Silicon Prairie Cyber Services' Blog

 They say being a Jane of all Trades is a bad thing, but I have to disagree. This phrase is typically used to describe someone competent in a wide range of skills but not an expert in any one. When used positively, it describes a versatile and adaptable person. When used negatively, it describes a person who isn’t much good at anything.   If I weren’t a Jane of all Trades, I never would have discovered vital evidence in a terrorism case in the FBI. The problem was that the forensic software didn’t recognize hundreds of files and didn’t have file extensions. What could they be? Checking for encryption and steganography and finding none, I had to continue investigating. Due to the size, I wondered if they could be pictures or videos in a new format. Thanks to my photo and video editing hobby, I began tinkering, got the files to open, and discovered many videos containing key evidence. If I didn’t know the different ways to manipulate photos and videos, I might never have vie...

  Three reasons people are like operating systems: People and operating systems both: Process Information Store Information Transfer Information Three reasons people are not like operating systems: Technology is predictable and always acts the same. People are not predictable, and their behavior can surprise you. People are adaptable. With that in mind, would you pick a person or an operating system as your last line of defense against a cyber attack? I would pick the human every time! It's adaptability for the win! You see, technology has to be programmed and told what to do, and even machine learning can only take you so far today. If that threat or phishing email is new or slightly different than what you're expecting, your tech might miss it. However, when you give people the proper training, they can figure out that something is phishy even if it's not the same as what you showed them in training. Humans are used to adapting because our world is constantly changing....