It Navigator

01/22/2021

Unfortunate setback for regional broadband.

https://www.recorder.ca/news/federal-fund-wont-bankroll-regional-broadband

01/05/2021

So we have had or are having a Cogeco outage this morning and I have seen some pretty negative things posted on line about it. I haven’t seen anything on the FB feeds which is good.

I know during the pandemic we have come to rely on internet more than we ever have before. However, as an IT professional, this is what I want you to consider before complaining.

Somewhere there are a group of people pulling their hair out because thousands of customers are down. Believe me, they know the gravity of the situation.

Somewhere there may be a person sitting in a Bell Canada tent in winter in the rain splicing a cable back together because someone didn’t call before they dug. I witnessed this one personally.

Somewhere there is an HVAC technician on a roof in -40 windchill replacing a belt on an AC unit so it can run because the server room over heated because of it.

Somewhere there is a group of people in a server room trying to figure out why the fail over didn’t fail over at 3:00 in the morning.

Somewhere there is a mechanic frantically trying to get the generator going before the UPS’s die because for some reason it didn’t start.

And somewhere there is a Hydro crew trying to restore power as fast as they can.

I guess the message is that IT people hate outages more than you can ever imagine and believe me they are doing their best to resolve it. So, for a couple of hours, grab a coffee, read a book, call someone and it will be up and running as soon as humanly possible.

12/18/2020

https://apple.news/AxnyIEOmwQJiRtkucKK3NvA

Microsoft has identified more than 40 of its customers around the world that had problematic versions of a third-party IT management program installed and that were specifically targeted by the suspected Russian hacking campaign disclosed this week, the company said in a blog post Thursday.

12/17/2020

11/19/2020

One of the things I find that gets overlooked is the security posture of smaller organizations and Municipalities. This article is a good read and reminds us that we must ensure that ICS (Industrial Control Systems) have to be as secure as we can make them.

Canada's top cybersecurity agency has named China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea's state-sponsored cyber activity as posing the "greatest strategic threats" to Canada's critical infrastructure, intellectual property, and political events like elections.

11/05/2020

Good news.

The plan for a game-changing upgrade in internet service for eastern Ontario is ready, proponents say, and a new investment by the province may start the ball rolling.Premier Doug Ford, joined by c…

11/02/2020

Scammers are luring people into Google Docs in an attempt to get them to visit potentially malicious websites.

08/26/2020