Email in Disguise

The trend of getting voicemail messages through email is opening new doors for hackers to enter computer systems. Scammers are using email with spoofed addresses to hack into business operations, such as wiring money. Today’s office environment provides a perfect setup for a hacker: You hit people when they’re juggling multiple tasks, and you come across as a colleague or customer in an expected environment. We have two examples from our client experiences that show how easy it is for a problem to go undetected. And we have some tips to strengthen your security.

The problem with the voicemails happened while we were on vacation in Hawaii, which has a six-hour time difference with New Jersey. Our client reported getting emails about missed calls – which could have been generated by their voicemail/email system. It’s a growing trend to handle voicemails because phone and email run on the same networks, and sometimes it’s more effective for an employee to click a link and return the call while the message is on the screen.

And that’s how this problem showed up. Every time our client clicked on the link, nothing happened. When we got back from vacation, our first job was to install a new computer for the client. Everything went as planned, but then we got a call that the client only had 11 emails in the system. To make a long story short, it took all day to find all of the emails in a “recovery for deleted emails” folder and restore them – all 75,000 of them. The time was lengthened because we needed to sort them to cull the voice-mail files.

We changed the password immediately to cover the possibility the computer may have been hacked. After that was done, we got a call that our client couldn’t click to return numbers left in voicemails. I left a voicemail, and we were able to get a return call.

The likely issue is that someone from the outside spoofed a known and trusted phone number. The lesson here is that if it happens a second time, don’t click the link. While you may not know if you were hacked or fooled by some malware, you should know that something is wrong and needs attention. The earlier you let us know about it, the sooner we can work with you to mitigate the problem and minimize damage.

A second incident could have been catastrophic. Again, we awoke to find several urgent emails from a client that regularly wires large sums of money to entities worldwide. The incident occurred July 1, when they were preparing to wire nearly $100,000 to an entity. The entity to which they were wiring the money said they hadn’t received their wire in April. That raised alarms. We learned that the amount of money in both transfers was consistent, and the entity to which the money was to be wired could change names from time to time. Everything with the April and July transfers seemed to be within the realm of normal operations.

While we couldn’t get the April money back (the client had insurance to cover it), they were able to halt the July transfer. At the same time, we worked with them to develop new policies to help double-check money-wiring instructions and monitor the process better.

Among the key takeaways from these incidents, you should always be on guard because hackers and cyberthieves are getting much, much better at disguising their identities. When it comes to VOIP and cellular voicemails, it becomes way too easy to click on a number to return a call. That click could direct you to a link that installs some kind of malware. You can write down the phone number and initiate a phone call – much in the same way you can open a browser and go to a website instead of clicking on a suspicious link. In a related matter, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is about to force telephone carriers to verify the phone number location of incoming calls. This should reduce – at least for now – phone number spoofing.

Also, be vigilant about looking for anything that looks like a change in your operations or the entities you deal with. Don’t hesitate to pick up the phone and call somebody to verify instructions.

We can help you fight fraud and mitigate security issues in a number of ways, including security assessments and developing and installing rules and policies for critical operations. Call us – 973-433-6676 – or email us for an appointment.

Who’s Your Office 365 Partner?

As an Office 365 administrative partner for almost all of our clients, we have extraordinary access to your systems – and a huge responsibility. You depend on our honesty and competency to keep your systems running and protect you from breaches. Some of our colleagues are not as good about this. Microsoft finally provided some tools to strengthen security.

We’re shocked it took Microsoft so long to do this, but they finally are requiring outside administrators, such as Sterling Rose, to keep two-factor authentication turned on at all times. We instituted this control years ago on all of our administrative accounts.

What brought the issue to a head? When Microsoft Office 365 went mainstream by making the subscription service available to individual users, families and small home-office businesses, it created a lot more accounts for us to service for our clients. It also created a password nightmare.

As administrators, we can go into accounts to see what’s needed to make sure you and anyone included in your subscription can do what’s needed. In most cases, we go in when called on to solve a problem. We are scrupulous about signing out properly, effectively shutting the door to your account on our end, and we have been scrupulous about two-factor authentication to protect access from our end.

In our opinion, the two-factor authentication covers the laziness or carelessness of some IT providers – and it also protects Microsoft from being responsible for any losses of data not connected to a Microsoft meltdown.

That puts the data-protection ball back in our court. We want to make sure you have your side of the court covered, and here are some things you can do. The big thing, of course is to have all of your files backed up. Microsoft OneDrive does this, but we don’t recommend it to be your only storage location. Azure, another Microsoft product, has backup and restoration capabilities, and there are other providers.

On our side of the court, we have two-factor authentication and other tools that fall under the label of cyber resiliency. Through the Information Technology Laboratory of the US Department of Commerce, a three-level approach to cybersecurity is being developed and refined. The first level, of course, is to resist penetration by cybercriminals. It’s an approach that’s been around, but we’ve learned that no defense can be entirely impervious.

Thus, we have two additional layers. One layer seeks to limit lateral movement within a system once it’s been penetrated. The strategies include barriers to gaining permissions to move laterally within a system, a technique that hackers use to get to other systems. Defenses can include time limits to lock out an intruder or limit the amount of data that can be exported from a system under attack. Another defense is to provide misinformation. Another layer of security will allow a system to operate while under attack so that business won’t be disrupted.

This gets us back to why it’s so important that Microsoft hardened its defenses for Office 365. It provides one more defense against penetration. At the same time, it provides another reason for your IT providers to have access to your system.

We have access to some of the tools needed to limit lateral movement within a system, many of them customized to your needs. Call us – 973-433-6676 – or email us to set up an appointment to discuss your needs and implement a plan.

Convenience vs. Competition: What do You Think?

The Department of Justice is beginning an investigation of “big data” companies and their hold on your online activity. This is not intended to be a political rant, but we’d like to know your thoughts on convenience vs. competition.

Here’s the executive summary of the DOJ’s investigation:

  • DOJ is reviewing whether and how market-leading online platforms – Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and the rest of the usual suspects – have achieved market power and are engaging in practices that have reduced competition, stifled innovation, or otherwise harmed consumers.
  • The review will consider the widespread concerns about competition that consumers, businesses, and entrepreneurs have expressed about search, social media, and some retail services online.
  • The goal of the review is to assess the competitive conditions in the online marketplace in an objective and fair-minded manner and to ensure Americans have access to free markets in which companies compete on their merits to provide services that users want. 
  • If violations of law are identified, the DOJ will proceed appropriately to seek redress.

The investigation – or review – caught our attention because Amazon’s recent Prime Day blew projected numbers out of the water. Why not? When you want to buy a product, what do you usually do? You use Google to find the best price or fastest delivery, and you generally go to an Amazon website – where Amazon has your address and credit card info on file. Yes, it’s basically one click or just a few, and your shiny new object is on its way – sometimes with same-day delivery.

I admit, that’s how we sometimes shop for products and make our purchase decisions. I don’t know if the size of Google and Amazon limits my choices – or if they limit them significantly. I might never know if a local merchant has a better product, price or customer service because smaller businesses don’t have the numbers to show up in a Google search where I can easily see it. I don’t know if another search engine (not Bing, which is Microsoft) would give me better results because Google is ingrained in my mind. It’s even become a verb.

We recognize that technology and laws are complex fields, and we’ll all have different opinions about what makes a good law. But we’d like your thoughts on competition and convenience. If you would answer a few questions either by return email or by leaving comments for everyone to see, we can share what’s important to us:

  • Do you automatically use Google for product searches?
  • Would you use another search engine if it were readily available and gave the results you needed?
  • Do you go to websites only at the top of a Google search?
  • Do you click on the ads at the top of the search results?
  • Do you go to a product provider’s website directly before or after seeing Amazon results?
  • Do you really care that Google and Amazon are so big that they might be stifling competition and limiting your choices?

Thanks in advance for sharing your thoughts.