In the August 24th newsletter titled “To Open or Not Open the Document, That is the Question”, we discussed those emails that you receive but should be cautious about opening, referring to the Docu-Sign emails. Today, we will discuss those emails sent from Hotmail or Microsoft, asking you to verify your account.
If you and/or your business use a Microsoft Exchange account (local Exchange or Office 365), you will not receive an email that asks for you to verify your account. This includes personal Office 365 accounts. Microsoft does not send emails of this type to its customers.
On October 13th, one of my customers received an email, identifying that the Hotmail accounts were undergoing maintenance and need account verification.
This week’s article will talk about the need for proper protection for both your personal credit information and your personal/business data.
Over the past few years, we have heard about large corporations that have had data breaches where an unknown quantity of hackers have gained possession of the personal credit information for consumers. In the past 30 days, a large credit monitoring company reported over 143 million Americans whose sensitive personal information was exposed in the data breach.
According to the US Census Bureau, as of July 4, 2017, there are approximately 325 million people in the USA. So, this credit breach affected about 44% of the US population.
Today’s discussion is about those emails that you receive but should be cautious about opening even if you are expecting it. We are referring to the “Docu-Sign” emails that are circulating around the internet. The email tells you that you have received an electronic document that requires you to open the electronic document and sign it, using the Docu-Sign feature. This is commonly found on an Adobe document (pdf).More
On Tuesday late afternoon in the Eastern Time Zone, companies in Europe began contracting the latest version of the deadly Ransomware Virus. Code-named, Golden-Eye, this virus will infect the hard drive and then force a reboot of the computer. This then renders the hard drive unusable and requires a $300 BTC (BiTCoin) payment.
As of 7:00pm EDT on June 28th, 1 bitcoin is valued at $2,567.35 US Dollars. So, the current value of $300 in Bitcoins is $770,205.00 US Dollars.
Approximately, 45 businesses paid the ransom in the first 18 hours.More
Hurricane Season officially began on June 1st and will run thru November 30th. The National Hurricane Center stated recently that they expect more hurricanes than normal in the Atlantic region. But even if you don’t live along the East or Gulf Coasts, a significant outbreak of severe weather that swept through the Mountain West, Great Plains, Southeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Northeast just before Memorial Day brings one fact into sharp focus: businesses big and small must be prepared with backup and disaster preparedness solutions that protect data, systems, and employees.
It’s not just hurricanes that can cause damage – tornadoes can generate large rain falls, hail, landslides, and high winds. For tornadoes, it’s not just the wind that causes the damage, it’s the change in air pressure that can cause buildings to explode.
That’s why concerns about data protection and data backup are so critical and important. Here are some statistical information for your review:More
On Friday, May 12, 2017, a Ransomware virus was unleashed, infecting over 200,000 computers in over 150 countries. Known as the “WannaCry Virus”, this infected hospitals, schools, transportation systems, organizations and event governments, all faced a ransom demand of $300 in bitcoins.More
On Friday, May 12, 2017, a Ransomware virus was unleashed, infecting over 200,000 computers in over 150 countries. Known as the “WannaCry Virus”, this infected hospitals, schools, transportation systems, organizations and event governments all faced a ransom demand of $300 in bitcoins (as of 5/15/17, the conversion rate is 1 bitcoin = $1,667.94 USD) or approximately $500,000 USD.More
Friends, today’s newsletter will be discussing computer security and the reasons why computer users get infections. This is a serious epidemic as some infections, such as Ransomware, can be deadly to your computer data. This is not just affecting PC users as now Mac computers are getting infected.
In the past week, I have seen more computers have virus infections than in the past 3 months. For some reason, computer users tend to open any email that arrives and will click on a link or a file attachment. Then, they get the infection.
For example, look at the email image below. The first look at this message is that it came from Chase Bank. The signature looks official, but let’s dissect this message a bit further. First, look at the email address from Chase. If this was actually from the bank, the email address would state something like employeename@chase.com. However, be very cautious of opening any documents with an email extension of other than .com, .net, .us, etc. Foreign Extensions may include these samples: CA (Canada), RU (Russia), EU (Europe), & BZ (Belize). Next, look at the recipient – if it was addressed to you, it would have your name, not “recipients”. Lastly, look at the web link to click on. That is not Chase.com. Also, Banks and Financial Institutions (and the IRS) will not send this type of message. Any issues would be sent via US Mail.
Now, lest look at the 2nd email. This arrived recently from Allstate Insurance Company. Or, so it seems to be. The wording “Dear Email Address” is an immediate indicator, since it not addressed to the Recipient. In addition, the Login web link is not an Allstate address. And lastly, I don’t have insurance with Allstate. So, why would I click do anything with this message?
So, the recommendation is that if you don’t know the person sending the email or don’t have an account with the company, DO NOT OPEN it. Just delete it.
Look at this screen shot of a web browser. This suddenly showed up on your computer and you don’t know what to do. DO NOT call the number shown. If the notification is from Microsoft, DO NOT call the number shown. This is a Phishing Scam and the likelihood is that you do not have an infection. Best course of action is to call an IT specialist. Simply closing this window and running a security scan on your computer will resolve the issue. As an example, recently one of our clients called the number. She was told that she had over 1,300 viruses on her computer and if she paid $500 they would be removed. Fortunately, she called ENC and we resolved the issue much quicker and cheaper.
So, if you think that only PC’s are infected, see the security scans from 2 different Mac computers. Both were infected and the customer’s didn’t know about the infections. The proper security software will clean any issues before you know about it.
We recommend that you have a paid security software product protecting your computers. In addition, we recommend an external backup solution to protect your data. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) reports that 76% of all businesses will fail within 2 years after a disaster, like the loss of data from a virus infection.
If you would like a free quotation for Security Software or an off-site backup solution for your business, please send an email to service1@elite-nac.com.