Small Organizations Lack Computer Security Training

It is becoming more apparent with stories like the Sisters of Charity Marian Clinic in Topeka, KS, and the Bullitt County, KY loss, that there is a huge hole where folks just don't know what to do or what not to do. Click here to read the Sisters of Charity story, and here to read the Bullitt County story. Combined, they have lost more than $500,000.

Smaller organizations don't have the funding to do much with Computer Security Awareness training and for sure they don't have the resources to watch for malicious activities on these networks. It is sad but true statement, and it is really taking a huge financial bite out of these organizations.

Computer security is not easy, but with some work, you can protect yourself from most of the malicious stuff out there on the Internet. Can you avoid it completely? Probably not. Especially if you use a PC with a Microsoft Windows operating system like XP, or Vista. I try and post helpful hints for those who don't have a lot of money to invest in computer security. Read through some of my past posts and watch for new content as I will continue to post new ideas to help you.

Stay safe this holiday weekend and have a FABULOUS celebration Saturday night.

Criminal Attacker Blamed for Topeka Health Clinic Loss

I live in northeast Kansas. You read stories all the time of companies being the victims from some criminal attacker who is able to place a piece of malware on PC's and stealing money. Well, the headlines read that a Topeka health clinic, Sisters of Charity Marian Clinic, filed charges of a loss of $100,000 from their bank account. It is sad to read things like these, but in my line of work, it doesn't surprise me. Click here to read the Topeka newspaper story.

I'm sure that computer security awareness was not a part of the clinic's budget. They probably didn't have much of a budget at all for that matter for computer security. This could have happened a couple of different ways. It could have been an e-mail that came in that had either malicious links or attachments that someone from the clinic clicked on. This would be my guess as to how this happened. Or, it could have been just casual browsing on a legitimate website that had been hacked and malicious code injected that redirected them to a site which attacked the computer.

This computer was probably not patched. Probably Adobe Reader was an older version, or Microsoft patches that were not up to date. It doesn't matter what the vulnerable application was, it happened and it sucks that an organization that does what the Sisters of Charity Marian Clinic does, has to suffer such a loss.

Hopefully they can find out who was behind this, but the chances are, the responsible parties are located in a country that we have no way of getting to them. Possibly and eastern European country like Romania, or possibly Russia, or China will be where they were located. Hopefully the clinic will take computer security much more serious now. Knowing Topeka, there aren't a whole lot of options for the clinic to get the education they need so they will probably turn to the Geek Squad (I really hope not).

I guess the lesson learned is if you are doing financial transactions on a PC, you really need to make sure that patches are up to date, the machine is scanned often, and don't rely on just anti-virus alone. There are other options for you that will help protect these assets so things like this won't happen again also.

Stay safe out there, and have a great rest of the weekend.