3 Ways To Stop Cybercriminals Cold In Today’s Crazy Times

You’ve seen it. You’ve probably even experienced it. For what feels like forever now, just about everyone has been forced to modify priorities. As a business owner, you’ve probably been focused on shifting your business to accommodate this world crisis. You may even be investing more of your time in retaining customers and generating new cash flow. If you’re like most people out there, you’ve barely even had time to think about cybersecurity and protecting your important data.

Maybe you’ve heard the saying “Never let a crisis go to waste.” It’s as if cybercriminals wrote it because that’s exactly what they’re thinking right now. In fact, they’re probably working overtime right now to craft new malware while our lives have been turned upside down. Yes, as you’re focused on your business, hackers are finding new ways into your IT network. Their objective is to steal data and passwords, compromise your clients’ private information, and even demand large ransoms.

Did you know that cybercrime is expected to cost $6 trillion (that’s a 6 followed by 12 zeroes!) by the year 2021? But, now is when hackers are expected to do their absolute most damage.

Here are three strategies you can use right now to help protect your business data, money, and productivity during these unusual times.

1. Guard Your Inbox.

People aren’t paying as much attention as they usually do, which makes it the perfect time for cyberattackers

to send e-mails with dangerous malware, worms and viruses. Always carefully inspect every e-mail received and make sure you know the sender.

Here’s another tip: avoid clicking links in the e-mail unless it’s abundantly clear where they go. Also, don’t ever download an attachment unless you know who sent it and what it is. While it takes a few extra seconds, doublecheck by calling the person who sent you the attachment. Better safe than sorry. Make sure you communicate these safeguards to everyone on your team, especially if they are working from home.

2. Secure Your Company-Based Technologies.

During crises like this one, your passwords are a critical first line of defense. Don’t wait for your company’s financial data to be compromised. Make a point now to reevaluate your passwords and direct your team to create stronger passwords. Too many employees are guilty of using the same password across multiple applications. Use a unique password for every single application.

Your team may tend to save your passwords in their web browser. Don’t do this. A skilled hacker can bypass the PIN required to access your saved passwords. Once they have the password or PIN to access your web browser, they can steal as much as they want – credit card information, customers’ private data and more!

We recommend our clients use a password manager. It’s convenient, but more importantly, it’s far more secure.

3. Secure Your Home-Based Technologies.

With the coronavirus pandemic, far more businesses are encouraging their employees to work from home. That means a lot of people are working from the living room or kitchen without giving a second thought to security. This negligence is an invitation to new cybercrimes.

Here are a few tips to ensure your work-from-home employees are keeping your network and data secure: make sure your employees and contractors are not using their home computers or devices when they are working from home. Add a firewall to ALL computers and devices that will be utilized at home. Finally, your network and data are not truly secure unless your employees utilize a VPN (virtual private network).

There’s no need to invite in more problems by letting your computer and network security slide during these times. We would be happy to help you create or even improve your work from home environment.

While this coronavirus scare has negatively affected countless businesses, we are proud to say we are open and continuously servicing your customers. If you need additional security advice or would like to have a consultation to discuss how to keep your data safe or how we can help you work more effectively, reach out to Net Activity today.

Boosting home Wi-Fi with wireless repeaters and access points

Fast, reliable Wi-Fi is a business necessity, whether you’re working in an office or at home. Now that more and more people are working remotely, having good home Wi-Fi is more important than ever. A wireless repeater device and additional access points may just be what you need to ensure a stable and lightning-fast wireless connection throughout your home.

Both wireless repeaters and access points are simple and inexpensive, and getting either or both of these devices can improve your home Wi-Fi.

Wireless repeaters are devices that extend the limited reach that Wi-Fi routers tend to have, especially in structures with thick walls and multiple floors. They receive a signal from a Wi-Fi router and rebroadcast it as a new network. This new network is an extension of the main network, enabling the signal from your router to be transmitted over long distances or to the other side of obstructions, such as a wall, post, or ductwork.

On the other hand, access points are devices that allow wireless devices to connect to a network. Your router at home is actually an access point, and while most access points have built-in routers, others have to be connected to a router. Access points are usually hardwired to network switches or modems.

Getting started

But before you go out and buy these devices, conduct a survey of the Wi-Fi signal throughout your home first. This will help you map out where to place repeaters and access points to maximize your Wi-Fi connection. This involves:

• Determining the reach of your router. Use a Wi-Fi analyzer app such as NetSpot, Wifi Analyzer, or OpenSignal.
• Locating dead zones, or areas that don’t get a Wi-Fi signal, in your house. This can usually be solved by moving your router or modem to an area where the signal is better.
• Checking for obstructions (walls, furniture, plastics, water, etc.) and sources of interference (baby monitors, microwave ovens, radios, etc.). Any of these may be blocking or slowing down your Wi-Fi connection.

Based on your analysis, identify the best places to put the repeater and access point. For instance, if your router is in the living room and you can’t get a good signal in your bedroom down the hall, place the access point outside the living room and the repeater in the bedroom. The signal will be extended by the access point and picked up by the repeater, which will then broadcast it to nearby devices. Note that wireless repeaters must be set up in areas where the signal is poor, not in dead zones.

Setting up wireless repeaters and access points

Most brands and models of wireless repeaters and access points follow the same setup process.

Wireless repeaters

1. Choose a location free from obstructions that can block signals from your Wi-Fi router.
2. Plug the repeater into a power outlet.
3. Using an Ethernet cable, connect the repeater directly to a computer. You can also connect the computer to the repeater’s wireless network.
4. On your computer, enter your Wi-Fi network’s password.
5. Any other steps to setting up your wireless repeater should be in the manufacturer’s instructions.

Access points

1. Choose a location free from obstructions that can block signals from your Wi-Fi router.
2. Turn off your router or modem and computer. Connect your access point to your router or modem and to your computer using an Ethernet cable.
3. Turn on your router or modem, and plug the access point into an electrical outlet.
4. Turn on your computer, and start enjoying better Wi-Fi performance.
5. Any other steps to setting up your access point should be in the manufacturer’s instructions. You can also change optional and advanced router settings by connecting to your router using the IP address provided in the manual, or either 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1.

If you need more information about setting up and getting the most out of your wireless network, whether at home or in the office, get in touch with our experts today.

Why a Cloud Backup Is a Necessary Part of Your Business Continuity

Modern businesses generate a lot of data, some of which they couldn’t really function without. This makes the prospect of data loss especially dangerous, making a data backup imperative. Today, cloud computing is seen as the premiere option in terms of data redundancy and availability. Today, we’ll look at why you want to consider storing your backed-up data in the cloud.

Data Backup

Any business in operation today should have some kind of backup. While we don’t recommend them keeping a spare hard drive or tape-based backup of your data is better than nothing. Preferably, you would elect to maintain a more comprehensive option, like a full Backup and Disaster Recovery (BDR) solution to help eliminate the risks that could impact your data. With a best practices compliant BDR in place, your backup would ensure that you would have an extra copy of your data to restore from should something go terribly wrong.

In fact, your data is so important, we recommend that you maintain multiple copies of your backup… just to be extra safe. We suggest following what is called the 3-2-1 Rule – where you keep three copies of your data, with at least two saved on different storage mediums, and one stored offsite.

Cloud Backup

We have already addressed the need for a cloud-hosted backup, but we should address its benefits more specifically. Cloud backups were once intended for individuals to back up their own critical data, but as the importance of keeping secure data backups has become more apparent, options have been made available for businesses of all sizes. By entering into a business relationship with a cloud backup vendor, you retain control over your data, even if something were to happen to your local storage infrastructure, thanks to the off-site, remote access nature of cloud-based solutions. Furthermore, in addition to the quick restore times that a cloud backup offers, this kind of system helps to support additional work benefits, such as the capability to access files remotely and easily collaborate on them with your team.

Backup and Disaster Recovery

Of all of the services that we recommend to businesses here at Net Activity, our BDR is probably the most important to implement. The survivability statistics for businesses that lose their data in some form of disaster, and find their operations suspended for a time, aren’t great. However, with a BDR implemented, a business has a much better chance of survival. By incrementally replicating your computing environment as often as every quarter of an hour, you can be confident that most everything – even your settings – are preserved. Since the BDR is partially a network-attached device, it can take the place of your server if needed and allows for easy and convenient data restoration if necessary. Since the BDR also sends a copy of your data to the cloud, your data is redundantly preserved in an offsite data center under the watchful eye of professional technicians.

Why is this so important? Simple – keeping multiple backups on site is all well and good, until a disaster strikes your place of business and destroys them all. It gives you an up-to-date copy of your business’ data to quickly restore from.

To learn more about our cloud data backup and how to go about implementing it, give Net Activity a call at 216-503-5150.

Is Your Business Continuity Plan in Place?

Hackers Are Demanding Extra Ransomware Payments From Victims

Hackers who use ransomware to conduct their attacks have a new trick up their sleeves. A ransomware family has begun employing the tactic of not only demanding payment to unlock infected systems but also demanding additional payment.

They’re demanding an extra payment to keep them from publishing copies of the files they stole before encrypting everything.

Hackers have been making the claim for years that they were doing more than just encrypting files, but actually exfiltrating data too. It wasn’t until recently, though (November 2019) that a group actually published stolen data as proof that this was, in fact, occurring.

Although this tactic is only currently in use by hackers deploying the Ako Ransomware, you can bet that the idea will spread like wildfire. After all, there’s no real downside as far as the hackers are concerned, and they can coax a bit more money out of the companies, individuals, and organizations they successfully attack.

Bleeping Computers recently interviewed an Ako operator, who confirmed that the tactic was in use and had been successful. The operator said that the tactic was only used on certain victims, depending on the size of the company and the type of data that was stolen. They were very upfront and matter of fact about it.

This underscores two important points:

First, ransomware attacks are data breaches. The hackers aren’t just encrypting your files, they’re making off with copies too.

Second, backups are incredibly important! Having up to date backups won’t prevent a hacker who successfully breaches your system from releasing the data they stole if you don’t pay. At the very least, however, you can get your company up and running again in short order without having to pay to have your files decrypted. Sadly, too many companies still don’t have a robust backup plan in place. If that describes your company, it’s well past time to change that.

The risks are tremendous, and they are growing.

Emails Saying Your Antivirus Is Expired Are Likely A Scam

A great many companies selling antivirus software have affiliate programs that help them expand their reach. Each time an affiliate sells a copy of the software, they get a cut.

It’s a good business model used in a wide range of industries, and antivirus software companies have strict rules governing how their affiliates can market.

Unfortunately, not everyone plays by the rules. Recently, BleepingComputer sounded the alarm after being made aware of a scammy email campaign that uses deceptive marketing to try and convince people to buy their product.

The emails claim that the recipient’s antivirus software is out of date, and provides convenient links allowing them to renew. The problem is, their software isn’t out of date at all. It’s a lie, designed to frighten people who aren’t necessarily tech savvy into spending money they don’t need to spend, all in the name of lining someone’s pocket.

All scams take advantage of a few basic realities of modern life: Many people are too busy to check themselves to see exactly when their antivirus software expires. Many more simply don’t know how. In both cases, an email recipient is likely to just sigh, pull out his or her credit card and spend a few bucks to keep the machine they’re on protected.

It’s easy to understand why the scam works, but that makes it no less despicable.

If you know anyone who isn’t especially computer savvy and you feel they might fall victim to a scam like this, here is what to do. Gently remind them that whatever antivirus software they’re using, the software itself will remind them when it’s about to expire. There is no email needed, and before they spend any money, it’s better to do some checking to verify that their expiration date is approaching. If they don’t know how to check, they almost certainly know someone who does.

We may not be able to keep these scammers from ripping people off, but we can certainly put a dent in their profits, and that’s a very good thing.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ Secret To Avoiding Email Overwhelm

Do you look at your inbox and want to cry? If so, you’re not alone. According to widely cited Radicati Group research, the average person gets 120 business emails every day. If you don’t manage your emails, you could end up in another statistical majority. People spend at least 14 percent of their workday on email alone. Is it any wonder that a recent Harris Poll found that only 45 percent of our workdays are spent on actual work? If you’re looking for the solution to your email woes, start with some of Silicon Valley greats.

BEZOS DELEGATES If you want to watch a corporate team start to sweat, see what happens when they get a “?” email from Jeff Bezos. Business Insider reports that the notoriously easy-to-contact Amazon CEO will forward customer complaints to his people and add only a question mark to the original query. Getting that dreaded mark is a little like getting the black spot from Blind Pew the pirate. You know that a day of reckoning is at hand. Follow Bezos’ lead. Instead of answering all emails yourself, ask, “Can this be better handled by someone else?” Forward it to your team and save yourself the time.

USE AUTO REPLIES You can also use auto-reply tools to manage the flood. Tommy John CEO Tom Patterson did just that after his emails skyrocketed from 150 to 400 a day. He tells Inc.com that “there weren’t enough minutes in a day to answer all of them.” So he didn’t; he set up an auto-reply to tell people that he only checked email before 9 and after 5 — and to please call or text if it was urgent. The result? “It forced me to delegate and empower others to respond,” he says. Suddenly the flow slowed to a trickle.

DO YOU GET MORE EMAILS THAN BILL GATES? And it really should only be a trickle; Bill Gates reports that he only gets 40–50 emails a day. Ask yourself, “Should I really be getting more emails than Bill Gates?” One possible cause for email inundation, according to LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, is other employees sending too much email of their own. He writes, “Two of the people I worked most closely with ended up leaving the organization within the span of several weeks.  After they left I realized my inbox traffic had been reduced by roughly 20–30 percent.” If you have over-communicators in your ranks, ask them to tone back the digital flood.

SET BOUNDARIES Creating a hard buffer between your email and your life is another CEO tactic. Arianna Huffington doesn’t check her email for a half-hour after waking or before going to bed, and she never touches it around her kids. That space to breathe is essential to maintaining a work-life balance. And if it gets bad enough? Etsy’s Chad Dickerson has a solution: email bankruptcy! He tells Fast Company that every few years, he just deletes everything and starts fresh!

Not all Silicon Valley gurus have it figured out, however. Apple CEO Tim Cook doesn’t get 120 business emails a day. No, according to an ABC interview, he gets closer to 700. He just gets up at the crack of dawn every morning and starts reading. Hint Water CEO Kara Goldin does the same thing, preparing for a 12-hour workday with a marathon email session. But as you can tell from the other people we’ve discussed, this is an exception, not the rule. Emulate Jeff Bezos or Arianna Huffington instead and watch your email stress melt away.

Why Your Business Needs a Social Media Presence Right Now

Businesses around the world now find themselves in a situation unlike what most have ever seen. With so many trying to keep their distance from one another, many workplaces have deemed it necessary to close down for the time being or to operate remotely in order to reduce the risk they present to their clients and customers… but it isn’t as though these clients and customers are going to expect radio silence from these businesses.

As a result of this, maintaining a presence on social media has perhaps never been more important for businesses to prioritize. Let’s go over why this is, and how you can best use social media to your advantage during any kind of crisis.

How Can Social Media Assist My Business in Times of Crisis?

There are a few ways that social media has benefited businesses—as well as society as a whole—during the COVID-19 crisis that we are all facing. For one, it is a highly effective means to get a message out to the people who are meant to hear it, while completely abiding by the recommended social distancing guidelines that so many people are strictly subscribing to. In the same vein, social media has also proven to be exceptionally effective as an educational tool (for better and for worse) for governments, businesses, and other organizations to use to educate their clientele.

Ideally, this would all be old news to you, and you would be one of the businesses that are currently using social media as the tool it has the potential to be. However, many other businesses have yet to fully embrace the capabilities of social media in a time like this, while others are still resistant to adopting it in the first place or have refused outright. Those businesses are missing out on a significant opportunity to reach out to the people they need to communicate with.

Therefore, if you are in one of the latter categories of business social media use you need to make some significant adjustments to your stance on social media now – before it is too late.

Ways to Use Social Media During a Crisis

Let’s consider how a social media presence can prove useful to a business when a serious issue of any kind is at hand.

Communication

While we don’t mean to be flippant, this one should be tremendously obvious. If people aren’t coming to you or calling you for updates, broadcasting them is the only way that you can reach out. Social media platforms are the perfect place to do that, as they allow you to keep anyone looking at your business page up to speed on how your business is coping. You can share news that explains any changes to your business hours and other pertinent topics in one of the first places many people today look for such things.

Take, for example, restaurants – not technically designated as an essential business – have managed to continue their operations relatively by subscribing to certain practices, like accepting orders for takeout or delivery exclusively, or operating for fewer hours. Other businesses have shifted to largely remote operations. Social media is a great way to inform clients and customers of these measures, ensuring that they know of everything that is going on.

Value and Insights

While it may seem a little silly, especially considering the gravity of the present situation, just keeping a dialogue open on social media can prove to be extremely useful for a business to keep the attention of those that follow them. This can be as simple as, again, simply keeping their clientele aware of how the business is working in response to the situation at hand or doing what they can to provide other kinds of value. While the way this value takes shape is very reliant on what this business offers, there are plenty of ways it can be expressed.

For example, a cleaning company might share useful tips and best practices to staying hygienic and healthy, while a daycare center could offer some fun games and activities for families as they social distance. Any business could simply share some engaging content of what their employees are doing during this time.

In short, social media is just another technology that businesses can and should use to their advantage. Net Activity can provide other tools that help your business operate, even remotely, to help you sustain it. Give us a call at 216-503-5150 to discuss your options.

The SMB’s Guide to Staying Afloat during the COVID-19 Pandemic

As the coronavirus disease continues to spread all over the world, more and more businesses are faced with a difficult decision: find a way to adapt to the current situation or close their doors forever. Here are some tips to help your business adjust to the challenges of the pandemic and stay afloat during these tough times.

Reduce expenses

This one is obvious but still bears mentioning: take out your books and find out where and how you can cut costs without affecting the quality of your service.

Putting off non-essential or discretionary expenses, such as repainting your offices or buying new equipment, is a no-brainer. Cutting out fixed expenses such as rent and loan payments is harder, if not impossible, to do. However, it is crucial if your production and revenue are at a standstill.

Try asking your landlord for a reduction or deferment of a portion of your rent. Also, ask your bank if you can put off or skip loan payments for a finite period, or if they can at least waive fees on late or missed payments. (Find out if your bank is one of those offering relief to borrowers amid the pandemic here.)

Learn from your competitors

Observe both your direct and indirect competitors, especially those that are faring better than others. Find out what they’re doing differently and see if this will work for your business. More than adopting these strategies, it’s important to adapt them to your own and your customers’ needs.

It’s also a good idea to look at larger organizations within your industry. SMBs like yours may not be able to compete with bigger players on a scale level, but you can learn a few things about customer service, marketing strategies, and the like from them.

Redefine your business model

Even with coronavirus restrictions gradually being lifted across the United States, it would take a while before things return to normal. It’s crucial to ask yourself if traditional business models would still make sense in a post-COVID-19 world and adjust accordingly.

Determine any changes you need to make to your current business model. This involves identifying who your customers are and what they need, your staff’s capabilities, and any uncertainties and their impacts. Such changes may include finding a way to deliver your products or services to your customers, just like what groceries and restaurants did in the face of lockdowns and shelter-in-place directives.

Connect with your customers

Understand that many of your customers may have been affected in some way by the pandemic — they might have been laid off, for instance, or are caring for a family member who tested positive for COVID-19. They may reach out to you to pause or cancel your services, or to ask for a discount or payment deferral. When speaking to them, demonstrate empathy, whatever their concerns may be. When things get back to normal, it’s likely that those who had a positive experience with you during the pandemic will stick around and keep doing business with you.

Keeping your customers informed throughout these trying times is important. Make sure, though, that what you’re saying is relevant to them. For example, if you run an eCommerce business, let your customers know through email or social media about any shortages in supply and when you expect to be able to fulfill their orders. Doing so reassures customers that you’re doing your best to provide them with the same quality of service pre-COVID-19.

Upskill your staff

Upskilling your employees may be the best way to spend your resources during the current situation. Equipping your team with new knowledge and skills will help them adapt to the changing business environment.

Sharpening your team’s digital skills is especially important now that the COVID-19 crisis is spurring digital transformation. Other areas to focus on are project management, communication, data analytics, and digital marketing. And if you find yourself short-staffed, it might pay to train employees to handle other aspects of your business, ensuring that everything runs smoothly throughout the pandemic and beyond.

The current situation requires swift and decisive action from business leaders. Making smart and proactive decisions now will ensure that you’ll mitigate the impacts of COVID-19 on your business, and that you’ll emerge from this crisis stronger than ever. For more tips on how to run your business effectively in times of crisis, drop our experts a line today.

Over Half Of All Calls People Receive Are Spam Calls

If you’re like most people, you probably get a lot of calls over the course of a week. They’re probably calls that you’d just rather not get at all.

How many of those calls do you get, exactly? Have you ever sat down and taken notes to track it? If you did, you might be shocked and dismayed at the results.

The good news is that you don’t have to.

Roboshield, a division of a California-based company, recently did the research for you. The news is even worse than you might have guessed.

Shockingly, the company found that more than half of all of the phone calls respondents to their survey received were unwanted spam or scam calls. The number clocked in at a staggering 54 percent!

Worse, the problem gets bigger the older you get. If you’re in your twenties, you can expect an average of 11 unwanted calls a week. Respondents in their 30’s and 40’s averaged 12 a week, and respondents aged 50 and up got 13 unwanted calls a week, on average.

Across the age spectrum, more than 80 percent of respondents listed unwanted phone calls as being more annoying than unwanted text messages or emails. Yet, fully half of Americans said they’d answer the phone if the number was an unknown caller but the number looked at least vaguely familiar.

One genuinely surprising find in the company’s results was the fact that more than half of all survey respondents (53.8 percent) said they had received calls from scammers claiming to be from one government agency or another. In addition, more than a quarter (25.5 percent) said they had received calls from scammers asking pointed questions aimed at getting their health insurance information.

Aside from simply ignoring your phone and letting it ring if you don’t recognize the number, the single biggest and best thing you can do to bring the number down is to add your number to the National Do Not Call registry. It only takes a few minutes and can save you tons of time and aggravation going forward, making it well worth taking the time to do!