 Welcome to JSA TV and JSA podcast the newsroom for telecom and data center professionals. I'm Laura Noland at JSA Joining me today is Aaron reason director of network security at consolidated communications Aaron. Welcome to JSA TV Laura, thanks for having me As one of the top fiber providers in the US could you tell us more about consolidated and then your role at the company? Sure, so consolidated communications is a leading broadband and business communications provider We serve as customers business and wireless wire line carriers across rural and metro communities in Roughly 23 state areas and my role at the company is director of network security, and I have kind of a unique I guess role where I get to provide Cyber security for our business and then also for our customer side Oh Well, can you talk about the latest trends that you're seeing in cyber security over the past few months with so many more of us? online throughout the day because of COVID so what are you seeing? right. Yeah, so It's probably a broken record to many that are hearing this but there's been a massive uptick in ransomware attacks and Not only has just the quality gone up but You know really the intensity of what they're doing has gone up as well So, you know years ago ransomware attack would be something that would make the news because it would disrupt the business But it's really moved into a different model of extortion And so not only could it disrupt your business, but then you know for years down the path It could disrupt your branding Because they like to extort data and hold it over there their victims So it's gotten really ruthless lately. So Well knowing those risks, what are your top three cyber security tips for the average everyday internet user? Yeah, you know, that's that's one of the neat things about cyber security It really seems cyber security, you know, it seems like something you need to be an expert at which it, you know It doesn't hurt But really, you know, the bigger the company is the harder it is and the smaller the company is or even down to an individual the easier it can be and It's funny because you know, there's a million different companies out there that will try and sell you cyber security solutions and a lot of them are really good But really some simple things can can do quite a bit. They say cyber security Should be done in layers. And so you can tackle a few of those and provide yourself a lot of security The first one being password management. So first of all, you'll want a good password You know one that's not easily guessable or one of the top 100 passwords that you know is kind of known each year And then, you know, if you can manage to have a different password for every site, that's incredibly helpful I personally use a password manager service that I pay a couple of dollars a month for but the one in your browser or your phone also works really well, too Another thing is updates. I know it sounds so simple But a lot of the times when you get a phishing email and there's you know, there's a maybe a strange file attached to it Updates can stop those from taking advantage of unpatched equipment and vulnerabilities And the last one I kind of alluded to it. There's phishing You know, even if you don't update you if you don't have a good password manager If you don't fall for it, then it can't get you. So being kind of wise about What you're seeing in the email and what you're gonna click or what you're gonna link You're gonna follow or a file that you're gonna open that could prevent any of it from happening in the beginning. So Excellent tips. I'm definitely jotting those down for sure very very a great strategy to stay protected online for sure So I know that the consolidated team is working very hard behind the scenes to boost network security for customers So they're protected even more. So what is the consolidated team doing? Sure. Yeah, so every year we like to we do a couple things We have several different security exercises to test not just my team But the business right cyber security really is everybody's job every employees job every member of every team needs to participate. So You know each year we do some cyber security exercises, and then that's what we strengthen our Spend our year strengthening and so this year really came down to segmentation of our our critical infrastructure and then hardening of that gear. So you know One of the words that's kind of a buzzword is zero trust And you know, that's a goal that you want to achieve to where No matter where you're at whether you're VPN then whether you're on the company network rather you're on the Wi-Fi No matter how secure the network might feel you should build your network to where you don't trust any one part of it more than you should Another term is micro segmentation It's a little bit easier of thinking it that way where you just segment your network to protect your critical assets So a lot of smaller companies have very flat networks where you know from when you plug into The wall in the office or whether you VPN in maybe you could get to too many things, right? And so we're constantly auditing and making sure that Things are segmented as much as possible to make it very difficult for Malicious activity to spread throughout the network Keeping things compartmentalized. So that's been kind of our theme for this year and yeah each year We like to kind of revisit What could help secure our customers more in our own business more? It's important to note that October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month If you didn't know that mark it on your calendars And what do you hope is the number one takeaway for viewers during National Cyber Security Awareness Month? Oh, yeah, definitely That one's easy. It really comes down to people you know all the Amazing and horrific things you hear or read about in the news Usually come from just one person doing the right thing or the wrong thing, right? so You know it like I said before One fish can lean to a ransomware attack So if people can stay vigilant about you know second guessing what they're clicking or the link they're following Or the website they're typing the username and password into that might not be the real website That's huge right following best practices can solve a lot of cyber security problems. So Maintaining strong password Rotating when you're supposed to and not just incrementing you know adding you know password one password two You know following the best practices is goes a long way So that's really what I hope every single person can do these things and it will immensely add to the security posture of any company Or even any person Great information Aaron great action items that we can take away and start using today So thank you for that and for folks who want to learn more about Staying protected online. Oh and even about consolidated. Where can our viewers go to learn more? Yeah, so we have some great resources at consolidated.com and then you know, there's the National Cyber Security Alliance Has stay safe online.com. So those are two really great resources where you can learn more Thank you again Aaron. It has been a pleasure and come back anytime. All right, I Thank you viewers for tuning into JSA TV and JSA podcast. Happy networking