This sounds like a nightmare that could never happen.
US soldiers have been putting sensitive information online in non-secure third party websites. It defies belief, yet we’re reading that it happened. The story popped up on ‘Gizmodo’ .
It is alleged that US Soldiers were saving sensitive information on a couple of common flashcard sites, presumably of things they were trying to memorise and learn. It seems these are common learning tools used in universities to help students memorise facts. That works well so long as the facts aren’t top secret! Even worse, their settings were on ‘public’ not ‘private’!
It is a classic warning about the risk of people, however well intentioned, saving critical data online in places the organisation is unaware of, and can’t control. That’s why our KARE FOUNDATION proactive cyber-security plan helps identify use of these sites in your organisation.
Shadow IT is part of our 10-point cyber-security check list
While there is no single layer of technology that can guarantee you will be safe from hackers, you can reduce your risk by adding layers of protection. How many of our 10-point check list are in place for you?
What is “Dark Mode”? Why should you consider it?
With all our warnings about cyber-hackers, you’d be forgiven for thinking this was another hazard. But no! Dark Mode is a good thing! You can activate it on Windows 10 by going to Settings – Personalization – Colors and picking Dark. Most phones also offer the same...
What does IT mean to you?
Who do you call when you need to : update your IT usage or data privacy policies manage your internal IT staff? select new business software, e.g. CRM or financial software? accelerate a process or break a business processing log-jam? Traditionally businesses think of...
5 simple steps to stay cloud-cyber-secure
We’ve posted repeatedly about cyber-security and the need to be more vigilant and more careful, and we’ve shared real-world stories to reinforce the concern. It’s a concern then that we still see a number of organisations that remain reluctant to increase their...
What are we about?
"Who" is sometimes just as important as "what"? As a client, you know what we do. But we thought you might want to know more about "who we are". By that we mean, "what are we about". When you boil it down, the Kinetics mission is to help our communities. That is...
Cyber-risk mitigation – why Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) is vital, but NOT enough
We keep making the point that nothing can guarantee you won’t be hacked. But you can, and must, mitigate your cyber-risk. We think tools like Multi-Factor Authentication is crucial for protecting your IT systems – and MFA should be on EVERYTHING you use – your email...
What are your 2021 New Years (IT) Resolutions?
It's a new year and who knows what it will bring? COVID vaccines or not, 2021 is bound to have surprises. One prediction we can make with absolute confidence is that we need to be more careful than ever about protecting our data from ever-increasing computer security...
The Worst Hack in US History
In the last week, we’ve seen two major successful attacks on critical US IT management and Cyber security tools. The first we learned about was on FireEye which is one of the leading and most trusted cyber security tools, used by much of the Fortune 500. ...
Windows 7 slips quietly away
There is no doubt about it, 2020 will be a year to remember. COVID : Lockdowns, work from home, toilet paper shortages, return to level 3, hand cleaners, level 2, mask envy, normality (kind of), lockdown again, election(s), housing market and more. Perhaps the only...
DDOS – Distributed Denial of Service Attack (aka what went wrong at the NZ Stock Exchange)
Denial of Service (aka what went wrong at the NZX?) In September the NZ Stock Exchange was the victim of an attempted extortion via a DDOS attack. The attack took them offline serval times over a number of days. Many business are now asking, what is DDOS and could...
What’s new in Microsoft Office for the end of 2020?
There is a pay-off!! While there are few things as annoying as Office occasionally pausing to install new features, there is a benefit in the new abilities you get. While the timing always seems to be terrible, it should save you time in the long run. Here’s three of...









