Entries by Lawrence Strauss

Question Everything

January 31, 2024 in /by

A set of policies … would have identified, I believe, a pattern of activity here …

–Navy CTO Don Yeske

The US military is in the process of moving to a Zero Trust networking framework. But before they began that process in November, a Cape Cod-stationed National Guardsman leaked 350 classified documents over the course of between six and fourteen months before his detection and arrest. And Zero Trust – that enforces stringent policies or rules over permitted network activities – might have stopped the rogue airman sooner (he was serving as an IT admin without need to access those military secrets).

This type of breach is called an insider attack. Insider breaches make up 20% of all breaches. Zero Trust is useful to handle these and many of the other attacks that begin outside an organization’s network … [5 min. read]

Are we there yet?

January 31, 2024 in /by

There is no doubt that over time, people are going to rely less and less on passwords

–Bill Gates, 2004

A 2023 study found that 64% of people surveyed are not confident they are managing their passwords well. Most discouraging in the new survey was the report that of those born after 1990 only 20% use unique and strong passwords. These stats bring also a feeling of futility: ‘so many data exposures – what does it matter?’ ‘there is no privacy anymore – whatever.’

I don’t share the opinion that we should throw in the towel, though who can’t sympathize with the sentiment? But Bryley sees time and again that, in fact, compromised passwords matter to an organization’s security. As an example of the severity of the problem, Google Cloud reported in October that 54% of breaches “are resulting from common and well-known threat actor attack techniques, such as obtaining and using stolen credentials …” [4 min. read]

How an Email Compromise Attack Begins

January 18, 2024 in /by

Faced with the right con, we’re all vulnerable

–Tim Harford

On his Cautionary Tales podcast, Tim Harford told the story of an ex-con who put on an army captain’s uniform and an air of authority and proceeded to demand to inspect a military financial account and confiscate (that is, steal) the $250,000 it contained.

If your employee gets an email from an executive at your organization requesting urgent action, how does the employee respond? … [4 min. read]

A Review of 2023

January 17, 2024 in /by

Here are some notable events and stories from 2023:

A Guiding Principle

Bryley is a client of Bryley, President Garin Livingstone said in a 2023 interview. We have people at Bryley that need technical help. We also need to make sure that our computer systems are being maintained and updated. Among the benefits of adhering to this model?

  • Updates and patching are as minimally disruptive as we can get them.
  • New technologies are fully vetted before the tech is deployed

This principle of being one’s own client has been a standard that Bryley has observed over the course of its thirty-six years … [6 min. read]

Bryley Systems’ 9th MSP 501 Award

September 8, 2023 in /by

MSP 501 is an IT industry signifier that recognizes the MSP (managed service provider) industry’s highest operational efficiency and business models. The MSP 501 award is based on a sixty-point audit to verify the fitness and stability from which independent IT providers can serve their clients with dependable IT.

With its detailed questionnaire (over sixty areas of scrutiny) and the requirement to have financial results certified to the auditors, the MSP 501 award helps benchmark which MSPs are fit to earn their clients’ trust … [3 min. read]

A Few Minutes with Rylie, Field Technician

December 22, 2022 in /by

As researcher Sherry Turkle has observed, it’s in the awkward silent seconds that communication (which means, to have something in common between us) happens. We need those pauses in conversation to process what the other has said, to let the words and our thoughts about those words affect us, to consider a reply and then choose our words. These silences along with other non-verbal signals do the connective work when we speak to each other: you know you are talking to a real person.

Turkle’s work has been an inspiration to Field Technician Rylie. At the University of Rhode Island Rylie achieved a bachelor of science degree in Computer Science and became fascinated working in Python and C++ with Artificial Intelligence … [5 min. read]

Community Service Day

November 3, 2020 in /by

On October 23, 2020, Bryley volunteers (and sisters) Carol and Cathy joined the Corridor 9/495 Chamber of Commerce for their Annual Community Service Day on behalf of the Community Harvest Project [1 min. read]