Whiskey Business!  ALA Independence Chapter Event, Oct. 22nd at Ostroff/Godshall

By Lisa Blair, Senior Manager of Operations, Burns White Attorneys at Law

A big thank you to Wilhelm Rebmann and Scott Flaherty of Altek Business Systems, and Jeffrey Hunter, Supervisory Special Agent, FBI, for a compelling presentation on Cyber Security and informative presentation on whiskey and bourbon. We also welcomed Brandon Trombetta from the Keystone Opportunity Center who gave us some insight on the non-profit’s services to families in need including housing, food and education.

As administrators, we all need to be on our toes every day when it comes to potential threats to our firms and their computer systems.  We learned that one of the top contributing factors to security breaches is, of course, human error! Users are not taking heed of the warnings and what to look for in suspicious email activity.  

In addition, we also learned that the FBI has a network that tracks security threats to companies, creates ways to neutralize some of the attacks, and also prosecutes the wrongdoers.  It is important to contact the FBI as soon as a company receives a threat or breach because there may already be similar data in their network that might enable them to neutralize the threat.  

We discovered A LOT about bourbon, i.e. it’s not bourbon unless it is aged in a new oak barrel for at least 4 years.  We tested four different whiskeys – commenting on the nose, and the finish – and we also added drops of water that changed the taste.  At the end, Scott from Altek tested whether we were listening (and sober!) and gave Altek labeled bottles to those who answered correctly.  And Altek very generously gave bottles of the 4 whiskeys that we tasted as door prizes – I was one of the lucky winners!  

We had a beautiful complement of food to enjoy and collected several bags of items for the Keystone Opportunity Center food pantry.  Thanks to our Education Committee for organizing a great event!