Category Archives: Blog

Posted on Author Atlantic Computer Services Categories Blog

How safe is your data when your staff works from home?

How safe is your data when your staff works from home?

The Coronavirus crisis has changed the world as we know it. With social distancing, lockdowns and work from home becoming the new normal, cyber criminals are exploiting the situation to their gains. This whitepaper discusses how the cyber crime landscape is likely to shape up in the post-pandemic world and how businesses can safeguard themselves against it.

One of the reasons for a sudden spike is cyber crimes is the work-from-home model that is increasingly becoming the norm. When you allow remote access to your data, you are virtually opening your IT infrastructure to criminals–unless you have the right security measures. It is easy for malware and hackers to get into your system and corrupt it unless you have the right measures in place.

With employees operating from home, there are a lot of loopholes that cyber criminals target. Some of them include

Lack of knowledge
Most employees don’t realize how their simple actions or non-actions can contribute to a cyberattack that can bring your whole business down. For example, they may unwittingly end up compromising on your business’s data security by sharing passwords, not using a good antivirus software or using the public WiFi to access their emails, etc.,

It is more difficult to oversee IT operations
With teams working remotely, it is difficult for businesses to manage their IT efficiently. Installation of security patches, anti-malware tools, data backups, etc., are all more difficult now.

Working from home offers businesses a lot of benefits in terms of cost savings, employee satisfaction and flexibility. But, it also raises a lot of questions from the IT security perspective. When opting for the work-from home model, it is important to clearly define the IT policies and put them into practice. You could partner with an MSP who specializes in cybersecurity and remote workspace management to help you formulate a safe, remote working environment.

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Posted on Author Atlantic Computer Services Categories Blog

Vulnerability In This Cisco Software Could Allow Hackers Access

Cisco recently discovered a critical security flaw in their Cisco Redundancy Configuration Manager (RCM) for Cisco StarOS.  The vulnerability allowed an attacker to execute code arbitrarily and gain root-level access on any device suffering from the vulnerability which is being tracked as CVE-2022-20649.

The good news is that Cisco responded with blistering speed and this issue has already been patched. Based on the best intelligence currently available, there were no examples of this exploit having been used ‘in the wild’ so the company was able to catch and correct it before hackers got wind of it and started taking advantage of the flaw.

The company explained how the flaw could be used in a recent blog post, which read in part as follows:

“A vulnerability in Cisco RCM for Cisco StarOS Software could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to perform remote code execution on the application with root-level privileges in the context of the configured container.

An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by connecting to the device and navigating to the service with debug mode enabled. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary commands as the root user.”

They still could so if your company uses Cisco RCM for StarOS 21.25.3 or below you’ll want to grab the 21.25.4 version at your earliest opportunity. Kudos to Cisco for their rapid response here.

It’s still early in the year so we’re bound to see several other issues like this but when they occur if every company responds the way Cisco did here it stands to be a good year indeed.  Of course, that’s unlikely to happen but we’re happy to have a bit of good news to report.

Hang onto your hats though 2022 stands to be every bit as interesting as 2021 was.

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Posted on Author Atlantic Computer Services Categories Blog

This Plugin Could Put Your WordPress Site At Risk

The WP HTML Mail plugin has been installed on more than 20,000 websites. If you’ve built a WordPress site for your business and you use that plugin,  be aware that you are at risk.  A high severity security flaw was recently discovered in the plugin that could allow an attacker to perform a code injection style attack that allows the attacker to send phishing emails to the site’s registered users.

The plugin is popular because it is compatible with a wide range of other plugins including BuddyPress, Ninja Forms, WooCommerce, and others.  The plugin isn’t as wildly popular as many others and doesn’t boast an overly impressive number of total installations. However, many of the sites that do use it have large audiences which means that this flaw puts more people at risk than first meets the eye.

The flaw is being tracked as CVE-2022-0218 and was discovered on December 23rd of last year (2021).  As of now the plugin’s developer has released a patch that addresses the issue.

If you use the plugin check your version number. If you’re using anything earlier than 3.1 update to 3.1 or later right away to protect yourself, your reputation, and the customers who have registered on your site.

The last thing you want is for your company to get a black eye when your customers start complaining about a flood of scam emails that start hitting their inboxes right after they create an account on your site.

Although the plugin developer took nearly a month to address the issue they did address it and we give them kudos for that.  Here’s hoping that if additional security flaws are found in their product they’ll have an even faster response that will help keep their users and the customers of their users safe.

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Posted on Author Atlantic Computer Services Categories Blog

Support Comes To An End For iOS 14 For iPhone Devices

When Apple first released iOS 15 they posted a promise on their website.

That promise was:

“If you’re using iOS or iPadOS 14.5 or later, you might now see the option to choose between two software update versions. This option allows you to choose between updating to the latest version of iOS or iPadOS 15 as soon as it’s released, or continuing on iOS or iPadOS 14 while still getting important security updates for a period of time.”

Although the promise specifically states “for a period of time” many users assumed it would be forever or at least indefinitely.  It isn’t and Apple just pulled the plug on iOS 14 support.  There won’t be any more.

In some ways that’s disappointing but it’s not really a surprise.  It is disappointing because most companies continue offering support to older products for a full year at least and in Apple’s case it hasn’t been that long.

On the other hand, it is not surprising because it’s clear that Apple really wants people to upgrade to iOS 15. If it gets a little too heavy-handed to make that happen the company has now demonstrated a willingness to do so.

Unfortunately, based on Apple’s own statistics fully 30 percent of their user base is running iOS 14. That means by pulling the plug they’re essentially leaving about a third of their user base to fend for themselves in terms of security updates they’re no longer getting.

Yes this will provide a powerful incentive for them to upgrade but given Apple’s reputation, that seems a bit out of character.

At the root the issue is that Apple wasn’t transparent with the timeframe.  “For a period of time” could mean almost anything.  Apple clearly meant for it to mean “for a short period of time” but many of their users didn’t interpret it that way. As a result, there’s bound to be some bad blood over this.

In any case if you’re currently running iOS 14 upgrade as soon as possible because no further security updates are coming.

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Posted on Author Atlantic Computer Services Categories Blog

Top 10 Brands That Phishing Attackers Use To Scam Users

Scammers delight in impersonating government agencies and well-known brands to lure email recipients into giving up their personal information. That information is then either exploited directly or sold to the highest bidder on the Dark Web.

Have you ever wondered which agencies, companies or brands are the most imitated by these attackers?

Whether you have or not it should come as no surprise that someone is tracking that.  Security firm Checkpoint is tracking it to be precise.

Quite often Microsoft tops the list but this year they’ve been dethroned by shipping company DHL. That may not be surprising given the realities of the pandemic and the rise in popularity of online shopping.

Here is the list of the top ten for this year from their report:

  1. DHL (impersonated in 23 percent of all phishing attacks, globally)
  2. Microsoft (20 percent)
  3. WhatsApp (11 percent)
  4. Google (10 percent)
  5. LinkedIn (8 percent)
  6. Amazon (4 percent)
  7. FedEx (3 percent)
  8. Roblox (3 percent)
  9. Paypal (2 percent)
  10. Apple (2 percent)

The specific lure used in each of these cases varies wildly.  For instance, when a scammer spoofs a shipping company the email is typically some variation of “we’re trying to deliver a package to you but are having problems, press this button for more information.”

While PayPal scams typically go the route of “Your account has been temporarily suspended.  Please click here to verify your information.”

Microsoft and Google are commonly spoofed in various software giveaway schemes. Or in the case of Google some variation of “click here to claim your free Chromebook.”

Now that you are armed with a list of the most often imitated brands you at least have a list of things to be on the lookout for.  The best defense is vigilance just like always.  If it sounds too good to be true it probably is and don’t ever click on embedded links even if you think you know and trust the sender.

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