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SECURITY ALERT: Fastest Moving Computer Virus Hits Millions Worldwide

VirusOn December 6th millions were hit by what experts are calling the fastest moving computer virus ever. The data security attack hit the UK very hard, but in the world of cyber crime, it doesn’t take long to spread worldwide.

Here are the details that you need to know to avoid the bug and protect your machines from Daily Mail.  Bottom line:  DO NOT IGNORE YOUR ANTI-VIRUS UPDATES and ensure your data protection plan is working.

Worldwide systems were buckling after the ‘Sobig.F’ spread to 134 countries in just 96 hours, generating tens of millions of e-mails.
Experts fear it could increase the volume of electronic traffic by a staggering 60per cent, slowing the internet to a crawl.
It is believed to have cost British businesses alone hundreds of millions in lost orders and system crashes. The global cost will be immense.
Individual companies have been bombarded with millions of copies of the virus, while home users have seen their machines “jammed” by up to 6,000.
The PC World chain said tens of thousands of customers had brought in computers to be “cleaned” by technicians.
Experts say Sobig appears to have been written by senders of “spam” – unwanted junk e-mail – trying to find ways past internet filters which block their messages.
The new digital onslaught comes hard on the heels of two other major viruses, Blaster and Nachi. “This is the worst barrage of viruses in the history of computing,” said Graham Cluley of Sophos Anti-Virus.
“Even companies who are properly protected are feeling a slowdown. Sobig. F is the fastest-spreading virus of all time and if it carries on at this pace for a few more days it will become the most prevalent too.”
MessageLabs, a British-based Internet security firm, said it had intercepted more than a million copies of Sobig.F in 24 hours, more than for any other virus.
One in 17 of all e-mails sent since Monday was infected. By comparison the ‘LoveBug’ virus, which hit the headlines three years ago, was found in one in every 28 e-mails at its height. Sobig.F spreads when unsuspecting users open attachments in e-mails that contain such headings as “Thank you”, “Re: Details” or “Re: Wicked Screensaver”.
It sends multiple copies of itself to every name in a person’s address book – so each infected machine can spawn hundreds of e-mails.
Sobig.F also tries to implant a background program which turns computers into a relay for any messages sent by the virus’s creators – greatly increasing their earnings.
Experts advise users to keep anti-virus software up to date, never open an e-mail attachment unless they know what it is and delete uninvited e-mail – particularly from an unknown sender.
Mr Cluley said even e-mails which seem to come from friends or colleagues should be treated with caution.
Learn more about our Data Security Product Suite

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Do You Get 100% Uptime from Your IT Support Team?

bigstock-Closeup-of-beautiful-nurse-in--16986905Wouldn’t 100% uptime be your ideal vision? Is it even possible to achieve in any given year? Maybe and maybe not. But you should be at least at 99.8% uptime. Get any less than that, and your healthcare business (or any business for that matter) loses a ton of capacity to serve, grow, and profit.

First Thing’s First: If You See a 100% Uptime Guarantee, Know What It Means. In reality, no one can guarantee 100% uptime for your network – ever. Human error still exists so things can go wrong at any time. For example, the utility company could accidentally sever the fiber line running to your healthcare company. If 100% uptime were actually possible, that company would instantly become a multi-billion dollar corporation and take over the IT support industry.

However, 100% uptime isn’t necessarily a scam, either. What the offer generally refers to is that if that uptime isn’t met, you get some perks for free. You might be offered extra server space, for example.

Where this issue gets a little dodgy is sometimes companies offering a 100% uptime guarantee absolve themselves of responsibility under certain conditions, like fire, flood, hurricane, snowstorm, and other natural disasters. Make sure you read the fine print if you really want to work with this type of company, or work with one that’s a little more transparent.

A Few Steps Your Disaster Recovery Team Should Take to Maximize Network Uptime

Here’s what your contracted service should be doing to make sure your network stays up as much as possible:

    1. Do It Right the First Time: The road to network downtime is paved with poor-quality, inexpensive hardware. As with anything, you get what you pay for. Be willing to have high-quality hardware installed in the first place, and you’ll earn dividends down the road.
    2. Monitor & Replace Your Hardware: Whoever your IT support team is, make sure they constantly monitor the age and health of your hardware. It’s easier on your business to replace hardware ahead of time than it is to respond to a crisis that already happened. 
    3. Use Network Monitoring Tools: Not only should you actively check your hardware, but you should be monitoring your entire network at all times. That way, you find bottlenecks as they happen and keep your bandwidth and uptime high.
    4. Ongoing Security Monitoring: Are you seeing a pattern here? Your IT support team should have a data protection plan in place. That means using the latest firewalls, antivirus, and antimalware products available. You may even want to have an independent firm come in and perform an audit annually.
    5. Know When to Back Off: With certain hardware, like your servers (if you keep them on-site and don’t operate fully over the cloud), be willing to let them go when you know they’ve done their job. Don’t try to squeeze every last bit of usefulness you can get out of them. 

Remember, 100% uptime is never truly possible. But you should be able to get extremely close with these tips.

Let Great Lakes Computer help.  We are offering a FREE disaster recovery and data backup network assessment to qualifying businesses.  Register through this email for your assessment and receive a $25 Visa Gift card upon the completion of your assessment.

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Your Manufacturing Company Isn’t Safe from Data Security Breaches

You would think that, as our world grows and advances technologically, the cyber world would get even safer. But the reality is that it only becomes more difficult (not impossible) for cyber criminals to do their work. And they work just as hard at disobeying the law as the good guys do at obeying it. Check out these recent stories which illustrate the case in point:

1. SolarWorld Americas Gets Hacked:

They are the largest solar panel manufacturer in the US. Interestingly, what sparked the attack was fights over the Chinese government helping manufacturers pay their costs to sell the panels at unfairly low prices. In response, the US Commerce Department put steep taxes on these imported solar panels. The Chinese wouldn’t be deterred however. They responded in two ways:

•    Parts of the manufacturing process were moved to Taiwan to dodge the taxes
•    Members of the Chinese military hacked SolarWorld and stole important business documents

In response to allegations of this, the Chinese denied any knowledge of such attacks and blamed the US for hacking its own companies.

2. Symantec Acknowledges the Manufacturing Industry is a Prime Target:

The odds of a cyberattack happening in the manufacturing industry were 33%, according to Symantec. The same article that discusses this also mentions that smaller companies often do not have the resources or simply overlook the fact they need to fight these cyber criminals. Even though all you hear about is the big guys getting hurt, smaller and medium manufacturing companies are better targets.

3. In 2012, Chinese Hackers take Full Command of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory:

Of all the different industrial systems that could be hacked, wouldn’t you think NASA would be one of the most heavily protected? I guess we don’t know the truth of their IT support measures. But you can assume it’s well above the average. The story appeared in Reuters, among many other places. The lab the cyber thieves hacked was responsible for managing 23 spacecraft that were conducting active missions. They were able to give themselves the ability to modify, copy, and delete all files, make new user accounts, and upload hacking tools. They also were sophisticated enough to access system logs, modify them, and hide any traces of their conduct. In addition to this incident, NASA was also hacked an additional 12 times, for a grand total of 13 successful hacking incidents in 2012.

There’s No Limit to What Hackers Can Do…
If they can hack NASA, and smaller and medium businesses are easier targets, what’s to stop hackers from accessing your company, stealing information, deleting your files, and demanding millions of dollars to get the information back? Having Data Security and Data Protection measures in place is a good place to start. That’s why it’s important to have an experienced, dedicated IT support team monitoring your cyber security at all times!

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