05Nov 2024 by nathan

Happy Thanksgiving from Cyber Tech Cafe

CTC NEWS
Cyber Tech Cafe would like to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving! We will be closed on Thursday, 28 November 2024 and Friday, 29 November 2024 to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday with family, friends and loved ones. Any non-emergency support requests will be responded to on a first come, first served basis on Monday, 2 December 2024. Emergency support is available for our commercial and MyIT customer by choosing the emergency support option when via phone or by including the word "Emergency" in the subject. Please note the holiday rate will apply. From all of us here at Cyber Tech Cafe, we wish you and  yours a Happy Thanksgiving! Nathan and Kristy Underwood
Read More
31Oct 2024 by nathan

Email sent to Microsoft 365 is being incorrectly marked as phishing (Issue ID: EX921449)

CTC NEWS, Industry News
Microsoft has confirmed a bug in the Microsoft 365 Exchange component where emails to some users are being incorrectly marked as phishing emails and, in many cases, automatically deleted. Microsoft is aware of the issue and has taken measures to correct it but the issue is ongoing while the fix is moving through the Microsoft environment. This issue is impacting some emails into our helpdesk. We have taken steps to mitigate it but if you send an email to our helpdesk and do not get a response or acknowledgement within one hour, please call our office directly. I apologize for any inconvenience but, at this time, I believe that we are just waiting on the fix from Microsoft to make it's way through the Microsoft 365 environment but will post…
Read More
09Oct 2024 by nathan

October 2024 News & Updates

CTC NEWS, Industry News, Monthly Newsletters
Apple / Mac Security Updates - Once again, Apple is releasing an update to it's Mac OS 15 Sequoia to address a bug in last month's update that broke a number of security tools from vendors like CrowdStrike, SentinelOne and Microsoft. Basically, if you've got an Apple device, update it :) Project Lazarus - After the initial client testing of the Project Lazarus boot disk, the consensus is that it's not viable for non-technical users. The plan at this point is to keep it for internal use and we can provide a copy to any MyIT clients that would like one but the bulk rollout to all MyIT clients will likely be suspended. Client Forms - In an effort to make requesting support easier for common tasks (onboarding and offboarding…
Read More
25Sep 2024 by nathan

Preparing for inclement weather

CTC NEWS
Due to the anticipated arrival of inclement weather from Hurricane Helene, the state of Georgia is under a State of Emergency. No closures or scheduling changes are planned at this time but we will be monitoring power, weather and road conditions as the storm moves through the area and updating plans as needed to ensure the health and safety of our team. If there are any schedule changes or closures, we will post updates to our website here and to our social media (Facebook and X).
Read More
18Sep 2024 by nathan

September 2024 News and Updates

CTC NEWS, Industry News, Monthly Newsletters, Tech news
Apple / Mac Security Updates - In addition to the usual suspects, significant security updates have been released by Apple for multiple products including iOS / iPadOS 17.7, iOS / iPadOS 18, MacOS 13.7, 14.7 and 15, tvOS 18, watchOS 11, visionOS 2 and more. Additional info is available from CISA here. Basically, if you've got an Apple device, update it :) Microsoft Recall - The short version is that Microsoft Recall is apparently not as dead as we thought (hoped) that it was and I've not seen anyone state this better than Brian Krebs here. "...But last week, the software giant clarified that what it really meant was that the ability to disable Recall was a bug/feature in the preview version of Copilot+ that will not be available to…
Read More
27Aug 2024 by nathan

Closed 2 September 2024 for Labor Day

CTC NEWS
We will be closed on Monday, 2 September 2024 to enjoy the Labor Day holiday with friends, family and loved ones and will reopen during normal business hours on Tuesday, 3 September 2024.  Emergency support will be available for our commercial and MyIT clients.  If you need emergency support on Monday, simply include the word 'emergency' in the subject of your email to help@ctc.co or by noting it in your voicemail at 770.386.8900.
Read More
09Aug 2024 by nathan

August 2024 News and Updates

CTC NEWS, Industry News, Monthly Newsletters
Labor Day - Cyber Tech Cafe will be closed on Monday, 2 September 2024 in observance of Labor Day. CrowdStrike - I've had a lot of conversations with folks on this and believe that, in addition to the takeaways in the original post, there are three things that could have been done different. First, test the changes before you deploy it. In the case of the CrowdStrike incident, that likely would have saved the day. Second, fail gracefully. The bug caused an error at a very low level in Windows that prevented Windows from booting and required physical access to impacted systems to revive them. The fix was a very simple fix but it required physical access. Allowing the application to fail gracefully so that the systems was able to…
Read More
24Jul 2024 by nathan

Announcement – Project Lazarus

CTC NEWS
I alluded to it in my After Action Report for the CrowdStrike incident but one of the takeaways was that the fix was a relatively simple one but many administrators and support personnel were left without the ability to connect to the impacted computers. As a small MSP, this resonated with our team since a large scale event requiring a manual fix, like the CrowdStrike failure, impacting multiple client sites at once would be difficult for us to address quickly. It's still very much in the early stages but I'm excited to announce what we're calling Project Lazarus. Project Lazarus is a bootable USB drive that, as long as the hardware is still functional, will allow customers to boot the machine, connect to to the Internet and get our team…
Read More
22Jul 2024 by nathan
After Action Report – CrowdStrike

After Action Report – CrowdStrike

Industry News, Tech news
As many of you know, an issue with an update to CrowdStrike, a security platform installed on literally millions (if not billions) of computers worldwide, caused a global IT Outage on Friday and many organizations (and IT workers) are still feeling the sting of that outage today. The root issue appears to have been a bad configuration update from CrowdStrike that prevented affected systems from booting. We are thankful that none of our clients were directly impacted but the incident provides an excellent opportunity to "sharpen the saw" and update our internal processes. In this email, I'd like to quickly summarize what happened, some key things that we took away from the incident and some changes that we're making in as a result. What happened? CrowdStrike released a corrupt configuration…
Read More
10Jul 2024 by nathan

July 2024 News and Updates

CTC NEWS, Industry News, Monthly Newsletters, Tech news
Client Forms - In an effort to make requesting support easier for common tasks (onboarding and offboarding users, for example), we are launching a number of forms that clients can use to request support. Links to the forms are located at the top of our website under Client Forms. Windows Recall - We received a surprising amount of feedback on the blurb about Windows Recall in last months newsletter and, not surprisingly, literally none of it was positive. The common thread in all of the feedback was basically what are the alternatives? We don't really have a plan, just yet, but we do have some ideas. Expect more on this next month and, if you're concerned about Windows Recall for whatever reason (privacy, regulatory compliance, etc.), keep an eye out…
Read More