Craig Peterson's Tech Talk

If you follow my newsletter, you probably saw what I had in the signature line the last few weeks: how to make a fake identity. Well, we're going to take it a little bit differently today and talk about how to stop spam with a fake email. [Automated transcript follows] [00:00:16] Email is something that we've had for a long time. [00:00:19] I think I've told you before I had email way back in the early eighties, late seventies, actually. So, yeah, it's been a while and I get tens of thousands of email every day, uh, sent to my domain, you know, mainstream.net. That's my company. I've had that same domain name for 30 years and, and it just kinda got out of control. [00:00:46] And so we have. Big Cisco server, that exclusively filters email for us and our clients. And so it cuts down the tens of thousands to a very manageable couple of hundred a day. If you think that's manageable and it gets sort of almost all of the fishing and a lot of the spam and other things that are coming. [00:01:09] But, you know, th

How Ransomware, Trojanware, and Adware Hurt You. And Why ExpressVPN Isn't Safe to Use. Ransomware, Trojanware Adware. What's the difference between these different types of malware.? And when it comes down to our computers, which should we worry about the most and which should we worry about the most? [Automated Transcript Follows] [00:00:17] There are a lot of different types of malware that are out there and they're circulating and scaring us. [00:00:23] And I think for good reason, in many cases, ransomware of course, is the big one and it is up, up, up. It has become just so common. Now that pretty much everybody is going to be facing a serious ransomware attack within the next 12 months. The numbers are staggering. And what are they doing while now they're getting you with the double whammy. [00:00:50] The first whammy is they encrypt your data. Your computers are encrypted, everything on them. So you can't use them anymore. Bottom line. Yeah, they'll boot they'll run enough in order to be able for you t

How Many Times Per Week Are You Being Cyber Attacked? From Where? How? Why? We've got a new study out showing that North American organizations, businesses, and others, are being hit with an average of 497 cyber attacks per week, right here in the good old USA. [Following is an automated transcript] This is a study by checkpoint software technologies. Checkpoint, I used, oh my gosh. It would have been back in the nineties back then. They were one of the very first genuine firewall companies. And it was a system that I was putting in place for my friends over at troopers. I think it was New England telephone. It might've been Verizon by then. I can't even remember, man. [00:00:41] It's been a little while, but it was, a system we were using in front of this massive system that I designed, I made the largest internet property in the world. At that time called big yellow. It morphed into super pages. It might be familiar with. But it was me and my team that did everything. We built the data center out. [00:01:05

What Happened With Facebook's Outage? When Will It Happen Again? Facebook had a huge outage all of its properties. So why did it happen? How did it happen? And what's going to happen in the future? The frankly, some of this technology just isn't that stable. And I'm going to explain why right now! [Automated transcript follows] [00:00:20] I've already talked about it a little bit this morning on the show, but Facebook was. Facebook was down a lot. Facebook too was down a long time. And Mr. Zuckerberg has now lost about $7 billion because of how long it was down. And Craig Peterson joins us now to talk a little bit about exactly what happened, why it matters, what it means and so much more. [00:00:39] Craig, how are you this morning? [00:00:41] Hey, good morning. Doing well. [00:00:42] Thanks. Good to have you as always. So tell me first. What actually happened yesterday. I read that the explanation from Facebook seems like not a big deal as just a configuration problem, a little unexpected issue. They're not

Could Using the Right Multi-Factor Authentication Save You? I had a good friend who, this week, had his life's work stolen from him. Yeah. And you know what caused it? It was his password. Now, you know what you're supposed to be doing? I'm going to tell you exactly what to do right now. Let's get right down to the whole problem with passwords. I'm going to tell you a little bit about my friend this week. He has been building a business for. Maybe going on 10 years now, and this business relies on advertising. Most companies do so in some way; we need to have new customers. There's always some attrition. Some customers go away. So how do we keep them? We do what we can. How do we get new customers? For him, it was. Advertising, primarily on Facebook. He did some Google ads as well, but Facebook is really where he was focused. So how did he do all of that? Here's the bottom line you have to, if you are going to be advertising on Facebook, you have to have an advertising account. The same thing's true. Google.

Are You Using Encrypted Email Yet? Here's How! Security emails aren't something that most people think much about. Yet, they're becoming more and more important as the bad guys are monitoring us more closely to steal our information, and then there are advertisers. So, do you want them to see your stuff? [Automated transcript] Email is something that's been around now for quite a while. It was undoubtedly even before the internet standards came out. Many of the systems had a version of the email. I remember some systems back in the early. The seventies, late sixties that had an email functionality is something that we've always needed. Usually, it was for just communicating within a group. And then, in the early eighties, when I got on the internet, we could send email to people all over the world, and the email then looked a lot like it did. Now you net email, we use different types of addressing for, but basically, it's the same thing that we're used to today. Many of us have Gmail accounts. I have some Gma

Do You Know How to Identify a Fake Web Page? The FBI's reporting that more than 70% of all business hacks are because of our employees. They're clicking on emails, they're going to websites, what can we do? How do we know if a website is legitimate or not? [Automated transcript] [00:00:19] There's a great little article that McAfee published now, McAfee is a company that's been in the cybersecurity business for quite a while. [00:00:28] I do not use their products. I use some competing products. I have not been impressed with their products. [00:00:35] Let me tell you this particular web post that they put up is fantastic and you'll see it in my newsletter this week. Make sure you get that. [00:00:45] Have you ever come across a website that didn't look quite right if you haven't, you haven't been on the internet very much because whether you're an individual at home or you are in a business environment, we are likely going to end up on websites that are not legitimate. Sometimes we'll see these things, that

You Need to Start Using Burner Identities ASAP! In this day and age, if you don't have a burner identity, you are really risking things from having your identities stolen through these business email compromises. It's really crazy. That's what we're going to talk about. [Automated transcript] An essential part of keeping ourselves safe in this day and age is to confuse the hackers. The hackers are out there. They're trying to do some things. Ransomware, for instance, like[00:00:30] business email compromise, is one of the most significant crimes times out there today. It hits the news legitimately. It's terrifying. It can really destroy your business, and it can hurt you badly. If you're an individual, you don't want ransomware. How about those emails that come in? In fact, I just got an email from a listener this week, and they got a phone. His wife answered, and it was [00:01:00] Amazon on the phone, and Amazon said, Hey, listen, your account's been hacked. We need to clear it up so that your identity doesn

Apple is Adding Tech to Look At Your Photos For Child Abuse This is a tough one. Apple has decided that it will build into the next release of the iPhone and iPad operating systems, which monitors for child porn. [Automated transcript] Apple has now explained that they will be looking for child abuse images in specific ones. And I just am so uncomfortable talking about this, but the whole idea behind it is something we need to discuss. Apple said they're going to start scanning for these images and confirmed the plan. In fact, when people said, are you sure you're going to be doing that? [00:00:44] Here's what. IOS 15, which is the next major release of Apple's operating system for I-phones. And for I pad is going to use a tie to something called the national center for missing and exploited children. And the idea behind this is to help stop some of this child abuse. And some people traffic in children; it's just unimaginable. [00:01:14] What happens out there really is some people. It's just such evil. I, I

The IRS Has Been Selling Bitcoin - Pay Up! Bitcoin is all the rage. In fact, many people have considered investing in these cryptocurrencies or something. Of course, many have invested in it. I played around with them about a decade ago, and the IRS seized 1.2 billion worth of it. [Automated transcript] You might remember, we talked years ago about the IRS trying to tax things in the virtual world. So if you were in one of these real-life-type things and you owned property, as it were inside this virtual world, they wanted to tax it. So, of course, if you sold something with real hard money and. You sold it inside that real world with real hard cash, you would end up having to pay taxes. [00:00:43] Just if you sold a hammer to someone, that's the way it works. A lot of people have decided that, for some reason, cryptocurrency is entirely untracked. Now we know about cases. I've talked about them here where some of these coins, in this particular case, are talking about Bitcoin or have been used online. [00:01

The "Great Resignation" in Big Tech - Better Jobs, More Money There seems to be a worker shortage. And many businesses are finding that, frankly, people involved in technology are resigning; they're calling it a great resignation of workers. We have a lot of problems as business people, filling jobs nowadays. [Automated transcript] [00:00:20] And one of the things I've thought about doing is maybe even starting a course for people who want to figure out if this whole cybersecurity thing is right for them. I think that might make a lot of sense for some people. And there are some of you listeners. I know, because I've talked to you who have gone out and. [00:00:40] Gotten into, is that a word who have changed careers into the cybersecurity realm? So does it make sense for you? I don't know. Do you think it would make sense for me to offer something? A cybersecurity course to give you guys the basics and help you understand it and see if it might be good for you. [00:01:00] Only, you know that, and if you're in

  1126-01-windows_11_and_tpm [00:00:00] Microsoft has had some incredibly successful operating systems and some significant failures. Think of windows millennial edition. While now they're coming up with windows 11, and frankly, things just aren't looking that good. [00:00:16] If you know me, you know how I have had some issues with Microsoft here over the years; they are a company that has been, in my opinion, very dishonest have been doing all kinds of immoral things for a very long time by destroying. [00:00:36] Parts of the market that they considered being competitors of theirs, so they have used their position at the top of the market with billions of dollars in cash to really nail anybody that tries to challenge them. And it's incredible to me what has happened over the years. But, of course, you might know Microsoft did. [00:00:57] Putting an investment into Apple. And many people say that investment that bill gates authorized really saved apple from total collapse. And I can see how is this a reasona

[Automated transcript] Weekly - Microsoft is planning on making you buy a new computer [00:00:00] Microsoft has had some incredibly successful operating systems and some significant failures. Think of windows millennial edition. While now they're coming up with windows 11, and frankly, things just aren't looking that good. [00:00:16] If you know me, you know how I have had some issues with Microsoft here over the years. They are a company that has been, in my opinion, very dishonest have been doing all kinds of immoral things for a very long time by destroying. [00:00:36] Parts of the market that they considered being competitors of theirs, so they have used their position at the top of the market with billions of dollars in cash to really nail anybody that tries to challenge them. And it's incredible to me what has happened over the years. But, of course, you might know Microsoft did. [00:00:57] Putting investment into Apple. And many people say that investment that bill gates authorized really saved apple f

Are You One of More Than 700,000 On U.S. "Watch-Lists"? Craig Peterson: You've heard about the no-fly list, right? Yeah. How about the terrorist and other watch lists? It's impossible to get your name off, even when there was no reason to be there in the first place? Well, I got some news. The Department of Homeland security has been criticized for many things over the years. One of the things that they have been criticized quite a bit about is this watch list that they maintain. They have a watch list for no-fly. People get put on that watch list. It was initially intended to be, we know this guy's a terrorist, so we're going to put them on, right. [00:00:45] It's not always the way it goes. It starts out almost innocuous, and before you know it, there are all kinds of people getting caught in this big, big net. [00:00:55] That's what's been happening lately. But, unfortunately, it's going to worsen because the Department of Homeland security has decided to hire regular old companies to help develop this no-

Have Your Healthcare Records Have Been Stolen? What can you do about it? Craig Peterson: We're talking about ransomware and what's the Conti gang and others doing nowadays. Hello everybody. Craig Peterson here. Thanks for joining us today. I appreciate you spending a little bit of time, and I enjoy helping bring you guys up to speed on what is happening. There's just so much of it. You wouldn't believe what I have to filter out. [00:00:23] The Conti gang has been very successful. Still, their money started to dry up recently when people figured out if they had a decent backup, they could just go ahead and ignore the ransom demand. So instead of paying that ransom, just go ahead and restore from backup. So they had to do something different. [00:00:47]What the Conti gang did, as well as pretty much everybody else in the ransomware business, is okay; what we're going to do now is we're going to find all of the other machines we can find on the network. Then we're even going to have real people get onto these co

Have Your Healthcare Records Have Been Stolen, too? Craig Peterson: We all have healthcare records, and they have some of our most personal information. That's what we're talking about today in follow-up to a webinar I did for the healthcare industry. So we're going to chat right now a little bit more about your privacy. Craig Peterson here.   The actual hard stats on our healthcare records, a lot of them have been stolen. It's just crazy to think about because, in reality, we have had millions of records stolen, 300 million healthcare records stolen to be exact since 2015; that is pretty bad. [00:00:38] I'm looking at a chart right now that I showed to this healthcare industry group that is showing that the hacking event has almost doubled over the last three years, year to year, every year. So in 2018, 164 powerful hacks 2019, 312. That's a good double. 2020, 430, which isn't quite a double. So we are seeing a lot of data being stolen. But, of course, stolen data means misused data, which is a huge problem.

Are You Getting Dragged Into Dealing With Cybersecurity? Craig Peterson: You probably know I've been doing cybersecurity now for 30 years in the online world. Yeah, that long. I'm afraid I have some confessions to make about our relationships here, cybersecurity people, and employees. I got pulled into this whole business of cybersecurity quite literally, kicking and screaming. I had already been involved in the development of the internet and internet protocols for a decade before. In fact, one of the contracts that I had was with a major manufacturer of computer systems. [00:00:39]What I did there was design for Unix systems a way to check for malware and manage them remotely. Yes, indeed, I made one of the first RMM systems, as we call them nowadays. We also tied that RMM system, of course, into Windows and a few other operating systems. Unix was where I was working at the time. [00:01:05] I am what they called an OG in the industry. My gosh, my first job with computer networks was back in 75. Believe it o

App Tracking Traps a Catholic Priest. How It Can Affect You, Too Craig Peterson: I've got two hot topics for you this morning. One about this Catholic priest that ended up resigning and how that happened to tie into this Grindr account. And how it affects you because this type of technology used to convict him in the court of public opinion is something that. It could also easily be used against you. [00:00:25] And, by the way, it probably is. Now the next thing is this chip shortage. I've got a quote here from the Intel CEO. When is the chip shortage going to go away? When can we get out? Play stations and our new cars. So here we go. [00:00:43] Matt Gagnon: I'm going to start. With a story that I think I covered maybe a week or two ago, and I went on a pre prolonged grant. I know you may or may not have heard me do it, but it was about this Catholic priest issue. I know you know about this in some depth and detail, as I said before. But there is this issue here. [00:01:00] He was essentially outed as having

Intel Tells Us How Long the Shortage Will Last [automated transcript] We're looking at a big chip shortage. You probably heard a little bit about it, but how long is it going to last? And we've got this explosive report out right now about spyware and some of the cyber hacking and what's happening with Android versus iOS. What should you be using, 50% of Americans are using Android, and the rest is split up mostly with Apple. iOS. So what's going on there? This is a research group that says, my goodness. The media outlets just aren't reporting the truth. So here we go with Mr. Chris Ryan. [00:00:40] Chris Ryan: A couple of things we're going to get today with Craig Peterson are the host of tech talk first design, the chip shortage, and how long that may last. [00:00:47] The second is a fascinating report on spies where I think a lot of us feel that our phones, and even to a large extent, our laptops are safe because we maybe haven't experienced any overt issues with cybersecurity whether or not that's true. W

Google's Being Sued by the States -- And it doesn't look good for them Craig Peterson: We talked earlier about Amazon and how much trouble they're in right now, Google apparently is in a similar boat. We had just this week, dozens of state attorneys, general suing Google on antitrust grounds. [00:00:16] You can reach me online. Just me. M E Craig peterson.com or what most people do is they just hit reply to my newsletter. [00:00:25] Hopefully you're on my newsletter, right? That goes out every week. If you're on that newsletter you can just hit reply and ask me questions. Any questions you want? I'm more than glad to answer them. I know most of you guys, you're not business people. I am still glad to answer your questions for you to keep you on the right track. [00:00:42] The whole idea here is it's to keep you going. Safer. And if you're a business person, what the heck, maybe I can help you out as well while the here is a problem. And it's a very big problem. We have these absolutely huge companies that are