Garth is an entrepreneur with a history of six start-ups, several failures, two exits and one acquisition. For the past 14 years he’s owned and operated Allsite IT, an IT Managed Infrastructure company. Clients include Bell-Canada, Carbon Engineering, Hilton Hotels and several Small Medium Businesses. Allsite IT has offices in Victoria, Vancouver and Toronto.
Garth’s work experience and love of a good story means he translates IT subject matter into interesting and useful and information for small-medium business owners. He tells stories with real world actions owners and managers can take to mitigate the business situations discussed.
The NotPetya attack on 27 June 2017 started at a small-medium company serving the Accounting business and spread to affect the US national security supply of vaccines and nearly a fifth of global shipping. The final estimate of the damage was $10 Billion, the most expensive cyberattack ever. Later the US and UK formally blamed Russia for the attack but that didn’t help the small family-owned business that was hand picked by Russia to be “patient zero”. They were not even the target, they were the best available conduit to the target. The owners faced arrest and a class action lawsuit, a SWAT team raided their office.
Could it happen to you? Who’s on your client list? Is a client-of-a-client maybe a target or “pathway of interest”? We are interconnected, don’t be the weakest link that catches the blame.
Steps to better security:
1. Anti-Phishing - Make sure your anti-phishing software is installed and up to date
2. Security Daily Hygiene - Install patches immediately and every time
3. Don't give out your passwords
4. Don't click on links in emails - 97% of security breaches start here!
5. Ask your IT person to report to you regularly and in a way you can understand.
Garth noted that phones are not the weak link in cyber security. He did state that there is a real threat of 5G products from China, as data collecting programs could be imbedded. Personally he would not buy one!