Blog & Tools

2017 will be a big year for small cell poles in and near South Dakota. Jerry P. Andersen and his crew at Sioux Falls-based SDN Communications are overseeing the construction and underground cabling of 50 small cell poles to improve wireless services in the region, and plans are being made to install additional poles.

Computer users who are lax about online security apparently were feeling romantic in 2016. A few affectionate words crept into SplashData’s annual list of bad passwords.

As a business intelligence specialist at SDN Communications, Theron McChesney looks for ways to put research to good use. His objective is to produce good market and product research to help improve SDN’s business processes and to enhance the customer experience.

Gary Glissendorf played a key role in the development and launch of SDN’s Managed DDoS Protection Service, which helps clients ward off Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks that can clog or damage systems.

Persistent telephone call completion problems in rural states are creating major inconveniences for families, hurting businesses, and threatening public safety, but a bill introduced by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota) and cosponsored by Sen. John Thune (R-South Dakota) could fix the problem.

Jake VanDewater is among the experts at SDN Communications who spend their work days making sure the Sioux Falls-based company’s business and organization clients have access to effective cybersecurity services.

When you think about someone planning an electronic attack on a computer network, you probably envision foreign terrorists, domestic criminals or maybe unethical business or political rivals. You probably don’t think about high school students who want to get out of a test or amuse themselves with mischief.

National news reports last spring indicated that some of the nation’s most prestigious law firms had been hacked. But they're a different kind of cyber target because they accumulate information about legal disputes and regulatory plans more than consumer credit card and Social Security numbers.

SDN's expanded network is ready for businesses in southern Minnesota and now has an experienced, telecom sales executive to work with them. Ryan Dutton is someone who knows the industry well.

As more people rely on their mobile phones and tablets to stream video and browse the Internet, some wireless carriers are using small cell networks to improve customer service and meet the bandwidth demands of mobile users.

With good reason, this blog has focused a lot of attention in recent months on ransomware, a form of cyberattack been increasing at a rate that is almost alarming. Last year, cybersecurity forensics experts discovered approximately 100 families of ransomware.

Golden West has been a significant factor in the telecommunications business in South Dakota for a 100 eventful years, and the Wall-based company keeps preparing for the future.

If you’re in business, hackers have probably breached your organization’s computer network at some level. Company leaders might not be aware of the intrusion yet, but they will discover it eventually.

The FBI tracks scams in a category called Business Email Compromise. In the 18 months immediately after January 2015 BEC scams cost more than 21,100 domestic and international victims approximately $3.1 billion.

Encryption is the process of converting data into computer coding that cannot be easily deciphered by unauthorized users. However, users with the password or online key can convert the mathematical algorithm back to readable data.

A whopping 92 percent of U.S. Internet users worry about online privacy, and 89 percent say they avoid companies that don’t protect their privacy.

The low-cost and successful nature of scamming operations virtually guarantees their continued existence. So, companies and consumers must be on guard. In fact, increases in cybercrime suggest that prospective victims should be on higher alert than ever before.

Like technologies, online threats change. Cyber thieves constantly refine their tactics and tools to create new threats. A business network that is safe and secure today might be at risk tomorrow. Businesses have to regularly update their security plans and procedures to keep up.

I’ve been on heightened awareness for identity theft for the past 18 months. I was among millions of past and present customers of the health insurance giant Anthem Inc. who were notified in the spring of 2015 that cyber attackers had successfully hacked the company’s electronic records.

Simplistic, numerical sequences are commonly used for passwords. Six of the 10 most common passwords in 2015 were nothing but numerical sequences. In addition, the top-row, keyboard sequence “qwerty” came in at No. 4.