General

Adobe has issued an emergency update on Thursday to its Flash player after researchers discovered a security flaw that was being exploited to deliver ransomware to Windows PCs.

Adobe urges users of Flash on Windows, Mac, Chrome and Linux computers to update the product as quickly as possible after security researchers said the bug was being exploited in “drive-by” attacks that infect computers with ransomware when tainted websites are visited.

Trend Micro Inc said that it had warned Adobe that it had seen attackers exploiting the flaw to infect computers with a type of ransomware known as ‘Cerber’ as early as March 31.

Cerber “has a ‘voice’ tactic that reads aloud the ransom note to create a sense of urgency and stir users to pay.

Please be very careful what websites you visit, especially those resulting from Google searches!

In a recent conversation with a client I was asked what the most common issues needing resolution that I’ve found when adding a new company to our service. Without hesitation, I replied that it is network wiring.

We’ve recently added three new clients under support agreements, all three have extremely worrisome issues with their wiring. It isn’t always evident that there are issues with wiring when the network isn’t setup correctly..

As everyone who’s been under our service for any length of time knows, I’m a big proponent of not storing data files on local PCs. The downside to this policy is the increased amount of communications between the client PC and the server. If there are wiring issues, this type of communication can be severely impacted.

Since the second most common issue we find is that files are stored on the local PCs (and therefore typically not properly backed up) problems with the wiring aren’t always obvious.

For existing clients, It is easy for wiring and the communications infrastructure to get out of control over time. Switches temporarily added to give additional workstations access to the network can have negative consequences in performance and reliability. Small switches used to add additional workstations or printers should only be used as a stop gap measure. A wiring professional should be called to run new lines back to the central switch location as soon as it is fiscally reasonable to do so.

If you’ve added workstations with small switches at any time and haven’t contacted your wiring professional (or Larry Charrette at LC Electric) let us know so we can assess whether or not new lines should be run.

Also feel free to give us a call if you’d like to have your wiring reassessed and schedule a time to make whatever corrections are necessary.

According to a recent study data protection continues to be a challenge for small to medium sized businesses. The study found that 60 percent of small-to-medium sized businesses (SMBs) prefer to back up their company’s data using direct-attached storage, with the majority of businesses (56 percent) having no plans to migrate to cloud backup. However, data is considered by many to be a company’s most valuable asset. In fact, 45 percent of respondents said their organization had experienced data loss and 14 percent were never able to restore their lost business information. According to FEMA, more than 40 percent of small businesses never reopen their doors after a disaster.

Here are some of the biggest advantages of cloud backup:

Affordable:

Small businesses don’t have unlimited IT budgets. It’s important to use a solution that makes sense and won’t require a large investment in hardware.

OffSite:

It’s important to keep a copy of files offsite. Even if files are backed up locally (which we still recommend), a hurricane, flood, fire, or theft could destroy the server and the backups. Keeping backups in the cloud ensures data is safe no matter what happens at your office.

Simple:

Cloud backup solutions have made management and restoring easy. With very little effort, backed up files can be easily restored.

Automatic:

Time is one of the most commonly stated reasons companies aren’t backing up their data. A Cloud based backup doesn’t require an additional time commitment for you, Any data files that were changed during the day are backed up to the cloud automatically each night.  This makes forgetting to switch tapes or backup drives daily less of a concern.  Though, we do recommend you continue to try to do so!

The cloud has changed data backup. Because of its affordable price point, SMBs are able to get an offsite solution that automatically backs up all of their data. The solution is simple.  Call us for more information and pricing for a cloud backup solution suitable for your business.