Good morning everybody!

I was on with Matt this morning and we had a good discussion about the technology and cyberthreats that schools are facing and why as well as what is happening to the corporate networks of businesses that are in the process of reopening. Let's get into my conversation with Matt on WGAN.

These and more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com

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Automated Machine Generated Transcript:

[00:00:00] Craig Peterson: Who knows what I need to control peripherals like thumb drives hard drives other devices to their corporate laptops. They might've hooked up to their little files server in that house.

Craig Peterson here. Hey, if you listen to these podcasts a lot, you've probably noticed that most of these people that I interviewed with most of these radio hosts tend to ask about the same articles. In case you don't know, I put together usually eight articles every week. I kind of boil down the week's news to the top articles. There's a, I guess, a little bit of inside baseball and put together a summary paragraph or two, usually from those articles. And sometimes if I really disagree with the article, it'll be just original would be what I have to say about it. I send them off to all these different radio stations and then they have me on and they pick and choose. So like this particular interview, we talked about three of the different topics. And often we're talking about much the same thing. And. I try and take a bit of a different angle, so I don't get boring for you guys listening.

[00:01:00] But today it was kinda interesting. Matt had a different take. He was interested in some different articles today. So, you know, that's the way it goes. Variety's the spice of life, right? Yes, indeed. Hey, and my new studio. Is getting close to being finished. So, I'm going to be doing a lot more training coming up here soon.

Take care of everybody. Yeah, here we go. In Maine with Matt on WGAN.

Matt Gagnon: Happy Wednesday friends. It's time to talk to Craig Peterson. Our tech guru joins us at this time every Wednesday to go over what's happening in the world of technology. Craig. Welcome.

Craig Peterson: Hey, thank you.

Matt Gagnon: Pleasure to have you as always. So let's kick things off here.

[00:02:00] With a question about schools. I know obviously we were all talking about whether or not we're going to be going back in the fall, with our kids in K through 12 education. But we do know what happened before in the last semester, they all stayed home and they were working from home and learning from home or whatever.

And I know that the schools already were struggling with cybersecurity issues, to begin with, with, then COVID-19 happened. Right? And then things changed. So tell me about this.

Craig Peterson: Yeah, things changed. Things changed pretty badly, you know, just in the last 30 days. More than seven and a half million malware incidences were detected affecting education worldwide.

That is a lot of malware instances. And when we look at what's been happening in our schools, it has been a real problem. You know, the schools are unable to attract or retain or pay, or whatever it might be, the talent that really does understand what's happening in the cyber world.

[00:03:00] Now it isn't just schools. There still is a shortage of cybersecurity professionals, in the order of, depending on whose numbers you believe one and a half to two and a half million open jobs right now. So when you look at something like our schools that tend to pay a lot less than some of the businesses, do they have limited resources?

It becomes a problem. The FBI's even warning about that right now that they just cannot, the schools cannot dedicate enough resources to network defense. They're vulnerable to cyber attacks. We've seen many school districts that have been nailed. Throughout New England, with ransomware and have had student information stolen.

[00:04:00] Then on top of it, as you pointed out, we've caught our latest infection here, the latest plague, it has driven us all home. Now we're looking at what are the right solutions? You know, do we have teachers that are concerned about health issues and might be older, or they might be having some general underlying health problem, do those teachers stay home and teach from home as opposed to keeping the students at home?

These students at home here in Maine, we've got all kinds of different data rates, different problems, they're different equipment at home. It's just an absolute nightmare. When you look at some of this stuff that's been going on. I just don't know what the right answer is. Certainly, we've got huge problems with kids being at home and trying to connect to the schools and trying to keep their information safe.

Matt Gagnon: We're speaking with Craig Peterson, our tech guru joins us at this time every Wednesday that, is our time to talk to him. And by the way, you can hear him on this very station on Saturdays at one o'clock for the Craig Peterson show, where he goes into the stuff, in more depth. I, you know, the other thing about this, it's very, you know, in a similar vein here as offices are reopening.

[00:05:00]Tho, the stuff that we've been doing at home and our hardware at home is also its own security threat. Is that not true?

Craig Peterson: It is. It is a threat, even now, before some of these people return to the offices because so many of the employees have connected, you know, who knows what uncontrolled peripherals.

Like thumb drives, hard, drives, other devices to their corporate laptops. They might've hooked up to their little file server in that house. These peripherals are potentially cyber-attack tools used by bad actors. Look at the firewalls that we keep warning about this. So many of us have in our homes these consumer-grade firewalls that are under constant attack that are becoming a very big problem now for the businesses.

[00:06:00] We have to, as businesses now, reach out into our employee's homes. Now that gets to be an interesting problem, but we have to reach into their homes and secure the networks of our employees. Now, some businesses have said, well, we're just going to use a VPN, frankly, that just causes other problems.

The research is right now is showing, that 25% of devices on home networks, including PCs, printers, smart home products had one or more services exposed on the internet. 25% of home devices. It means ultimately it's a lot easier to hack when the bad guys can get at it directly from the internet.

Matt Gagnon: Speaking of hacking Craig Peterson, our tech guru, who joins us at this time every Wednesday, there's a new study out that says that 15 billion stolen and exposed credentials are, have been sort of found in criminal markets.

Tell us a little bit about this.

Craig Peterson: [00:07:00] Yeah, this is a very, very bad thing. And I wanted to really direct people to a website called "Have I been pwned?

Matt Gagnon: Oh yeah. I remember that. Yeah. That's a dated internet reference of I've heard one. Yeah.

Craig Peterson: Yeah, it kinda is. It goes way back. Have I been, poned (spelled PWNED) allows you to put in your email address that you use for signing into all these websites and tells you if your data is readily available on the dark web, what data is available, where it was stolen because when we're looking this study, that's saying 15 billion stolen, exposed credentials.

They're not kidding. Now you might say, well, wait a minute, a sanity check. There aren't 15 billion people in the world. Just like there aren't 245 million women voters here in the United States, to quote are one of the presidential candidates.

[00:08:00] Here's the problem. These credentials have been stolen multiple times. From multiple places and are for sale in underground marketplaces out there, and your credentials, it's just crazier. Here's what it's worth, right? It can take you 500 hours over the course of years to clear up all of the damage the bad guys do to your credit in all of these accounts, et cetera.

What it's worth is, right now, the price is about $3,000 for an admin account or a domain admin account. So if your credentials are used to control a Microsoft server, there in the office, that's worth about three grand. $70 for your bank account information, now. $21 for account access to your antivirus account and less than $10 for credentials for some of these adult sites out there, by the way, usernames and passwords for just regular sites are worth less than $2 each.

[00:09:00] 500 hours of your time is worth at what at $10 an hour, let's say $5,000. And in fact, you're worth less than a hundred dollars to the bad guys. It is crazy.

Matt Gagnon: That's encouraging.

Yeah. Paying more attention. At least make it worth more than five grand.

Yeah. Well, Craig Peterson, our tech guru was nice to have to join us every Wednesday to go over what's happening in the world of technology.

Thanks again, Craig, as always make sure you hear him on this very station on Saturday and we'll talk to you next week.

Craig Peterson: Alright. Take care, Matt. Thanks.

That was it with Mr. Matt today. I'll be back this weekend with another show. I ended up doing kind of a half and a half last weekend. Half of it was brand new and half of it was a repeat, I've just been feeling very, very under the weather, although I'm doing a lot better now, take care, everybody, and thanks for your time and comments too.

I got some messages from you guys. When I mentioned that I probably had the COVID it's saying, you know, just [00:10:00] some words of encouragement and support are really, really appreciate it. All of those. So take care of everybody.

Bye-bye.

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Craig Peterson - Secure Your Business, Your Privacy, and Save Your Sanity

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AS HEARD ON: WGAN Mornings News with Matt Gagnon: Educational Cyberthreats and Threats to reopening businesses