Last year, I consulted with a pastor whose church had suffered a ransomware attack. This particular church had an extensive fundraising operation designed to support a local homeless program, and the ransomware infection impacted all of the data used to solicit donations — and ground those important efforts to a halt.

Like many nonprofits, the church fallen into a common trap: the fallacy of thinking that they don’t have any important data that would attract attackers. But, in this world, every organization is a potentially lucrative target.

Earlier this year, I arrived at the office on a Monday morning to a ringing telephone. One of my longtime customers was on the line, frantic about a security issue. When he arrived at work that morning, he discovered that the Microsoft Exchange server at his midsized company was offline and infected with ransomware. Further…

Artificial intelligence is the hottest technology trend of this decade, and it’s appearing in a wide variety of applications. From approving mortgage applications to identifying potential customers, AI allows organizations to improve their effectiveness, increase their productivity and control costs. It’s no surprise that AI tools and techniques have also found their way into the…

As the technical lead for the incident response (IR) team at CDW, I see quite a few attacks that occur against organizations, with the most prevalent including phishing (most often leading to credential theft), advanced malware and ransomware. Ransomware is typically the most destructive for organizations that have not prepared or planned for this type…

A poultry processing plant is a noisy place full of people, machinery and, of course, chickens. It’s probably not the first place that comes to mind when one thinks of a modern digital enterprise, but the industry relies heavily on technology to facilitate supply chain operations, automate customer interactions and communicate between facilities. I recently…

Misery loves company. If you want plenty of both, don’t bother developing a disaster recovery plan. According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, about a quarter of businesses do not reopen after suffering a disaster. That’s a lot of closures when you consider how many hurricanes, wildfires and floods have swept the country over the past couple…