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Inside The Anatomy Of The Human Firewall

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

Each year, around 61% of small businesses become the victims of a malware attack. While many small businesses may think no one would ever come after them because of their size, know that over half of the total global attacks hit small businesses and, for thieves, getting access to your systems is becoming increasingly lucrative.

Companies collect more about customers than ever before: medical history, financial records, consumer preferences, payment information, and other confidential information.

Some of this information could be used in malicious ways to either harm your business or directly harm the customers, so we all understand that we must protect it from cyberattacks.

Creating a human firewall is the best way to keep your system and data safe, but what exactly is a human firewall, why do you need one, and how can you build one? Let’s take a look! [Read more…] about Inside The Anatomy Of The Human Firewall

How Google Password Checkup Can Protect Your Data

Jason Cooley is Support Services Manager for Tech Experts.

While the terminology between a data breach and data leak may not seem very important, being prepared to react to compromised data is. Let’s start with knowing the difference between a breach and a leak.

A data breach is an unauthorized intrusion into any private system to access any sensitive data. Data breaches are typically the work of hackers.

A data leak may result in the same end game scenario, but differs greatly in that a leak is data left exposed or accessible, often accidentally.

While the hope is that you are protected and that your passwords are all secure, this realistically isn’t the case. You can have the strongest password possible, but depending on what information may be sold or accessible, the security can be entirely out of your hands.

Worse, a breach or leak won’t always make national news or show signs of unauthorized access.

If you see an out of state charge on your debit card, you’ll have a good idea that you didn’t make the purchase and suspect that you’ve been compromised. In the case of seeing unauthorized charges, the issue is clear.

However, say your email is compromised. It isn’t so obvious.

Perhaps the person with your credentials will monitor for a time in order to find valuable information on you or others.

There are so many ways to be compromised and so many types of information that someone with access to your account may be looking for.
In the past, I have used a few different websites to periodically check. This is obviously problematic, as reputable sources for compiling breached information are not overly abundant.

Being an IT professional, I felt comfortable looking for these sources. I do not recommend the same for just anyone.

Luckily, you no longer have to search to find any potentially compromised accounts. Google’s new extension “Password Checkup” is here to help.

Google Password Checkup is a browser extension that alerts you to any potentially compromised accounts.

While the browser extension is installed and enabled, it checks any account you log into using Google Chrome.

Now, this is not a foolproof protection blanket. While this is a great tool, it only checks against any data breaches that Google is aware of.

These are the same type of searches I mentioned earlier. While I would have to search before, Google Chrome can handle the work here.

If there is potential that your account is compromised, you should ensure you take steps to recover the account and change the passwords.

While there is no surefire way to remain safe, stay diligent. Remember to make sure your computer isn’t compromised by regularly running your anti-virus software.

Much like you lock your door at home, make sure you are taking care of your personal information.

Using Google’s Password Checkup is a great start, but it’s only a start. Change your passwords regularly and keep them unique.

A passphrase is a great way to have a password that is easy to remember but difficult to guess.

Understanding The Value Of Managed IT Services

Depending on their scope and impact on your workday, tech issues can take hours to resolve, if not days. In some cases, you may spend far too much time tracking down a problem, only to come up empty-handed in the end.

In others, such as security breaches, you may not even know there is an issue until the damage has been done.

If you and your team have been handling any tech issues that arise on your own, you could greatly benefit from partnering with a managed IT service provider like Tech Experts.

Here are some of the benefits you can expect from this partnership.

Increases speed of IT repairs
When you partner with Tech Experts, you can report any and all tech issues as they arise and receive a prompt response. Upon receiving your call, we’ll look into the problem and find the most effective solution.

With our years of experience, we’ve probably come across the problem before and already know how to fix it. This makes for very speedy service that helps keep your business operations moving forward without disruption.

Prevents tech issues
Managed IT services prove extremely valuable in the prevention of tech issues of all kinds. From malware attacks to hardware failure, we can stay ahead of the leading issues and potentially keep them from cropping up at all.

Through these preventive actions, you can avoid unnecessary downtime that could otherwise derail the work efforts of your entire staff.

Improves employee productivity
When your employees can hand off tech issues to a dedicated, outsourced team, they can remain on task in fulfilling their daily work duties. This keeps their productivity high, so you can meet your daily business goals and continue to push the annual growth of the company.

With your employees on task, rather than dealing with IT issues, your business operations can continue running smoothly day after day.

Boosts data security
Computer software and hardware issues can have a detrimental impact on the security of your business data. Especially since most of these problems remain hidden from view until a catastrophic loss of data occurs.

Therefore, your company and client information likely remain at risk without help from a skilled IT expert.

We specialize in optimizing security at the network, server and workstation levels, so you can focus on running your business without worry.

Decreases equipment repair costs
You can decrease the amount you spend on upkeep and repair of your equipment with oversight from skilled IT professionals.

Our ability to track down the problem and fix it the first time around will likely prove invaluable as you work on minimizing downtime and boosting employee productivity.

We can also help you time and plan your equipment upgrades perfectly to avoid wasting money on unnecessary items or overspending on parts.

Works well for any budget
With our managed service partnership, you can build your custom IT plan around the exact needs of your company.

You can select the items that will benefit you the most and leave the rest. If you only need computer and cloud support, for example, you can leave all server-related services off your plan. You are not locked into the services you select in the beginning either.

You can also make adjustments to the scope of your managed IT service plan as you expand your operations.

Ability to easily expand
As your business achieves phenomenal growth, you will likely need to add computer equipment and make other key adjustments to accommodate your team and their needs.

We can help you develop a plan that supports your current and future levels of growth. You can build a stronger network, upgrade your software and add computers to your workplace, for example, in support of your company’s continued success.

Peace of mind
When you sign up for managed services, you will give yourself true peace of mind in knowing that all your IT needs are handled.

You can call for service any time that your computer equipment acts up or software programs fail to operate as expected.

You will receive support and oversight in the prevention of problems that would otherwise cause much downtime for your employees.

Through all the managed IT service benefits, peace of mind comes out on top as it allows you to focus on what really matters – accelerating the success of your company.

Setting up a managed IT plan
With a look at these managed IT service benefits, it is clear that there are many ways this arrangement can boost the success of your business. You can get started in building this partnership by giving us a call at 734-457-5000. With this call, you can share the network, equipment and other IT needs of your company to start building your plan.

Four Questions Every CEO Needs To Ask About Cybersecurity

Leaders in every organization need to make identifying and addressing their cybersecurity needs a top priority. You can begin by starting a conversation between your IT service company and employees at all levels of your company about information security and how best to protect sensitive data, but you need to know the right questions to ask. Here are four questions to ask to get the discussion started and moving in the right direction.

How informed is your team about the vulnerability to and potential impact of cyber attacks on your company?

It’s important to assess the current awareness of everyone in your business about cyber threats and the potential damage from data breaches. It’s likely that everyone has heard of the many well-publicized breaches that have occurred over the last several years, but possibly haven’t considered them within the context of your company.

This is the first step to developing an educational initiative to get everyone up to speed on the problem and identifying the at-risk areas in your system. After that, you can begin to develop a chain of communication to take immediate action in case of a breach and set protocols and expectations for response times. A fast and effective response is critical to limiting data exposure.

What are the specific risks to your infrastructure and what are the best steps to take to address them?

Remember that the threat isn’t limited to just hackers. Many breaches occur because employees click on a link in a phishing email, leave a password lying around where it’s easily seen, or by unknowingly becoming a victim of a social engineering scam by giving it to someone over the phone who is impersonating a company employee.

Then you can begin to identify the resources needed to protect your data, including third-party security software and updated equipment. Simply informing your employees of the threat of such low-tech risks can greatly increase your cybersecurity.

How many security incidents are detected in your systems in a normal month or week, what type are they, and how were others informed about them?

You should have a system in place to detect, monitor, analyze, and record any type of potential security incident no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, and disseminate that information to the appropriate personnel, or perhaps to all employees to raise awareness. You should discuss enhanced alerting and monitoring with your IT professionals.

Does your company have an incident response plan? How effective is it, and how often do you test it?

The only way you can quickly react to prevent or limit the damage from a breach is to have a clearly defined response plan in place. It should document how everyone in your company should react in the event of an emergency. This plan should be available to all employees. It should be tested on a regular basis, at least once each quarter, and updated whenever significant changes are made to your IT infrastructure.

Cyberattacks are just a fact of life these days, and that’s not going to change anytime soon. But by asking your team the right questions, starting a dialogue about how to address the threat, raising awareness and implementing training, and having a response plan in place, although you’ll never completely eliminate them, you can reduce your risks significantly.

What Are The Top Cybersecurity Trends For 2019?

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

Several events in 2018 brought cybersecurity to the forefront of public consciousness, as major sectors– from financial institutions to Facebook– were affected by cybercrime.

According to Forbes, 34 percent of US consumers had their personal information compromised in 2018. Security experts and business leaders are constantly looking for ways to keep two steps ahead of hackers.

Cybersecurity trends for 2019 are a popular topic. Here is what’s anticipated this year in the cybersecurity realm.

Tougher regulations
As digital capabilities are rapidly gaining a worldwide foothold, data is becoming our most highly-valued commodity. [Read more…] about What Are The Top Cybersecurity Trends For 2019?

Windows 10: New Issues Ahead Of The Spring Feature Update

Jason Cooley is Support Services Manager for Tech Experts.

Windows 10 isn’t as universally despised as Windows 8, but isn’t as loved as Windows 7. Windows 7 actually had reported growth for the number of users last month, despite being released 10 years ago.

Polarizing may be the way to describe Windows 10 as people often love it or hate it, not much in between. It is my belief that this is due to the numerous issues, such as data loss via Windows update, broken software, and totally failed systems. Going forward, I don’t think we’ll see another OS quite like Windows 10 in the eyes of its users.

From an IT standpoint, not being able to install Microsoft Office after updating Windows is both annoying and baffling. Two products made by the same company, causing issues with each other. It seems like Windows 10 has a revolving door of problems.

The latest issues are no exception.

Recently, users attempted (and failed) many times to push the new Windows 10 updates to their system. This was met with a generic error that Windows can’t communicate with the update server.

This seems minor in itself, but it’s telling of a larger failure on Microsoft’s part to do proper planning before implementing changes. While there has not been a clear report on what happened, Microsoft is ready to patch and fix its latest issue. There is, however, a work around if you can’t wait for the newest update.

If you change your DNS to Google DNS or another third party DNS provider, you will be able to update Windows. While it is not confirmed, the common belief is that Microsoft sent out a bad DNS record to ISP’s that caused this to occur. You can resolve it yourself, but Microsoft will be taking care of this broken update this week.

The other big news is the Spring update that is being prepared for deployment. Due to the previous feature updates causing many issues, you should delay your update as long as possible, if possible. If you don’t know how to do this on your own, reaching out to an IT professional like Tech Experts could be the way to go.

The new update will feature many changes, most of which are cosmetic. This does not curb my fears for issues relating to the update. Although these types of changes normally only affect what you see on the screen, being extra cautious is probably the way to go.

Cortana and the search feature will now be completely separate, allowing you to use the standard start menu or Cortana individually. There will also be the option to uninstall many applications that you could not previously.

These include Mail, Calendar, Groove Music, Sticky Notes, and more. There will be many new themes and a few quality of life adjustments. While there will surely be more news on the horizon for the new update, do what you can to let them work out all of the issues before they become your issues as well.

Can Anyone Really Track Your Phone’s Precise Location?

It’s 2019 and everyone willingly carries a tracking device in their pockets. People can have their precise locations tracked in real time by law enforcement, the government, and advertising companies. It may sound like dystopian fiction, but it’s a reality.

How law enforcement can track your location
AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile all sell data — including geographic locations associated with customer phone numbers — to a variety of sketchy third-party companies. This data, for instance, can be used by the bail bond industry to track people down, sometimes as accurate as a few hundred feet of their location. There’s not much oversight and rogue bounty hunters have access to the data. And this isn’t even a new problem.

Back in May 2018, The New York Times reported that this could happen. After the story broke, cellular carriers promised to do better. AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile have all promised to stop selling this data to aggregators. And it appears that Verizon already stopped before the New York Times story.

How the government can track your location
It’s worth emphasizing that the government itself can still get access to your location data from your cellular company. They just need to get a warrant, then serve that to your cellular service provider.

If the technology exists, the government can get access to it with a warrant. It is quite a change from decades ago when the government had no way to track people’s real-time locations with a device that’s nearly always on their person.

The government doesn’t even need to get your cellular company involved. There are other tricks they can use to pinpoint your location with even better accuracy, such as by deploying “stingray devices” near you. These devices impersonate nearby cellular towers, forcing your phone to connect to them.

How advertisers can track your location
It’s not just your cellular carrier. Even if your cellular carrier perfectly safeguarded your data, it’d probably be very easy to track you thanks to the location access you’ve given to apps installed on your smartphone.

As innocuous as they may seem, Weather apps are particularly bad. You install a weather app and give it access to your location to show you the local weather. But that weather app may also be selling your data to the highest bidder. You likely didn’t pay money for your weather app, so the developers will need to make money somehow to keep the lights and servers on.

The city of Los Angeles is currently suing the Weather Channel, saying that its app intrusively mines and sells its users’ location data. Back in 2017, AccuWeather was caught sending its users’ location data to third-party advertisers — even after updating the app to remove that feature.

It’s best to avoid giving third-party apps access to your location. Stop using third-party weather apps and use your phone’s built-in weather app instead.

How your family can track your location
Your phone is capable of determining its location and sharing it in the background, even if the screen is off.

You don’t need to have an app open. You can see this for yourself if you use a service like Apple’s “Find My Friends,” which is included on iPhones. Find My Friends can be used to share your precise real-time locations with family and friends. After you give someone access, they can open the app, and Apple’s servers will ping your phone, get your location, and show it to them. Of course, this is only with your permission, but it just shows how pervasive this technology is.

What’s The Difference Between Internet, Intranet, & Extranet?

The terms intranet, Internet, and extranet are often used interchangeably; however, there are some important differences between them. To better understand these differences, it is useful to look at the prefixes.

The prefix intra means within, inter means between, and extra means beyond. So how does this translate to online-based networks?

Basically, the Internet is an open entity that anyone in the world can access. It is open to everyone who has a working computer or device and appropriate Internet access.

An intranet is a private network that is typically limited to authorized users.

For example, most major organizations operate some form of intranet that only employees of the business can access and use. Intranets are usually employed to support a corporate culture and objectives and provide a platform on which employees can share information, communicate, collaborate, and network.

They are generally faster than the Internet because the information is stored on local network servers as opposed to being accessed from data centers throughout the world.

An extranet combines some elements of both the Internet and intranet. It is open to people both within and outside an organization; however, only people who have pre-arranged authorization can access it. An extranet is a restricted network that some, but not all, members of the public can access. A company may develop an extranet to create a mechanism by which it can connect with suppliers, customers, and other external agencies without making the content visible to the general public.

Why You Should Consider VoIP For Your Business

A growing number of small businesses are switching from traditional landlines to VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) systems. While it can be an uphill task to overhaul the entire telecommunications system of any small business, it is definitely worth considering in light of the ever-increasing costs of traditional services. In fact, according to In-Stat, almost 79 percent of American businesses use VoIP phones, a 37 percent increase since 2009.

VoIP is a method of making phone calls using the internet as opposed to using typical landlines. VoIP services integrate IP phones, which look pretty much like traditional office phones, except they plug into an internet connection with an Ethernet cable.

Cost effectiveness
The biggest VoIP attraction is low cost. Since it is internet-based, hosted systems usually require little to no hardware investment apart from routers, Ethernet cables and the phones themselves, which are offered at reduced prices. According to estimates, the monthly service fees can run up to 40 percent less than traditional phone lines, and many providers offer monthly services with no long-term contracts.

VoIP is particularly cost-effective, if you have employees working from satellite offices or telecommuters. A telecommuter can take a VoIP phone home and make calls by plugging it into his home internet connection to make and receive calls on the company lines at no additional cost.

Other benefits
Certain VoIP service providers have introduced mobile apps that allow workers to make and receive phone calls on their mobile devices using the company phone numbers. Their privacy is therefore protected since they do not give their personal phone number. In addition, the company owns the line so if an employee leaves, calls are routed to the company rather than the employee’s cell phone.

Drawbacks
While the mobility and scalability of VoIP systems are attractive features, there are some drawbacks to consider. For instance, since phones depend on an internet connection, if the connection fails, the phones would be dysfunctional. You can still as a precaution measure automatically drive incoming calls to voicemail or redirect them to the user’s cell phone.

In addition, bandwidth problems could affect the quality of the calls made. If other office activities are consuming the greatest portion of bandwidth, calls will be filled with pauses and clicks, and dropped calls may also occur. There might also be extra charges for connecting to mobile phones or conference calling, and many VoIP providers don’t offer 911 services or charge extra for it.

The future
The increase in VoIP adoption is undeniable, and analysts predict that it will become the predominant business phone service over the next decade.

Inside The United States Of Cybersecurity

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

Last year, Alabama and South Dakota passed laws mandating data breach notification for its residents.

The passage meant all 50 states, the District of Columbia and several U.S. territories now have legal frameworks that require businesses and other entities to notify consumers about compromised data.

All 50 states also have statutes addressing hacking, unauthorized access, computer trespass, viruses or malware, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). Every state has laws that allow consumers to freeze credit reporting, too.

While those milestones are notable, there are broader issues when it comes to legislative approaches to cybersecurity across the United States. There are vast discrepancies and differences among states when it comes to cybersecurity protection. [Read more…] about Inside The United States Of Cybersecurity