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In: *Connecting the Dots Blog*, Campus Safety, Education, Incident Reporting, Prevention, Rick's Notes, School Safety, Uncategorized, Video

[Student Safety] Are you ready to transform and improve student safety by PREVENTING school shootings and other incidents? Watch this video. If you want to keep the status quo and keep Responding to them…don’t watch this video. Download an updated school shootings chart to compare your school’s security to others who have had incidents, how is your school any different? Warning Signs: awareity.com/warning-signs/ Client Transformations: awareity.com/transformations/Read More →

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In: *Connecting the Dots Blog*, Connect the Dots, Hackers, Prevention, Success

Making new year predictions about Information Security and Hackers is not difficult based on knowledge, evidence, and lessons learned from previous years. 2018 Prediction:  Hackers will continue to hack your weakest links, unaware people (employees, contractors, vendors, third-party service providers, etc.) and unpatched systems, to gain access to unauthorized information. 2018 Prediction: Hackers will continue to steal information from organizations (like yours) which they gained access to and then sell it or use it to make money. 2018 Prediction: Hackers will continue to encrypt information from organizations (like yours) which they gain access to and request a ransom payment for in order to unlock theRead More →

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In: *Connecting the Dots Blog*, Campus Safety, Prevention, Risk Management

I have seen multiple e-mail Subject Lines, Webinars, and articles eluding to a similar topic “The easiest/best way to prepare for an active shooter incident…” Is this really what your people in your organization or your community want? Do your people really want to “prepare for an active shooter incident”? I doubt it!  To see for yourself, ask your people the following question: Would you rather prevent an active shooter or react to an active shooter? I ask this question all the time when I speak and every time 100% of people raise their hand that they would rather prevent an active shooter… not prepare forRead More →

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In: *Connecting the Dots Blog*, Connect the Dots, Prevention, Risk Management, Security

Disruptive and Tragic Violence incidents are on the increase. Violence is scary, stressful, ugly, concerning, sad, evil, expensive, frustrating, disruptive, and tragic. Disruptive and tragic violence threatens innocent children and adults in schools, colleges, organizations, government, and communities every day… and all over the world. Do you need more security? How much security is enough? What else can we do? The questions above are part of a special guide recently released by Awareity to help you answer these questions and others too. As pre-season football is winding down, the “real season” is about to begin and to have a successful season football teams are practicingRead More →

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In: *Connecting the Dots Blog*, Connect the Dots, Government, Media, Prevention

Yes, there are stupid questions. Even though our teachers told us there are no stupid questions, there is at least one. Is this Terrorism or Not Terrorism?? Ok, two stupid questions… Is this a Hate Crime or Not a Hate Crime?? It is time for politicians, mainstream media, law enforcement, and others to stop with the political correctness. When someone intentionally tries to run over people with a vehicle, knife and stab people, shoot people, murder people, bully people, harass people, abuse people, attack people, use violent rhetoric to incite people, and more… …These are acts of Evil. Acts of evil are committed by evil people.Read More →

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In: *Connecting the Dots Blog*, Hackers, Information Security, Prevention

You can’t prevent hackers and hacker threats, but you can prevent breaches like this! When you fail to apply the latest patches to your Systems, and when you fail to update People about new threats…you create GAPS for hackers. Hackers are like cockroaches… they only need one small GAP and they are in your Systems! Applying System patches to eliminate vulnerabilities and GAPS is not that difficult, however, it takes discipline to make System patches a priority and it requires ongoing awareness to know when System patches are available to be applied. WannaCry is an expensive and embarrassing lesson learned (a global lesson learned) forRead More →

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In: *Connecting the Dots Blog*, Business Continuity, Connect the Dots, Emergency Management, Financial, Government, Health Care, Human Resources, Incident Reporting, indicators, Prevention, Risk Management, Workplace Violence

Dangerous GAPS Evidence from hundreds of post-incident reports reveal almost every organization and community has a myriad of common GAPS and dangerous GAPS. At-Risk Individuals Evidence reveals almost every organization and/or community has at-risk individuals who could commit numerous types of disruptive incidents involving people, information, organizations, and communities. Disruptive Incidents Evidence reveals alarming trends involving numerous types of disruptive incidents including terrorism, homicides, workplace violence, gang violence, drugs, crimes, sexual assaults, human trafficking, suicides, and numerous others. Dangerous GAPS and Disruptive Incidents Unless (and until) dangerous GAPS are eliminated, disruptive incidents, tragedies, and numerous other unwanted, embarrassing, and costly consequences will be difficult ifRead More →

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In: *Connecting the Dots Blog*, Connect the Dots, indicators, Media, Prevention

Evil is immoral, wrong, sinful, corrupt, vicious, malicious, malevolent, vile, hateful, and bad. Terrorism, rape, racism, murders, drug dealing, pedophilia, harassment, etc. are all the acts of Evil Doers. Calling incidents (like the ones above and others) Acts of Evil would eliminate most of the arguing among politicians, media, activists, and others on whether an incident was a hate crime or not, an act of terrorism or not, gang violence or not, racism or not, domestic violence or not, bullying or not, etc. Calling these types of incidents Acts of Evil would eliminate confusion and make it easier for Good People to work together towards identifying EvilRead More →

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In: *Connecting the Dots Blog*, Connect the Dots, First Preventer, First Responder, Prevention

No matter who you were cheering for… the Super Bowl was exciting, history-making, and it provided super valuable lessons for anyone who is responsible for leading a team or an organization! First valuable lesson If you want to be a “winner” you need BOTH Offense and Defense. There is an OLD SAYING that “Defense wins championships” … but have you ever seen a team win a championship with the score 0 to 0?  No! To win a championship the Offense must do their part too. Second valuable lesson The Super Bowl showed how a good Offense can come back even after a horrible start andRead More →

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In: *Connecting the Dots Blog*, Connect the Dots, Prevention

2017 predictions for Information Security and Cyberattacks. People are and will continue to be the Weakest Link! Because most organizations only provide annual information security training and because most deliver the awareness training for the wrong reasons (one or more state/federal compliance requirements), they are not really addressing their weakest link – People’s lack of ongoing awareness. Annual compliance training efforts are not actually addressing the weakest link because people cannot, and do not remember a training session for the next 364 days. If people think the awareness training is just for compliance, they will continue to just get through it and not pay attentionRead More →