Tag Archives: Cyber

MGM Resorts Hit by Cyber – Timely Newsletter Reference….

Posted on September 13, 2023 by | Leave a comment

With the final editing of the Q 4 2023 Newsletter in process… an article included in is Cyber Security from a half day seminar late spring….

From the Newsletter Article..

If there’s one thing, for those of us with little time or patients for a long read that we would like you to take from this article it is that most cyber intrusions come from an e-mail that has a bad actor with a hot link click, do not click on that bad hot link!

The second thing and more encouraging, most cyber security situations are not extremely complicated and are allowed by a simple letting of our guards down- see above point!

It Happens to the Best of them – MGM Resorts

Monday morning, during a regular research call, it was noted MGM had been taken down via a hacker… maybe a bad loser… but who knows…

This from the site early am Monday… for all of MGM at the time…

Oh my…just checked it again… YIKES!

Snapshot taken 9-12-23 at 8:44 PM

Cannot imagine the lost revenue from this hack… WOW!

Quick Google for more information — From – This Las Vegas Journal

On Tuesday, some point-of-sale locations couldn’t process credit card transactions at MGM’s retail outlets, and in-resort ATMs were offline. Some guests complained that they couldn’t get into their hotel rooms because the MGM app was off. The company has since remedied that problem by issuing key cards. MGM’s websites and mobile app remained down on Tuesday.

Have a Great “Cyber Security Aware” Day!

John A. Kvale CFA, CFP

Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.

A Dallas Texas based fee only

Financial Planning Total Wealth

Management firm.

jkfinancialinc

street-cents

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July 2023 Audio Video Review – RMD Reminder -AI – Cyber – FOMC on the Brakes – Financial Planning and Capital Market Review – By John Kvale CFA, CFP

Posted on July 31, 2023 by | Leave a comment

Hello and Welcome to our July 2023 Financial Planning and Capital Market Update!

If you are too busy to read, feel free to listen as we describe our post and thoughts in friendly podcast audio format as well as Video!

Newbies –

We like to articulate our thoughts and review on a Monthly basis our Financial Planning Tips, Capital Markets thoughts and current events!

Hope you enjoy!

BREAK IN – CLIENTS – Early RMD

July 2023 Video


YouTube

Financial Planning Tip(s)

AI – Artificial Intelligence Update – Great but Not Saving the World

In this timely post (in our humble opinion – IMHO) we revisit the latest rage… AI – Artificial Intelligence – very similar to Dot.com in our opinion… So we try to clarify…

Oh… Here is a GREAT YouTube resource for explaining AI – Christopher Penn a Marketing Expert we have long followed

From the Post:

AI – Artificial Intelligence Today explained

Program assigns a number to all the words in the English Language – other languages too of course.

Cluster of huge computers located somewhere inexpensive scans everything it can get its eyes on, and tags the patterns of the numbers from the words it has scanned…

Not kidding, this is it!

Cyber Reminder –

They are at it again…. Watch out!

Capital Market Comments

Go Powell Go – Rates a 24 Year High – Both Feet On the Brakes!

Careful what we ask for….

Have a Great Day, Talk to You at the End of August !

John A. Kvale CFA, CFP

Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.

A Dallas Texas based fee only

Financial Planning Total Wealth

Management firm.

jkfinancialinc

street-cents

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Posted in Audio, Economy, Education, General Financial Planning, Interest Rates, Investing/Financial Planning, Market Comments, Monthly Review, Podcast, Video

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Friday from Afar … Picture of Local Guest … Cyber Reminder … Some Really Good New Spam, Wish they would focus that Energy …

Posted on July 28, 2023 by | Leave a comment

Mentioned yesterday in an email…. We have a “Love Hate” Relationship with technology… When it works… yay.. .When it doesn’t … Nay….

Technology does give us the ability to be more mobile as we are taking our last “Full at home Family” Trip, with the oldest heading off to school at the end of next month…. All good, all part of the process, as many of you have said…

Here is a Picture of a resident from our current location -Actually looks like he is posing!

Cyber Reminder — Wish time was spent in a Positive Direction

While many (present party included) are sharing their last family get aways ,.,,,the bad guys, and likely some bored young techies, are still at it…

Was going to say these were all time stamped at the incorrect hour, but the last Amazon spam came through mid-day yesterday… Oh.. all of these were yesterday, and that was a light day…

This first one almost got me, as it was sandwiched between two legitimate tax related emails from different sources… Of course, DO NOT CLICK ON ANYTHING IN THESE!

These other two are regulars, but again came in yesterday… NEVER EVER CLICK ON THE PDF – Below Right Screenshot…

Have a Great weekend, Next Week Monthly Review Monday and last week remote! – Talk Then!

John A. Kvale CFA, CFP

Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.

A Dallas Texas based fee only

Financial Planning Total Wealth

Management firm.

jkfinancialinc

street-cents

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ES Tax Payment 2 for 2023 Due Next Week! Wow that was fast! … Cyber Reminder, The Summer Brings them out … Friday …

Posted on June 9, 2023 by | Leave a comment

Every year this is the ES Payment that can easily slip by….

The reason is obvious in hindsight, but never as we cross the due date threshold…

It was only 60 days ago that we made our last payment….. Ahhhhhh

Electronic Payment of ES Taxes

Here is the IRS tax website link, which is very easy to make electronic estimated taxes. Be sure to follow the instructions carefully as there are a lot of different options for making payments to taxes, and be sure to carefully enter your personal information so the IRS knows it’s you.

We recommend you do this electronically if at all possible…. the mail is still having issues!

If you really need to pay via paper…

Here are the IRS ES Payment instructions pdf – the following Coupon is included in the instructions.

Cyber Reminder

Something about “Idle Minds….” Well, summer is in full force and so are the Cyber issues….

BE CAREFUL – Coming in the Newsletter – almost all Cyber problems come from a bad click…

Don’t Accidentally Clock on a bad link … Just Don’t Do it!

Have a Great Friday, Weekend and Talk Next Week!

John A. Kvale CFA, CFP

Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.

A Dallas Texas based fee only

Financial Planning Total Wealth

Management firm.

jkfinancialinc

street-cents

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Posted in Investing/Financial Planning, Tax Related

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April 2023 Audio Video Review – Cyber Reminder, US Dollar Discussions, Chat GPT the modern .COM (Dot Com) – Financial Planning and Capital Market Review – By John Kvale CFA, CFP

Posted on May 1, 2023 by | Leave a comment

Hello and Welcome to our April 2023 Financial Planning and Capital Market Update!

If you are too busy to read, feel free to listen as we describe our post and thoughts in friendly podcast audio format as well as Video!

Newbies –

We like to articulate our thoughts and review on a Monthly basis our Financial Planning Tips, Capital Markets thoughts and current events!

Hope you enjoy!

April 2023 Video –


YouTube

Financial Planning Tip(s)

Cyber – Fraud Reminder

In this post about cyber fraud and a reminder we point out where some 95% of all intrusions come from….

The trojan horse of clicking on a spam email!

Capital Market Comments –

US Dollar Currency Status –

After hearing from four different directions …discussions of the US dollar and weaking in its status… the follow post was born…

Likely overstated…but acknowledge there are surely effect from cutting a countries Swift code- (lifeline to wires)

True Foreigners, likely want a WEAKER US dollar – as its strength is not waning currently!

.COM and Chat GPT Comparisons

One of the neat things about staring so young in this industry and doing this for so long, is at a fairly young (this is subjective our course) age we get to recall and remanence about times of old….

…We all know what happened eventually, tons of .COM companies came public and expired in short order… BUT public companies learned by adding .COM to their name or services would drive the stock price up… many times in huge amounts…

.Com rhymes with Chat GPT – in almost every way…. but be sure to follow the revenues, not the narratives!

Have a Great Day, Talk to You at the End of April !

John A. Kvale CFA, CFP

Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.

A Dallas Texas based fee only

Financial Planning Total Wealth

Management firm.

jkfinancialinc

street-cents

Leave a comment

Posted in Audio, Cyber, Education, General Financial Planning, Investing/Financial Planning, Market Comments, Monthly Review, Podcast, Video

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Fraud and Cyber Reminder – AGAIN – Where do over 95% of the intrusions come from?

Posted on April 12, 2023 by | Leave a comment

This is REALLY important for all of us… take a few to read – will try to keep it as short and direct as possible !

Since last talking about this, a 4.5 hour (went faster than you may think) meeting was attended with experts from across the country on this subject….

Great notes, a thick booklet, and subject matter for us to visit on once again…

Key Points:

VAST number (>95%) of intrusions are from email – i.e. bad click, usually while in a hurry (guard down)

Thankfully the fraud is USUALLY not extremely technical – i.e. its a simple human slip up

Cell Phone Texts are no longer safe – Bad guys have figured them out

File Sharing programs are the best

Two Factor Authentication is the bomb – use as much as possible

Email take over and impersonation is the most common

USB or Pen External Drives are full of viruses

Ideas for staying safe:

Password of 15 characters – know that is long- Use a password phrase with a symbol for easy reference

Never EVER open or click on an unfamiliar email link – if important there is another way or repeated after confirmation

Never use Pen/USB External Drives – Heck we are disabling the ability to use them in our office computers – setting in Windows

Wow – this morning our local Newspaper runs a special from the FBI – DO NOT USE PUBLIC CHARGING STATIONS – Well guess the bad guys have found them too… Avoid all public locations!

We adapt and they adapt…but that is ok, just keeping this a bit top of mind should keep us all much safer!

Have a Great “Cyber Reminder” Day!

John A. Kvale CFA, CFP

Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.

A Dallas Texas based fee only

Financial Planning Total Wealth

Management firm.

jkfinancialinc

street-cents

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Posted in Cyber, Education, Investing/Financial Planning

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Sudden Increase in Spam both email and text…. Reminder to complete those patches! 18 examples recorded in less than two weeks for your viewing! Do not Bite on a Spam Email/Text Could Be Hazardous!

Posted on March 13, 2023 by | Leave a comment

The following is another reason to make sure your patches are being installed, both from the hardware, such as the maker of your phone, or other device, and software standpoint. Not doing your updates may subject you to more continued spam, and one slip up could cause much greater problems…

Have you experienced a sudden increase in email or text spams? If not consider yourself lucky, but not necessarily out of the woods yet!

About two weeks ago an email spam increase seem to occur. Luckily and just by chance a decision to start taking snapshots of the email spams was made as multiple emails occurred from a regular go to flight provider located here in Dallas, Southwest!

Counter Action Problems – Better than the Alternative

With an electronic fax delivery system and email delivery of this post being blocked, the largest providers, most notably, Microsoft have taken note and attempted to raise the gates. This increase in their spam filters, garners unintended consequences such as a loss of the route delivery of the aforementioned items. In our case, our IT department re-issued safe acceptance of our key items, and we were back in business.

Think to yourself if you are missing a regular contact from something, your provider may have blocked while trying to attempt coverage of this new Spam attack!

Examples of the last two weeks record keeping! Do not bite!

The Golf Cart is my favorite and most clever… Not sure where the Ace Hardware came from!

Have a Great Spam Update Reminder Day!

John A. Kvale CFA, CFP

Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.

A Dallas Texas based fee only

Financial Planning Total Wealth

Management firm.

jkfinancialinc

street-cents

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Posted in Clients/Clients Only, Cyber, Investing/Financial Planning, John Kvale, Personal

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Home Sweet Home … On the way … Saw Sharpened … School About to start … Fun Friday

Posted on August 12, 2022 by | Leave a comment

It has been nice being remote in a cooler climate….

Many of you know it truly is a working (but it never is work) remote vacation…

Tomorrow we rise before sun and hit the road back to the familiar surroundings…

School beacons not only for our family but for new minted “God Mother” daughter at a super close to home college… neat honor!

Speaking of working vacations, two 5 hour virtual seminars were completed midweek…. one of the most interesting sessions discussed the fact that mailed statements actually have a greater fraud exposure than electronic now… interesting… more to come!

Ahhhh….. today is a Friday heading into a mid month weekend, enjoy and talk next week!

John A. Kvale CFA, CFP

Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.

A Dallas Texas based fee only

Financial Planning Total Wealth

Management firm.

jkfinancialinc

street-cents

Leave a comment

Posted in Cyber, John Kvale, Personal

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Tax Forms Delivery and Corrections Update/Reminder, Watch the Cyber Tricks and a Brilliant New Cell Spam Calling Method that ALMOST Got Us – They Figured Out How to Put a Fake Name as the Number … Friday

Posted on February 11, 2022 by | Leave a comment

With a lot of questions this week on Tax forms, we thought it time to review estimated delivery dates AND take note of the first round of corrected 1099’s of March 3:

Timing of Available Tax Documentation

  • Delivery of 1099s: Currently, we expect the first wave of 1099s to begin posting online on January 21, 2022 with Advisor and client notifications going out shortly after. Estimated dates for the waves are below:
 Target Delivery Date*Details
Wave 1Close of business January 21, 2022No holdings subject to reallocation (ex. RICs, REITs)
Wave 2Close of business February 4, 2022Low risk for reallocation; income reallocations finalized through January 29th
Wave 3Close of business February 11, 2022Clients with finalized income reallocations received from January 30th through February 3rd
Wave 4Close of business February 11, 2022Remaining clients
  • Correction Cycles - Begins March 3, 2022 and occurring every 2 weeks through April 14, 2022

Do Not Fall for the Call Microsoft Computer Fraud

They are back, so BE CAREFUL… Within one week we have noted TWO fake Microsoft computer hacks…

Here is how it goes:

Upon turning your computer on you are told to call Microsoft to help “Fix” your ailing computer….

DO NOT BITE–

This from Microsoft Support

Avoid and report Microsoft technical support scams

Microsoft will never proactively reach out to you to provide unsolicited PC or technical support. If you receive a phone call claiming to be from Microsoft, or see a pop-up window on your PC with a fake warning message and a phone number to call and get your “issue” fixed, it’s better to be safe and not click any links or provide any personal information.

Never call the number provided in the error message. Real Microsoft error messages never include a phone number to call.

Brilliant Fake Cell Call

Ok, so we warned/lectured enough up top… this one ALMOST got yours truly….

Looked very similar to a tennis player parent in my contacts….

Say goodbye to the unknown numbers… looks like they figured out how to impose a fake name-

Ahh…today is a Friday and just a week ago with the frozen tundra…. looks to be almost 80 degrees here…

Enjoy!! Talk next week!

John A. Kvale CFA, CFP

  • Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.
  • A Dallas Texas based fee only
  • Financial Planning Total Wealth
  • Management firm.
  • jkfinancialinc
  • street-cents

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Posted in Cyber, General Financial Planning, Investing/Financial Planning, John Kvale, Personal, Tax Related

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Cell Phone Replacement … How Many Passwords Can a Cell Phone Have? … Friday

Posted on January 28, 2022 by | Leave a comment

With travels hopefully opening up … a rather old Cell AND the opportunity to get jet speed coverage (5G+ which I have yet to see connected…grrrr) … longer battery life, the switch was on!

Not sure if the prior switch was smoother or maybe it is our obsession with security i.e. Two Factor Authentication, Authenticators, Face Recognition…

Sure know why they give you 30 days to turn your old cell in!

EEEEEKKKKKKKKKKKKK

The amount of Passwords from emails, to websites to log ins is staggering… have them all, but just when the thought of the coast is clear…. “Please Enter Your XXXX!”

Ya, ya, all real world problems, but sure will not upgrade the cell anytime soon again – Wow!

Next week we say good bye to January … a Month End Video is in the cards with some hopeful Inflation analysis, unless of course some thing more important jumps to the front of the line…

Ahhhh…. but that is next week, today is a Friday heading into a weekend… hopefully a chance to wish my 94 year old Father Happy Belated Birthday in person without the family being non symptomatic !

Have a Great Friday and weekend!

John A. Kvale CFA, CFP

Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.

A Dallas Texas based fee only

Financial Planning Total Wealth

Management firm.

jkfinancialinc

street-cents

Leave a comment

Posted in Cyber, John Kvale, Personal

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