If you are not 100% certain your business is protected from ransomware like this, call us to schedule a security analysis ASAP!
2018: DriveSavers Year in Review
We can assist you with many options for backing up your data, but If you lose irreplaceable pictures, files, documents, etc. on a failed drive that wasn’t backed up, we can still help!
We are partnered with DriveSavers. All leading manufacturers authorize DriveSavers to open sealed drive mechanisms without voiding the original warranty. Their data recovery allows you to receive an in-warranty drive replacement from the manufacturer!
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The 6 most popular cyberattack methods hackers use to attack your business
765 MILLION USERS AFFECTED IN Q2!!! UP 47%!!!
If you don’t have time to read the whole article, the bottom line is that Spyware and Malware are grouped into the #1 top form of cyber attacks today. Starkville Computers has the solution to this problem… with the BEST anti-malware defense on the planet… GUARANTEED - for less than $20 per year per computer (less for bulk/business services).
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Message, call or come see us today! We can take a payment online, via phone, or in the store.
I will personally guarantee a malware-free machine as long as your subscription is active… if you get an infection, we will give you your money back for the anti-malware AND clean up your machine for FREE!
Patrick A. Linley
Here's how your company can prevent common cybersecurity incidents including malware and social engineering, according to a Positive Technologies report.
Cyberattacks show no sign of slowing down this year, according to a Wednesday report from Positive Technologies. Q2 2018 saw a 47% increase in cyberattacks over Q2 2017, with targeted attacks outnumbering mass campaigns as cybercriminals grow more sophisticated. Most cases involved targeted attacks on companies and their clients, as well as cryptocurrency exchanges, the report found.
Data theft is driving an increasing number of attacks, with many criminals seeking personal data (30%), credentials (22%), and payment card information (15%). To steal this data, hackers are compromising online platforms, including e-commerce websites, online ticketing systems, and hotel booking sites, according to the report.
Attackers targeted cryptocurrency platforms twice as often in Q2 2018 as the year before, the report found: In May and June, a number of attacks affected Verge, Monacoin, Bitcoin Gold, ZenCash, Litecoin Cash, and others, with attackers stealing more than $100 million total from these platforms.
"Cyberattacks in Q2 victimized 765 million ordinary users to the tune of tens of millions of dollars," Leigh-Anne Galloway, cybersecurity resilience lead at Positive Technologies, said in a press release. "Today, you can never be sure that criminals don't have your credit card number from one source or another. Even when you buy a brand-new smartphone in a store, you can still end up getting pre-installed malware."
Here are the six most popular cyberattack methods criminals used in Q2 2018, according to the report.
1. Malware (49%)
Cybercriminals continue to steal data from victims' computers, most commonly using spyware (26%) or remote administration malware (22%) to do so, the report found. The most common malware infection methods in Q2 2018 were compromising servers and workstations by accessing a targeted system using vulnerabilities, social engineering, or bruteforced passwords (29%), planting malicious software on victims' devices via infected websites (29%), and sending malicious attachments or links by email (23%).
2. Social engineering (25%)
Cybercriminals continue to innovate in the social engineering space, developing new methods to manipulate users into believing a message, link, or attachment is from a trusted source, and then infecting targeted systems with malware, stealing money, or accessing confidential information, the report found.
3. Hacking (21%)
Hacking—exploiting vulnerabilities in software and hardware—is often the first step in an attack, the report stated. Hackers currently cause the most damage to governments, banks, and cryptocurrency platforms.
4. Credential compromise (19%)
While enterprise users increasingly look to password managers for storing and keeping track of passwords, these managers can also be vulnerable to attack, the report noted.
5. Web attacks (18%)
Cybercriminals can extort website operators for profit, sometimes by threatening to steal client databases or shut down the website.
6. DDoS (5%)
DDoS tends to be the weapon of choice for business rivals, disgruntled clients, and hacktivists, according to the report. These attacks typically hit government institutions, and political events are a major driver. However, criminals also perform DDoS attacks for profit, taking websites offline and demanding payment from the victims to stop the attack.
While these are real threats to a business, companies can take several steps to keep their data safe, including centralizing update management, placing antivirus protection on all systems and endpoints, and implementing SIEM capabilities, the report recommended. Businesses should also encrypt all sensitive information, perform regular backups, minimize the privileges of users and services as much as possible, and use two-factor authentication. Enforcing a password policy with strict length and complexity requirements, and requiring password changes every 90 days, can also help protect your systems.
The big takeaways for tech leaders:
Q2 2018 saw 47% more cybersecurity incidents than Q2 2017. — Positive Technologies, 2018
The most common types of cyberattacks are malware, social engineering, hacking, credential compromise, web attacks, and DDoS attacks. — Positive Technologies, 2018
Article By Alison DeNisco Rayome | October 3, 2018, 6:01 AM PST Guard and Reserve Prepare for Battle in the Fifth Domain
Hurricanes. Wildfires. Mudslides.
When natural disasters strike, the nation often responds by sending in the National Guard and Reserve. In military missions our nation supports around the world, the Guard and Reserve makes up nearly half the total force. In addition to these familiar roles, Guard and Reservists are increasingly working behind the scenes to take on a less visible, but no less daunting mission: protecting our nation’s cyber infrastructure. Cyberspace has been called the fifth domain of warfare, a virtual dimension existing alongside land, sea, air, and space.
The Department of Defense (DoD) recognizes cyberspace as a critical battleground and is drawing up its forces in that realm. The Guard and Reserve are playing a key role in these battles where enemies are unseen and the potential risks to our way of life incalculable. Getting the Job Done Across the country — from the Air Force Distributed Common Ground System to the 177th Information Aggressor Squadron and Maryland’s 175th Cyberspace Operations Group — Guardsmen and Reservists are monitoring networks, collecting and analyzing intelligence data, conducting exercises, and responding to threats. During the 2016 presidential election, Ohio brought in its own National Guard to defend the election system against hackers in that key battleground state. The Ohio National Guard’s elite cyber unit was the first in the nation to be tapped for such a task. In August of 2017, U.S. Army Cyber Command formed Task Force Echo. It is the first full-time Army National Guard cyber unit, representing the largest mobilization of cyber forces from reserve units ever assembled.
The 138 members of Task Force Echo were recruited because of their existing cyber expertise. Col. Adam Volant, the commander of Task Force Echo, said, “We are military trained, but we also bring an abundant amount of experience from the private sector, from government, [and] from academia. The Soldiers in my formation are really information technology professionals. They work for major defense companies. They work for the government. They work for all the major brands that do technology and cyber.” With this draw-up of military cyber expertise comes intense training — and a lot of it. While service members may be sitting in front of computer screens, the mental flexibility required is grueling. In April of last year, members of the National Guard and Army Reserve came together for Cyber Shield 17, an exercise in which “Red Cell” members played adversary hackers attempting to infiltrate “Blue Cell” cyberinfrastructure.
Members of the Blue Cell aggressively defended their systems, a task designed to challenge them to their breaking points. The difficulty of this exercise was in direct proportion to the high stakes of real-world cyberattacks. As one Blue Team member remarked, “Cyber threats are real. They are already all around us, and they affect every aspect of our daily interactions.” Examples like these illustrate the growing need for tech-savvy Guardsmen and Reservists as the DoD’s Cyber Mission Force grows. In 2018, the DoD aims to stand up 133 Cyber Mission Teams. That means more training and more opportunities for personnel —both active and reserve. The pool of cyber candidates from the Guard and Reserve is potentially quite large. A 2017 study by the RAND Corporation estimates that approximately 100,000 Guardsmen and Reservists have enough technical skill to make them potential cybersecurity assets.
Uniquely Positioned Tapping into those assets is a major priority of the DoD. As early as 2015, then-Secretary of Defense Ash Carter said of the potential impact of the reserve components on cybersecurity, “There’s a great untapped, not yet fully tapped resource…which is our Guard and Reserve.” One interpretation is that the Guard and Reserve can provide a bridge between the military’s active components and the civilian realm. “The reserve components of the U.S. military are uniquely positioned to attract, train and manage a cadre of information security professionals who are able to operate both with the active components of the U.S. armed forces and with civilian authorities,” said the authors of an article in Tech Crunch. They go on to say that those who work in the technology sector in their civilian day jobs may bring valuable experience to bear on their military mission. The reserve components are actively recruiting private sector professionals to its cybersecurity ranks.
The National Guard, for example, is looking for “Cyber Operations Specialists” and “Cyber Network Defenders” to serve. As Lt. Gen. Paul Nakasone said while commander of U.S. Army Cyber Command, “Our Total Force Army — our Army National Guard, our Army Reserve, all of these Soldiers, including the active component, will play a significant role in the future of securing cyberspace defense for our Nation.” A total force approach involves closely integrating the active and reserve components, and re-defining modern warfare to incorporate cyberspace as the fifth domain. As it has for all its other missions, the Guard and Reserve will take its place on the front lines in defense of this nation.
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Thanks for your support and your votes in all 3 Computer Categories!!
Ribbon Cutting & Grand Reopening
Time-saving tips to speed your work in Microsoft Office
No matter how long you’ve been working with Office apps, discovering a shortcut here and there can make you more productive and efficient. This ebook features five collections of tips—covering Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Access--to help you knock out everyday tasks with less effort.
From the ebook:
Most users pick up efficiency tips, such as using styles, keyboard shortcuts, and Format Painter, as beginners. What you'll find, though, is that even experts sometimes do things the hard way. In this article, I'll share 10 tips for working faster in Word. They're not new by any means, but a few of them might be new to you.
Change your Paste default Nothing annoys me more than pasting content from another source and then having to reformat it because the content doesn't match my document's formatting. You've probably run into it too. If you remember to use the Keep Text Only option from the Paste dropdown, you can avoid the extra reformatting step—if you remember. If this occurs often enough, you need to take control of the situation and change Word's default settings by clicking the File tab, choosing Options, and then choosing Advanced in the left pane. In the Cut, Copy, And Paste section, choose Keep Text Only from the Pasting From Other Programs dropdown.
After setting this option, Word will match your source document's formatting when pasting content from another source, including the web. This is an application-level setting so it will affect all documents, not just the current one.
Source: TechRepublic
Starkville's "Best" Computer Repair - 11th year in a row!
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Please vote for us again, as Starkville's Best Computer Sales & Service for the 10th year in a row!
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Smartphone Repair
We get many inquiries regarding smartphone and tablet repair, however, we DO NOT perform these services... we recommend Smartphone Doctor (in the shopping center with McAllister's Deli), their phone number is (662)617-8118. We know these guys and have gotten great reviews on their work!
