‘Free’ Streaming

Not all streaming is meant to be shared – or least not shared with dozens of strangers around the world. Cable companies and content providers are concerned about lost fees as access credentials to programming are increasingly abused. They’re cracking down on piracy.

Stealing service has been a problem since the first electrical wires and meters were installed more than 100 years ago. For cable and content providers, it became an issue when the first cable wires were strung up. The problem has grown as technology has developed more content and more ways to get it. Putting aside the issue of whether it’s all overpriced, it costs money to develop and deliver the content we love to watch, and too much of it is “falling off the back of an electronic truck.”

We can watch content for free on our TVs when they receive broadcast signals. But for the most part, the only people who watch broadcast TV are those who have cut the cord and stream through their TVs on their internal Wi-Fi or wired networks. For them, a TV is a device, just like a tablet, wireless phone or computer.

Cable providers have relationships with content providers that enable subscribers to stream cable-delivered content or simply stream it from the content providers. You get a username and password, and you’re good to go. You can even share your account with others, and almost all of us have done it at one time or another, especially with Netflix or Amazon Prime. Some providers encourage it.

Unfortunately, some people have taken sharing too far. The content industry has been OK with sharing info with a few friends or family members, but the problems arise when those friends and family members start sharing access with their friends and family. It’s all gone viral, and it hasn’t gone unnoticed.

Every provider who issues usernames and passwords also has the means to track who is accessing content and where they’re watching it. They expect that subscribers will stream their programming when they’re traveling, and they can usually verify access privileges are being properly used. Most vacations are a week or two, and even if you move around a bit, you’re generally not in locations a world apart within the space of two days – or on the same day.

The industry can track possible abuse, and there are steps they can take – if they haven’t done so already – to limit access without alienating honest, rule-abiding subscribers. They can require all subscribers to re-enter or change passwords more frequently. It’s a risk for them because some subscribers may find this an inconvenience and drop their service. However, it’s one way to shut off access to a large number of pirates in one fell swoop.

They can also limit the number of shares they’ll allow. While Netflix, for example allows up to four shares for its most expensive plan, and providers such as HBO and DirecTV allow limited sharing. ESPN may have limits on how many streams are allowed, but that could be independent of limits placed by cable or satellite carriers.

The industry can threaten to cut off subscribers – or actually cut their cords – but that gets into all sorts of sticky legal and customer-service issues. For example, do you take action against the parents who gave their college-age kids access? Do you go after their kids? Do you go after the users of devices they believe are “invalid users?”

This problem will become more prominent on the industry’s radar screen because a lot of money is at stake. Content producers need to be paid for their product, and that payment depends on how many subscribers watch it. Cable and satellite companies pay fees to producers and collect fees from advertisers and subscribers based on the number of valid users. Nobody wants money taken off the table because of a discrepancy between subscribers and viewers.

Finally, all this sharing raises a nagging question in the back of our mind: If someone has access to an account that you pay for, how can they use this access for their own gain at your expense? Call us – 973-433-6676 – or email us for help in tightening up your access controls.

Are You Printing Invitations to Your System?

Printers have been fingered as the weak link in many business and home networks. Most small businesses and home users tend to run their printers into the ground, and the longer they hang around without the latest firmware updates, the more vulnerable they are to a cyber-attack.

You can stop printing invitations to intruders – even with your current, old printer. Let’s start with the firmware. Simply go to your printer manufacturer’s support website and you can see all the firmware and driver updates available for download and installation.

Whether your printer is on a home network or small business network, make sure your firewall software is up to date and that you have a strong, secure network password for each printer. It’s too easy, especially in an office, to use a simple password that everyone can remember and hackers can figure out. And too many, especially in an office, keep their passwords stuck to monitors, where anyone walking by can see them. Your employees and/or family members just need to bite the bullet and remember a strong password – and keep that knowledge to themselves. It’s also worth noting, too, that sometimes the printers don’t even have those default passwords; they have none at all.

You can further restrict access to your printers by properly managing your printer settings and ports. Just as we’ve seen everything related to the IoT, printers can be shipped with default settings controlling printers and default port assignments. Any third-rate hacker can figure them out. You can and should change them immediately when you set the printers up to work on your networks.

Some manufacturers are recognizing the role they can play in protecting your printers. HP recently introduced its Connection Inspector for enterprise systems, and we can only hope the company and other manufacturers start incorporating similar tools for small businesses and homes.

The new tool is designed primarily to combat malware intrusions through printers by looking at unusual behavior on network traffic going to a printer. It learns what “normal” traffic looks like, and when it detects malicious activity, it can immediately go into a protected mode, stopping any further unfamiliar or unusual requests and sending a warning to IT administrators. It can even trigger a reboot of the printer.

We’ll keep an eye on developments in printer security to let you know when tools like Connection Inspector become available for you. There should be an incentive to develop them because more and more professional services corporations and families, especially those with school-age children, rely on remote and/or wireless access to printers to create hard copies of information in a corporate database or a collaborative research project.

In the meantime, we can help you tighten your printer security by looking at your machine’s settings and ports and checking your network’s security, too. We can also help you with the installation of firmware and driver updates. Call us – 973-433-6676 – or email us for an appointment. It’s time to make sure you’re printing documents, not invitations to enter the inner sanctum of your system.

Here’s Lookin’ at Your Password

Passwords are just as painful for companies that require them as they are for you. And, they’re expensive as well as subject to theft. What are we looking at in the near future? The eyes have it.

Microsoft and Apple are moving ahead with facial recognition to replace passwords. The technology is getting better and better, and, let’s face it, once their systems can recognize you and match you up with other records, you won’t have to remember some arcane, complex password – which you could mistype…

Going “password-less” would create a huge economic benefit for the business world. At our recent Microsoft IT conference in Orlando, the company said lost passwords are their biggest IT cost. In the month of July, they spent $686,000 in IT-related costs for restoring forgotten passwords. Annually, the cost is roughly $12 million.

The way systems work, it’s always to your benefit to say you’ve forgotten your password if you risk being locked out of website or application, such as your Office 365 account or a bank account. While their security needs dictate making a password reset more difficult, the complexities raise costs.

Also, in today’s world, all of these systems and interactions can be hacked, and dark-web operatives can change your letters, numbers and special characters once they’ve cracked your code. Your face is another matter. And while someone at some point in the future will figure out a way to defeat facial recognition, I believe this gets us ahead of the curve – for now.

Microsoft has facial recognition tools available for computers that have Windows 10 with Hello installed, and Apple has it for iPhones and iPads. While you can use them now for their own websites and online apps, it will take some time for the rest of the online world to get there. Your bank or credit card company, for example, will need to develop tools that work with all platforms and operating systems, and they will need to make sure online performance doesn’t suffer.

One online security app that some banks encourage their customers to use is Trusteer. While it can be effective as form of two-factor verification, it can slow down a user’s computer. We’ve had numerous incidents of clients calling us about slow computers, and Trusteer has been the problem. Once it’s uninstalled, performance levels return to what they should be.

There are other two-factor authentication methods you can use, but you’ll be up against that issue of whether you want more convenience or more security.

If you have any questions about facial recognition tools or two-factor authentication, call us – 973-433-6676 – or email us. New technologies can be scary, mostly because you can worry about making a mistake somewhere that can lock you out of the info and apps you need for work and life. We can help you navigate the brave new world with confidence.

Equifax and Protecting Your Identity

If anyone learns just one lesson from the recently disclosed hack of Equifax, the credit-rating service that has the keys to many people’s vital data, here it is: You have to take your data protection into your own hands.

We had a really queasy feeling when we saw the news reports, and a lot of the information didn’t pass our initial smell test. First, why did it take so long for Equifax to notify its customers and authorities? More than a month went by before there was any announcement. Second, when Equifax did respond, it seemed ineffective. You can go to https://www.equifaxsecurity2017.com/, enter some information about your name and Social Security number and see if you have something to worry about. From there, you need to scroll to the bottom of the page to find the Potential Impact button, which will take you to https://www.equifaxsecurity2017.com/potential-impact/. Most people will learn that their data has possibly been compromised.

If you don’t want to fuss around with the internet, you can call a dedicated call center, 866-447-7559, from 7 a.m. to 1 a.m. ET every day to discuss your account.

You can go back online and enroll in a credit monitoring with program with Equifax – or with Experian or TransUnion, the other two credit reporting agencies in the US. Equifax will give you the program free for a year without requiring you waive the arbitration clause and class action waiver included in the Equifax and TrustedID Premier terms-of-use for this cybersecurity incident.

We strongly recommend you take these additional steps:

  • Place an initial fraud alert on your credit records. Again, it doesn’t matter which reporting agency you use. They all “talk” to each other. When lenders see the fraud alert when checking your credit, they must take additional steps to verify that it is actually you who wants to open the account. Initial fraud alerts are good for 90 days, and you can renew them or cancel them as it suits your needs. Equifax is offering an “automatic fraud alert” feature, which automatically renews itself every 90 days.
  • Freeze your credit. This makes it virtually impossible to open an account in your name because it blocks access to your credit report. Nobody can complete a credit check, so someone else won’t be able to open an account. A credit freeze won’t expire until you choose to remove it, and you can cancel and reinstate them as needed. However, you must place a credit freeze with each bureau individually, and that can come with a fee, usually $10 or less, depending on what state you live in or if you’re already a victim of identity theft.
  • Sign up with a credit monitoring service. We have a service that does this, but there are others.
  • Check your bank and charge accounts and your credit score regularly. If you see something that raises a red flag, contact your financial institutions or credit reporting agencies immediately.

 We spoke to a number of people involved in the storage of highly sensitive personal information, and they all reminded us that you need to protect more than your financial information. Any organization that stores your medical and insurance records is vulnerable to a hack, and that can lead to additional problems. For example, someone who has your medical records can file a fraudulent medical insurance claim using your records.

That, of course, gets us back to advice you’ve often heard from us:

  • Install all updates for operating systems and application software as soon as they are available for computers and devices. The updates almost always include security patches and bug fixes.
  • Manage your passwords. Keep them long and complex and change them frequently.
  • Keep your networks secure by installing updates, managing passwords effectively, making sure your firewall and anti-virus protection is active, and limiting access to administrative functions.
  • Use common sense. Don’t click on links within an email from someone you don’t know or on something that looks out of the ordinary from an address you recognize. Email addresses are easily hijacked – and not necessarily because the owner of the address did something wrong. Don’t click on pop-up ads or ads with offers that are too good to be true.

Are we safe on the internet anymore? No, but you can be safer if you take ownership of your security. We can check security settings and run deep scans to help keep you as safe on the internet as possible. Call us – 973-433-6676 – or email us to set up a security audit or answer any questions you have about managing your security.

Google Drive Drives into the Sunset

Here we go – again. Another staple of our applications is being replaced. This time, it’s Google Drive, which Google will stop supporting as of this coming Dec. 11 and will shut down next March 12. Taking its place: Backup and Sync, which will be more powerful.

Backup and Sync replaces both the company’s Drive and Photos desktop apps for Windows PCs and Macs. It allows you to store any photos, videos and documents in the same format on Google’s cloud for safekeeping from crashes and unfortunate accidents. You can use the app to back up the contents of your entire computer – or just selected folders.

Once you download the app and launch it, sign into your Google account and select which folders you’d like to continuously back up to Google Drive. For photos, you have two options: High Quality or Original Quality. High Quality will compress photos larger than 16 megapixels and videos with a resolution higher than 1080p, but these compressed files will not count against your data cap.

Oh, yes, there is a data cap. Are you surprised? The new and improved Google Drive gives you 15GB of file storage for free. Then, the rates go up to $19.99 a year for 100GB or $100 a year for 1TB. That’s not excessive. You get additional flexibility by being able to download files to work offline, and you can download the app for your mobile device, too. Plans for even greater storage capacity are available.

The new app is available now from the Google Drive or Google Photos page. The only downside is that you can’t use Backup and Sync as a restore tool if your computer crashes. But we have options available for that.

We can also help you set up Backup and Sync so it works as you want and coordinate how it works on your computer and mobile device. Storing your data files and photos and videos offsite is the way to go for safety and flexibility. Call us – 973-433-6676 – or email us to answer your questions or provide assistance.

Passwords Becoming Passé

I’m as tired as anyone else when it comes to remembering dozens of arcane passwords for all the websites I need to access. Current and future technology will be able to provide relief and stronger protection. Here’s the lowdown on locking down.

If we’ve learned anything at all from the monthly ransomware reports, electronic “locks” are pickable. We’ve also learned that time is money for hackers when it comes to planting ransomware and other viruses that can make life painful or costly or both.

Operating under the assumption that any electronic barrier can be hurdled in time, you want to lengthen the time of your defense as much as possible – and we’re talking decades. The longer and more complicated the password, the longer it will take for hacking software to crack your code. We all know that when you include uppercase and lowercase letters in combination with numbers and special characters, the time stretches out. Making sure it follows no special pattern – that it’s totally random – adds to the security.

Many theories abound as to how to create a complex, random password that’s easy to remember. One suggestion is to take a phrase or sentence that you can easily remember. Then, take the first or second letter in your phrase and turn some into uppercase letters, numbers or special characters in a random order.

I have one password I use for everything, and I am extremely confident its length and complexity will deter hackers. You may find fault that I have only one password, and that would be a valid criticism. If it’s cracked, someone could get into every internet account I have.

You can eliminate the need to remember multiple passwords by using a password manager program. Some are free and some have a nominal cost. Basically, you just need to remember a master password to get into the system. The password manager randomly generates new complex passwords when you visit each site. Yes, you can argue that somebody could crack the password manager’s system. It’s possible, but would you feel more comfortable with $1 million under your mattress or in a vault that’s a half-mile underground, encased in 20 feet of concrete and guarded by a randomly rotated army that’s always being retrained?

You can augment the password manager with two-factor authentication, something we’ve liked and used for years. In many cases, you need to answer a question, and it should be something only you know. Other measures might include answers to randomly generated multiple choice questions based on publicly available information that can be verified as “right” or “wrong.” No “maybes” allowed.

In the future, passwords will give way to biometrics. The software is there; the hardware needs to catch up. Windows 10’s Hello can handle the biometrics, but most computers don’t have the 3-D cameras needed to use the feature. Some Microsoft Surface tablets have the cameras, and if you are in the right place, it works really well.

Regardless of what technology you use, don’t let your guard down. Don’t buy things or do your banking over a public Wi-Fi network. Use a trusted, secure network or a cellular data network. Make sure the networks you control are secure with up-to-date firewalls and anti-virus and anti-malware software. Make sure all operating systems and firmware are current with all bug fixes and security patches.

Remember that we can help you with all of your internet password and security needs, including choosing and setting up a password manager, setting up two-factor authentication and answering your questions about biometrics systems. Call us – 973-433-6676 – email us to set up an appointment.

Home Router Vulnerability

Your home router is easily your most essential device for connecting businesses and family members to the world. It’s also the most vulnerable opening for hackers. How vulnerable is your router? One good place to look is Port 7547. If it’s closed on your router, it’s safe – for now. If it’s open, you’re vulnerable.

You can test your router by visiting a blog post from Wordfence, which makes a firewall and malware scanner that protects over 2 million WordPress websites. They also monitor attacks on those sites to determine which IPs are attacking them and blocks them in real-time through a blacklist. They recently published a post showing that 6.7 percent of the hacks they see on WordPress sites comes from hacked home routers. Hacking gives them access to workstations, mobile devices, Wi-Fi cameras, Wi-Fi climate control and any other devices that use the home Wi-Fi network. From there, they can implant malware or viruses in your system, which can lead to all sorts of problems.

Hacking through an open Port 7547 is known as the “misfortune cookie,” or MC. ISPs (internet service providers) use the port to manage home routers, and they should configure their network to prevent access by outsiders. But many do not block the port, leaving you vulnerable. By clicking the Scan Me button on the post, you can find out if it’s open or closed.

If it’s closed, your OK for now. You should check back periodically, however, because your ISP could open it for some reason and then forget to re-block it. If it’s open, Wordfence suggests you immediately reboot your router, which may flush out malware. You can also run a virus scan on all computers and devices in your home and update your operating systems. Almost anyone can take these steps.

You may be able to take the more advanced step of upgrading your router firmware, but in most cases, you can’t. In all cases, you can contact your ISP and let them know there’s a security vulnerability in your home router and ask them to help you fix it. You can specifically mention Port 7547.

If you are unable to take all the steps mentioned above, call us immediately at 973-433-6676. We can help you reboot your router and may be able to help you close the port or upgrade the firmware. Just have your router name and model number handy to help us serve you better. If necessary, we can coach you in dealing with your ISP to resolve this important security issue.

If you want to take preventive action on Port 7547 vulnerabilities, call us – 973-433-6676 – or email us to schedule an appointment. Remember, you are your router’s first line of defense.

Cybersecurity Scorecard

Cybersecurity has dominated our conversation for the past year, and a report from SonicWall, which provides security tools worldwide for networks to email and everything in between, shows where we’re making progress and where new threats lie.

First, the good news. In data gathered in the past year from the SonicWall Global Response Intelligent Defense (GRID) Network, the good guys and the bad guys made advances. The most notable of the advances the company found were:

  • The number of new POS (point of sale – mostly credit and debit cards) malware variants decreased by 88 percent since 2015
  • SSL and TLS encrypted traffic increased 34 percent year-over-year
  • Major exploit kits Angler, Nuclear and Neutrino disappeared
  • Unique malware attack attempts dropped to 7.87 billion from 8.19 billion in 2015

On the other hand:

  • Ransomware attacks grew 167x from 2014 to 2016 to an astounding 638 million attacks during the year
  • SSL/TLS encrypted malware was exploited 72 percent more often in 2016 than in 2015
  • Internet of Things (IoT) devices were compromised to launch record-setting DDoS attacks
  • Despite significant efforts by Google to patch vulnerabilities, Android continued to be exploited by cyber criminals

SonicWall notes that the technology to solve many of the new challenges cyber criminals threw at victims in 2016 already exists.  SSL/TLS traffic can be inspected for encrypted malware by NGFWs (next-generation firewalls), which are hardware- or software-based network security systems that detect and block sophisticated attacks by enforcing security policies at various levels. For any type of new advanced threat like ransomware, it’s important to understand that all network-based solutions should block network traffic until a safe verdict is reached before passing that traffic through to the intended recipient.

In 2017, there are two areas that SonicWall joins us in telling you to be particularly on-guard: ransomware and the Internet of Things (IoT).

Companies in the United Kingdom were 3x more likely to suffer ransomware attacks than in the United States, but don’t breathe easy. The US experienced the highest number of ransomware attacks in 2016 because of large volume of business.  While we as individuals and small businesses depend on companies like SonicWall to provide the tools to detect and stop ransomware, we need to follow strict security procedures – all of which should be well-known to us by now:

  • Install updates for all of your software for operating systems and apps. They contain the security patches and bug fixes that shore up the breaches in your systems.
  • Be extremely careful about the emails you open and the links you click.
  • Back up your data continuously to a system that is either not always online or that uses authentication. This will help ensure that you don’t accidentally revert to an encrypted back up if you’re hit.

The IoT has been massively compromised because of poorly designed security systems by device manufacturers. To protect yourself, SonicWall reminds you to make sure your devices are behind next-generation firewalls that scan for IoT-specific malware and that you segregate IoT devices on a separate zone to make sure they don’t affect the rest of your network if they’re compromised. To that, we add that you immediately change user names and passwords – and that you make those passwords strong. Some 70 percent of IoT breaches worldwide are in the US.

More protection was made available for Android mobile phones and devices, but they still remain vulnerable to overlay attacks. SonicWall recommends that companies using Android devices keep the option to “install applications from unknown sources” unchecked and both options to “verify applications” checked. They also recommend you avoid rooting and that you install anti-virus and other mobile security apps – and that you enable “remote wipe” in case your device is stolen or compromised with ransomware.

If you’re interested in a deeper dive and more technical explanations, we invite you to read SonicWall’s whitepaper on cybersecurity.

We can help you with a cybersecurity audit for your office or home and for all mobile devices. Call us – 973-433-6676 – or email us for an appointment.

Who’s Watching? Internal Software and the IoT

Connected homes. Connected cars. Doing more over the internet. The Internet of Things (IoT) is growing faster and faster. And that begs two questions: 1.) Who’s watching? 2.) How do you pull the shades on prying eyes?

The answer to the first question is unnervingly simple: It could be anyone in the world.

The short answer to the second question is: Shore-up your security.

As I walked around CES (the Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas last month, I looked at all the devices that are connected to the internet. I thought about all the internal software in those devices – and wondered who’s upgrading that software for security?

Software is at the heart of every device in our house that’s connected – usually wirelessly – to the internet. While we continue to encourage you to change the username and password for every device you have, it’s still possible for hackers to use an open “back door” to get inside the internal software for, let’s say, the camera systems inside and outside your house. We all need to make sure that the companies who provide all these great connected devices are updating their software security. It’s no different than the security patches issued by all software publishers.

In the absence of device manufacturers pushing out software updates, you should make it a habit to visit their websites to see if any updates are available for your products – and to download them and install them right away.

It’s also important to know what’s in your house – even if it’s wired. We visited a house that somebody was buying, and we found a mound of wires in the basement. Not only did the new owners not know what all the wires were connected to, the old owner didn’t know about all of them, either. We found the whole house had been hard-wired, and that there was an old security camera system. We connected all the access points in the house to relieve the pressure on the new Wi-Fi system we installed, and we set up the camera system and made sure it was secure. But had we not been there, nobody would have known how everything was supposed to work and if anything had been exposed to a security breach.

Automobiles, by the way, have internal software, too, and you generally need to visit a dealer to have that checked. It has been demonstrated that hackers can break into certain parts of your car’s computer system and affect your car’s operation. While there’s likely not a widespread benefit that makes economic sense for doing this, you could be an isolated, totally random victim of someone who’s just playing around with the idea of hacking a car.

If you have any questions about the security steps you need to take for your devices, gather all the information you can find about the product and call us – 973-433-6676 – or email us with your questions. If need be, we can help you find the correct software updates or get the information you need to ask the right questions when you contact your device manufacturer.

Don’t Wait When Hacked

A client got hacked at 5 p.m. and discovered it at 8 p.m. They waited until the next morning to call us. Our advice to them was to shut down their system. Our advice to you is don’t wait – but please use some common sense. We don’t appreciate calls at 5:30 in the morning because you can’t connect to the internet or get your email, but a hack is a whole other story.

If you think you’ve been hacked, shut down – as in “power off” – your computer or your system immediately. If nothing’s running or connected, nothing more can be taken from you, nor can anyone get deeper into your system. Once you call us, we can examine every part of your system and help you take steps to secure it before you and everyone in your business or home goes back online.

If we’ve learned anything from news reports, no system is immune from attack. But there are a number of steps you can take to make an intrusion more difficult – and for small businesses and homes, they may be enough to deter anyone from making a huge effort to invade your system.

In the case of the client who was hacked, he did not have administrative rights to his computer – and that was a big help in minimizing the damage. Administrative rights give those who have them the authority to make all sorts of changes to a computer or a group of networked computers. In addition to adding and removing programs and managing data files, administrative rights can be used to grant permission to other users to perform all of those actions.

In a small business, it makes sense to give several people administrative rights to keep business flowing smoothly. Even if you have automated systems to take care of certain functions, you may need to give people permission to do certain things. However, you need to pay attention to security to benefit from the convenience of this flexibility. We recommend:

  • Keep the number of people who need administrative rights to a bare minimum.
  • Make sure those people change passwords frequently and that they use strong passwords.
  • Limit permissions to certain functions to prevent a hacker from getting carte blanche to your entire system.
  • Set up separate users and log-in credentials for performing administrative functions and delete them after those functions are performed.

The same recommendations can apply to a home computer or home network, with the requirement that children and seniors should not have the ability to install or remove programs.

We also can repeat steps we’ve suggested before:

  • Do not use any simple usernames and passwords for any piece of equipment that is connected to the internet. Every device has a default name and password, and hackers know them all.
  • Use strong passwords and change them often. Strong passwords are usually complex passwords. Hackers have software to figure out certain patterns of numbers and letters, and they can pick up information about anyone from public records. Try not to relate your passwords to that information, but for any password, use a combination of upper and lower case letters, numbers and special characters.
  • Download and install updates from the publishers of your application software. In most cases, the updates contain bug fixes and patches to improve the security of your applications.
  • Keep your anti-virus and malware software up to date and active.

Again, if you get hacked, don’t wait to call us. Time is of the essence. Shut down everything and call 973-433-6676 for immediate help.

Of course, preventive measures offer the best protection. Call us or email us to arrange a security audit of your system. And don’t wait until you’re hacked to do it.