Mellc september 2017 newsletter

September 2017

microTECH Times Covered I.T. 24/7—Never Worry Again!

We often see millennials pressed into service as IT advisor for their company.

However, they are not usually certified and abreast of the latest IT vulnerabilities your company is facing. Take a look at this million dollar reason to employ an outsourced IT department to care for your network.

Here's how it happens. A 62-year-old executive is stumped about how to edit his e-mail signature. Other venerable bosses have trouble navigating new applications, running updates or even operating their own peripherals (printers, faxes, scanners, etc.) They all spend time trying to do it themselves and might truly be just a keystroke away from doing it, but in the end they ask a younger person for help and the problem may be solved within seconds or minutes.

Why millennials? In the office, the 18-to-34year-old crowd is usually fearless about adapting to new gadgets or system upgrades. While they may seem a bit cocky at times, they really make life online look like second nature. Tech experts explain that millennials probably already helped

PO Box 503 Deepwater, NJ 08023 877-540-6789 www.microent.net

their baby boomer parents with technology and now they see similar situations in the workplace. They are quick to dive into an issue hoping to build rapport and sometimes even prove themselves as a more valuable asset for the company. Unfortunately, technology is not easy.

Being an office techie has its ups and downs. Sure, the office techie quickly becomes one of the most sought after people in the office, but there are some pretty big drawbacks to this reputation. Sometimes their own work is interrupted so often that their efficiency is greatly impacted.

Other times, it is hard to explain why they cannot fix an issue and this could damage their relationships with coworkers.

Fixing misbehaving tech“Quality in a service or nology is not like grilling product is not what you a burger. There is no set put into it. It is what the time for repairs, no exact customer gets out of it.

(Continued on page 2) ~ Peter Drucker

Adobe Acrobat XI Support Ends Soon…..Pg. 2 Update Your Password……………..Pg. 2 6 Types Of Spam Filters; Because Even Mild Spam Can Lead To An Infection………....Pg. 3 Spoofing Paypal Scam Tactic……...……..Pg. 4 How To Handle Emails, Interruptions, And Phone Calls...Pg. 4

“One important key to success is selfconfidence.

An important key to self-confidence is preparation.” ~ Arthur Ashe “Discipline is doing what you hate to do but nonetheless doing it like you LOVE it.” ~ Mike Tyson “If opportunity doesn’t knock build a door.” ~ Milton Berle

It’s safe to say that cheeseburgers are an American favorite. September 18th, treat your self to a nice juicy burger to celebrate National Cheeseburger Day.

The beginning of the burger. There are a number of theories about where the cheeseburger began. History shows the hamburger was invented in the 1880’s by Fletcher Davis of Athens, Texas.

Who knows when the cheese was truly added to the recipe. Lionel Sternberger, a Pasadena sandwich shop fry cook, experimented with a piece of cheese on a hamburger and found the result sensational in 1926.

Origins of this tasty celebratory day.

While there really is no record of when this iconic food celebration started, but it really took off. Many restaurants around the world have taken this observation as a way to bring everyone together with great cheeseburger deals and new cheeseburger creations.

(Continued on page 3)

microTECH Times

(Continued from page 1)

science for the secret sauce, and no farmers market where you can quickly pick up the most delicious additions for your network. Technology is an ever changing and growing monstrosity that takes a big commitment of life long learning to tackle. At the end of the day, investing a little extra money in a trusted resource could save your company countless hours of repairs and a bundle of money.

Honestly, how bad could it be?

We recently had a client come to us with a Cryptolocker virus. They were so frustrated that their IT guy allowed this to happen. They were down for a number of days before we received the call.

We were able to rush onsite, assess the damage and work with them to recover the files they needed. Later in our Network Audit, we discovered that everyone in their company could access their backups, every area of their servers, and many of their workstations were not up to date. We were very surprised this was their first experience with a Cryptolocker virus. Not only was this office crippled by this one infection the ransom to recover their data was just like burning your cheek on hot fries, an instant wakeup call followed by a raw sensation.

Adobe Acrobat XI and Reader XI support will end as of October 15, 2017.

What does this mean? What can you do?

End-of-life for Acrobat. This term simply means that Adobe will no longer offer technical support, product updates, security updates, or new versions.

While this may not seem like a big deal, it can lead to a dangerous weakness in your network.

Page 2

Vulnerability. When a piece of software is essentially set aside by its creator and marked for an end-of-life date, it becomes a target for hackers to exploit.

These unpatched programs can essentially leave a backdoor opening in your network for clever attackers to dive into your and take what they want.

September 2017

Malware now makes up over 10% of all infections these days.

According to Check Point software, ransomware has doubled its share when compared to the volume of malware attacks and is likely to double again in 2017. Some ransoms are even hitting $1 million dollars. Most experts say, “Just pay the money so you can get your files back and move on.” But, what about preventative measures?

Hire a team of IT professionals to help. This may seem like a crazy notion due to the expensive salaries for inhouse IT professionals these days, but can you truly afford to sidestep security and pay a hefty ransom just to keep your business moving? There is an alternative. What if we said you could hire an entire office of certified technicians today? What if we even offered a Network Security Audit to review all of your IT needs and help you build up a good defense against this million dollar threat? Would you call today? How about now…

Micro Enterprises LLC 877-540 -6789

Adobe recommendations. Adobe strongly recommends updating your Acrobat programs to the latest version as soon as possible. That way you can benefit from the most recent enhancements and security updates while your company decides on the next step.

The best option moving forward.

If your company is using a cloud solution, there are subscription products available. Adobe is even offering a new annual and month-to-month subscription plan for Acrobat DC. These affordable subscription services allow you grow and increase the user count as needed with minimal investment. In addition, subscription services are coupled with full-support when you need it most.

These are the twentyfive most common passwords for 2016. If you see your password listed here, change it now!

1. 123456 2. 123456789 3. qwerty 4. 12345678 5. 111111 6. 1234567890 7. 1234567 8. password 9. 123123 10. 987654321 11. Qwertyuiop 12. Mynoob 13. 123321 14. 666666 15. 18atcskd2w 16. 777777 17. 1q2w3e4r 18. 654321 19. 555555 20. 3rjs1la7qe 21. Google 22. 1q2w3e4r5t 23. 123qwe 24. 1q2w3e Password best practices.

A good password should not be pulled directly from a dictionary, family name, user name or identification number. They should be 12-16 characters, contain a combination of numbers, symbols, upper and lower case letters as well as a space. Keep your passwords fresh too. Update them once each quarter just to change things up a bit.

microTECH Times

September 2017

(Continued from page 1)

Cheeseburger types.

Did you know there are over 500 types of cheeseburgers and thousands of ways to arrange the toppings?

Amazing that this dish can be so versatile. Here are a few cheeseburger types you may want to seek out for a taste: •

•

•

•

Sticky cheeseburger: grilled burger spread with peanut butter, topped with bacon and Jack cheese.

Tough Texan cheeseburger: grilled beef seasoned with hot sauce, topped with dried red peppers, smothered in pepper cheese and BBQ sauce.

Hawaiian Spamburger: Grilled spam patty, topped with melted swiss cheese, pineapple slices, creamy mustard, garlic chunks, green bell peppers and leaf lettuce.

A donut cheeseburger: A sizzling hamburger patty, smothered in the cheese of your choice, topped with bacon and housed in a sliced donut.

Whatever your preference, take a moment to check into cheeseburger deals near you and join in the fun celebrating National Cheeseburger Day.

Page 3

Everyone knows a spam filter keeps the undesirable messages out. But how exactly do they work? And how can you ensure yours is the right one for your business?

What is a spam filter? A spam filter is a sorting solution that helps you weed out the infectious or bad messages in your e-mail. There are three basic ways these filters are implemented; a hosted solution on a cloud service, a device in your office or an on premise appliance, and a local copy installed directly on your computer. While no spam filter is a 100% effective, a business operating without a filter is generally bombarded with so many messages that e-mail is almost rendered useless and unmanageable.

What are the different types of spam filters? Spam filters come in a variety of types. Here is a quick list of six filters that help block out risky email messages: 1.

Content filters: These filters review the words and content inside of your e-mail messages to decide if they are spam or safe.

2.

Header filters: This filter looks simply looks at the e-mail header to identify falsified or known infectious information.

3.

Permission filters: These filters force the sender to be approved by the recipient before accepting any correspondence.

4.

General blacklist filters: This type of filter stops all e-mails that come for known spammers that are kept on a list of offenders known as a blacklist.

5.

Challenge-response filters: These filters are on the inside of your company to restrict outgoing messages. They require anyone sending a message to enter a code gaining permission to send an e-mail.

6.

Rule-based filters: This type of filter references a defined set of criteria and filters the content of your messages based on specific wording in the body or header.

Spam filter basics for business.

The spam filter you use will largely depend on the volume of messages you and your staff manage daily. It is also good to consider the types of message you send and receive. Do you often exchange sensitive personal or business information? A company that is regulated by industry standards may require tighter security.

Test and monitor your filter. Even

From a recent count by the Radicati when you select a Group, there are roughly 2.4 million filter, test and monitor its effectiveness. e-mails sent every second. This New threats arise at equates to 74 trillion annually. Just an alarming rate and over 49% of these messages are these filtering soluspam. That’s about 36 trillion spam tions can be modified messages annually. With the average to block the specific recipient bringing in 121 messages types of messages daily, even mild spam can be terribly your company is redangerous for businesses. ceiving. Ask these critical questions; Do the good messages come through?

Do spam or virus messages still land in your inbox? How quickly are patches and updates being pushed to your machines?

Questions? Having issues with infections, spam in your inbox, or are you concerned about updates and patches?

Give us a call. We can help put the right tools in place to improve your e-mail security solution.

Your business relies on e-mail communications so make sure it is secure and reliable.

microTECH Times

September 2017

“We make all of your computer problems go away without adding additional full-time I.T. staff!”

Ask about our fixed price service agreements — Computer support at a flat monthly fee you can budget for, just like payroll!

Spoofing Paypal Scam Tactic. Spoofing is when a hoax web- How to handle e-mails, interruptions, and site is constructed to deceive visitors and gather information for phone calls. Thomas Edison did his best work malicious intent. Watch out for these dangerous websites. Even giants like Paypal have issues with spoofs.

during the night. Some people today do their best work at night too, but that’s mainly because they are Paypol.com Nope, this isn’t a typo. This is an example of the interrupted so often during the day. The problem is that no one was ever taught how to fight information way attackers spoof the Paypal site. Changing one letter of the overloads and constant interruptions. website address is a common way for hackers to spoof a domain.

It is so close that with a quick glance, many visitors don’t even Fortune magazine offers a few solutions. realize they are not on a legitimate site. The design of these Experts say you should ask yourself these questions: spoofed websites is mimicked so you really can’t tell the differWhat are you supposed to accomplish in your work? ence, but the website address can never be duplicated exactly.

What do you actually spend time doing? Do you achieve Why are spoofed sites dangerous? The goal of these types “flow?” Flow is the state where everything seems to be going your way. You feel calm, alert, focused yet receptive. It feels like the of websites is to gather data. While you may think you are simply full exercise of the thin your truly supposed to be doing. It’s the logging into the Paypal site to make a payment, it’s really a phish- Aristotelian concept of happiness. ing site that records the user name and password you enter and repeatedly says you’ve entered it wrong. As you continue to try Tips to find your Aristotelian flow: If you’re the one who calls other passwords the site will keep those too. From there, attackers meetings, call fewer of them. Switch off the ping that signals an use the data you’ve entered to attempt logins on various websites incoming email. Create folders for less critical messages to move like banks, social media and medical sites. automatically out of your inbox and schedule time for their review later. Block out time in blocks of an hour or two for uninterrupted Keep your eye on the domain. The website address, also work flow, no calls, no emails, no chitchat. Devote 30 minutes known as a domain name, will help you identify a spoofed webeach day to planning your day so you can get the most out of your site. Sometimes these domains will come to you in a spam meswork. Studies show that 20% of our time is spent on nonproducsage, but they are prevalent in online advertisements too. Be aware tive activities. Cut them out or delegate them so you can keep your of the way these spoofing sites work and if you are at all suspiwork flowing smoothly. cious, don’t enter your password information.

Ready for an upgrade or new equipment?

Have you been considering new computers or dual monitors?

Not sure what improvements will help your company grow?

Give us a call today for a Network Tune-Up PO Box 503 Deepwater, NJ 08023 877-540-6789 www.microent.net

Let’s get started planning your next upgrade or improvement project so we can get it implemented before the year end. That way, you may be able to take advantage of the Section 179 deduction on your taxes. This deduction was extended through the 2017 with limits back up to $500,000 for qualifying equipment and software.

Micro Enterprises LLC ● (877) 540-6789