Most of Google’s products are free. The reason is that you are their product. Their computers read your emails. They send you targeted ads based upon what you read and write. They track your location. They track your likes and dislikes. They have made your life more convenient by syncing all your Google Chrome data.

Weekly Tech Tidbit – How to stop Google’s syncing madness

Weekly Tech Tidbit – I’m from the state and I’m here to help! – Surviving a technology audit
It is important to have accountability to the taxpayers independently proving that each school district has adequate financial controls in place and is properly managing the money it has been entrusted. In this era of identity theft, ransomware, and electronic financial theft, it is equally important to have adequate technical controls in place to protect […]

Time to change strategies – Malware increasingly written to be invisible to traditional antivirus
Recently I read an interesting article on malware development techniques. SentinelOne, Cisco AMP, and other antivirus products rely on the VirusTotal clearinghouse. This is a clearinghouse that has approximately 67 antivirus vendors. Various antivirus and advanced endpoint products upload suspicious programs to ask, “is this a virus?”. You get a score back of x/67 for […]

Weekly Tech Tidbit – Data Leaks
We have to be constantly vigilant to prevent malware, trojans, and other bad actors from taking root in our school networks to steal personally identifiable information (PIA) and money. Besides web filtering, antivirus, patching, and now advanced endpoint protection, we also have to look at policies.

CSI Fall / Winter Event Schedule
The school year has started and we’re anxious to update you on what our webinar, seminar, and Tech Talk schedule for the Fall and Winter. Wednesday, September 26th 10:30 pm – Webinar – Troubleshooting SCCM Configuration Manager. Wednesday, October 3rd 10:00 am – 3:00 pm – Cisco Meraki Hands-On Workshop at CSI. Tuesday, October 23rd […]

CSI Tech Talk Webinar – Troubleshooting SCCM Configuration Manager Part I – Recording Available
SCCM Configuration Manager is an amazing tool. But when things don’t go as planned, that tool becomes immensely frustrating. Scott Quimby will walk you through some basic SCCM troubleshooting techniques focusing on: Where the logs are Services that run How SCCM gets updated What to do if updates are stuck.

Cisco Meraki Hands-On Workshop at CSI Wednesday October 3rd
On Wednesday, October 3rd Cisco Meraki will be running a hands-on workshop where you can learn all about the new additions to Cisco Meraki’s cloud-managed portfolio. The event will include: Hands-On Workshop Coverage of the entire Meraki full stack portfolio Lunch with your Cisco Meraki Team *Please bring your laptop to participate in the hands-on […]

Weekly Tech Tidbits – Kill the Zombies
During our May Tech Talk meetings one of my summertime recommended tasks was for everyone to find and eliminate “zombie” servers. Zombie servers are servers which theoretically are retired, but yet that somehow still exist, turned on, in your network.

Weekly Tech Tidbit – The growing importance of logging in your network security plan
When something goes sideways in our technical worlds some of the first questions we get asked, after “when is XXXX going to be back up”, is “what happened?” and “why did it happen?” For sure if the event in question is a security or data breach event the urgency to answer these questions ratchets up […]

Weekly Tech Tidbit – Important new notice from US-CERT – Actions required to protect your networks
**Note – Client tech directors in Dutchess County got a preview of this Tuesday so if you are in that group you may skip the rest of this note and go on to your next e-mail. For the rest of you please read on** On Tuesday, May 29th, I received an updated alert from US-CERT […]