Who’s to Blame for Ransomware Attacks?
Originally published on TechTarget. Alvaka’s COO and CISO—Kevin McDonald—discusses that, although cyber attackers are the main culprits for ransomware attacks, the companies that release flawed software and/or don’t install patches are not off the hook. In early May, hackers infiltrated [...]
How Intelligence Data Leaks Has Damaged Infosec
Originally published on June 19, 2017 on TechTarget. Alvaka’s COO and CISO, Kevin McDonald, examines the real-world damage caused by CIA and NSA data leaks, putting dangerous government cyberweapons in the hands of hackers. WikiLeaks' CIA data dump shook a [...]
The Importance of Third-Party Software Patching
And Why Executives Should Care... Threats to network security seem to get announced weekly. Global ransomware attacks like WannaCry cause havoc around the world and billions of dollars in losses. Businesses are actually shuttering due to network attacks that disable, [...]
DFARS 252.204-7012: Aerojet Rockets to a Courtroom Sting
I was stunned to learn that Aerojet, a division of Rocketdyne, set legal precedent three weeks ago in the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of California. The heart of the matter is an allegation that Aerojet made false [...]
Finding an MSP to Protect Yourself from Outsourcing IT Risks
Article originally posted on TechTarget. Alvaka's COO and CISO, Kevin McDonald, discusses the type of questions you should ask MSPs to ensure they have the correct security systems in place in order to protect your organization against outsourcing IT risks. [...]
Phishing for Your Destruction
A Timely Warning About Fake Communications and Persuasion Methods As many of us have experienced, there are people in the world who want to steal from us, our company or employer. In some cases, they want to pretend to be [...]
Smoke testing is a term used to describe the testing process for servers after patches are applied. 
Estimating an average time for patching servers and PCs can be a bit tricky. It can vary from one month to the next, depending upon the number and complexity of the patches released by your software vendors. You must consider all versions of operating systems and have a complete inventory of all your application software to do this job correctly. Our experience has shown that manual patching of systems takes on average of about 1.5 hours each.
This is a basic cost calculator for you to compute your typical monthly cost for patching your servers, PCs, laptops, tablets and associated application software. It also forms the basis for you to begin calculating your Return on Investment for software patching, or for comparison with alternatives to the manual process of patching operating systems and application software—such as Patch Management as a Service, also known as Vulnerability Management as a Service.
