Blog

Weak Cybersecurity Costs Home Depot $179 Million

A security breach at Home Depot has left 50 million customers exposed to cyber criminals. Everyone is at risk of cybercrime and deserves adequate protection.

IT Security Risks

After weaknesses in Home Depot’s cyber security in 2014 exposed over 50 million customer’s personal information to criminals, the retailer has been forced to pay around $179 million in damages in several settlements. The financial loss to Home Depot may not stop there, and the risks to the customers may take years to fully realize. The cyber crime and the fallout are one more example of how weak cyber security puts everyone at risk – even people who have minimal interaction with the tech world.

Construction Workers, Home Repair Enthusiasts, Everyday Shoppers – Everyone Is At Risk

When you imagine a customer at Home Depot, you probably do not picture a tech-savvy professional. Home Depot is a resource for building materials, gardening plants, tools and all the things you need to renovate, repair or build something with your hands. There is probably a significant amount of Home Depot customers who do not even use computers – and if they do, it is for email and Facebook. Yet all these customers, from grandpas buying a replacement hand tool to construction professionals sourcing drywall, had their personal information stolen.

The Home Depot hack demonstrates just how pervasive cybercrime can be. You do not have to be a user of the latest tech to be a victim of cybercrime. If you interact with the modern world in any significant way, your identity and financial information can be stolen and exploited – if it is not protected by adequate cyber security.

The 50 million customers that Home Depot failed to protect may never have their information used by criminals, or they may find themselves victimized years from now. Depending on their familiarity with identity theft, the damage done by the criminals could go on for an extended period of time, and be substantial enough to cause real and lasting harm.

A Costly Mistake For Home Depot

Home Depot is a large, thriving international company with over 2,000 stores throughout all 50 states, every province in Canada and Mexico. Yet even as the biggest home improvement retailer in the country, paying $179 million in damages is painful – especially when it could have been prevented with appropriate security measures.

The most recent settlement required Home Depot to pay $25 million, along with an agreement to improve its cyber security to avoid future attacks.

Better Late Than Never

There is no denying that Home Depot improving its cybersecurity is a good thing. The last thing anyone wants is for more of the retailer’s customers to be victimized by hackers. But it is hard to not feel a little frustrated with the company because the majority of the new security measures it adopts could have been implemented in 2014. The best practices and security tools necessary to protect customers may have improved over the past few years, but cyber security professionals have been encouraging businesses to adopt such practices for some time now.

Every Business Should Focus On Cybersecurity

Whether you are the leading home improvement retailer in the country, or you are just starting a business out of your home, you and your customers deserve the best cybersecurity available. At InfiNet Solutions in Omaha, we offer proven methods to hep you protect your business from cyber threats. In the long run, good security is an investment.

Please contact us at (402) 895--5777 or [email protected] today to learn more about how we can help you improve your cyber security.

Weak Cybersecurity Costs Home Depot $179 Million Read More »

What Smaller Healthcare Practices Need To Know About the Ransomware Threat

Many smaller healthcare practices erroneously assume that they won’t be the target of ransomware attacks, but the increased risk to practices of this size require a more proactive approach to cyber security.  

healthcare ransomware

The global risk of ransomware continues to grow, as do the potentially crippling effects for business of all types that experience such an attack. Healthcare organizations face a particular set of risks from the potential loss of protected and confidential data. All companies should take steps to protect themselves against this cybercrime threat, but smaller healthcare practices, in particular, have reason to be more vigilant in the face of this growing risk.

Why cybercriminals target smaller healthcare practices

Many smaller practices fall into the trap of assuming that they face fewer cybersecurity threats than large healthcare organizations such as hospital groups. In fact, cybercriminals are increasingly likely to target these smaller healthcare practices, despite the lower amount of protected health information (PHI) such practices have compared to their larger counterparts. Why? The reason is simple; smaller practices tend to be less experienced with cybersecurity procedures, are less likely to have an internal IT department and are usually more dependent on quick access to their data than larger organizations. All of these factors make smaller practices easier targets for ransomware attacks.

How you can protect your practice from an attack

The most important thing that you can do to protect your healthcare practice from a crippling ransomware attack is to be proactive. Train all of your employees on how to spot the potential ways that cyber criminals can initiate a ransomware attack. This includes educating your staff on the risks of downloading email attachments and clicking on suspicious links in emails. Once your employees are well aware of the potential risk factors that can lead to a ransomware attack, your practice will have created an effective first line of defense against this threat.

Backing up all of your critical data including PHI is also important. If you do fall victim to a ransomware attack, having a secure backup to rely upon will allow your practice to keep working while finding help to deal with the removal of the ransomware.

What to do if you do face a ransomware attack

Luckily, if your practice has taken steps to prepare beforehand, a ransomware attack will be less disruptive. Even those firms with robust cybersecurity protocols can fall victim to an attack, however. If you do face a ransomware demand, many experts including the FBI recommend that you do not pay the ransom. Disconnecting infected machines from your business’ server can help stem the spread of the ransomware infection. At the end of the day, however, those without experience with cyber security threats can only serve to make the damage worse by trying to take corrective steps themselves. If your healthcare practice does not have an internal IT department, utilizing the services of a managed IT provider may be your best course for getting your practice back on its feet.

Are you concerned that your healthcare practice might be vulnerable to a ransomware attack? Our cyber security experts can help you assess your risks and institute better defenses. Contact us today at (402) 895--5777 or [email protected] to learn more.

What Smaller Healthcare Practices Need To Know About the Ransomware Threat Read More »

Wisdom Wednesday: Sifting Through Spam: Understanding The Dangers Of Junk Mail

Spam Email

Every day, businesses and individuals send over 205 billion emails all over the world. Though many of these messages contain valuable information, a significant portion of them are spam. Receiving or sending spam exposes your business to a variety of risks, including:

Ruined Reputations

Many firms are unaware that their email accounts have been compromised, sending spam to current and future clients and partners. This can quickly ruin your company’s reputation and make it harder for you to succeed in the long run. If clients and customers think you’re sending them spam intentionally, they will view you as untrustworthy. Even when they realize your accounts were hacked, they may conclude that you do not understand IT issues or take them seriously. Thus if anyone reports that you have been spamming them, you must promptly apologize and put a stop to the problem.

Malefic Malware

Be wary of spam messages that you receive, as they could harbor viruses, trojans, and other harmful programs. Malware can lock you out of vital programs, provide unauthorized access to sensitive information, or even crash your entire computer system. You should thus never open messages you suspect to be spam. If you don’t realize an email is spam until you have already opened it, do not reply to it or click on its links— not even to unsubscribe from the mailing list. The more you engage with spam, the more opportunities it has to transmit critical programs.

Subtle Scams

In addition to infecting your computer systems, spam writers also use more subtle tactics to cheat you. Junk mail may come in the form of a fake business offer, using the name and writing style of a real company that could be a potential supplier or partner. The scammer will try to convince you to pay them, supposedly for a service or venture that will help your business; if you comply, they will take your payment and leave you with nothing. To separate scams from real business propositions, look up the companies that claim to be sending the emails and contact them independently. If a company has no record of sending the message, the offer is not real.

Data Deliverance

Besides stealing money, scammers can also use spam mail to get you to hand over sensitive information. Phishing scams involve sending you mail under the name of a company or individual you trust, such as your bank, your health insurer, or one of your employees. The message will ask you to send over sensitive information that the company or individual would have access to.

In general, you should never send sensitive information over email, to begin with. If you do receive a message from a trusted entity demanding such information, contact them at a different address or meet with them to confirm their request. Never expose your business to phishing scams.

InfiNet Solutions strives to protect businesses throughout Omaha from spam and all other risks. To learn more, call us at (402) 895--5777 or contact [email protected] today!

Wisdom Wednesday: Sifting Through Spam: Understanding The Dangers Of Junk Mail Read More »

Twitter Tactics: 6 Tips To Attract Followers For Your Firm

Through efficient use of hashtags, networks, and other Twitter features, you can use tweets to bring valuable attention to your brand

Twitter

Brevity isn’t just the soul of wit; it’s also the heart of an effective tweet! Though many firms are loathed to use Twitter because of its strict character limits, those limits are what makes the platform so useful. By constraining the length of your posts, Twitter forces you to use every word intentionally, streamlining information for your followers. To take advantage of these features and promote your brand, you must:

Handle Hashtags

Practical use of hashtags helps potential customers find and follow your posts. Each tweet should thus have an important, relevant tag. Initially, you can determine which tags to use by googling different options and choosing the ones that most bring the most results. As you gain followers, pay attention to the tags they use, incorporating them into your tweets to create a more personalized experience for loyal customers.

Navigate Networks

First-time Twitter users are often shocked by the sheer amount of information in their feeds. This is particularly the case for business users, whose accounts attract traffic from all relevant industry sources. To avoid information overload, you must sort the users in your network into different lists, whether based on business size, specific activities, or other features you value. You can then switch between lists, gaining access to specific kinds of information as you need it.

Cultivate Consistency

Once you begin accruing followers, it is important to give them a clear sense of what to expect from you. Consistency is of particular importance when it comes to tone. Writing your posts in the same positive, engaging way makes it easier for customers to read and interpret them. You should also try to post at similar times each day so that you don’t catch followers off-guard. Try to coordinate the tone and timing of your tweets with posts on other social media to enhance the effect.

Focused Following

Contrary to popular belief, a larger network is not always a better one. Instead, you should follow only those users who are relevant to your industry and have a good reputation. This ensures that the consumers who learn of your firm through your followers will actually find you valuable. It also prevents you from becoming associated with brands that have a bad public image.

Multimedia Management

Videos, photos, and audio can enhance a tweet, but only if used effectively. Incorporate multimedia that relates directly to the substance of your tweets, as it will break up the monotony of text. Multimedia added for the sake of adding multimedia, however, will distract followers.

Managing Social Media

To prevent a growing Twitter feed from taking up all your time and energy, it may be wise to invest in a social media management tool. Programs like TweetDeck and Hootsuite help you to sift through your followers’ content, identifying and taking advantage of material that is most directly relevant to you.

InfiNet Solutions offers in-depth social media marketing advice for organizations in Omaha. For more information, contact (402) 895--5777 or [email protected] today.

 

Twitter Tactics: 6 Tips To Attract Followers For Your Firm Read More »

5 Ways Clipboard Email Creator Can Organize Your Information

Clipboard creator works in Microsoft applications to give you an easier way organize the information you’ve copied and pasted, but it can also be used to clean up and straighten out your Inbox too.

Clipboard Email Creator

When you think about all the information that you receive on a daily basis, it can be overwhelming for anyone to organize. Sensitive data comes in from emails, company meetings, tasks, and through company websites. Clipboard email creator was made so you could capture all that information, and then convert it to a different format that you won’t lose track of. It can be done in Microsoft Documents, or it can be done in Outlook too.

Make the Arrangements

You may be used to the Clipboard creating Office documents that can help you copy and arrange related information from multiple sources in an organized way. But you can use this same feature with Outlook by hitting Control + K when you’re in the Clipboard. You can take the information and turn it into a message you can categorize or send to a colleague, or save a contact that you can easily find or reference later on.

Works with Different Formats

Sometimes the formatting of information ends up causing confusion if you’re trying to manipulate it via copy and paste. The Clipboard makes it easier to maintain the format, so less is lost in translation. It tracks the source of where the information is coming from, so if you’re copying cells over from Excel, you won’t have to re-enter the information so it’s easier to read.

Be Selective

You probably copy and paste information all day, every day. Clipboard allows you to keep track of everything you’ve copied and pasted so that you can be selective about what gets put into a potential email and what stays out. The more you practice this, the better you’ll get at keeping the relevant information in the same places.

Avoid Scheduling Mishaps

Anything formal within your business will likely already have an official invite that will show up on your main page with alerts so you don’t miss it. But there are plenty of events that are much more casual. Even informal meetings and duties need to be on your calendar, so use Clipboard to quickly create scheduling updates that you can then use to plan your day.

Clarifies Your Processes

When you learn how to use it correctly, Clipboard can make it easier to see where you’ve been making mistakes. The more you develop your system of organizing names, numbers and updates, the more routine it will be to copy, transfer and then find it all later either in your Inbox or in your documents.

Saving time is not the best feature of Clipboard. The best feature is that you won’t delete an important piece if information or miss your next meeting. But the extra time can also let you be more productive. InfiNet Solutions is the trusted choice when it comes to staying ahead of technology developments and can provide you with tips, tricks and news. Contact us at (402) 895--5777 or send us an email at [email protected] for more information.

5 Ways Clipboard Email Creator Can Organize Your Information Read More »

6 Keyboard Shortcuts You Have to Learn Today

Keyboard shortcuts can help you feel more efficient by shaving off a few seconds on everyday computer tasks, but the sheer amount can be overwhelming to users.

Master these 6 and go from there.  

Keyboard Shortcuts

Have you ever found it easier to hit control + C instead of right clicking and selecting Copy? If so, you know how helpful keyboard shortcuts can be. Mouse pads can be jumpy and touchscreens can be imprecise, but the shortcut combinations are there to subvert those hassles. Despite the fact that it’s almost impossible to memorize them all, you can learn the ones that come up more often than not.

Forwards and Backwards on a Website: Control + Left (or Right) Arrow

This command is what saves you from hitting the back and forth arrows on your browser. Instead of taking your fingers off the keys to finding the back button, just hit this key combo to go back to the last page or to catapult forward to the next in line. Also, you can also split your screen if you’re using Windows by hitting the Windows + Left (or Right) arrow. This way you can see two separate screens of information side-by-side.

Plain Text: Control + Shift + V

When composing an email or creating a working document, you may want to cite information from a web page. Instead of taking the time to format after you copy or paste, you can use this command to paste as plain text.

Restore Your Last Tab: Control + W

Opening up 30 tabs may be necessary, but it can also make it harder to figure out where everything is located on the screen. If you’re trying to reduce the number of tabs and accidentally close something you need, only use this command to restore the last tab.

Locking Your Screen: Windows + L

Information is becoming more and more valuable, and open screens make that information there for the taking. As regulations increase and fines go up for breaking privacy rules, get in the habit of always locking up your screen no matter how long you step away from your desk.

Bookmark a Webpage: Control + D

Web pages can be difficult to find sometimes, so don’t spend unnecessary searching after you’ve found them. This command lets you name the bookmark and store it in a specific folder so you don’t lose it. If you need to find your list of bookmarks, hit Control + Shift + B.

Send an Outlook Email: Alt + S

One of the most popular things you’ll do all day, this lets you send multiple emails faster. Once you’re in the zone, you’re not going to want your hands to be off the keys for even one second.

These are simple but common ways to cut down on your workload. Want more shortcuts? Use this cheat sheet if you need more commands than those listed here.

InfiNet Solutions is the trusted choice when it comes to staying ahead of technology developments and can provide you with tips, tricks and news. Contact us at (402) 895--5777 or send us an email at [email protected] for more information.

6 Keyboard Shortcuts You Have to Learn Today Read More »

Women in Technology – Inventors and Innovators

When the topic of technology leaders and pioneers comes up, the first names that come to mind are likely Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. While their contributions are undeniable, they are far from the only names worthy of being celebrated.

International Women's Day

In honor of International Women’s Day, here are ten amazing women who have helped to shape technology as we know it:

  • Susan Kare – Kare’s work with user interfaces helped to bring the first Apple computer to life. Her skills in typography and graphic design are responsible for many aspects of the Mac interface still being used today, including the command icon. She was also behind the Happy Mac icon that greeted users during boot up, and the trash can icon. Her work played an important part in Job’s efforts to make the personal computer more personable.After Job’s was forced out of Apple in the mid-1980s, Kare moved on to Microsoft, where she worked on the Windows 3.0 operating system. She has since done work for Facebook, helping to create some of their “digital gifts”, including the rubber ducky, and was the co-founder and executive director of Glam Media. Today, she owns kare.com, a digital design firm in San Francisco, and sells prints of her designs on kareprints.com.
  • Hedy Lamarr – While best known for her work in film in the 1920s, Hedy Lamarr was so much more than just a pretty face. She helped to invent spread-spectrum technology by coming up with the concept of frequency hopping – sending radio signals from different frequency channels. Along with her co-inventor George Antheil, Lamarr originally intended for the Navy to use this technology to control torpedoes. The randomized channel switching would make it difficult for outsiders to understand their communications, essentially making frequency hopping the first encryption technology.The Navy eventually passed on the technology, which was patented on August 11, 1942. The technology was picked up by engineers at Sylvania Electronic Systems Division in the 1950s, leading to the use of Lamarr’s technology in military communications. Her work helped create modern wireless technologies such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA). Lamarr received long overdue recognition for her work in 1997, when she was honored with the Pioneer Award by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, just a few years before her death in 2000.
  • Grace Hopper – Navy Rear Admiral Grace Hopper is known to many as the Queen of Software, or as Grandma COBOL. Hopper invented some of the earliest English-language programming languages and is most closely associated with Common Business-Oriented Language (COBOL), which was based off of the FLOW-MATIC language she invented in 1958. Hopper thought that if programming was created in a language that was easier for people to understand, there would be more computer programmers. Today, COBOL is still widely used to build new business applications.
  • Ada Lovelace – Lovelace is responsible for authoring the world’s first computer algorithm, despite the fact that computers didn’t yet exist. In 1843, Lovelace worked with Charles Babbage on the Analytical Engine, a never-to-be-realized computer. Lovelace completed a French-to-English translation of the work of Italian mathematician Luigi Menabrea, adding extensive notes of her own, which included her algorithm.Lovelace saw more potential in the Analytical Engine than Babbage did, believing it could be capable of much more complex equations. Lovelace died of uterine cancer in 1852 at the age of 36. Her work went underreported for many years, but today she is celebrated on Ada Lovelace Day each year, and is memorialized by the object-oriented programming language called, of course, Ada.
  • Mary Lou Jepsen – Jepsen co-founded and served as the chief technology officer of MicroDisplay in 1995, working on creating smaller display screens. From there, she went on to run the display division at Intel before leaving to co-found One Laptop Per Child. The goal of this nonprofit organization was to provide children worldwide with affordable, green notebook computers. There, Jepsen produced the XO, one of the lowest-power, lowest-cost notebooks ever made.Jepsen left OLPC in 2008 to start Pixel Qi, leveraging the technological advancements she made with the XO to create more economical end user devices. Current units use 10 times less power consumption for their displays than the XO notebooks, and Jepsen hopes to bring that number down even further. Her end goal is to make use of solar cell technology to eliminate the need for batteries and power adapters in laptops, cell phones, and medical devices.
  • Roberta Williams – Adventure gaming doesn’t enjoy the popularity it once did, but there was a time when PC games like King’s Quest were all any geek could talk about. King’s Quest creator Roberta Williams was a pioneer of the PC gaming industry, founding Sierra On-Line (later to be renamed Sierra Entertainment) with her husband Ken Williams. The pair helped shape the history of video games with their complex puzzles and detailed storylines.Williams retired from game development in 1999, having spent 20 years developing games for the original IBM PCjr, the Tandy 1000, the Amiga, the Apple II and the Sega Master System, to name a few.
  • Radia Pearlman – Pearlman’s work as a network engineer led her to develop the Spanning Tree Protocol (STP), which made it possible to build massive networks using Ethernet by creating a mesh network of layer-2 bridges and then disabling the links that aren’t part of the “tree”. This innovation had a massive impact on network switches, earning Pearlman the nickname of Mother of the Internet.Currently working as an Intel fellow, Pearlman is helping the company to improve their network and security technologies. She recently developed the new TRansparent Interconnection of Lots of Links (TRILL), which sets a new standard for data center connectivity, and could replace STP.
  • Dr. Erna Hoover – We have Hoover to thank for a major reduction in dropped calls and busy signals. Patented in 1971, Hoover developed a telephony switching computer program while working at Bell Laboratories. The program allowed phones to keep functioning under high call volumes, preventing it from hanging up on itself.Now 86 years old, Hoover is retired. She was inducted into the National Inventers Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio in 2008.
  • Marissa Mayer – Having been one of the very first employees to join Google back in 1999 when the search engine giant was still just a startup, Mayer currently serves as VP of location and location services. She leads project management and engineering for a range of search products, including Google Maps, Local Search, Google Earth, Street View, and Latitude.Mayer’s skills in user interface design and product vision have helped to keep Google at the head of the pack. At 36 years old, Mayer is the youngest member of Google’s executive operating committee, and a vocal advocate for women in technology.
  • Barbara Liskov – Liskov was one of the first women to earn a computer science Ph.D, and is the inventor of CLU, a programming language that helped lay the groundwork for object-oriented programming. She is also responsible for Argus, an extension of CLU that supports distributed programs, and Thor, an object-oriented database system. Her work has had a major influence on modern OOP-based languages and operating systems, such as Mac OS X, Objective-C, Visual Basic.NET and Java.Today, the now 72 year old Professor Liskov continues her research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She received the A.M. Turing Award, the “Nobel Prize of computing” in 2008 from the Association for Computing Machinery. She was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for her contributions to programming languages and system design in 2012.

Women in Technology – Inventors and Innovators Read More »

Weekly Tech Tip: Create a mobile device action plan

Mobile devices can create significant security and management challenges, especially if they hold confidential information or can access the corporate network. Require users to password protect their devices, encrypt their data, and install security apps to prevent criminals from stealing information while the phone is on public networks. Be sure to set reporting procedures for lost or stolen equipment.

Mobile Device Security

Weekly Tech Tip: Create a mobile device action plan Read More »

5 Outlook Shortcuts to Streamline Your Emails, Schedule and Tasks

Outlook shortcuts don’t require you to memorize a thousand commands. By mastering a few key shortcuts, you can save several minutes to get more done at work.

Microsoft Outlook

Most office workers are used to the quirks of Microsoft Outlook, but many may not know just how much it can do (and just how quickly it can do it.) While many of the things about Outlook are intuitive, shortcuts can keep your focus at the moment instead of having to break it to find what you need. If you’ve ever been late for a meeting, let a task slip by or lost an email, then use these 5 shortcut tips to save time.

Start Organizing Your Emails

When an email comes in, you can flag it as a task, so it shows up in a list on the right-hand side of your computer screen. Much like a ticketing system, it means you’re less likely to forget to take care of something if you have a list that you can quickly check off and update. All you have to do when you get the email is hit Control + Shift + K, and voila, you have a new task. You can also use Control + Shift + G to flag it as a follow-up if you don’t want to create a task.

Simplified Searching

New versions of Outlook allow you to color-coordinate both the categories and details within the categories (e.g., by person, project, etc.), so you’re more likely to find what you’re looking for. Right click on the categories field to get started. From the Home tab, you can then manage your tags and choose your own shortcut by going from All Categories to Tags Group to the alternative options. Again, your capabilities will depend on your version.

Calendar Views

If you’re looking for your daily, weekly or monthly calendar, simply hit Alt + the first letter of the timeline you seek. So Alt + D will pull up your daily calendar, Alt + W is weekly, etc. This can help you quickly pull everything up quickly, so you have a chance to say yes or decline invitations without delay.

Mute Thread

Ever put on an email chain that pings you repeatedly from the 30 people who are all on it? If so, you can use Control + Delete key to get to the Delete panel, where you can then click Ignore so you can mute the thread and concentrate on your day.

Spellcheck

Just hitting F7 when you’re in Outlook automatically runs the spellcheck for you. This can be a quick habit to get into when you’re sending multiple emails a day and need them to be perfect.

Before you dismiss these, consider how much more you can get done with just a few extra minutes a day. Those who use these shortcuts can cut between 10 and 15 minutes of unnecessary work. InfiNet Solutions is the trusted choice when it comes to staying ahead of time-saving ideas in technology and can provide you with tips, tricks and news. Contact us at (402) 895--5777 or send us an email at [email protected] for more information.

5 Outlook Shortcuts to Streamline Your Emails, Schedule and Tasks Read More »