top of page
TAPROOT SECURITY®
Cybersecurity Consulting
Search
Mike McCormick
May 22, 20176 min read
VEP Makes Me Wanna Cry
A massive worldwide ransomware outbreak is happening because a secret US government program called VEP failed.
0 comments
Mike McCormick
May 4, 20174 min read
One Company Controls the Internet’s Soft Underbelly
One of the most critical parts of the Internet is managed by one small company. To browse a web site, you have to obtain the Internet...
0 comments
Mike McCormick
Apr 19, 20172 min read
Sugarcoating Icebergs
Business lingo is suboptimal. The word “suboptimal” is a good example. It entered corporate biz-speak in the 1980s as a euphemism for...
0 comments
Mike McCormick
Mar 12, 20172 min read
Declassify CIA Vault 7
As you probably know, a trove of documents about classified CIA hacking tools code-named “Vault 7” was recently published by WikiLeaks....
0 comments
Mike McCormick
Mar 3, 20173 min read
A Cancer Moonshot for Cyber Security
The information security profession has long mined biology for metaphors to describe cyber threats. For example, we call certain forms...
0 comments
Mike McCormick
Feb 1, 20174 min read
Your Social Insecurity Number
If you were born before 2011, there’s a good chance I can guess your social security number (SSN). June 25, 2011 was when the Social...
0 comments
Mike McCormick
Dec 11, 20164 min read
Russia Counterstrike: Don’t Try This at Home
The day of reckoning is here. President Obama vowed to strike back against Russia after the DNC hacks. The attack window was set between...
0 comments
Mike McCormick
Nov 18, 20163 min read
One Hat Two Hat, Red Hat Blue Hat
When the US Cyber Command (CYBERCOM) was founded in 2009 to establish our nation’s cyber fighting force, it was grafted onto the National...
0 comments
Mike McCormick
Sep 14, 20163 min read
America Gets Our First CISO
Last week the White House announced the appointment of Gregory Touhill as the nation’s first Federal Chief Information Security Officer...
0 comments
Mike McCormick
Aug 6, 20162 min read
America on Yellow Alert
YELLOW ALERT! SOMETHING BAD MAY OR MAY NOT HAPPEN! TAKE NO ACTION!! Such yellow alerts haven’t worked effectively since the Star Trek...
0 comments
Mike McCormick
Jul 22, 20163 min read
Is Pokemon Go Malware?
Malware is like pornography; it’s hard to define, but we know it when we see it. At least we think we do. The Pokemon Go craze provides...
0 comments
Mike McCormick
Jul 18, 20162 min read
Five Stages of Cloud Grief
After my previous blog post about Amazon Web Services, a few people nervously asked me about cloud security. Can we really trust our...
0 comments
Mike McCormick
Jul 5, 20163 min read
Why Amazon isn’t a Bookstore (but Facebook is Still a Social Network)
Few noticed as Amazon began to morph from the world’s largest bookstore to the world’s largest cloud computing company. Now, ten years...
0 comments
Mike McCormick
Jun 24, 20162 min read
Comodo Wants "Let's Encrypt" Trademark
Since 2014 the nonprofit Internet Security Research Group has led a laudable effort called "Let's Encrypt" with support from Cisco, EFF,...
0 comments
Mike McCormick
Jun 14, 20163 min read
Are Russian Hackers Working for Trump?
Conspiracy theories sprout like mushrooms in the fertilized hothouse known as Twitter. Today, in the wake of news reports that Russian...
0 comments
Mike McCormick
Jun 7, 20164 min read
Government Wants Short Easy Passwords
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is the US government agency that sets technical standards for everything from...
0 comments
Mike McCormick
Jun 2, 20163 min read
Apple vs FBI: The Phantom Menace
Many think the Apple versus FBI saga ended when a third party offered to crack Syed Farook’s iPhone and the FBI withdrew its formal...
0 comments
Mike McCormick
May 26, 20162 min read
WHOIS Coming to Get You?
If you own an Internet domain, you’ve got a target painted on your back and cyber criminals are coming for you. The target is your Whois...
0 comments
NEED TO KNOW BLOG
ntkblog.org
because you can handle the truth
bottom of page