Navigating the Digital Frontier: A Comprehensive Guide to Internet Security

March 6, 2025 by Leave a Comment

In today’s interconnected world, where the internet is an integral part of our daily lives, ensuring robust internet security is paramount. From personal privacy concerns to safeguarding sensitive corporate data, the stakes have never been higher. This article delves into the nuances of internet security, offering insights and strategies to navigate the digital frontier safely.

Understanding Internet Security:

Internet security encompasses a broad spectrum of measures designed to protect data and systems from unauthorized access, cyberattacks, and other online threats. It encompasses various layers of defense, including network security, data encryption, user authentication, and proactive threat detection.

Common Threats:

  1. Malware: Malicious software such as viruses, worms, Trojans, and ransomware pose significant threats to individuals and organizations alike. These programs can infiltrate systems, steal sensitive information, or render devices inoperable.
  2. Phishing: Phishing attacks involve fraudulent attempts to obtain sensitive information, such as login credentials or financial data, by posing as a legitimate entity. These attacks often occur via email, social media, or fake websites.
  3. Data Breaches: A data breach occurs when unauthorized parties gain access to sensitive information, such as customer databases or intellectual property. Breaches can have severe repercussions, including financial losses, reputational damage, and legal liabilities.
  4. Identity Theft: Cybercriminals may steal personal information to impersonate individuals or commit fraud. This can lead to financial losses, damaged credit scores, and other adverse consequences for victims.

Best Practices for Internet Security:

  1. Use Strong Passwords: Create complex passwords that combine letters, numbers, and special characters, and avoid using the same password across multiple accounts. Consider using a reputable password manager to securely store and manage your credentials.
  2. Keep Software Updated: Regularly update operating systems, applications, and antivirus software to patch vulnerabilities and protect against emerging threats. Enable automatic updates whenever possible to ensure timely security fixes.
  3. Enable Two-Factor Authentication (2FA): 2FA adds an extra layer of security by requiring users to provide a second form of verification, such as a code sent to their mobile device, in addition to their password. This helps prevent unauthorized access even if passwords are compromised.
  4. Exercise Caution Online: Be wary of unsolicited emails, suspicious links, and requests for sensitive information. Verify the legitimacy of websites before entering personal or financial details, and avoid downloading files from unfamiliar sources.
  5. Encrypt Data: Use encryption technologies such as SSL/TLS for securing data transmission over the internet and encryption tools for protecting sensitive files stored on devices or in the cloud. Encryption scrambles data into unreadable format, making it inaccessible to unauthorized parties.
  6. Implement Firewalls and Security Software: Install firewalls and reputable antivirus/anti-malware software to monitor network traffic, detect malicious activity, and block unauthorized access attempts. Configure firewalls to filter incoming and outgoing traffic based on predefined security rules.
  7. Backup Data Regularly: Perform regular backups of important files and data to minimize the impact of potential ransomware attacks, hardware failures, or other data loss incidents. Store backups securely offline or in the cloud, and test restoration procedures periodically.
  8. Educate Users: Educate yourself and others about internet security best practices, including how to recognize and respond to potential threats. Promote a culture of cybersecurity awareness within your organization or community to mitigate risks effectively.

Conclusion:

In an increasingly digitized world, internet security is not just a concern but a necessity. By understanding common threats and implementing best practices, individuals and organizations can bolster their defenses against cyber threats and safeguard their valuable assets. Remember, proactive measures today can prevent costly breaches and disruptions tomorrow. Stay vigilant, stay secure, and navigate the digital frontier with confidence.

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Safeguarding Your Digital Assets: The Importance of Data Backups

October 2, 2024 by Leave a Comment

In today’s digital age, data serves as the lifeblood of organizations, powering critical business operations, storing valuable information, and enabling innovation and growth. However, with the increasing prevalence of cyber threats, hardware failures, and natural disasters, the risk of data loss and corruption looms large. Data backups emerge as a vital safeguard, offering organizations a means to protect against data loss and ensure business continuity. In this article, we’ll explore the importance of data backups, the risks of data loss, and best practices for implementing a robust backup strategy.

Understanding Data Backups:

Data backups involve creating copies of critical data and storing them in secondary locations, such as external hard drives, cloud storage, or tape drives. Backups serve as insurance against data loss, enabling organizations to recover lost or corrupted data in the event of hardware failures, cyber attacks, human error, or natural disasters. By maintaining up-to-date backups, organizations can minimize the impact of data loss and maintain continuity of operations in the face of unforeseen challenges.

The Risks of Data Loss:

The consequences of data loss can be severe, impacting organizations of all sizes across various industries. Some of the risks associated with data loss include:

  1. Operational Disruption: Data loss can disrupt business operations, leading to downtime, productivity losses, and delays in delivering products or services to customers.
  2. Financial Losses: Data loss can result in financial losses due to the costs associated with data recovery efforts, downtime, loss of revenue, and potential legal liabilities or regulatory fines.
  3. Reputational Damage: Data loss can damage an organization’s reputation and erode customer trust and confidence, particularly if sensitive or confidential information is compromised.
  4. Compliance Violations: Data loss can lead to violations of regulatory requirements and industry standards, exposing organizations to legal and compliance risks, penalties, and sanctions.
  5. Loss of Intellectual Property: Data loss can result in the loss of valuable intellectual property, trade secrets, proprietary information, or research and development data, undermining competitive advantage and innovation.

The Importance of Data Backups:

Data backups play a crucial role in mitigating the risks of data loss and ensuring the resilience of organizations in the face of threats and disruptions. Key benefits of data backups include:

  1. Data Protection and Recovery: Data backups provide a reliable means of protecting critical data and enabling timely recovery in the event of data loss, corruption, or accidental deletion.
  2. Business Continuity: Data backups support business continuity efforts by minimizing downtime and enabling organizations to quickly resume operations following disruptive events, such as hardware failures, cyber attacks, or natural disasters.
  3. Risk Management: Data backups help organizations manage risks associated with data loss, enabling them to mitigate the financial, operational, and reputational impacts of data loss incidents.
  4. Compliance and Legal Requirements: Data backups help organizations meet regulatory requirements and compliance obligations related to data protection, retention, and privacy by ensuring the availability and integrity of critical data.
  5. Peace of Mind: Data backups provide peace of mind to organizations, knowing that their valuable data is securely backed up and protected against unforeseen events and threats.

Best Practices for Data Backups:

To ensure the effectiveness of data backups and maximize their benefits, organizations should adhere to the following best practices:

  1. Identify Critical Data: Identify and prioritize critical data and systems that require regular backups based on their importance to business operations, regulatory requirements, and risk exposure.
  2. Implement Regular Backup Schedule: Establish a regular backup schedule to create copies of critical data at predefined intervals, such as daily, weekly, or monthly, depending on the data’s volatility and importance.
  3. Use Redundant Backup Locations: Store backup copies of data in multiple redundant locations, including on-premises storage, off-site facilities, and cloud-based storage services, to ensure redundancy and resilience against failures or disasters.
  4. Encrypt Backup Data: Encrypt backup data both in transit and at rest to protect it from unauthorized access, theft, or interception. Use strong encryption algorithms and secure encryption keys to ensure data confidentiality and integrity.
  5. Test Backup and Recovery Procedures: Regularly test backup and recovery procedures to validate the integrity and reliability of backup copies and ensure that data can be recovered successfully in the event of a data loss incident.
  6. Monitor Backup Processes: Monitor backup processes and performance metrics to ensure that backups are completed successfully within the defined timeframe and that backup systems are functioning as expected.
  7. Update Backup Strategy: Review and update backup strategies regularly to accommodate changes in business requirements, technology advancements, and emerging threats, ensuring that backup solutions remain effective and aligned with organizational goals.

Conclusion:

Data backups serve as a critical line of defense against the risks of data loss, providing organizations with the ability to protect, recover, and restore critical data in the event of hardware failures, cyber attacks, or other disruptions. By implementing a robust backup strategy and adhering to best practices for data backups, organizations can mitigate the risks associated with data loss, ensure business continuity, and safeguard their valuable digital assets against unforeseen events and threats.

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Strengthening Digital Defense: The Power of Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)

May 30, 2024 by Leave a Comment

In an era where cybersecurity threats loom large, protecting sensitive information and online accounts has become more critical than ever. As cybercriminals continue to employ increasingly sophisticated tactics to breach security measures, individuals and organizations must adopt robust strategies to safeguard their digital assets. Among these strategies, Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) stands out as a powerful tool in the fight against unauthorized access and identity theft.

What is Two-Factor Authentication?

Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) is a security mechanism that adds an extra layer of protection to the traditional username-password combination used for logging into online accounts. In addition to entering their credentials, users are required to provide a second form of verification to authenticate their identity. This secondary factor typically falls into one of three categories:

  1. Something You Know: This could be a password, PIN, or answers to security questions.
  2. Something You Have: This involves possessing a physical device, such as a smartphone, security token, or USB key, that generates a one-time code or receives authentication prompts.
  3. Something You Are: This encompasses biometric data, such as fingerprints, facial recognition, or retinal scans, which uniquely identify individuals based on their physical characteristics.

By requiring users to provide two different types of authentication credentials, 2FA significantly enhances the security of online accounts and helps mitigate the risk of unauthorized access, even if one factor is compromised.

How Does Two-Factor Authentication Work?

The process of Two-Factor Authentication typically unfolds as follows:

  1. User Initiates Login: The user attempts to log into an online account by entering their username and password.
  2. Secondary Authentication Prompt: Upon successful entry of credentials, the system prompts the user to provide a second form of verification.
  3. Authentication Method: The user selects or provides the secondary authentication method, which may involve receiving a one-time code via SMS or email, using an authentication app to generate a code, or scanning a biometric identifier.
  4. Verification: The user enters the code or completes the authentication process using the chosen method.
  5. Access Granted: If both sets of credentials are verified successfully, access to the account is granted.

Benefits of Two-Factor Authentication:

  1. Enhanced Security: 2FA significantly reduces the risk of unauthorized access by adding an additional layer of authentication beyond passwords alone. Even if a hacker manages to obtain or guess a user’s password, they would still need access to the secondary authentication method to gain entry.
  2. Protection Against Credential Theft: With the prevalence of data breaches and phishing attacks, stolen passwords have become a common avenue for cybercriminals to compromise accounts. 2FA mitigates the impact of credential theft by requiring a second form of verification, making it more challenging for attackers to exploit compromised credentials.
  3. Secure Remote Access: For organizations with remote workers or employees accessing corporate systems from external networks, 2FA provides an extra level of assurance that only authorized users can access sensitive resources, helping to secure remote access and prevent unauthorized intrusions.
  4. Compliance Requirements: In certain industries, regulatory standards such as the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) mandate the use of multi-factor authentication to protect sensitive data and ensure compliance with regulatory requirements.
  5. User Convenience: Despite the added layer of security, 2FA can be implemented in a user-friendly manner, with options such as authentication apps, push notifications, and biometric verification methods offering seamless and convenient authentication experiences for users.

Conclusion:

In an age of escalating cyber threats, Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) emerges as a vital defense mechanism in safeguarding digital identities and sensitive information. By requiring users to provide two separate forms of verification, 2FA significantly strengthens the security posture of online accounts and mitigates the risk of unauthorized access and identity theft. As individuals and organizations embrace 2FA as a cornerstone of their cybersecurity strategy, they can navigate the digital landscape with greater confidence, knowing that their valuable assets are protected by an extra layer of defense.

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Has Your Company Data Been Compromised?

October 10, 2023 by Leave a Comment

You might believe that your information assets are secure and your company’s security systems are keeping things safe, but how do you really know? While large scale financial services companies and other major corporations have the resources, highly trained technical staffs, and custom tools to monitor for and identify leaked data, most businesses do not. Companies with the resources are constantly scouring the internet, deep web and dark web for any indications that sensitive information has been exposed.

Now you might think, who wants my information or why would anyone target my company? It depends on an attacker’s motivation, or maybe its just a blind scan looking for vulnerable hosts by a potential hacker. If you become compromised perhaps access to your environment might be sold and your infrastructure used to email malware or house stolen data. Maybe your email credentials are compromised and someone is illicitly reading confidential communications. Whatever the outcome, certainly at a minimum, your business reputation is at risk.

Many companies that are compromised typically find out long after the initial occurrence, with time spans perhaps extending months into years. Typically breaches are not found by the company itself. Many times law enforcement or other 3rd party sources may advise a compromised organization of the unfortunate situation. 

There are organizations that take extensive proactive approaches to managing information security through the use of firewalls, intrusion detection systems and monitoring software, while also investing in various technical assessments, the approach does not take into account how to detect information that may have quietly been leaked to the internet in an isolated event or ongoing.

While building robust defensive measures have improved security for many corporations and helped protect many companies from network attacks it does not account for other sources of compromise such as theft of login credentials or compromise of a 3rd party service provider’s network connected to the company’s environment. In such instances data flows may likely be flagged as normal traffic and not detected by security management systems. In these instances companies may leak sensitive information over an extended period of time.

You may still believe that data breaches don’t apply to your company, but they do.  Unfortunately many employees may use the same email address, (name@yourcompany.com), and password for sites they access in their personal lives. A compromise of a third party site used for cooking recipes may lead to a credential compromise at your company, followed by a potential loss of sensitive company data. Maybe third party service providers that work with your company’s sensitive data may expose this information through a compromise of their own infrastructure, leading to your sensitive company information being for sale on the Internet. The point is if your information has been leaked to hacker websites, regardless of the manner in which this occurred, you really should care to know.

There are an emerging set of tools that gather information in realtime, not by directly scanning a company’s infrastructure but from querying public records and other illicit sources. These relatively new commercial offerings scan internet records, the deep web, and dark web to identify what is known that may be exploited or company data that may be for sale. This may include login credentials, proprietary data, compromised servers, client sensitive information, vulnerable hosts, or other assets. Employed ongoing, such tools can provide proactive alerting to enable a company to understand potential issues and develop realtime response strategies to protect the company and its reputation.

Network Management Solutions has been helping business navigate technology challenges since 1996. If you are concerned about what company data might be readily available on the dark web, please contact us for a free, confidential discussion. We can be reached at 908-232-0100 or on the web at www.nmscorp.com

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Ransomeware Attacks Hit Home

June 3, 2023 by Leave a Comment

Coronavirus (COVID-19) has proven to be challenging. For most of the US, this epidemic has been ongoing for near 9 months with a new wave overtaking the country once again. Businesses have shuttered, jobs have been lost, and financial insecurity has become an obstacle for many to deal with.  

As one of the ongoing complexities, COVID-19 has shuttered in-school learning for many US students. Several US school districts including Baltimore County, MD announced that online learning had been impacted for 115,000 students due to an apparent Ransomware attack. As parents struggle to maintain a somewhat normal learning experience for their children studying from home, lacking information security practices within the information infrastructures are paramount in these disruptions. 

So what is ransomeware and how does this impact a compromised organization? Ransomeware is malicious software designed to deny access to an organizations information assets, files and or services. The perpetrator having compromised the target organization demands a ransom payment prior to restoring access to the locked data. In the case of Baltimore County, it has been reported that access to online learning tools and grading systems have been disrupted. 

Cyber insurance policies are available to facilitate ransom payments should such an attack occur within an insured’s environment. Many organizations choose to pay the ransom through insurance or directly if not insured. The cost of ransom payments have risen with many payments now being 6 figures or larger. Other organizations that choose not to pay a ransom spend millions trying to restore systems.  Atlanta Georgia in the spring of 2018 chose not to pay a ransom of $52,000 and instead paid a reported $2.6M to recover. 

While an insurance policy payment may reduce the recovery cost of an outage it does not account for the lost time of a disruption and only encourages further ransomware attacks. Ransomware attacks accounted for 41% of policyholder claims, insurer Coalition stated in its 2020 “Cyber Insurance Claims Report,” released in September of 2020. In some instances insurance companies have denied claims with excessive damage as in the case of NotPetya.

According to a Dark Reading article Maryland State auditors found a variety of vulnerabilities that could have lead to the incident in Baltimore County. While there is not clarity yet in the Baltimore County incident, it should be noted that ransomeware attacks have been ongoing for many years and most propagate due to unpatched systems. Typically, exploited systems are Windows based. Impacted systems in the case of Baltimore County have been reported to be Windows based.

At what point do we demand that organizations who maintain our personal information and upon which we rely on make certain that vulnerabilities are minimized? Individuals that are placed in technical roles must be held accountable in some manner as well as their management teams should they choose not to appropriately address ongoing maintenance of the systems and applications for which they are responsible. 

The most formidable defense against most cyber attacks beyond a properly designed infrastructure, is to establish reliable ongoing patch management and update processes for the entire infrastructure. While some may have you believe that this is a complex endeavor and perhaps it is in a very large scale environment, once established the organization’s ability to withstand cyber attacks is significantly improved. Choosing not to establish the proper protocols either through in-house staff or consulting resources is a dire mistake.

Network Management Solutions has been assisting organizations to properly design, implement, monitor and manage information technology infrastructure since 1996. We are available to assist your company in navigating the technical complexities associated with your business infrastructure. Call us today at 908-232-0100 for a free, confidential discussion on how we can assist your business and support your ongoing information security and technology goals.

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The importance of online privacy

February 2, 2023 by Leave a Comment

Online privacy is a topic that is often misunderstood. Many people believe that since they are not involved in doing anything wrong that there is nothing to hide and therefore online privacy is not an important issue. However, online privacy is more about service providers profiling you, including your likes, dislikes, habits, beliefs and beyond, so that you can be the target of advertising, misinformation, and beyond. Ultimately, service providers you have trusted use your information to generate revenue. Who knows where it all goes from here and perhaps one day that profile intersects with insurance companies, healthcare providers, employers, and government if it hasn’t already.

Everywhere you travel, every move you make, the nuance of your writing, emails, phone conversations, essentially everything you do, is being logged and analyzed through artificial intelligence with the aim of monetizing the information. We are all subjected to a conglomerate of big tech company experiments. While corporate attorneys may have written language in their terms of use agreements for the applications or services we use, explaining how your information may be used, most of us never bother to read or consider the impacts of misuse.

We are barraged by privacy statements with many sites now asking you to accept their use of cookies and privacy policies.  Here is one of note:

“YouTube Privacy Warning”

“YouTube (owned by Google) does not let you watch videos anonymously. As such, watching videos here will be tracked by YouTube/Google.”

Have you ever turned off location services for Apple Maps 0n your iPhone only to have it tell you later that your car is parked 150 feet away? Did you know that Alexa has features that allow it to listen and record private conversations and forward them on to contacts? Do you know when Alexa is listening or any other “smart” devices? Have you ever had Siri speak to you when you weren’t talking to her? The point is we don’t know how a lot of the technology works and what happens with the associated data. Have we invited devices into our homes and businesses naively thinking they’d help without considering adverse consequences? How often do you see advertisements for products that you were viewing online elsewhere being presented to you as an advertisement on social media or another website?

Big tech is doing its best to monetize your private information by either directly targeting you with adds, or through the sale of your private information to other data mining companies. Google now buys credit card data so they can better understand your purchasing habits to better target adds and know when you bought an item after an advertisement was presented. Online marketing campaign metrics have become very precise.

So still, why care about privacy? The Cambridge Analytica scandal speaks for itself where a vast amount of personal information was provided by Facebook and shared with Cambridge Analytica who exploited the information for political purposes during 2016, targeting profiled potential voters with disinformation in attempt to get them to vote a particular way. This was business as usual for Cambridge Analytica who had been helping politicos win elections throughout the world with its tactics. Weaponizing personal information is clearly crossing the line.

The free services model being provided by companies like Google and Facebook are at the heart of the problem where services like email and social platforms are provided in exchange for users personal information being collected, analyzed and eventually monetized. Unfortunately our representatives are underwhelming in there knowledge of and response to the problem. This was demonstrated during a 2018 US Senate hearing where senators asked questions of Facebook’s CEO such as how do you make money. Between lobbyist and uninformed representatives we have little hope in solving the core issues in the near term.

So how can you begin to protect yourself? 

  • For starters take care in how you utilize online platforms such as Facebook and other social media applications. The questionnaires that your network routinely share that seem harmless are utilized to directly profile you and may be later used against you in the form of advertising and disinformation campaigns.
  • Use Internet Security Software that blocks website tracking by web analytics, ad agencies, behavior trackers and social networks.
  • Consider utilizing VPN services that can enable you to browse anonymously and encrypt your data end to end, so that your activity is not tracked by your Internet Service Provider nor intercepted by prying eyes.
  • Utilize web browsers, email platforms, search engines and internet security software, or services who have stated missions to support your privacy.
  • Some names that come to mind are Mozilla, Proton, DuckDuckGo, among others.

Network Management Solutions has been helping business navigate technology challenges since 1996. Please contact us for a free, confidential assessment. We can be reached at 908-232-0100 or on the web at www.nmscorp.com

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Business Continuity Planning – Lessons Learned

October 10, 2022 by Leave a Comment

The COVID-19 pandemic has created strife across the globe. Many families have suffered from illness, the loss of a loved one, loss of employment, and in some cases maybe a loss of hope in a way forward back to normal. While many businesses have been shuttered others deemed critical or those that operate virtually may be thriving. Assuming your business is operating, have you been able to operate effectively and efficiently? 

Some businesses are benefitting from their consumers being shut in, leading to increased online video and music consumption, people using at home time to learn a new skill, hobbyist expanding their knowledge base. All that aside, in order to operate virtually a business must have at a minimum an appropriate technology infrastructure and a business continuity plan that considers workflows.

Maybe you moved your business operations to the cloud so that all you applications are hosted in some remote data center and not your office space. Maybe you had a plan in place. Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett, WA treated patient number one in the US. They had a pandemic plan, had recently tested it, felt confident but when the pandemic hit they realized they didn’t have enough critical supplies and were scrambling for personal protective equipment, PPE. Additionally, defective test kits provided by the CDC were also a major problem. This story played out throughout Washington State, the country and world.

Some business may have segments or divisions that were able to operate just fine while other segments were shutdown. Content providers such as Netflix or Disney have had no problem providing streaming services and supporting end users watching TV shows, movies and documentaries. However, their content creation businesses that produce new movies and shows have been shuttered. Even with the best planning and infrastructure in place, market dynamics have had a huge impact on business operations.

Assuming you have been able to provide your service virtually or were deemed critical and allowed to remain open, having employees isolated at home has had its problems. I personally needed equipment and what normally would take no more than 2 days took over 2 weeks to connect, get advice and place an order. The company was operating virtually and demand was at all time highs and their technology infrastructure did not support their business process remotely as it did when employees worked onsite.

So what have we learned? For me the biggest difficulty was to have imagined the scenario we all faced. This event was beyond many organization’s planning. Perhaps many of the behemoths got it right, or scrambled to make things work. The largest obstacle perhaps was getting the business processes right when forced to operate remotely with employees in isolation. Difficulties collaborating with colleagues, maintaining business workflows, and operating efficiently are among the largest hurdles that virtually operating businesses have had to deal with. This pandemic will certainly impact business continuity planning for many years to come.

So what can we do to be better prepared for other unanticipated disruptions? A framework is important to getting things right for all business continuity planning. Below is a simplified 5 step approach.

  1. Develop a plan – Assemble a team, identify outage scenarios and goals. List what services must function as soon as possible, and what other functions can wait.
  2. Establish business operations workflows – Define how various departments and staff function both independently and cross functionally. Identify how the business operates with staff in isolation or at remote locations. Identify logistical moves of personnel that could be made today which would support business recovery plans in the future. Some firms such as Facebook are already defining work from home positions. Establishing work from home positions could potentially boost employee productivity and reduce company costs.
  3. Define the technology – Identify the services and infrastructure necessary to support the plan, as well as what other technologies could improve efficiencies or resilience. Identify potential logistical technology moves that might better protect the company, i.e. cloud computing and services.
  4. Brainstorm potential pitfalls – Ask what are we missing, identify the what ifs….
  5. Test the plan – Testing can help identify gaps in planning. After testing assess what worked well, and where expectations fell short. Identify the necessary changes and retest.

Network Management Solutions has been assisting companies since 1996 to design, implement, monitor and mange IT infrastructure. We have helped companies recover from failed projects, security breaches and outages. Contact NMS for a free, confidential, consultation to understand how we may contribute to your business ongoing businesses success.

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Managed Service Providers – Strategic Investment or Cost Reduction?

May 10, 2022 by Leave a Comment

Many businesses will tell you that they initially decided to engage a Managed Service Provider (MSP) to reduce their information technology costs or avert adding additional employee resources. Fast forward to 6 months later and those same businesses may speak of the strategic value they have gained from the financially motivated move. While it is true that the right MSP can help control costs and expand resources, the right MSP can also bring considerable strategic value that was perhaps not part of the initial business decision.

Persistent ongoing security threats and continuous operational tasks place a significant burden on internal IT resources responsible for managing the company’s systems and networks. While properly trained full time resources often provide excellent support, in many small to mid-sized companies these resources are stretched beyond limits leading to missed tasks that can negatively affect service and security levels. Over time a once efficient and secure infrastructure can become exposed to slowdowns, outages, data losses or worse yet, compromise. MSP resources can be a welcome addition to help assess, patch, configure and restore the infrastructure to its former state. 

Managed Service Providers can add to an organization’s technical depth and know how specific to tools, approaches, and methods to maintain and improve service levels and security. MSPs interface with its customers through Standard Operating Procedures tailored to client requirements. These procedures help define service delivery, improve efficiency, and communications between the organizations. Additionally, custom tool sets used by MSPs can be leveraged to identify potential weaknesses before problems impact business operations or security. 

Simple vulnerability assessments can identify unpatched systems that are vulnerable to exploitation. As has been the case for many years, attacks continue to propogate through improperly patched systems. Unfortunately, many unchecked systems and networks have vulnerabilities that persist, raising the probability of an inevitable compromise. Simple ongoing systems maintenance has a significant impact on improving an organizations overall security profile and operating availability. However, many companies do not maintain proper patch management across their networks, systems and applications. Whether your business operates its own infrastructure or uses cloud services, ongoing systems management and maintenance is still a requirement.

A MSP brings value not only in the services which it provides but also in the knowledge of what is available and should be done in order to protect an organization. Ask any of the municipalities, government offices, or others that have spent millions recovering from recent attacks which were propagated through unpatched systems, certainly they would do things differently to avoid the events if they could go back in time. To believe there is little chance for your organization to fall prey is a mistake.

So what are some improvements a Managed Service Provider can provide its customers?

  • Improved service levels
  • Expanded knowledge and resources
  • Monitoring and assessment tools
  • Improved security posture
  • Improved processes and efficiency
  • Increased awareness 
  • Proactive planning
  • Personel redundancy
  • Reduced operating costs

While not an all encompassing list the above can provide significant improvement to any organization and its business infrastructure.

Network Management Solutions has been providing custom information technologysolutions since 1996 for large, mid-sized and small businesses.  We provide a variety of design, assessment and managed services customized to meet your business needs. Please call us at 908-232-0100 for a complimentary, confidential discussion of how Network Management Solutions can help your organization better manage its technology challenges.

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Is your business at risk from a trusted employee?

December 3, 2021 by Leave a Comment

All businesses depend on their employees regardless of their size. Trust is foundational in ensuring the business operates as required, customer needs are met, and intellectual property or regulated data is protected. While many companies are focused on protecting the business from external exploitation the thought of exploitation from insiders is many times missed.

Both Twitter and Trend Micro reported in November to have fallen prey to malicious insiders with legitimate access to sensitive company information. In both cases it appears that the companies did not discover the misuses by their own measures but became aware through 3rd party sources, long after the unwanted activity was initiated. Alarmingly, Trend Micro is a cyber security company which goes to show that even the best can get taken advantage of. Insider incidents are not new and are thought to account for one-fifth of all data breaches.

In the  case of Trend Micro the company indicated that 68,000 customer data records were provided to a 3rd party source who used the information in attempt to scam Trend Micro customers. In the Twitter leak, information was being provided to the Saudi government and Royal family pertaining to individuals who were hostile to the current regime. In both cases motivated employees provided the privileged information.

So what impact could a data breach have on your business? According to IBM the cost of a data breach in a small to medium business (SMB) with fewer than 500 employees averages $2.5M or 5% of annual revenue to remediate the issue. Regulated data such as in the case of Healthcare, averages $429/record, so the overall cost could be significantly higher to remediate the issue. Beyond cleanup costs a data breach can be devastating to a company’s reputation and the resultant loss of business can overcome many companies.

There is tremendous focus on the right tool set being the answer in solving complex information security issues. While investments in software, hardware, personnel, and training are all pieces in a complex puzzle, detailed processes and procedures are as critical as all of the other investments and without such, all investments are rendered ineffective. To many technical staffs the tools are exciting, but the process and procedures that insure the tools are generating manageable alerts for support staff may be viewed as ominous and are never fully implemented.

Without a proper implementation, many times events are generated and logged to some database server and alerts to supporting staff are never generated, or there are so many alerts that a support staff becomes overwhelmed and the response is to silence or ignore the alerts. When a third party source such as law enforcement contacts the compromised company and an incident response team is hired to investigate the breach, logs of malicious activity is often found tucked away on some database server that was never configured to alert support staff. Many times the malicious events have been ongoing for months to years.

Ask yourself or your employees:

How does the company monitor security alerts?

Is privileged user access to sensitive data audited on an ongoing basis?

Does the company use an internal audit function that is outside of the information technology group or use 3rd party resources to review security?

Are processes and procedures reviewed on an ongoing basis by an independent audit function?

Are the processes and procedures updated on an ongoing basis as the business and technology changes?

Does the organization perform regular incident response testing for data loss, systems outages, component failures, or other potential business disrupting compromises?

In the case of Twitter and Trend Micro a simple ongoing audit of privileged user access may have identified the malicious activity at its commencement saving time, reducing reputational risk, and significantly improving the company’s security profile.

Network Management Solutions has been helping organization since 1996 to establish sound information technology networks, systems, processes and procedures. Please call us at 908-232-0100 for a confidential consultation on how we can assist your business in managing the security of its information assets in a continuously changing world.

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Ransomeware – Should You Be Concerned?

July 3, 2021 by Leave a Comment

There has been a lot of news lately regarding ransomware. What is ransomeware and should you be concerned? Ransomware as defined by CERT is a “type of malicious software, or malware, designed to deny access to a computer system or data until a ransom is paid”. Theft of proprietary information, credit card data, or personal information is not a motivating factor, taking control of vulnerable systems and denying access to the information is. It’s essentially a kidnapping of your IT environment. Ransomware can spread through direct targeting of a system, phishing emails or by unknowingly visiting an infected website.

Ransomware attacks started out primarily with individuals and it origins date back to the late 1980’s. Perhaps you know someone who paid a “fee” of $25 or $50 to have their computer “cleaned” of malware detected by some random third party organization. While it seemed to be somewhat suspicious that an unknown organization would detect your computer problem, for many it was just easier to pay the “fee” and move on. 

Ransomeware exploits today are aggressive, intrusive and demanding with Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies being the payment of choice. While crypto platforms are not technically anonymous, they do provide opportunity to act anonymously. Crypto platforms make currency exchanges between wallets. The person(s) associated with the wallet are not identifiable in the transaction. In some places crypto exchanges are required to collect personal information but this is not the case in many places.

Ransomware attacks target individuals, corporations, governments, schools and even police departments. The ballooning monetary demands of ransomware extortionists are claimed by some as being fueled by cyber-insurance companies who prefer to pay claims to help drive new business. For an insured, having a ransom paid by an insurer is the quickest way to end a crisis and get back in business.

Lake City, Florida  at the end of June this year paid 42bitcoin worth about $460,000. The loss was covered by cyber-insurance with Lake City paying a $10,000 deductible. According to ProPublica, Baltimore, Maryland did not have cyber insurance and chose not to pay a $76,000 ransom payment and has spent $5.3M to date recovering locked files. Atlanta similarly balked at a $53,000 payment and has spent $8.5M to date on recovery. Another unnamed company chose to pay a $10,000 ransom payment when they realized that recovering their data from backup tapes would take weeks. Most recently, 22 municipalities in Texas were attacked simultaneously with extortionists demanding millions of dollars in ransom payments. 

Blaming insurance companies for helping escalate extortionist’s demands by paying claims is ignoring the elephant in the room. As business owners, managers and technologists, what is important is to focus on is how these exploits occur so we can prevent infection and its potentially devastating impacts. While having insurance as a financial tool is great, preventing the event is paramount to keeping the business operating.

Cyber exploitation occurs due to mismanaged or improperly patched systems, lacking processes and procedures, compounded by insufficient employee training. Unpatched computer systems are vulnerable to exploitation either through direct attack or by individuals browsing infected sites or clicking on malicious links. Once compromised, an inability to detect the breach allows the attack to propagate over time resulting in an ultimate loss of control over the organization’s systems and information. Without a proven disaster recovery plan, an organization stands little chance of regaining control in a timely manner.  

Some questions to ask yourself and your organization supporting your IT systems are:

Do we have a properly designed infrastructure?

Do we have a process to apply security updates ongoing?

Do we regularly backup our critical data?

Do we have a disaster recovery plan that is updated and tested on a regular basis?

Do we regularly validate our security posture, including audits and testing?

Are all of our methods documented and reviewed on an ongoing basis?

If we were to suffer an attack do we have a planned response, as well as the financial resources to recover?

Network Management Solutions has been helping organizations since 1996 design, implement, monitor and manage critical IT assets. Please call us for a free, confidential discussion regarding your IT challenges and goals. We can be reached at 908-232-0100 or on the web at www.nmscorp.com.

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