Business & Finance

New Chips Support Increased Network Speeds To 400Gbps

March 27, 2018 by Joseph Martin

Marvell Semiconductor has a new product out, and it’s a game changer. Their new “Alaska” chip (the Alaska C 88×7120) is the first on the market to support the new 802.3 standard. The 802.3cd is on tap to eventually replace current Ethernet ports running at 25Gbps to 100Gbps with ports that will run at 50Gbps, 200 Gbps, and 400 Gbps.

The future is now.

Granted, the Alaska chips aren’t for sale just yet, but they are sampling to customers (“Sampling” in the chip world is akin to beta testing in software). The chip supports sixteen 50 Gbps ports, four 200 Gbps ports, and two 400 Gbps ports, which will quadruple network output. Even better, the new chips support both copper and fiber-optic wiring, as well as SerDes (long-reach serialization/deserialization) on system and line side interfaces, allowing OEMs to use the chips for wide-area interfaces.

Also of interest, the new chips use PAM4 (pulse-amplitude modulation), which is a four-level signaling scheme that’s designed to replace NRZ (non-return to zero) binary modulation, and even better, the new PAM4 protocol will be backwards compatible with NRZ hardware.

The port density on the new chip has been optimized to enable both Quad Small Form Factor Pluggable – Double Density and Octal Small Form Factor Pluggable port types for 500 GbE, 200 GbE, and 400 GbE deployments.

If all of those technical details make your head spin, not to worry. The short of it is that once these chips go mainstream, network output is going to increase dramatically, which means that network speeds are about to get even faster.

Unless you run or manage a huge data center, you’ll probably never have direct contact with these chips. However, as big data centers begin deploying them, you’ll absolutely see the benefits.

Joseph Martin

President & CEO
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Biometric Authentication Seeing Wide Adoption In Businesses

March 23, 2018 by Joseph Martin

According to a new report published by Spiceworks, nearly 90 percent of businesses will use some type of biometric technology for authentication by the year 2020. In fact, some 62 percent of companies already use biometrics in some form, with another 24 percent stating their intention to do so within the next two years.

The particulars break down like this:

57 percent of companies using biometric authentication use fingerprint scanners

14 percent use facial recognition

Five percent make use of hand geometry recognition

Three percent use iris scanners

Two percent use voice recognition

Two percent use palm-vein recognition

There are only a handful of companies that provide biometric solutions. Of those, Apple dominates the space, providing 34 percent of fingerprint scanning solutions and 14 percent of facial recognition solutions.

The rest of the market breaks out as follows:

Lenovo Fingerprint Manager is used by 13 percent of companies that utilize biometrics

Samsung fingerprint readers are used by 13 percent

Microsoft’s Windows Hello (face login) is used by 13 percent

Android’s Face Unlock is used by seven percent

As widespread as biometric adoption has been, only 10 percent of CIOs felt that biometric solutions were secure enough to be the sole means of authentication. IT security professionals have reached largely the same conclusion, with just 23 percent of them thinking that biometrics could replace traditional text-based passwords within the next two years.

The two biggest hurdles they see are the relative lack of transparency provided by biometric solutions providers about flaws and vulnerabilities discovered in their systems, and the lack of transparency around the biometric data collected by vendors.

Peter Tsai, a senior technology analyst at Spiceworks had this to say about the report: “Many IT professionals aren’t convinced biometrics can serve as a secure and reliable replacement for the standard username and password combo. Unless technology vendors can address the security issues and privacy concerns associated with biometrics, the technology will likely be used side-by-side in the workplace with traditional passwords or as a secondary authentication factor for the foreseeable future.”

Joseph Martin

Traditional Hard Drive Technology Is Evolving

March 5, 2018 by Joseph Martin

Rumors of the death of HDD technology have been greatly exaggerated. The advancement of solid state technology and its increasing rate of adoption has been largely responsible for this, but don’t count old school HDDs out just yet. They still have many important advantages, and recent breakthroughs should add further to the longevity of the tech.

Right now, the biggest advantage that HDDs have over their solid-state counterparts is sheer size. While it would be prohibitively expensive to purchase 20+ Terabytes of solid-state storage, getting that amount (or more) of HDD storage is a trivial undertaking, a fact that it’s impossible to discount.

Even more exciting though, consider the recent breakthrough in 3D nano-magnets. These were invented at the University of Cambridge, and stand to completely change the game. They allow data to be stored and processed in three-dimensional space, which will not only increase HDD storage space exponentially, but should see similar gains in terms of speed of access.

Another exciting recent breakthrough is a new magnetic system that turns heat into motion, which could be used to power miniaturized IoT sensors and actuators. Such a system could also be applied to HDD technology by using the heat to power lasers, which would write data using the heat from the system itself, leading to an incredible boost in operating efficiency.

Finally, consider the invention coming out of the Imperial College of London. Researchers there have figured out a way to write magnetic patterns onto nano-wires, which the research team claims could mimic the function of the human brain. While this technology is still in its infancy, imagine the possibilities of having a computer, or even parts of a computer (like your HDD) powered by something that mimics the function of the human brain, and the dazzling possibilities that open up.

All that to say, while HDD tech might be a little long in the tooth, it’s not dead yet. Not by a longshot.

Joseph Martin

40 Percent Of All Login Attempts Are From Bots

March 5, 2018 by Joseph Martin

Here’s a statistic that is as disturbing as it is frustrating. According to the latest “State of the Internet/Security” report for the fourth quarter of 2017, as published by Akamai, bot-traffic accounts for a staggering 43 percent of all login attempts. As bad as that figure is on its face, it’s far worse for companies in the hospitality industry, where the figure is an almost unbelievable 82 percent.

The reason? Hackers are increasingly using bots to perform “credential stuffing” attacks.

Although human traffic still dominates the web, bot traffic is rapidly catching up. According to Akamai’s estimates, not counting streaming video, bot traffic accounts for 30 percent of the total, and that figure increases every year. In fact, even though bot traffic is still a minority in absolute terms, some industries already see more bot traffic than human traffic.

TicketMaster is a great example of this. The web’s premier site for purchasing concert tickets online is almost unusable by humans these days, because virtually all of their traffic is bot-driven, with bots often being used to buy every available ticket the moment they become available, so they can be resold later at a hefty premium.

Akamai’s Martin McKeay had this to say about the report: “Increased automation and data mining have caused a massive flood of bot traffic to impact websites and internet services. Although most of that traffic is useful for internet businesses, cyber-criminals are looking to manipulate the powerful volume of bots for nefarious gains. Enterprises need to watch who is accessing their sites to differentiate actual humans from both legitimate and malicious bots. Not all web traffic and not all bots are created equal.”

These are wise words, and it bears some consideration. How much of the traffic coming to your business website on any given day is human?

Joseph Martin

Ransomware Affected Over 50 Percent Of Surveyed Companies

February 16, 2018 by Joseph Martin

Sophos has released the results of their annual “State of Endpoint Security Today”, and it doesn’t paint a pretty picture. A full 54% of companies surveyed reported having been hit by a ransomware attack in 2017. Another 31% reported that they expect to be on the receiving end of such an attack in the near future.

If the headline statistic wasn’t bad enough, it only gets worse from there. According to the data collected, the average cost of a ransomware attack (including network costs, manpower, downtime, and device replacement cost) was $133,000. Five percent of respondents reported total costs between $1.3 million and $6 million, before factoring in the cost of any ransom paid.

As bad as those figures are, what makes them even more painful is the frequency. On average, survey respondents report having been struck an average of twice in the past year.

Dan Schiappa, the Senior VP and General Manage of Products at Sophos explains: “Ransomware is not a lightning strike – it can happen again and again to the same organization. We’re aware of cyber criminals unleashing four different ransomware families in half-hour increments to ensure at least one evades security and completes the attack.

If IT managers are unable to thoroughly clean ransomware and other threats from their systems after attacks, they could be vulnerable to reinfection. No one can afford to be complacent. Cybercriminals are deploying multiple attack methods to succeed, whether using a mix of ransomware in a single campaign, taking advantage of a remote access opportunity, infecting a server, or disabling security software.”

In light of this relentless attack methodology, and in spite of the headlines all last year warning of the dangers, Schiappa warns that most companies are starting 2018 woefully unprepared for a ransomware attack. With all that said if you haven’t done so already, it’s well past time to review the state of your network security.

Joseph Martin

If your Point Of Sale Uses Oracle, Update Now

February 13, 2018 by Joseph Martin

Oracle is currently the third-largest provider of POS (Point of Sale) software on the market today, which means that there’s a fairly good chance you’re using an Oracle POS system. If you are, there’s trouble ahead. A recently discovered security flaw could put your system at risk.

Oracle has already identified and patched the security flaw, but there’s a problem. Since POS systems are deemed “mission critical” by most businesses, System Administrators rarely schedule maintenance for them on fears that an unstable patch or update could cause undue downtime for the company. Because of that, it will likely be a month or more before the new update finds its way to all 300,000 of the at-risk systems.

As security flaws go, this one is fairly nasty, too, as it allows a hacker to collect configuration files from any vulnerable Micros POS system. This data can then be used to grant the hacker full, unrestricted access to the POS system, as well as the database and server it feeds information to.

Most hackers attacking a POS would be content with simply collecting credit card details for resale on the Dark Web However, with this exploit, any sort of malware could be installed to use against the company later.

Even worse, a hacker need not be in close proximity to the device in question. A carefully crafted HTTP request could trigger the security flaw and open the door. Of course, if a hacker is in close proximity to the system, then there are many easier ways to infect it. One only needs to distract the sales clerk long enough to attach a simple Raspberry Pi board equipped to run the exploit code and the damage is done.

The bottom line is, if you use an Oracle POS, make installing the latest security patch a priority. You’ll be vulnerable until you do.

Joseph Martin

Performance Issues Plague PC’s Updated With Spectre Patch

February 6, 2018 by Joseph Martin

Recently a critical flaw was found inside every Intel chip made during the last decade. The flaw makes two different exploits possible. These exploits have been dubbed “Meltdown” and “Spectre.”

The flaws are incredibly severe, and make it possible for a hacker to gain complete, unfettered access to the targeted PC or laptop. Although no instances of the exploit have yet been found in the wild, now that both are commonly known, it’s only a matter of time before that happens.

Based on that, and given the severity of the flaw, Intel scrambled to release an update, but here’s the catch: The update would hurt system performance, lowering it by as much as 23%.

In the end, it didn’t matter. To ignore the problem was simply not an option, so the company scrambled to get a fix ready and has since released it. Unfortunately, the fix has proved to be even more problematic than was originally estimated. In addition to degrading machine performance, it also interferes with a variety of maintenance activities and leads to an inordinate number of system reboots.

Initially, Intel advised its customers to proceed with the download in order to protect their systems, even in light of the performance degradation. However, as the number of complaints have grown, the company reversed course and has now advised against downloading its latest update, asking users to wait for a revision to be published.

At this point, the company has not given an ETA on when the revised firmware update will be ready, but until it is, you’re placed in an awkward position. Waiting for the update means exposing your company to risk, should a hacker target one of the machines on your network with the exploit. Proceeding with the current firmware update means you’ll suffer performance issues, leaving you stuck between a rock and a hard place, at least for the short term.

Joseph Martin

Hard Drives May Double In Speed With New Technology

January 23, 2018 by Joseph Martin

What’s an HDD manufacturer to do when faced with competition by faster, more efficient SSD drives?

Go big, and go faster. At least that’s the strategy that both Seagate and Western Digital are adopting.

SSDs tend to get prohibitively expensive as their size crosses the 1TB threshold, which creates an opportunity for HDD manufacturers. Seagate is currently selling drives with an impressive 14TB of capacity, and has plans on the drawing board to introduce a 40TB drive by 2023, with Western Digital not far behind, aiming for a 40TB drive by 2025.

That’s impressive, but as Seagate mentioned in a recent blog post:

“Capacity is only half of the solution. If the ability to rapidly access data doesn’t keep pace with all that capacity, the value potential of data is inhibited. Therefore, the advancement of digital storage requires both elements: increased capacity and increased performance.”

In order to address the performance side of the equation, Seagate is experimenting with a new approach called “multi-actuator technology.”

HDDS are based on platters, with an actuator arm on the top and bottom that write to the platters.

Actuators are all aligned and are designed to move in tandem, but at any given moment, only one arm is writing to the disk.

Seagate’s new solution utilizes two sets of actuator arms, each controlled independent of the other. With two heads capable of reading and writing simultaneously, HDD speeds can effectively be doubled.

It’s an idea that has been around for a while, but until recently, thanks to the prohibitive cost of the components, it was simply impractical. With component prices falling, it’s suddenly viable. The combination of massive HDDs and the new technology are making people take a second look at HDD technology.

This is a great advance that breathes new life into HDDs, and is a truly exciting innovation.

Joseph Martin

What is the Cost of IT Support for Small Business?

January 13, 2018 by Joseph Martin Leave a Comment

One of the greatest challenges among small business owners today is making the decision about IT support and maintenance of the information system; whether to hire an in-house IT tech or to outsource IT support for their business. With the relatively recent availability of Managed Services for small business, the list of choices – and decisions – has grown once again.

The Greenville IT support experts at Carolina IT Group are constantly searching for ways to make the decision making process simpler and easier for you, the small business owner. To help you with that, today we will take a look at the IT support choices currently available, as well as some of the costs involved. (Although we have tried to give you some idea of the costs involved, please remember that these are merely estimates based on averages, and that the actual cost of IT support services can vary greatly, based on the needs of each business.)

Self-managed IT Support:

According to PayScale.com, the national median income for an in-house IT tech is currently running at a bit over $40,000 per year, with the upper end of that range reaching nearly $60,000 annually. For more experienced technicians, the median pay rate is above $46,000 annually, with the upper range much closer to $65,000 yearly. These pay ranges include salary, bonuses, and profit sharing for in-house employees, but do not include benefits, such as health insurance.

If we choose a salary of $45,000 for the purpose of this comparison, we must then add benefits, sick pay, vacation time, and your annual payroll tax. These will total approximately $13,000 a year. Purchasing an IT Management System application could easily set you back by $1000, plus training in the new application, which would likely cost about $2500 per user. The total for one-time expenses will range from $3500 to $10,000, depending on the number of user desktops involved. Total cost of salary and benefits for your new IT specialist would be about $58,000 per year, though it could be more.

Outsourcing your IT Support:

For many small business owners, outsourcing their IT support needs may seem extravagant due to the hourly rate that such companies charge. However, this type of support can be extremely cost-effective because of the expertise being purchased, the experience the techs who visit are able to offer, and the backup provided by the team that supports them. Further, as a small business owner, you should easily be able to budget for the monthly expense, based on the system evaluation and recommendations of the company you employ as your IT support team.

A responsible IT support company will always begin with an objective assessment of your information system, along with recommendations for the work they will perform to meet your needs. In other words, they will not “pad” the bill, but will only perform the tasks you request of them. This can greatly reduce the cost of IT support for your small business, rather than hiring an in-house tech and paying an annual salary, as discussed above.

Beyond this, a reputable IT support company will guarantee the expertise of the tech they send you. The tech will also possess a great deal more experience than an employee, as they deal with a variety of systems every day. In most cases, there will be little they have not seen, which will allow them to handle your specific needs more efficiently. Further, they will most likely assign a particular technician to your account, someone who will visit you regularly, allowing them to become intimately familiar with your information system and the needs of your business, and with whom you will build a relationship of trust over time.

Best of all, your service will always be hands-on, with a live human being in place to answer your questions.

The cost of this type of support can vary greatly, depending upon the age and number of servers and desktops being used in your organization. However, you will usually be able to save money by purchasing blocks of time in advance and only using the hours purchased on as as-needed basis. For the average small business, you should probably budget for something between $1000 and $2500 per month, a vast savings over hiring an in-house IT tech.

Managed Services IT Support:

With remote monitoring of your small business information system now available 24/7, 365, this option has become one of the more cost-effective and appealing choices among small business owners in today’s marketplace. For a flat rate monthly fee, business owners and IT managers can now purchase pro-active monitoring and maintenance of servers, desktops, and remote machines being used by their company. In addition to this, a business may also subscribe to this type of service in a graduated, piecemeal fashion; perhaps beginning with managed antivirus protection, then gradually adding email monitoring for spam and continuity, email archiving, desktop monitoring, mobile device monitoring, online data backup services, and more.

By using such a service, your small business will find it very easy to budget for them. Because of the flat rate subscription fee you will pay each month, there will be no budget-busting surprises. As each of the managed services you’re using begins to save you money, by reducing system downtime and increasing productivity, you’ll be able to add another layer of protection, without having to invest in expensive an all-in-one package.

The most important benefit of a managed services program is that it is fully automated and never rests. The system is working on your behalf 24/7, 365, monitoring and maintaining your information system even while you sleep. You will also receive notification of impending problems, allowing you to intervene before your system goes down.

Once again, the cost of a managed services package for your small business will have a number of determining factors. Beginning with the age of your equipment and software, as well as the number of machines and users, to the selection of the various management and maintenance services to which you subscribe, these will determine the monthly cost of your choices. A la carte services may begin for as little as $2-$15 per month per machine, and range upward from there. For the average small business, your monthly cost may range from $500 to $2000 per month for ‘round-the-clock protection of your information system, data, and workstations. You should consult with an IT support provider for more information on a managed services package features and costs.

IT Support Service Packages

For most of our Greenville small business clients, a combination of outsourcing their IT support to us, along with one of our proactive managed services packages has been the ultimate solution to their IT needs. This type of cost-effective combination of support services has provided them expert IT support when needed on-site, as well as the 24 hour protection of their information system that they need for their peace of mind. “It’s good to sleep again at night!” they tell us.

If this information has been helpful, and you would like to know more about how Managed Services and IT support service packages from Carolina IT Group could benefit you and your business, the IT experts at Carolina IT Group are here to help you with all of your Greenville IT support needs. Please do not hesitate to contact us with your IT service request for help with your operating system, apps, servers, VoIP system or any other IT issues you may have.

Joseph Martin

Ransomware Attackers Are Increasing Their Attacks On Businesses

December 21, 2017 by Joseph Martin

The ransomware ecosystem is maturing. Strains are divided into “families” and the number of new families that have been discovered in 2017 is half what it was in 2016. Even so, the total number of attacks targeting businesses have risen by 26 percent over last year’s totals, according to the latest statistics released by Kaspersky Lab.

Rather than inventing wholly new software strains, hackers around the world seem content to modify existing strains, with the number of modifications growing from 54,000 to an astonishing 96,000 this year.

The modifications are having impacts that extend far beyond simply allowing them to slip past a company’s defenses. Last year, 29 percent of companies impacted by a ransomware attack claimed that the incident took a week or longer to recover from. This year, that percentage rose to 34 percent.

According to one of Kaspersky’s senior malware analysts, Fedor Sinitsyn, “The headline attacks of 2017 are an extreme example of growing criminal interest in a corporate target. We spotted this trend in 2016, it has accelerated throughout 2017 and shows no signs of slowing down.

Business victims are remarkably vulnerable, can be charged a higher ransom than individuals and are often willing to pay up in order to keep the business operational. New business-focused infection vectors, such as through remote desktop systems, are not surprisingly on the rise.”

In addition to the total number of such attacks increasing, we’ve seen several large-scale attacks this year, and there’s no reason to believe that we won’t see more of that in the months and years ahead.

This represents a fundamental shift in strategy as compared to years past and is a clear indication that hacking groups around the world are increasingly coordinating their efforts and learning from one another. That’s bad news for IT security professionals everywhere.

Joseph Martin

New Chips Support Increased Network Speeds To 400Gbps

Biometric Authentication Seeing Wide Adoption In Businesses

Traditional Hard Drive Technology Is Evolving

40 Percent Of All Login Attempts Are From Bots

Ransomware Affected Over 50 Percent Of Surveyed Companies

If your Point Of Sale Uses Oracle, Update Now

Performance Issues Plague PC’s Updated With Spectre Patch

Hard Drives May Double In Speed With New Technology

What is the Cost of IT Support for Small Business?

Self-managed IT Support:

Outsourcing your IT Support:

Managed Services IT Support:

IT Support Service Packages

Ransomware Attackers Are Increasing Their Attacks On Businesses

Contact Info

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