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Thoughts From Abbott’s Inbox September 17th, 2021

Thoughts From My Inbox

September 17th, 2021

Expensive Houses, Online Romance, and Fast Bicycles

It’s Friday afternoon and it’s looking like a great weekend.  I’m planning on catching two football games in person (first since December of 2019) and a concert (first since January 2020).  We spent yesterday shooting sporting clays with clients at an event benefitting the Boy Scouts, Wednesday evening with clients, prospects and friends, and I just finished cooking lunch on the grill for the crew here at Ashton. Can’t ask for more than that, other than maybe some fishing or golf.  Enjoy this week’s thoughts, and make sure to check those couch cushions, as you’re going to want to buy the house shown below.

 

Something About…

 

Cybersecurity Awareness Month

October is cybersecurity awareness month (Wednesday was National Double Cheeseburger Day and tomorrow is National Cheeseburger Day) so you can bet you’ll be hearing more from us on that topic.  Your users are your first line of defense, and KnowBe4 is offering a complimentary Cyber Awareness Month kit to help make sure those users are up to speed.

 

A Real Life Ted Lasso

A couple of weeks back, I posted an article about the AppleTV show Ted Lasso.  It turns out there’s a real version of Ted Lasso; American born soccer coach Jesse Marsch is coaching at the highest level of European soccer, and while he knows the game, he brings some Lasso-esque philosophies to his Leipzig team.

 

 

 

Real Estate

The most expensive house in The U.S. is on the market, and can be yours for $350 million.  It’s referred to as “The One” and has 105,000 square feet, including a 50 seat theater.  If you buy it, each of your fifty guests will be able to park their cars in the 50 space underground parking garage.  I’d suggest you make sure there aren’t any liens on it, however.  

 

 

 

 

Apple Security

 There’s a new exploit on the market, targeting Apple devices, called ForcedEntry.  It’s big enough that I happened to catch it on the local news the other night.  Of course they talked about the fact that iMessage seems to be one of the primary points of entry, but they didn’t bother to explain how to avoid getting hit, or what to look for and avoid.  But that’s because the news reporters don’t dig for anything, they just regurgitate.  Anyhow, here’s a very technical piece about the threat, and a slightly less technical piece (because the technical is always way over my head).

 

 

Cybersecurity Summits

 The fourth annual National Cybersecurity Summit is being held in October, which, if you read the piece above, happens to be National Cybersecurity Awareness Month.  The agenda is not yet available, but this virtual summit will have events on Wednesdays throughout the month.  They’re free, and open to all.

 

Mergers and Acquisitions

 We do a fair amount of work in the area of IT due diligence as it relates to the M&A process.  A private equity firm looking to acquire will hire the Ashton team to provide an audit of network, systems, hardware, compliance, security, and even the IT team (whether in-house or outsourced), with the goal being to determine how much more money they might need to spend, once the acquisition is complete.  Turns out the target’s cybersecurity is non-existent and the IT guy is clueless?  Maybe they’ll rethink the acquisition.  We’ve been swamped with these projects over the past few months, and I’m told that business owners who have been considering selling are now panicking to do so, before a threatened hike in the capital gains tax. Our PE friends are frantically trying to get multiple deals done, and our team is having fun digging into networks from New Hampshire to Traverse City, San Jose, and many in between.

 
Online Romance

 Are you a big fan of dating apps and websites?  Make sure you don’t share your social security number or bank account info with anybody you might meet online.  Seems like common sense if you ask me, but I guess that’s gone out the door, too.  Americans lost $113 million to online romance scams through July of this year. That’s on top of $475M in 2019 and $600M in 2020.

 

184 MPH on a Bicycle

 I didn’t have a chance to watch the full 20 minute video, but three years ago yesterday (9.16.18) a woman rode 184MPH on a bicycle.  Wow!
We had a great turnout at our Ashton Happy Hour this past Wednesday evening at Masthead Brewery.  Plans are in the works for October, and we’re thinking we’ll head to the west side of town.  While I’ve always thought of shuffleboard as something I played with my grandparents when I was a kid and they wintered in Florida, our marketing associate Cat (at the age of 23) thinks it’s a kids game. She plays in a league every week, and while she then heads home for a glass of Metamucil and 8PM bedtime, I think our next event might include shuffleboard.  Keep your eyes open for details, but plan on it being Oct 14th or 15th.

 

Have a great weekend, and Go Bucks (and Browns)!

 

Jim

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