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Security

Network Security: Top Tips For A Secure Network

by Michael Menor, Network Technician
As the first layer of defense in your network, it is important to take a step back and review the design of your perimeter security.

To ensure a sound architecture, you want to start with what ultimately must be protected and then design your perimeter security so it can scale as your needs grow/change. Since the threats you know about and face today may not be the ones you face tomorrow, you want to be sure your design is flexible enough to meet future needs.

Think of your network perimeter like a castle during medieval times, which has multiple layers of defense – a moat, high walls, big gate, guards, etc. Even in medieval times, people understood the importance of having layers of security and the concept is no different today in information security. Here are four tips:

Build layers of security around your castle
No defense is 100% effective. That’s why defense-in-depth is so important when it comes to building out your security. The traditional first line of defense against attacks is typically the firewall, which is configured to allow/deny traffic by source/destination IP, port or protocol.

It’s very binary – either traffic is allowed or it’s blocked by these variables. The evolution of these network security devices has brought the Next-Generation firewall, which can include application control, identity awareness and other capabilities such as IPS (Intrusion Prevention Systems), web filtering, advanced malware detection, and more baked into one appliance.

Whether or not it’s part of your firewall or a separate device, IPS is another important perimeter defense mechanism. Having your IPS properly optimized and monitored is a good way to catch attackers that have slipped past the first castle defense (firewall/router).

The popularity of moving more into the cloud has brought cloud-based malware detection and DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) services. Unlike appliance-based solutions these are cloud-based services that sit outside your architecture and analyze traffic before it hits your network.

Harden your device configurations, software updates and security policies
Here is where we start building those walls to prevent attackers from getting inside the castle. The first line of defense typically involves network security devices such as routers, firewalls, etc. which each act like the guards, gate, moats, etc. of long ago.

For each layer of security, you want to ensure they are running the most up-to-date software and operating systems, and that devices are configured properly.

A common misstep occurs when organizations assume they are secure because of their many layers of defense, but a misconfigured device is like giving an attacker a key to the castle. Another important practice is to tighten security policies (of course without impacting the business), so for example you don’t have a router allowing just anyone to Telnet to it from outside your network.

Enable secure network access
While firewalls, routers and other security layers are in place to prevent unauthorized access, they also enable access that is approved. So how do we let authorized personnel into the castle? The drawbridge of course! Next-generation firewalls can help here by scanning inbound and outbound user traffic, all while looking for patterns of suspicious behavior.

Password complexity also plays a big part in Secure Network Access. Ensure your users are following these common rules.

  • The password must be exactly 8 characters long.
  • It must contain at least one letter, one number, and one special character.
  • Two of the same characters sitting next to each other are considered to be a “set.” No “sets” are allowed.
  • Avoid using names, such as your name, user ID, or the name of your company or employer.
  • A new password shouldn’t be too similar to the previous password.

Another way to have secure access from the outside through the perimeter is to install a VPN (Virtual Private Network) that is configured to allow encrypted communication to your network from the outside. Utilizing two-factor authentication with a VPN contributes towards ensuring the integrity of the users making the request. This is external-facing to your network and allows users to tunnel into your LAN (Local Area Network) from the outside once the appropriate measures are taken to secure access.

Create and segment the DMZ
If firewalls, routers, web filters, etc. are the guards, moat, gate, walls of a castle, then the DMZ (De-Militarized Zone) is like the courtyard once inside the castle – another area before the private quarters.

When creating a DMZ, there should be at least a front-end firewall for the external traffic and a back-end firewall for the internal traffic. Firewall rules should be optimized and tightened on all publicly available systems to allow traffic to only the necessary ports and services in the DMZ. From an internal perspective you also want to limit who can access systems within the DMZ. One approach is creating firewall rules to only allow the source IP addresses and port to the specific server and then adding proxies in the network from which admins are allowed access to the systems.

Segmenting systems within the DMZ is also something to strongly consider so that if a system is breached in the DMZ, it can’t spread as easily. For example, you don’t want a web server passing data to an application or database server in a “public DMZ.” Configuring systems within different VLANs (with a layer 3 switch) will help you isolate and respond to incidents if a server in a DMZ is compromised.

A sound network security perimeter architecture requires multiple layers of defense, up-to-date and hardened policies and controls and segmentation. All of these things make it harder for an attacker to gain access to your crown jewels and easier for you to isolate and respond to breaches when they occur.

How You Can Benefit From An Annual Security Assessment

by Jeremy Miller, Technician
Most companies have an IT service provider or an IT department to take care of all of the IT needs of the company.

These technicians can easily address any issues that arise. Most issues are not addressed until they become known and are reported to the IT service provider either from the person having the issue or monitoring software they have installed.

It is best to have your IT service provider run an assessment once or even better twice a year.

This can make you and your IT provider aware of any security issues that are not easily monitored or would cost too much to monitor.

A security audit can be implemented for a number of reasons.

Some organizations are required to have them if the information they are using needs to be secure based on a compliance standard such as HIPPA or PCI.

Every day new vulnerabilities are discovered and it is too time consuming to test every device on every network for each security risk that is discovered as they are discovered.

This is where the security audit shines; it can be used to check for any known vulnerability on every device on your network.
Even with all of the security software commonly installed on all business computers such as anti-virus, service checks, and patch management there can still be security risks running behind the scenes that can be detrimental to your company.

A security assessment can let you know if any software is using an insecure port to an employee’s malicious actions.

It can show you if an application is using more bandwidth than it should, which may be causing other issues on your network.

Security assessments are the best tools to test for data leakage. Data loss is every businesses problem. Significant data loss causes a business to fail almost 70% of the time.

There are other times beside annually that it is good to get a security assessment. It would be best to get them before and after changing IT providers.

It is good to get one after any large installation or migration. This can be a business application, hardware such as new computers or a new server or even a physical migration such as moving to a new location or building an addition.

Security assessments are increased in effectiveness when you run a baseline security assessment. A baseline security assessment is when you run an assessment before you do any changes to your current IT setup.

This will let you know where you are before any changes are made. You can then have a comparison to verify that your security is improving.

A baseline security assessment will also let you know what vulnerabilities you need to address. Some of these vulnerability issues can be quite costly to repair and are great to plan for.

The sooner you get an assessment the sooner you will be able to make informed decisions based on your actual network risks security requirements.

Everyone’s security needs are different; we can assist you with any questions or concerns that you may have about security assessments.

Better Passwords: Keep Your Information Secure!

Thomas Fox is president of Tech Experts, southeast Michigan’s leading small business computer support company.

It could be your email, your pictures, or your company documents and files – whatever you have on your computer needs to protected from hackers, identity thieves, nosy employees and other cyber troublemakers.

Imagine if all of your private, personal and company information were available on the public Internet. And then, take a few minutes to follow the steps below and help make your systems more secure.

Use a different password for each important service
Make sure you have a different password for every important account you have. Hackers will steal your username and password from one site, and then use them to try to log into lots of other sites where you might have an account.

Even large, reputable sites sometimes have their password databases stolen. If you use the same password across many different sites, there’s a greater chance it might end up on a list of stolen passwords. And the more accounts you have that use that password, the more data you might lose if that password is stolen.

Giving an account its own, strong password helps protect you and your information in that account.

Make your password hard to guess
“password.” “123456.” “My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die!” These examples are terrible passwords because everyone knows them – including potential attackers.

Making your passwords longer or more complicated makes them harder to guess for both bad guys and people who know you.

Complex and lengthy passwords can be a pain – the average password is shorter than eight characters, and many just contain letters. Analysis shows that only 54 percent of passwords include numbers, and only 3.7 percent have special characters like & or $.

One way to build a strong password is to think of a phrase or sentence that other people wouldn’t know and then use that to build your password.

For example, for your email you could think of a personal message like “I want to get better at responding to emails quickly and concisely” and then build your password from numbers, symbols, and the first letters of each word—“iw2gb@r2eq&c”.

Don’t use popular phrases or lyrics to build your password—research suggests that people gravitate to the same phrases, and you want your password to be something only you know.

Keep your password somewhere safe
Research shows that worrying about remembering too many passwords is the chief reason people reuse certain passwords across multiple services.

But don’t worry – if you’ve created so many passwords that it’s hard to remember them, it’s OK to make a list and write them down. Just make sure you keep your list in a safe place, where you won’t lose it and others won’t be able to find it.

If you’d prefer to manage your passwords digitally, a trusted password manager might be a good option. Many web browsers have free password managers built into them, and there are many independent options as well.

Windows XP Support Ending Soon

By Tech Experts Staff
Windows XP set the bar for business friendly operating systems and has been in use for over twelve years now. Microsoft is now pushing users to its new operating system, Windows 8. Many users and administrators alike feel that Windows 8 will not be a suitable business friendly operating system for its users.

Another issue with Windows 8 is that many software providers still do not support it so as a business where should you be looking? Windows 7 has been the most business/application friendly operating system since Windows XP so that would be the best replacement.

Since Microsoft is discontinuing support for Windows XP, what does that mean exactly and when is it going to happen?

Microsoft has set a date of April 8th 2014 as the end of support date for Windows XP. Oh, 2014 you have plenty of time to plan down the road right? Wrong, when Microsoft stops supporting the operating system it will become very vulnerable to attacks so you want to make sure this is completed before Microsoft ends support.

Hackers will develop malware to attack XP and Microsoft will no longer be working to patch the holes that cyber criminals are using to steal your personal information.

Since support is ending it means that doing online banking or other transactions on your personal computer running this operating system will become extremely dangerous. In relation to businesses, they risk exposing client data which can be very costly.
Businesses need to plan these operating system upgrades as it will take a decent amount of time/preparation to complete smoothly and successfully.

Planning means start now don’t wait till the last minute or you will not be able to get everything switched over in a smooth fashion. Since upgrading computers from Windows XP to Windows 7 is the best option to prevent major security risks what needs to be considered to accomplish this?

The first step in getting your company ready for operating system upgrades is making sure your software is compatible. Many organizations use software that is specific to their industry, the software companies that develop this software also needs to be preparing.

Companies should be checking with their software providers to ensure their software will work on Windows 7 and should get documentation on how to smoothly upgrade their computers software for the least downtime possible.

Not only does industry specific software need to be addressed but software you use every day also needs to be looked at. Most computers running Windows 7 are 64 bit operating systems, that being said not all software runs on a 64 bit operating system.

One application I can think of that is not compatible with Windows 7 (we have seen numerous issues) is older versions of Microsoft Office. Businesses need to not only keep their operating systems up to date but this software also should be. Office XP does not function properly on Windows 7 nor do any other old versions.
The other problem with keeping old software like this is the file formats have changed since they have been released. Your clients may start sending documents to you that your copy of Office might not be able to read. Office 2010 pairs well with Windows 7 and it supports all current file versions released by Microsoft.

One final consideration, many businesses and users alike want to know what it will cost to simply upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7 however, there are two problems with this.

First, Windows XP to Windows 7 does not offer an in place upgrade, this means that all of your software, user files, etc. would be lost simply doing an “upgrade” to Windows 7. While user files can be backed up, software/applications cannot, they will have to be reinstalled.

Second, upgrading an old workstation may not be worthwhile. In most cases, older hardware was not designed to run Windows 7 and because of this tends to run slower and not perform as well as a computer that was designed for it.

We highly recommend upgrading the entire workstation to new hardware, especially in the case of businesses. It just doesn’t make sense to spend all the money on the time involved in upgrading the operating system if you can’t gain speed benefits and make your employees more productive.

Need a hand getting started with your businesses upgrade? Give us a call today at (734) 457-5000 and we can work with you on a plan to get your company switched over to Windows 7 so that your computers remain supported for years to come.

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.”