{"id":18385,"date":"2022-02-28T06:30:21","date_gmt":"2022-02-28T14:30:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2022\/02\/28\/news-12118\/"},"modified":"2022-02-28T06:30:21","modified_gmt":"2022-02-28T14:30:21","slug":"news-12118","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2022\/02\/28\/news-12118\/","title":{"rendered":"In a time of war, it\u2019s important to stay secure"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Credit to Author: Susan Bradley| Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2022 06:09:00 -0800<\/strong><\/p>\n

As Russia invaded Ukraine, seeing the disruption in the world occur in near real time on social media brought poignancy to what was happening. While I don\u2019t know anyone in Ukraine, I know many people who have friends or family members that have been impacted by the war. Ukraine has many technology ties around the world. It\u2019s also been a source of cyberattacks, which is why there\u2019s extra concern about what we can do to protect ourselves in case of attack. (Eastern Europe has often been the source of many of the ransomware attacks that occur around the world.)<\/p>\n

So what can tech users do to ensure you protect yourself from possible cyberattacks arising from the conflict?<\/p>\n

First off, don\u2019t try to turn yourself into a denial-of-service attacker to\u00a0go after various targets<\/a>. (It\u2019s most likely against the terms of service of your ISP<\/a>\u00a0to launch attacks against other countries.) But there are steps you can take to ensure you\u2019re not encouraging cyberattacks \u2014 or falling victim to them.<\/p>\n

Start by making sure you have an external hard drive and an offline backup. Various ransomware groups have indicated that if any entity or firm attacks Russia, they would take counter measures. So, be sure \u00a0you have a recovery plan that doesn\u2019t include paying a financial ransom to these firms. Even if all you have is a single computer, whether you run Windows or macOS, you should have an external drive to store copies of the documents and files you\u2019ll need. I typically purchase an inexpensive external drive that is connected via a USB cable. Then, I either purchase third-party backup software or use the native process to back up my system. If I have a laptop from a standard vendor \u2014 and that vendor posts all of the hardware drivers online long after the laptop\u2019s warranty has expired \u2014 I typically avoid doing a full traditional backup, including imaging. Instead, I focus on ensuring I can recover the data<\/em> on the device.<\/p>\n

In fact, I might not store data on the laptop at all; if there\u2019s some sort of cloud storage option enabled, I save to that location first. The situation is different in the office, where I might need to get a desktop or a laptop back up and running as soon as possible; there, I\u2019d have a full backup of the system so I can replace the hard drive if need be and get right back to work.<\/p>\n

With Windows 10 and 11 systems, you\u2019ll want an SSD hard drive. For these operating systems in particular an SSD as your boot drive is basically mandatory. (You will have a less-than-ideal experience if you use an older, mechanical hard drive, and they\u2019re prone to failure.) At the office, I keep spare blank SSD drives so I can quickly restore a system and get it functional again.<\/p>\n

Next, review what exploits are in active use and whether you\u2019ve got patches installed to protect yourself. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has put together a listing of vulnerabilities<\/a> under active attack. If you carve out the vulnerabilities just for Apple and Microsoft (as I have done here<\/a>) you\u2019ll want to install the February updates<\/a> to your iPhones, iPads, and any other Apple devices. That will ensure you\u2019re protected from the zero-day, use-after-free memory corruption bug in the WebKit rendering engine. (WebKit powers Apple\u2019s Safari browser.)<\/p>\n

On the Microsoft platform, ensure you\u2019re up to date through the January updates to protect your systems from a Win32 bug<\/a> that is under active attack. In fact, I\u2019d recommend that you install updates through February, as this includes fixes for patch-induced bugs in January. The February Microsoft updates<\/a> have not caused any major issues, so they should be safe to install. Also make sure your Office is up to date. Phishing attacks are a key way ransomware can enter your system \u2014 pay attention to patching Office and be wary of opening emails.<\/p>\n

Businesses need to pay extra attention to on-premises SharePoint and Exchange systems. These two platforms have been in the crosshairs of attackers so make sure the November updates are installed for Exchange deployments<\/a>. For those that have on-premises SharePoint on older platforms, be sure you are patched for various 2020-era SharePoint\u00a0vulnerabilities<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Bottom line: bolster your defenses to ensure that you don\u2019t fall victim to any cyberattacks that may emerge and are protected from ransomware. The small steps we can all take to protect our systems can go a long way to helping the larger community fend off attacks.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.computerworld.com\/category\/security\/index.rss<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Credit to Author: Susan Bradley| Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2022 06:09:00 -0800<\/strong><\/p>\n

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As Russia invaded Ukraine, seeing the disruption in the world occur in near real time on social media brought poignancy to what was happening. While I don\u2019t know anyone in Ukraine, I know many people who have friends or family members that have been impacted by the war. Ukraine has many technology ties around the world. It\u2019s also been a source of cyberattacks, which is why there\u2019s extra concern about what we can do to protect ourselves in case of attack. (Eastern Europe has often been the source of many of the ransomware attacks that occur around the world.)<\/p>\n

So what can tech users do to ensure you protect yourself from possible cyberattacks arising from the conflict?<\/p>\n

To read this article in full, please click here<\/a><\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[11062,10643],"tags":[2211,714,24580,10525],"class_list":["post-18385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computerworld","category-independent","tag-apple","tag-security","tag-small-and-medium-business","tag-windows"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18385\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}