Cypac Blog

Beware of a new text message campaign that hit the islands this week. It claims that you owe money for speeding, parking and toll evasion and it looks pretty official... but something is off! Here’s what the text message looks like. See if you can spot everything wrong with it: This is great practice for identifying a sloppy scam. Why are St. Louis and Honolulu County on the same notice? Check out the em dashes (long hyphens) in the “Immediate Action Required” section. Also n

Have you ever received an email from yourself or another co-worker that seemed a bit... phishy? Over the past 2 weeks we've seen a huge spike in direct-send abuse from clients using Microsoft 365. It's a phishing technique where bad guys use a legitimate Microsoft 365 feature to send emails that appear 100% like they're coming from inside your company. It's particularly bad because they bypass all email spam filters and go right into inboxes. You may be wondering, why the hec

Hawaii banks, credit unions, and financial advisors face a stack of cybersecurity rules: GLBA, FFIEC, NCUA Part 748, PCI-DSS, and Hawaii HRS 487N. Here is what examiners look for, where most institutions fall short, and a 90 to 120 day path to compliance.

Some of you may have heard about YouTubers fighting back against overseas scam call centers by sending them glitter bombs, stink bombs or reverse hacking their computers. If you haven't, they're hugely entertaining - just search for "glitter bomb payback." Unfortunately though, the days of having a target to strike at could be numbered - those call centers are now being replaced with... you guessed it... AI! Apparently AI is not just coming for our jobs, it's coming for scamm

Cybersecurity for small business Hawaii is a pressing need in 2026. Honolulu businesses face layered risks from phishing, ransomware, and state breach notification laws. Learn what a plan covers and how to get started.

Today we're bracing for the third wave in a series of storms that's been impacting the island. The flooding has even reached our Manoa office, where several cars were totaled (see footage on Hawaii News Now ). Right now is a good time to make sure that you're prepared for possible power outages, power surges, internet and communication outages and water damage. The big question is: how can you make sure that your IT will survive today's storm? The Takeaway Here are my top 5 t

Real pricing data for managed cybersecurity services in Honolulu. Includes 2026 cost comparison tables sourced from IBM, Hiscox, and industry MSSP benchmarks.

I don't know about you but it seems like my iPhone has been doing a lot of updates lately and rebooting itself overnight. The good news is that Apple figured out that this is starting to irritate people and is now using a new method of updating our devices called "Background Security Improvements." Now they can do updates on portions of your device silently in the background, all without needing a reboot. Over the past 2 weeks they've been pushing out CVE-2026-20643 using

Well it's been an interesting week here at Cypac. The Manoa floods were bad, like really bad. In fact, some of our own footage ended up on Hawaii News Now . The good news is that nobody was hurt and well, maybe some of us wanted an excuse to get new cars anyway 🫠 In response, BIA Hawaii posted public service announcement urging flood victims to be especially vigilant of contractor fraud. BIA Hawaii represents the state’s largest network of craftsmen and contractors. With th

The bad guys are at it again. This time they hacked Nordstrom's email servers and sent crypto scam emails to customers disguised as a St. Patrick's Day promotion. Here's what it looked like: The problem is that these emails came from nordstrom@eml.nordstrom.com , an official address the company uses to send marketing, sales, and promotional communication. So this passes the human shield test and makes it far more convincing. The Takeaway Soon after these emails went out Nord