Kevin Williams

All posts by Kevin Williams

Kevin Williams is a journalist based in Ohio. Williams has written for a variety of publications including the Washington Post, New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, National Geographic and others. He first wrote about the online world in its nascent stages for the now defunct “Online Access” Magazine in the mid-90s.

Ask an MSP Expert: How can MSPs strengthen their clients’ defenses from cryptominers?

Ask an MSP Expert: How can MSPs strengthen their clients’ defenses from cryptominers?

Q: I have some customers with fairly large networks, and one of them is a business college. It seems like all those latent CPUs would be an attractive target for cryptominers. We’ve been taking steps to protect them, but I’m...

/ December 17, 2018
Five MSP security predictions for 2019

Five MSP security predictions for 2019

The champagne hasn’t been purchased, the noisemakers are still in storage, and the ball in Times Square hasn’t fallen to usher in 2019 yet. The ball is operated and dropped using a computer network, one that we hope is well...

/ December 12, 2018
8 MSP security trends that emerged in 2018

8 MSP security trends that emerged in 2018

For MSPs, 2018 was anything but a dull year. Change is constant in the world of cybersecurity and the year delivered on that truism in spades. Before 2018 slips into the rearview mirror, let’s look back at some of the...

/ December 5, 2018
Traditional Trojans meet cryptos

Traditional Trojans meet cryptos

Students at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia were caught off guard recently as they logged online to check their grades and work on projects as they headed towards semester finals. To their surprise, the school’s network was shut-down...

/ November 29, 2018
MSPs warned that they are becoming targets

MSPs warned that they are becoming targets

MSPs are accustomed to safeguarding systems from breaches and attack. But in a recent brief, the Department of Homeland Security’s Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) warned that MSPs themselves have been targeted and will continue to be targeted by bad actors....

/ November 21, 2018
Gone phishing

Gone phishing

When you have ransomware, cryptocurrency miners, and polymorphic malware to battle, it’s easy to put phishing education on the back burner. In fact, a new study shows that 95 percent of IT professionals underestimate its impact and fail to adjust...

/ November 14, 2018
Blockchain to the rescue for IoT?

Blockchain to the rescue for IoT?

The Internet of Things (IoT) is exploding, emerging in fields and industries that even a year ago would have seemed unlikely. From an MSP perspective, the increased presence of IoT devices means there are numerous new attack surfaces to defend....

/ November 7, 2018
Ask an MSP Expert: How can we better protect SMBs who use IoT devices?

Ask an MSP Expert: How can we better protect SMBs who use IoT devices?

Q: IoT devices have added more attack surfaces to protect and hardware to maintain, which is why we’re trying to adjust our business plans and pricing models accordingly. What are some businesses that will be transformed by IoT and what...

/ November 5, 2018
A matter of life and death

A matter of life and death

We recently looked at medical device security and how MSPs can work in the market.  As the IoT grows to include more and more of peoples’ daily lives, it is becoming more important to place some focus on this topic....

/ October 31, 2018
The era of the cloud mafia?

The era of the cloud mafia?

As a third-generation Italian-American growing up in the Midwest, I was used to hearing about the feared Mafia, either in the stories of older relatives or in the misguided attempts at humor by school kids.

/ October 24, 2018