One of the key features of the newest firewalls and intrusion protection systems (IPS) has been the addition of something called GeoBlocking. This feature allows the administrator to shut down traffic to or from specific countries or regions of the world and your local network regardless of any other firewall permissions in place.

Weekly Tech Tidbit – Where oh where is my data really going?????

Weekly Tech Tidbit – While You Were Sleeping – The Importance of a Security Operations Center
Trend Micro has stated many times that you have approximately 4 minutes between when a threat enters your network and the infection breaks out. But who can respond that quickly? I have often said if we leave questions on the computer up to our end users, we have failed.

Weekly Tech Tidbit – I gotta new phone … oh no! The dark side of multi-factor authentication
At some point in your life, you probably were locked out of something – your house, your car, your office. I am sure it was awful trying to figure out how you were going to solve that problem. However, to add to your stress, we now have all this sensitive data online and on our […]

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

Macs Need Advanced Endpoint Protection Too
I can’t tell how many times I have heard from non-technical Mac people that, “they don’t need anti-virus.” The Apple person that sold them their Mac told them that. I have pointed out that Apple’s technical folks make a strong recommendation for anti-virus in their technical documents despite sales claims to the contrary.

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.