Don’t trust those external portable USB hard drives with your important data!

I’ve posted this before…  External, portable, USB hard drives are convenient to store some data on, but dang it, don’t put everything on one and trust that it is forever and always going to be there for you. These devices use 2.5″ hard drives like you would find in a notebook computer, and while there is nothing wrong with those …

Adobe Updates for Shockwave, Flash Media Server, Flash Player, AIR, Photoshop & RoboHelp

Running Adobe products? Of course you are!   There are number of updates available that you need to apply.  Please, if you are prompted to install these updates, do so. If not, make sure they are indeed installed, or better yet, just upgrade to the latest versions of the applications to avoid the potential for the vulnerabilities to be exploited… …

Security consultancy advises enterprise clients to steer clear of adopting large numbers of Macs

An article in The Register states, “Beware of Macs in enterprise” due to the findings by iSec Partners who claim large numbers of Macs are “in many ways more vulnerable than recent versions of Windows.” The vulnerability they specifically mention is the DHX authentication scheme which is easy to compromise and apparently “trivial to force OS X server to resort …

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Some browser stats for www.HomelandSecureIT.com #Windows #Mac #IE #Firefox #Chrome #Android #iPad

A couple weeks ago I was watching a conversation about the popularity of certain devices for browsing and thought I would pull out some recent information about our own website, http://www.HomelandSecureIT.com… Here’s a look at our site for July 1st until August 1st broken down by browser and platform: Other than the super-high bounce rate, we see some important information… …

Tampering with network equipment can be hazardous to your health…

  “Tampering with this network equipment may result in an ass whoopin’ you’ll never forget”…  Makes me laugh every time I see it!   I bet every IT professional would love to see this sticker on every server room door.  How much money would be saved on computer, network & server service, repair or support, especially if someone actually was …

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Apple Mac hardware failures… (hard drive, power supply, video card) Why so high?

Here’s a question for you all… Why is the apparent rate of hardware failure higher with Apple Mac products than with Microsoft Windows based products? Homeland Secure IT’s typical client is a Windows based small or medium business, and a little less than 5% of those businesses and individuals have Apple Mac products that we support as well. A larger …

Secure IT Alert: CERT Issues Security Recommendations to Prevent Cyber Intrusions

Homeland Secure IT Alert for Wednesday, July 21st, 2011 The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team has issued their recommendations for protection against network intrusions.  I have included the entire document below, but the most current version of the document can be found here.  Please keep in mind that these recommendations are not related to any one platform. These are …

Computer theft can be reduced dramatically with simple & inexpensive devices #SRMC

Last week I wrote about hard drive encryption which could protect your data in the event your notebook, desktop or even a server were to be stolen…  Odd that I mentioned one particular organization, Spartanburg Regional Medical Center, which had suffered two computer losses as of the date of that posting, because yesterday found SRMC back in the news with the …

Sensitive data on your computers? Get it encrypted… NOW!

The Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System notebook that was stolen from an employee’s car this year has caused concern for many individuals who’s records were contained on that device. (Story Here) What can you do to protect your data from prying eyes in the event your notebook or even a desktop computer is stolen?  Easy, you can utilize disk or file …

Data Security: You returned your computer, but where’s your data???? #scary #datasecurity

Recently, Staples Business Depot did the unthinkable, they sold computers that had been returned, and the hard drives contained the previous owner’s private information according to an article on the www.cbc.ca news site which states, “Staples resold laptops with customer data, audit finds“. The article goes on to say that 54 of the 149 computers tested that were ready to …