MiraiAs a malware strain that leveraged Internet of Things devices to create a zombified botnet and launch Distributed Denial of Service attacks, Mirai was responsible for no small amount of trouble on the Internet. Its developers, 20-year-old Josiah White and 21-year-old Paras Jha, have pled guilty to developing and leveraging Mirai to their own ends. The two established a company called Protraf Solutions LLC, which was dedicated to mitigating DDoS attacks. Using this company in tandem with their creation, White and Jha would launch a DDoS attack against a company and then sell their solutions to that company, or would collect money through the other side, accepting payment from their victims to stop the attack. White and Jha also teamed up with an accomplice, 21-year-old Dalton Norman, to leverage Mirai as the driving force behind a click fraud scheme. This scheme alone brought them around 200 Bitcoin, with 30 going to Norman. Mirai was also responsible for powering the DDoS attack on Dyn, one of the largest data centers east of the Mississippi River. The trio was charged with click fraud conspiracy, each being sentenced to a five year stay in prison and a fine of $250,000. Jha and White were also charged with conspiracy for writing and using Mirai, to which they pled guilty. This added another five years to their time in prison, another $250,000 fine, along with three years of supervised release. NSA DataOn December 17, 2017, an employee of the National Security Agency pled guilty to ?willful retention of national defense information.? According to the United States Justice Department, Nghia Hoang Pho was hired as a developer for the Tailored Access Operations, or TAO, unit in 2006. The TAO unit was tasked with creating hacking tools to be used to collect data from overseas targets and their information systems. In the time between 2010 and March of 2015, Pho took classified data and stored it on his home system. This system had antivirus software from Kaspersky Lab installed on it. There are suspicions that Russian hackers have exploited Kaspersky Lab in order to steal documents, quite possibly the ones taken home by Pho. The US Department of Homeland Security issued a directive that disallows the use of software made by Kaspersky Lab in federal agencies. Pho faces up to 10 years in prison, and will stand for sentencing on April 6. YahooIn March of 2017, four men faced indictment for hacking into Yahoo, effectively exposing the personal account information of one billion users. 22-year-old Karim Baratov has been charged with cooperating with two members of the FSB, or the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation. As part of his work for the FSB, the young Canadian hacked into 80 accounts, in addition to the more than 11,000 webmail accounts he had hacked since 2010. Utilizing customized spear-phishing content, Baratov also provided a service that granted access to Google, Yahoo, and Yantex accounts. Baratov has entered a guilty plea for all nine counts he faces. The first count is for aggravated identity theft, and carries a mandatory sentence of two years. The other eight counts are for violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and could each carry a sentence of 10 years and a fine of $250,000. Fortunately for Baratov, the United States? federal sentencing […]
Managed IT maintenance is the ideal solution for small organizations for several reasons. For one, it?s simply more efficient and less reactive than a break-fix IT provider. Instead of only resolving problems when they happen, you can instead prevent them all together, before they cause a lot of frustrations and downtime. Here are some ways that managed IT can help your business effectively care for technology. Improving FlexibilityIf you hire more employees, this means that you have more users to provide software to. If you?re not careful, this can lead to unexpected costs associated with software licensing and other accounts. This also leads to having more devices to secure and more employees accessing your network. The idea here is that the more technology you have in your infrastructure, the more work you have on your hands. White Mountain IT Services can help your business ensure flexibility no matter how many employees or services your organization needs. Assisting with In-House MaintenanceAssuming you have an IT department on-hand for your small business, it?s likely a small group of IT technicians whose sole responsibility is either general upkeep or implementing new solutions. However, their workload is likely to be too much for both–it?s generally only one or the other. Outsourcing your technology maintenance and management can be a great way to make sure that all responsibilities are fulfilled, regardless of the workload. For example, we could act as a help desk while your in-house team manages a critical project, or vice-versa. This helps to create success in the workplace regardless of how much work has piled up. Managing Your VendorsThere are several vendors that you work with to find products to suit your business, and all of these products require some sort of service at some point. For example, you might need to reach out to your vendors in order to procure new hardware or software for your business. It can be costly, time-consuming, and frustrating to constantly reach out to your vendors, which is why White Mountain IT Services offers vendor management. We take multiple points of contact and consolidate it into one, making it simple and easy for you to reach out for assistance. Generally Improving Operational EfficiencyA managed service provider can improve the way that your business functions on multiple levels. There?s something to be said about having hands-off IT maintenance to keep your business running as smoothly as possible. We firmly believe that you should remain focused on running your business instead of running your technology, so why not let us take the responsibility off your shoulders? To learn more about how you can make your technology work for you, reach out to us at (603) 889-0800.
Changing the Default Search EngineSeeing as Edge is a Microsoft product, it only makes sense that Bing, Microsoft?s search engine, would be the default search engine that Edge leverages. If you prefer using Google, or any other search engine that uses OpenSearch, there is a way to switch it to the default Edge search engine. First, you need to visit the desired default search engine so that Edge will recognize it as an option. Access the browser menu by clicking the triple-dot button at the top-right corner of the browser window, then select Settings. Access View advanced settings. Find Change search engine and select the one you want Edge to default to. Bringing Back the Home ButtonWhile most browsers have the option to return to your homepage via a Home button, that button is hidden in Edge. However, you can reactivate this button, as well as change your default homepage in Edge. Access your Advanced Settings Find the Show home button option and switch it to ?on? You can also set your homepage to be the default Edge homepage, the New tab page, or any page you?d prefer. Editing the New Tab PageSpeaking of tabs, you can also customize what you?re looking at when a new tab is opened. Access your Settings From the drop-down menu, select your preference for your new tabs from the following: Top Sites Top Sites and Suggested Content A blank page Previewing Currently Open TabsIf you?ve ever had so many tabs open that you can?t remember what is on which, this feature will be particularly handy for you. Edge offers a thumbnail preview of what is on each tab. Click the down-arrow button next to your tabs This will expand the tabs to show their contents Alternatively, you can hover your cursor over a tab for the same effect Preserving Your TabsBusiness often requires jumping from one task to another, which means that a clean slate is necessary, but what if you don?t want to sacrifice the tabs you were using on the task that you?ll ultimately be returning to? Edge offers the ability to save your tabs. Click the button to the left of the tabs you have open. Your tabs are now saved as a collection, which allows you to reopen them all with a single click, rather that dredging through your browser history. So, if you don?t normally use Edge, are these new features enough for you to give it a try? If you do use Edge, what other features would you like to see? Let us know in the comments!
Incoming MessageYou may get a call or email from someone asking about your computer?s status. This someone will likely claim to be from a recognizable technology company, like Microsoft or McAfee. You should not believe them. Companies of Microsoft?s size and success will not be the ones to reach out to check if there is an issue with your computer. Besides, imagine how many employees Microsoft would need to have to reach out to every Microsoft customer. When there were over 100 million users of Office 365?s commercial edition in 2017, plus 27 million users of Office 365 Home & Personal (as stated in the shareholder letter that was released), there’s just no way that Microsoft would devote that kind of manpower to collect that kind of information. Additionally, it has been agreed between the FTC, National Cyber Security Alliance and yes, Microsoft, that no tech company will call you on the phone unsolicited, or send you an email with the same message. Stay Up-to-DateOne of the best defenses against almost any threat, including tech support fraud, is to keep everything updated. This includes your operating system and antivirus and antimalware. This will help to minimize the damage of a tech support scam. IT may also consider installing ad blockers to maximize your protection. Keep Credit Cards Close to the ChestIf a member of ?tech support? asks for your credit card number after calling you first, don?t give it to them and hang up (assuming you let them get that far). If you have already given out your card number, call and make sure that any charges you didn?t make are reversed and then report the incident to the FTC Complaint Assistant. Make Sure Your Employees are In-the-KnowIt is important to remember that you aren?t the only person in the company that could fall victim to tech support fraud. Your employees need to be aware of the threat, and should be able to identify the warning signs as well. Your security is only as strong as its weakest link, and more often than not, the weakest link is your end users. Therefore, it is crucial that they are educated and evaluated on their knowledge of best practices. Tech support is meant to help you out, which is a responsibility that White Mountain IT Services doesn?t take lightly. To learn more about our support services, give us a call at (603) 889-0800.
Ordinarily, the word redundant would be used for something that?s not needed. For example, having two jugs of orange juice in your refrigerator would be considered redundant because you only ever need one at a time. Your data can be considered in much the same way. You want a second, or even third, copy of your data on the off-chance that you need it. This is why we say you want data redundancy–it?s a worst-case scenario, certainly, but you?re out of luck if you do ever encounter a situation where your data is unavailable. Here are some of the major considerations that you want to remember when thinking about data redundancy, as well as data backup and disaster recovery. How Much Data You?re RecoveringDepending on your data backup solution, you could either be taking backups once a day or you could be taking them multiple times a day. If you?re only taking them once at the end of the day, you could lose up to an entire day?s worth of data in the event of a disaster. On the other hand, if you use a snapshot-based backup solution, you only take backups of data that has changed since the last time you took one, allowing you to back up your data as often as every fifteen minutes. It?s the ideal way to back up your data, and it allows you to keep it as redundant as possible. How Long Your Recovery TakesIf you have a lot of data that needs to be recovered, the process could take much longer than you expect. Furthermore, since you?re restoring from a tape rather than immediately through the cloud, you?ll be opting for a much slower method of restoration. Cloud-based BDR allows your organization to restore data directly to any compatible device–including the BDR device itself–so that you can minimize downtime in the event of a data loss incident. Where You?re Storing Your Data BackupsFinally, we get to the redundancy aspect of your business?s data backup system. Redundancy is all about having multiple copies of your device, but it?s where you?re storing them that makes a major difference for your organization. You should follow the 3-2-1 rule for data backup and disaster recovery. Basically, you want three copies of your data overall (at least), with two of those being stored off-site in some capacity (like in the cloud or a secure off-site data center), and one on-site in the event you need it. Does your organization need help with data redundancy or backup and disaster recovery? White Mountain IT Services can help. To learn more, reach out to us at (603) 889-0800.
