IT Insights Blog — TestOut Continuing Education

In these turbulent times, a company without well trained security professionals is like the 2017 NBA All-Star Game — an onslaught of attackers and zero defense.

The IT Insights blog is taking the day off, in honor of Presidents Day. We will be back on Wednesday, Feb. 22. We do have a "Hail to the chief!" kind of of holiday salute, however, to all of our friends and associates in IT certification. Check out this incredible deal: In honor of "Honest Abe" — whose 208th birthday was two days before Valentines Day — and all of his presidential brethren, you can get the first month of any our top-caliber certification and training courses for just $5.

Hey, remember the data breach, announced last year, that compromised 500 million user Yahoo! user accounts? Remember how Yahoo! followed that up by announcing a second, separate incident that involved 1 billion compromised accounts? In case either of those slipped your mind, on Wednesday Yahoo! announced that they “may have” experienced yet another data breach. Naturally enough, perhaps, Yahoo! laid these nefarious deeds at the doorstep of state-sponsored hackers. They didn’t name any particular countries, but cybersecurity experts are pointing the finger of blame at either China or Russia.

The chocolates have been opened — and mostly eaten. The rose petals have begun their quick decline from beautiful red to brown. Romantic comedies have taken back their largely neglected place on the DVD shelf for another year. Valentine’s Day has come and gone again.

When Mark Cuban bought the Dallas Mavericks in 2000, he decided that the players would be more motivated and provide better results if they had more perks. When the team drafted Etan Thomas, Dan Langhi and Pete Mickeal in the 2000 NBA Draft, Cuban flew them to Dallas in his $40 million private jet. Cuban famously upgraded his players' locker room, installing a flat-screen TV, Sony PlayStation and DVD player in every locker. Utah Jazz radio announcer David Locke called the Dallas locker room the "Taj Mahal of locker rooms." During the 2011 NBA lockout, Mavs guard Delonte West actually slept there at night.