MSPNetworks Blog

There is an entire litany of stereotypes that are commonly linked to the term “hacker”… too many for us to dig into here, especially since they do little but form a caricature of just one form that today’s cybercriminal can take. Let’s go into the different varieties that are covered nowadays under the blanket term of “hacker,” and the threat that each pose to businesses today.

To give this list some semblance of sensible order, let’s go from the small fish up to the large players, ascending the ladder in terms of threats.

The Ethical Hacker

First and foremost, not all hackers are bad. Certified Ethical Hackers are high-profile cybersecurity experts that are designed to think like a cybercriminal. They can be employed to determine how secure your organization is. 

The Unintentional Hacker

We all make mistakes, and we can all get a little bit curious every now and then. Therefore, it stands to reason that this curiosity could get people into trouble if they were to find something—some mistake in its code or security—on a website. This is by no means uncommon, and the question of whether this kind of hacking should be prosecuted if the perpetrator reports their findings to the company has been raised by many security professionals.

Regardless, if someone can hack into a website without realizing what they are doing, what does that say about the security that is supposed to be protecting the website… or, by extension, a business’ network? Whether or not you take legal action, such events should never be glossed over and instead be addressed as growth opportunities for improving your security.

The Thrill Seeker

Each of the hackers we’ll cover here has their own motivation for hacking into a network. In this case, that motivation ties directly back to bragging rights (even if the hacker only ever brags about it to themselves). While these hackers were once far more common, the heightened accountability and legal consequences that such behaviors now bring have largely quashed the interest in such hacking. Many of those that would have once been interested in this kind of hacking are now focused on modifying hardware over software, turning to interest-based kits like the Raspberry Pi and others to scratch their “hacking” itch.

The Spammer

Adware—or a piece of software that hijacks your browser to redirect you to a website hoping to sell you something—is a real annoyance, as it wastes the user’s valuable time and energy. It also isn’t unheard of for otherwise well-known and legitimate companies to use it in their own marketing, despite the risk they run of having to pay regulatory fines due to these behaviors.

While the real damage that adware spamming can do may seem minimal, it is also important to put the nature of these efforts into perspective. An adware spammer will use the same tactics that other serious threats—things like ransomware and the like—are often spread through. If you’re finding your workstations suddenly inundated with adware, you are likely vulnerable to a much wider variety of threats than you might first assume.

The Botnet Recruiter

Some threats to your network aren’t even technically directed toward your business itself. Let me ask you this: would you see it as a threat to have your computing resources taken over and co-opted for another purpose? After all, the result is effectively the same as many more directly malicious attacks—greatly diminished productivity and efficiency.

This approach is quite literally how a botnet operates. Using specialized malware, huge numbers of otherwise unassociated machines can be taken under control and have their available resources directed toward some other means. A particularly famous example of a botnet’s power came just a few years ago, when a botnet was utilized to disrupt the services of Dyn, a DNS provider. This took popular websites like Twitter and Facebook down for several hours.

Missing or neglected patches are one of the simplest ways for a botnet to claim your resources as its own—particularly when login credentials haven’t been changed.

Hacktivists

While political activism can be a noble cause, the hacktivist goes about supporting their cause in a distinctly ignoble way. Operating in sabotage, blackmail, and otherwise underhanded tactics, a hacktivist that targets your company could do some serious damage—despite the good that most of these groups are truly attempting to do.

Of course, the law also doesn’t differentiate between different cybercrimes based on motive, making this form of protest particularly risk-laden for all involved.

The Miners

The recent cryptocurrency boom has seen a precipitous uprising in attacks that try to capitalize on the opportunity, using tactics that we have seen used for good and bad for many years now. Above, we discussed the concept of a botnet—where your computing resources were stolen to accomplish someone else’s goal. However, the practice of utilizing borrowed network resources is nothing new. The NASA-affiliated SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute once distributed a screen saver that borrowed from the CPU of the computers it was installed on to help with their calculations.

Nowadays, cybercriminals will do a similar thing, for the express purpose of exploiting the systems they infect to assist them in hashing more cryptocurrency for themselves. The intensive hardware and utility costs associated with mining cryptocurrency often prohibit people from undertaking it on their own—so enterprising hackers will use their malware to find an alternative means of generating ill-gotten funds.

The Gamers

Despite the dismissive view that many have towards video games and their legitimacy, it is important to remember that the industry is worth billions (yes, with a “B”) of dollars, massive investments into hardware and hours poured into playing these games. With stakes that high, it is little wonder that there are some hackers that specifically target this industry. These hackers will steal in-game currency from their fellow players or launch their own distributed denial of service attacks to stifle the competition.

The Pros-for-Hire

The online gig economy has become well-established in recent years—where a quick online search can get you a professional to help you take care of your needs, whether that be for childcare or for car repairs or any other letter of the alphabet. Similar services exist for directed cybercrime efforts as well.

Using a combination of home-developed malware as well as examples that they’ve bought or stolen themselves, these professionals will license out their services for a fee. Whether it’s a governmental body seeking sensitive intel or a business seeking to undermine a competitor, these mercenaries can pose a significant threat against anyone who lands in their crosshairs.

The Thief

On a related note, a lot of modern cybercrime is simply a digitized version of crimes we have seen in years past. Without another stagecoach to hold up, highway robbery has simply been shifted to the information superhighway, the stick-‘em-up translated to ransomware, dating scams, or denial-of-service attacks. The overarching motivation behind most of these efforts is simple: illegitimate fiscal gain.

The Corporate Crook

Corporate spying is a decidedly more direct version of the pro-for-hire trend that we discussed above, where a hacker will target a business’ documents and resources to help their competition in any way they can. While there may not be honor among thieves, there can be amongst the businesses that these thieves will try to sell stolen data to, as some companies have reported the theft after being approached.

The Nation State

Finally, we come to perhaps the biggest threat out there to many: massive teams of professional, government-employed hackers working to undermine the operations and machinations of other nations—both in their governments and their industries. This is generally intended to put the other nation in a diminished position should hostilities ever erupt.

If you remember the 2014 satirical movie The Interview—and more pertinently, the hack that Sony Pictures suffered in retaliation for the film—you’re aware of a very recognizable example of this kind of threat actor.

Clearly, the idea of a hacker that so many have is far too minimalistic to be relied upon anymore… especially if you’re staking your company’s cybersecurity preparedness on it. That’s why MSPNetworks is here to help. Our professionals are well-versed enough in best practices to help prepare you to deal with a much more realistic cyberattack. You just have to reach out to us at (516) 403-9001 to get started.

Cybersecurity is critically important to businesses of all sizes, which means that all businesses need to put forth a concerted effort to ensure their security is locked down. This, in turn, will require someone to take point on developing a cybersecurity-focused internal culture.

Who better to do this than the boss?

Here’s the deal: it doesn’t matter how advanced your cybersecurity solutions are, or how recently your team updated their passwords. No amount of cybersecurity safeguards will protect you if your team members aren’t behaving in a security-conscious way.

The Importance of a Cybersecurity-Centric Company Culture

Have you ever heard of social proof? While it is more often a term associated with marketing, describing how people can be convinced by testimonials from their peers and contemporaries, it can play a significant role in shaping your workplace environment… although this can be a double-edged sword.

Basically, the culture around your cybersecurity will reinforce itself over time.

Let’s say that John Doe gets a job with a company, and is busy getting set up with network access and permissions to everything he will need to do his job. With a poor cybersecurity culture in place, his coworkers may suggest he just repeat his username as his password, or take some similar shortcut. If the whole department insists that this practice is okay and accepted, it’s likely that John will do just that. What’s more, old Johnny boy will likely amplify this message to Jane, the next person hired, and so on and so forth.

However, if we take this same scenario and change just one detail—the message that the team shares with their new coworker—the outcome could be much, much different. If company policies outline the expectation that passwords will meet a set of best practices and the employees emphasize this in their day-to-day, it is far more likely that they will be upheld.

The Boss is the One Who Sets the Tone in the Business

So, apart from turning your employee handbook into a glorified cybersecurity dream journal, what can you do to infuse security awareness into your day-to-day? There are a few things, actually:

• In addition to implementing password policies, you can enforce them by only permitting passwords that meet these policies to be accepted.
• In addition to establishing access controls, you need to audit your protections at regular intervals to identify any overlooked weak points, civilly calling attention to these shortfalls as you encounter them.
• In addition to adding security training into your onboarding processes, you should periodically have your employees go through a refresher training course on occasion.

As the business’ leader, it is on the boss to take the lead in all things. Security is not where you want to make an exception. MSPNetworks is here to facilitate your improvements to your cybersecurity. Reach out to us today by calling (516) 403-9001 and find out the many ways that we can assist you in improving your business—whether it's regarding your security, your processes, or any other IT considerations.

For all the attention that we (and many others) give to cybercrime, people are still falling victim to hacks and scams every day. With most businesses operating more in the digital sphere than ever before, it stands to reason that they need to do more to keep from being a victim of a data breach or worse. Here are six things your business should do to keep from being a victim of a cyberattack.

#1 - Train Your Staff

You will want to establish basic security practices that make sense. You will want to go through how to identify a phishing attack and what to do if they come across one. You will want to explain what good password hygiene is and what benefits it offers both for your business and for them, individually. You will also need to go through the best practices of handling customer, vendor, and their contemporaries’ sensitive information. 

#2 - Patch and Manage

You will want to keep your business’ infrastructure updated and managed. This includes all machines and endpoints, web browsers, software; any part of your IT infrastructure that, if it were to be breached, could have a huge negative effect on your ability to continue business.

#3 - Security Solutions

Make sure that your firewall, antivirus, and any other security solution you have in place to protect your business is updated with the latest threat definitions. This includes setting up firewalls or a VPN for every member of your staff that is working remotely. 

#4 - Backup Your Data

In order to protect your data, regularly backing it up and storing it multiple places is suggested. That way you have copies of your data to restore from if something was to be corrupted, some IT were to fail, or there was some type of user error; and, also if some disaster were to compromise your data at your place of business.

#5 - Secure Wireless Networks

You will want to secure your Wi-Fi network(s). It should be hidden from view and encrypted to give your business the best chance at mitigating potential hacks aimed at accessing your wireless network. 

#6 -  Promote Sound Password Hygiene

Ensuring that your staff understands the best practices of using passwords and multi-factor authentication can go a long way toward protecting your business from outside threats. Passwords should be complex, but also easily remembered and use multiple characters.

If you are going to keep your data and infrastructure free from threats, these six steps are the bare minimum. If you would like to discuss additional steps you can take to protect your business’ most important assets, give our IT experts a call at (516) 403-9001 today.

2020, unsurprisingly, has decided to go out with a bang, as it has been revealed that the United States was targeted in the largest cyberespionage attack to date. Let’s go over what this attack means, and how things will need to play out in the future.

How Did the Attack Happen?

In short, an IT management company known as SolarWinds was breached back in March, affecting a massive number of organizations—18,000 in all. These organizations include the likes of Microsoft, Cisco, and FireEye, as well as many states and federal organizations, including:

• The U.S. Department of State
• The U.S. Department of the Treasury
• The U.S. Department of Homeland Security
• The U.S. Department of Energy
• The U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration
• The National Institutes of Health, of the U.S. Department of Health
• The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration

When the attackers gained access to SolarWinds’ network, they were able to use what is known as a supply chain attack to introduce their malware to these departments and organizations by pushing it through the company’s automatic software update system for their Orion products. These kinds of attacks can be particularly effective since the threat is introduced to an environment via a trusted application.

Making this situation worse, many SolarWinds customers had excluded Orion products from their security checks on SolarWinds’ recommendation to prevent their other security products from shutting them down due to the malware signatures that these security products contain.

While (at the time of this writing) it is unclear what the attackers responsible used this access to do, the potential ramifications are truly terrifying. While government departments were targeted, it also needs to be said that this attack could have potentially continued from the major providers like Microsoft and Cisco to their clients, and so on and so forth. That’s why there is still no estimate of this attack’s true scope.

This attack was seemingly only discovered when an employee at FireEye received an alert that their VPN credentials had been used from a new device, and a little digging revealed the much larger situation playing out.

This Wasn’t the Only Attack, Either

Another attack was also discovered on SolarWinds’ network when the company performed an internal audit of its systems. On December 18, a second malware was found to have used the same tactic to infiltrate SolarWinds, but as of this writing does not seem to come from the same source.

What This Needs to Teach Us

Frankly, the most important lessons to be learned here are painfully obvious. First off, cybersecurity needs to be prioritized above all else, and all potential threats should be considered a likelihood. After all, the U.S. government was warned about the viability of exactly this kind of threat back in 2018 by the Government Accountability Office.

Secondly, the concept of your employees being a huge part of your cybersecurity strategy needs to be reinforced. This was only discovered when an employee was alerted of unusual activity and took that alert seriously. Your team needs to know what they are looking out for, and how to proceed if they spot it.

Unfortunately, the full extent of this threat will not be clear to us until much later, but what is clear is that we’ll be here to keep your business’ IT as secure as possible. To learn more about what we can do for your business and its security, take a few moments to give us a call at (516) 403-9001.

If you have a computer, it has data on it that you’ve stored. Whether it’s the novel you’ve been working on in your spare time or pictures from your kid’s sixth grade graduation on your home PC, or the databases and applications that your business’ infrastructure supports, all of this data is generally stored in exactly the same way. Whatever your case, you should know that your data is terrifyingly fragile - far too fragile to ever be kept in just one place. Let’s dive deeper.

How is Data Stored on a Hard Drive?

A hard disk drive, better known as the traditional HDD, works a little like a record player. Your data is stored on small, magnetic platters that are all stacked together and spin. A small mechanical arm rests over these platters.

To give you a bit of perspective, a record player usually spins between 33 and 78 times each minute. Your hard drive spins about 7200 times in a minute.

This speed creates a cushion of air that keeps the head at the end of the arm from touching the platter as it spins around. The slightest touch could easily destroy the data contained on the drive.

As is true for anything mechanical, these drives are ultimately subject to failure.

Your car doesn’t last forever, and neither do storage drives. The drive’s motor might burn out, the arm might stop working, and many other complications can arise to make the hard drive inaccessible and cause the data stored upon it to follow suit. Everything you do makes the hard drive read and write data, so the stability of your drive is crucial to you.

In fairness, there are also SSD drives that store data without any moving parts. This makes them a little hardier, but these drives can fail, too.

Each day, we trust these devices with our data. Your workstation or laptop may have a couple in it, and the server you rely on almost certainly has many more. Some of us have external hard drives to help us move our data around. If these hard drives are mechanical, all of your data could be lost very, very easily.

So, the question we have to ask is…

Why on Earth Would You EVER Rely on a Single Hard Drive?

There is no gentle way to put it. If you only have one copy of your data that’s stored on a lone hard drive, it is at extreme risk. A single issue could happen, and it could all be gone.

On the other hand, it has also never been easier to prevent data loss. At MSPNetworks, we regularly help businesses establish and manage backup solutions that have been tested and proven to be trustworthy. That way, you can know that your data is safe and accessible, regardless of the circumstances. This involves storing at least one extra copy of your data elsewhere in the office on a separate device, as well as an additional offsite copy—usually in the cloud—that protects it from just about anything chance could throw at it.

Find out more about implementing a backup solution by giving us a call at (516) 403-9001.

It seems as though every business is depending more and more on their IT. This means that their employees have more exposure to their IT systems. Unfortunately, that relationship is where the majority of the problems you will have are. The facts are that any business that has built a strong security policy has the solutions in place to keep direct infiltration from happening. Hackers have to find another way.

To make this happen, scammers create and send billions of phishing emails (and other messages) each day. Some of them will inevitably hit your company’s email. Even if you use the built-in firewall, the vast majority of them will be sent to spam. If you’ve outfitted your system with an enterprise spam blocker, your staff will see even less yet. Unfortunately, however, eventually one will make its way into an inbox. Sometimes the person is targeted directly and sometimes it’s just misfortune, but regardless of the variables surrounding these messages, interacting with one will very likely be problematic for your business.

This is why you spend so much time and money developing procedures, training your staff, and testing their aptitude: to be confident that they know what to do if they encounter problematic situations. Sometimes the attacks are very complex, but more often than not, all it takes is decoding, discarding, and reporting a hazardous message for them to be an actual hero. If your staff is highly trained, it will become just another part of their job. That’s the goal.

Of course, that’s not always the case. In fact, in one study, 77 percent of IT professionals feel as though their companies are unprepared to confront today’s most prevalent security challenges. That number has to scare you a little bit. Fortunately for business owners, IT professionals are notoriously pessimistic about the ability of people to make the right choices. The truth is that breaches do happen and they can be separated into three categories: mistakes, negligence, and sabotage. 

If you are going to be a company that is prepared for the threats that are going to come your way, you need to understand the difference. 

Mistakes 

Mistakes happen. They always have and they always will. People who are normally diligent, hardworking, and good at their jobs can make a decision that is simply wrong. As we mentioned earlier, there are literally billions of phishing emails sent per day, and it’s not out of the realm of possibility that you, your best employees, even your IT provider can mistakenly click on a link that opens up Pandora's box. If someone makes a mistake, immediately reports it, and it’s obvious there was no malice behind it, it’s really hard to come down on that individual too harshly. A mistake is a mistake, after all. You will want to retrain that person and test them to ensure that they understand what their responsibilities are, but ultimately isolated incidents should be met with understanding.

Negligence

On the other hand, if an employee continues to make mistakes regularly, it’s probably a matter of negligence. Obviously, negligent behavior shows that the employee is ambivalent to the rules set forth by the decision makers and is a problem when it comes to organizational network security. An employee that doesn’t take his/her training seriously probably isn’t taking many other aspects of his/her job seriously, either. Negligence is the cause of a majority of the cybersecurity problems that businesses are forced to confront, and cannot be allowed to undermine the organization.

Sabotage

Sometimes work relationships fail. There are a plethora of reasons why this happens, but most people have run into problems with a coworker, direct supervisor, or employer at some point in their work history. Sometimes the relationship gets so tainted that one party will look to undermine the other. Sabotage is when a current or former employee deliberately undermines the continuity of a business. Sabotage is criminal and purposeful. It can be something as simple as deleting files from a project or smashing company property, and it can be as complex as embezzlement and selling trade secrets to the competition. Most sabotage happens as a result of a work relationship that has turned sour. Unfortunately, if the saboteur still works for your company, you may not be able to catch him/her before it’s too late, but many of them are disgruntled ex-employees who for whatever reason still have access to company systems. For this reason, it is important that as soon as someone is let go or leaves the company, that their access to company resources is eliminated. Someone who knows where things are on your business’ network can really do a number. Avoid that fate by closing that door.

Cybersecurity is a complex issue with many facets. Make sure your business has all the resources it needs to protect your digital assets. Call the IT experts at MSPNetworks today at (516) 403-9001 to learn more.

Most businesses that really lean on their IT go to great lengths and expense to keep those systems secure. Sometimes, however, all those firewalls and antivirus software don’t stop threats that come in from your staff. Today, we are going to go through the three different types of human error that your staff can undertake, and how to deal with each.

Accidental

The most benign of the insider threats, the accidental mistake typically happens when data is in transit. Circumstances often lead to situations that are less than ideal. Typically, these types of mistakes are made when an employee isn’t properly trained. If you have security policies in place, but an employee hasn’t been made privy to them, or at the very least they aren’t given the knowledge on how to stay compliant of them, there is a disconnect that can often lead to problems. 

Negligent

Unfortunately, most insider threats are of this nature. These are threats that are brought on directly from user error because of a lack of diligence. When data is lost in a database, when malware is downloaded on the network, or when mobile hardware is lost, your company is dealing with user negligence. Most negligence is not premeditated, but due to its avoidable nature, it is looked on much less favorably as compared to accidental mistakes. 

Malicious

When an insider acts in a way that is intentionally malicious towards an organization. This can come in several forms. A user that has access to company computing resources can deliberately steal data, inject malware, and bypass security policies enacted by the IT administrator. Then there is the mole, who is a person that is actually an outsider, but is provided access to company computing resources, and uses his/her position to pass information onto competitors, steals it with the intention of selling it off, or using it nefariously later. 

How to Spot Insider Threats

The nature of the beast here makes spotting insider threats difficult, but there are some indicators that can help you identify if you have a bad actor in your midst. 

• Type of activity for users - If a user has access to certain resources, but their job doesn’t typically require them to use those resources, especially ones that are filled with sensitive information, you wouldn’t be misguided to further monitor that employee’s behavior on your computing network. 
• The volume of traffic - If you can’t account for a sudden uptick in network traffic, you may want to investigate. 
• Times of activity - If you see spikes in traffic at strange times, you’ll need to ascertain why.

How to Protect Against Insider Threats

You can take some pretty straightforward steps to combat any insider threats. They include:

• Increase visibility - You will want to put systems in place to keep track of employee actions. You can do this best by correlating information from multiple sources. 
• Enforce policies - Having your policies documented and easily accessible will avoid any misunderstanding of your business’ expectations on how employees interact with its technology resources. 
• Comprehensive training - IT isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. To avoid accidental mistakes and to help reduce negligence, consider putting together strong training initiatives. They will go a long way toward helping staff understand what is expected and what is possible.
• Access control - Of course, if you set up permissions for every part of your business, you can effectively set who can see what, making sabotage and negligence less likely to hurt your business. 

If you would like help identifying how to protect your business’ network and data from threats, even the ones that come from inside your business, call the IT professionals at MSPNetworks today at (516) 403-9001.

The modern business has to deal with a lot of potential security problems. Today’s threat landscape is filled with people looking to prosper off of your misfortune. As a result, doing what you can to maintain the security of your network and data is essential. Today, we will discuss how maintaining your organizational cybersecurity doesn’t have to be costly or time consuming.The best way we’ve found to go about doing this is by highlighting a few key actions that you can take to keep your network secure and your data safe.

Use Strong Passwords

Like many of these quick tips, this one is a good practice regardless of where you are. Good password management is an extremely important part of the security process. To concoct a good password, you need to first make something that people or computer programs won’t guess. You can do that by using both lower- and upper-case letters, numbers, and symbols.

Another good practice is to create a passphrase of unlike words. This serves two purposes. First, it ensures that you can remember the password; and, secondly it is secure enough where no one can crack the password.

Finally, you will want to create a unique password for every online account and save them in an encrypted password manager. Doing so will not only protect your passwords, it sets up a system where you only have to remember one. 

For additional security, you will want to use two-factor authentication. This is a system that adds an additional layer of security to your online accounts. Once you enter a password into a password manager, you then will get an additional box where you will enter a code. This code can be sent through email or it can be generated through an authentication app. 

Only Use Secure Wi-Fi

The Wi-Fi inside your office should be secure, hidden, and encrypted. For those times when working in your office is impossible, the use of a virtual private network (VPN) can keep your uploads and downloads secure. Utilizing public Wi-Fi without a VPN is just asking for problems. 

Some VPNs are better than others. Typically, if your company uses a comprehensive network security suite for your office, it will come with VPN licenses that will be more than enough to protect data transmission when you are working on someone else’s Wi-Fi.

Avoid Unknown Links

Phishing is the number one way that hackers gain access to a network. This is because people click on links and download attachments that they have no business interacting with. Your account has likely been phished many times this year. Most are probably thwarted by your spam blocker, but it only takes one attack to grind productivity to a halt.

If we have one piece of advice, don’t enter personal or company information in an email or instant message unless you are very clear who is on the other end. The threats that line up against your integrated security are substantial ones. Phishing is the number one cause of identity theft and ransomware. Since it runs the entire gamut of negative results, ensuring that you are doing what you can to not be part of the problem is important. 

Cybersecurity can be difficult for a business, but an individual’s role in protecting business and personal networks isn’t. If you would like to learn more about IT security or how to effectively manage risks that come from phishing and other attacks, subscribe to our blog today.

As prevalent as cybersecurity threats unfortunately are today, many users tend to overlook major threats that they just aren’t focused on nearly as much: social engineering attacks. Social engineering attacks are just another means for a cybercriminal to reach their desired ends, and therefore needed to be protected against.

What is Social Engineering?

Social Engineering is the act of manipulating people into providing access credentials to criminals that aren’t supposed to have access to a system. To do this, the social engineer uses his/her influence (real or not) to trick people into supplying the needed information.

The act of social engineering can be approached in multiple ways. Hackers can take advantage of user carelessness, they can come in as a helpful party, they can take advantage of an individual’s fear, and they can exploit a person’s comfort zone. Let’s take a look at each.

User Carelessness

Despite the need for information systems, companies largely depend on individual users to secure their own endpoints. Sure, they will put in place a set of tools designed to keep network resources secure, but overall, it is important for each user to maintain vigilance over their own workstation and other network-attached devices. If they aren’t, scammers can obtain access fairly easily. 

If they can’t use spam or phishing messages to gain access, they may have to try an alternate method. For example, a scammer may gain access to your workspace. If your people ignore best practices for convenience and leave credentials or correspondence out in the open, a scammer looking for things like this will be able to leverage that mishap into access most of the time. 

Perceived Helpfulness

Most people will help people that are having trouble. The impulse to be helpful can be taken advantage of if the “victim” is a hacker. People can hold the door for a cyberthief giving them access to your office. They can use information syphoned from the web to gain a person’s trust and then use the trusting nature of good people for nefarious means. Moreover, it is natural to want to help someone, so you and your staff have to be careful that they are, in fact, in need of help and not looking to steal access to company resources.

Working Within the Comfort Zone

Most workers do what they are told. If they have somewhat repetitive tasks, they may grow complacent. Social engineering tactics will take advantage of this, especially at a large company. The scammer will get into your office and if some employees are used to random people just milling around, they won’t really pay any mind. 

We typically like to think about hackers as loners that sit in the dark and slurp energy drinks while they surf the Dark Web. While this description is fun, it’s not realistic. Hackers, the ones that you should be worried about, know your company’s weakest points and will take advantage of them. If that weakest link is the complacency of your employees, that will be the way they will approach it. Unfortunately, this also technically includes insider threats.

Fear Tactics

Getting someone to do something out of fear is effective, but can be risky. The more fear someone has, the more they will look to others to help mitigate it. That’s why most fear tactics, nowadays, come in the form of phishing messages. Using email, instant messaging, SMS, or other means to get someone worried enough to react to a threat takes a believable story that could produce an impulsive reaction by a user. Fear has long been known to be a powerful motivator, so it really is no surprise that cybercriminals would resort to this means to coerce their targets into compliance. 

We Can Help 

If you would like more information about social engineering or any other cybersecurity issue, contact the IT experts at MSPNetworks at (516) 403-9001. 

Cybercrime has morphed over the past decade or so. With unbreakable encryption making breaking directly into a network all but impossible, phishing, Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, and other methods of indirect hacking have become en vogue. As a result, software companies are looking in some strange places to find building blocks for intrusion mitigation. One interesting emerging technology being used for this purpose is blockchain.

Developments in blockchain technology have begun to be stretched past keeping records and cryptocurrency. Today there are a couple companies using blockchain to create innovative cybersecurity solutions that aim to drastically reduce a company's exposure to cybercrime. No matter what vertical you work in, blockchain-integrated solutions have begun to pop up. Building new solutions with blockchain is incredibly popular nowadays, but is it just a buzzword used for its role in marketing, or is it making a discernible difference in these solutions?

Often thought to be “unhackable”, security professionals developing a blockchain-based cyber security platform isn’t all that noteworthy, until you realize how they are going about it. Developers have begun to create blockchain-based platforms that uses the distributed nature of the solution to power content delivery networks (CDN) and DDoS attack mitigation services. It does this by allowing users to rent out their spare bandwidth to use as security computing.

This will potentially reduce the ability for hackers to execute attacks, lower the cost for businesses to mitigate the effects of these attacks, and capitalize on their extra bandwidth. Other developers are using smart contract adoption to secure their interoperability and file security.

Is Blockchain Vulnerable?

Being a human invention, there have been some kinks in blockchain technology. For those of you who do not know how the blockchain works, here is a very stripped-down definition: Every transaction made through the blockchain, financial or contractual, is given a permanent, designated “block” in the chain. In order for it to be added to the ledger, the rest of the network (every other node) needs to approve this new block’s validity. Once it is added, it cannot be altered and provides an unchangeable record of the transaction. If a block needs to be changed, a new block would have to be entered. It is only then that the transaction is completed.

While this method may seem extraordinarily secure, this “unhackable” technology has its flaws. In 2018 alone just under one billion dollars' worth of cryptocurrency was stolen. Of the $927 million taken, $532.6 million of it was hacked from the Tokyo-based cryptocurrency company Coincheck where 500 million XEM coins up and vanished from the exchange.

Other Blockchain Vulnerabilities

To my surprise, one investigation found that some blockchain and cryptocurrency constructs has over 40 different vulnerabilities. Here are a couple:

51% Vulnerabilities

Many of blockchain’s vulnerabilities have more to do with the nature of the platform as well. One such vulnerability is known as a 51% vulnerability and is associated with mining cryptocurrencies. Let’s assume you are a cryptocurrency miner and you accumulate hashing power that exceeds more than half of what the blockchain contains, you could leverage a 51% attack to manipulate the blockchain to your own advantage.

Obviously popular blockchains, typically associated with renowned cryptocurrencies, have too big of a price tag to be practical targets for such a hack. Less expensive coins, however, are, and can be lucrative targets for hackers. In 2018, 51% attacks were leveraged against new cryptocurrencies, netting the attackers the equivalent to approximately $20 million.

Security of Private Keys

Using a blockchain requires a user to have a private key to unlock the naturally encrypted platform. Naturally, if this key were to be stolen, the thief would be able to access the user’s blockchain. What’s worse, because the blockchain is decentralized, these kinds of actions are difficult to track and, as designed, harder to undo.

It’s hard to forget in this world that is completely integrated with technology that some tech is just in its infancy. Blockchain, especially outside of the cryptocurrency sphere is only emerging and the tech built with it should be looked at through skeptical eyes. Stay up to date with the latest technology concerns and information, subscribe to MSPNetworks blogs.

Business is never quite as simple as it’s made out to be, and nowhere is this more true than with your organization’s IT. Today we will be covering some of the most important parts of your IT’s decision making that will need to be addressed, questions and concerns included, especially in regard to business-critical functions.

Scrutinize Your Security

Before you implement a new solution, be sure to consider your organization’s cybersecurity needs. Ask yourself if it’s something that you can implement without compromising your organization’s security. Cyberattacks can create a considerable financial burden for your business. After all, a business is still a business, no matter what kind of data it stores or how large its workforce or client base is. It might lessen the damage done, but it’s certainly not any consolation for still exposing data to threats--especially because the data stored by businesses tends to be sensitive in nature. You need to do everything you can to make sure that any solution you implement can be done so without your data being placed at risk.

Consider Your Data, Too

You also need to be aware of what your data is telling you. If you leverage enterprise resource planning solutions to provide insight into your organization’s functionality, you can use this information to improve your operations. Therefore, you should pay attention to whether or not the solution you want to implement will actually be beneficial. You should still be careful, however, about leaning on your data to make all decisions, as there might be too many concepts in motion to provide accurate data. You might even wind up implementing a solution that does exactly the opposite of what you want it to do. In other words, you want to know which data is valuable and which won’t yield results.

Reflect On Your Business

Any new system you implement for your organization needs to fit properly from an operational standpoint. To this end, you need to understand your current systems and workflows. Consider how the solution you want to implement will benefit the current state of things. Will it resolve critical workflow issues? Will it save time and resources? Will it scale according to your future needs? All of this must be considered, as well as how accessible support is. The last thing you want to do is to implement a solution that doesn’t have support readily available when it’s needed most. Finally, be sure to consider how your employees will react to the new solution, as it will only be effective if your employees are able to leverage it to their advantage.

Consider All of Your Options

Before investing in any solution, be sure to consider not just what you have in your office currently, but other solutions on the market. After all, there’s no reason to purchase that new network switch if a better, more dynamic option will be available in three months. Of course, it’s not always this simple, as you need to consider the costs of new technology, implementing the solution itself, and any kind of operational costs that are associated with it. If waiting on the solution isn’t going to create a detriment to your business, then perhaps that is the more cost-effective option.

Of course, certain regulations might force your hand, and you can’t let an outdated solution put you at risk of failing a compliance audit. What we like to recommend is to lay out everything that’s needed to be known in a cost-benefit analysis. MSPNetworks can help you identify this important information. To learn more, reach out to us at (516) 403-9001.

A lot is made about antivirus as a part of a comprehensive network security platform, but how does the system really work to eliminate threats? Today, we will take a look at an antivirus solution to show you how it goes about removing unwanted files and other code.

A Secure Wireless Network Allows for Better Business

Monday, 19 November 2018

Ricky Marine

MSPNetworks Blog Security

Wireless Internet access for a user’s devices isn’t just a luxury these days--it’s expected. If the Wi-Fi drops out for any reason at all, chaos strikes, rendering any ability to stream content or access the Internet a moot point. This is particularly the case for businesses that have technology solutions reliant on wireless access. How can you make sure your wireless network is as strong and reliable as possible?

A More Flexible Workplace
Take a moment to reflect on the devices used by your business. If it’s like more modern offices, you have employees using mobile devices or laptops more often than you see them using their desktop workstations. Employees simply like to have their options open in the office, and a strong wireless connection helps to make this possible. If you give your organization’s employees the ability to get work done on their own terms, you can empower them to be more productive with their time in the workplace.

Uptime is Maximized
Losing an Internet signal isn’t just annoying--it can be a major detriment to your organization’s success. Any situation when your business isn’t functioning as it’s supposed to be can be considered downtime, and it can be a major setback for any organization hoping to improve their bottom line. Think about it this way: if your business’ employees can’t work because the Internet is down, and they are still in the office waiting for it to return, then you’re paying them to do nothing--not exactly the most effective use of your operational funds. Ensuring a strong connection can reduce this risk considerably.

Distance from the Router Won’t Matter (As Much)
Sometimes an office is so big that it needs multiple wireless routers to ensure all employees have access to the network. Therefore, a solid connection can go a long way toward minimizing the influence that your office’s setup has on your employees’ Internet connection. There are issues that can get in the way and cause interference, but if your connection is strong thanks to a solid wireless router, you won’t have to worry as much about it.

To find out how MSPNetworks can help your business maintain a steady wireless connection, reach out to us at (516) 403-9001.

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Access Control Flexibility Network Security Wi-Fi Wireless Network

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Tip of the Week: Don’t Let Former Employees Haunt Your Business

Wednesday, 31 October 2018

Ricky Marine

MSPNetworks Blog Best practices

For the modern small business owner, there are situations that you are forced to deal with that are frustrating; but, in the course of doing business would be considered normal. Then there are other situations that arise where, every step of the way, the figurative floor falls out from under your feet and you are forced to react quickly. Some of these circumstances can be pretty spooky for your business. This Halloween, we’ve decided to outline three scary circumstances your business may have to deal with, and how to keep your cool.

The Walking, Talking Dead
Unfortunately, employees sometimes do things that force a business owner or manager to terminate his/her employment contract. Other employees leave if they have problems with management or find better opportunities elsewhere. Unfortunately for the business, a clean break may not be possible, and a disgruntled former employee can make things extremely difficult for your business.

One way that a former employee can virtually haunt your business is through the use of social media. If it was a rough break, a former employee can slander your business on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as social media designed for employer reviews like LinkedIn and the anonymous review site, Glassdoor. This may be nothing more than a hindrance, and typically no one is going to pay a solitary source much mind, but if multiple complaints of the same nature start popping up on social media, you might spook the high-end talent out of considering working with your business.

Residing Evil
Another way former employees can hurt your business, is if you let them. When they leave, you have to remember to ensure that any account authorization they had access to is deleted. There have been cases where former employees will make their way onto their former company’s infrastructure or network and corrupt things, either manually or with the help of malware.

Typically, those who would go ahead and effectively hack their former employers’ systems, know what they are looking for, and use this access to make it more difficult for a company’s business to run efficiently. As long as your IT administrators have a plan on how to remove former users and do so immediately after the employee is let go, this may not be much of an issue.

Some former employees have deliberately built in a way into a network away from the procedural protocols outlined by IT administrators. In these cases, a full network audit is necessary to ensure that any trace of the worker is removed promptly. Any other result keeps the potential for jaded former employees to do some pretty disgusting things to your company’s network.

Trick or Treating
While some former employees want to take it out on their former employer, some former employees will want to steal company data, client data, or intellectual property. In fact, in one study done by security experts Symantec, data showed that nearly half of all fired employees had kept some sort of confidential corporate information. While this may not be a massive deal, 40 percent of them planned on using that data at a new job.

While organizations may not be able to completely avoid this from happening, there are some courses of action that can be taken to ensure that this data isn’t used against their own company. Make every employee sign, and enforce, a non-compete agreement, while also utilizing access control systems to ensure the people who don’t need certain information, don’t have access to said information. Giving people fewer chances to make off with data is a great way to keep people from taking it in the first place.

Business can be scary sometimes, and the last thing you need is for your bottom line to be hacked and slashed because of your former employees. At MSPNetworks, we can help you protect your data and network from all manners of threats; and; help make sure that former employees don’t haunt you long after their gone. To learn exactly how we can help you, call us today at (516) 403-9001.

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Access Control Business Computing Hacking Internet Network Security

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Cloud-Based Security Is Concerning for Small Businesses

Friday, 19 October 2018

Ricky Marine

MSPNetworks Blog Cloud

The cloud is such an important part of today’s business environment that most organizations use it to some extent, even if it’s just for basic storage needs. However, the cloud needs to be properly maintained, starting with the way you secure your cloud services. Take a moment to ask yourself if your cloud--whether it’s hosted on-site or by a provider--is safe and secure.

Here is a list of four major issues that many organizations have regarding their cloud security.

End-to-End Encryption
To protect data on your network, the most effective method is to encrypt it. Encryption jumbles the data, making it difficult for hackers and other malicious entities to read the data unless they have also stolen an encryption key to decrypt the files. Encryption is there to put the user’s mind at ease, as it provides the knowledge that even in a worst-case scenario, your data is safe.

Physical Security Measures
If you don’t host your data on-site, you need to make sure that the data center you use is protected against not just digital intruders, but invaders who would use physical access to infiltrate the systems. You should have some combination of armed security patrols, biometric authentication procedures, and monitoring to keep intruders out. If you host in-house, you need to consider many of these same solutions. You should always have your servers being monitored, while being stored in the most secure locations possible.

Compliance Regulations
Various industries are subject to specific compliance laws that need to be adhered to, lest they face fines that could cripple even the soundest budget. For example, any business that uses health records to any extent is subject to HIPAA, or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. This means that they must take specific measures to protect any of this information or face steep fines.

Standard (Scalable) Security Measures
The same security measures you want to use in-house should also be protecting your cloud-based infrastructure. These measures include antivirus, firewalls, a spam blocker, and content filter. All of these measures are implemented to keep your cloud solution as safe as can be from any threats bold enough to attack, whether they are internal or external. An enterprise-level Unified Threat Management solution is critical to the success of this endeavor, and it’s the best way to make sure your business’ assets remain secured.

MSPNetworks can help your business keep its cloud resources secure. To learn more, reach out to us at (516) 403-9001.

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Biometrics Cloud Encryption Hosted Solutions Network Security

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