{"id":198069,"date":"2026-03-18T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/18\/cybersecurity-talk-outlines-latest-risks-to-residents-blaine-county\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T16:10:30","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T20:10:30","slug":"cybersecurity-talk-outlines-latest-risks-to-residents-blaine-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/18\/cybersecurity-talk-outlines-latest-risks-to-residents-blaine-county\/","title":{"rendered":"Cybersecurity talk outlines latest risks to residents | Blaine County"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cybersecurity talk outlines latest risks to residents | Blaine County<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.mtexpress.com\/news\/blaine_county\/cybersecurity-talk-outlines-latest-risks-to-residents\/article_918415f2-1c6d-4c96-ab15-021d34fecb80.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-03-18 06:00:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.mtexpress.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Author: <\/a><\/p>\n

Using an unordered list, summarize the following article with between 4 and 8 key points. <\/p>\n

Cybersecurity expert Sin Ming Loo provided some insights on Thursday into the latest cybersecurity threats, what risks they pose to valley residents\u2019 digital online information and the best ways to defend against hacker attacks.Loo is an assistant dean at Boise State University\u2019s College of Innovation and Design and a professor of electrical and computer engineering. He spoke at the Limelight Hotel in Ketchum as part of a Sun Valley Economic Development roundtable event which was attended by about 45 people.Loo said cybersecurity is best achieved through the layering of a variety of cybersecurity tools, beginning with good personal judgement like not clicking on dangerous links or responding to suspicious emails.<\/p>\n

He said 95% of cybersecurity failures stem from human error rather than technical mishaps.\u201cCybersecurity depends on people, process and technology,\u201d Loo said. \u201cThe weakest link is between the keyboard and the chair.\u201dBad actors using new tacticsLoo and his colleague Kris Pruett delivered a presentation that outlined increasingly sophisticated means that hackers are using to fool someone into providing essential information, including passwords and other personal information that can be used to impersonate an individual to gain access to secure data, company or government information and bank accounts.Victims of cybercrimes often fall prey to what is known in hacking lingo as \u201csocial engineering,\u201d whereby a hacker uses interpersonal communication to gain a person\u2019s trust enough to convince them to provide private information. These hacks can begin with emails, texts or phone calls geared toward convincing someone to disclose a password.Hackers known for \u201cphishing\u201d emails used to trick people are now using the latest artificial intelligence audio programs for \u201cvishing,\u201d which gathers samples of an individual\u2019s voice to mimic it convincingly enough to send voice messages or calls to unsuspecting relatives and friends.Loo said an AI can replicate a human voice based on a 15-second sample.Vishing voice messages and phishing emails typically include an urgent message from an authoritative source claiming that someone needs help.\u201cYou can\u2019t trust a phone number and you can\u2019t trust a voice,\u201d Loo said. \u201cAnd banks never call you.\u201dTo make sure calls and messages are not vishing, the team recommended creating secret code words and phrases with close relatives that can be used to authenticate someone\u2019s identity.There is also the option of calling someone directly to see if the message is authentic.The team said passwords should be at least 15 characters in length and include numbers, upper- and lower-case letters and special symbols to be less vulnerable to hacking by machines. They should be changed annually.Businesses and individuals managing sensitive data should use multiple-factor authentication processes to ensure a user is authentic. These can include a password, a physical token of some kind or biometrics, like fingerprints.The team advised going from passwords to \u201cpasskeys\u201d for increased security. Passkey apps allow a user to have one passkey for multiple sites that previously used separate passwords. Loo said there is a risk in getting blocked out of your online accounts if you lose your passkey.
\n Loo and Pruett also advised the audience to not use default passwords on Wi-Fi routers or trust public Wi-Fi networks, which can be hacked using an \u201cevil twin\u201d network that mimics the actual one to steal credentials and other personal data.\u201cThe use of unsecured wireless networks is insane\u201d Loo said.Loo and Pruett also advised locking all credit reports online and not carrying a social security card, which could be used to hack someone\u2019s social security account. They also recommended using personal security controls on social media accounts.\u201cBad guys can do reconnaissance and act like your friends and family,\u201d Loo said.A simple way to keep computers safe from intrusion is to regularly update security systems and accept \u201cpatches\u201d from trusted sources to do so. Backing up data regularly onto sperate hard drives is also a good idea.\u201cOur devices are going to fail,\u201d Loo said. \u201cData is not secure on the cloud. If an account gets hacked, it could be lost. Attackers only need to be right once.\u201dTodd Mandeville, part owner of Ketchum Computers, took the stage briefly to add two recommendations for small businesses: Buy cyber incident insurance policy for coverage in case of an attack, and use a 24\/7 third-party managed-detection response service to respond to suspicious activities and shut them down.\u201cHackers only need to be right once, but we need to be right every day,\u201d Mandeville said.County emergency manager worried about threatsBlaine County Disaster Services Coordinator Chris Corwin attended the talk.\u201cMy concerns are about a potential breach in which someone accesses our data, or a bad actor comes in and shuts down our service,\u201d Corwin said.Corwin said Blaine County has an IT department which works to protect the county\u2019s online resources. About 190 county employees receive cybersecurity trainings on a regular basis.Corwin said he is aware of at least one other county in Idaho that has fallen victim to a ransomware attack, in which a system was shut down until the county paid a ransom to have it turned back on.\u201cThe cost for rebuilding the system with new hard drives is sometimes more than the ransom,\u201d Corwin said.Blaine County recently had to contract with a new public emergency alert system after the old platform suffered a data breach, the Express reported.He said cyberattacks have also been more personal.\u201cMy grandmother got a call years ago from a guy saying I was in jail and to send money for bail,\u201d Corwin said. \u201cShe was wise enough at the time to call me and ask if I was in jail.\u201d \ufffc<\/p>\n

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Cybersecurity talk outlines latest risks to residents | Blaine County https:\/\/www.mtexpress.com\/news\/blaine_county\/cybersecurity-talk-outlines-latest-risks-to-residents\/article_918415f2-1c6d-4c96-ab15-021d34fecb80.html Publish Date: 2026-03-18 06:00:00…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":198070,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com\/mtexpress.com\/content\/tncms\/assets\/v3\/editorial\/0\/85\/085a1643-f032-46ad-984f-893bedc63610\/69b87f8ce2ffc.image.jpg?crop=1247%2C655%2C0%2C503&resize=1200%2C630&order=crop%2Cresize","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[26,20,30,24,35,25],"class_list":["post-198069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cybersecurity","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-breach","tag-cybersecurity","tag-hacker","tag-phishing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198069"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198069"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198069\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":198071,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198069\/revisions\/198071"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}