Vendors of DNS and web services can and do harden their resources and have redundancy and extra bandwidth to absorb many of these attacks without major disruption.  But with the increasing number of IoT devices it is impossible with current internet protocols to prevent such disruption when the attacks are so widespread.

IoT devices such as IP cameras (those with network connections), routers, DVRS, even some printers which are directly connected to the internet and which may run specific versions of Linux operating system are vulnerable to infection due to the use of well known and common default passwords.  These devices may become infected since many users fail to alter the device default user/password during setup. 

Secure your Devices

If you've taken it upon yourself to install, or had a vendor install a router or web camera at home or in your business always be sure to set secure passwords as this is the best way to make infection more difficult.  If secure passwords on these devices are not setup, there is risk your device has already been infected and there is no simple way to know if it is infected.  A simple reboot may clear some bots from memory but it is best to do a factory reset and start over and immediately change the device password.

Unfortunately, some devices have web passwords and SSH or Telnet passwords and it may be difficult (or impossible) for a non technical user to secure the device properly.  In some cases, the device simply contains flaws and may never be secured properly with the vendor stepping up and closing firmware flaws.  We live in an increasingly connected world of devices and this problem will only get worse, so we must all do our part to help.   I'll stress this is why it is important to acquire devices from reputable vendors with active update policies.

 

As a result of the recent attacks, hacks and general cyber security issues there is growing concern about possible vote disruption.  With election season winding down, much has already been made of possible voter fraud, rigging, and hacking, deleted emails and cyber security.

But is it real?  As a society we should be concerned.  In some states, if the election is hacked we may never know!  But the threat IS REAL!

The concern comes from a handful of States (10 currently) which use touch screen voting machines.  In many cases, there is NO detailed paper receipt provided and the machines could be programmed incorrectly or could be infected or already contain malware which can cover its own tracks.  Without a paper audit, recount or physical audit may not be possible.  This is a dangerous scenario.

(see article)
http://www.networkworld.com/article/3128035/election-hacking/if-the-election-is-hacked-we-may-never-know.html#tk.revfun_feat

In addition, political agendas make it possible that key battleground states could be "rigged" by purposeful programming of the voting machines.  For example, a U.K. based company which is tied to political activist George Soros has provided voting machines for 16 states including many battleground states like Florida and Arizona.   It would be a rather simple task to program the voting machine to register votes for a candidate of choice.   This could even be done in such a way that under test conditions they would record accurate votes but on election day, for example, they would record improper votes.

(see article)
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-24/concern-grows-over-soros-linked-voting-machines

The answer as many have suggested is to ban touch-screen only systems, much like punch-cards were banned after the 2000 election where counting chads became a huge issue.  Additionally, voting machine should not be programmed by partisan voting machine vendors.  And having a "ballot of record" or paper trail allows votes to be recounted by hand in the event of a challenge.

Our voting process is too important to have any question about legitimacy.

Pretty much everyone in business deals with an overloaded email inbox in this modern era.   If you're like me, you'll get a lot of email that just isn't that iimportant, including the SPAM that will slip through, plus tweets and facebooks posts, vendor marketing material, etc.  And all of this obscures the important emails and just adds to the feeling that you are out of control, not to mention it just isn't efficient for your email system to have a huge inbox full of messages.  This is especially true if you are using IMAP or hosted email where your mail is not stored on your local computer, but stored on a remote server.  In these cases having thousands of Inbox items can create big trouble!

In this article, I'd like to try to help bring sanity and efficiency back to email handling by giving you some very real steps to take each and every day.  This will make you more productive and allow you to be in control of one small part of your day.

Here are six things you should be doing to take control:

As recently as February I had 8000 emails in my inbox, I missed emails that came in with invalid timestamps because they were not at the top of my inbox.  The feeling was that of being overwhelmed.

Since implementing these strategies (many of which I had been using) I can claim success.   I moved all the emails to a 2015 or 2016 unfiled folder to start clean and have not left the office in three weeks with more than 30 emails in the inbox.

It seems like such a simple thing, but it is one less burden and an easy way to increase productivity.

For those customer still using Internet Explorer (and we know there are a good percentage) the message is clear you should be using IE11 or current version of an alternate browser such as Google Chrome or Firefox.  As of January 12, 2016, these products have officially entered end-of-life and will no longer receive security updates.

For users of Windows 7 and later, the simple answer is to upgrade to IE11 which will continue to be maintained or Edge on Windows 10.  For older versions of Windows such as Vista or XP (seriously, you shouldn't be using XP except for legacy applications and then NOT for internet at this point) IE11 is not supported and in fact IE9 is the last official version supported on Vista.   

For those users, we'd normally suggest Google Chrome but they have announced they will only support it through April 2016 on XP and Vista.  Mozilla Firefox may be your best bet if you still insist on running Windows Vista or XP as they have not yet announced a date when they will end support.

The bottom line -- it's 2016 and if you're using an older PC to browse the internet your days are numbered and you need to update to Windows 10 or at the very least Windows 7 which will continue to have mainstream support through 2020.

We don't often put together many Apple-specific articles, since our clientelle are largely PC users, but so many individuals use either iPhones or iPads.  Even though it is best practice to wait for a few bug fix updates, if you're like most people, when an update comes out you install it pretty quickly.  A number of users (including myself) have experienced sluggish performance from their iOS devices after updating to iOS 9 from earlier versions.  Slower scrolling, delayed responses from the interface, and just general sluggishness.   This often occurs when older devices are updated with a new OS due to higher memory requirements due to the addition of new features.  Sometimes that "cool" new interface or special effect may not be worth the extra overhead.

Here are few tested tips to help improve the responsiveness of your iPhone or iPad on iOS 9:

Changes to the interface, icons, special effects and the like often make the UI look cool, but they also use resources that can slow your system.  So its a good idea to look here for easy performance gains.

Background app refresh allows apps to get updates in the background but these activities can slow you down.

On new devices with Siri support, Suggestions is one of the notable new features.  Unfortunately, is also slows down iOS and turning it off will speed you up.

This goes for just about any computing device, applications sometimes don't close properly or release memory and rebooting clears all of these issues.

Early adopters could select the small Windows 10 upgrade icon in the system tray to reserve a copy and get Windows 10 upgrades.   This icon may never have made it to your pc if you are part of a domain (business) network or if all the pre-requisite updates had been applied. Updating using this method is no longer necessary.

We've had a link posted on our Windows 10 support page for awhile now.  This provides a direct path to obtain a backup copy of Windows 10 (to save or burn to DVD) and also to do a direct in-place update.

Scroll down this page to find the two download links...

Select the appropriate version (righ-click Computer, select Properties to view the version you have).  Once the download tool is retrieved you will run that to create your media, USB drive or ISO file for burning to DVD.

If you are performing an in-place upgrade of your existing system, selet the Upgrade this PC now option in the tool.   This will initiate the upgrade and pre-requisite check.  It will use your existing license key and should take 30-40 minutes on average depending on your system.

Some websites require "helper" applications such as Adobe Flash or Java to be loaded and updated.   It is beyond this article, however, always make sure you have the latest version of Flash Player and Java installed on your computer, not only for compatibility but for security reasons as well.   Visit adobe.com and java.com respectively to acquire or update these add-ins.

So that's it -- now you know one of the benefits of having upgraded to Word 2013!

TIP - if you don't own Word 2013, try a free online product at www.pdftoword.com

We get asked this a lot, because frankly, it happens a lot.   You come into work on Monday and your inbox is full of SPAM, the usual kind but also lots of SPAM where the sender is YOU!    Have you been hacked?    How could this be you ask.

The first thing to understand is that you're not special -- this happens fairly frequently, and it's most likely the result of email SPOOFING.   SPOOFING is a a technique where a spammer has sent email using your return email address (the from field).

The good news is you can do this without breaking the bank, so let's begin with a basic primer on what's out there.

X10 - the oldest of the technologies dating back to the 1970's, this simple system consists of various controls, switches, and modules that allow you to turn lights and appliances on or off.  It runs over your AC electrical system, was inexpensive, but not super reliable, and not easy to setup to control via the internet or your mobile device.

ZigBee - is a newer wireless mesh network system often used in some commercial systems.

Z-Wave - is also a newer technology that uses a wireless mesh network and a growing number of compatible devices including motion sensors, switches, moisture sensors, thermostats, locks, smoke detectors, etc.   Currently, if you've invested in no other technology, this is the way to go to get started.  To use Z-Wave, you'll need a Hub (the controller) and some devices to monitor or control.

Insteon - is a technology that combines wired power line protocols and wireless and is primarily sold through smarthome.com.  It is compatible with X10 so if you've invested in that older technology this can be a good option.

Wifi - a technology commonly used to connect tablets, phones and laptops to the internet but increasingly is used to connect devices to the internet and together in your internet of things network.  An example of this technology would be some Honeywell thermostats and Belkin WeMo home automation products.

Google Nest - the name of Google's products (purchased from Nest) which started with the Nest thermostat and smoke detector.  There are a number of products that work with Nest.

Apple HomeKit - the name of Apple's push into home automation and very is a software framework to get varioius devices to work together and to be controlled by an IOS 8/9 device and/or Siri.  If you're invested heavily into Apple products, this may be worth waiting for -- products are coming to market now or in Summer/Fall 2015.

Amazon Echo - technically Echo is not home automation, but a digital assistant for the home (like Siri, Google Now, or Cortana on the smartphone) but recently Amazon has added support for home automation devices from Belkin (wemo), Philips Hue, and Wink hub.  This allows voice control over devices ("Alexa, turn on the porch lights") and we expect this to be a major player due to the convenience within the home to have voice-control over your devices without having to be tied to your smartphone -- unless it NEVER leaves your side!

IFTTT - is an anacronym that stands for "if this then that" and many devices support this standard to allow you to create automation.  In essence it is a form of programming for your devices; if motion is detected, turn on this group of lights, etc.  If your system supports IFTTT, you'll need an account with ifttt.com, then you integrate your automation products with this account where you can then use one of the many existing "recipes" for automation or create a series of instructions to perform.    This is a little more advanced than what most users will start with.

If you want a few simple controls, Belkin WeMo can be an easy way to start and they are expanding.  If you only want control of a thermostat, look into Honeywell's very fine WiFi Thermostat series.  The Google-backed Nest incorporates a Thermostat, Smoke Detector, and other future devices.  There are many individual products that can be controlled by internet or your smart phone in this way.   But the most complete system right now is Z-Wave based products and SmartThings is one of the early leaders.

As I mentioned, you'll first need a controller Hub to which all your devices links.   Currently if you have no significant investment in any of the above technologies, I recommend the SmartThings product because it is the easiest to setup and still very flexible and expanding rapidly and are backed now by Samsung.  They have active development and support Z-Wave, Zigbee, and Wifi protocols so it can work with SmartThings compatible products or even Belking Wemo wifi-based products as well, which in turn can work with Amazon Echo devices for voice control.  Be prepared to spend about $100 for the Hub, and about $30-$80 per device (switch, sensor, camera, lock).

Get started by picking up the SmartThings hub then grab a motion sensor or light switch to start your venture into home automation.

What can you run from the cloud?

We've taken a cautious approach with recommendations to our clients due to the many data breaches that are in the news, there is no thing as a completely secure cloud in my opinion -- at least not yet!   So that has to be weighed heavily.   In addition, selecting a vendor that will be around in many years is also very important -- migrating data from an old server to a new one already is an effort, doing so from one cloud vendor to another can be difficult or iimpossible if the wrong vendors are chosen.   As the industry matures, this will become easier.

Putting backup systems in the cloud makes complete sense, data can be encrypted during transit and encryption applied to the files making it virtually impossible for anyone to access data.   However, we recognize the potential advantages for some clients to move more of their business into the cloud and believe than many businesses will embrace a hybrid approach until if and when it becomes the norm.

In the future, whether local or cloud based, we'll be there to manage your network and data.

One thing many clients do not realize is that you can send an email as a text message to virtually any phone.  While smartphone's have email, many other phones do not, or it is not the "push" email that made the Blackberry so fast in its heydey.  Email to text gateways are operated by all the major carriers and all you to send any email (with length limitations) to any phone with text capability.

Just replace phonenumber = your 10 digit phone number that you wish to text.  Most carriers have a limit of around 500 characters (SMS limit) so keep the emails short and don't attach anything.