It’s incredible how technology has evolved over the past 20 years.
When I started in IT over 20 years ago at this point, IT teams were concerned about much different concerns than they are today.
Way back when I was starting up Dynamic Edge, my team was focused on fixing computer problems. When it came to data security, we might have worried about a rogue employee here or there, maybe thought briefly in our days about risk management or compliance, but by and large, we were NOT a security-focused IT company.
My main job was to innovate on ways to implement new technologies to make the lives of my clients better.
But as we have gotten into an era where we all rely on technology more and more, criminals have moved from more traditional means of stealing and ransoming to locking down your entire networks and extorting your business’ sensitive information.
Today, attacks are more targeted.
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Microsoft has a security update for Windows 7 machines.
A few months ago when Microsoft shared that Windows 7 was no longer going to be supported as of January 14, 2020, it announced that its enterprise clients would still be able to get security updates and patches on the older platform for an extended period of time.
The Windows 7 Extended Security Updates (ESU) is a paid service offered by Microsoft that will deliver updates to computers still running Windows 7.
These updates will be pushed out past the January deadline into 2023. The problem?
There is a substantial price tag to these security licenses.
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Let’s say it’s a Monday morning. You’re headed into work—there’s a light drizzle coming down and traffic is backed up from an accident at the large intersection close to your building.
Frustrated, you wait for the accident to clear and get to the office nearly 30 minutes late. You hurriedly rush in the front door and notice the receptionist gone from her desk. You look in a few more offices and no one is to be seen.
As you are heading to your office you notice everyone congregated in the lunch room. No one is smiling. Your accountant is crying—she’s exclaiming that all of the hours of work she’s put in (including overtime that weekend) are gone.
What’s going on?
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Remember way back when? Those times where you’d leave your house completely unlocked? Where you weren’t worried about someone breaking in or stealing anything?
Maybe it was because you didn’t really have much you perceived as irreplaceable. Or maybe it was because you didn’t really care about things like that.
But more likely it was because you trusted your neighbors and those in your community to respect boundaries. You’d not heard of any break-ins and never thought it could happen to you.
We’ve been living that ‘old days’ life in cyberspace for years now—in fact, in the past 20 years of running Dynamic Edge, I think a good portion of it was not having to worry about people breaking into network (although being a security guy, I was always thinking about it and finding ways to keep my clients’ data secure).
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A lot of security is invisible in black boxes. This is how a lot of my clients perceive. Frankly, they are not entirely wrong here.
When my security team goes into evaluating and fixing an organization’s network before they fall for a ransomware attack or data breach, I always see at least a few serious problems related to service accounts—vendors that needed access at one point in time, who have carte blanche access to your network OR vendors that have requested that your network is configured in a certain way (the specifics of which make you and your data more vulnerable to attacks).
This year when I attended the Black Hat Conference in Las Vegas—an event that all of the major security companies and cybersecurity experts make an effort to attend—some startling statistics were ringing throughout the halls, catching security-minded experts’ ears.
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I know I’ve brought this up several times at this point, but those of you with lingering Windows 7 machines within your network are growing targets of cybercrime.
After news broke a couple of weeks ago about devastating attacks coming out from an attack specifically targeting vulnerabilities within the Windows 7 operating system, I want you to rethink your strategic approach to replacing your Windows 7 machines—especially those of you that are setting and forgetting the issue for a later date.
What this new attack is doing is targeting an exploit that Windows has already released a patch for.
The issue?
Many organizations are FAILING to patch Windows 7 machines, thinking they are no longer worth the effort. This is putting your entire network at jeopardy of a serious data breach—or even worse—a major ransomware attack. This vulnerability, named BlueKeep is enabling cyber criminals to easily deliver malicious code onto those Windows 7 machines and subsequently spreading viruses throughout your network.
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