 day

Audience:

People who have access to and utilise the internet and e-mail, whether for personal or business purposes, as part of their day. 

Prerequisites:

A basic understanding of internet browsing and e-mail usage is a prerequisite.

Programme Aim:

This training will give the attendees an understanding of the risks and threats associated with using the internet and e-mail.

Learning Outcome:

The participants will know how they can take some simple steps to avoid being adversely affected by the various risks presented to them. They will also learn how to create unique and strong passwords.

Course Content:

1. Malware (incl. Ransomware)
2. Spam
3. Social Engineering
4. Phishing and Spear-Phishing (incl. CEO Fraud)
5. Safe Web Browsing
6. Good Security Practices
7. Mobile Security
8. Creating a unique and strong password

Call us on 087-436-2675 or e-mail info@L2CyberSecurity.com to discuss your requirements and get a quotation.

Here is a worrying aspect of the Yahoo breach.

Everyone has heard about the personal information related to 500 million Yahoo accounts being stolen from Yahoo in 2014. There's lots of helpful tips out there (and some here too), but some people may not realise that they have a Yahoo account.

Yahoo provides e-mail services to some big internet service providers (ISPs), over in the US AT&T, Rogers and Frontier.com. Over on this side of the Atlantic Sky and BT are large ISPs operating in Ireland and the UK. Their e-mail services are powered by Yahoo.

Repeat after me ... Microsoft do NOT e-mail out system updates!

More evil e-mail is coming to scramble all the files on your computer and then demand you to pay your hard earned cash in order to get back access to same. In other words you are being held to Ransom and so we get the term Ransom Software or Ransomware for short.

Evil doers just being evil ... news at 11!

The good folk over at Cisco's Talos Threat Intelligence Organisation have been looking at a new piece of "apparent" Ransomware called Ranscam.

The reason I use "apparent" is because it doesn't hold any of your data to ransom, quite simply because it's deleted it already! That doesn't stop it trying to get you to pay them good money, and even if you did pay up, you'll get nothing in return.

As we covered in Commandment IV of our Ten Commandments, if you have a good backup set up, then you need not concern yourself with whether Ransomware has or has not locked away your data. You simply wipe your equipment of the nasty malware and restore your data.

Ranscam isn't too widely spread at the moment and Talos reckon it was cobbled together rather quickly to try to cash in on this Ransomware market.

You can read the Talos report here:

http://blog.talosintel.com/2016/07/ranscam.html

If you want to get your staff to learn what steps they can take to reduce the risk of your business being affected by Ransomware, then check out the Security Awareness Training that is available from L2 Cyber Security.

Security Awareness Training by L2 Cyber Security Solutions.

Cyber incidents, most notably Ransomware attacks have seen massive increases recently. 93% of phishing e-mails in Quarter 1 2016 have carried a Ransomware payload (source - PhishMe Q1 2016 Malware review). 30% of people that receive phishing e-mails open them and 12% of those that do, then open attachments or click on links (source - Verizon 2016 Data Breach Investigations Report).

These statistics highlight the fact that a significant weak link in any organisation, where it comes to using the internet and e-mail, are THE STAFF, but it's not their fault.

Firewalls and Anti-virus packages lure people into a false sense of security. While they do provide protection up to a point, if somebody opens an e-mail attachment that contains new Malware, these protections are effectively useless.

The best protection to cover this gap are staff that are aware of what the threats are and how they manifest themselves. Once they are armed with the knowledge of what to look out for, they will be much less likely to cause a security breach.

The training that L2 Cyber Security Solutions delivers is comprehensive, yet simple for all to follow.

Security Awareness Training

Course Outline

Lecture / Workshop

Duration:

1 day

Audience:

People who have access to and utilise the internet and e-mail, whether for personal or business purposes, as part of their day. 

Prerequisites:

A basic understanding of internet browsing and e-mail usage is a prerequisite.

Programme Aim:

This training will give the attendees an understanding of the risks and threats associated with using the internet and e-mail.

Learning Outcome:

The participants will know how they can take some simple steps to avoid being adversely affected by the various risks presented to them. They will also learn how to create unique and strong passwords.

Course Content:

1. Malware (incl. Ransomware)
2. Spam
3. Social Engineering
4. Phishing and Spear-Phishing (incl. CEO Fraud)
5. Safe Web Browsing
6. Good Security Practices
7. Mobile Security
8. Creating a unique and strong password

Call us on 087-436-2675 or e-mail info@L2CyberSecurity.com to discuss your requirements and get a quotation.