Cyber Security Intelligence Dashboard

Cyber Security Intelligence Dashboard

My CTO Was Hacked!

You see a lot of interesting things when you are in the business of internet security and privacy. The neat thing for me is that we are at such a momentous time in the evolution of mankind's relationship with technology that almost every day feels a bit like history. Some days it's obvious, like the Target breach. Or, earlier last year, when the Snowden story broke. Other times it is anecdotal, and more personally observed. It's the latter I want to talk about today.

At one point early in the process of building a commercially viable ecosystem for online security and privacy for my customers, I needed some help with network architecture. I was introduced to an exceptionally experienced engineer from Orlando, FL, referred to here, for the sake of this story, as Mr. Nethead. Long story done short; I decided to hire  him for a temporary assignment with me in order to help take my project to the next level. In going with my better judgement, I'm going to leave Mr. Nethead's real name out. You will understand why later in my story.

Back to the basics for a minute; clearly cyber-risk has been democratized. The internet is probably, at the out-most, 6 months away from being considered entirely infected. The details of 110 million individuals from the Target breach are just a piece of the big-data pie that includes many, many other large breaches. In an environment like this, you have to take the responsibility to immune yourself and not rely on the government or any other 3rd hand to protect you and those around you. Total Digital Security exists to empower all of us with the best tools available today to insulate ourselves, our homes and families, offices and small businesses, from the escalating probabilities and deepening consequences of being victimized by cyber-crime.

So, the "best tools available today"? Where do the best defenses for online security and privacy come from? The answer; at the enterprise, or institutional level. These entities are governments, corporations, and other institutions that have invested vast sums of money over the past few decades in a very intense effort to protect themselves from precisely the same things that you worry about today; the safety and security of your identification, your passwords and credentials, your "content" (such as pictures, videos, scans, and documents). Also, their employees, (think; your family or office team), their reputation, and so on. You get the idea. And, as technology goes, these online security and privacy solutions are more powerful than ever, very easy to use, and now, extremely affordable to almost anyone. But, I needed someone to help me design the infrastructure in which to deliver these institutional tools to my consumer-level market, which operates outside of a server environment. Really it was almost that simple.

With this concept in mind, we set off to figure out how to put the pieces in place. We had to make it enormously scalable, very efficient, and I wanted it open-source in order to deliver the best architecture from a security stand-point. At the same time, I wanted my customers to know they were completely in control with total portability and assured compatibility. So, while I wanted fresh thinking with the business, I wanted to use established technology that had served and proven itself to the business customer for a long time.

It's not hard to imagine Mr. Nethead. He started back when no one knew how to spell LAN.  He grew up in the environment and standards of the time, and though while experienced and knowledgeable, he wasn't exactly an "out-of-the-box" thinker. Also, he had that imperial attitude of impatience and disdain for anyone that wasn't following everything just the way he saw it. Like, we just didn't "get it". On one hand it was aggravating  but on the other hand it was reinforcing. Much of my 35 years in personal and professional experience with IT-land wasn't too far off this mark. The experience with Mr. Nethead was kind of validating to the reason for Total Digital Security's existence.

Well, some weeks in to the project it was clear he was not really buying in to what we were doing and frankly I was never even sure that he ever "got it".  It was clear to me that Mr. Nethead didn't think the general public was smart enough to spend $10 or $20 bucks a month on online security and privacy services. That they didn't understand or appreciate the real risks at hand, to them and their family, and wouldn't be able to distinguish what we were doing as opposed to say, the retail versions of some of this stuff, like McAfee, Symantec, and the others. It left me wondering what he did for himself and his home. I knew he had young daughters, loved his family and valued his time with them so, I guessed he probably had some techie version of firewall security and maybe a home local area network, running some industrial-strength software that he found someplace, file sharing with his network-geek friends. Right?

After a couple of months on the project, one Saturday night, the Nethead family was enjoying the weekend when one of the daughters' computer was hacked. Unfortunately, it was of the creepiest version of cyber-crime; spyware. Spyware is when an outsider, the hacker, takes control of the computer and uses the audio and visual inputs, your webcam for example, to spy on you. It happened, in one case, to Miss Teen USA. Last year, a hacker that has also attacked at least two dozen other women in the US, Ireland and elsewhere, posted naked photos on the internet and blackmailed them by demanding more pictures. Sadly, this type of cyber-crime, again the creepiest of all and obviously linked to one's physical security as well, is not all that uncommon. The Nethead girls were enjoying themselves that Saturday night, jumping up and down on their bed, and unknowingly being filmed in the process.

Fortunately this story ends with no major consequences, other than a complete re-set in Mr. Nethead's notion of "risk management" and "value". And so fast-forwarding my thought process here; is there a better risk/reward, or economic decision you can make in 2014 for the sake of you, your family, and your business? With these types of stakes at hand, and the increasing probabilities of being victimized increasing daily, at prices that are $10 to $20 bucks a month? And in my mind, protecting one's self is not like buying just insurance alone, but also akin to battening down the hatches for the coming storm. In the case of insurance, the risk is unpredictable, like a flood. With a storm, you see it on the horizon, it's on the radar, and you take precautionary measures. With cyber-crime, it's time to do both.

It is almost assured that if you are a user of technology in your daily life, you will either be proactive or reactive to the emerging threats. But, one way or the other, you will have to change your approach to online security and privacy. We all want to continue to leverage the awesome power of technology in our busy and productive lives, but we must do it responsibly and we must claim control now. 2014 is the pivotal year to shore up your digital footprint and create systems that will insure a sustainable state of online security and privacy for you, your home, family and business.






Thanks for reading,

Brad

brad@totaldigitalsecurity.com
www.totaldigitalsecurity.com

This is the Last Email Account I Will Ever Need.

Governments, Corporations, Criminals & Creeps

I did it. I bit the bullet, and it hurts. I've decided to change my personal email address, again, and the transition is just what I expected; a pain in the arse.  But, I'm motivated. As a father, friend, businessman and simply a human engaged in life, I am no longer willing to let my email be scanned, sniffed, snooped and shared by governments, corporations, criminals and creeps, relentlessly, all day and everyday. I'm opting out of the madness, and I'm taking my family and my business with me. 


As security guru Bruce Schneier says, the metadata that rides along with your email today includes enough information about you to be classified as surveillance. To allow my personal information to leak, day in and day out, to some of society's most unseemly characters, is just not acceptable to me anymore. I know too well how inevitably deep the consequences are, and I see the increasing rate of connectivity between digital security and physical security. This is meaningful, I am a head-of-household and seriously accountable on several levels, and I have found a far, far better way to operate as consumers in the digital age.

Wikipedia on Metadata
@schneierblog   Metadata = Surveillance

So, I'm creating a digital domain, including our email accounts, that will protect and share our data, for as long as we like, generations for that matter, without undue influence, theft or loss. I will determine how it operates and what it shares, or doesn't, where it is physically located and how it is inherited. I don't trust "free", I don't trust the "system", and I value these digital assets more than ever. Actually, much of it I consider as irreplaceable, including 20,000 family photos, videos, scans, notes and what is the family's eternal scrapbook. Plus, it is ridiculously inexpensive to do this and as a professional risk manager for over 25 years, the risk/reward equation at this price is simply a no-brainer. Online security and privacy is now a serious consideration in everything I do, personally and professionally.

Why location of digital assets is important; Local law trumps everything, including technology and terms of service.

My trusty, old personal email@mac.com account of the last 13 years did it's job very well. I know I feel better about the experience than many others that are on Yahoo, AOL, and some of the other "free" email services. But the game has changed, and it's time to think very differently about this now crucial aspect of our lives. The business of running an email service, especially the ones most popular in the U.S., have morphed, or been perverted, into business models that have little to do with your experience as a customer. Well, that's because you are not the customer. The buyer of your information is the customer, and you are their product. Guess who gets the short stick?

"If you aren't paying for the product, you are the product." George Greve +Georg Greve 

Then, to add insult to injury, your information is used back on you in very clever ways in order to manipulate you to buy something or perhaps even better yet, give them more information about you! Then, I suppose, the business can perpetuate itself in an endless cycle of economic bliss. When you think about it, isn't that the business model that creates sub-25 year old billionaires today? And now, the NSA is exacerbating the problem by essentially gifting their tools and techniques to the worst characters in our global society. We are, literally at this moment, past the point of no return and, as Marc Cuban says so well, "I'm out". 

Building My Own Digital Domain

Now, I have a domain for my family and business registered in Switzerland. We have our own private email service, there are no limitations or restrictions, and we have rid ourselves of IP address tracking, metadata scanning, content stealing and the host of abuses that are standard procedure, literally billions of times a day.  I'm operating on open-source software crafted for security, portability and long-term compatibility. I can synch across all my devices, I have webmail access and I use it's open-source groupware that is as hardy as Exchange or any of the other hairball email client solutions that are out there today (though I do like Thunderbird).

We have a Digital Family Vault, also based in Zurich and in a separate secure data storage facility away from our email servers. The facility is built by the people that built the same thing for almost every bank in the country. Switzerland that is. I can set access, restriction, and contribution levels across silos of data and my passwords have a named beneficiary. Digital assets are now represented as a slice in a family's wealth pie and being in control of it's operation and security, feels extremely satisfying right now.I created a permanent solution, one that will endure through my fully engaged and tech-levered life. My investment in digital security and privacy today, at this juncture of enormous change in our digital lives, will pay in ways we cannot even fathom yet. And, when you find out how absurdly inexpensive it is to do this, you will want to do precisely the same thing I did, and you can. 

Ok so now this is where the shoe pinches; it is not a seamless, brainless, painless process. But, honestly, it's manageable. Better than manageable really. The tools are better, and I'm better organized and prepared than I have been in my past email migrations. Don't get me wrong, I'm not done with the process, but I'm letting myself take the time I need to do this fully, completely and hopefully with as little disruption to me and the others that invariably have to adjust their records and such. The journey to total online security and privacy is never really over, there is not an end-point other than managing effective and adaptable defenses. But this approach to creating a family digital domain covers some of the most important and fundamental bases in the process, and in an enduring and scalable way.

www.totaldigitalsecurity.com

In fact, I'm so pleased with the results and the value, I've created a business that will do the same thing for you, and we can provide online security and privacy solutions like these at rates as low as $10/mo. You can contact me personally of you would like to know more, at my Swiss email address:
brad@tdsw.ch


Some liken the use of online security software and services to buying insurance. It is, but for this particular moment in history, it's different. There is mega-storm on the horizon. Making sure your insurance policies are current, is not enough. It is time to batten down the hatches at home and work and to expect to emerge from the storm only stronger. The exponentially advancing clock of technology marches forward, and cyber-risk has now been fully democratized all the way to the capillaries of the Internet, where you and I reside. Email me and begin your journey to total online security and privacy, today, and subscribe to peace of mind.


Brad
brad@tdsw.ch

Top 3 Personal Online Security & Privacy Threats for 2014

 Top 3 Online Security Threats for Individuals, Families and Small Businesses in 2014

 

#1) Super-scale Ransomware Attacks in the U.S. -

 Ransomware is the evolution of extortion. It is the hijacking of your digital life. The successor to last year's enormously successful CryptoLocker virus is being developed as we speak and it will wreak havoc on millions of unsuspecting email users in 2014. If there is one word to know in cyber-risk for 2104, it is ransomware. Refer to The Democratization of Cyber-Risk in 2104  for more, including a screenshot of the CryptoLocker virus.

 #2) Mobile Malware Infections go Viral- 

98% of mobile viruses are aimed at Android devices. If you are on an Android you will either prepare for, or recover from, a virus sometime in 2014. Apple devices are still safer but not as immune as they once were. Apple aficionados need to raise the awareness level more than just another notch in order to be informed and protected for the new era of cyber-risk. 

#3) Social Media is Used as a Source of Information for Criminals -

Obviously, using social media does nothing to help protect your privacy but in 2014 sophisticated criminals will use FaceBook, LinkedIn and other channels to perpetrate their crimes. They gather passwords, user-names and other sensitive information that will ultimately be used against you in an online attack of some sort or another. Hackers do what the NSA does; they collect enormous amounts of data, as well as information about that data (metadata), and they sort and sift it using big-data software technology. They are relentless, but patient, and when the hackers have enough pieces of information to crack the code on you and a few million other unsuspecting internet users, they go to work with massive campaigns of extortion, fraud, deceit and digital terror. Unfortunately, in the past, the best outcomes are for those that simply pay the ransom, typically affordable when you need to make a serious problem go away, fast.

2014 is a crucial year for individual users of the internet. The democratization of cyber-risk has suddenly created a massive new target for cyber-criminals and that target includes you, your family and home, and small business. You are viewed as the most vulnerable, unprepared and unsophisticated of their targets and if they can line up enough of you to be extorted into handing over a few bucks, they can quickly walk away economically satisfied potentially for many years to come. 

From here on there are 2 types of users on the internet; Those that prepare and those that recover. It is in fact "when" and not "if" it will happen to you. Accept this, take some action, and avoid what could be a trans-formative event in your life in  2014.

Thanks for reading and let me know if we can help with any of your online security and privacy needs.

Brad

Total Digital Security for you, your family, home and small business. Protect that which is irreplaceable with plans that start at just $9.95/mo. www.totaldigitalsecurity.com

Private, offshore email accounts.  

The Last Email Account You Will Ever Need

The 4 Components of Complete Online Security & Privacy for 2014

2014 is sure to be a watershed year for individuals and small business when it comes to internet security and privacy. The entire internet is now infected, and the most vulnerable of those online are the ones square in the bullseye of the worst form of cyber-criminals. 

This post is meant to be a guide to help think through the process of immunizing yourself and those around you from the rapidly increasing risks associated with the use of our everyday technology. 2014 may be the last year in which you, your family and your small business, have the opportunity to circle-the-wagons and position yourself to be in control of your digital assets and effectively protect from the risks associated with online activities.

1)     Secure Your Computers, Smartphones & Tablets

This includes desktops, laptops, mobile phones and  all “end-user” devices.

2)     Protect Yourself When on the  Internet

Usually at least 2 or 3 stages including home and public wi-fi’s, local internet service provider and the Internet backbone.

3)      Own & Control Your Personal Email Account

This includes attachments, the email message content, the IP address and the metadata attached to your email.

4)     Backup & Lock-down Your Data Storage

The data on your local hard-drive as well as cloud and

external disks need to be protected and backed-up.

The risks of not being protected are many but include:

•Losing all of your data

•Being spied on

•Financial fraud

•Identity theft

•Physical harm

•Extortion

•Reputational risk

•Loss of the irreplaceable

 Now, for some detail around each component to

       Complete Online Security and Privacy in 2014:

Component #1 -  Secure Your Computers, Smartphones & Tablets

•     This includes desktops, laptops, mobile phones and any device that connects to the internet.
•     Every one of your devices contains significant information and data that is valuable to you and others.
•     You want to control and protect everything that comes in and everything that goes out of your devices.
•     Securing your computer, mobile phone and tablet is an essential part of online security and should be a priority in your effort to protect yourself from outside harm and system failures.

Component #2 -  Protect Yourself When on the Internet

•     Banking, shopping, surfing, browsing, social media and anything you do when on the internet.
•     There are usually at least 3 stages to an internet connection, you must protect from each of them.
•     Home and public Wi-Fi networks 
•     Local internet service provider
•     Internet backbone

Component #3 -  Own & Control Your Personal Email Account 

•     To be secure, you must protect attachments, the content of the email message itself, the IP address and the metadata attached to your email.
•     Most people are unaware at the quantity and level of detail that is available in a typical email as it travels across the internet to it’s destination. 
•     Metadata is considered, by many, to contain enough information to put you under surveillance  by another.

Component #4 -  Backup & Lock-down Your Data Storage

•     Hard-drives, external disks and cloud–based data storage needs to be protected from theft and backed-up for redundancy.

What You Can do to Get Back in Control of Your Digital Life

• Be Aware, Take Action – If you are aware and informed you will realize the best decision you can make for 2014 in terms of value, risk/reward and long-term results, is to secure yourself and those that matter to you, from what would otherwise be almost certain harm from online activity.

• Use the Very Effective Solutions That are Available To You – Today, the protection that is available at incredibly affordable prices works very well and effectively mitigates almost all of the risks and probabilities of a problem. Properly implemented and maintained, these solutions require virtually no work on your part and does not impact your computers performance.

• Think of Your Security as a Service, and Not a Product – There is no final destination or a “set-it & forget it” when it comes to any type of security, especially digital security. The rate of change in technology and the evolvement of online threats, coupled with the increasing value to our digital assets, demands constant vigilance and immediate adaptation.

• Protect From Governments, Companies, Criminals and Creeps- Remember, if you aren’t paying for the product (Gmail, Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, etc.), you are the product. Your information and data is so valuable today that these characters will be endlessly relentless in their quest to steal it from you. Protect yourself and be in control of all your digital assets, much of it is irreplaceable and includes the things you most value.

• Protect All 4 of the Components That Connect Your Digital Life  – A chain is only as strong as it’s weakest link. Unfortunately there is not one universal solution for the vast set of risks and problems we address in the use of our technology. The good news is that there is a way to manage these 4 components and it is not expensive or difficult.

• Use Good Judgment With Passwords – None of us is designed well to remember many passwords, much less complex ones. Unless you are a savant, it’s foolish to think otherwise and risk serious loss. For the moment the only way to deal effectively with our online environment is with a password manager. They are cheap, if not “free”, and are getting easier to use almost every day. Be deliberate in your strategy with passwords as they need to be long, complex, encrypted and backed-up, & synced across all your devices. Finally, should be included in your overall estate plan for smooth and secure inheritance by your beneficiary.

www.totaldigitalsecurity.com

The Democratization of Cyber-Risk; Why You, Your Family and Small Business are the TARGET for Hackers in 2014.

The Democratization of Cyber-Risk 

Why You, Your Family and Small Business are the TARGET for Hackers in 2014.

The watershed event for 2013 in the world of cybercrime might just be the Black Friday Target breach. It certainly is if you put the NSA revelation by Edward Snowden aside. Regardless, they are both markers on the historical timeline of cybercrime and the emergence of large scale "horizontal" breaches in online security and privacy.

Why You Are Now The Bullseye - 

In previous blogs, I've explained "vertical" breaches (the Pentagon, DropBox, LinkedIn, etc.) being those that find a single target to be of "high-value". The new wave is "horizontal" in that digital surveillance technology can now scan millions of individual targets, like you and me, and glean the data with big-data software to create a large, horizontally assembled high-value target. Snowden's expose' revealed the extent of the US government's use of this method, but we also know that corporate and criminal hackers use the same approach and have probably been empowered by the NSA's enormous investment in furthering this technology. This is the environment that is quickly democratizing cyber-risk in the world today. What's at stake are the most meaningful people and the most irreplaceable things, in our respective lives.

40 Million Bullseye's in this TARGET - 

The Target breach is an example of a vertical breach with over 40 million of it's customers losing sensitive information to the attack. In many cases, another hacker will purchase credit card and PIN information to fraudulently purchase and perhaps re-sell merchandise before the system catches up with them. In these cases, the consumer is protected. This link is a good report on how they undertake this fraud once credit card numbers are in hand; What Happens When Your Credit Card Number is Stolen?

What They Do With Your Stolen Information & Why You Are Not Protected -

Now, here is where it becomes different and gets interesting. Stolen credit card numbers are nothing new, but, the ability for almost anyone to steal this many of them and then use them all as a mechanism for large-scale financial-fraud, is. The stolen information from tens of millions of Target customers will be assembled and analyzed using big-data tech and then used for a single (or more) large-scale horizontal attack that will affect many, potentially 100,000's or millions, of individuals and families. And, in this case, the credit card victim has no protection. Nobody else will stand-in and shoulder the consequences of the breach. You are individually accountable and at risk. This mass-scale horizontal attack represents the new era in cybercrime and the individual, family and small business has perhaps, at the outmost, 12 months to prepare for the decade long cyber-storm which is at hand today. More on this at; What I Did for My Summer Vacation.

The hackers will use the details gained from the Target breach, such as credit-card numbers, PIN's, sign-on's, etc., and overlay other metadata they have collected from scanning Gmail, Yahoo, AOL and other large providers of "free" email (just as the NSA does), analyze it all with big-data software and aggregate those where they have discovered enough variables about you to crack the code of your online security. This may end up in socially-engineered emails and in ransomware attacks where your life's worth of data is held hostage. Social engineering, an outstanding piece from Kaspersky Labs;
http://blog.kaspersky.com/social-engineering-hacking-the-human-os/

Ransomware And Why This is The Last Computer Screen You Ever Want to See -

This is the computer screen you never want to see. 

What is Ransomware? 

Ransomware is the evolution of extortion. Only the booty and means to the crime have changed.
What is Ransomware?
Is ransomware "the" word for 2014 in cyber-crime?
Ransomware on the Increase in 2014.

What Happens in a Ransomware Attack.?

Ransomware is the hijacking of your digital life. All of your data is encrypted and held for ransom. Typically the amount is not insurmountable but, you only have a brief period of time to fulfill the demand. The hackers are counting on you and millions of other victims in the attack to just pay-up and be done with it. In many cases, unfortunately, this is the least damaging of all outcomes.

What Does One do to Protect Their Homes and Families from These Risks?

Hackers have excelled at leveraging the exponential gains in technology to their personal advantage. Furthering their innovation has been the institutional targets which have spent decades and billions in order to protect themselves. This tension between the two has created an arena of very robust tools for attack, and defenses to protect. Until now these tools of attack have been oriented to the server environment of the institution and not necessarily toward the individual end users that reside at the capillaries of the internet. The good news is that we can now use the same technology the institutions have developed for their defense, for the sake of our own. Without enterprise-grade defenses, individual users of the internet have little, if any, chance of surviving in light of the new era of cyber-crime.

To be smart and strategic in the new environment it's helpful to understand a very core concept which holds the key to understanding what lies ahead. Albert Einstein, Carl Sagan, and many others scientists have said that the understanding of this concept is crucial to a general understanding of the way things simply work, anywhere in the universe. 
"If you understand exponentials, the key to many of the secrets of the Universe is in your hand." (Sagan,1997) 
Must see (Sagan nails it.); Carl Sagan's last interview, Charlie Rose.
And of course the "law" that created the world of the computer as we know it today;
Moore's Law, Wikipedia.

The point ultimately is that it's impossible for a population of biological beings to keep pace with a rate of exponential change, for any period of time. Defenses from today's and future attacks will require individuals and families to leverage advances in technology at least as well as the hackers do. It will always be a whack-a-mole game, but going upstream, to the enterprise level of solutions, and then re-orienting these solutions to a non-server environment, just like the hackers and the NSA are doing right now, will provide very effective defenses for anyone to defend their online security and privacy. This happens to be precisely why Total Digital Security was built; to provide enterprise-quality solutions to the individual, the home and family, as well as other small groups and businesses, the defenses necessary for internet security and privacy. Our advantage as users of the internet is that we in ourselves are not of high-value to the hackers. If we take precautionary measures and not be part of  large aggregate of data. we have no value to them at all and so are ignored.

Privacy. Word of the Year 2013.   Dictionary.com 2013 Word of the Year.

The Potent Brew from Collision of Metadata Collection and Big-Data Software -

The amount of metadata that has been collected by governments, companies, criminals, hackers and others creeps, combined with the power of big-data software presents a new age of cybercrime that is at our footsteps now, today. This powerful brew will manifest itself as ransomware that targets individual users of the internet. There will be massive attacks across broad geographies and the consequences will affect millions. Cyber-risk has truly been democratized and you, your family and small business are now the richest new target that is at the bullseye for the entire hacker community.
 "Stalker Economy" here to stay.
Metadata = Surveillance. https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/09/metadata_equals.html

Do You Have Anything to Worry About? 

Awareness and action are crucial. This is the mantra. If you are thinking about not worrying too much about your online security and privacy then I highly encourage reading +Jaron Lanier in the New York Times about Digital Passivity. This is not one to defer or ignore.

Thanks for reading,

Brad

3 Steps to Internet Security, Privacy and Peace of Mind.   http://bit.ly/19zxCHa

An offshore email account will vastly reduce the chances of being hacked and be the last email account you will ever need. Why do you want a Swiss-domained email and data storage account?

www.totaldigitalsecurity.com TDS provides best-in-class solutions for individuals, homes and families for protection from cybercrime, online fraud, and the preservation privacy.

What I did for my summer vacation.

I wrote "What I  did for my summer vacation." for a very practical reason. After pivoting  at the age of 55, and leaving a successful 25 year career, I've some explaining to do! This is an effort to as succinctly as possible,  explain my professional effort for the past 9 months.

In March of this year,  I started a company and it's called Total Digital Security. We’ve built some really cool technology that empowers one to seize and retain control of their privacy, online security, and digital assets.

Our network operations center is in Helsinki and email and data servers are in Zurich. There are some very good reasons for this besides the fact that the Finnish and Swiss technology partners are the best in their field. 

What we are doing is different, and frankly better, than anything else available to the non-institutional markets for managing cyber-risk today.

We built the company on some basic principals; we think the Internet is awesome, that we should be able to enjoy it's cornucopia of rich content and resources with minimal government intrusion, and that we should be able do so without worry for our online security, privacy and data.

Regardless of how one use's the Internet, one can and should be in total control of their online presence and the digital assets that are your legal property. Digital information is considered extremely valuable today, most especially the information about YOU. 

Look at the skyrocketing value to a bit coin, which is a reflection of the dramatic increase to the value of privacy and the control of digital information. And, witness the money that government, corporate and criminal actors are expending in order to capture the information they think defines YOU. They are monitoring whom you are, what you do, where and when you do it, and how … all of value, and they are stealing this information that is YOURS and they are using it against you, every day. It has gone beyond creepy and has attained the level of true surveillance and stalking.

Fortunately, in this environment, there are options and one can decide to be smart about risk in the digital age. My mission at Total Digital Security is to inform, educate and bring awareness to some of the most crucial and personal issues of the day. Our solutions are open-source for portability and compatibility, and our technology partners are the best in their class in order to protect you, your family, office and business. You will be back in control and leveraging the awesome power of the Internet without the daily dose of abuse to your rights, your security, your privacy and your digital assets. It is that simple but that meaningful.

Unfortunately, today it’s not a matter of “if” but “when” you will be a victim of cyber-crime. We are here to help you be proactive and pre-emptive by knowing your options and solutions that are available to seize control and change the balance of power in everything you do online. Our rates start as low as $5/mo and go up to $25/mo depending on features such as storage, group size and such. I hope you will check us out.


18  months ago, about nine months before I started Total Digital Security, I  told some associates that I wanted to be on the record for 3  predictions, each of which I felt would occur in the coming 18-24  months.

#1) Cyber-crimes on a large scale will soon affect individuals.

We  are used to reading the headlines about corporate  and government hacks  but I was talking about large groups of individuals. Large groups of  individuals that share nothing in common other than their metadata  ending up in the wrong place with the wrong people. I did not predict  the U.S. government would be part of the crimes. The hack of 2 million  individual credentials last week through Gmail, Facebook and others, is  the perfect example of the "horizontal" attacks I predicted would be far  more common and damaging than ever more.

#2) Federal and local politicians will begin to discuss cyber-security subsidies for individuals and families.

There has been some talk of it. It's the irony that kills me.

#3) Time magazine will name their "Person of the Year", "The Hacker".

I  could just see it; the shady, hooded guy, cross-legged with a laptop open and eerily glowing.  Well, Edward Snowden came in at #2 this year just behind the Pope. I'm  not good enough to make this up. Or maybe I am? There is always next  year.

So  it was these convictions, among others of course, that led me to take  an Altucher-like course of professional reinvention. Scary? Sure. Fun?  You betcha! Convicted? More than ever. Regardless, the journey has been  meaningful, invigorating and cleansing (as in an acid-bath!).

Stay tuned, it shall not be boring.

Brad