Coleman Technologies Blog

Preventing Phishing

Phishing has been becoming more and more of a favorite tactic by hackers, meaning that you and your employees need to look at any messages that come in via your email (or other solutions) with a critical eye. Here are some practices to help you minimize the influence of phishing on your business:

• Watch for “Urgent” messages (or, for that matter, “URGENT!!!!!!” ones). Many phishers will try to manufacture urgency to make sure you click without taking a moment to consider it may be an attack. Resist this knee-jerk response.
• Review in detail. Many phishing messages show distinct warning signs, such as blatant spelling or grammar errors (but this may just be the person you’re talking to as well). You can find other, more reliable signs by giving any links or the email address of the sender the “hover” test. Without clicking on anything, hover your cursor over the links and a small pop-up box will appear. This box will show you the address that really sent the email, or the link that you would actually be redirected to. Check to make sure all the details are kosher. For these reasons, it’s recommended that you don’t click on any links in emails. Instead, retype the URL into your web browser.
• Double-check with the sender. If you have access to another means of communication with the supposed sender of an email, reach out to them using that other means to confirm that they sent it. If they didn’t, it’s a pretty safe bet that the email is fraudulent.
• When in doubt, assume the worst. If you just aren’t sure how legitimate a given email is, don’t click around in it. Assume that it is a phishing attempt, and report it to your IT provider.

Establishing Safe Browsing Habits

Unfortunately, there are plenty of threats that reside online, and it is only too easy for a user to unwittingly allow them in. Make sure your users abide by the following policies to minimize the threats you’ll potentially need to deal with.

• Think before you click. Similarly to links found in emails, there are plenty of opportunities online to let in a threat. Consider what you’re clicking on before you do so. (The “hover” trick works well here too… check out the bottom of the window.)
• Reserve business computers for business purposes. Non-work-related browsing can bring users to websites that can host threats without the user realizing. Discourage your users from surfing the web, downloading content, and doing other things online unless they are work-related.
• Moderate access. Use firewalls and content filtering to keep unwanted content off of your network, and users from accessing unwanted content, respectively.
• Trust your IT resource. If you are even the slightest bit unsure about something, whether it’s a program you’ve been prompted to install or making sure your settings are focused on maintaining security, reach out to IT for assistance.

Enforcing Strong Passwords

It seems that everything requires a password these days, which makes it all the more important that you and your users are aware of how to keep them safe - especially in the workplace.

• Don’t recycle passwords. Once a password has been used and replaced, it is best to not use it again - this is why you’ll often find a “you have used this password too recently” message if you attempt to use it again within a certain timeframe. This is the same reason that passwords should not be used for more than one account - if that password is compromised, you’ve just lost control of multiple accounts.
• Avoid easily-guessed passwords. As a way to try and come up with a password that is easy to remember, many people will resort to using common elements in their password - pet names, maiden names, birthdays or anniversaries - or use a simple phrase or a string of numbers. The entire point of a password is to make it so that others are unable to access one of your accounts, so making it something that can be guessed is counter-productive.
• Consider leveraging passphrases instead. Passphrases are not only typically more secure than a password, they also have a tendency to be more memorable. Let me ask you this… which of these two would you find more memorable, “F4njUJ29S5” or “pearquiethigh?” You can also use basic substitution to make you passphrase more secure, turning our example into “pe@rqu!e+h!gh” instead.
• Use a password manager. One of the main reasons that people reuse passwords so often and neglect to change them is the fact that they are scared of forgetting them. A password manager can help reduce this by securely saving all of your different passwords behind one master password. 

Protecting Your Business’ Data

Finally, there are many threats out there to your business’ data - including any you have on your clients or your employees. You have a responsibility to yourself, as well as these clients and employees, to make sure that this data is as secure as possible.

• Make sure your business’ data is backed up. There are so, so, so many ways that your business could lose its data. While it may be attacked, it could just as (if not more) easily be lost due to equipment failure, user error, weather conditions… the list goes on and on. If your on-site data is lost, you will want to make sure you have an up-to-date copy squirreled away in the cloud to reference.
• Protect your assets with access control. You need to be concerned about both the security of your digital files, and of your actual business location. If you’re using multi/two-factor authentication to secure your online resources, or requiring identity confirmation in order to enter certain areas of the business… you need to be doing both.
• Maintain your security solutions. The thing about security software is that it isn’t something that you can just set up and count on indefinitely. Attackers are always examining these solutions to find vulnerabilities, so it is important that you regularly update and patch the ones you use to keep them safe. Every solution you have should actually be set up with security in mind. A glaring example is your company’s wireless. Not only should that be secured with a password, it should be hidden away from outside users.
• Keep your payment options compliant. For your sake, and the sake of your clients, you should make sure your business is compliant to whatever regulatory standards that apply to it… including the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).

Following these guidelines is a great start to ensuring your company’s security. Coleman Technologies can help get you this far, and beyond. Reach out to us at (604) 513-9428 to learn more about what we can do.

The two vulnerabilities were patched off of Microsoft’s typical “patch Tuesday” due to the urgency. Most Microsoft patches are released on the second Tuesday of the month. The fact that these two were released ahead of time might seem like an insignificant occurrence, but the reality is this event is a major red flag.

Internet Explorer Zero-Day

The most significant patch was for a zero-day vulnerability that was found in Internet Explorer. It may be hard to believe, but people are indeed still using this antique browser to surf the web. The term zero-day suggests that the vulnerability that was discovered, had already been exploited by ill-minded cybercriminals. 

While not much information has been released on the event, Microsoft did call it a remote code execution exploit that, if accessed, could have given a user control of another user’s account. The attack requires phishing someone who is exploring the internet on Internet Explorer, and luring them onto a malicious website. Once there, an attacker would be able to gain access over the victim. 

Internet Explorer is such a forgotten browser that the event did not spark a lot of controversy. This is largely due to the fact that Internet Explorer makes up just two percent of the active market share. However, for the relatively small amount of users that continue to surf, an event like this is still a huge disaster. 

Microsoft Defender DOS Bug

The second patch that Microsoft expedited was a denial of service vulnerability in Microsoft Defender. The antivirus program comes standard in all Windows 10 PCs, and truly is the core of Windows 10’s sterling security record. 

The bug that was discovered wasn’t necessarily obvious, or easily exploitable. In order to do so, the attacker would need the ability to read, understand, and write code. Doing so would allow them to disable Windows Defender components, giving the attacker access. This would give them free rein to do whatever malicious act they chose to deploy. 

Patches aren’t optional. If you are worried about your business’ vulnerability, speak to one of our experts at Coleman Technologies. We have the know-how to keep your software up to date. Give us a call at (604) 513-9428 today! 

Here, we’ll review the basic experiences that this scam subjects a user to as it sets the trap… and, of course, what your business can do to avoid these threats.

How Users Can Be Scammed

Put yourself in the shoes of a targeted user for a moment: just like any other day, you access your Gmail account and discover what looks like a Google Calendar invite. The invite is apparently for some kind of company-wide meeting (probably to discuss the company’s trajectory, policy changes, or something like that) to take place at the end of the workday. The message includes a link to the complete agenda, which can be accessed once a user confirms their credentials. You do so… and in doing so, fall for a scam.

This scam can be pretty safely categorized as “brilliant in its simplicity,” much like other phishing attacks can be nowadays. By using Google’s own convenience-based features, a fraudulent calendar event can be automatically added to a user’s Google Calendar, notifying the user. Fraudulent links send the user to a faked Google login page, where the user’s credentials are stolen as they attempt to log in. Alternatively, the link just begins installing malware directly to the targeted system. This scam has also proved effective against private users - informing them of some fabulous cash prize they’ve “won” through these fake Calendar entries.

How the Scam Was Uncovered

As it turns out, the details of this scam were reported to Google by an IT security firm in 2017, but Google has not made any steps to resolve it until recently.

The firm stumbled upon this discovery when a coworker’s flight itinerary appeared in an employee’s Google Calendar. From there, the researcher realized the implications of this accidental discovery, and quickly determined that users just don’t anticipate phishing attacks to come in through their Calendar application.

Can This Scam Be Stopped?

Now that Google has acknowledged the issue, a fix is currently being developed as of this writing. Until the point that a successful fix is deployed, you need to make sure your users are protected against this vulnerability.

The first thing they need to do is ensure that no Gmail events are automatically added to their Google Calendar. Under Settings in the Google Calendar application, they need to access their Event settings. From there, they need to deselect the option to Automatically add events to my calendar from their Events from Gmail.

To disable invitations to events from automatically adding themselves to the Google Calendar, a user needs to go through the same process, this time switching the Automatically add invitations option to the much safer “No, only show invitations to which I have responded.”

With any luck, this - combined with a little vigilance from your users - will protect your business from a phishing attack via its schedule. To learn more about how to protect your business against a variety of threats, subscribe to our blog, and give Coleman Technologies a call at (604) 513-9428.

IT Security

Let’s start with IT security because it’s undeniably important if you want to maintain not just IT regulatory compliance, but business on your own terms. IT security, like the act of complying with regulations, is an act of risk mitigation. In the case of IT security, the risks are many and complex. You have the risk of operational issues like downtime. You have the risk of system corruption from hackers and other outside entities who are trying to break through (or in) and get access to your assets. There is also internal risk to physical systems, central computing infrastructure, and every endpoint on the network.  

In IT security, the amount of risk often dictates what kind of action is necessary, since reacting to the problems themselves isn’t a viable option. Thus, when protecting your network from threats, you will likely have to be much more comprehensive about your attention to detail as you would even under the most strictest compliance standards.

IT Compliance

Compliance also is all about minimizing risk, but to stay compliant, it’s more about focusing on following set-in-stone rules than it is about keeping systems secure. Most of the regulations that have been passed down by a government entity, third-party security framework, or customer contract have very specific requirements. This gives network administrators a punch-list of tasks that need to happen to keep their organization’s IT compliant with their various IT mandates. 

Insofar as it works to maintain digital asset security, many regulations are created to ensure that risky behavior is not introduced, while others are very specific about what data needs to be protected, and what systems need protection. In fact, some regulations barely touch the IT infrastructure, only dictating that the business purchase regulation-compliant hardware. 

Where Your Company Stands

Compliance standards typically depend on which vertical market your business does business in, or more specifically, how it uses sensitive information in the course of doing business. That doesn’t speak to your organization’s complete IT security strategy. In order to keep all of your digital (and physical) assets secure, there needs to be a dedicated plan to do it. After all, today the user is the most common breach point. 

With that truth it is important for the business that operates under the watchful eyes of a regulatory body to understand that you may be compliant, but still be at risk. It’s important that aside from meeting all the compliance standards set forth by your industry’s regulatory mandates, you need to put together a cybersecurity strategy that prioritizes the ongoing training of your endpoint operators. 

At Coleman Technologies, our technicians are experts in modern compliance standards and cybersecurity. Our team can work to simultaneously build an IT infrastructure, the policies to govern that infrastructure, and the endpoint monitoring and protection solution that will keep your business secure from threats, while also being compliant to any mandated regulations your business is under. Call us today at (604) 513-9428 to learn more.

Some of the best cybersecurity methods are practices developed over the past few years. This is because social engineering, specifically phishing, has become a major problem. There are billions of phishing emails sent each year, and some of those are so convincing that even people who have had some basic cybersecurity training fall victim to them. To fight this, security firms have started to look to tomorrow’s technologies to help them mitigate risk today. 

Artificial Intelligence - The Future of Cybersecurity 

One of the most effective ways of combating this rise in hacking is to use the most dynamic technology you have access to and make a tool that will help you mitigate the massive risks. One way is to reduce the effectiveness of these hacks. In this case the technology is artificial intelligence.

When we talk about artificial intelligence, we are talking about having a machine that learns as it is continually exposed to threats. This will work to solve common issues at first, but as these systems advance, and are exposed to user behaviors, they will be able to replace access management systems. Since the AI will be constantly monitoring systems, as well as user behaviors, workplace roles, and common actions, it will be able to recognize a person without, the need for password-protected accounts and creating ubiquitously secure endpoints. If the system recognized any deviations, an additional form of authentication such as biometrics would grant or deny access. 

Cost will initially be a factor for businesses, especially small and medium-sized businesses, but as large companies begin to truly trust these platforms, they will have viable endpoint-protection systems for small businesses. 

Cybercrime Accelerates with 5G

5G and beyond will bring a lot of changes to the user experience, of course, but it will also make huge changes to cybersecurity. Before long, the AI systems that are being developed to thwart today’s cyberthreats will become essential systems for the sustainability of mobile computing. Just think about how much cyberthreats have multiplied over the past decade after the jump from 3G to 4G. The jump to 5G isn’t going to any less dramatic.

It will be crucial for cybersecurity professionals to be able to leverage systems that are both ubiquitously available to search through large streams of data while also being capable of learning on the fly in order to ascertain what data is potentially malicious and what data is less so.

Luckily there are still years before these types of systems will be needed. Unfortunately, there are enough threats out there to be a major problem going forward. The IT professionals at Coleman Technologies can help you protect your hardware and data. Give us a call at (604) 513-9428 today!