Articles Tagged ‘it security’

Technology has become so deeply interwoven into the fabric of our daily lives that many of us can only vaguely remember what it was like before computers, mobile phones, and PDAs. Nowadays, many of us check e-mails and log in to our social networks as a daily habit. We also rely heavily on technology for work. Whether the job is research-based, technical, or creative, almost all professionals need to have a computer with a working Internet connection to be able to work properly and efficiently.

A good number of offices tend to be very lenient when it comes to Internet usage at the office. After all, even if most companies give out special work e-mail accounts as a standard protocol, not all work-related messages are sent exclusively to that account. If we are able to check our personal e-mails at work, we can be sure that we are up to date in whatever is going on in the business. Enabling instant messaging software and widgets and being able to visit social networks such as Facebook and Twitter from time to time also helps in taking away the blandness of an office routine, making work more bearable and fun. Sometimes, though, it provides too much fun.

Being allowed access to your own personal pages during office hours is a double-edged sword, not only in terms of productivity but also in ensuring the security of your company’s local network. Your company depends on a complex, perpetually running and continuously changing network. Despite its large capacity and standard network security functions, office connections are still extremely delicate. One little glitch has the potential to throw off the entire operation. For small businesses that give their workforces unlimited permission to visit personal sites and pages using office network resources, their lenient attitude could open a network up to certain operational and security risks.

The Speed Turns Slow

Video streaming through the Internet takes up a whole lot of bandwidth. Frequently watching videos on YouTube, playing Imeem or downloading and playing online games during office hours can cause a lag in Internet speed and make the local area network act up.

The Guard Goes Down

Every time you visit a website on your office computer, you are giving viruses and other digital threats an opening to infect your network. You also become susceptible to being baited by phishers and online scammers. These risks exist whenever you log on to the Internet, whether at home or from your office desktop. However, offices usually run on a shared network server, meaning if you have unwittingly downloaded a virus from an e-mail, that virus can easily spread and infect the other office computers.

Everyone should be more cautious about what he or she surfs on the Internet while at the office. None of us want to be the cause for the great crash of the company server. The best way to keep IT security high is to make sure that all network security measures are updated and enabled. Having a third party server and desktop management specialist on board can help a business maintain its internal IT’s health.

Take everything in moderation. The rule holds true even in using your office computer for personal use. The reason why we go to the office five days a week is to work, not to surf the Internet at one’s leisure. By taking extra care as we browse through our personal pages during office hours, and by observing proper work conduct, we can consistently release productive output and maintain efficient IT security.

To learn more about securing your IT systems, visit the All Covered website or call 866-446-1133.

Contact All Covered

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Since the Internet started growing explosively around two decades ago, email has provided individuals and businesses the enormous convenience of being able to communicate anytime and anywhere, wherever people can hook up to an Internet connection. With email, people can send messages with attachments such as photos, documents and other digital files. As more businesses welcomed email as an integral business communication tool, a lot of successful business transactions have been consummated solely through this marvelous electronic communication wonder.

However, the Internet, along with email as one of its components, has been created on the basis of trust. The early developers of the Internet exchanged ideas and collaborated freely on the early Internet as their platform for their research collaborations, trusting that they are communicating and exchanging classified files with people they know. But as the years progressed, and as email and the Internet advanced as a whole, the number of users exchanging messages through the Internet has grown tremendously.

Today, many perpetrators of online theft are devising schemes that are aimed at grabbing unsuspecting individuals’ personal data. Some online thieves are even creating means to penetrate businesses and take away precious corporate information. One such scheme is phishing. Phishing is a fraudulent online correspondence that has been created to dupe people into giving away personal information such as credit card numbers, TIN numbers, bank account numbers and ATM card PINs. Phishing can also take your Web identity, allowing the perpetrator to transact business online using your identity and other information that is pertinent to you.

Hackers who carry out phishing campaigns do so by sending emails that usually ask you to confirm or update information including your bank account number, your email password and ATM PIN number. One such phishing scam is an email disguised as coming from a bank. Other scams are posed as messages coming from online payment services such as PayPal or Xoom, asking you to validate your username and password.

It is sad to note that thousands of people and many businesses have already been deceived, and have lost millions of dollars in the process. And as more and more people and corporate entities have become aware of this fraudulent activity, online scammers have been diligently working on other schemes that they believe they can pull off to steal other people’s hard-earned money.

To avoid having you or your business become a victim to phishing and other online scams, here are some practical tips from ThinkPlanInvest.com.

10 Steps to Avoid Falling Prey to Phishing Scams

1. If you are doubtful about the credibility of the email, DO NOT click on any link provided in the email. This may trigger malicious codes to be installed on your PC.

2. Before you share any information on a website in response to an email, always ensure that the URL shown in the email matches the URL of the bank website. If it does not, you have valid reason to suspect that there’s something fishy.

3. Do not open unexpected e-mail attachments or instant message download links.

4. Check the web address carefully. One trick is to mouse over the link that has been sent to you. The actual destination URL is shown on the bottom of your browser. If it is not the website you thought or if it has strange extensions, like “.cn” or any other foreign country extension do not click on it.

5. Check for the Padlock icon at the bottom right corner of the webpage. It must be always ‘On’ during secure transactions.

6. Ensure that you have installed the latest anti-virus/anti-spyware/personal firewall/security patches on your computer.

7. Always use a non-admin user ID for daily work on your computer.

8. Do not access banks or make payments using your debit or credit card from shared or unprotected computers in public places like cyber cafes.

9. Do not transfer funds to or share your account details with unknown/non-validated sources, especially those luring you with commissions, attractive offers or prizes.

10. If you receive an email from a friend and the tone or language is out of character, don’t open any attachments or follow any links. On Facebook, a common phishing scam has included getting messages from friends with links that install a Trojan horse if you follow the link. The messages come from hacked accounts.

To find help in securing your IT systems, visit All Covered or call 866-446-1133.

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If you have a computer, you need anti-virus protection.  If your computer is new, it might come with a trial version of a program, but it might not be the right one to meet your computing needs.  If your computer is due for a renewal of its anti-virus software, you might want to check out other anti-virus programs.  Either way, you need to make sure that the antivirus program you choose to install on your computer will do what you want it to.  Here are some points to consider before you purchase or renew your current anti-virus program.

Ensure that the application is legitimate. While online, many users are solicited to purchase applications through deceptive advertising that claims that viruses or worms have been detected on your computer.  Amazingly enough, the company will also have the perfect anti-virus solution to take care of the problem.  If you’re lucky, the solution works great.  Worst-case scenario is that you’ve given out personal information to a company and installed their solution that is actually a Trojan program or other malware application instead of the promised antivirus.

Research the manufacturer’s website before you purchase a specific solution.  Check out the retail website and make sure it meets your computing needs.  Don’t buy a program that is designed for a Fortune 500 company if you are a home or small business user with only one computer.

• Make sure the website provides educational information about their products, services and support.  Avoid purchasing from websites that don’t do anything but attempt to sell a solution at a “bargain basement” rate that will expire if you don’t purchase in the next few minutes.
• Make sure the anti-virus program offers the type of support that you need.   The best applications will provide you with many ways to contact them for help.  Look for the following:
  • an 800 or 866 number to call that is available 24 hours a day
  • multiple email addresses for support and sales, not just one email address listed
  • “chat” support – or the ability to contact a representative in real time.
  • Check the website for awards.  Antivirus programs that have received awards from recognizable sources such as PC World, CNET, and InfoWeek are solutions that have been recognized as providing consistent and dependable antivirus protection to users.  Also check the following web sites:
    • http://reviews.cnet.com/editors-choice/ – consumer products
    • http://www.inc.com/ – small business technology

Check for third party certification.  Make sure the anti-virus protection has received third party independent certification.  Third party certification guarantees that the anti-virus program has been tested against industry-standard compliance benchmarks.  Don’t buy a program that has not received third party certification.

• Go to http://www.icsalabs.com/ and search for anti-virus solutions under their testing area.  Make sure that the application you are considering is on their list.  If it’s not listed, it’s probably not certified.

Seek testimonials.  Testimonials are a good indicator that the anti-virus solution will work as promised.  Most customers won’t take the time to rave about a mediocre application.  Testimonials will point out the superior anti-virus features and will often provide information about how well the manufacturing company provides support.

Follow up with expert advice. When it comes to selecting an anti-virus solution to meet your specific computing needs, there is no “one size fits all” solution.  To find the best solution, shop around and research.  Remember that if it looks too good to be true, it’s probably a scam.  For more information about how to choose the best anti-virus solution for your computing needs, please contact All Covered at 866-446-1133.

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The Internet is an indispensable communication tool

The Internet has changed the lives of many people. Some use it purely as a research tool, but for most people it has become an indispensable communication tool and as an integral part of their daily lives. The power of the Internet reverberates around us. As the Internet goes mobile and becomes ubiquitous, it is becoming significantly hard to go about our daily lives without access to the Internet.

Businesses, large corporations and small companies alike, have also integrated the Internet in their daily operations. As businesses’ operations have become more complex, online applications for commercial use have evolved to become more sophisticated, and to better able to accommodate the demands of organizations such as data storage, virtualization (like VMware), cloud computing, IP-based communication, data transfers and email.

These days, it is fairly safe to say that the Internet has become an indispensable tool for business processes as well. For most businesses, the Internet has served not only as a tool, but as a platform upon which their business processes are built and performed.

But as more and more vital business information are being stored, exchanged and transferred within the “Information Superhighway”, data security has become a major concern. Cyberterrorism, a virtual crime aimed at not only pirating vital information exchanged on the Internet, but as well as attacking and compromising key data-storage points and IT infrastructure, is a real threat that should not be taken for granted.

Cyber-terrorism – A continuing threat to corporate information security

Companies with huge amounts of key information stored in their computers are a delectable target for cyber-terrorists. The most dangerously sophisticated among the cyber-terrorists has the capacity to disable an entire economic system. That is why small businesses with very limited IT security set in place should take the necessary steps in beefing up their information security before any attack can even partially disable their business. With each passing time, neglecting to impose the necessary IT security measures potentially exposes your entire business to a host of malicious software that could take down your business anytime.

Points of entry

Just as conventional terrorism has points of entry, such as airports with poor security systems, bus terminals and seaports, cyber-terrorists also have their unscrupulous means of indentifying vulnerabilities in IT systems. Without proper security software in place, malicious software could penetrate your business’ local network through email and social networks. Just recently, social networking giants Twitter and Facebook suffered quite a number of cyberspace attacks, causing damage to local computers on some of their members’ ends.

How to practically protect your IT infrastructure

The full responsibility of setting up a strong business IT security system in place rests upon the company’s management. Enforcing a strong corporate stand on the use of social networks in the workplace, for example, is a good step towards winning the battle against cyber-terrorism.

However, this is just part of the game strategy. Responsible leadership calls for the exploring of the services of reliable IT support firms. Calling on the service of qualified IT consulting companies minimizes the risks to your company’s data, network and users by recommending strategies that are unique to your company’s requirements.

Your company should also set strict policies that restrict the use of external data storage devices with your company’s computers, such as flash drives, mp3 players, mobile phones, HDD devices and other gadgets that could potentially transfer dangerous files to your company’s network. Good, lockable USB blockers are now out in the market to cover USB terminals, thereby protecting a computer when being left unattended for extended periods.

Taking care of information security is a primary concern, and companies should not take any chances. As technologies become more sophisticated, companies should readily adapt before their data can be exposed to any potentially harmful software. For more information on IT security call All Covered at 866-446-1133.

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The minute you connect any portion of your IT environment to the web, your entire network will become vulnerable to multiple threats on multiple fronts—it doesn’t matter if it’s your iPhone or your email server—any device, regardless of size, can create the weak spot that provides an open door to your IT infrastructure.  To protect your system from risks, you need to know where your network is vulnerable.  Typical weak points are as follows:

• VPN- virtual connections between your home and corporate network can easily spread viruses and malware from one location to the other.
• Firewall- a misconfigured firewall gives access to local resources through the internet.
• Wireless- unsecured wireless networks broadcast signals that unauthorized users can hijack inside or outside your building.
• Mail server- improperly configured servers can be forced into relaying spam.
• Email- in addition to sending infected attachments, hackers now use “phishing” and “redirects.”  Phishing schemes attempt to lure an email recipient into entering personal, financial, or proprietary business information into websites that appear legitimate.  Re-directs will reroute a seemingly respectable hyperlink to a malicious or infected site.
• Web-email- an infected email from a web based service such as Yahoo, Hotmail, or Gmail can easily infect your workstation and then your entire corporate IT environment because web email will bypass most of your network’s security.
• Web browser- Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari all have various vulnerabilities that can expose your workstation to malicious applications if you browse to an infected or compromised web site.
• Laptops- because most laptops are set to detect unsecured Wi-Fi points (Barnes & Noble, Borders, McDonalds, Starbucks, etc.), and because many users automatically allow the connection, it is easy to pick up viruses and malware and bring them back to office if you connect to those points.
• USB drives- portable storage devices, mobile phones and mp3 players can transport viruses from an unprotected home computer and infect your entire corporate IT network.

While there are multiple security vulnerabilities on a typical IT environment, a good security plan can address these weaknesses.  To learn more about securing your IT network, please call the security experts at All Covered at 866-446-1133.

Contact All Covered

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