​With remote work gaining traction and decentralized workspaces becoming the new norm, businesses like yours must strengthen their cybersecurity strategies to counter human errors and data breaches perpetrated by malicious insiders. All employees, irrespective of their designation/rank, can expose your business vulnerabilities to cybercriminals.
 
Implementing routine security awareness training for employees can help you prevent a vulnerability from escalating into a disaster. As the first line of defense against cyberattacks, your employees must be thoroughly and regularly trained to identify and deflate potential cyberthreats.
 
Why Employees Pose a Risk to Businesses?
 
According to IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach Report 2020, 23 percent of data breaches in an organization occurred because of human error. An untrained employee can compromise your business’ security in multiple ways. Some of the most common errors committed by employees include:
 

1. Falling for phishing scams: With the onset of COVID-19, hackers masquerading as the World Health Organization (WHO) tricked people into clicking on malicious links and sharing sensitive information. Cybercriminals are using improved techniques, like spoofed emails and text messages, to propagate the ongoing scam. Your employees must be well-trained to counter it.
2. Bad password hygiene: A section of your employees might reuse the same password or a set of passwords for multiple accounts (business and personal), which is a dangerous habit that allows cybercriminals to crack your business’ network security.
3. Misdelivery: Even slight carelessness can lead to an employee sending sensitive, business-critical information to a hacker. Such an act can cause lasting damage to your business, which is why you must be prepared to counter it.
4. Inept patch management: Often, employees can delay the deployment of a security patch sent to their device, which can lead to security vulnerabilities in your business’ IT security left unaddressed.  

 
The bottom line is that with cybercriminals upgrading their arsenal every day and exploring a plethora of options to trap your employees, security awareness training has become more important than ever before.
 
Security Awareness Training: An Essential Investment 
A one-time training program will neither help your employees repel cyberthreats nor help your business develop a security culture. To deal with the growing threat landscape, your employees need thorough and regular security awareness training.
 
You must never back out of providing continual security awareness training to your employees just because of the time and money you need to invest in it. The return on investment will be visible in the form of better decision-making employees who efficiently respond in the face of adversity, ultimately saving your business from data breaches, damage to reputation and potentially expensive lawsuits. The following statistics highlight why you must deploy regular security awareness training and consider it a necessary investment:
 

• Eighty percent of organizations experience at least one compromised account threat per month. 1
• Sixty-seven percent of data breaches result from human error, credential theft or social attack. 2
• Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, phishing attacks have gone up by 67 percent. 3

 
Expecting your employees to train themselves on how to detect and respond to cyberthreats certainly isn’t the best way to deal with an ever-evolving threat landscape. You must take on the responsibility of providing regular training to your employees to ensure you adequately prepare them to identify and ward off potential cyberattacks.
 
Every employee must realize that even a minor mistake can snowball into a terrible security disaster for the company. They need to understand that your business’ cybersecurity is also their responsibility.
 
You can transform your business’ biggest cybersecurity risk – your employees – into its prime defense against threats by developing a security culture that emphasizes adequate and regular security awareness training.
 
Making all this happen will require continued effort and may seem like an uphill climb, but with the right partner by your side, you can easily integrate security awareness training into your business’ cybersecurity strategy. The first step towards training and empowering your employees starts with an email to us. Feel free to get in touch anytime.  

Please join me while I give a free tech talk at Pau Hana Rotary Club. 

Date: December 17th from 5:30 - 6:30 pm 

Place: The Dragon Upstairs
           1038 Nuuanu Ave
            Honolulu, HI 96817




Their meeting starts at 5:30 pm so you can get there at 5:00 pm.  Please note that it is a Rotary Club meeting, so they'll have some announcements in the beginning and then I'll speak.  

Talk details:

When Home Depot, Chase Financial, celebrities, and other Fortune 500 companies are getting their data compromised, what are folks like us to do to protect ourselves? Find out ways to manage your passwords, protect your email account, and keep virus/malware out of your computer.

It's going to be a great talk that will help you and your family/friends be safer online. Please let me know if you're coming. Would love to see you there

Is your email inbox out of control? Feel like pulling out your hair? Find out how to take charge and liberate yourself from your inbox with me, and use my 20+ years of experience to guide you to inbox bliss.

When: October 25th 12 - 1 pm or November 8th 1:30 - 2:30 pm
Where: Happiness U
              560 N. Nimitz Hwy., Ste. 117A
              Honolulu, HI 96817
Cost: $35 for non HappinessU members and $25 for HappinessU members

REGISTER HERE FOR OCTOBER 25TH CLASS

REGISTER HERE FOR NOVEMBER 8TH CLASS

I hope to see you there and together we'll get your inbox under control!

Please join me while I give a free tech talk at Kaneohe Rotary Club. 

Date: November 18th from 12:00 - 1:00 pm 

Place: Pohai Nani Good Samaritan Club Room

45-090 Namoku Street
Kaneohe, HI 96744


Their meeting starts at 12:00 pm so you can get there at 11:30 am. The lunch is $15.00 and it is a buffet with dessert and beverage.  Please note that it is a Rotary Club meeting, so they'll have some announcements in the beginning and then I'll speak.  

Talk details:

When Kmart, celebrities, and other Fortune 500 companies are getting their data compromised, what are folks like us to do to protect ourselves? Find out ways to manage your passwords, protect your email account, and keep virus/malware out of your computer.

It's going to be a great talk that will help you and your family/friends be safer online. Please let me know if you're coming. Would love to see you there

Want to be a Google search Kung Fu Master?  Well enter the temple and find out how this tip can be very helpful when looking for a certain type of file.

When I'm doing a search for a brochure, manual, instructions, etc., I usually see them in a PDF format.  What if I showed you that when you perform a search in Google, you can have it show you only PDF files for the search term you're seeking.

Below I wanted to do a search for Windows 8 and only display PDF files.  What you do is type in the search term which is in my case "Windows 8" and then type in "filetype:[file type]". In the example below I typed out "Windows 8 filetype:PDF" and look at the results.

What I found was a bunch of files that had Windows 8 in it.  But look what was my first hit which was very cool.  It's a free Ebook and it's a pocket guide for Windows 8.  I downloaded it right away, put it in my Kindle and learned a bunch of tips and techniques.  

I hope you find this tip helpful and you unlock some hidden treasure and amaze your friend with your new Google Kung Fu prowess. 

I'm not sure how you feel but all those ads on my web browser just is so distracting and bothers me.  Wouldn't you like to know how a free program to help you suppress them?  

There is a program that I think is great and it's called Adblock.  What Adblock does is the following:

• Blocks banners
• Block pop-ups and those ever annoying video ads.  You know the ones that start playing and your computer seems to be talking to you
• Blocks Youtube video ads, Facebook and Twitter ads
• It works with Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer, Safari, and Opera

Let me know if you do start using it and how you like it.  

Please join me while I give a free tech talk at Ala Moana Rotary Club. 

Date: October 16th from 12:00 - 1:00 pm 

Place: Ala Moana Hotel, 410 Atkinson Dr., Honolulu, HI 96814

Their meeting starts at 12:00 pm so you can get there at 11:30 am. You'll have a choice of either a lunch buffet & drink ($27.00) or beverage & dessert ($8.00).  Parking is free.  Please note that it is a Rotary Club meeting, so they'll have some announcements in the beginning and then I'll speak.  

Talk details:

When Home Depot and Celebrities are getting their data compromised, what are folks like us to do to protect ourselves? What is shellshocked bug? Find out ways to manage your passwords, protect your email account, and keep virus/malware out of your computer.

It's going to be a great talk that will help you and your family/friends be safer online. Please let me know if you're coming. Would love to see you there

Are you getting shellshocked about the Shellshock bug?  What is it and should you be concerned?  Should you worry if you have a Mac?  

Shellshock is the nickname for a vulnerability in Bash, which is a program that runs in Unix and Linux systems.  The vulnerability in Bash has been there for two decades, and could allow an attacker to take entire control over the computer.

A lot of web servers that host websites do run on Unix and Linux, so the threat is very real.  The threat itself is rated a 10 out of 10 by the CVE as well.  The exploit is easy to run on a computer which is of concern.  Remember the Heartbleed bug some months back?  This is on par to that vulnerability. The next worry is that if, or more likely when a worm is created, it can replicate and compromise thousands or maybe millions at a fast rate.  

For those that have Apple computers, Apple has mentioned that for someone to get control over your computer using the vulnerability is very hard to do and Apple users shouldn't worry.   I do agree with this assessment as well.   In addition, Apple has released a patch on Lion, Mountain Lion, and Mavericks that you can download and install on your Apple computer. 


Overall, we all should be concerned about Shellshock as the computers that are being infected with this easy to run and use exploit by the attackers are computers that hold credentials, personal information, anything you can think of really.  Just stay vigilant and make sure to watch any news on Shellshock, and hopefully it doesn't effect a company that holds your personal data or a website that you go to on a daily basis that could infect your computer.  Aloha! 

Please join me while I give a free tech talk at East Honolulu Rotary Club. 

Date: September 22nd from 12:00 - 1:00 pm 

Place: Waialae Country Club, 4997 Kahala Ave., Honolulu, HI 96816

Their meeting starts at 12:00 pm so you can get there at 11:30 am. You'll have a choice of either a lunch buffet & drink ($23.00) or beverage ($5.00).  Parking is free.  Please note that it is a Rotary Club meeting, so they'll have some announcements in the beginning and then I'll speak.  
Talk details:

When Home Depot and Celebrities are getting their data compromised, what are folks like us to do to protect ourselves? Find out ways to manage your passwords, protect your email account, and keep virus/malware out of your computer.

It's going to be a great talk that will help you and your family/friends be safer online. Please let me know if you're coming. Would love to see you there