Stay Safe from Phishing Attacks and Online Scams this Holiday Season

Stay Safe from Phishing Attacks and Online Scams this Holiday Season

If you are reading this post, it means you were not given the Mufasa treatment while trying to take home that 65" LED flat-screen earlier this morning. Yes, leaving in its wake ransacked shelves and obstacle courses of discarded items, Black Friday is officially here, marking the beginning of the holiday shopping insanity.

This time of year is a feeding frenzy for hackers and cybercriminals hungry to exploit the large volume of E-commerce purchases. With online shopping season in full swing, are you practicing safe online habits? A new infographic by ZeroFOX depicts that 64% of organizations report an increase in cybercrime during the holiday season, and phishing links go up as much as 336% after Thanksgiving. 

What scams should you be on the lookout for over the next month?

First, let's look at the tactics successful cybercriminals employ when casting their reels...

What are Different Phishing Techniques Used by Attackers?

The scope of phishing attacks is constantly expanding, but frequent offenders tend to:

• Embed a link in an email that redirects the user to an unsecured website that requests sensitive information
• Install a Trojan via a malicious email attachment or ad which will allow the intruder to exploit loopholes and obtain sensitive information
• Spoof the sender address in an email to appear as a reputable source and request sensitive information
• Attempt to obtain company information over the phone by impersonating a known company vendor or IT department

How Can You Avoid Phishing Attacks?

1. Don't reveal personal or financial information in an email.

Furthermore, make sure not to respond to email solicitations for this information. This includes clicking on links sent in these emails. If you are unsure call the entity or access their website directly and not through the link in the email. Banks and other financial institutions will NEVER request sensitive data via email. 

2. Before sending sensitive information over the Internet, check the security of the website.

Are they practicing safe browsing habits? Check for the encrypted lock icon in your browser to ensure the site is secure. 

3. Pay attention to the website's URL.

Not all emails or email links seem phishy, and you may be lured into a false sense of security. Many malicious websites fool end users by mimicking legitimate websites. One way to sniff this out is to look at the URL (if it's not hidden behind non-descript text). You may be able to detect and evade the scheme by finding variation in spellings or a different domain (e.g., .com versus .net).

4. Verify suspicious email requests by contacting the company they're believed to be from directly.

If say you receive an email from Wells Fargo that seems to be off, reach out to the bank with their inquiry. Contact the company using information provided on an account statement or via their actual website, NOT information provided in the email. 

5. Keep a clean machine. 

Having the latest operating system, software, web browsers, antivirus protection and apps are the best defenses against viruses, malware, and other online threats. Our nology networks Business Care service does just that to keep your machines protected from many threats. 

Email phishing is a 24x7x365 security concern you must be knowledgeable of, but with today kicking off the holiday shopping season, be prepared for an influx of malicious activity.  

How Can I Stay Safe With Online Holiday Shopping?

Scammers can be lurking with bogus websites and fake emails to steal victims' money and identities. As such:

1. Be wary of emails with enticing sales. 

As we covered above, following links from phony e-mail is one of the oldest methods for perpetrating any online scam. This holiday season, attackers will attempt to fool clients with messages teasing unbeatable sales at known sites, like Best Buy and Amazon. Make sure your end users don't click these links. Instead, open your Web browser, enter the URL to the site offering these discounts and search for these "steals of a deal" manually. If they can't find the amazing offer, it's likely a scam.

2. Shop only on websites they know and trust.

With many retailers offering deep discounts, sometimes as much as 50 percent, it may be tough to figure out which deals are too good to be true.

3. Secure your purchases.

You should only enter credit card details on web pages that use SSL (secure sockets layer) security. To determine this, check to see that the URL for the page begins with "https://" and not "http://." That "s" lets you know the site is secure. Most browsers will also show a lock icon in the lower right corner of the browser window to let you know you're on a secure site.

4. Pay with credit cards only. 

If you can pay for online purchases with a credit card as opposed to a wire transfer or other non-plastic payment method. Federal laws let you dispute an item on your credit card bill if you don't receive your purchase, and many credit card providers also have "zero liability" policies meaning you're off the hook if a bad guy gets your credit card and starts using it.

5. Use different passwords across multiple sites. 

Attackers will use the same user name/email and password combinations harvested in an attack across multiple sites. These cybercriminals freely trade this information and have the time and resources to try the combinations against multiple sites.

6. Create a "throw away email account."

All of the major email services like Gmail and Yahoo allow you to create free email accounts. Consider creating an email account just for this year's shopping and stop using it after the holidays. Furthermore, use this email address as your user name for all online transactions that require one. This will reduce SPAM in your primary email accounts, and help keep attackers from gaining access and obtaining sensitive data shared there.

Need help understanding the state of cybercrime or how to protect yourself and your business? Contact nology (Minneapolis / St. Paul IT Support and Consulting) today for a free network security assessment and report.

Happy Holidays! 

Should you upgrade? What's new in Office 2016?

What's New and Improved in Office 2016

With Office 2016, you'll get new features and benefits. Are these features important to you? Will they impact your business positively? Read more to see if it makes sense to upgrade. 

Click on each of the applications below to learn about what's new and if those new features mater to you: 

       

Need advise or want to discuss upgrading for your business? Contact nology anytime to learn more. 

Powerful Solutions for Retail and Hospitality

Powerful Solutions for Retail and Hospitality

At nology, we power today’s restaurant and retail environments.

Most people don't know us as specializing in multi-site retail and hospitality, but we do!

As a leading provider of cloud solutions for retailers. We provide customized technology solutions that are Payment Card Industry (PCI) certified.

At nology, we offer a full range of business technology services designed for retailers, including nationwide Voice over IP and phone services, Unified Communications, Business-class Broadband, Private Networking, Managed Security, Managed WiFi, and Cloud services.

Private Networking: Connect Your Locations Securely

With nology, you can consolidate business applications and securely connect locations and headquarters on a single, private network. Mix and match access types based on your location needs and your budget. We can serve as your single source of contact and manage every aspect of the process.

PCI Compliance: Ensure Data Security

Ensure the security of your card transactions and don't be a headline. As a provider that knows PCI, nology offers compliance services including managed network security, intrusion detection and prevention, and vulnerability scanning capabilities to help retailers achieve and maintain compliance.

Managed Security Services: Secure Your Data and Your Network

We offer managed network services that address the network security needs of multiple stores, regional offices, headquarters and the remote access needs of a widely distributed workforce. Offering Managed Security Services is just the beginning. We can deliver a comprehensive, multi-layer unified threat management platform to detect, block, log, and prevent cyber-attacks.

Mobility Solutions: Empower your Mobile Workforce

Give regional store managers and other road warriors the freedom to make and receive calls, IM, SMS Text, Screen Share and more using their Business VoIP number on any device including their PC softphone and smartphone. Employees can also gain secure access to email, data, and network resources, regardless of their location or the device in use.

Managed WiFi: Attract More Customers; Connect Employees

Free WiFi keeps customers on site longer and builds brand loyalty. Deploy a secure public network for your customers along side a private wireless network for employees and enable them to roam the store while using their hand-held point-of-sale devices to serve customers.

Managed WiFi is a fully managed, turnkey service where nology designs the network, provides the access points, manages the service remotely and provides customer support so you don’t have to.

Hosted Voice and Unified Communications: Empower Employees

Enable store staff to take calls from the retail floor and empower office staff to get more done using powerful features not available with traditional phone systems, including Instant Messaging, SMS Text, Screen Share and more.

Managed Failover Service: Diverse Connectivity for Always-On Business

Gain a resilient, continuous connection to access your data, support your applications, process your transactions, and serve your customers in the event your primary Internet connection is interrupted.

Business-class Internet: Get Affordable Internet Access Company-wide

At nology, we are a leading nationwide provider of business-class Internet connectivity options. You can select the service that’s best suited for each store location while managing one bill and one point of contact. Affordable connectivity services include Ethernet, DSL, T1, DS3, Cable, Satellite, and Wireless.

Cloud Services: Outsource the Hosting of your Back-office Applications

Minimize on-premises infrastructure with nology Cloud Services. Cloud Hosting, Data Backup, Hosted Email (Microsoft Exchange) and Hosted Applications help businesses reduce costs, scale as they grow, and offload the maintenance burden.

One Provider, Many Business Services: One Bill and One Call for Support

When you consolidate business services with a single provider, you reduce vendor management overhead. Simplify your world, get best in class support, and pay one bill across all of your locations.

Want to lean more, schedule a free consultation, or tour our industry leading Tier 4 data centers? Give one of our solution consultants a call, they would love to speak with you. 

Sales and Support  - 612-339-0838 - 800-809-6411 - solutions@nologynetworks.com

Six Benefits of Hosted Desktop for Remote Workers

Imagine if you had secure access to all of your applications and all of your data without purchasing any actual PCs for your office. Access would be secure from anywhere, at any time, with lower costs for software, hardware, and help desk support. In addition, there are six key benefits to deploying Cloud Hosted Desktops in your business:

Flexibility to Work Anywhere

Hosted desktop gives employees the freedom to get their work done on any device – inside or outside the office. They can connect to their virtual desktop using their office or home PC, tablet, laptop or smartphone to access work files, emails and more.

Competitive Hiring Advantage

The current generation entering the workforce expects to have the ability to use their own devices whenever they want or need to. A flexible BYOD plan attracts these younger workers, offering a competitive hiring advantage for companies seeking new talent.

Move CapEx to OpEx

Hosted desktop eliminates capital expenditures (CapEx) for new servers and moves to a predictable, monthly cost. This makes CFOs happy because they can classify the cost as an operating expense (OpEx).

More Devices at Less Cost

A hosted desktop strategy allows a company to support more devices without additional cost. The subscription-based model eliminates licensing waste and means the company only pays for actual users.

Keep Confidential Company Information Secure

With a service provider-hosted desktop, the office desktop is kept completely separate from other personal applications and data on the mobile device. This keeps critical work files safe and sound by storing them in a secure, central repository off the local device's storage.

Control User Permissions

Administrator can set permissions that restrict end users from downloading unapproved documents and applications to their PCs.

nDesk from nology networks offers all these benefits and more to your small business. Contact us to learn more about Cloud Hosted Desktops from the leader in secure Minneapolis based cloud solutions. 

Are you still babysitting your backups?

Are you still babysitting your backups? When was the last time you tested a restore? Stop doing it the hard way and let us help you protect your business.

If you are already backing up files, databases, images, etc to the cloud; awesome.  If you are still sold on tape backups because you wouldn’t relinquish your data from your cold, dead hands, then we probably need to have another conversation. Either way, are you babysitting them?

If your backups are legitimately failing or encountering errors, how many hours do you spend fixing this issue? If your backup system works, how many hours do you spend watching and testing it to be sure?  And more importantly, how much does that cost you? I’ve talked to many businesses who have dedicated staff just to monitor backups or have assigned this task to an admin or receptionist.  That’s almost insane when you consider that backups are supposed to give you peace of mind, not more problems.

Enter nDR (nology Data Replication). nDR is an image based backup and recovery service with no babysitter required. One of the beautiful things about image-level backup is it’s nearly foolproof. You back up on the volume level and won’t “forget” to select a certain folder or directory as the entire server or desktop is backed up in a single image up to 96 times per day! Finally, in a recovery scenario, you have the flexibility of Bare Metal restoration meaning if your server fails, you have almost zero downtime. That's right, zilch, nada, nothing. The nDR services works as a temporary server preventing you from having any downtime.

Our take is that backup and disaster recovery should just work without worry. Leave the babysitting jobs to teenagers and take control of your backup and recovery with nDR from nology networks. 

Lync is becoming Skype for Business!

Skype® for Business is replacing Lync as the premiere chat, video conferencing, and screen-sharing application for businesses. We have been hard at work testing the client, and we are excited to share some new updates with you!

The Skype for Business client is now available. Existing clients should see the software update and change over the next few weeks with no work required.  Although there won’t be any feature improvements, we expect this to be exciting for many of you who enjoy the familiarity of the Skype interface but want the powerful encryption and added features of Lync. 

The launch of Skype for Business Server, which will include feature enhancements, is targeted for mid-July. We’ll be providing more information as we get closer to the launch date.

If you're interested in adding Skype of Business to your cloud services, contact your account manager at 612.339.0838 or solutions@nologynetworks.com. 

It's beginning! We're more than quadrupling our Minneapolis data center capacity.

Our capacity is growing in order to better serve the demands of our clients in a data-centric world. With the fast growth and ease of small businesses moving to the cloud, demand for anywhere, anytime access to critical business data is at an all time high and growing.

We are pleased to announce that we are nearing completion of our data center upgrade project in the 511 11th Building in downtown Minneapolis. We are adding 400% capacity for virtual servers, cloud desktops, hosted Exchange email, data backup, and cloud storage. In addition, we will have increased collocation capacity for business needing as little as 1U to multiple full racks. 

With this additional capacity, comes multiple infrastructure improvements including:

• SSD Caching - Increases performance using solid state drives which are the fastest in the industry. 
• Software Defined Storage - Storage that is fault and failure tolerant ensuring we can continue to deliver 100% Up-time Service Level Agreements to our clients. 
• VMWare 6 - The latest and greatest software that runs our services behind the curtain. 

At nology, we are committed to delivering the best to our clients and setting ourselves apart from the cloud providers who are "good enough". Our data center is a unique Tier 4 enterprise-grade facility, strategically located in downtown Minneapolis, with direct access to more network service providers than any other data center in the Upper Midwest. All new services will continue to meet SOC2 Type2 (SSAE16) standards as well as HIPAA compliance. 

We can't wait to give you a tour.