22Jun 2022 by nathan

June 2022 News & Updates

CTC NEWS, Industry News, Monthly Newsletters, Tech news
Multiple Zero Day Vulnerabilities - Additional details below in the Microsoft Section but there were technically three critical vulnerabilities this month, one in NFS, one in Hyper-V and one in the Microsoft Diagnostic Tool. Microsoft is (finally) retiring Internet Explorer (IE) - A side impact of this is that Intuit Quickbooks, which has long used (required) the Internet Explorer web browser, now has it's own custom browser. Windows 11 is Here - Microsoft is wasting no time getting it's new flagship desktop operating system Windows 11 rolled out to (often) unsuspecting Windows 10 users. If you find yourself the recipient of an unexpected / involuntary upgrade to Windows 11, How-To Geek has put together an excellent article on downgrading back to Windows 10.The MyIT Program is proving to be a…
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15Apr 2022 by nathan

April 2022 News and Updates

CTC NEWS, Industry News, Monthly Newsletters, Tech news
Windows 11 is Here - Microsoft is wasting no time getting it's new flagship desktop operating system Windows 11 rolled out to (often) unsuspecting Windows 10 users. If you find yourself the recipient of an unexpected / involuntary upgrade to Windows 11, How-To Geek has put together an excellent article on downgrading back to Windows 10.Firewall as a Service - We are currently exploring an option to offer what we are calling a "Firewall as a Service" for commercial clients. This would effectively be a way to "rent" a managed firewall for a fixed monthly cost. There would be a nominal install cost as well as a monthly recurring cost to manage the firewall but no term agreement and the customer would not have to purchase the firewall. If you…
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28Mar 2022 by nathan

March 2022 News & Updates

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Now Hiring - We are currently looking to hire a Senior Support Specialist to join our team. This is a full time, permanent position and hours are generally Monday through Friday, 8:00am until 5:00pm ET. If you or someone you know would be a good fit for the position, there's an online application available here.Spike in network based attacks - I reported in late February (here) that we were seeing a spike in attack traffic from IP Addresses registered to Russian and Chinese organizations. We were seeing those attacks across multiple ISPs (Comcast, Charter, AT&T, etc.) and nationwide. The initial attacks seemed focused on brute force attacks against VPN portals. The volume of the attacks has slowed significantly and the targets seem to have widened (we're still seeing brute force…
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28Feb 2022 by nathan

Sharp rise in traffic to / from Russian and Chinese IP Addresses

CTC NEWS, Industry News, Tech news
One of the services that's included in all of our MyIT plans is a weekly review of the clients firewall logs. This tends to be a win / win for us and the customer because it gives the customer an additional layer of security for their environment and it gives us a very broad view of the threat landscape across a large geographic area and 20+ verticals ranging from construction to manufacturing to finance and entertainment. In most cases, there's a "low rumble" of generic threat traffic across the fleet and maybe a few stand-outs here and there. This week though, we have seen a significant spike in traffic from and to IP Addresses in Russia and China. Much of it has been from appliances like NVR / DVR devices,…
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17Feb 2022 by nathan

February 2022 News & Updates

CTC NEWS, Industry News, Monthly Newsletters, Tech news
Firewall as a Service - We are currently exploring an option to offer what we are calling a "Firewall as a Service" for commercial clients. This would effectively be a way to "rent" a managed firewall for a fixed monthly cost. There would be a nominal install cost as well as a monthly recurring cost to manage the firewall but no term agreement and the customer would not have to purchase the firewall. If you are interested in the Firewall as a Service program and / or would like information, let us know.Windows 11 is Here - Microsoft is wasting no time getting it's new flagship desktop operating system Windows 11 rolled out to (often) unsuspecting Windows 10 users. If you find yourself the recipient of an unexpected / involuntary…
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10Feb 2022 by nathan

AppRiver outage impacting email for some customers

Industry News, Tech news
We just received an email from AppRiver notifying us of an issue at one of the AppRiver Datacenters impacting email for some customers. I've posted a link to the status page from AppRiver below and we'll post any additional updates that we get that may not be on the status page on this post. 1234ET - At this time, it looks like mail flow has resumed and should be good to go. https://status.appriver.com/incidents/h7p8dq7gqx77
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21Jan 2022 by nathan

January 2022 News & Updates

CTC NEWS, Industry News, Monthly Newsletters, Tech news
Windows 11 is Here - Microsoft is wasting no time getting it's new flagship desktop operating system Windows 11 rolled out to (often) unsuspecting Windows 10 users. If you find yourself the recipient of an unexpected / involuntary upgrade to Windows 11, How-To Geek has put together an excellent article on downgrading back to Windows 10.The MyIT Program is proving to be a huge win for clients who are signing up for or renewing their Ransomware / Cyber Insurance plans. The MyIT Program is designed to address those important (but, sometimes, not as urgent) issues that seem to go undone until there's a problem (like testing your backup before a ransomware attack). In many cases, the regular maintenance items addressed by the MyIT Silver program address all of these (and…
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14Dec 2021 by nathan

December 2021 News & Updates

CTC NEWS, Industry News, Tech news
The holiday season is also prime season for other criminal activity like porch pirating, charity and phishing scams. If you'll be having packages delivered when you aren't home, it may be worth asking a trusted neighbor to watch for delivery (and then grab the package), getting a temporary mailbox (PO Box, UPS Store, etc.) or investing in one of the doorbell cameras to safeguard the delivery (or provide proof that it was stolen). If you're looking to give to charity, checking with a local Church or other charitable organization in your community may be a better option than replying to an email solicitation for donation or giving to a random but well-intentioned-looking stranger asking for a donation at a stoplight. Details on the Log4Shell Vulnerability - Log4Shell is a vulnerability…
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09Nov 2021 by nathan

November 2021 News and Updates – The Holidays are Upon Us

CTC NEWS, Industry News, Monthly Newsletters, Tech news
The November "Patch Tuesday" updates are often the last "big push" before the holidays with many shops preparing to take time off over the next several weeks. These often unattended systems can be a tempting and lucrative target for attackers, making it even more important to make certain that any and all available updates have been applied to everything from the workstations to the firewalls. The upcoming holiday season is also prime season for other criminal activity like porch pirating, charity and phishing scams. If you'll be having packages delivered when you aren't home, it may be worth asking a trusted neighbor to watch for delivery (and then grab the package), getting a temporary mailbox (PO Box, UPS Store, etc.) or investing in one of the doorbell cameras to safeguard…
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21Oct 2021 by nathan

Windows 11, time to install / upgrade?

CTC NEWS, Industry News, Tech news
Microsoft recently released Windows 11, it's latest flagship desktop operating system as a "free" upgrade and are aggressively recommending that users with potentially compatible hardware upgrade. Our standard policy with any major upgrade (operating system or otherwise) is to wait until at least the first major update to the product (service pack, feature update, etc.), until there's a need (your productivity software requires it, etc.) or the current version is being retired. If you are a home / residential user, the potential risk is generally low. The worst case is often that a piece of hardware (often a graphics or audio device) is not supported by the new version. Checking the system requirements will typically tell you if you'll run into problems or not (not always) but the "free" software…
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