In one breath, Nancy tells me that I shouldn’t admit herein that I’m out of the office again (this time for her brother’s 70th birthday party in North Carolina), and in the next, she’s giving me grief for sitting in the hotel room and working at 11PM on Thursday night. She decided that it’d be fun to spend a night at the Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, WV. My parents were here years ago, but I’d never been. She coerced me by telling me that we could drive a Jeep up, down, over, in, and around the mountains and streams of West Virginia for two hours, and I was hooked. My pics won’t do it justice, but this video from a branding professional hit my LinkedIn feed a few weeks before we came down. If you’ve never been here, it’s a pretty amazing place.
In the meantime, scroll down for nude pics, security training, hockey names, and more. Enjoy!
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Return to Office
Back in February, Dell offered their employees an option regarding working from home; if they chose to be fully remote, they’d not be considered for raises or promotions. Now, they’ve decided that the sales force be in the office or with clients/partners five days a week. But they only gave two business days’ notice. The expectation here at Ashton is three days/week in the office, and many people are here four and five days. But for those with long drives or young kids, the option to save gas, time, and money is huge. I’m all for getting people back to the office, but I’m not sure Dell’s way of doing it is the right way.
Nude Photos
Testing to see whether that title got your attention… If you’re thinking of using AI to generate naked photos of your friends, enemies, or boss, you might think twice before clicking. A Russian hacking group is using the lure of turning any photo into a deepfake nude to install malware on users’ devices. Maybe you’d be better off just using PhotoShop…
Autofill
Have you ever used autofill in a web browser to fill out your name and address? Or maybe your credit card details or password? According to our friend Anton at TechLinq in New Jersey, autofill can be a bad thing when it comes to keeping your info secure from hackers. He suggests turning off the autofill option, and provides reasons as to why.
Security Training
According to this article, security training is more interesting and more productive if it’s humorous. Makes sense if you think about it… who wants to be bored to tears when learning about something less than exciting? But add a little humor, and you’ll have users paying more attention. Humor is part of the reason that we’ve recently partnered with KnowBe4 to offer security training to all of of clients’ end users. KnowBe4 has pertinent information presented in a light hearted way that leads to big increases in engagement. Let us know if you’d like to learn more.
Security Updates
Microsoft just released their security updates for the month of October; 117 in total. Adobe has a handful of updates as well, for some of their less commonly used (at least with our clients) software solutions. Your IT resource should be handling all of these security patches for you, but if they’re not, you’re at greater risk of being hacked.
"Don't Buy Anything!"
It seems like kids today just aren’t watching the right movies and tv shows. If they were, they’d know from Good Fellas (too much inappropriate language so I’ll let you search the clip on YouTube, yourself) not to buy anything after they’ve just completed a big heist! A 19 year old in Connecticut is in some hot water after helping steal $243M worth of crypto currency… and his parents were driving a brand new Lamborghini.
Nancy's Nuggets
Nancy spent many years as a hockey mom, so this one about coming up with team names for the Professional Women’s Hockey League probably jumped right out at her. Personally, Montreal and Toronto aren’t too bad, but Ottawa looks quite a bit like the Calgary Flames logo. And the rest don’t do much for me.
Nancy also sent me a piece about how Taiwanese hospitals (doctors, pharmacists, nurses, etc.) are using AI to reduce workload and see more patients… Pretty interesting stuff.
That’s all for this week. For those of you who are curious, I got skunked in my attempts for a trout or two last weekend. They were rising to flies on Saturday evening, but I couldn’t get anything to take. No worries, though… always happy to be on the water (and for any Penn State football fans out there- Happy Valley is a great place to see a game, but your team needs some serious improvement).
By the time you’re reading this, we’ll be in Raleigh, NC for the big birthday party. Hope my bro-in-law doesn’t mind, but I’ll be glued to the tv for the Buckeyes and Indians on Saturday night.
Finally, a couple of reminders; if you haven’t started celebrating cybersecurity awareness month, it’s not too late. Make sure to follow us on social (links below) for tips and hints. Additionally, don’t forget to white list me so I don’t end up in your spam folder!
Have a great weekend.
P.S. I had to unschedule this edition so I could add a piece that Travis sent me at the last minute. He thinks Sriracha is hot (it’s basically spicy ketchup), and evidently, so does the guy that ate two pounds of it in three minutes. Anybody who knows me knows that this is not the least bit impressive, as far as I’m concerned.