More and more of our managed services customers are moving all aspects of their network and systems to the cloud. Fortunately, we are seeing less and less that are scared of it and ready to take the plunge. Check out the information below - we tried to simplify the answers to questions about servers and how they work…
Holiday Scams: Stay Vigilant!
Seras IT provides premier security and protection for your information, network, and computers, but we are always at the mercy of our customers’ actions when they’re faced with malicious correspondence. It’s the Holiday Season and as much as you’d like to think everyone is joyous and generous time of year, it is often when scammers ramp up their efforts to steal your valuable information and even your money! Online shopping activities increase along with spikes in scammer activity - creating a scenario that cost Americans $6.9 billion in 2021 with highest numbers around the holidays. From social media to professional emails, here are some tips to stay protected…
Computer and Online: Typical Methods
Email: West Columbia Anydesk
One of our customers in West Columbia received an email from Paypal the other day that described a Norton Antivirus charge for $636.48 that was being charged to their Paypal account. It also stated that the charge seemed fraudulent and provided a contact number for Paypal customer support. The email sender address seemed accurate (service@paypal.com), the logo was legitimate, and the general message was similar to messages related to fraudulent charges from the bank.
When our customer called the number in the email, the sophistication of this fraudulent organization was incredible. A friendly woman answered the phone with, “Thank you for calling Paypal fraud department, how may I help you?” During a very convincing and brief conversation, she managed to get our customer to download anydesk, a remote access program, and give her team access to his computer. They locked him out and managed to empty a bank account of about $5,000 before he shut down his device.
Online Selling: Rock Hill Facebook Marketplace
One of our customers in the Rock Hill, SC area recently posted an item for sale on Facebook Marketplace. She received a very friendly message from a buyer that asked her to open a Zelle account to receive his payment. The buyer then sent her a fake notice that he had paid and she needed to upgrade to Zelle for business in order to receive his payment. When she questioned this, he sent her a fake screenshot of the message and claimed he received it too, but he was willing to pay for her upgrade and she could reimburse him. She sent the reimbursement to him, but actually never received any payments from him.
In this case, there wasn’t much we could do besides discussing the process with her and providing some methods for qualifying buyers within Facebook:
Verify that the buyer has more than 20 or so Facebook friends
Look for consistent, long-term posts and activity
Verify that the user did not recently create their Facebook profile
Look for buying reviews and send some qualifying questions to test their ability to communicate as many are often foreign and do not speak fluent english
Offer to make or receive payment using some other method than the one they are requesting
Social Media: Fake Stores and Stolen $$ in Rock Hill
Several folks in our Rock Hill service area have called about spending money in fake stores online and asking if we can help recover their money. Unfortunately, all we can really do is refer them to the FBI for assistance.
While scrolling through their favorite social media platform, an advertisement for a product that was too good to be true popped up, so they decided to buy several for friends and family. When they clicked on the add, they were re-directed to a very-real looking online store that was actually a fake. The sellers took their credit card information and charged them for products that they never had any intention of selling or sending to them!
Random Texts: Fake Delivery Fees in Columbia
Online sellers have learned how to provide a seamless, convenient, and informative experience for their customers. Many are sending automated updates related to shipping and delivery times via text message, which provides significant peace of mind to buyers.
Scammers send a text message that looks like it’s from a popular seller and asks for a small additional delivery fee to be paid. Customers click a link in the text that directs them to a legitimate-looking shipping page where they enter payment information that is then stolen and used elsewhere by the scammers.
Evolving Methods: They’ll likely Never Stop!
Unfortunately, these criminals will continue trying to steal your critical information and money and continue to create new, creative methods for doing so. Here are more schemes to look out for this Christmas:
Fake Charity - sending requests for donations to a charity that doesn’t exist
Password Expiration Notices - send a link to reset a soon-to-expire password, but in reality they are saving your username and password for their own personal use
Impersonating Popular Brands - calling, texting, or emailing requests related to “a recent purchase” in an attempt to get you to provide personal information or credentials
What can I do to Protect My Information?
While antivirus services, firewalls, and email filters are great tools that we deploy at all of our customers’ networks from Columbia to Rock Hill, they are all superseded by the user taking action out of our control. Our message to customers is to remain vigilant:
If ANYTHING at all seems suspicious, even if it’s just “my boss doesn’t normally write in that style”, don’t open any attachments or click any links
Ensure that Multifactor Authentication is enabled for all applicable software accounts and platforms
Always check the email sender’s address, not the name of the person, to make sure it’s a legitimate or branded email address
Get an automated notification added to your email server to notify employees if an email was generated from outside your organization
Perform staff training at regular intervals to ensure staff members are aware of latest trends
Work with a competent, established IT service provider that includes staff training and education as part of their management services
What if there was a Breach?
If you had an experience with a scammer that may have created a breach of information, the first step is to change any relevant passwords. In some scenarios, canceling a credit card or locking down a specific bank account may be necessary.
The best thing to do is contact your IT service provider and discuss the transaction or process that took place so that the proper scans, changes, and settings can be applied to your systems.
How Can Seras IT Help?
The Seras IT team loves staff training and does it’s best to stay on top of the latest trends and threats to our customers. Our help starts with staff training and quarterly newsletters and grows from there to the relevant branches of your network so that we can do everything possible to protect your critical data and systems. Click, call, or yell at us for more information!
We’re now serving the Rock Hill, SC market! Learn more here: www.serasIT.com/Rock-Hill
How a Spring Storm might Shut Down my IT Systems…
Seras IT is a managed service provider serving the greater Midlands area of Columbia, S.C. We routinely install, manage, and monitor computer systems and networks from Orangeburg to Irmo and Lexington to Forest Acres. Going into the summer months, this area of the Midlands experiences sudden thunderstorms on a weekly basis, because of this we normally see an increase this time of year with power failure in electronic devices.
What should I look for that might indicate a power surge or loss concern?
Any power-on or system startup failures or lockups
Blank screen and complete loss of power
“File Corrupt” errors from any of your applications
Unplanned rebooting or intermittent lockups occur during normal operation
Sudden loss of ethernet internet service, but wireless still works
Errors in the integrity of the digital data in the computer or other memory-type
Internal or external hard drive malfunction
Unusual levels of heat due to fan malfunction
Obvious symptoms that will lead you to suspect you have a faulty power supply are your computer is simply dead, you are seeing smoke at the outlet or computer location, or you are hearing popping noises when the PC is turned on. Thunderstorms can also be responsible for downed power lines leading to external power surges; before the power goes out, voltage along power lines often fluctuates wildly, causing dangerous power surges.
The sudden storms rolling through this time of year also come with the inevitable lightning strikes which can wreak havoc on your electronic devices via creating extreme power surges. According to the National Lightning Safety Institute, 1 out of every 200 homes will be hit with an extreme power surge this year. NLSI - CLICK HERE
Protection is cheap, easy, and secure!
To help combat this threat we suggest layering surge protectors at your home or office. The first layer in this protection plan would be to call your local electrician and have them install a whole-home surge protector directly at the main fuse box to the home or office. Having accomplished this you can move on to the second layer of surge protection that is more DIY friendly and comes in the form of the surge protectors you can buy at any electronic store. We call these point-of-use surge protectors, and they are designed to protect one or more appliances by acting as a buffer between your electrical outlet and the electronic device it is sending power to. In addition, these protectors will also aid against internal power surges caused by your larger home and office appliances. When these appliances switch off, all the electricity it had been receiving suddenly has no where to go. This results in a brief increase in voltage throughout the home’s wiring, and anything hooked up to your home’s electrical system can be damaged by this surge. Many of our business customers include a battery backup in their power grid to reduce the potential for corruption within a server or other critical devices during sudden loss of power.
Regardless of what your technology environment includes, our technicians are always ready to design a strategy, implement a plan, and manage your critical network devices. Contact Us today for more information!
U.S. Warns that Cyber Attacks may be Imminent: What can you do to Protect your Business?
Seras is committed to ensuring that our customers are protected and ready to handle any cyber-related threat that comes their way. We help businesses all over Columbia, Lexington, and Irmo install and configure their computer networks, but we also work hard to keep them efficient and protected in the future using a variety of tools and scheduled activities that ensure their success.
With the current turmoil ensuing in Eastern Europe regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there has been a shift in focus in the technology industry towards securing all weak points to prevent Russian interference of U.S. public and private communications networks. The White House alongside the F.B.I. and CISA (the cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency), have therefore issued several warning notices for American business owners to be mindful of while they fortify their networks against potential Russian state-sponsored black hat cyber actors.
“The FBI and CISA recommend organizations remain cognizant of the threat of state-sponsored cyber actors exploiting default MFA protocols and exfiltrating sensitive information. Organizations should:
• Enforce MFA for all users, without exception. Before implementing, organizations should review configuration policies to protect against “fail open” and re-enrollment scenarios.
• Implement time-out and lock-out features in response to repeated failed login attempts.
• Ensure inactive accounts are disabled uniformly across the Active Directory, MFA systems etc.
• Update software, including operating systems, applications, and firmware on IT network assets in a timely manner. Prioritize patching known exploited vulnerabilities, especially critical and high vulnerabilities that allow for remote code execution or denial-of-service on internet-facing equipment.
• Require all accounts with password logins (e.g., service account, admin accounts, and domain admin accounts) to have strong, unique passwords. Passwords should not be reused across multiple accounts or stored on the system where an adversary may have access.
• Continuously monitor network logs for suspicious activity and unauthorized or unusual login attempts.
• Implement security alerting policies for all changes to security-enabled accounts/groups, and alert on suspicious process creation events (ntdsutil, rar, regedit, etc.).
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CISA goes on later in the article to include a list of best practices and recommendations for business owners to implement to further reduce the risk of malicious cyber attacks.
“Security Best Practices
• Deploy Local Administrator Password Solution (LAPS), enforce Server Message Block (SMB) Signing, restrict Administrative privileges (local admin users, groups, etc.), and review sensitive materials on domain controller’s SYSVOL share.
• Enable increased logging policies, enforce PowerShell logging, and ensure antivirus/endpoint detection and response (EDR) are deployed to all endpoints and enabled.
• Routinely verify no unauthorized system modifications, such as additional accounts and Secure Shell (SSH) keys, have occurred to help detect a compromise. To detect these modifications, administrators can use file integrity monitoring software that alerts an administrator or blocks unauthorized changes on the system.
Network Best Practices
• Monitor remote access/ RDP logs and disable unused remote access/RDP ports.
• Deny atypical inbound activity from known anonymization services, to include commercial VPN services and The Onion Router (TOR).
• Implement listing policies for applications and remote access that only allow systems to execute known and permitted programs under an established security policy.
• Regularly audit administrative user accounts and configure access control under the concept of least privilege.
• Regularly audit logs to ensure new accounts are legitimate users.
• Scan networks for open and listening ports and mediate those that are unnecessary.
• Maintain historical network activity logs for at least 180 days, in case of a suspected compromise.
• Identify and create offline backups for critical assets.
• Implement network segmentation.
• Automatically update anti-virus and anti-malware solutions and conduct regular virus and malware scans.
Remote Work Environment Best Practices
With an increase in remote work environments and the use of VPN services, the FBI and CISA encourage organizations to implement the following best practices to improve network security:
• Regularly update VPNs, network infrastructure devices, and devices used for remote work environments with the latest software patches and security configurations.
• When possible, implement multi-factor authentication on all VPN connections. Physical security tokens are the most secure form of MFA, followed by authenticator applications. When MFA is unavailable, require employees engaging in remote work to use strong passwords.
• Monitor network traffic for unapproved and unexpected protocols.
• Reduce potential attack surfaces by discontinuing unused VPN servers that may be used as a point of entry for attackers.
User Awareness Best Practices
Cyber actors frequently use unsophisticated methods to gain initial access, which can often be mitigated by stronger employee awareness of indicators of malicious activity. The FBI and CISA recommend the following best practices to improve employee operations security when conducting business:
• Provide end-user awareness and training. To help prevent targeted social engineering and spearphishing scams, ensure that employees and stakeholders are aware of potential cyber threats and delivery methods. Also, provide users with training on information security principles and techniques.
• Inform employees of the risks associated with posting detailed career information to social or professional networking sites.
• Ensure that employees are aware of what to do and whom to contact when they see suspicious activity or suspect a cyberattack, to help quickly and efficiently identify threats and employ mitigation strategies.
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These items are quite complex and can be overwhelming to most businesses. Seras is here to help navigate these suggestions and figure out how to incorporate them into your IT infrastructure. Our team of knowledgeable, friendly technicians works hard to make changes as painless as possible and work in alignment with your goals for success. To request more information or a free assessment, email us at ithelpdesk@serasIT.com or click here.
$12 million to be invested in Richland County high-speed internet accessibility
Tri-County Electric Cooperative announced that they will be investing $12 million in an effort to bring quality fiber optic internet access to parts of Lower Richland that have as of yet been ineligible for such services due to the largely rural nature of the area.
“We are excited to see Tri-County investing in Richland County to provide more residents with access to broadband internet,” Richland County Chair Paul Livingston said in the release. “The Covid-19 pandemic taught us the importance of having broadband connectivity, and this project will help our community stay better connected.”
Back in early December, in an effort to encourage such growth in our local community, the Richland County Council approved a fee-in-lieu-of-tax agreement with Tri-County Electric that will provide a more favorable property tax rate over a 30 year period. “We’re proud to make this investment in Richland County to provide broadband to previously underserved areas,” said Chad Lowder, CEO of Tri-County Electric. “This is a further commitment from Tri-County and its leadership team to provide essential services to citizens in our service territory.”
Tri-County Electric is based out of St. Matthews and was founded in 1940. They are a member-owned electric utility serving the greater South Carolina counties of: Calhoun, Kershaw, Lexington, Orangeburg, Richland, and Sumter. Its Richland County office is located at 11335 Garners Ferry Road in Eastover.
Quarterly Changes, Tips, and Trends
In addition to specific regular reporting and recommendations that we may provide for our customers, we encourage you to take a moment to share some of these critical tech-related reminders with your staff or use them for your own personal security and efficiency. We understand that it takes both the technical management that we provide AND keeping your users vigilant when it comes to protecting your computers, servers, and your business.
Windows 11 is Coming
Remember not to automatically upgrade to a new operating system without checking in with your Seras IT team. Some of your software programs may not be compatible with Windows 11, which could cause significant downtime attempting to revert back to an older system. We also recommend a thorough look at individual machines prior to any major operating system change to make sure that they have the resources to handle any new space or processing requirements. For example, many of our customers needed to perform some minor memory or storage increases before upgrading to Windows 10.
Breakthrough Changes to Antivirus Services
Seras has partnered with Blackberry to test and roll out a new artificial intelligence-based antivirus service that is doing great things across the industry. Stay tuned for more information or contact us today to see if it may be a fit for your organization.
Printing Headaches may Continue
Microsoft Windows is continuing to release updates that affect older printers and the ability for their drivers (software connection to computers) to continue working properly. Seras has several options, however in most cases, we end up helping you find a reliable replacement for those out-dated printers that may still be in use.
Why am I Suddenly getting so much Spam?
While our team follows all industry protocols for filtering unwanted email, many of our customers are in businesses that use email correspondence to work with a variety of vendors, customers, and associates. At any random time, some entity that you work with may experience a compromised email or email -related breach, thus opening address books and contacts to malicious parties that use these new addresses to fish for critical data. Thus, the term “phishing email”. Our team is ready to assist you with the best options for responding to new phishing attempts and an influx of spam.
Managing your Growth: Are my employees doing anything risky?
Many of our smaller customers – those with only a few computers and employees – are confident that they can keep an eye on what their employees are doing on individual computers, limit access to specific data and ensure it’s protection, and control any leaks that may occur during theft or turnover. At some point, the unknowns can drive you crazy and it may be time to consider a domain environment. Without a domain, each computer in your office manages its own computer and user settings - a domain allows this control to shift to a centralized platform so that security, access, and efficiency settings can be made faster and for a larger group of people all at the same time.
There are too many benefits to list here, however an evaluation and list of potential benefits to your organization is fast, free, and easy. Domain implementation is relatively easy with little interruption to staff and does not require significant hardware or software investment. Contact us here to request more information.
