A Hack is Imminent

Episode 17: A Hack Is Imminent
I was made aware of a cybercriminal that has access to the network and computers of at least two businesses in the same industry as one of my clients. Some of the details were eerily similar but not all of the information matched.
Not that it matters because we have taken extraordinary measures (they really should be standard operating procedures) to prevent this type of access. The access is through a Managed Service Provider like the one I own (Nwaj Tech). It is through one of the RMM tools that this particular MSP uses.
How could this have happened? What can be done differently? Who is involved?
All of these questions and more are answered in this episode!
Transcription (Unedited)
People are the weakest link in any cybersecurity plan. We’re distracted, exhausted and often unmotivated. It’s time to change the approach used to protect our businesses, technology, identity and data, the human element has to be front and center in a war against data breaches and ransomware attacks, it’s time to educate.
saw a post on Facebook where a woman, it was a local Facebook group from my area. And the woman said that she had only gone to two places. In that day, it was, I think, a Wendy’s and ATM. And she was concerned because somebody had made fraudulent charges on her card. And she assumed that it was either Wendy’s or the ATM where the card information was stolen. So I advised this woman in the Facebook group, it’s so public to everybody in the Facebook group, that it didn’t necessarily happen that day that somebody could have stolen those debit card credit card number, weeks or months ago, and just held on to it and eventually sold it. And this is what happens on the dark web credit card numbers are stolen and sold on the dark web all the time. And so there when this happens, the card stolen card may not get used for sometimes months. In fact, this happened to me. Probably 1210 12 years ago, I used to have a city bank account. I got a phone call on a Monday morning, asking if I was in France over the weekend because there were all these fraudulent charges on my bank account in France for hundreds, few $100 at a time. 300 700 not huge charges but big enough to get the bank’s interest. And of course, I wasn’t in France, I was at work on a Monday morning, didn’t go to France that weekend. And those charges were fraudulent. And fortunately for me, Citibank reversed it took them about five days, but they did reverse it. But it just goes to show you that cyber criminals are patient, they will take their time, and they will eventually attack and or do what they need to do to make money. Welcome to the human element podcast, visit our website at the human element dotnet for more content to help you strengthen your awareness of the people problem in cybersecurity. I am Scott Gombar. Owner and Washtech a client focused, security minded proactive IT service provider. Hi, and welcome to episode 17. I’m sort of keeping my promise in recording almost a week after the last episode. I think it is actually a week after the last episode. So here we are. And today’s episode I’m going to talk we’re going to be somewhat vague when it comes to company names and things like that. Because I don’t know that this is public information yet. But I did learn from a client about a company that has been breached, but they are not aware yet. It’s actually two companies that have been breached. And it sounds like it might be through the same managed service provider. So a managed service provider if you don’t know. My I own a managed service provider called unwashed tech. And what that means is we take care of all the IT needs and supposed to be includin...