Joshua Holloway, CEO of 7th Dimension, educated us about today's cyber threats, most common phishing attacks, and how to protect your business or personal information or assets. Joshua Holloway has over 21 years of experience in the IT infrastructure and IT security industry. He serves as CEO at 7thDi that services hundreds of clients in multiple industries across the United States. Joshua specializes in managed IT services, network design, and implementation.

Phishing emails appear to come from someone you trust, such as an online provider, bank, credit card company, or popular website. These emails typically try to trick you into giving away sensitive information like your password or credit card details. Joshua's three major recommendations about these emails is to: 1) try to identify them by looking closely at the sender's email address to see if it looks different from the organization they are trying to get you to think is emailing you; 2) DO NOT click on any web links or attachments in the email; and 3) if you suspect that the email may be legitimate, to get more information, access that organization directly (not via the email) by using their known web URL (such as amazon.com) and logging into your account, or by calling an 800 number you got from a trusted source.  The pandemic was fertile ground for phishing attacks as they surged in number and intensity of attacks.  One of the services of 7thDi is to generate simulated phishing emails to send to your employees to see if any fall prey to the phishing attack.  If they do, then some additional anti-phishing education for that employee is the usual penalty.

Josh showed us how the hackers work to gain access to a company or assets that they want to monetize.  They have up to a 90-day timeline to research and try to gain access to a target.  Their payoff is often $500K or more, so it is worth their time to be so methodical.  He also gave us examples of how hackers work together by sharing compromised information on the dark web.  

Josh urged us all, as businesses or individuals to use password management software to generate strong passwords and to avoid the use of paper or non-secure digital lists of usernames and passwords.  The audience was definitely engaged with this presentation, and even some members who thought they would not understand it, were surprised at how much they understood of Josh's presentation. If you are interested in his company's services, here is contact information:  7th Dimension; 5005 Windplay Dr #1, El Dorado Hills, CA 95762; phone (916) 221-0855; website.