I had a great intro all written out, and then plans changed so I now have no intro. It’s 3:42 on Friday afternoon and I know you’re waiting for this, so on to the party. Scroll on down to learn more about free AI, Shoeless Joe, bad air travel, and more. Enjoy!
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Free AI
As with most things, if it looks too good to be true, then it probably is. Hackers are now attracting users with the idea of free (or cheap) AI generated images. The user uploads their materials to a seemingly legit site and the AI solution creates whatever it is the user wants. Upon downloading the new material, the unwitting user also downloads malware to their device and possibly their network. Think before you click, research the solutions you’re using, and don’t share too much information.
Phishing
KnowBe4, the solution we provide for security awareness training, recently published the 2025 version of their Phishing Threat Trends Report. I downloaded and saved it to our website so you don’t have to provide email and phone info and then get sold. A few stats from the report; phishing emails increased 17% over the previous six month period, 58% of those were from compromised email accounts, and the most commonly used words were “urgent”, “review” and “sign”. Plenty of other interesting data, but in the end, it’s all a good reminder that email is the number one source data breaches and account compromises, and that your users are the first line of defense when it comes to network security.
Baseball
In case you missed it, Shoeless Joe Jackson and Pete Rose (among others) have been removed from Major League Baseball’s ineligible player list. That means that they are now eligible to be elected to the Hall of Fame. Curious as to your thoughts on this. While I don’t think that the steroid-era guys (McGwire, Sosa, etc.) should be allowed in because they cheated, I view Rose and Shoeless Joe in a different light. Jackson bet agreed to throw games in the 1919 World Series but played better than just about anybody on the field for either team. And Rose never bet against his team. They made bad decisions but I don’t see it as having had a direct effect on the game. Glad to see they have a chance to be where they belong in Cooperstown.
Air Travel
Having flown Frontier only once in my life, I’m not surprised to see that in every category, they rank dead last (worst) or close to it. But I think a lot of people know that going in and realize that you get what you pay for. The biggest surprise was the gap in rate of complaints per 100,000 passengers, which at 23.3 per was almost double the second worst (Spirit) at 12.8 per 100K. That’s a pretty significant difference!
Did You Know
Last week I mentioned that I often get to interact with businesses that many of us never knew existed (Dragon Seats), or at least the fact that they’re here in Cleveland. This week I came across two more. On Wednesday we sponsored an HR Summit for ERC, and the vendor at the table next to us was Harvest Owl. They’re a Cleveland company that delivers healthy meals to businesses on a weekly basis. Employers subsidize the meals and employees can order various items off the menu, which are then put into a Harvest Owl branded refrigerator in your office.
This morning, I met with John Kundtz of the Horses & Humans Research Foundation, also based here in Cleveland. HHRF studies the impact of horse/human interactions and the impact that those interactions have on the health and well-being of people and horses. Who knew?
Sonicwall
Sonicwall is a pretty big name in the industry when it comes to cybersecurity (in this case, firewalls and remote access). Big names don’t always mean best results, however. A new vulnerability with some of their remote access tools has just been announced, and as the article states, this adds to other Sonicwall vulnerabilities that were acknowledged in January, February, and April. Good on them that they made it through March unscathed. If you have a Sonicwall device, make sure your technology partner/provider/resource is keeping up to date on all of these issues and patching as frequently as possible.
Real Estate
Travis mentioned to Millican and I earlier in the week that he’d found the perfect property on which to open our east coast operations. That said, at $29.99M (because $30M just sounded too expensive), he’s putting a lot of pressure on me to sell more solutions. Regardless, I’m all for a commute to work via boat. If $30M is too rich for your blood, the house being marketed as “the one where Shaq lived for a year” is on the market in Richfield for a much more reasonable $2.75M. And while I couldn’t care less about the NBA, I seem to laugh every time I see Shaq. Most recently, he made an appearance on NHL playoff coverage as “Shaq Hyman” (not to be confused with Edmonton’s Zack Hyman). Volume up to get the full effect of his “skating”.
Nancy's Nuggets
Nancy tells me that I’m keeping her too busy for her to provide any nuggets. And she readily admitted that those she sent when I questioned her this afternoon weren’t very good. Hopefully she’ll have something for us in the near future.
That’s all for this week. Looks like we might have some nice weather this weekend and I’m going to try and get on the golf course for the first time this year. Here’s hoping you have something good in the plans.
Abbey