We have been talking about cyber security for years, and up until now, it’s always seemed like a distant threat. Districts are being hacked and ransomed for their information now.
READThis data breach isn’t the only major cyber crime to severely impact millions of lives this year. In late June, multiple companies across the world were under siege by a virus that effectively shut down computers and extorted money.
READDo you collect funds from the public for any reason? This might include park space rental, any kind of service or training, utility bills, or medical billing. If so, then your district is a creditor and must comply with these regulations.
READMany large-scale cyber threats demonstrate the deceptively simple techniques hackers often employ to infiltrate our computers and steal our information: requests from a stranger on your social media, the stray USB drive on the floor, and the email you failed to scrutinize before opening.
READSelf-driving cars have had a storied history in film and television, stretching as far back as the early 1980s. From Knight Rider and Timecop to Minority Report and I, Robot, the autonomous vehicle has long established itself as a common trope in the science fiction genre, and continues to capture our imagination today. However, in the past decade, this particular fantasy is rapidly becoming a tangible reality.
READIs your password security up to snuff? Most people are pretty relaxed about password security, and even when websites force us to have strong passwords, we find tricks around that which just make us vulnerable again.
READLate on a Friday evening in the beginning of February, staff at the Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles, California began to report issues accessing portions of the hospital’s network. As the administration would soon learn, their system had been infected with a piece of malicious software that had encrypted critical files and databases. The malicious software provided the hospital with an ultimatum—pay up, or never have access to these files again.
READIf you pay attention to the issue of cyber security and data breaches, you’ll surely hear about a slew of malicious attacks from sophisticated hacking organizations and complex high-tech espionage. Recently, the chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Mary Jo White, even went so far as to say that cyber attacks are the “biggest risk we face” as a nation.
READLate in 2013, the FBI discovered that a Chinese hacker called UglyGorilla was seeking access to parts of a U.S. utility company’s systems that would allow him to remotely cut off heat or damage pipelines.
READRecently the news media has been full of reports of companies, cities, states, and other groups getting stung by costly data breaches. These crimes not only deplete corporate and public funds, but increase insurance rates and take a huge toll on an entity’s reputation. Reasonable safeguards could protect your district from these perils, and potentially save you a lot of time and money.
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