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Security

How To Know If You Have A Virus Infection

by Jeremy Miller, Technician
There is a lot of anti-virus software on the market today. They are created from many different software developers. All of them are a little different in how they protect your system.

There is no guarantee that your anti-virus software can protect you from any virus out there.

First let’s look at how anti-virus software works. Anti-virus software is usually installed on your computer, then it is scheduled to scan your computer regularly. A virus scan will scan each file on your computer for a “known” virus signature.

A virus signature is a piece of code that is known to your anti-virus software manufacturer as a virus. If your anti-virus detects a signature it will either remove it or ask you how to handle the file. You should remove any viruses that your anti-virus finds for you.

Most anti-viruses come with heuristic protection as well, which is when your anti-virus is able to detect suspicious activity on your computer.

Viruses are known to leak information, such as online banking information, or any other personal or confidential information.

They can lie dormant waiting for a specific user interaction before becoming active. They have the potential to cause unrepairable damage to computer operating systems.

There are many ways to get a virus on your computer with having an anti-virus software installed. The main reason is that virus developers have studied many different anti-virus software, and have been able to write viruses that cannot yet be detected by most anti-viruses.

The reason your anti-virus software cannot detect a newly written infection is because the anti-virus manufacturer has not yet seen the virus and does not have a signature in the database for it. This is the big reason why you should keep your anti-virus software up-to-date.

Another reason that your anti-virus software might not detect a virus would be because you trusted it.

Have you ever saw a pop-up on your screen asking for your permission to allow a program to run? If so then you may have allowed a virus to infect your system.

The last most common cause of infection is attempting to “Speed up your PC.” There is a lot of software out there that claims to speed up your PC for free. The problem is that good software is not free. Some free versions of software can actually slow your computer down, to promote the paid-version.

Also when downloading this software, there is usually a few links that look like download links.
If you click on the wrong one, you may install a virus. Also once you do get the right link, there are usually additional software included during the installation process.

You should always pay attention to every screen during the installation process to make sure you are only installing what you intended to install. There are a number of ways to detect if you may have a virus on your computer.

Your computer should behave regularly. This means your computer should not have any drastic changes day-to-day.

If you have lost access to something, or cannot connect to sites or services that you normally can you may have a virus. If you are browsing the Internet and your address bar does not go directly to the site you want, you may have a virus.

Also if your computer takes longer to startup than usual, this may be a sign of a virus.

If you have any of these symptoms on your computer or if you would like to proactively manage your computer’s security, you should contact us for assistance.

We recommend regular check-ups for your computer to prevent any malicious activity on your computer. You can contact us to work out a plan to combat malicious activity on your computer that will be simple and easy to understand.

 

Easy Tips To Secure Windows 8 Devices

With cybercrime on the rise, even the brand-new Windows 8 can leave a person vulnerable – which means it is important to know how to protect your devices from the moment you get them.

The good news is that this is not difficult if you follow a few simple tips.

You should commit to security from the very beginning; password-protect your new device immediately, connect to a Wi-Fi network you know is secure and register your device.

A number of companies such as NortonLive PC Quick Start will enable you to get your brand-new device up and running, easily and safely.

It is also important to be careful when choosing apps. All apps are allowed a certain level of access to private information, but some may use this in a malicious manner.

Make sure you read the user agreement to prevent giving the manufacturer rights you aren’t comfortable with, such as letting it into your social network and accessing a friend list. All your apps, email, bank accounts and social networks should be protected with complex passwords that you do not share with anyone.

Increase Network Security And Productivity

By Tech Experts Staff
As a managed services provider, we regularly consult with companies about issues they would like addressed. We find that many times, a simple solution can correct their issues in one fell swoop.

What are some of the biggest concerns businesses have? The top three we hear most often are security, productivity, and network speed.

These three main issues encompass many other common issues businesses have to deal with on a daily basis and are easily resolved.

In these days with high profile businesses such as Sony, GoDaddy, Verisign, etc. being hacked this past year it’s easy to see why security is of utmost importance.

Many businesses store confidential data such as credit card numbers, social security numbers, or other personal information on their servers, and because of this, must protect that information at all costs.

So, what’s the solution to this? Having good security policies in place is a start, but a giant leap in the right direction is having a business class firewall in place.

We offer Fortinet firewalls which, when properly implemented, can stop unauthorized network access in its tracks.

Fortinet firewalls offer many different security features to keep your network safe.

Network protection features include an Intrusion Prevention System (IPS), built-in antivirus solutions, and Data Loss Prevention (DLP) services. Fortinet firewalls protect your company’s, and more importantly, your client’s, private information.

Fortinet firewalls also offer the possibility of huge boosts in productivity.

In a recent study conducted by Salary.com it was found that employees waste on average 1.86 hours of work per day. That’s almost 25% of the work day!

So if this rings true to your company, you’re paying each employee for three months of work each year that they are not even doing!

What are your employees doing that is wasting so much time? Studies show that 52% of the two hours per day that employees waste were spent on non-work related websites like Facebook and Twitter.

While many companies don’t think this goes on in their business, the moment we put in one of our Fortinet firewalls, we almost always find someone on websites they were not supposed to be on during the work day.

Keeping these figures in mind, the costs associated with not having measures in place to stop these kinds of activities far out weighs the actual costs of having one of these units installed.

Once the unit is installed, we can implement web content filtering so employees cannot access time wasting websites.

Users that need access to these types of websites, like the owner of the company for instance, can have credentials to be able to override any filtering in place.

The final item that businesses strive for is a faster network. While this can be dependent entirely on the Internet connection speed your business has, it is entirely possible to have a high speed connection and still feel like your Internet is terribly slow.

So, this again goes back to web filtering. Users should not be able to download from unauthorized sites or do any activities on the network that take a large amount of bandwidth.

Also, if you have a couple of separate Internet connections, it is possible on some of our higher end Fortinet firewalls to have load balancing in place to help better distribute the load of connections out to the Internet if need be.

Whether you’re in a small business with a handful of employees or in a medium to large size company with potentially hundreds of employees, we have a firewall solution for your business.

Fortinet firewalls allow you to better manage your company and increase security, productivity, and network speed significantly.

 

Windows 8 Offers Users Enhanced Security Features

by Jeremy Miller, Technician
Windows has been known as a trustworthy computing platform, a lot of which is due to the ability to secure your operating system without infringing upon availability.

Microsoft has once again improved security across all versions of Windows 8. Just as in earlier releases, this version of Windows improves user and network security.

All versions of Windows will have many new security features such as:

UEFI Secure Boot support which is a large hardware step toward mitigating malware, specifically rootkits and bootkits. Rootkits and bootkits are low-level malware that run as your operating system starts up.

Organizations that deploy Windows 8 will want this feature enabled and prevent users from disabling this feature.

Smart Screen Filter which has already made its debut in Internet Explorer. Microsoft has decided to implement it into the operating system itself.

Smart Screen Filtering has been proven to be the best at blocking socially-engineered malware, which are phishing and pharming attacks such as bad links or redirects to bad or look-a-like sites.

This can aide in the prevention of drive-by downloads as well, which is where you unknowingly download malware by visiting websites.

Integrated anti-malware and Windows Defender is included in all Windows 8 versions. Windows defender will incorporate anti-virus from Microsoft Security Essentials with improved performance and a smaller footprint.

This can all be implemented alongside your current anti-virus provider’s anti-virus and should be implemented as soon as you obtain your computer, this way you are starting from a known-good environment.

Picture Passwords have been added to all versions of Windows 8 as well. Picture Password is a touch-based secure login. You select a picture and then create a gesture-sequence on top of the picture. These can simplify the login process while making it more difficult to hack.

Windows Reader is something completely new to Windows 8. Windows will now be able to read PDF documents without having to install 3rd party software. This can mitigate the popular PDF vulnerabilities. The more software you have installed the more vulnerable you become.

Address Space Layout Randomization was introduced in Windows Vista and has been improved upon since. This can aide in the prevention of the “buffer overflow” attacks that are gaining popularity. They have added integrity checks, and an Enhanced protected mode “Sandbox”

Windows 8 Professional has additional security features to the one listed below such as: Bitlocker and Bitlocker Togo, which are not new but have been improved upon. The same goes for Group Policy Objects.

Windows 8 Enterprise has additional security features such as: Applocker which was introduced in Windows 7 and gives the user the ability to white-list or blacklist applications.

Direct access is an alternative to VPN’s, and finally “Windows to Go”, which allows people to image your computers with a Windows 8 corporate image.

It can be put on a USB and loaded onto any 64-bit PC and can include all of the management features.

If you need assistance or help with any of the new features of Windows 8 please contact us for assistance.

We can even setup your new computers for first-time use and transfer any data from your old computer to your new Windows 8 computer.

Timely Tips For Social Networking Safety

Social networking websites like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and Windows Live Spaces are services people can use to connect with others to share information like photos, videos, and personal messages.

As the popularity of these social sites grows, so do the risks of using them. Hackers, spammers, virus writers, identity thieves, and other criminals follow the traffic.

Read these tips to help protect yourself when you use social networks.

Be wary of links
Use caution when you click links that you receive in messages from your friends on your social website. Treat links in messages on these sites as you would links in email messages.

Post judiciously
Know what you’ve posted about yourself. A common way that hackers break into financial or other accounts is by clicking the “Forgot your password?” link on the account login page.

To break into your account, they search for the answers to your security questions, such as your birthday, home town, high school class, or mother’s middle name. If the site allows, make up your own password questions, and don’t draw them from material anyone could find with a quick search.

Watch out for a friend’s hacked email
Don’t trust that a message is really from who it says it’s from. Hackers can break into accounts and send messages that look like they’re from your friends, but aren’t. If you suspect that a message is fraudulent, use an alternate method to contact your friend to find out. This includes invitations to join new social networks. For more information, see Scammers exploit Facebook friendships.

Protect your address book
To avoid giving away email addresses of your friends, do not allow social networking services to scan your email address book.

When you join a new social network, you might receive an offer to enter your email address and password to find out if your contacts are on the network. The site might use this information to send email messages to everyone in your contact list or even everyone you’ve ever sent an email message to with that email address.

Don’t friend everyone
Be selective about who you accept as a friend on a social network. Identity thieves might create fake profiles in order to get information from you.

Choose your social network carefully. Evaluate the site that you plan to use and make sure you understand the privacy policy. Find out if the site monitors content that people post. You will be providing personal information to this website, so use the same criteria that you would to select a site where you enter your credit card.

Posting is permanent
Assume that everything you put on a social networking site is permanent. Even if you can delete your account, anyone on the Internet can easily print photos or text or save images and videos to a computer. And don’t forget, Google caches!

Avoid apps and games
Be careful about installing extras on your site. Many social networking sites allow you to download third-party applications that let you do more with your personal page. Criminals sometimes use these applications to steal your personal information.

To download and use third-party applications safely, take the same safety precautions that you take with any other program or file you download from the web.

The Best Ways To Protect Yourself From Malware

By Tech Experts Staff
Users who bring their computers in to repair malware infections invariably ask the same question: “Why didn’t my antivirus stop me from getting viruses?”

So, you’re probably wondering, “If having antivirus software on my computer won’t protect me from viruses, what will?”

The fact of the matter is that while computer users are told they have to have antivirus on their PCs or risk getting infection, a machine can still get a virus despite antivirus software being installed.

Antivirus not foolproof
Antivirus software is designed to help prevent your system from becoming infected, but it isn’t foolproof. Antivirus software is constantly updated, but can be out of date for hours or even a day or two when a new infection is discovered.

Virus definitions are used to detect viruses and prevent them from gaining access to your computer. Automatic updates in antivirus software like Vipre download the updated definitions to protect your computer.

It’s the time period between when a new virus or malware is released, and the software companies can update the definitions, that your system is vulnerable.

How to protect from malware
Although no antivirus software, even the most expensive versions, offers guaranteed virus protection, antivirus software is a must have. We’ve seen a number of infections where clients have said that they were on legitimate sites at the time the infection hit their computer.

Even legitimate websites have the chance of malware being coded into them by hackers, causing that website to send the malware onto your computer.

So, the absolute best thing you can do is to have antivirus software installed.

The next best step is to be cautious about what you are looking for on the Internet. Many times, users looking for “free” items on the Internet don’t suspect that they might as well be searching for free viruses.

Hackers are crafty – targeting people looking for free downloads is an easy way to spread an infection.

Some of the most common risky items to search for are “screensavers,” “free games,” “work from home,” and “taxes.”

With the search terms shown here, it’s easy to see how computer users could easily be tricked into downloading a file or application that was laced with a virus.

Cautious browsing
The second step to preventing infections on your computer is a combination of common sense and caution.

While it may not be common knowledge as to what is and is not safe to click on while on the Internet, really what it comes down to is using common sense. There’s no such thing as a free lunch, even on the Internet – if it seems to good to be true, it probably is. It’s very important while browsing the Internet that you do not click on anything that just catches your eye. Many times, people have a tendency to click on ads, and because of this, ads have a high risk of containing malware. Don’t click on ads!

The second part, be cautious refers to everything you are doing that involves the connection to the Internet.

If you are using email, make sure you were expecting an email from the person sending it. Opening forwarded emails is a bad habit.Many viruses attach themselves to email accounts and send a lot of spam and forwarded messages which unsuspecting users click on and mistakenly download a virus onto their machine.

So to sum everything up, you should always have antivirus software installed on your computer and keep it up to date.

Even if you think you are a computer pro, keyloggers and many other items can get into your computer and run in the background undetected sending away your private information.

Always use common sense and extreme caution as to what you click on. Nothing is free and you don’t ever know for sure who or what is on the other end of that email you just happened to get in your inbox.

If you think you may have a virus or malware on your computer, or just want it checked for safety’s sake, give us a call or bring your computer in and we can check it out.

It is all too common to see viruses on machines but not actually see anything different on the computer other than it “running a little slow.”

Mobile Devices: BYOD Deserves Special Consideration

by Jeremy Miller,Technician
A good majority of people now bring a device of their own to work and many even use their own device at work. There are many reasons that this could be good or bad or down right terrible.

There are always inherent risks when employers allow employees to use a personal device at work especially if the device attaches to the network or has confidential data stored on the device.

Allowing employees to bring their own device can be very beneficial to your organization.

If you choose to allow devices you must understand the risk and create rules that keep the device from being used maliciously.

It is best practice to create an Acceptable Use Policy for Devices. This will cover a variety of things including:
• Proper use during and after-hours.
• What types of apps are allowed to be installed?
• Which type of data will the device be allowed to use.
• How to prevent abuse.

A good AUP will allow a business to allow users to bring in their own devices and use them to increase their productivity without letting the employees abuse the privilege of being allowed to use a personal device at work.

Allowing employees to bring their own device can: increase productivity at a low-cost to the business, make employees happier, and allow users to be reached at any time.

Allowing employees to bring in their own device can be bad as well. The first reason is employees’ abuse devices all the time.

In every workplace there are employees that will use their devices in a matter that is not related to work such as checking Facebook or texting when it is not necessary.

Then there are employees that will want to use their device at work and at home, but will not want to follow the Companies Acceptable Use Policy.

This is not only disobedience but risky, because many of the stipulations in the AUP are to protect the Company’s business flow. Allowing employees to bring in a device that connects to email will sometimes require an IT person to help get the email to sync with the device.

If you do not have onsite IT this can cost you money every time there is an issue with the email not syncing. The ugly part of allowing users to bring their own device is the lack of control and security.

With the lack of standardization each device is at least a little different. On top of that each app installed is a potential risk, especially the free apps that include advertising.

Risks emerge every day, this means that in order to be sure that the device is secure you will have to continuously assess the risk for each device in use.

There is always a risk that your employees could fall victim to social engineering.This is when they either knowingly or unknowingly give away confidential information to a party that is not allowed this information.

This can be mitigated by educating users on a continuous basis, a good way to do this is a lunch and learn style of meeting. All employees with a personal device being used for work should be restricted to which applications they are allowed to download.

This is because each app has its own code and permissions that are required to run it. If the permissions for the application can compromise any data at any point it should be reviewed and then allowed or disallowed.

In conclusion many companies already allow the use of a personal device for work. Trying to implement a plan after allowing the devices is much trickier because you are further limiting a user on their own device.

A plan is absolutely necessary to protect you from legal implications, and to be up front and informative of the consequences for breaking any rules outlined in the Acceptable Use Policy for Devices.

Letting your employees know what is expected will reduce the legal and liability risk that a company may face.

Security Risks Of Employee Owned Devices

Employees using their own mobile devices for work may seem like a good idea at first – it’s less expense for you, the employer, and they can also make employees more productive.

However, it also means that you are allowing potentially unsecure devices to access your company’s data. The solution? An effective IT security policy that balances personal freedom to use these devices and your need to secure important business information.

As technology continues to become more affordable and accessible to consumers, it’s an inevitable fact that employers will see more and more of their employees using  their own personal devices such as laptops and mobile phones to access the company’s IT system.

This can be a dangerous thing. Since these devices aren’t company owned and regulated, you have limited access and control over how they are used. Employees could download all sorts of malware and viruses on their devices and pass the infection along to your IT system when they access it.

The solution: a comprehensive IT security policy. It’s important that you find a compromise between the freedom of the employee to use the device as desired and your need to keep your IT system safe from viruses and other threats to your data’s security.

Steps such as having employees run mobile device management (MDM) software on their devices is one of many actions you can take to lessen the risk of security breaches. You may also want to implement applications and software that check and screen for malware, both for laptops and mobile devices. And don’t forget that while Android seems to have a bigger problem with malicious software, Apple isn’t exactly virus-free, either.

Employees have a right to use their personal devices as they see fit, but not at the expense of important company information stored in your IT system. Running a tight ship in terms of security is an effective way to protect your business interests and your sensitive company data.

If you are interested in knowing more about developing a concrete and effective IT security policy for personal device use as well as general system access, please don’t hesitate to give us a call so we can sit down with you and discuss a custom security blueprint tailored for your company’s network.

Windows XP: Usage Declining After 10 Years

With Windows XP being released more than 10 years ago its still amazing that it is still on top when it comes to the most widely used operating system. The question still stands however, why?!

Many users have become comfortable with Windows XP and everyone hates change so it is really no surprise that users are holding on to the antiquated operating system. There are however major problems with holding onto old technology.

The first major problem is support. Windows XP is slated to lose its support in early August of 2014. “So why not hold on to Windows XP a little longer, I heard Windows 8 is coming out soon?” While there are many users out there with that mentality, it is bad practice to hold on to an operating system beyond its useful life.

The fact is there is a great alternative to Windows XP that has been out long enough that the bugs have been worked out and is a stable alternative. Windows 7 is the alternative, while many users are nervous about moving on to a new operating system because they don’t like change, Windows 7 is a very intuitive, stable and user friendly operating system.

The second reason you should not be holding on to Windows XP over Windows 7 is the simple fact of security. Windows 7 has been proven to be more than five times as secure as Windows XP.That’s right, all those viruses you get in Windows XP due to its numerous security holes do not exist in Windows 7. While its true there are still some viruses and malware in Windows 7, this is true of any software (Yes even a Mac…).

Many businesses are starting to see these facts as well and are not waiting around for Windows 8. So why are they not waiting?

Well, current reviews of Windows 8 have very mixed opinions on whether or not it will be a good fit for businesses. Much like Vista was to the Windows XP user, Windows 8 is going to be a very different looking and feeling operating system.Many people in the Information Technology field have their doubts as to whether it will fit into businesses well due to the drastic changes that have been made in the users interface.

While Windows 8 is still not released to the general public yet, it still appears that it will be too big of a change for those in the business world that generally are not early adopters of new Windows operating systems (Sound familiar?).

Many businesses are just starting to push into Windows 7 for their primary workstations and the numbers of Windows XP  computers versus the number of Windows 7 computers out are starting to show that. Windows XP has dropped over 10% in the past year which is huge! As a matter of fact Windows 7 gained 15% last year which  means not only is it doing well enough to take those XP users, but it also managed to steal some users from other operating systems.

The long and short is it is time to get that upgrade and stop wasting your time with Windows XP. Windows XP will cost you more to maintain due to the fact that it is more likely to have viruses and other problems. Windows 7 is the way to go don’t wait until Windows XP support finally dies then decide its time.The time is now, save yourself the hassle and plan the upgrade process now rather than waiting till the last minute.

We can get you upgraded to Windows 7 or, if your computer is too old to put the money and time into it to switch to Windows 7, we can get a computer for you with Windows 7 and transfer all of your existing data to it. Just give us a call.

 

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Tech Experts

Data Management: From Storage To Security

One of the most important aspects of maintaining a smooth running safe and secure network comes down to data management.

How you or your company manages its data is important because if managed improperly, or not managed at all, you risk losing years of important confidential data due to failed hardware or even worse, theft.

Data management needs to begin with an audit of your various assets and how they should be managed properly.

This is the first step because you need to know what you have to manage and more importantly how it needs to be managed (can you use a simple flash drive backup, do you need a NAS, how secure does the data needs to be, should data be encrypted, etc.)

An audit should take place at the beginning of your data management plan as well as at the end which will be touched on later.

During your data management audit you need to first lay out what data is being used, when it is in use, when your slow periods are, and how securely you need to store this data.

For example client credit card data requires much more security than say your pictures from the company party.

After establishing what data you have as stated above you need to separate it into its various classes.

Generally people will store all of their data together so if that is your plan, you need to plan your security based on your most important and confidential data sets.

Some people may have a very large amount of data and smaller data sets that need more extreme security.

In these cases backup sets can be separated to allow less confidential data to be backed up to a less secure and much cheaper backup device while you could have a more secure setup for your confidential data.

One major consideration when it comes to backing up your  data is encryption.

The stronger the encryption on data the longer it will take to recover in the event of a data loss.

Encryption is one of the best methods to store data, determined by level of security – it can be high or low.

Again the amount of encryption contributes greatly to recovery time. Data can be managed and stored in many different manners.

Some of the various storage solutions are; a network drive to another computer, a NAS, a flash drive, an external hard drive, data drives and tapes, offsite backups, etc.

Depending on your needs and the amount of recovery time needed, your choices can vary.

For instance, if you have 1 TB of data you are backing up chances are you would be doing an onsite backup rather than offsite to decrease down time in the event of a crash.

A terabyte of data in an offsite backup is going to take a very long period of time to download to your server if your only recover option is to download from the Internet.

A much better solution for this amount of data would be a data drive like a “REV” drive. A REV drive in combination with good backup software offers plenty of space to backup and encrypt your data.

Backups via tapes or data drives should have at least the previous night’s copy taken offsite each night to ensure that you keep one data set safe at all times. It is a horrible idea to store all data onsite.

After you have a plan in place, run through the audit again once things seem to be running smooth to see what is in place, how its running, how secure it is in the event that a data set is stolen, and is the backup time/recovery time acceptable.

If the answer to any of these questions makes you feel your backup solution may be inadequate, it may be a good idea to try something different.

Even though it would cost more money to change data management solutions, it will save you money and hassle in the long run if you find it does not meet your company’s needs.

For a full data management audit give us a call today and we can happily sit down and discuss with you possibilities for your backups and data management as this only touch on a very small portion of data management.

Your data is very important and generally people do not realize just how important it is until they’ve either lost it or had it stolen due to poor management practices.

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Tech Experts