Tag Archive for: professional

A Very Professional Homemade CNC Router


[Benne] has a small workshop at home so he decided to make a very versatile CNC router for his final project at school. It took him around 6 months to arrive at the result you can see in the image above and what is even more impressive is that he was only 17 years old at the time.

[Benne] used the free cad program Google Sketchup to draw the different parts he needed around the linear rails and ball screws he already had lying around. The CNC’s travel is 730x650x150mm, uses Nema 23 (3Nm) steppers, 15mm thick aluminum plates and 30x60mm aluminum extrusions. In his article, [Benne] gives great advice to those who would like to design their CNC like his, providing very useful links to manufacturers. He estimated the cost of his CNC to be around 1500 euros (about $2000). We’ll let you browse the many lines of his very detailed build log, which makes us wish to be as talented as him even at our age…


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SJ ‘Uptown Apartments’ Get Upscale Treatment Aimed at Young Professional Tenants


A Florida entrepreneur says he’s fallen in love with St. Joseph and Michigan’s Great Southwest!   As a result, Leonard Schulz is totally renovating an apartment complex in ‘Uptown St. Joe’, near the key intersection of Niles Avenue and Main Street.

Schulz tells us the ‘Uptown Apartments’, which have been quietly serving tenants at 1117 Niles Avenue since the 1970s, will soon take on an ‘upscale’ feel, catering to young professionals who have followed employment to St. Joseph or Benton Harbor, but are frustrated when they look for a nice apartment to call “home.”

There are eight one-bedroom apartments in the Uptown building.  Schulz describes them as “roomy, very adequate size-wise.”  However, he says, they of course need updating to appeal the the Millennials and Gen-Z tenants he’s targeting.  All the apartments will be essentially the same and rent in the $1200 per month range when they go on the market late Winter or early Spring.

Schulz says infrastructure is being updated throughout the complex, including internet, security cameras and locked storage areas for each unit.  Landscaping and outdoor lighting will follow in the Spring.  He promises there will be a “new fresh feel” to the entire project.  Schulz says there is off-street parking for each unit.

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When asked about how he came to acquire the Uptown Apartments, the Palm Beach Gardens, Florida resident smiles, chuckles and shares a story.

“I was looking for a house and ended up buying the apartments.  They were listed one day and I bought them by noon the next day.  I was the first one in a line that formed quickly.”

Schulz said the property seemed to jump out at him from the online listings.  So he quickly called his realtor, who went to the location and gave Schulz a quick “Facetime” walk-through.  He decided to make an offer and by the end of the day, the deal was done.

Schulz also bought a house on Highland Avenue along the St. Joseph River, where he expects to spend the warmer weather months, while maintaining his Florida residence in the Winter.  He says he never imagined himself as a “Michigander”, but developed a…

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An interview with a professional ransomware negotiator • The Register


Interview The first rule of being a ransomware negotiator is that you don’t admit you’re a ransomware negotiator — at least not to LockBit or another cybercrime gang. 

Instead, these negotiators portray themselves as simply company representatives, said Drew Schmitt, a professional ransomware negotiator and principal threat analyst at cybersecurity firm GuidePoint Security.

“The biggest reason is because most ransomware groups specifically and explicitly say: ‘We don’t want to work with a negotiator. If you do bring a negotiator to the table, we’re just going to post your stuff anyway,'” Schmitt told The Register. Hence the need to masquerade as a regular employee.

Ransomware is, of course, malware that once on a network scrambles all the valuable files it can find, and demands a payment to decrypt and restore the information. Lately, gangs also steal copies of the data prior to encrypting it so that they can leak or sell it if the demand isn’t paid. Sometimes they just siphon the files and don’t bother to encrypt them. Sometimes the crooks use the purloined files to harass or exploit a victim’s customers or users. There’s all manner of things extortionists can do and demand once they are on your computers and have your data.

Schmitt said he negotiates one or two ransoms a month, and victim organizations range from very small businesses to major enterprises, spanning all industries. Manufacturing, technology, construction, government, and healthcare were the hardest hit in the second quarter of this year, according to research done for his company’s latest extortionware report.

I’ve also seen initial demands of $25 million … they are all over the place

He said he once saw a ransom demand from a “less-sophisticated group” who wanted just $2,000. “But I’ve also seen initial demands of $25 million,” he added. “So they are all over the place.”

Schmitt said he has, on two occasions, negotiated ransoms down to…

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Ransomware attack targets Professional Finance Co., affecting 657 health care clients


A ransomware attack against Professional Finance Co. Inc., a Greeley-based accounts-receivable management company, has resulted in a data breach potentially affecting 657 of the company’s health-care-provider clients and almost two million individuals.

The breach, with more than 1.9 million individuals potentially affected, represents the second-biggest data breach affecting health care companies so far in 2022, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Breach Portal. A March attack against Shields Health Care Group Inc. of Massachusetts affected more than 2.4 million individuals.

The Professional Finance breach already has prompted four federal lawsuits accusing the company of failing to exercise reasonable care in securing customer and employee data. The lawsuits were filed in U.S. District Court in Denver and are seeking class-action status.

The ransomware attack occurred Feb. 26, but Professional Finance did not begin informing client health care providers until May 5, according to a Notice of Cybersecurity Incident posted on the company’s website.

“On Feb. 26, 2022, PFC detected and stopped a sophisticated ransomware attack in which an unauthorized third party accessed and disabled some of PFC’s computer systems,” according to the incident report. “PFC immediately engaged third party forensic specialists to assist us with securing the network environment and investigating the extent of any unauthorized activity. Federal law enforcement was also notified. The ongoing investigation determined that an unauthorized third party accessed files containing certain individuals’ personal information during this incident. PFC notified the respective health care providers on or around May 5, 2022.”

The company issued a press release about the data breach July 1.

PFC said it had “found no evidence that personal information has been specifically misused.” But data potentially accessed by the cyber attacker includes first and last name, address, accounts-receivable balance and information regarding payments made to accounts, according to the company. Additionally, date of birth, Social Security number, health insurance and medical-treatment…

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