Panic. No matter what your belief system tells you to be true about the coronavirus, you can’t ignore the sense of overwhelm that is now a global issue.

With panic comes opportunity.

Princess Cruises just announced that in addition to dealing with outbreaks of coronavirus, it’s also dealing with a data breach.

Do you have a vulnerability management policy built into your security plan?

Vulnerability management is the practice of identifying, classifying, prioritizing, remediating, and mitigating software vulnerabilities.

On the surface, the purpose of vulnerability management seems to be to prioritize riskiness, and take action accordingly.

Security: It brings instant thoughts to mind:

The lock on your front door.
The firewall built into your operating system.
The password you use to login to your bank account.

A hacker knows you’re paying attention to the obvious. What a criminal is looking for is a back door.

All around you, firmware is helping you build your practice, and get things done.

Firmware is the permanent software programmed into read-only memory of many of the devices you use everyday.

It’s in the code of your printer
It’s in the software controlling the heart defibrillator in your patient room
It’s in the design of your virtual personal assistant, the one you talk to every day, the one who listens to everything you say

It goes beyond that.

Have you made significant changes to your practice based on HIPAA laws? Think your data is safe enough?

Think again.

There’s a new kid in town - CCPA - the latest in laws designed to protect data.

You may have heard about CCPA - California Consumer Privacy Act - which went into law on January 1st.

VPNs - virtual private networks - are designed to give people working remotely a secure connection into the company network. It creates a “tunnel” from wherever the worker accesses it, directly into the company’s database, usually via an internet connection.

Smart voice technology has the promise of helping senior centers out in many ways. Thanks to the Internet of Things, smart technology is taking over just about everything  and giving options for more independence.

The Amazon Echo and Google Home offer virtual assistance that can be placed bedside or anywhere in a room.

Imagine meeting someone new in a professional environment. You have a friendly dinner. You exchange phone numbers. You send and receive a message or two.

And then things start to happen.

Unfortunately, being one of the top business people in the world can’t stop a hacker if they want in.

What resolutions have you made for this New Year? To get more organized? Simplify and automate tasks? Or maybe get rid of things that have been cluttering up your office space for years?

Ringing in the New Year always brings on a sense of starting over.

Where could a cybercriminal penetrate your practice? What assets would they hit? What systems would they breach?

The term “attack surface” can be defined as all of your IT assets, whether they are secure or vulnerable, you’re aware of them or not, they’re on-site or in the cloud, third-party or your own.