by Felicien | Jun 18, 2019 | Education
As a CEO, you have tremendous influence over your company’s brand, messaging, values and strategies. You also have a personal brand that increasingly today needs its own shaping, nurturing and feeding.
One powerful way to improve your personal brand and your company’s messaging is to have your own blog. Your voice, insights, opinions and news needs a vehicle that can project your thoughts across multiple channels.
Knowing why a blog makes sense and best practices is an ideal way to get started.
Why Should I Create a CEO Blog?
First, consider the multiple audiences to which your voice matters. There are stakeholders and in some cases shareholders that value your communication.
Internal blogs allow you to communicate to employees in a very different way. The benefits include:
Providing an up close and personal insider perspective on work, values and messages you want to convey
Promoting your internal persona
Promoting and reinforcing key messages
Building and celebrating a positive company culture
Fostering two-way communication between the c-suite and other employees
What Is the Difference Between Internal and External CEO Blogs?
External blogging has its own advantages. The tone and content of internal and external blogging likely will be different but the tone, themes and messaging should remain consistent. The advantages of external blogs are:
Thought leadership. Insights on industry trends, needs, challenges and transformation help establish you as a leader in your field.
Valued added. Customers and potential customers are more likely to choose your business if you can provide them with valuable, needed information that helps them do their business better.
Authenticity. Build authenticity with external stakeholders with consistent valued content, especially in challenging times or crises. That’s when your voice should be loud, not silent.
A face with a brand. Too often companies, especially as they grow larger, become faceless. A blog helps put a human face on your business and brand. Your blog helps keep your business front of mind, especially when they see your information popping up regularly in email inboxes and on social media.
Brand loyalty. Customers are going to come back when the products and services they receive are of high value. A blog can help in reinforcing your commitments to quality, customer service and continuous improvement.
Spreading your message. When your content is compelling, readers will like, share and forward it to others. This viral marketing, at no additional cost to you, spreads your brand and your thought leadership.
Beating the competition. It’s likely some of your competitors are blogging. Get ahead of them with better, regular and more valuable information.
In a 2016 New York Times article, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who focuses much of his energy now on his philanthropic foundation, spoke about why he blogs. “It … helps to have a platform for talking about the work I’m doing, both through the foundation and separate from it, because I find people are curious about it,” Gates said.
What Makes for a Successful CEO Blog?
The best CEO blogs are authentic. They don’t just regurgitate press releases or quarterly results. They inject humanity and persona into the work that your company does and gives you a visible, recognizable brand. Here are some other elements of a successful CEO blog:
Personalization to a point. This is not the place to talk about your son’s high school graduation. However, personalization is important. Instead, offer glimpses behind the curtain about why and how decisions were made or what you see as key issues or opportunities in the industry.
Design matters. You want your blog to be easily readable, especially on mobile devices.
Onmichannel. Content is valuable … and you and your marketing team should strategize about how to get the most out of what you provide. Longer blog posts can be followed up by other content — written by you or others — that points back to your hub information. Posts should be teased or delivered via multiple social media platforms. Depending on your business, that may include LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.
No jargon. Inside baseball is cool, but not when no one can understand what you’re writing. If you’re going to use jargon, be sure that it commonly used within your industry. Otherwise, you could alienate existing and potential customers.
Focus on customers. All of your blog content should have a singular focus: What do our customers need? Whether it’s product information, industry news or company information, be sure that it is written to help customers solve problems. Ideally, those problems are those your company is uniquely qualified to address.
Use humor … if it’s funny. Humor is a lot harder to write than you would think. Written words cannot easily express tone, pace and intent. Humor adds a personal element to your writing, but it has to be done with care and strategically.
Where Can I Find Good Examples of CEO Blogs?
Looking for inspiration for your own blog? There are plenty of sources of great CEO blogs and leadership blogs from which to take inspiration. Here are a few examples to review:
CEO blogging can have a deep impact on internal and external messaging. With a clear understanding of goals and tips, your blog will be ready to be published.
by Felicien | Jun 17, 2019 | Education
Hackers Now Using HTTPS To Trick Victims Via Phishing Scams
Everything you’ve heard about the safety of https sites is now in question. According to a recent FBI public service announcement, hackers are incorporating website certificates (third-party verification that a site is secure) when sending potential victims phishing emails that imitate trustworthy companies or email contacts.
These phishing schemes are used to acquire sensitive logins or other information by luring people to a malicious website that looks secure.
Can You Still Count On HTTPS?
The “s” in the https along with a lock icon is supposed to give us an indication that a website is secure. And your employees may have heard this in their Security Awareness Training. All training will now need to be updated to include this latest criminal tactic.
What Should You Do?
Be Suspicious of Email Names and Content
The FBI recommends that users not only be wary of the name on an email but be suspicious of https links in emails. They could be fake and lead you to a virus-laden website. Users should always question email content to ensure authenticity.
Look for misspellings or the wrong domain, such as an address that ends in “com” when it should be “org.” And, unfortunately, you can no longer simply trust that a website with “https” and a lock icon is secure.
If you receive a suspicious email that contains a link from a known contact, call the sender or reply to the email to ensure that the content is legitimate.
If you don’t know the sender of the email, the FBI warns that you shouldn’t respond to it.
Don’t click links in any emails from unknown senders.
If You Run A Business Ask Your IT Service Company About New-School Security Awareness Training For Your Employees
This will give your staff the latest information about cyber threats and exploits. They’ll learn what they need to know to avoid being victimized by phishing and other scams.
Why Use New-School Security Awareness Training?
Your employees are the weakest link when it comes to cybersecurity. You need current and frequent cybersecurity training, along with random Phishing Security Tests that provide a number of remedial options if an employee falls for a simulated phishing attack.
New-School Security Awareness Training provides both pre-and post-training phishing security tests that show who is or isn’t completing prescribed training. And you’ll know the percentage of employees who are phish-prone.
New-School Security Awareness Training…
Sends Phishing Security Tests to your employees to take on a regular basis.
Trains your users with the world’s largest library of security awareness training content, including interactive modules, videos, games, posters and newsletters, and automated training campaigns with scheduled reminder emails.
Phishes your users with best-in-class, fully automated simulated phishing attacks, and thousands of templates with unlimited usage, and community phishing templates.
Offers Training Access Levels: I, II, and III with an “always-fresh” content library. You’ll get web-based, on-demand, engaging training that addresses the needs of your organization whether you have 50, 500 or 5,000 users.
Provides automated follow-up emails to get them to complete their training. If they fail, they’re automatically enrolled in follow-up training.
Uses Advanced Reporting to monitor your users’ training progress, and provide your phish-prone percentage so you can see it reduce as your employees learn what they need to know. It shows stats and graphs for both training and phishing, ready for your management to review.
Your employees will get new learning experiences that are engaging, fun and effective. It includes “gamification” training, so they can compete against their peers while learning how to keep your organization safe from cyber attacks.
Add New-School Security Awareness Training To Your Current Employee Training
The use of https is just the latest trick that hackers are using to fool victims into falling for malicious emails. Hackers have many more “up their sleeves.” This is why regular, up-to-date New School Security Awareness Training is so important for any organization.
by Felicien | Jun 16, 2019 | Education
Building a worldwide brand takes an army — that’s an army of independent developers if you’re Apple. The latest WWDC (Worldwide Developers Conference) always includes a few unexpected tidbits that make the tech world salivate, and this year is no different. For 2019, Apple pulled out all the stops by not only releasing a new version of its ubiquitous iOS but also bringing a fascinating new iPadOS that promises to change the way you work in the future. From software to hardware to Apple TV Plus shows, here’s a quick recap of the cool new releases at this massive global gathering of Apple worshippers.
Enhancing the iPad
Since November 2, 2012, the iPad has quickly become one of the most universal crossover tools for computing on the market. Originally introduced as a way to consume content, iPads have now reached a new stage of their evolution with the introduction of the iPadOS that brings the tablet one step closer to being the primary computing device for business and creative workers. While the tablet still doesn’t have quite enough computing power to run intensive applications, the iPad Pro introduced in 2018 and now this new OS is allowing the platform to push the boundaries of what you would expect as far as functionality in a tablet. Screens continue to grow in size while the interface becomes more nuanced, with the ability to split the screen, pin widgets to the home screen and multi-task more efficiently. Add in the USB thumb drive support and the ability for software developers to tinker with the programming interface, and you’re inching closer to a viable alternative to a traditional laptop computer.
Apple Introduces a Secure SSO Option
Security is top of mind for individuals and organisations alike, making multi-factor authentication a requirement for business systems. While Apple has been lacking this type of advanced functionality, the new single-sign-on option allows you to authenticate with Apple without releasing your personal information to third-party apps. For consumers who are already utilising Google or Facebook apps, it may be worth the switch to Apple SSO as the software also generates a unique, random email address that will save your inbox from spam — and your devices from malware.
The Apple Watch Becomes More User-Friendly
Love your Apple Watch but really dislike the App Store experience? Apple listened and created a version of the App Store created specifically for the confines of the Apple Watch. The store is chock-full of applications that were built specifically for WatchOS and enhances the Watch to the point that you no longer need the tether to your iPhone for basic functionality. Plus, WatchOS is enhanced with new health-tracking abilities, a calculator, streaming audio and voice memos — all of which are targeted to making this device appeal to a wider swath of the population.
New Toys for Developers
Many of Apple’s latest releases are targeted towards the consumer market, but the software and hardware giant hasn’t forgotten the developers that helped make the brand what it is today. The announcement of ARKit 3 includes state-of-the-art augmented reality features that allow developers to layer AR around users in new and exciting ways in the future. Built to help make AR more interactive for users, it also makes life a bit easier for developers by “allowing green screen-style effects in almost any environment”, according to Apple executives who introduced the new tech during a keynote. Something that’s been missing in previous releases is the ability to simultaneously utilise the front and back cameras to allow users to interact in a more holistic way with virtual elements in a real-world environment.
One thing is sure: Apple’s annual WWDC never disappoints! This highly-anticipated event provides consumers with a glimpse into the future while firing the enthusiasm and creativity of thousands of developers from around the world. Surprisingly, the coolest new introduction at WWDC wasn’t even technical — it was design-focused. It might show you the level of control that Apple has over its OS to learn that there were extensive cheers with the introduction of the system-wide Dark Mode for iPad, as the Apple team noted: “iOS now lives in the dark“.
by Felicien | Jun 15, 2019 | Education
The City of Burlington is out $503,000 because a staff member fell for a phishing scam. After receiving an email request to change banking information, the staff member was tricked into making a transaction to a false bank account.
The email requested that the employee change banking information for someone the City was already doing business with. The staffer transferred $503,000 to the fake bank account on May 16, 2019. The City didn’t learn about this until a week later. At that point, they notified the police.
After realizing this on May 23, the City says it immediately notified their bank and Halton Regional Police. A full investigation has been launched into how this happened and their current processes.
Since then, the City has put “additional internal controls” in effect to prevent this from happening again. They reported in their press release:
“These types of targeted attacks are all too common and can take many forms…Governments are just as prone to scams as are individuals,” they said.
Could Your Government Agency Or Business Be A Target?
Since January 2019, nearly 100 phishing campaigns have been tailored specifically for Canadian targets, according to researchers.
Criminals are spoofing well-known Canadian companies and organizations. They are using French-language phishing lures to increase their chances of tricking Canadian employees.
The most common forms of malware used in these Canadian phishing campaigns are banking Trojans called Emotet and Ursnif. They steal information and deliver other types of malware such as IcedID, Trickbot, Dridex, and GandCrab ransomware, and a keylogger called Formbook.
Canadians need to be on the lookout for more than just generic phishing spam.
What Should You Do?
Get New School Security Awareness Training
You must train your employees to be constantly vigilant to identify attackers’ attempts to deceive them. New-school security awareness training will provide the knowledge they need to defend against these attacks.
What’s Wrong With Every-Day Security Awareness Training?
Old-School Security Awareness Training doesn’t hack it anymore (no pun intended). Today, your employees are frequently exposed to sophisticated and ever-changing phishing and ransomware attack methods.
Old-School Security Awareness Training is static. It’s a one-time event without follow-up. You need cybersecurity training that’s backed up with phishing tests performed on a regular basis to create a real change in behaviour.
What Is New-School Security Awareness Training?
More than ever, your users are the weak link in your IT security. You need highly effective and frequent cybersecurity training, along with random Phishing Security Tests that provide several remedial options in case an employee falls for a simulated phishing attack.
With world-class, user-friendly New-School Security Awareness Training, you’ll have training with self-service enrollment, completion logs, and both pre-and post-training phishing security tests that show you who is or isn’t completing prescribed training. You’ll also know the percentage of your employees who are phish-prone.
And with the end-user training interface, your users get a fresh new learner experience that makes learning fun and engaging. It has optional customization features to enable “gamification” of training, so your users can compete against their peers on leaderboards and earn badges while learning how to keep your organization safe from cyber attacks.
With New-School Security Awareness Training You’ll…
Have Baseline Testing to assess the phish-prone percentage of your users through a free simulated phishing attack.
Train your users with the world’s largest library of security awareness training content; including interactive modules, videos, games, posters and newsletters, and automated training campaigns with scheduled reminder emails.
Phish your users with best-in-class, fully automated simulated phishing attacks, and thousands of templates with unlimited usage, and community phishing templates.
See the results with enterprise-strength reporting that show stats and graphs for both training and phishing, all ready for your management.
New-School Training…
Sends Phishing Security Tests to your users and you get your phish-prone percentage.
Rolls out Training Campaigns for all users with automated follow-up emails to “nudge” incomplete users, as well as point-of-failure training auto-enrollment.
Uses Advanced Reporting to monitor your users’ training progress, and to watch your phish-prone percentage drop.
Provides a New Exploit Functionality that allows an internal, fully automated human penetration testing.
Includes a New USB Drive Test that allows you to test your users’ reactions to unknown USBs they find.
Plus, you can access Training Access Levels: I, II, and III giving you access to an “always-fresh” content library based on your subscription level. You’ll get web-based, on-demand, engaging training that addresses the needs of your organization whether you have 50, 500 or 5,000 users.
Can We Use New-School Security Awareness Training Along With Our Other Training?
This is what many organizations and municipalities are doing. They are supplementing their current training content with New-School Security Awareness Training. Upload your own compliant-training and video content, and manage it alongside your other training all in one place. Now you have your very own Learning Management System.
Don’t wait until your employees get tricked into giving away your money. Educate them with New-School Security Awareness Training.
by Felicien | Jun 15, 2019 | Education
The introduction of electronic health records (EHR) has caused a transformational change in medicine, but there is an even larger movement in the future that caregivers across the world are glimpsing — robots and the Internet of Things (IoT). It took more than 50 years for EHRs to progress from their early beginnings in the 1960s to their extensive use today. While the next full wave of the robot revolution may take decades, the technology challenges of early introduction of cloud computing and IoT are already emerging. From cybersecurity to data consolidation and connectivity, see how IoT and the adoption of cloud computing are already changing the healthcare landscape.
Providing Secure Connections for Disparate Data Sources
Electronic health records may be stored in various systems within a single organization, making it a challenge to ensure that each separate system has the full complement of security necessary to protect the important information being stored within. Managing communication between the platforms, ensuring that the endpoints are all secure and keeping access limited to “need to know” individuals can keep legions of technology teams busy for years — but is it enough? Recent attacks on major hospitals and other healthcare organizations have proved that cyberattackers are specifically targeting these organizations due to the richness of the data that is stored within their platforms. Without help from Orange County IT services personnel who are able to focus on data security and connections, it can be challenging for your organization to ensure that your sensitive patient and financial data is fully protected. It is increasingly important that you are able to view all data and security needs through a single pane of glass: aggregation software that allows you to tightly manage your disparate data sources and applications.
Safeguarding Patient Data . . . and Revenue
Your healthcare organization’s revenue is tightly tied to your patients, and you stand to face significant losses in productivity and patient trust in the event of a highly-publicized data breach. A recent IBM study shows that it takes an average of 191 days for organizations to identify a data breach, much less begin remediation. It is easy to imagine the amount of devastation that an unsavory actor could bring upon your sensitive business systems and data within that amount of time. Remediation would need to be triggered as soon as possible, and can take weeks or even months before your systems are back to a high level of security and stability. Each day that you’re losing productivity can cost thousands of dollars for small businesses and many times that amount for major hospitals. When you add in the cost of lost patients, notifications and any additional services that may need to be provided for those affected by a breach or data loss — the losses can run into the millions of dollars. Unfortunately, many healthcare organizations are not budgeting the necessary dollars for cybersecurity and data consolidation to protect against this type and scale of loss.
Security Challenges with IoT and Cloud Adoption
As robots and other IoT are introduced into the healthcare world, there are added layers of security that must be considered. Data that is stored in the cloud can be accessed by healthcare assistants, such as the relatively new TUG4 by Aethon. This “tugboat” of an assistant is strictly meant to move items from one location to another such as trays of food and laundry. However, in order to be successful, these robots need to be programmed with the layout of the hospital or clinic — meaning they will have access to where other items are stored within the building. This information is not only stored locally but can be accessed by mobile devices and other remote locations, which means it could potentially be attacked. This doesn’t mean that healthcare organizations should stop adopting these future technology solutions, simply that endpoint and cloud security should be included in the same conversation.
How Orange County IT Services Can Protect Healthcare Data
Creating a comprehensive data and endpoint security strategy allows your organization to be confident that your business is protected from the potential losses that can occur as the result of a cyberattack. Your Orange County IT services professionals at The Orange Crew have extensive experience working with healthcare organizations and can help navigate the various regulatory issues while providing secure solutions that can help protect your business. Active monitoring can help reduce the impact of any threats that work their way through the security net with immediate remediation activities.
Protecting your data and endpoints starts with a firm understanding of your technology strategies and rollout plan, The technical professionals at The Orange Crew will work closely with your technology and business teams to understand what you are trying to accomplish and the timeframe, as well as creating a strategy that will work within your budgeting plan. Contact us today at 888-670-5066 or fill out our quick online contact form to claim your complimentary initial consultation.
