The Evolution of Ransomware: How to Stay Protected
What is Ransomware? Ransomware is a tradename for potentially entity killing malware of a variety of classes. In general, the cybercriminals infect computers with malware that can spread and take over an organization’s entire computing environment, from desktops and [...]
The Hidden Truth About Ransomware
What you don't see The devastating aspect of ransomware is that the majority of firms discover that hackers have been present in their network after it’s too late. Also, many firms who fall victim to ransomware state that “no [...]
Is it Time for Ransomware Insurance?
Necessary cybersecurity habits such as software patching and vulnerability assessments/penetration tests should not be disregarded due to having cyber insurance. On a related note, Alvaka has recently acquired two clients who needed recovery from ransomware attacks, one client had roughly [...]
Cyber Security Needs Physical Safeguards as Bitcoin Heist in Iceland Reveals
My sister sent me a link to a story about a bitcoin heist in Iceland (of all places). Yes, that little tiny island country of 330,000 people on the edge of the arctic circle in the North Atlantic. It is [...]
Business Email Compromises are Now 23 Percent of Cyber Insurance Claims
If you have Mailworx from Alvaka, or a similar email spam filtering solution, then good for you. If you do internal education and phishing tests of your employees, then double-good! At Alvaka Networks, we have seen a number of business [...]
October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month
Today marks the first day of National Cybersecurity Awareness Month. I am pleased to see one of the themes for this year’s National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, is about doing security updates. Only by patching your software in a timely manner, [...]
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.
