James Slaby

James Slaby

Latest stories from James Slaby

July 25, 2019 — 3 min read

Acronis

July 25, 2019 — 3 min read

When Tech Conferences Are Worth The Time and Expense: How To Build The Case To Go

If you work in an IT operations, cybersecurity or tech leadership role, you probably receive several tempting invitations to industry events and conferences every month. They are usually held in comfortable venues with balmy weather and lots of nearby attractions to entertain family members you might bring along. Your hosts will probably serve up some good food, drink, and entertainment ... but in a working world where there already aren’t enough hours in a week, how can you justify time away at an event in Vegas or Orlando or some other sunny clime? Before you ask your boss to pony up precious T&E budget to fund your trip, you should build a business case to justify your attendance – one that lays out the company’s return on the investment of your time.

July 10, 2019 — 3 min read

Acronis

July 10, 2019 — 3 min read

British Airways Hit with GDPR Fine, Shows the Cost of Not Protecting Customer Data

The kaboom you heard earlier this week was the United Kingdom’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) laying the hammer on British Airways in the form of a ₤183.39 M ($230M) fine for its failure to prevent a 2018 data breach that disclosed sensitive data on over half a million BA customers. It’s exactly the kind of disaster that BA could have avoided had it heeded our advice early last year: “Get moving fast to improve cyber protection and privacy for your customers’ sensitive data. It won’t be long before national regulatory agencies start levying massive fines on well-known companies that fail to do so.

June 14, 2019 — 4 min read

Acronis

June 14, 2019 — 4 min read

Ransomware Crushes Another Manufacturing Industry Target

Another of the world’s major manufacturers was laid low recently by a ransomware attack. Production at ASCO, the giant Belgian airplane parts maker, has been halted for over a week with no end in sight. Nearly 1,000 employees have been sent home on paid leave while the company struggles to restore critical systems frozen by the malware assault. Unfortunately, the fate of ASCO has been shared by many organizations that are ill-prepared to combat the world’s deadliest malware threat. The incident reflects a number of major trends in the ongoing struggle between cybercriminals and their targets in the public and private sector.

May 20, 2019 — 4 min read

Acronis

May 20, 2019 — 4 min read

RobbinHood: The New Ransomware Variant Crippling Municipal Governments in the U.S.

Ransomware continues its reign as one of the most pervasive malware threats to assail businesses, government institutions and consumers in 2019, with new variants appearing almost daily. One particularly nasty new strain of ransomware, dubbed RobbinHood, recently locked up critical IT systems and brought down corresponding public services in two North American cities: Greenville, NC and Baltimore, MD.

May 13, 2019 — 2 min read

Acronis

May 13, 2019 — 2 min read

Former FBI Counter-Intelligence Superstar Eric O’Neill to Dive Deep on Why Ransomware Continues to Be the #1 Cybercrime

You don’t have to be a tech pro to be aware of how pervasive and destructive criminal cyberattacks on consumers, businesses and public institutions have become these days – with ransomware being first among them. In fact, the latest annual edition of Verizon’s Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) reports that ransomware incursions accounted for 75% of the malware-driven security incidents of the past 12 months. The aggressive and lucrative use of ransomware as a favored cybercrime weapon has long been the focus of Eric O’Neill, the renowned former FBI counter-intelligence and author of the recently-published "Gray Day: My Undercover Mission to Expose America’s First Cyberspy", which recounts his role in unmasking and imprisoning notorious FBI mole Robert Hannsen (which was also told in 2007's "Breach"). A sought-after consultant on cybersecurity issues, O’Neill has been announced a featured speaker at the first annual Acronis Global Cyber Summit in October ... and he’s ready to dive deep.

April 04, 2019 — 4 min read

Acronis

April 04, 2019 — 4 min read

To Defend Infrastructure, Focus First on Obvious Vulnerabilities

In 1966, Robert F. Kennedy delivered a speech that cited an ancient Chinese curse: “May [you] live in interesting times.” He continued, “Like it or not, we live in interesting times. They are times of danger and uncertainty, but they are also the most creative of any time in the history of mankind.” That measured perspective, simultaneously seeing the glass as half-empty and half-full, is a useful one to adopt when considering infrastructure vulnerabilities in 2019.

March 08, 2019 — 3 min read

Acronis

March 08, 2019 — 3 min read

Don’t Laugh, But Facebook Now Says It Wants to Protect Your Privacy (Honest)

https://www.acronis.com/en-us/cyber-protection/ Did you hear the one about the company that notoriously abused its customers’ private data for years, then suddenly started claiming that it’s all about privacy? It’s no joke, and far from a laughing matter for consumer privacy advocates. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently announced that his company would begin encrypting private messages on its soon-to-be-consolidated three messaging platforms: Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Zuckerberg went further, positioning the move as symbolic of Facebook’s new commitment to protecting user privacy. If you’ve been following the news for the past year, you can be forgiven for rolling your eyes.

February 13, 2019 — 4 min read

Acronis

February 13, 2019 — 4 min read

Avoiding Cyber Mayhem: Hard Lessons from the Catastrophic Attack on VFEmail.com

Imagine yourself as a service provider who wakes up one day, pours a cup of coffee, and checks email, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – only to discover a flurry of panicky messages from customers about your service being unavailable. You rush to your management console to find that nothing is working; your entire operating environment is an unresponsive black hole.

January 04, 2019 — 4 min read

Acronis

January 04, 2019 — 4 min read

Good News! Fighting Malware in 2019 Will Be Much Easier (Just Kidding ... It Gets Way Harder)

Looking back at 2018, the fight against malware showed glimmers of promise, as new technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) were successfully deployed in some quarters to fight high-priority threats like ransomware. The outlook for 2019 is less rosy, though, as malicious state actors and cybercriminals prepare for battle with a new array of tools and techniques designed to create mayhem and reap profits at the expense of everyone else. Buckle up, IT security pros: the following trends indicate the anti-malware ride in 2019 is going to be a bumpy one.

December 07, 2018 — 3 min read

Acronis

December 07, 2018 — 3 min read

Sobering Lessons from the KraussMaffei Ransomware Attack

The recent cyberattack on KraussMaffei, a German manufacturer of molding machinery for plastics and rubber, provides another reminder of the growth, persistence and destructiveness of ransomware. For those unfamiliar with it, ransomware is a type of malware that targets and infects servers, workstations and mobile devices, encrypts all the data it finds, and then presents a note demanding an online payment for the key necessary to unlock the files.

November 28, 2018 — 4 min read

Acronis

November 28, 2018 — 4 min read

Cryptojacking: The Petty Cyber Crime Hiding a Deadly Threat

One of the fastest-growing malware threats of the past 18 months affects half of the businesses in the world, and most of them don’t know it. It’s called cryptojacking, an unintended consequence of the booming popularity of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Most victims don’t notice that they’ve been hit by cryptojacking because its adverse effects are relatively inconsequential: it just steals CPU cycles from your computer, as well as the electricity required to power it. Getting hit by ransomware -- a similarly-pervasive and fast-growing but much more destructive malware threat -- is like a roundhouse punch to the face: your files get locked up with encryption until you pay some distant criminal hundreds or thousands of dollars for the key. Compared to ransomware, cryptojacking seems more like a mosquito bite: an annoyance, not a grave threat. But the harsh reality is that like disease-carrying insects, some cryptojackers bring lethal friends along with them.

June 27, 2018 — 4 min read

Acronis

June 27, 2018 — 4 min read

Summer Reading List: 'The President is Missing'

IT security professionals often cringe in amusement when cybercrime-themed novels appear on bestseller lists, like “The President is Missing” by former US President Bill Clinton and fiction author James Patterson. Its plot centers on a “devastating stealth wiper virus” called Dark Ages, likely a nod to recent real-world ransomware outbreaks. But this is entertainment, not a serious work of scholarship. If you are worrying about a cyberattack that can only be stopped by a superhero, you hopefully are reclined and sipping a piña colada, not thinking about actual IT security strategy.