Monthly Archives: February 2012

It’s amazing how naturally paranoid we’re all expected to be now…

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Yet another email that went out at my office that included advice like:

  • Don’t use wireless networks in hotels, kiosks, airports, or at conferences. 
  • Do not insert any free disk or thumb drive in your laptop.
  • When speaking on your mobile phone, do not use the speaker phone in public areas.
  • Lock your mobile phone when it’s not in use.
  • Do not leave your business card or leave information on a sign-up sheet that is unattended.

Info about Smartphone Security Threats: What You Don’t Know CAN Hurt You

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Following information is an excerpt from a work newsletter I received today:

Be Vigilant Against Security Threats and Attacks When Using Smartphones

Smartphones are among the easiest ways for a hacker to gain access to our corporate network, because most smartphones lack robust, secure operating systems and are difficult to protect. Security breaches through mobile devices occur because users unknowingly expose their smartphone to risks and vulnerabilities through common, everyday actions.

Common threats to smartphones include:

  • Wi-Fi—Hackers using the network you are using can access your device in less than 5 minutes, downloading your data, e-mail, contacts, and all unencrypted files. As a best practice, turn off your phone’s Wi-Fi option unless you are at work or at home.
  • Bluetooth—When using your Bluetooth headset, others can easily listen to phone conversations and download your data, unless you are using an encrypted Bluetooth headset. As a best practice, turn off Bluetooth and use a wired headset.
  • Social Media Sites—Advanced and persistent hackers use social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) to collect data about you and your network of friends and colleagues. This information can be used to create targeted and malicious e-mails. As a best practice, be vigilant when visiting and participating on social networking sites.
  • Short Message Service (SMS)—Text messages have increasingly become a vehicle for malware, which can be deployed to your phone and provide hackers with full remote control of your device. As a best practice, use security software that blocks this type of malware.

Error of the Day: Operating system error code 3 (The system cannot find the path specified.))

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A client was getting this error. Thank goodness for google.

Found the answer in no time flat:

“The file path is relative to the server, not your PC.  Also, if you are trying to use a share or a mapped drive it will not work.  You need to use the UNC path.”

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en/transactsql/thread/c3ba4af7-bbb4-4…

The client just needed to type in the server name and shared drive name instead of the mapped drive letter on their local machine. Voila. Magic. Error all gone.

Consulting Conversations

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Unnamed Consultant #1:

OMG, I quit. I’ll be your babysitter instead. 

You can pay me what you pay for daycare as long as I don’t have to write any deliverables, and as long as you don’t ask me to cook you steak for dinner, then come home and tell me you actually wanted salmon.

Or possibly chicken. 

You’re not really sure… 

So just make all 3.

But still have it done by 5.

And while you’re at it, write a recipe book for all the ways you can cook all 3. 

And i want those tomorrow.

But before you do that, I want a briefing on HOW you’re going to write those documents.
You can have some extra time to work on that…  You don’t have to have it to me til midnight.

But i won’t read any of the documents til March.

And then i’ll tell you they’re great, but next time you serve me salmon, I’ll say I want it a different way and your documents need to be changed.