Thoughts From My Inbox
March 12th, 2021

Something About…

I don’t have any real estate for you this week, but rather art, thanks to Christie’s. A work of art created by Beeple (Mike Winkelmann) sold yesterday for $69.3 million. And it’s not on canvas or carved from marble. It’s digital. Which means that it’s considered a non-fungible token.  Call me old-fashioned, but I’d rather have a Monet on my wall or Rodin in the front yard!  Maybe even something by Banksy.

Think of all the different websites on which you’ve had to create a username/password.  Now, consider those that have gone out of business, meaning that the domain name has expired. There are plenty of websites that just go out of business, leaving cyber criminals to do with them (and their data) as they see fit.

Senior level employees are viewed as a great phishing target because they have more access to more data and more finances.  And, they’re often faced with more emails in their inboxes… which means a higher likelihood that they might not give everything their undivided attention.  It seems that there is a new attack targeting executives with an email and attached voicemail message. Upon clicking the attachment, the user is taken to a fake Google ReCAPTCHA screen.  When login credentials are entered here, it’s too late.

Came across a great article from the Content Marketing Institute (based here in CLE, if you haven’t heard of them) regarding the fact that B2B marketing content doesn’t have to be boring. The key is to have content that is relevant, but also interesting. Just because somebody downloaded your whitepaper doesn’t mean they actually read it!  Maybe I should borrow from the article on our next whitepaper and talk about that time “our carefully laid plans suddenly changed, and one of our engineers was installing a wireless access point while hanging upside down out of a brothel window in Marrakesh.”

Shameless plug… this article appeared in my inbox this week.  I remember having the conversation (I wouldn’t really call it an ‘interview’), but had no clue that anything had ever been published.  Then some random sales person emailed me this week, mentioning the article.  I actually had to Google it to find it.  Anyhow, Ashton made the MSP501 list for 2020, ranking the top managed services providers, globally (We were #414).  And I guess that gave us the opportunity to talk about ourselves a little bit.

Yes- this video about macaques and their pirate-like ways did actually appear in my inbox this week.

If you’ve read any of my recent weekly publications, you’ve probably figured that I’m a skier. I tried snowboarding once, and like wakeboarding, decided that I didn’t like my feet being dependent on one another.  That said, I find snowboarding pretty cool to watch, especially considering some of the venues.  News came my way this week about a new off-piste series of events called Natural Selection.  Of course, one click led to another, and I suddenly realized that one of the three venues (Baldface Lodge, in British Columbia) is owned by a former grade school classmate of mine (Jeff Pensiero). Anyhow, the footage and scenery is incredible… and you can take a look at highlights from the first stop (Jackson Hole), right here.

Hackers used to hack for the fun of it- just to prove they could break into something.  Now, it’s most often a for-profit opportunity.  Unless, that is, you find that you can hack into a security camera company and suddenly have live access to 150,000 feeds. 

Best,
Jim