Hoyt Niva

08/30/2019

hoytNIVA is pleased to announce the addition of IBM Services to our lineup of tier-1 services. As a premier national partner in Cyber-Security, hoytNIVA is investing in the future of cyber-risk and security with a premier platform.

http://www.ibm.com/security

10/01/2018

Midwest Family Office Hacked with Ransomware, Northwestern PhD/MIT Seminar -

04/02/2018

We asked our corporate CPA years ago what they had in place to protect our data. They said, "you're protected, we're solid". Speaking between business owners we decided to barter our services. They take care of our taxes and advise us, we will do the same for protecting their data and eventually their clients. Yes, they're protected and solid, "after" we came in. Most CPA firms have very, very limited budgets to protect their data and most importantly, "believe" that have done enough. 83% of the time, they're wrong.

Tax scams attacking tax professionals on the upswing. IRS is warning of phishing emails where a "new client" emails a tax pro about a tax issue.

03/12/2018

Time to replace certain "working" routers...a must whether you're using the cloud or not.

Regardless if you have servers at work, connecting to the cloud at work or working from home, you're more than likely going through some type of router. We're spending a great deal of time at clients doing very basic work, such as verifying that a server, router, desktop or laptop is not vulnerable at the hardware-level, not just a software patch.

Yet another scary example of router exploits has been uncovered. Read more about it here.

http://www.alphr.com/security/1008775/slingshot-router-malware

03/07/2018

Change your security questions, frequently, not just your passwords...

Yes, changing your passwords is important and do this often but in light of growing number of hacks, your security questions are your biggest concern as most people have the same ones for most if not all of their sites. Once a hacker or a bot (program) has those questions and most likely the answers you're basically a huge regardless of what your change your password to.

Our best practice is to always use "custom" questions if that's an option vs. "what's your mother's maiden name" or their choices. This simple technique works for your personal and business logins in many instances.

03/05/2018

Yes, you need to check if your computer can be exploited because Intel engineers failed to test their chips properly in the past. Will your PC/laptop run slower once your machine is patched? Probably, but your information can stay safe.

Intel faces 32 lawsuits filed over the trio of flaws in its CPUs known as Meltdown and Spectre, seeking damages for the security vulnerabilities as well as alleged

03/05/2018

Equifax hack worse than reported...individuals are affected but people are often the largest exposure for a business since they do not follow policy on proper usage (aka...they do not follow the rules). Small and mid-sized businesses are next.

Equifax has identified 2.4 million U.S. consumers whose names and snippets of their driver's license numbers were stolen, adding to one of the worst breaches in

10/24/2017

Equifax hack is much worse for business than it is for individuals.

10/15/2017

hoytNIVA Defender launched in U.S. assessing risk of technology, human capital and policy utilizing machine learning.

hoytNIVA Defender
Our core competency at hoytNIVA is our technical assessment of software, hardware and those who use the technologies. Anyone...