Computer users today, including business owners, are hanging onto to their old computer(s) (stand-alone, workstations and servers) when they should upgrade them. Many users are frustrated by the slow, erratic performance of their current systems and call a computer technician to fix the problem when it could be solved by simply upgrading to a later type system. This article will help you decide whether to hang onto what you have or “bite the bullet” and buy another computer.

Every Four Years is the usual point in time that you should look into purchasing a new computer. By this time, your current operating system has had many service packs and updates and sometimes this will slow down the performance of the computer, whether it is a laptop or desktop. Also, viruses and/or malware can cause damage to the operating system, requiring a complete system reload. If you are at the four year mark, you might want to consider upgrading instead of reloading.

Listed below is a list of reasons to upgrade:

CPU Speed: The Central Processing Unit is the “brains” of the computer and is in charge of how much data flows through the unit. The slower the CPU, the slower the data flow. Many times CPU bottlenecks of older systems prevent the unit from operating at an optimum level.

Hard Drive: The hard drive is where the operating system, programs and data reside on (unless the data is saved and backed up elsewhere). An older hard drive that uses platters for reading and writing data to it will be slower than a later model solid state device. Newer hard drives have very fast access speeds compared to older units.

Memory: Random Access Memory (RAM) determines how quickly the operating system, programs and data loads into the “memory” of the computer. Later model computers can handle and usually have greater amounts of memory to facilitate more robust computer operations.

System Board: The system board (otherwise known as the “motherboard”) will have different components on it (cache, chipset, etc.) that will help the computer to run more smoothly and efficiently. The newer the board, the better.

These are the main reasons why you should upgrade your computer. The operating system and applications will run better on a newer system. Also, you can take advantage of newer programs (both cloud and non-cloud) that will work better on a newer system as well. Please let us know if you would like to speak to someone about upgrading your laptop, desktop, workstation or server.

If you need help purchasing a new computer or server, please contact us at 1-800-871-9683 for a free consultation. Also, if you still have Windows 7 or 8 Computer(s) in your business, please give us a call to help you upgrade to Windows 10 and Office 365. Our email address is: markhuffman@creativebusinesstechnologies.com

Introduction

As one of the top cybercrime ploys impacting both consumers and businesses, phishing has remained a consistently potent threat over the past several years. In fact, there was an average of over 37,000 phishing attacks each month in 2012 (more in 2014).*

You no longer need to be a sophisticated hacker to commit fraud on the Internet. Anyone who is motivated can join in, thanks to the off-the-shelf phishing kits provided by a thriving cybercrime ecosystem. Cybercriminals are even migrating to a new business model known as malware-as-a-service (MaaS), where authors of exploit kits offer extra services to customers in addition to the exploit kit itself.

The impact on a business can be quite severe. RSA estimated in its February 2013 Fraud Report that worldwide losses reached $1.5 billion in 2012 and had the potential to reach over $2 billion if the average uptime of phishing attacks had remained the same as in 2011. Whatever the threat – whether employees or customers have been phished, or the company website compromised – phishing is something to be taken very seriously. Organizations need to stay current on the latest methods employed by cybercriminals and take proactive steps to protect themselves from fraud.

How phishing could impact your business

While spam has declined slightly in 2014, phishing attacks have increased. Phishers are using very sophisticated fake websites – in some cases, perfect replicas of real sites – to trick victims into revealing personal information, passwords, credit card details and bank credentials. In the past they relied more on fake emails, but now those emails coupled with similar links posted on social media sites are used to lure the victim to these more advanced phishing websites.

Typical fake sites include banks and credit card companies, as you’d expect, but also popular social media sites. The number of phishing sites that spoofed social network sites increased more than 123 per cent in 2014. If criminals can capture your social media login details, they can use your account to send phishing emails to all your friends. A message that seems to come from a friend appears much more trustworthy. Another way to use a cracked social media account is to send out a fake message to someone’s friends about some kind of emergency. 

Protecting your business

While there is no silver bullet, there are technologies that can help protect you and your customers. Many of the current phishing techniques rely on driving customers to spoofed websites to capture personal information. Technology such as Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and Extended Validation (EV) SSL are critical in fighting phishing and other forms of cybercrime by encrypting sensitive information and helping customers authenticate your site. Security best practices call for implementing the highest levels of encryption and authentication possible to protect against cyber fraud and build customer trust in the brand. SSL, the world standard for Web security, is the technology used to encrypt and protect information transmitted over the Web with the ubiquitous HTTPS protocol. SSL protects data in motion, which can be intercepted and tampered with if sent unencrypted. Support for SSL is built into all major operating systems, web browsers, Internet applications and server hardware.

To help prevent phishing attacks from being successful and to build customer trust, companies also need a way to show customers that they are a legitimate business. Extended Validation (EV) SSL Certificates are the answer, offering the highest level of authentication available with an SSL Certificate and providing tangible proof to online users that the site is indeed legitimate.

While cybercriminals are becoming adept at mimicking legitimate websites, without the company’s EV SSL Certificate there is no way they can display its name on the address bar because the information shown there is outside of their control. And they cannot obtain the legitimate company’s EV SSL Certificates because of the stringent authentication process.

*Source: 2013 Symantec Corporation. Except from White Paper: Phishing – The latest tactics and potential business impacts.

If you would like to know more, please contact us at 1-800-871-9683 for a free consultation. Also, if you still have Windows 7 or 8 Computer(s) in your business, please give us a call to help you upgrade to Windows 10 and Office 365. Our email address is: markhuffman@creativebusinesstechnologies.com

What is a computer virus?

‘Virus’ is the term most often used to describe computer malware. Malware is a combination of the words ‘malicious’ and ‘software’ and is a piece of software (computer program) written by someone with mischievous or, more usually, malicious and/or criminal intent. The term malware includes, amongst other things, worms, Trojan horses and spyware, as well as viruses.*

Malware usually has two functions: to spread itself by some means, and to do some sort of damage or theft. This may vary from the trivial (e.g. displaying a silly message on startup) to causing serious damage to your files and your computer or logging the usernames and passwords you use for other sites such as online banking. With the increase of fast networks, and in particular home broadband, much malware is now designed to take control of your computer so that it can be used for nefarious purposes, e.g. hosting illegal data, sending spam email or being used to attack others, possibly for extortion purposes (you are likely to hear the phrases ‘zombie’ or ‘bot’ used to describe these “taken over” computers). The damage may not happen as soon as you acquire the malware; some malware is written to be activated remotely when needed, or to be activated on particular dates or after a particular length of time, often so that it has time to spread before being noticed.

Malware spreads in many different ways. These include: email, where it can be sent as an attachment, usually with an innocent-seeming name; being embedded in web pages; scanning the network for computers with an exploitable vulnerability (often one that is not up-to-date with patches); on file-sharing/peer-to-peer networks; through messages to instant message clients; using an infected CD.

Do I need to worry about anti-virus protection?

Yes.

New malware, and variants of existing malware, continue to circulate and to present a real danger to individuals’ computer systems, files and information. It is vital that every user take steps to protect themselves and their systems; if you fail to do this you are risking not only your own computer and work but that of your colleagues.

It is also worth noting that more data loss is caused by human error and computer breakdown than by malware. Regular backups help to protect against these hazards as well as helping with recovery from a malware infection.

How do I protect my system?

• Ensure that you have up-to-date protection software on your system. Do not, however, try to run more than one anti-virus program simultaneously, as you are likely to experience problems.
• Keep your system updated with patches. Patching both the operating system and the applications you run is extremely important, as much malware is designed to exploit vulnerabilities in unpatched programs.
• Don’t open any email attachment you are not expecting to receive, even if it appears to come from a friend (in general you cannot acquire malware just by reading the main text of a mail message, unless your patching is very out of date). Note that attachments purporting to be security updates from Microsoft or other vendors are hoaxes and should never be opened.
• Don’t just go to a link included in an email. In particular, for anything where money is involved, e.g. your bank, eBay, PayPal, use a bookmark you have previously saved.
• Don’t just follow a link in an unexpected message in an instant messaging client, even if it appears to come from someone on your friends list; malware is designed to exploit trust.
• Don’t accept and use unsolicited media, e.g. DVDs, CDs (even disks on magazine covers have been known to contain malware) or USB memory sticks (and particularly not if you just happen to find one lying around somewhere)
• If you are doubtful about a disk, file or attachment, but think it may contain something you want, you can check it using your anti-virus software – this is not foolproof however, since the malware writers do their best to keep one jump ahead of the anti-virus/malware developers.
• Don’t run programs or open documents (e.g. Word/Excel) whose origin you don’t know.
• Some protection against macro viruses is offered by turning off macro execution in Word or Excel (keep the SHIFT key down when opening a document).
• If in doubt about any of the above, consult your local IT Consultant.
• Maintain regular backups of all the important material on your computer, in case you ever need to recover from a major malware infection or any other disaster.

The Anti-Virus Companies provide anti-virus software for usually a yearly subscription. Note that just installing the software is not enough, you need to keep it regularly updated (setting it to check once a day is recommended). It is worth checking with your local IT Consultant whether your business runs a scheme for automatic updating of your anti-virus software.

You should consider getting and using one of the anti-spyware utilities. Your local IT Consultant can recommend different anti-virus/anti-malware packages to protect your computer systems.

Virus warnings and hoaxes

Hoax email messages about viruses are extremely common. Messages which suggest that just reading an email message (rather than opening an attachment) can trash your hard disk, your BIOS and your life are hoaxes, as are messages which say “Please send this email to as many people as possible”. No genuine anti-virus information will make this suggestion.

You may receive bounced mail messages suggesting that you have sent a virus-bearing message to somebody else. These are usually spurious; when viruses and other malware propagate by email they will usually do so with faked ‘From’ addresses, which may have been taken from another user’s address book or from Web pages.

A company’s anti-virus software detects various known mail-distributed malware. You may receive a message which has had an attachment removed or disinfected on its way to you, because the scanner has identified it as probable malware. If this happens you will be sent an explanation of what has happened, and of what to do if the message was a genuine one.

What should I do if I think I have a virus or other malware?

Don’t panic.

There are thousands of pieces of malware, each with its own mode of attack. Many infections result only in inconvenience and loss of time; an infection does not necessarily mean you are going to lose important files or damage your computer.

If your computer begins to behave strangely, e.g. run very slowly, bleep without reason, lock up or crash, display bizarre messages, or your documents become corrupt or contain text you didn’t type, these effects may be symptoms of your having acquired a piece of malware, although they can also arise for a host of other reasons. On the other hand, some malware just spreads through your system with no outward sign. The only way to discover whether you have a virus or other malware is to scan your system with up-to-date anti-virus software. This may be able to remove the virus/malware as well as detecting it. If not, then you need to consult your local IT Consultant.

If you think that you may have infected other computers with malware, possibly by sending mail or handing over disks or files, you should give details to the people responsible for those computers. If possible you should also try to work out where the malware might have come from and warn the person responsible for that system.

*Source: 2014 University of Cambridge

If you would like to know more, please contact us at 1-800-871-9683 for a free consultation. Also, if you still have Windows 7 or 8 Computer(s) in your business, please give us a call to help you upgrade to Windows 10 and Office 365. Our email address is: markhuffman@creativebusinesstechnologies.com

The Importance of Backup

With the final release of Microsoft Office 365 (Home Premium), Microsoft has taken bold steps to change its game. The latest office suite is radically different from previous versions of Microsoft Office, from how it’s distributed to what’s included to how it’s priced.*

Even though change is good in this case, there’s still a lot you need to know before deciding to buy or install the suite. Here are ten of the most important facts about the new Microsoft Office 365.

1. In the cloud. Microsoft Office 365 is “in the cloud” from two perspectives. First, buying the suite necessarily requires downloading it, which is to say, you can’t buy it on a disc (the exception being in developing countries, where Microsoft will continue to sell discs). Second, the office suite itself is set up to save your documents to the cloud, SkyDrive in this case, if you so choose. You do still have the option to save files locally, but the apps integrate tightly with SkyDrive.

 2. Price and subscription model. Microsoft Office 365 Home Premium is now being sold in the subscription model, and it costs $99 per year for an entire household to install (more details below). Some of the other versions of the suite are sold as a “perpetual” license, meaning one copy of the software is licensed to only one machine, but that license is good for life.

 3. License good for five devices. Paying a subscription fee for Microsoft Office 365 Home Premium does have one huge advantage: You can install Office on up to five devices, and these can include both Windows machines and Macs. Microsoft says you’ll be able to install the suite on additional, select mobile devices “when available,” which is a cryptic way of not promising apps for the big two mobile OSes, while still dangling the carrot.

 4. Operating systems. You can install Microsoft Office 365 on machines running Windows 7 or 8 (but not Vista or XP). When you install the software on a Mac running OS X (10.5.8 and higher), you’ll actually get Office 2011 (full version), rather than Office 365.

 5. Apps included. The Home Premium version of Office includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Publisher, OneNote, and Access. OneNote is not included in the Mac version, however.

 6. Must install all apps. You cannot customize your installation of Office 365 Home Premium by choosing not to install some of the apps. The whole suite gets installed despite whether you plan to use, say, Microsoft Access or Publisher.

 7. Works on touch-screen devices. The new Office is designed to work on touch-screen devices, like tablets and touch-screen laptops running Windows 8. (See my early hands-on first impressions of the suite on the touch-screen device.)

 8. Includes 27GB cloud storage. As mentioned, Office 365 was designed to integrate tightly with SkyDrive, Microsoft’s answer to Google Drive. Every SkyDrive user gets 7GB space free to start, and Home Premium subscribers of Microsoft Office 365 get an additional 20GB of space, giving them a total of 27GB.

 9. Free Skype minutes. One neat perk that’s easy to overlook is that Home Premium subscribers get 60 free Skype minutes per month to call landlines in supported countries. Skype-to-Skype calls are always free, but for times when you need to dial an international landline number, you can use your free Office minutes.

 10. Additional versions and discounts. Home Premium is just one of several slices of Microsoft Office that’s available. The Office 365 business editions are due to be released on February 27. University students and faculty can also get a big discount for an Office package that’s a little pared down, but much less expensive at only $79 for four years, usable on two devices.

*Sources: PC Magazine – Jill Duffy  January 30, 2013

If you would like to know more, please contact us at 1-800-871-9683 for a free consultation. Also, if you still have Windows 7 or 8 Computer(s) in your business, please give us a call to help you upgrade to Windows 10 and Office 365. Our email address is: markhuffman@creativebusinesstechnologies.com

Windows 10 is Microsoft’s Newest Operating System!

MARK YOUR CALENDARS. On July 29th, 2015, the official release of Windows 10 will hit the wires. Channel professionals of all stripes have a great opportunity in the coming months to touch each and every client with an upgrade to what many are already calling Microsoft’s best OS since Windows 7.*

Don’t think for a second you’ll be able to avoid it. Windows 10 will be everywhere—perhaps even demanded by your customers— and that’s in part due to Microsoft’s bold strategy for getting billions of users to upgrade. Windows 10 is free to most Windows 7 and 8.1 computers that upgrade within the first year of release. Businesses with volume licensing agreements aren’t included, but most will also be able to upgrade for free anyway under the enterprise licensing terms. More than that, Microsoft is taking on the job of notifying and updating users courtesy of a reservation flag that started popping up on PCs a few months back.

What’s on the Cutting Room Floor?
Windows 10 is making a break from the past in a few areas, removing some features found in Windows 7 and 8. Many are insignificant or can be added after the fact, and most of these won’t impact business users, but it’s worth going through them just in case.

First, Microsoft has finally given Windows Media Center, which allowed for things like TV recording and DVD playback, the boot in Windows 10. If you upgrade a machine with Windows 7 or 8.1 with Media Center installed, it won’t be there when you’re done. Also, native support for DVD playback has been removed and requires separate software. However, Microsoft has said that if Media Center were present when upgraded, the company will provide a program that can play DVDs. This change mostly affects consumer PCs and those who do TV recording with Media Center.

Next, the native OneDrive client in Windows 8.1 allowed users to browse the entire contents of their OneDrive (not OneDrive for Business) storage even if it was not synced to the PC using little placeholder files. Those who relied on it really love it, but the OneDrive sync in Windows 10 is now like Windows 7 and the Mac.

Windows 7 users will notice that Solitaire and Minesweeper are no longer part of the OS (but can be downloaded from the Windows store) and that there are no Desktop Gadgets (which were gone in 8). Finally, core OS support for USB floppy drives has been removed. So when you plug one into a PC with Windows 10, it will need software from the manufacturer or from Windows Update.

Wrap Up and Roll Out
Windows 10 starts rolling out to x86 PCs July 29, but if the reservation is made ahead of time using the reservation flag in your tray, it should start downloading in advance and simply unlock on the big day.

Putting to rest an oft-cited, incorrect statement—you do not have to pay for Windows 10 after the first year. If you upgrade an eligible PC to Windows 10 within the first year of release, that license is good for the service life of Windows 10 on that machine. It’s a free copy; just claim it within a year.

As a free upgrade, many SMB customers (especially those with Windows 8 desktops or notebooks) are going to be chomping at the bit to get it. Microsoft is confident that in-place upgrades from Windows 7 and 8.1 will work well, but there is always the potential for issues given the virtually infinite combination of hardware and software deployed. Unlike previous upgrades, Windows 10 will let you roll back an upgraded machine to the previous OS if problems occur.

Nonetheless, your customers’ happiness is critical. Windows 10 is a great opportunity to modernize your clients and prevent them from being stuck on Windows 7 until it becomes the next XP. Still, you might advise them to hold off for a little while and let the rest of the world test the upgrade process, plus give Microsoft time to address any hiccups.

When it seems like upgrades are going well, present clients with your special Windows modernization package that gets them Windows 10, Office 365 (and hopefully the new Office 2016 suite), and a new backup solution for a great monthly price.

*Excerpts from Channel Pro Magazine July 2015 Issue

If you would like to know more, please contact us at 1-800-871-9683 for a free consultation. Also, if you need help in upgrading to Windows 10 or have problems after upgrading on your desktop or laptop in your business, please give us a call to help you with any issues that you may have. Our email address is: markhuffman@creativebusinesstechnologies.com

Data Theft, Malware Infections, Non-Compliance Fines…  

Stop Using Windows Server 2003 Before July 14th, 2015!  

On July 14th, 2015, Microsoft will end support for the 10-year-old operating system, which means there will no longer be assistance available for bugs or glitches. Aside from being unable to receive support when bugs or glitches arise, those running Windows Server 2003 are also leaving their doors open to all sorts of issues:
 
Non-compliance with data storage regulations, such as HIPAA or PCI 

Slow performance that’s unable to keep up with newer technologies 

Incompatibility with current and new applications

Lack of security updates for emerging forms of malware 

And much more 
  
Have you started planning to upgrade yet? If you don’t start planning soon, you’re going to be left with two options: performing a last minute, stressful, and risky migration or facing security breaches and non-compliance fines after the end of support date.

You simply can’t afford to procrastinate. It’s time to upgrade before the end-of-support date; otherwise, you’ll be leaving yourself open to non-compliance fines, productivity loss, and malware infection.
 
Call 1-800-871-9683 or email us at: markhuffman@creativebusinesstechnologies.com for more information.
 
We’ll help you upgrade now.