Chicago IT Support & Cyber Security | Forward Technologies
Chicago-based Forward Technologies delivers IT support and cyber security to businesses in the Chicago area and nationwide.
For decades, modern encryption has rested on a simple assumption. Some math problems take so long to solve that no practical computer can crack them in a useful timeframe. That assumption built online banking, secure email, VPN tunnels, software signing, and almost every digital transaction that powers business and government today.
Quantum computing threatens to tear that assumption apart. [Read more…]
Cyberattacks on U.S. federal courts are no longer just IT problems. They now pose a national security threat.
That is Senator Ron Wyden’s warning in a blunt letter to Chief Justice John Roberts this week, urging the Supreme Court to address repeated breaches of the judiciary’s document filing and email systems. Wyden called the hacks “unacceptable” and said weak practices have left the courts “an inviting target” for foreign adversaries. [Read more…]
Why Shadow AI Slips Past SecurityShadow AI is already inside. The tools sit in browsers and sidebars. Employees paste snippets of code, customer notes, even legal language into chatbots that were never vetted. The answers look helpful. The risk hides in the copy and paste. Data leaves the building without a ticket. Logs do not show it. Policies never saw it. By the time a leak becomes visible, the trail is cold.
IT leaders keep asking the same question. How do you govern what you cannot see? You start by naming it. Shadow AI covers any AI use that bypasses purchase, security review, or monitoring. That includes SaaS chat tools, browser extensions, model endpoints wired into internal scripts, and clever “personal assistants” someone installed on a work laptop. Each of those entry points can move sensitive information to third parties. Some keep prompts. Others store outputs. Many train on uploaded files. You cannot make a clean audit if you do not control any of that. [Read more…]
Microsoft is quietly pushing out a OneDrive update that’s catching IT departments off guard. A new feature prompts users—by default—to connect their personal OneDrive accounts to corporate machines. No setup needed. The feature just appears and offers a quick, seamless sync between personal and business storage.
Here’s the obvious problem: once files from a corporate machine end up in a personal OneDrive account, they’re basically outside the company’s control. No logging. No tracking. No oversight. That means sensitive information could be moved or shared in ways the organization can’t monitor—and probably wouldn’t approve of. [Read more…]
