Phishing Attacks in 2021 Trending Due To Pandemic

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Hackers have made some nefarious choices over the past several months. Many of which involve using the COVID-19 pandemic to spread their influence and steal data through phishing attacks. Let’s explore how these cybercriminals have leveraged a global disaster to their benefit and some ways that you can keep your business secure.

According to SecureList, spam and phishing trends in Q1 of 2021 were heavily influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, and not in a good way. Here are a few examples of the major threats that surfaced during this time.

Stimulus Payment Scandals

Early 2021 saw many initiatives by government agencies to suppress the financial burden placed on individuals and businesses. This was done through the use of economic impact payments and business bailouts. Hackers, of course, wanted to capitalize on this and began using phishing messages to trick people. Targets received messaging that was often specific to their bank and utilized similar branding to official websites. These efforts were all elaborate tricks to convince users to hand over their credentials. Users would unsuspectingly enter their credentials into forms on these fake websites and put their sensitive information at risk.

The Vaccine Race

Back when the COVID-19 vaccine was in short supply or the supply itself was limited to specific groups of people, there was a bit of a race to get to it. This rush created an opportunity for hackers to capitalize on peoples’ desires for security and safety. Thus, they leveraged phishing schemes that used the vaccine to their advantage. They would use language and branding of official health organizations to convince users to click on links in emails. Then, they would redirect users to fake websites for harvesting credentials or banking information. Even those who got the vaccine received surveys offering free goods in exchange for information.

What You Can Do

It’s no surprise that cybercriminals are using these tricks to subvert security measures. These types of attacks are just more of a string of phishing attacks that must be kept up with in order to maintain network security. Here are a couple of ways that you can make this happen.

  • Utilize Spam Protection: While they aren’t 100 percent effective all the time, spam filters are great for keeping threats out of your inbox. The most advanced phishing attacks could still make their way into your inbox. Therefore, we recommend taking multiple measures of network security.
  • Train Your Employees: If messages do make it past your spam filter, you will want those who are reading the messages—your employees—to be able to identify the threat and avoid it at all costs. This is where training comes in.
  • Implement Unified Threat Management: Unfortunately, even the best employees will make mistakes, so you will want to have a contingency plan in place for when accidents happen. A UTM gives you just that with a single all-in-one security solution for your network security.

4Corner IT can help your business approach network security in a responsible manner, implementing the best solutions and constantly testing your employees’ awareness of important security practices. To learn more about how we can help you protect your business, reach out to us at (954) 474-2204.

5 Reasons Remote Monitoring and Maintenance is Essential

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While reliable technology support has always been important, the sudden and widespread adoption of remote work by so many businesses has made it an essential component for an organization’s success. However, for your team members to have technology that continues to serve them as they do so, it is important that they are able to receive the same support as they would in the office. To accomplish this, remote monitoring and maintenance has proven to be a critical resource, providing a litany of benefits. Let’s go into what these benefits are, and how they take shape through the implementation of this method of receiving support.

What is Remote Monitoring and Maintenance (RMM)?

As a managed service provider, a considerable portion of our responsibility is to be sure that our clients’ technology is operating as it should. To do so, a methodology known as remote monitoring and maintenance is employed.

RMM solutions give our team the capability to keep track of our clients’ technology solutions from a distance, thereby enabling us to diagnose, mitigate, and resolve many IT issues that would otherwise cause operational headaches (or worse). As such, we can deliver considerable value to those we serve. With our real-time monitoring tools, many issues can be detected before their impacts become noticeable.

This, in turn, translates to considerable benefits. Let’s go over these benefits now, to demonstrate how RMM supplements a business’ operations:

Proactive Maintenance, and All That Comes With It

Our services as an MSP are all about embracing proactivity whenever the opportunity arises, and remote monitoring and maintenance is the perfect vehicle to this very outcome. Our solutions will keep an eye on your infrastructure, alerting our team at the first sign of an issue and enabling us to solve it—often before you or your team members realize that an issue is present.

In addition to active issue resolution, this proactive maintenance means that we’ll also keep track of any updates that are available for your solutions and apply them appropriately.

Minimized Downtime

As any business owner knows, “downtime” is technically a four-letter word in the workplace. Depending on the severity of the event, even a brief instance can incur significant financial costs. Thanks to the inherent proactivity of RMM, most downtime events can be avoided (and their financial repercussions sidestepped) so that your business processes are effectively untouched by any issues.

Improved Security

RMM can also help you to keep your business better protected against threats. One of the primary reasons that cyberattacks can get to be so severe is that many are not detected until long after the fact.

However, with remote monitoring in place, our team of professionals can be alerted of even the smallest sign of a potential breach. This puts us in place to resolve the underlying problem and keep your business safe.

Ensured Productivity

Let’s jump back to the impacts of minimizing downtime for a moment. One of the most important, and most prioritized, aspects in any business is the level of productivity that can be maintained. Eliminating your downtime is one of the few ways to do so that can have a 100 percent impact on your productivity. The fewer issues your employees encounter, the more they will be able to accomplish—something that our proactive maintenance facilitates.

Streamlined Cost of Ownership

Everyone likes to save money, right? Unfortunately, a lot of the technology that a business relies on can swiftly cause costs to rise expeditiously. A lot of this is due to the combination of maintenance needs after the fact, and the downtime that is incurred in the meantime.

However, by avoiding this by means of proactive maintenance through a predictable and budgeted service, these costs can be reduced significantly, helping your business that much more.

If you’re interested in finding out more about the benefits that remote monitoring and maintenance provide—or you’d like to experience them for yourself—give 4Corner IT a call at (954) 474-2204.

How to: Use Windows 10’s Screenshot Tool

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The screenshot is one of the great tools that users can use to capture information in their browsers. If you are using a PC, you have access to many of them. Once you set one, you can typically use the Print Screen key to capture the image. Today, there is a Snip & Sketch tool that provides better functionality and is much easier to use.

How to Use Snip & Sketch for Screenshots

Snip & Sketch is integrated right into Windows, not a browser. It provides users with several screenshot options that you can access by pressing Windows Key+Shift+S. Here is a list of the available options:

  1. A basic box selection, allowing you to click and drag to encompass your selection
  2. A freeform selection, allowing you to draw out your boundary
  3. Window snip, allowing you to select an active monitor to screenshot
  4. Fullscreen snip, taking the place of the Print Screen key, allowing you to take a picture of all your monitors simultaneously

This tool gives you a wider range of useful options than most of today’s screenshot programs and it can be used throughout Windows to capture images.

We hope you can use this extremely useful tool to make your “screenshotting” needs easier. If you like the tips and tricks we provide, return to our blog weekly!

Tip of the Week: How to Engage Remote Meeting Participants

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Over the last few months, many businesses have had to hurriedly adopt remote work as an alternative to in-house operations. While many have done so successfully, it isn’t uncommon for certain elements to trip them up, including remote meetings. As these meetings are likely to continue for the foreseeable future, we wanted to share a few tips on how to engage remote meeting participants.

Boost Engagement with Responsibility

The experience that participants of an in-person meeting have is naturally going to be very different than it would be in a remote meeting. The natural flow of conversation is interrupted by the limits of the very tool that enables the conversation to take place at all. This can lead to inconsistent participation and side conversations taking place… bad enough in person, but debilitating to a remote session. Preparing an agenda ahead of time and giving each participant something that they will be responsible for during the meeting can help to minimize the chances of this.

Streamline Your Meeting

Just as is the case in person, a remote meeting that involves too many people can be counterproductive and ineffective when collaboration is the goal. With an overly large group, there are just too many potential distractions to derail your efforts. Lagging technology and excessive background noise can swiftly diminish a meeting’s value, so to minimize the chances of this happening, resist the urge to pack your meetings and stick to those whose presence is essential. This also helps to add to the engagement that participants can have, as a smaller group offers more opportunities to speak.

Disable Muting

When someone has muted themselves during a remote meeting, they have effectively disengaged from the conversation. Consider it: by muting themselves, they can no longer contribute, and there’s the potential that they could allow their attention to wander more easily. While briefly muting can help to minimize interruptions, it should not be sustained longer than necessary when meeting.

How have your remote meetings gone? What have you done to make the most of them? Share your approach in the comments!

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Reopening Your Organization: Key Steps to Take

key steps to take before reopening your organization

While many states have at least partially opened, it remains to be seen if they will continue a steady pace forward to an eventual full reopening. Or conversely, if they will decide to pull back for a time. In other words, the process of recovering from a world-wide pandemic seems to be a process of two steps forward, and one step backward. Thankfully, many organizations have employed creative and innovative methods to keep their doors open as much as possible. All while protecting both employees and the clients they serve.

For those who may have gotten off to a shaky start, we will provide some helpful tips on how to make reopening your organization as smooth as possible.

Employee Safety First

While customers may come and go as they like, employees are obligated to remain in the workspaces their employer provides. Of course, organizations must follow government guidelines. These define how many people are allowed within a building at the same time. Employers may need to expand the distance between employee workstations, whether they spend most of their time sitting or standing. It’s also a good idea to keep up with the latest information regarding PPE (personal protection equipment). Allowing you to determine whether employees have the correct instructions on how to wear their various forms of protection. 

Stay Flexible When Reopening Your Organization

Many companies allowed their employees to work remotely right from the beginning of the pandemic. However, some have found they need at least some of their employees to work within their physical buildings. Still, some employees may have pre-existing health conditions that put them at a higher risk. Additionally, they could have a family member who is in a high-risk group.

In a normal world, it may be advantageous to have these people back in the office. However, if they do get sick, it will add an extra burden to their physical and mental health. Also, at best, they’ll still be required to quarantine for a two-week period. Now is the time to remain flexible. You must also realize it might not be possible to have the entire company operating as effectively as it could. 

Reassure the Public 

Let customers, vendors, and other company staff members with which your organization regularly comes in contact know that you are making every effort to honor their health and safety as well. This may include sending out a corporate email outlining all the steps your organization is performing. Thus, ensuring their interaction with your employees will remain a safe, positive experience.

If an organization has a physical building that customers or vendors will enter, let them know what you are doing to ensure their safety as well as your expectations of them, by posting a sign on the door which they can read prior to entering. Some organizations may want to include some details about their safety practices in their corporate phone greeting. Others may want to inform the public by way of an advertisement shown on TV or through a radio commercial.

Reevaluate Corporate Technology Security

Many organizations have employees working in entirely different settings than they did before the pandemic. This could mean the new settings open them up to additional security risks as they use technology devices and software apps in a way they never did before. For employees in a remote work environment, organizations need to consider who in the environment may potentially have access to confidential information and/or computer equipment, including logins used for various apps. 

All the different ways in which employees now use corporate computer equipment and software applications must be reevaluated to ensure that a company’s technology system as a whole, remains safe and secure.

If you would like to know more about how to successfully navigate reopening your organization after the pandemic, please contact us.