Great Lakes Computer Corporation

Managed Service Provider

You are here: Home / Great Lakes Blog

Great Lakes Blog

By

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

By

5 IT Support Tips to Keep Your IT Equipment Fast and Current

Managed IT ServicesYour small business absolutely needs these tips. When time and financial resources are scarce, they help you stay competitive versus other bootstrapping SMBs.

What can you do to make sure your IT infrastructure serves your client’s needs, while also not driving your own costs through the roof?

Here are some tips:

1. Upgrade Hardware in Volume:

Manufacturers often give you incentives when you do this. You don’t have to be a massive corporation that buys 1000 new PCs to save on costs. Many will bring down their prices if you just buy a few new units with them. All you have to do is ask.

2. Buy New UPS’s:

Your uninterruptible power supply (you do have one, don’t you?) saves your life when you experience a natural disaster. However, with UPSs, it’s not generally a wise idea to upgrade an existing one.
This is because many of their components, but especially the batteries, only work for so long. Technology skyrockets the life of their components quickly. So rather than upgrade your existing UPS, buy a new one.
And if you don’t have one – get it right now (or hire managed IT services to take care of it for you)!

3. Upgrade PC Memory:

Are your PCs running too slow? Does it cost too much for you to buy new ones? Rather than exceeding your budget, you can buy new memory for your PCs instead. It’s a simple install, and you can stretch the life of your PCs significantly (in most cases) just by upgrading memory.

4. Use Facebook Groups for Your Company Intranet:

While your company intranet doesn’t cost a lot to maintain, it is an expense you can eliminate entirely. All you have to do is use a Facebook group to share files, spread important news, and keep your team heading in the same direction. Credit this post at Information Week for that tip.

5. Buy Refurbished:

Are you the budget-conscious type who buys slightly used vehicles, knowing cars lose most of their value when bought new and driven off the lot? Well, the exact same technique works in technology – perhaps even better. IT support teams know the ropes on this, too, if you’re afraid to handle it on your own. Rather than buying the latest, greatest technology, buy what came out 6-12 months ago. And besides, by the time you buy the newest thing and learn how to make the best use of it in your company’s IT infrastructure, there’ll be something even newer and faster out on the market anyway.

It’s almost impossible to keep up unless you have a very healthy budget. Follow those 5 tips, and you’ll keep up with or stay ahead of other competing small businesses.

For more information about outsourcing your IT services:

Learn more about the author Bob Martin

By

Small Business IT Support: Ten Tips for A More Efficient Work Day

IT SupportThanks to our friends at Organizing 4 U, here are some tips that will make you a more efficient worker, and get all you need done in this shortened week of Thanksgiving.  Because even though the work week is shorter, there is no shortage of work! 

Ten Tips for A More Efficient Work Day:

  1. Start small. Pick a small space, a shelf, a drawer or file and organize it. Next, move on to a larger project.
  2. Sort and Toss. Start your organizing process by sorting what is to be kept, archived or tossed. Don’t be afraid to throw things away!
  3. Assign things a proper home. Think about where you are most likely to look this item, then put it there. Label files with titles that make sense to you.
  4. Prioritize your files. Keep items that you use daily close at hand; Store the less frequently used items further away. Maximize your vertical space.
  5. Choose a central mail location. Have a dedicated in-box for all incoming paper. An out-box is also recommended. Discard and sort mail and papers daily for two weeks and a good habit will be developed.

Want the other 5 tips?  Visit our friends at http://www.organizing4u.com/tips?file=workday to get the rest.

Have a wonderful Happy Thanksgiving from your Small Business IT Support Experts at Great Lakes Computer!

By

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.

By

5 Consequences for Law Firms Without Disaster Recovery Plans

Disaster RecoveryAccording to FEMA reports, 40% of businesses (or more) are affected by serious superstorms. For example, think of Hurricane Sandy. And unfortunately, many businesses, including law firms, find they are not prepared when a disaster like this strikes. In the case of Sandy, 31% of affected businesses still couldn’t operate – even 6 months after the storm! Some of those were law firms.

What would happen to yours if you were unable to operate for 6 months?

Here’s something even more frightening to think about: if a larger superstorm caused that much interruption, what would smaller disasters, like fires or power outages do?

Let’s talk about some of those consequences:

1. Lost clients:

So if your law firm has to spend months getting all of its data back so it can once again be operational, you’re going to miss court appearances. And if that happens, technically you’ve forfeited the client relationship. And that also leads to consequence #2:

2. Fines:

You can be fined for not appearing in court on your client’s behalf.

3. Lost Income:

Fines and missed client appointments – those damage your income. If it takes you months to recover from a disaster, what are you going to do about all that lost income? And what if you’re a single legal professional and not a firm with greater marketing resources? How are you going to make it through a period where you lose a significant amount of income?

4. Damaged Reputation:

How many years have you spent building your firm’s reputation? A decade? 2 decades? 3? You can instantly destroy all or most of it when you don’t serve your clients. How long do you think it would take to rebuild your reputation to the point where it would be as good as it once was?

5. Take This Estimate as An Example:

So nothing like Superstorm Sandy is ever going to hit you, right? That’s more than likely true. But look at it this way: Mike Robbins of Attorney at Law Magazine says having your computer network down just one hour per month costs you $60,000 in lost billable hours. That’s an estimated figure for a firm with 25 timekeepers that bill $200 per hour. Can you really afford something like that? Do You Have a Disaster Recovery Plan in Place?

So with all that being said, do you regularly audit your computer network to make sure it has a working disaster recovery plan for disasters large and small?

Learn More About Our Data Backup & Recovery Services

Learn more about the author Bob Martin

By

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!

Contact Us