I attended the 2016 Citizens Business Summit at the Guntersville State Park Lodge on Wednesday September 14th. The event was put on by Citizens Bank and Trust. It was interesting to note that 90% of the hacks, viruses, malware and ransomware are initiated by a person clicking on a link that they should have avoided.
Matthew demonstrated how he could take control of a person’s computer. He sent an email that appeared to be from UPS regarding the delivery of a package to the recipient. When the person clicked on the link in the email, that was all it took for Matthew to gain complete control of the computer!
Steps We are Taking at Cook and Company to Prevent Malicious Computer Activity
Our first line of defense is our firewall. The firewall prevents any user from visiting a website that is known to have suspicious links. The database of known malicious websites is updated in real time, every five minutes, 24/7. In addition, the firewall blocks outgoing and incoming traffic to or from a very long list of websites that are not germane to our business mission.
We operate a secure Wi-Fi Hot Spot, but it is entirely segregated from our internal network.
We do not rely on public servers or services for email. We manage our own mail server behind our firewall. Security software scans and checks every incoming and outgoing email. Security measures that we have in place may at times delay or block legitimate emails, but it is the price we’ve come to accept due to the extreme volume of dangers that exist in the cyber world today.
Matthew told me during one of the breaks that there are organized crime businesses that employ thousands of individuals world-wide, whose sole purpose is to commit cyber crime.
Our secure portal allows for the exchange of documents and files with our clientele. One of the latest precautions we are implementing is a 30 Day Expiration on all such files. In other words, if we make a document available to a client, it won’t just sit there in the portal forever. The client will have access to it for 30 days and after that, if they need access again, we will make it available for another 30 day period.
Pankey also discussed the importance of running the latest operating system on computers and applying security patches as soon as they are available. This is a procedure that we have long followed with only two exceptions, VISTA and WINDOWS 8.
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