Who is the Threat to your company’s security? have you thought about it? Would you guess its you? Well no doubt you’ve spent the time and money into making sure your security is in tip top shape. YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE CLICKED THAT LINK IN THE EMAIL!

Don’t worry, because you know us and trust us it’s OK!

Who is the Threat to your Company’s Security

You are the weakest link in your security measures because by nature, we are imperfect and make mistakes. A Recent study was done showing 55 people out of 100 were susceptible to phishing attempts.

Partners and Contractors

Your vendors are threats. For example, a hacker will monitor information going to and from a restaurant your company orders food from. Do you know if that restaurant’s security is up to date?

Life, Family, and Company

Hackers don’t have much else to do but follow your every move and find out your personal information. You on the other hand have a life, family, hobbies, and a business to run.

Encryption

From March to July, Calgary was hit with 505 incidences of ransom-ware, what makes you immune? Time to see if your security and updates are in check. Hackers have the time but you do don’t.

Questions to think About

• How easy is it for hackers to obtain access to restricted areas?
• Have you thought about testing your systems?
• Have you thought about seeing if your employees can pass a Phishing scam?
• How thorough is your existing IT professionals now?
• Is your personal information encrypted?

Can you pass an IT audit? Find out by contacting BlackBox Connections 24/7 IT Support.

And Stop waiting for something to happen.

Contact IT Support 587-355-1566 for assistance.

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You should know that the company that actually created the Pokemon Go app is Niantic. The developer is a former Google subsidiary run by a former CIA employee.

Do You Think Pokemon Go has Full Access to Your Accounts?

The Controversy

Click on that “learn more” button and you’ll be guided to a website with the following confusing information:

When you grant full account access, the application can see and modify nearly all information in your Google Account (but it can’t change your password, delete your account, or pay with Google Wallet on your behalf).

Certain Google applications may be listed under full account access. For example, you might see that the Google Maps application you downloaded for your iPhone has full account access.

This “Full account access” privilege should only be granted to applications you fully trust, and which are installed on your personal computer, phone, or tablet.

If you’ve granted full account access to an app you don’t trust or recognize, we recommend that you revoke this permission by clicking the Revoke access button.

Limit a potential security breach

Apps such as Pokemon Go do present a security breach. Employees are using their personal or company phone to access company data and install any App they want. You need to take precautions. Here are 3 quick steps to minimize Apps like Pokemon Go access to your accounts:

1. Go to your Google Security page and look for Pokemon Go (and all other games and app)
2. Select the games or apps title and remove or revoke the “Full Access”
3. Remember to relaunch it to make sure it works still.

Its so simple – you just need to do it!

How do you ensure phones are secure all the time?

You need to secure your WiFi and any phone that has access to your company email and company files. Contact BlackBox Connections to find out how you can do this for FREE.

Call us 587-355-1566  for assistance.

IT Support Services and Websites Done Right!

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Tension arises impostor emails lurk, do you have a back up plan for your business? Well if you don’t, it may be time to get one. The growing threat is getting bigger than ever and impostors are not making it easier on you. There is a 260 per cent increase in identity theft since 2015 in impostor emails. It is also said that there has been a $3.1 Billion loss, due to email fraud worldwide, in the past 3 years to businesses.

Time for a Wake up Call

No one is immune to fraudulent emails or fake emails and businesses, small or large, are a huge target. This is a Global issue and sitting back and waiting for something to happen is not the key to success. Yes, large companies make the news but small businesses typically mean, that their business could end.

How Does it Work?

These types of impostor emails are well calculated, timed, researched, and executed. Impostors do their research well and easy enough because there is social media and company websites, which makes it possible to see patterns and structures of how the company operates. It has even been reported that they will wait for CEO or CFO to go on vacation and strike at a window of opportunity, an employee gets an urgent email completely identical to the CEO or CFO, follows procedure, funds transferred and impostor wins.

Is there a quick fix?

Unfortunately no, after a quick funds transfer not much can be traced for the impostor and the company is now at a loss. This is where extra precaution, procedure, and technology can take a huge roll in success over this overwhelming change of events and stolen goods. Our team here at BlackBox Connections would like to offer our services to show such proper procedure to combat this ever growing Virus.

Call us 587-355-1566  for assistance.

IT Support Services and Websites Done Right!

Check us out in ‘Business in Calgary’ magazine

 Are you looking to prevent mobile Wi-Fi privacy issues? well you’ve come to the right place. We would like to go over a few scenarios that might  put you at risk of identify theft or business Ransomware. Which both ultimately put you out of money and time. Which you and i don’t want that!

Unaware of Public Wi-Fi Risks

It can be a mystery to most people, but a study was conducted and asked, do you care about security when accessing Wi-Fi outside of your home? Most said “No”, while others said “they wouldn’t access personal information outside of their house”. Now that tells us people are not afraid to access emails, social media, downloading apps, online banking, and much more.

Statistics

It is pretty alarming that 23 per cent of Canadians use public Wi-Fi to check their bank accounts and or access financial information. While another chunk of 12 per cent provided credit card information and to top it off 13 per cent of Canadians used identifiable information such as birthdays, address, social insurance numbers.

Good Practice for Public Wi-Fi

• Try to stop remembering Wi-Fi Networks. If your mobile device or computer connects automatically, you may be connected to an impostor without even knowing.
• Turn off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth when you are not using it, helps with battery as well.
• Consider using a virtual private network (VPN) which will encrypt you’re your mobile device back to your home network.

These of course are only a few suggestions and at times can be difficult to figure out which one is best for you. BlackBox Connections is here to answer any questions you may have difficulty finding or resolving.

Call us 587-355-1566  for assistance.

IT Support Services and Websites Done Right!

Check us out in ‘Business in Calgary’ magazine

Cybercrime Pays

As the Russian hacking community lowered the access requirements for unsophisticated Russian cybercriminals to engage in ransomware campaigns, corporations and individuals face a commensurately greater challenge of effectively protecting their data and operations from being held ransom.

How does it work?

Ransomware is a specialize type of Malware designed to encrypt a computer’s files using strong cypher algorithms. Its execution spurs the system-wide file encryption with a note urging an infected user to deposit a certain amount of money in a hacker’s account in order to decrypt his or her files.

How is it Spread

Ransomware is spread using a variety of tehniques including thru software we use everyday.

1. Botnet installs (purchasing installs from other cybercriminals on cybercrime forums and loading ransomware on compromised systems)

2. Email and social media spam (employing spam botnets to distribute ransomware)

3. Compromised dedicated servers (bruteforcing and stealing credentials from botnet logs and installing ransomware on the system)

4. Dating, torrent, and other file-sharing websites (using joiners and other covert channels to mask ransomware as attractive content and uploading the malware on such websites)

How Do They Benefit

Upon receiving the Bitcoin payment from the victim, the crime boss launders the money via Bitcoin exchangers. To compensate his partners, the crime boss sends Bitcoins from an unattributable clean Bitcoin wallet. He then forwards the rest of his Bitcoins to a Bitcoin exchanger to hide his tracks. Bitcoin is most often utilized because of its ability to partially obfuscate the true identity of the Bitcoin wallet owner―making the tracking of transactions very difficult for law enforcement and security researchers.

The Business Model

Once the low level criminals have deployed ransomware successfully, the boss will then do the rest of the work by communicating with the victims via email, collecting and validating Bitcoin payments, issuing decryptors, and finally sending ransom payments to the affiliate. The boss keeps 60% of the collected ransoms and distributes the rest to his affiliates. On at least one occasion, the crime boss demanded additional payments even when a ransom payment had already been received, before providing a decryptor to the compromised victim.

Watch Out

As these campaigns become more wide-spread and accessible to low level Russian cybercriminals, such attacks may result in dire consequences for individuals and corporations not ready to deal with new waves of ransomware attacks. Though the loss of data can be devastating, Flashpoint has observed that sending ransom payments does not always work. In the case of this particular criminal enterprise, this group often prefers to collect payments without ever providing decrypting tools or methods for affected victims.

Call us 587-355-1566  for assistance.

IT Support Services and Websites Done Right!

Check us out in ‘Business in Calgary’ magazine

Can Ransomware Be Prevented

Can Ransomware Be Prevented or Is It Just Old News? Have you been hearing about ransomware more recently than ever? If you have, it’s probably because it’s getting worse and worse. ESG Makers of Anti-Malware program SpyHunter, Has just released numbers that shows April was the worst month recorded for ransomware.

Why? Ransomware works, simple as that

Typically ransomware infects computer users with the destruction of data through encryption and if they don’t pay a ransom to the hackers who created the encryption, you mid as well say goodbye to your data.

Several high profile cases of ransomware have made national and international headlines in the last few weeks as infections have hit hospitals, school districts, Small Businesses and other governmental offices including police organizations.

Ransomware in April more than doubled the total from March

Ryan Gerding, Spokesperson for ESG said “The more people give in to the demands, the more encouraged the ransomware makers become”.

The company reports that from January to February there was 19.3 percent increase in the number of ransomware incidences detected, and February to March saw another increase of 9.4 percent. But the huge increase from March to April at 158.8 percent. Is going in the record books for sure. but you could still be asking yourself,

Can Ransomware Be Prevented or Is It Just Old News? Try This

1. Regularly backup your datat on an external device or to the cloud. That way, if you do get a ransomware infection, you can simply restore your data to the last time you saved it rather than paying the ransom or losing the files altogether. Ultimately, by having a backup of your system’s hard drive, you avoid putting yourself and your computer’s data at an unnecessary risk of being lost forever due to the utter destruction of ransomware.

2. Update your software is a must. Double check to make sure all of your operating system and anti-virus/anti-malware programs are set to update automatically.

3. Very important to think before you click an unknown link. Almost all of the ransomware infections attacking individual computers are a result of someone getting fooled into clicking.

If you would like more information on Security and Anti-Virus Software and like our recommendations, please contact us.

This IT Security Tech Tip brought to you by BlackBox Connections.

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