Author: John McDermott

Business Email Compromise or BEC is not a new cybersecurity attack vector, but it is gaining more attention as it is becoming more common. The basic idea is that a scammer or con-artist uses deception to pretend to be a high-level official of an organization in order to compromise that organization or to otherwise profit. […]

Security of wireless networks has always been essential. This January the Wi-Fi Alliance® announced a new version of its Wi-Fi Protected Access® or WPA designed to improve the security of 802.11 wireless networks. The four improvements directly address authentication and confidentiality of the networks. Since most of us have Wi-Fi networks in our homes, offices, […]

Certification and credentialization are requisite parts of today’s business landscape. The field of Information Technology is no exception. Learning Tree offers a broad range of IT certifications for employees with varying skill levels. I received my first IT certification in 1985 from The Institute for the Certification of Computing Professionals, now known as the ICCP. […]

What does cyber security mean to you? Anti-virus software? Annoying firewalls? Lots of silly rules from the IT department? If that rings true, you may lack cyber security awareness. Before I try to define “cyber security awareness,” I need to admit that it is a bit of a misnomer. Can you imagine talking about “disaster […]

I started teaching technical courses over thirty years ago. At that time, I’d taught similar topics in a university setting and I enjoyed it then as I do now. But I was frustrated by one item on the course evaluations: “Contribution of personal experience.” The scores on that metric didn’t seem to reflect what I […]