Back To School - Browsing Safely At Home (And At Work)

It's back to school time, and you know what that means!  Web research, book reports, and online based homework assignments.  How safe is your computer?  Are you ready for a new school year?  Allow Piccone IT to help you keep your computer safe while your kiddos complete their assignments.

With quick access to anything and everything on the internet, it’s important to have the proper security measures in place to protect your kids and your computer.  Using a high-quality antivirus solution will not only protect your computer from viruses, malware, and ransomware, but you can also apply content filtering rules. 

Content filtering allows you to block websites based on their content such as alcohol, gambling, and pornography sites.  Setting up content filtering rules will help make sure your kids can’t access inappropriate sites and adds another layer of security to your computer because many inappropriate sites also contain malware and viruses.

Another way to protect your systems is to use a firewall on your network.  Firewalls are devices that help block attackers from accessing your computers but some also come with additional features that include content filtering and malware/virus protection.  There are also some options for controlling when you can access the internet which can come in handy when you want to limit access to the internet only during certain times of the day for certain people.

Contact us today for more tips and to ensure that your antivirus program is protecting your computer and your kids.

Let Freedom Ring!

Are you feeling cooped up in your office, wishing you could be enjoying the summer sun?  This month we celebrated the 4^th of July: Independence Day.  We reminisced about life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and freedom!  Here are ways to free you from your office setting and still get work done!

Whether you want work outside at the local park or find a quiet corner in a coffee shop, here are some things to consider when working remotely.

• Ensure that you have a good working laptop with a reliable power source.  You will want the same speed and capability that you get at your office while you’re out.  You may also want to invest in a good headset for hands free calling while you work.
• Know your Wi-Fi safety.  It is great when you go to a public place that has free Wi-Fi, but is it secure?  Keep yourself safe with these tips:
• Turn off sharing – you don’t want people accessing your data and files from the public Wi-Fi.  It may say it’s secure, but there are still ways for people to get into your network and hack your computer.
• Make sure your firewall is turned on.  This is generally always enabled, but double check it before using free Wi-Fi.
• When surfing the internet, use https and SSL websites as much as possible.   Sites with this type of address are more secure than a regular http site.
• If possible, use a VPN (virtual private network) to login to your accounts.  This will let you route all your activity through a separate network that is private and secure.
• If you’re not using Wi-Fi, turn it off on your device.  This will protect you from having other people access your information.
• Be sure that you have a game plan.  It may seem great that you can work from your beach house in your pajamas, but that may also lead to distractions and loss of productivity.  Prioritize your day and stick to your agenda.  Have everything you need to do your job in one central, quiet, location (cell phone and charger, water bottle, note pad, your calendar, etc.) to minimize your need to leave the “remote office.”

Contact us today so we can help you create a secure remote connectivity/telecommuting solution that makes sense for your business. 

Protecting Your Computer During a Thunderstorm

Don’t let bad weather kill your plans and your computer!

Here are some tips you can follow to protect your computer hardware and the important data stored on your computer during a thunderstorm:

1.     Unplug everything: We mean everything including the power cord from the wall for your computer and monitor and any network cables.  Power surges can occur through cable lines, telephone lines, and network lines so it’s a good thing to unplug those as well.

2.    Use a surge protector: Get a good surge protector and make sure that it has coverage for lightning strikes.  We know it’s now always practical to unplug all your equipment so having a good surge protector is the next best thing.  Good surge protectors will be able to protect your computer equipment and can also have ports to protect your cable and network lines as well. (You need to use a surge protector for your laptop too!!!)

3.    Use a Battery Backup/UPS: Getting a good UPS (uninterruptible power supply) is a great way to protect your hardware and data.  The battery backups have built in surge protection and provide power to your hardware during an electrical outage.  These devices are relatively cheap and because they keep your computer running when the power goes out you have time to safely shut down your computer which will help prevent data loss.

4.    Backup your data: While having a good data backup system in place won’t protect your hardware from damage, it will protect your data from being lost forever.  Data backups are essential and offer protection from hardware failures, viruses, ransomware, and several other disasters that can strike.

Get your hardware and data protected today.  Give us a call should you have any questions and we’ll be happy to help. 

How good are your backups? Do you test and monitor your backups or just leave them up to luck?

If your server suddenly crashed and ALL your
data was erased, how long would it take before
your business was back up and running as usual?

If you aren’t sure, or if you think it would only be a short period of time, read on. Below are 3 common, costly misunderstandings most business owners have about their data backup that give them a false sense of security:

Misunderstanding #1: Believing That Tape Backups Are A Reliable Way To Secure Your Data...Wrong! Tape backups have an average failure rate of 100% (no, that’s not a typo). What makes this even worse is that tape backups will APPEAR to be working, giving you a false sense of security.

Misunderstanding #2: Relying On An Inexpensive, Automated Online Backup Provider To Backup Your Company Data. Tread carefully here and make sure that you’ve really done your homework on your chosen solution.

Here are a few questions to ask of any offsite backup provider before you trust your company data with them:

1.  Ask if you have the option to have your initial backup performed through a hard copy. With the amount of data on most company’s servers, an initial backup performed over the web can take months to complete.
2. Make sure that database files can be stored and recovered easily. Many cheap online backup services only hold simple office or media files, while ignoring your most important database files or making those incredibly difficult to recover.
3. Demand daily status reports. Any reputable backup service will send you a daily e-mail to verify that everything is backed up. The more professional solutions will allow you to notify more than 1 person (like your IT guy) in addition to yourself.

Misunderstanding #3: Trusting Their Backup Is Automatically Working Without Doing Periodic Test Restores. I see this happening a LOT – a business owner thinks their backups are working because they don’t see any error messages or apparent problems. Then, when they need to restore a file (or their entire server), they discover the backups stopped working MONTHS ago and all that data is gone.

Luck Is For Leprechauns...It Is NOT A Good Strategy When It Comes To Backing Up Your Data!

Contact us today and we'll help make sure you have a good backup system in place that will not only protect your data but provide you with a high level of business continuity.

How Automatic Updates Are Not So Automatic

Do you use automatic updates on your computer?  A lot of users will set their computer update settings to check and install updates automatically and then never give a second thought to updates again. 

Automatic updates are good except when they aren’t.  What the heck does that mean?  Well, as long as everything works the way it should, automatic updates can help ensure your computer is updated with the latest software and security patches.  However, if something goes wrong with an update to your computer, the whole system can fail.  That can mean that your computer can’t check for updates or install any new updates giving you the illusion that your computer is up-to-date with the latest patches. 

Update installation can fail for a variety of reasons and subsequently cause the update system to break.  Make sure you take some time each week to check on your updates and ensure everything is working properly.  

Here are a few ways you check your system to make sure the updates are working:

·         Check the status of windows updates:

·         Check your update history to see when updates were last installed:

If you notice that you haven’t had any updates in the last month or longer you will need to do some troubleshooting in order to get your Windows updates working again.  Check out the Windows Update Troubleshooter or Contact us and we’ll be happy to resolve any issues you are having with the update process and make sure your computer is safe and secure.

5 Quick New Year’s Tech Resolutions You Can Keep!

1. Maintenance Plan: Implement a maintenance plan for your computers to ensure they are updated regularly and receive security patches
2. Backup/Disaster Recovery: Make sure you have a good backup system in place that makes sense for your business.  Whatever solution you choose should create off site backups as well as imaged based backups to provide you with faster restore times.
3. Hardware Upgrade Plan: Create an upgrade plan for your older machines.  It’s much better to replace technology on your terms rather than when a disaster strikes due to hardware failure.  Planning your technology upgrades not only helps you reduce downtime and lost productivity, but you can also stagger the upgrades which makes it easier to budget.
4. Antivirus Software: Get a good antivirus program and install it on all of the computers and servers on your network.  Protecting your client and corporate data is not something that you should skimp on.
5. Enterprise Firewall:  Don’t have a good firewall? Get one.  Have an old firewall? Replace it. Just bought a firewall last year, make sure you have purchased any advanced security licenses for the firewall to ensure you are the best protection it can provide. 

Another Opportunity to Strengthen Your Defenses – Cyber Security Awareness Month

October has become National Cyber Security Awareness month and while you should be constantly thinking about your network and system security, the reality is we get busy with other things and tend to push security to the back burner.  

You need to take a proactive approach with your security otherwise you will be vulnerable to attacks…there is no way to just set it and forget it.  Install an enterprise grade antivirus and anti-malware software and monitor it at least weekly to ensure it’s working properly and receiving virus definition updates.  Check your computer weekly for any software updates and security patches that are available. Even if you set your computer to automatically update there is no guarantee it will happen.  If one update has a problem while installing, it could stop any future updates leaving your system vulnerable. 

Here are some tips from the Department of Homeland Security that will help protect your business from the cyber threats we are facing today:

1. Make sure all of your organization’s computers are equipped with antivirus software and antispyware. This software should be updated regularly.
2. Secure your Internet connection by using a firewall, encrypt information, and hide your Wi- Fi network.
3. Establish security practices and policies to protect sensitive information.
4. Educate employees about cyber threats and how to protect your organization’s data. Hold employees accountable to the Internet security policies and procedures.
5. Require employees to use strong passwords and to change them often.
6. Invest in data loss protection software, use encryption technologies to protect data in transit, and use two-factor authentication where possible.
7. Protect all pages on your public-facing websites, not just the checkout and sign-up pages.

Developing and implementing a good security plan for your business is critical to the protection of your systems and data.  Contact us today and we’ll help you develop a security plan that works for your business, is simple to understand and implement, and is cost effective.

It’s a partnership!

Does your current IT guy only show up when something goes wrong?  Does he work with you to develop ways technology will support your company and give you a competitive advantage?

We establish partnerships with every business that works with us, making our approach to IT services unique. By fully understanding how your business operates, we are able to implement and support IT solutions that make sense for your business.

Every business is different, which means that each business needs a custom technology solution that will work for them.  There is no magic solution that will work for every business.  Your IT service provider should know your business operations almost as well as you.  This allows them to recommend solutions that will enhance your business, drive growth, and increase employee productivity and satisfaction.

When you are working on your strategic business plans, make sure you consider the role of technology.  We want to be involved in this planning so we can make sure your current and future technology infrastructure will support your plans and help you achieve them.

If you are ready for an IT partner who will help you grow your business and not just fix things when they break, Call Us Today!

What Are IT Managed Services?

There are 2 main ways you can receive IT support from an IT service provider. The first model is called the Break/Fix Model. When you use this type of model your only costs are when your technology breaks you pay a technician to come fix it.  The second model is the Managed Services Model. With this model you pay a technician a fixed monthly price to provide you with the services you need.  Most companies are moving to the Managed Services Model because the benefits are much greater than those with the Break/Fix Model.

 

When you select the Break/Fix Model the only benefit is that your initial costs are lower.  With this model the only services you receive are repairs on your systems when they break.  This can leave you and your technology very vulnerable as no one is watching over your systems to make sure they are secure and running at optimal performance.  While your initial technology spending might be less with this model, your costs are unpredictable and if a disaster strikes it will not only be extremely expensive to fix, but the lost productivity and revenue to your firm can be crippling.

With the Managed Services Model you not only get repairs to your equipment, should something happen, but you also have someone monitoring your infrastructure 24x7x365 ensuring things are running properly. In addition, you are protected from cyber threats and problems can be eliminated before they cause significant down time.  Just like you need to perform maintenance on your car, there are many preventive maintenance items that need to be done on your systems to maintain proper operation, including: 

• Installing Windows updates, security patches, and third party software updates
• Updating and monitoring AV software to ensure you are constantly protected
• Reviewing backups daily to confirm data has been backed up successfully and is available for restoration if needed
• Monitoring your network and firewall for any threats and updating firmware to ensure you have the best protection.  

Technology plays such a critical role in running your business that it’s best to think of it as an investment rather than an expense.  Make sure you select the Managed Services Model for your technology support and make that investment in your technology.  Not only will you be better protected from the myriad of threats out there, but you will also be able to leverage your technology more completely which will increase your productivity and help drive business growth.

Contact Us Today to learn more about the Managed Services Model and how it can help your business.

Are you feeling lucky?

Do you perform daily backups of your data?  Do you check your backup system to make sure it's actually backing up the data?  Do you practice restoring data from your backup system to make sure you can actually recover your data?

If you answered "No" to any of these questions you must be one lucky person. What happens when your luck runs out?  How will you continue to run your business without any of your critical data on customers and business operations? Implementing a backup solution can be a fairly simple process.  There are so many options available that provide you an easy way to schedule routine backups both onsite and offsite.  With storage costs so low it's easy to backup all of your data or create a system image of your entire system.  A system image is a backup file that allows you to restore not only your data but your entire computer operating system, settings, and applications at once.  They are extremely handy when your hard drive fails and you need to replace it.  

When determining the type of backup system you need, you must consider off site backups.  Creating a backup off site gives you business continuity.  If you only store backups in your office and the building burns down you still lose everything.  Utilizing cloud backup solutions provide companies with off site protection for relatively low costs. 

Getting your backup system in place is only the first step...once it's up and running you need to make sure you have a maintenance plan in place to ensure it's functioning properly and you can actually recover your data when you need it. If you have been relying on luck as your backup system, call us today and we'll make sure your data and your business are protected before your luck runs out.

Show Some Love This February

February is here, which means Valentine's Day is coming up.  While you are thinking about things to do for the person you love make sure you are thinking about loving your computers and network too.  Your computers and network need love all year long to make sure they are running properly and are protected from viruses and security threats.

Here are some things you can do to show the love:

• Check for any Windows security patches and critical updates that need to be installed
• Check for any third party software updates that need to be installed such as java & adobe
• Check your network devices for firmware updates 
• Check your antivirus software for program updates and to make sure virus definitions are updated regularly

These checks will help make sure you are not leaving any open doors that hackers can use to gain access to your systems and data.

It's important to have a system maintenance plan in place to ensure these updates are applied on a regular basis. It can be very time consuming just maintaining your systems, however, we have a service that can take that burden off your plate.  Our Core Security service provides you with antivirus and patch management protection for all of your workstations and servers.  We take care of monitoring and updating your systems to ensure the latest antivirus definitions have been applied, Windows updates and patches are installed, and third party software is updated so your systems are secured.

Make sure you take some time this month to put a plan in place for keeping your systems updated or reach out to us so you can take of our Core Security Services and we'll take care of your systems for you.  Showing your computers and networks the the love they deserve means your systems will keep you happy by running smoothly and protecting your corporate data.

Business Continuity – Working with Snow

Do you have a business continuity plan?  Does your current technology allow for continued operations, not only if disaster strikes, but also, if your office location is inaccessible?  With the snow storm that just hit the York and Baltimore areas people spent days digging out.  It was impossible to travel on the roads that were covered with 2 feet of snow which meant people could not get to work.  

Shoveling over 2 feet of snow is never fun!

Having the ability to work remotely by securely connecting into your office from another location not only increases productivity but also ensures business continuity.  There are many different options for accessing your corporate information remotely.  Some businesses have moved their information into the cloud which allows access to company data from anywhere.  Others have the ability to securely connect to their office networks utilizing a virtual private network (VPN) which grants them access to company data as well as their office workstations.  

What is your setup like today?  You may want to reevaluate your current infrastructure to ensure you have access to your data and systems whenever and wherever you are working.  

Google Chrome

Google released their web browser, Chrome, about a year ago to provide users with a better way of exploring the web. Their browser makes it easy to search the internet, keep in touch with friends, check email, and do anything else you want effortlessly. Google now has plans to release a new operating system called Google Chrome OS to compete with Microsoft. Their new OS will be primarily for netbooks and desktops and will most like be some form of a linux distribution. You can read more by clicking on the following link: Google Chrome OS. Check back to see our updates on the progress Google is making with their OS and possible release dates for downloads.

New Malware Attack on Outlook and Outlook Express

SC Magazine recently reported on a new malware attack masquerading as a critical update for Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express.

The malware delivers a trojan called “ZBot,” which is a program that steals your login information (user name and password).

SC Magazine says the message a user will receive is: “This update is critical and provides you with the latest version of Microsoft Outlook/Outlook Express and offers the highest levels of stability and security.” The user will be directed to go to the Microsoft Update Center -- BUT the link provided doesn’t take you there!!

If the link in the email is used, a trojan named “ZBot” or “Zeus” will be downloaded. Within the instructions of the malware is a list of websites for the trojan to monitor, such as Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, Bank of America, and Wachovia. If a user visits one of these sites, the trojan will log a user’s keystrokes to obtain login credentials (user name and password), along with credit card or other sensitive information. It saves the information and then sends the file back to the attacker's server.

Windows 7 is coming

Windows 7 will be available starting on October 22, 2009. After conducting some beta tests on Windows 7 we are pleased at the progress Microsoft has made. The install was easy and it appears a lot of the bugs and weaknesses in Vista have been addressed. We look forward to the release of Windows 7 later this year. Check back for more info on Windows 7.

Microsoft is offering a discount on Windows 7 upgrades. Click on the link for more info:

http://store.microsoft.com/microsoft/Windows-Windows-7/category/102

How to Repair a Windows XP Installation

Repairing an installation of Windows XP can fix severl seriouse errors. You typically won't lose any files when you do a repair but you can lose settings and you will have to reinstally any updates that are available. To repair Windows XP you need to do the following steps:

1. Insert your Windows XP CD into your computer and reboot. If prompted to, press a key in order to boot into the CD.




2. Press Enter when the Setup Welcome Screen Appears




3. When the Windows License page appears, press F8 to agree.




4. If setup finds a previous installation of Windows XP, it will prompt you to repair the installtion by pressing 'R".




5. Press "R" to start the repair process and setup will reinstall the important Windows components.

Windows XP Won't Start or Boot Up

There are times when Windows XP decides to stop booting up. What do you do? There are several techniques you can use to get your computer operational again. If your computer hangs or freezes during the start up procedure it may be an issue with hardware or software that was recently installed or it may be a corrupt file. If you just installed a new piece of hardware, check to make sure it was installed properly. If the computer doesn't start up, try removing the hardware to determine if the new hardware is cause of the problem. If it doesn't seem to be a hardware problem, try restarting the computer and accessing the Windows Advanced Options menu which will allow you to boot into safe mode, the last known good configuration, or boot normally (there are a few other options but these are the main ones to focus on). To access the Advanced Options menu restart the computer and after the screen blinks for the first time, usually after flashing the bios screen, press F8 to access the boot options menu. The options menu should pop up and allow you to choose how you would like the system to boot up.

If you don't see the menu above, reboot your system and try hitting F8 again. Select Last Known Good Configuration and hit Enter. The computer will try to boot up using settings that have worked previously. If the computer does not boot up after choosing this option, reboot the system and go back into the Advanced Options menu. This time choose Safe Mode.

If the computer boots up into Safe Mode, trying uninstalling any software you recently installed. Reboot the computer and have it try and start normally. If you are still have problems you may want to try and repair the windows installation. (You will your Windows XP CD to complete the repair). For instructions on repairing the installation you can check out our post How to repair a Windows XP installation