Code Name Insight - Prepping Challenges 81 Thru 90--Special Circumstances

Prepping Challenges 81 Thru 90--Special Circumstances

If you are young, rich, and healthy, prepping can be a pretty easy thing to do.  That isn't most people.  Many people have a bundle of circumstances that often make prepping difficult to virtually impossible.  Here's what to do if you are any of these special circumstances...

Read the full post at the Code Name Insight Blog

Equifax Data Leak: Check if you were Affected - Google Thinks it is a Phishing site!

I woke up this morning and spent the first part of the morning catching up on Hurricane Irma news, (current status, future path,projected impact,etc.), then I noticed a headline that Equifax had a "data leak"...about a month ago...and possibly 143 MILLION people were affected...AND Equifax executives dumped company stock during the period between their discovering the  leak and their public announcement of the leak.

Crazy stuff, right? MR. ROBOT stuff.

So I go to the site set up to announce the leak and click on the link to check if my information was involved. This is what I see:

If this a joke? Is this a test? Yes, I understand what is actually going on. They are utilizing a third-party service for consumers to check if their data was involved in the leak, but this was a very shitty implementation. This could have easily been set up under the Equifax domain to not cause confusion. You would think someone would think of that...

As I was typing this up, the following tweets appeared, re-tweeted by a friend:

Step 1: "don't sell your shares based on inside knowledge of the breach" ranking pretty high on that list.

— Pwn All The Things (@pwnallthethings) September 8, 2017

Step 2: "sorry our credit monitoring agency got hacked but it's fine here's some free credit monitoring" also pretty high up there.

— Pwn All The Things (@pwnallthethings) September 8, 2017

Step 3: make your response to getting hacked not itself look like a phishing attack

— Pwn All The Things (@pwnallthethings) September 8, 2017

Step 4: helps if your "click here to see if I'm affected" link actually works.

— Pwn All The Things (@pwnallthethings) September 8, 2017

Step 5: "trust us, we got awesome people to do the response" falls a bit flat if you conspicuously hide the technical details of the hack

— Pwn All The Things (@pwnallthethings) September 8, 2017

Step 6: "disappointing" is the wrong word if your company trades on trust and you just got hacked for 143m SSNs, DoBs & addresses via SQLi

— Pwn All The Things (@pwnallthethings) September 8, 2017

Code Name Insight: Prepping Challenges 71 Thru 80--Protection

Prepping Challenges 71 Thru 80--Protection

You are responsible for protecting yourself and your family at all times.  While you can call the police for help, they usually don't arrive until after the fact.  And during a disaster, you will be lucky if you can even get through to 911 so it is up to you to develop some basic protection strategies.

Full Post: http://codenameinsight.blogspot.com/2017/09/prepping-challenges-71-thru-80.html

Post-Disaster Travel Safety Tips

The impetus for this post comes from my work life. A tale of warning, if you will.




Vehicle wake on a flooded road. Image credit: Reid Fiest / Global News

These events occurred after Hurricane Harvey devastated the Texas Gulf Coast and caused disastrous flooding in Houston, East Texas, and Southwestern Louisiana.

An employee worked at his regularly assigned location, in the Lafayette area, through the duration of the storm. His family, luckily, were safe from any of the hazards that plagued so many in the Houston area.

Once the storm passed, his crew rotation was finished, so he wanted to go home to be with his family. It was strongly recommended that he plot a northern route up I-49 with guidance from the Texas Dept. of Transportation and the Louisiana Dept. of Transportation and Development websites to track road closures. He is assumed to have complied with that request, but appeared to mainly rely on WAZE, the crowd-sourced navigation app, to route his trip. (More on this later.) His route involved going south from Lake Charles to cross the Sabine River, then taking various roads north and west to go through Beaumont and then on through Conroe and into Spring, Tx, where he resides.

On one particular road, he found traffic was only able to go in one direction and the other side of the road was a boat lane. Yes, it was underwater and actually being used by boats.

He was able to make it through Beaumont, but eventually he arrived at a point on the road he was traveling that was underwater in both directions. I was notified that he had come to a section that his car could not pass through. (More on this later, too.) He then decided that according to what he could tell, he could take back roads and get to I-10 in Orange, Tx, then he should have a straight shot with open roads back to Lafayette.

That plan wound up not working either as he again encountered flooded roads that his car could not pass over, so he was stuck. In an evacuated Bridge City, Tx.

Luckily, he knew someone who lived in nearby Orange, Tx. who had not evacuated and was able to come pick him up. He was able to stay with this friend for the next day or so until waters went down and he could then make it back to Lafayette and on to Spring via a northerly route.

There are two take-aways I want to focus on from this experience, detailed below.

1. A crowd-sourced traffic/hazard/navigation app relies on having a crowd available at a specific location to report hazards and road closures. In this case, I suspect it showed no traffic issues because there was no one telling it that there were issues on the selected route.

2. When planning to take a potentially risky route through an area that is experiencing flooding, DO NOT attempt to take said route in a car! Unless it is lifted and riding on large tires, you most likely will not make it.

Some other points I would like to add is be prepared to sit tight when traveling in this kind of situation. Make sure to have water, food, medication, cash, a blanket, and anything else you might need in the event you are stranded and unable to travel further.

Please let me know your thoughts on this post and any suggestions for staying safe in this type of situation.

Code Name Insight: Prepping Challenge 61 Thru 70--Vehicle

Code Name Insight: Prepping Challenge 61 Thru 70--Vehicle: "Prepping Challenge 61 Thru 70--Vehicle And the disasters don't stop, last week was Hurricane Harvey, next up Hurricane Irma.  So there is more prepping to do..."

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Code Name Insight: Prepping Challenges 51 Thru 60--Money

Code Name Insight: Prepping Challenges 51 Thru 60--Money: "Prepping Challenges 51 Thru 60--Money Having enough money in reserve to see you through a disaster can mean the difference between living in comfort while your home is rebuilt or living in a mold-infested, partially broken down home.  Between being able to prep the basics like food and water ahead of time and waiting for when (or even if) food handouts will be given in your neighborhood.  Being on sound financial footing as soon as possible is one of the best ways to be prepared for a disaster. "

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Code Name Insight: Prepping Challenges 41 Thru 50--Medical

Code Name Insight: Prepping Challenges 41 Thru 50--Medical: "Prepping Challenges 41 Thru 50--Medical Among the most important prepping skills to have are those of the medical variety.  As you can see from reports on Hurricane Harvey, medical services are often few and far between right after a disaster."

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