Blog – Page 5

Microsoft Allowing More Time For Major Windows 10 Updates

September 20, 2018 by Joseph Martin

Microsoft has been making two major Windows 10 releases every year, giving businesses 18 months before they need to move to the next update. This plan and schedule is part of the company’s “Windows as a service” paradigm, designed to ensure that Windows 10 gets new features, as opposed to the company’s former practice of a new Windows release every three years.

In most respects, the new paradigm has to be regarded as the superior approach, but unfortunately, the pace is a bit too fast for some businesses. High level executives have pushed back, asking for more time and flexibility to update the OS, so they can be sure that business critical apps work with the latest update.

Microsoft has heard, and more importantly, they’ve listened. However, business owners didn’t get everything they wanted. Here’s the scoop:

The company is planning to release a series of cloud-based tools that will make app compatibility testing easier, and has agreed to give IT admins more time to update. As things stand now, all currently supported feature updates of Windows 10 (Enterprise and Education editions) are supported for 18 months. The company is expanding that to 30 months, but only for their September release. The March updates will still only be supported for 18 months.

While not a perfect solution, it does give everyone some of what they wanted. Businesses will have an extra year to apply the latest features if they stick to the September cycle, while firms that don’t need the extra time can simply continue on as they are.

Jared Spataro, the Corporate VP of Microsoft 365 summarized the changes this way:

“You’ve been talking, and we’ve been listening. We recognize that it takes time to both upgrade devices and operationalize new update processes. Today’s announcements are designed to respond to your feedback and make it easier, faster, and cheaper to deploy a modern desktop.”

On the whole, this is very good news indeed.

Joseph Martin

President & CEO
I hope you enjoyed this article. My mission is to take your stress away from dealing with IT problems. Call (252) 565-1235 or send me a message at our contact us page if you have a question, comment or want help.

Another Chrome Extension Is Stealing Passwords

September 19, 2018 by Joseph Martin

Do you use the Chrome browser extension for the MEGA file storage service? If you do, please read this article carefully. The official extension for that service has been compromised. It has been replaced with a malware version that has the capability to steal user login data for a number of popular websites, including Github, Google, Amazon, Microsoft and more.

The extension was compromised on September 4th, when an unknown attacker breached MEGA’s Chrome Web Store account and uploaded the poisoned version of the extension. Any user who installs it is at risk of having their other login credentials stolen.

It gets worse. If you allow auto-updates, then the poisoned version of the extension would have automatically “updated” on your PC or smartphone when the malware was uploaded. Note that when the extension attempted to update, it would have asked users for elevated permissions. Those elevated permissions would allow the extension access to personal information, which is the mechanism by which the credentials are stolen.

The poisoned file was in place for a total of four hours before it was found, eradicated and replaced by a clean version (version 3.39.5).

According to MEGA:

“You are only affected if you had the MEGA Chrome extension installed at the time of the incident, auto update enabled, and you accepted the additional permission, or if you freshly installed version 3.39.4.”

If you think there’s even a chance you were impacted by this event, your best bet would be an across-the-board change of all your passwords, as there’s no way to be sure which ones may have been compromised.

Two things to note here: The Firefox extension was not impacted. This applies only to chrome users who have the MEGA extension installed. Also, you should check your extension version number immediately to be sure you’re not running version 3.39.4. If you are, uninstall it immediately and grab the clean version referenced above.

Joseph Martin

Name Of Utility Company That Leaked Information Just Released

September 18, 2018 by Joseph Martin

In 2016, an unnamed US energy company left some 30,000 records (containing information about its security assets) exposed for more than two months (a total of 70 days), in violation of energy sector cyber security regulations. When the incident was initially reported, the name of the company was withheld.

That company has now agreed to a $2.7 million-dollar settlement, and its name has now been made public, along with some additional details about the incident.

Initially, the company admitted that they unintentionally exposed the database in question, but that it contained fake data. As the investigation into the matter continued, it became apparent that the data was not only real, but that it included hashed passwords for administrators that hackers could have easily reverse-engineered. PG&E subsequently reversed their fake data assertion.

The exposed data was found by independent security researcher Chris Vickery, who indicated at the time that the database contained details for some 47,000 computers, virtual machines, servers and other devices.

In addition to that a number of non-encrypted email passwords were found, along with 120 encrypted passwords. In Vickery’s words, “This would be a treasure trove for any hostile nation-state hacking group.”

According to the official NERC notice regarding the incident:

“The data was exposed publicly on the internet for 70 days. The usernames of the database were also exposed, which included cryptographic information of those usernames and passwords. Exposure of the username and cryptographic information could aid malicious attackers in using this information to decode passwords.”

Once PG&E was made aware of the problem, it took a server offline, which removed the exposed data. They also brought in third-party forensic experts to investigate, and as a result of that investigation, revised a number of their security policies.

Overall, the company’s handling of the matter was spotty at best, but in light of the record-setting fine, the hope is that we won’t see a similar instance of carelessness in the future.

Joseph Martin

Amazon Joins Trillion Dollar Club

September 18, 2018 by Joseph Martin

It’s official, Apple now has company in the Trillion Dollar Club as Amazon’s stock surged past $2,000, briefly pushing the company’s total value to just over the trillion-dollar mark.

This makes the company’s CEO Jeff Bezos the richest person in the world, with a net worth estimated at around $166 billion dollars.

Amazon started out as just another internet company struggling to turn a profit. Over the years, however, the company has become a true retail powerhouse, and a disruptive force in the industry.

Some analysts predict that the company’s stock price is poised to climb even higher. Brian Nowak, (an analyst at Morgan Stanley) cities some reasons for his continued optimism. These include the company’s rapid growth, their improving business mix and their profit potential. Overall, Amazon’s total value only trails Apple’s by about $100 billion.

The last twelve months have been kind to Amazon, and the company has seen its stock price surge nearly 75 percent. The company is aggressively expanding into new businesses and finding success in doing so, which is exciting investors. Last year, for example, Amazon purchased Whole Foods Market for $13.7 billion, and recently acquired the online pharmacy, PillPack.

While there are only two members of the trillion-dollar club, there are two other companies poised to join their ranks. Both Microsoft and Google’s parent company, Alphabet are currently valued at about $850 billion. A modest nudge in either company’s stock price could push either of them into the trillion-dollar stratosphere.

Although there are a number of analysts who are excited by the stock’s future prospects, there is also some cause for concern. At current prices, the stock is trading at nearly 100 times earnings, which is nearly five times the broader market’s P/E ratio of 21. Then there’s the considerable risk that Amazon may suffer from a regulatory crackdown, given its size and dominance in the market.

Even so, it’s great news, and even better if you already own Amazon stock!

Joseph Martin

Air Canada Customers May Have Had Their Data Exposed

September 17, 2018 by Joseph Martin

If you fly Air Canada and use their mobile app, it may be time to change your password. The company recently announced that between August 22nd and August 24th of this year, they detected “unusual log-in behavior,” and that a small fraction (some 20,000) of their 1.7 mobile app users may have had their data compromised as a result.

The company stressed that no credit card information was compromised, but that doesn’t make the breach much less damaging.

The exposed data included:

Customer name

Physical address

Email address

Phone number

Any information an individual customer added to his or her profile

Worst of all is the fact that passport numbers were also exposed. Using that information, a hacker could easily gain access to the countries that a person has been to, when the passport expires, country of residence, the flight numbers of any flights they’ve taken, their gender, birthday and more.

As is usually the case when events like this occur, Air Canada has apologized to their customers and has reached out to all of their potentially impacted users.

Even if you didn’t get a notification from Air Canada, it would be prudent to change your password as soon as possible.

The company has not released any details about exactly how the breach occurred, and the matter is still under investigation.

Note that in terms of scope and scale, this is a fairly small breach. The 20,000 users represents about 1 percent of the total user base. Even so, the data stolen has the potential to be quite damaging. Even after you change your password, since email addresses were compromised during the breach, be on the alert for phishing emails, as the group responsible may attempt to leverage the information they have to get even more.

Joseph Martin

Tech Support Scammers Are Advertising Online

September 17, 2018 by Joseph Martin

Tech Support scams are nothing new, but they are getting increasingly sophisticated. Worse, tech giants like Google are finding it notoriously difficult to detect them.

A report recently released by the venerable data security firm, Symantec, indicates that tech support scammers are increasingly integrating call optimization into their schemes, which allows them to insert phone numbers into web pages dynamically. Among other things, this allows the scammers to display the phone number of someone who speaks the language of the victim, which makes the whole act more convincing and much more likely to succeed.

In recent years, tech support scams have begun promoting their “services” via ads, where they claim to be legitimate, authorized service centers for companies like Apple, Microsoft, or Dell. The brand recognition and professional presentation combine to put their victims at ease.

They’re so slick and professional, and their “employees” so good at mimicking the employees of legitimate service centers that it can be virtually impossible to tell the real companies from the fake ones.

David Graff, Google’s Director of Global Product Policy had this to say about the matter:

“For many years, we’ve consulted and worked with law enforcement and government agencies to address abuse in this area. As the fraudulent activity takes place off our platform, it’s increasingly difficult to separate the bad actors from the legitimate providers.”

Google is taking steps to try and combat the rising threat. Recently, they’ve made a change to their policy as it relates to tech support companies, only accepting ads from verified third-party support vendors.

Even with this added layer of protection, however, the tech support scam is thriving. Scammers have already begun taking steps to get around the new restrictions by cold-calling their victims. For the most part, this has proved to be a successful tactic for them. However, in at least one instance, where the scammers called the New Zealand Police, it ended quite badly for the criminals.

Joseph Martin

Hacker Requests For Wire Transfers Are Topping Email Scams

September 13, 2018 by Joseph Martin

Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks are a major threat, costing business nearly three billion dollars a year.

This form of attack primarily targets the C-Suite in order to impersonate them.

In the world of BEC attacks, those that employ requests for wire transfers are almost devastatingly effective.

Asaf Cidon, the Vice President of Content Security at Barracuda Networks, explains why:

“Criminals use business email compromise attacks to obtain access to a business email account and imitate the owner’s identity, in order to defraud the company and its employees, customers, or partners. In most cases, scammers focus efforts on employees with access to company finances or payroll data and other personally identifiable information.”

The attack unfolds when the hacker, pretending to be a company CEO or other high-ranking official requests immediate payment, usually via wire transfer.

Again, per Asaf Cidon:

“The sense of urgency, a request for action, or a financial implication used in BEC schemes tricks targets into falling for the trap. For example, an accountant may receive a fraudulent email request for a wire transfer from the company CEO, which includes a spoofed version of the CEO’s email address and even the CEO’s own email signature.”

According to a 2016 report published by Trend Micro, a successful BEC attack nets the hacker an average of $140,000. Given how easy they are to pull off (and how low-tech), don’t expect this type of attack to show any signs of decline in the foreseeable future.

What makes BEC attacks even more troublesome is the fact that law enforcement officials believe that few attacks of this type are ever reported, and that the losses to business could be up to four times the figure we cited earlier.

Worst of all, these types of attacks appear to be increasing in their frequency. Unfortunately, C-Suite employees are notoriously resistant to basic security training, meaning that there are no easy solutions to this large and growing problem.

Joseph Martin

New Versions Of Ransomware Continue To Wreak Havoc

September 12, 2018 by Joseph Martin

2017 was “The Year of Ransomware.” It saw an incredible number of ransomware attacks and infections, paired with a tremendous number of innovations.

Although 2018 hasn’t seen quite the same level of ransomware activity, it’s still a major threat with one company coming under attack about every ten minutes.

Although there haven’t been as many innovations so far this year, that doesn’t mean they’re not occurring, and some of the new ransomware strains are particularly nasty.

Of interest, this year has seen a rise in ‘Cryptojacking’, which is a variant of a classic ransomware attack where the malware mass encrypts files on the victim’s machine while simultaneously installing cryptocurrency mining software.

This should come as no surprise given the rise in popularity of cryptocurrency, but it does add a disturbing new wrinkle to ransomware attacks. Even after you get your files back, lurking in the background there is a rogue process that’s slowing your system and ultimately putting money into the bank accounts of the hackers.

Most recently, an Obama-themed cryptojacker has been making the rounds.

The ransomware itself is nothing out of the ordinary. It predictably locks your files, demands payment, and installs a Monero miner in the background.

Obama is not the first world leader to unwittingly become the face of ransomware. In 2016, Candidate Trump was featured in a malware strain that proved to be a work in progress. It would infect machines, but didn’t actually encrypt files. It’s unclear if a working version was ever deployed in the wild.

The Obama strain contains code fragments that indicate Chinese origin. There’s circumstantial evidence that leads some security researchers to believe it may be the work of a Chinese hacker known only as “Rocke,” but so far, there’s no definitive proof.

As things stand now, there’s no good defense against this most recent threat, save for continued vigilance.

Joseph Martin

Some Apple iPhone 8’s May Have A Manufacturer Defect

September 10, 2018 by Joseph Martin

Do you own an iPhone 8? If so, you may have problems. Apple has recently reported that a small percentage of iPhone 8s “contain logic boards with a manufacturing defect.

Affected devices may experience unexpected restarts, a frozen screen, or won’t turn on.”

The company has isolated the defect to phones manufactured between September 2017 to March 2018, in Hong Kong, India, Japan, China, New Zealand, Macau, and the United States.

To find out if you’ve got one of the impacted iPhone 8s, head to the company’s website and use the tool they’ve placed there, entering your phone’s serial number. If your phone is one of the defective devices, Apple will repair it free of charge for up to three years after the sale.

Note, however, that some types of damage may incur fees to repair, specifically in the instance of a cracked screen or similar.

Apple’s handling of the issue has so far been quite good. They were quick to acknowledge the mistake and isolate it to a very specific frame of time, and equally quick to create a checking tool. Their repair policy is generous, as is the impressive three-year window.

It’s unfortunate that the manufacturing error occurred. However, the reality is that many companies would not have been as forthcoming as Apple has been, nor as generous with their repair policy.

Kudos to Apple for their handling of the issue. If you’re considering buying a new iPhone, don’t let this hiccup change your mind. Although the company isn’t perfect, you’ll find few companies that can top Apple in terms of taking care of their customers. There’s a reason their customers are more like fans, and companies of all shapes and sizes would do well to emulate Apple as best they can.

Joseph Martin

Most Small Businesses Can’t Recover From Cyber Breaches

September 10, 2018 by Joseph Martin

A new study recently published by Sitchfast Technologies paints a grim picture of the threat landscape for small and medium-sized business. Their key finding? A staggering 60 percent of small businesses that suffer a data breach of any magnitude go out of business within six months. Worse, one business owner in three does not have a plan or safeguards in place to prevent a breach.

The single biggest weak link in the small business landscape is the fact that most employees who work for smaller companies are woefully uneducated about the dangers, how to identify them and how to avoid them. The study noted that among small business employees, more than a third (35 percent ) haven’t changed their passwords in over a year. In addition, 19 percent of small business employees share their passwords with colleagues, with a similar percentage using weak passwords based on personally identifiable information. Put those elements together, and it’s a recipe for disaster.

The authors of the report had this to say on the matter:

“Today’s cyber criminals employ a variety of complex attack methods to exploit business weaknesses and target employees with bad cyber hygiene, whether it’s the CEO or an intern, bypassing the basic security measures most companies have in place.

Until they recognize they are prime targets for hackers and adjust their security strategies, small businesses will continue to fall victim to rampant cyber attacks.”

Unfortunately, there are no easy solutions, but the report clearly points to two areas where you can make immediate improvements:

Currently, 65 percent of small to medium sized businesses have never run a phishing email test.

Only 21 percent of small to medium sized businesses provide cybersecurity training to their employees.

Both of these are incredibly easy to remedy, and if you perform these two simple steps, you’ll be miles ahead of your peers.

Joseph Martin

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Microsoft Allowing More Time For Major Windows 10 Updates

Another Chrome Extension Is Stealing Passwords

Name Of Utility Company That Leaked Information Just Released

Amazon Joins Trillion Dollar Club

Air Canada Customers May Have Had Their Data Exposed

Tech Support Scammers Are Advertising Online

Hacker Requests For Wire Transfers Are Topping Email Scams

New Versions Of Ransomware Continue To Wreak Havoc

Some Apple iPhone 8’s May Have A Manufacturer Defect

Most Small Businesses Can’t Recover From Cyber Breaches

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