TechTidBit - Tips and advice for small business computing - Tech Experts™ - Monroe Michigan

Brought to you by Tech Experts™

Zoom In: A Look At The Increase Of Virtual Meetings

Jason Cooley is Support Services Manager for Tech Experts.
Quarantine as a whole was (and still is) a strange thing to see happen in the United States. With state-by-state protocols varying and dates in which states began to open back up done on a per-state basis, months were lost.

Schools shut down and businesses closed, some permanently. The businesses deemed “essential” stayed open with new restrictions in place.

Travel was restricted domestically and halted internationally. Anyone that could work remotely was reassigned to work from home.

With travel bans and remote work orders in place, Zoom saw huge increases in usage.

Zoom is meeting software, allowing users to do video or audio conferences as a group. There is a very good free tier for users to join unlimited calls, to host calls with up to 100 participants for up to 40 minutes, and unlimited one-to-one calls.

Among other similar solutions, Zoom has seen skyrocketing numbers since the pandemic started.

In December 2019, Zoom reported 10 million daily meetings taking place. Fast forward to March 2020, and Zoom hosted 200 million daily meeting. By the end of April 2020, Zoom reached 300 million daily meetings.

Zoom users vary from friends chatting, students collaborating, businesses meeting, conferences, and even the British members of Parliament.

Video conferencing has been used to keep gatherings to a minimum, teach students, conduct business meetings, and more.

While there may be a time that the number of video conferences may drop down, I believe the way we do business and operate as people has changed in some ways that will continue the prevalence of video conferencing.

Many schools across the US closed early late last year due to the pandemic. In Michigan, students in K-12 have a few different options when it comes to how they proceed with their learning now. Students can work remote or virtually.

Remote learning has two options itself, in-person learning with remote or just remote. The in-person learning involves a limited school day and less days in attendance per week. Or a class will be entirely remote.

Virtual school will remain that way all year. This is an existing system in place, and students will remain home doing virtual learning even when restrictions ease. Students may have already been using this system prior to the pandemic.

In both cases, students are typically using Google Classroom and Zoom. Remote learning with Zoom sees students join a conference with an instructor. They may have a lecture or another type of lesson that is done over the video conferencing. Virtual school’s lectures can vary based on the program itself.

When restrictions are lifted in Michigan for schools, those who are doing remote learning with attendance will attend school on a more regular schedule, but will still see some use of Zoom as a way to reduce traffic and students in different classrooms. Those doing just remote learning will stay home after restrictions are lifted and continue to attend video conferences as classes.

There have been many changes this year, and some are for the better. There will probably be a decrease in travel, even as bans are lifted. Some things that had previously been done in-person will now be done through video conferencing. Students will continue to be able to attend school from home. Work-from-home positions may offered by more companies.

Things will continue to return to how they were before the pandemic, but video conferences will continue to thrive.

It’s Time To Move On From Internet Explorer

Mark Funchion is a network technician at Tech Experts.
For those of us who have been online a long time, we remember the original browser war: Internet Explorer vs Netscape Navigator. In recent years, Internet Explorer has fallen off in security and usefulness. Meanwhile, Chrome, Firefox, and Edge (specifically Chromium-based Edge) have increased in usage and also do a much better job of updating frequently to mitigate security issues.

In 2019, Chris Jackson – who is a Principal Program Manager in the Experiences and Devices Group of Microsoft – wrote https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-it-pro-blog/the-perils-of-using-internet-explorer-as-your-default-browser.

In the blog post, he writes that Internet Explorer is a compatibility solution. This means that IE exists now just in case it is needed, such as for a banking site that has not been updated to support modern browsers and does not function otherwise.

To further demonstrate that Microsoft does not want you to use IE, they are ending Internet Explorer’s support for MS Teams on November 30th 2020. Next year on August 17th 2021, MS will end IE support for Office 365, Outlook, and OneDrive, among other services.

In this time of remote working, ending support for their own remote collaboration software is a big deal, and to follow that up the following year with products so widely used like Office and Outlook shows that the end of IE is finally upon us.

There are a few challenges as some software (especially financial and medical fields) has been slow to change and still only work with Internet Explorer. Another issue is users who have been using a computer for a long time have grown accustomed to using Internet Explorer and do not want to change what they know.

Also, many users have accumulated a lot of favorites and passwords in Internet Explorer and do not want to give those up.

Many people with saved passwords may not know what some of their logins are because they have had their credentials saved for so long.

Fortunately, these issues can be handled by importing your information into another browser. To handle it manually would be a pain, but your information from Internet Explorer can all be easily transferred into the main modern browsers (Chrome, Firefox, and Edge). Aside from a few clicks from you confirming what you want transferred, it’s nearly automatic.

That aside, many browsers follow the same general design, making it easy to recognize icons and fields like your address bar or home page button. They are also customizable, much like adding toolbars on IE, so you can adjust a new one to your liking to match your old familiar layout.

What about those legacy web pages? All three modern browsers also have the ability to use a plugin to emulate Internet Explorer on specific pages. Or, if absolutely necessary, you can keep and use IE only as needed.

Another benefit to the three modern browsers is update frequency. Chrome will update within days, if not hours, of an issue being discovered. Firefox is also on a similar schedule.

Edge had three security updates in August of 2020, so it also updates more frequently than Internet Explorer ever did.

Change is hard, especially for some people when it comes to their computers and software. There was outrage when Microsoft Office introduced the ribbon bar and when Windows updated the start menu.

For some, the change was seamless; for others, it took some time. Either way, these have become the norm and most people are now comfortable with them.

The same is true of browsers. They are all used in generally the same way, and while using Chrome may be a little different in the long run, you are safer and your experience is more secure.

If the company who develops a product feels it is not useful for everyday use, it’s time to move on.

Why IT Professional Are Terrified Of Ransomware

If you want to scare someone who works in IT, start talking to them about ransomware.

There are few things as scary for IT professionals as the prospect of their systems locking up with hackers demanding money to return things back to normal.

When discussing it, you may notice them breaking into a sweat and starting fidgeting as they contemplate one of the most terrifying cybersecurity threats computers face.

How does ransomware spread?
There are several ways that ransomware can get into computers.

Email is one of the most common ways in. Hackers will send bad files that can trigger a ransomware infection when opened and quickly spread across your network.

Another favorite way to spread ransomware is to send bad URL links that download ransomware when they’re clicked. This ‘drive-by downloading’ can happen without anybody noticing that anything has happened until it’s too late.

These bad files and links are not always easy to spot. Cybercriminals are getting increasingly sophisticated in the ways they try to persuade people to do what they want them to do.

A growing trend is for cybercriminals to pose as trusted people, like a client, a colleague, or a friend. And ask you to do something urgently before you have the time to think things through.

This isn’t a modern crime. Ransomware’s been around for years
Ransomware dates to the late 1980s when payment was often sent by check through the mail!

Now, modern hackers normally demand payment in cryptocurrencies that make them much more difficult to track.

Here is some information on two of the more infamous ransomware attacks.

WannaCry
The WannaCry ransomware attack took over the news when it spread widely in 2017.

More than 200,000 computers in over 100 countries were left useless. The ransomware exposed weaknesses in critical IT systems, like those in hospitals and factories.

One of the worst-hit victims was the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK. Operating theatre equipment, MRI scanners, and other computers essential for hospitals were left useless and patients suffered.

NotPetya
NotPetya is less well-known than WannaCry but the financial costs are estimated to have been far higher.

Mainly spread among businesses due to the early infection of a major financial software vendor, the cost of this ransomware to small businesses and governments is estimated to have been around $10 billion.

This attack impacted computers around the world. But around 80% of the cases are estimated to have been in Ukraine.

The Eleven Types Of Phishing Attacks You Need To Know To Stay Safe

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

Like Darwin’s finches, phishing has evolved from a single technique into many specialized tactics, each adapted to specific targets and technology. First described in 1987, phishing is now carried out via text, phone, advertising and, of course, email.

Boiled down, all of these tactics exist for the same purpose – to steal confidential information from an unsuspecting target in order to extract something of value.

Knowing about the hugely diverse set of today’s phishing tactics can help you be more prepared for the inevitable instance when you become the target.

Standard phishing – casting a wide net
At its most basic, standard phishing is the attempt to steal confidential information by pretending to be an authorized person or organization. It is not a targeted attack and can be conducted en mas. [Read more…] about The Eleven Types Of Phishing Attacks You Need To Know To Stay Safe

Is Your Network Stealing Your Staff’s Time?

Jason Cooley is Support Services Manager for Tech Experts.

At some point in the last six months, maybe you’ve been on a Zoom call or chatting away in Microsoft Teams and wondered what would have happened if Covid had come along in the 1980s or even 1990s.

Let’s be honest… the world would have totally shut down. Business would have completely ground to a halt. We couldn’t have done the last six months without the amazing technology that we now totally take for granted.

Depending how old you are, what we can do easily today was literally the stuff of dreams just 20 years ago.

But as much as great IT has made working from home easier and enabled many businesses to keep going, we also must remember that bad IT can still be a massive time thief.

We’ve all become so reliant on computers that we’ve forgotten how to perform simple tasks ourselves. And we go into panic mode when they stop doing what we expect of them.

Most businesses find that even the most committed staff in the world will jump at the chance for a little bit of office down time. So, when computers aren’t doing their job that’s a great opportunity to down tools and do very little.

If they’re in the office, people sit around chatting or go home early, while every second your business is losing money.

That’s not to say that all employees want to take the easy way out. There will be others who like a challenge and want to try their best to make things better, using their own limited IT knowledge or good old Google to guide them.

Unfortunately, IT set ups are complex. And if you don’t really know what you’re doing you could end up digging a far bigger hole for you and your entire organization.

Well-meaning staff, no matter how lovely and helpful they might be, can cause more problems than you could ever imagine.

Just like you wouldn’t want someone who did a biology class 20 years ago to perform open heart surgery on you, you really don’t want someone who’s just watched a couple of YouTube tutorials fixing your business’s computer system.

This is what we do, day in, day out. And we’re the local experts.

If you want to ensure that your workforce doesn’t grind to a halt when things stop running smoothly, it pays to invest in experts who can:

a) Stop most things from going wrong in the first place, and
b) When they do go wrong, get you back on track quickly and reliably

That means minimal downtime, less chatting and more getting things done.

What Exactly Is The Cloud? And Is It Safe?

It’s the kind of question you’d think would be easy to answer, until someone asks you: What exactly is the cloud?

Put simply, it’s using someone else’s computers over the internet to do things we used to do in our own computers. Like run software or store data.

When you run software in a tab in your browser, that software is still running on a computer… it’s just not your computer. That means you can run very powerful applications without needing a powerful computer. Excellent!

So, is the cloud safe? The answer is that it depends.

While there’s no technology that is 100% safe – working with the larger cloud providers is often safer than running things on your own network. Simply because they have dedicated teams of security experts.

You should also focus on making sure your business’s use of the cloud is safe too. Such as by:

• Never ever sharing logins (even amongst your team members)

• Making sure you use randomly generated passwords protected by a password manager, and

• Keeping all devices 100% up-to-date at all times with Updates and Next-Gen Anti-Virus tools

Password Security: Lock Your Digital Doors Too

Mark Funchion is a network technician at Tech Experts.
Password security may not be on the forefront of everyone’s minds – but it’s more important and easier than ever.

Password security issues have been going on for a long time. Back in November 2014, a webpage started livestreaming security cameras from around the world that had not updated the default credentials. In the US alone, there were over 11,000 cameras livestreaming; a year later in December 2015, there were still almost 6,000 cameras live. [CSOonline.com]

Then in December 2019, many Ring camera accounts were hacked – not with default passwords this time, but actual hacks on accounts without two-factor authentication. [vice.com]

What exactly is two-factor authentication? Two-factor authentication means a second confirmation after your password. This second method is often sent to your cell phone as a text or through an app, which you then input or confirm. Many banks require this, but there are also lots of other sites which have it as an option, like Ring.

While many people see this as an inconvenience, it is a safety feature and it’s becoming the new standard for security.

A good analogy for this is a deadbolt on your door. Your door handle has a working lock, but it is not too hard to get through that lock.

As a second security method, you turn your deadbolt to make it much harder to access your home. That is your physical two-factor authentication – and if it is important enough for entry physically into your home, it should be important for virtual access as well.

Even if you do not have two-factor authentication, at least changing the default passwords and using different passwords across all your accounts are vital steps to more secure accounts. While it’s very convenient to have one password for all your accounts, it also means that if one account is compromised, they are all compromised.

If a hacker gains access to an account and you use the same password for your email, they can “verify” account ownership and change your passwords to lock you out.

That’s why your method of two-factor has to be secure too. If you have verification codes sent to your email and your email password is “password,” that second factor is not helping. It’s just a second “door” that a hacker can walk right through. Not much of a defense.

Going back to the importance of changing default passwords, most of us own a lot of devices in our house that are network-connected. And it is very easy to plug them in, take all the defaults, and go on with your day.

If you live in an area with a lot of neighbors nearby, take a look at the wireless networks you can see.

From my desk at work, I can see over ten networks that are outside of our office. The signals from unsecure devices aren’t kept within the walls of your own home.

A quick Google search can tell you the default username and password of almost anything, including unsecure devices that might be in your own home. In the Symantec Internet Security Threat Report for 2019 [https://docs.broadcom.com/doc/istr-24-2019-en], 60 percent of the IOT attacks (Internet of Things – meaning everything Internet-connected) used a username of “root” or “admin” and over 40 percent of the attacks used a password of “123456” or left that field blank. Not the work “blank” – an actual password of nothing.

People almost always worry about security in some form: we lock our cars, our houses, our cell phones. The same philosophy should be applied to our technology.

Take the time to change your passwords, use varying passwords, and change them periodically. It does not take much of a hacker if we don’t bother to lock our own doors.

Do We Have A Connection Here Or What?

Most businesses are heavily reliant on the internet. Everything is cloud-based and streamed. And it’s especially important now we have more people working from home than ever before.

Without the Internet, those Zoom chats wouldn’t work. We’d spend the day with a mobile phone glued to our ear, and probably with chronic neck ache. Ouch.

So how do you cope if one or more of your remote workers has a poor Internet connection? That can quickly become a frustrating experience for everyone.

Your first port of call would be to run a speed test and then shop around. Find out which providers offer the best speed in their area.

And if they need to, switch. You might choose as a business to financially help them with upgrading their home Internet.

If that’s not an option, then we need to get a little more creative. In extreme cases, you can look at alternatives such as satellite Internet, or a Wi-Fi router that uses 4G.

You can also check their Wi-Fi router to see if an upgrade would be beneficial. And there are things called range extenders that boost the Wi-Fi to reach different parts of their home.

If you’re not sure what you’re looking for or could use some advice on helping your staff get more done from home, call us.

Planning Tips: Don’t Wait Until After Disaster Strikes

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

Fun fact. Did you know that floods and droughts kill far more Americans a year than earthquakes, tornadoes, and hurricanes? In 2019, the US recorded 1,520 tornadoes and 1,126 in 2018. So far, 2020 is showing a downward trend with only 602 tornadoes in May compared to May of 2019, which had 932.

What is even more surprising is when you look at the Insurance Information Institute’s data of events for 2019, the events that caused the most deaths and damage to the respective communities were actually severe thunderstorms and winter storms.

If there is anything that is guaranteed when it comes to severe weather it is that your business will be affected by one. The when, what and how are the unknowns.

In order to protect your business from these events, you need to have a process in place before you find yourself on the wrong side of a significant weather event. [Read more…] about Planning Tips: Don’t Wait Until After Disaster Strikes

This Is Now The Biggest Crime Risk To Your Business

Jason Cooley is Support Services Manager for Tech Experts.
If someone asked you to take a wild guess at the world’s biggest crime, what do you think? Burglary maybe? Common assault? Or perhaps you might take a more humorous approach and suggest man buns or women with ridiculous eyebrows?

Well, you might be surprised (and a little concerned) to find out that the most commonly reported crime right now is actually online fraud, AKA cybercrime.

With one in ten people falling prey to Internet fraudsters and over five million cases reported every year, cyber criminals are very real predators that can have a devastating effect on your personal life, your business, and your credit rating.
And these figures are just the tip of the iceberg. Many more cybercrimes are believed to go unreported because victims feel too embarrassed to let on that they’ve been duped by a stranger sitting behind a keyboard.

The digital age comes with lots of well documented pros and cons. We can now work from anywhere in the world and stay constantly connected, but that has an added effect on our personal lives and stress levels.

Cybercrime costs billions of dollars every year. That’s an obscene amount of money by anyone’s standards. And the really scary thing is that the ever- increasing industry called data theft is now relatively easy for anyone to get involved in.

Gone are the days of 1980s sci fi movies, where computer hackers were dark, mysterious and possessed savant-like levels of intelligence.

Today anyone with the inclination and $50 to spend can pick up a powerful piece of software that will enable them to hack into your computer systems and wreak havoc.

Funnily enough – the best way to be 100% sure a hacker can’t break into your business is to not use computers. We all know that’s not possible. The second best way is to make sure you have next generation cybersecurity protection and tools in place.

Call us today at (734) 457-5000 or email at info@mytechexperts.com to chat about your cybersecurity coverage.