iYogi alerts’ informs you about fake antivirus scam. Such scam tricks you by sending virus infection warnings on your PC and convinces you to buy a rouge security software. We, at iYogi can assist you in protecting your computer from malicious software, in order to stay safe and secure while using Internet.
Keeping Your MIS Staff Updated
Keeping Your MIS Staff Updated
Often major problems and support bills can be avoided by simply making a short phone call and/or sending and email to the CCS Support Department before making questionable software or infrastructure changes.
A recent example of this involved a end-user who uninstalled his existing POS Registers, Anti-Virus software program and replaced it with a Anti-Virus/Anti-Malware Suite product that has a history of issues with poor performance, un-reliability, and not being user-friendly.
The results of this process did the following to the register…
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Increased the Memory and CPU resource usage to the point that the register was basically unusable.
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ALL of the default settings for the security software were not conducive for use with a POS system. The user had no knowledge of how to correct these issues.
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The software had a personal firewall component that overrode the existing Windows Firewall Settings and blocked all of the TCP communication ports. This completely disabled the ability for anyone to remotely access the register, and blocked access for Credit Card authorizations over the Internet.
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Even after spending considerable time tweaking settings at the insistence of the customer, it was confirmed that the software was placing to great a performance hit on the register to make it viable as a tool.
To add insult to injury… the end-user was instructed to remove this existing offending software suite, and restart the register, BEFORE re-installing the original Anti-Virus software. However, Instead, the old Anti-Virus software was installed over the top of the Anti-Virus/Anti-Malware suite software, resulting in both programs fighting for control of the register. This caused the register to randomly lock-up.
In the end, the result was a great waste of time for the end-user, an unnecessary support bill, and a lot of aggravation. A simple phone call could have avoided all of this.
If you are a CCS Retail Systems Customer and anticipating making any security or infrastructure changes, please call the CCS Retail Systems Support Department or email us for assistance first.
Most and Least Reputable Big Companies in America
In an article by Jacquelyn Smith for Forbes.com, a list of America’s Most and Least Reputable Big Companies, compiled by Reputation Institute, is shown. Can you guess what company tops the list as most reputable? It is Amazon.com.
According to Anthony Johndrow, managing partner for Reputation Institute, Amazon.com tops the list because it “stands for more than what it sells”. Innovative products and services, a trustworthy and ethical customer experience, and a strong financial performance combine to create a meaningful connection between Amazon and its customers.
Care to guess who is dead last on the list? It’s Freddie Mac (Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation). If you look at the guidelines given above that ranked Amazon so highly, it’s easy to see where Freddie Mac failed its customers!
The standards used to judge big companies also apply to small ones. What are you doing to make sure that your customers are receiving the very best experience possible when they patronize your business?
CustomerConnect is one of many tools CounterPoint POS Software offers that will help you in this direction. It gives retailers the data needed to effectively connect with consumers, drive sales and increase customer loyalty.
If you would like more information about CustomerConnect, call us today at 800-672-4806 or email us. Your success is our success!
Remove Default accounts
Many software packages, and specialty such equipment as routers, use their own access control. The majority of these have a default username and/or password set, to be able to set them up for your system.
Once these are setup, the default password needs to be removed. For example, if someone is scanning addresses, and finds your router, when they connect it will usually identify itself, telling that person what they have connected to. If the default password has not been removed, it is easy for that person to lookup what the default is for your router, and log into it. They could then change the settings, and take you offline. Even worse, they could possibly use the information they find in your router, to further infiltrate your network.
It seems like an obvious thing to change, or delete, the default account and/or password, but in fact the majority of users do not.
If you are not familiar with your router configuration or similar topics contact CCS Retail for help.
Remove old accounts
In the course of your business, employees will come and go. When an employee leave, however, you need to remove their account, so that they can no longer access your system.
Recently I had a customer have me check on the accounts that they had, and well over half of them were people that no longer worked for the company. In addition, this customer has remote access for many of their employees that work from home. There were many people who had worked for them, that could still get into their system.
Obviously, this is a big security issue. If any of these people had wanted to, they could have connected to the server, and removed many files that this company needed to conduct their business.
So, when an employee leaves, make sure that you block their access to your systems. At the very least, this would involve changing the user’s password. Better still, is to delete, lock, or retire, the user account. That way, if the user can not guess what the password is and still get access. The account will not allow access, even if the correct password is used.
Contact CCS Retail to help establish these procedures and policies to protect your systems.
Centralized System administration
The larger your network, the more you can benefit from centralized administration. If you have two or three computers, it’s not too difficult to make sure that they are kept up-to-date, with patches and security software.
However, as your network grows, it is increasingly time consuming to administer each computer separately. Centralized administration makes it much easier to keep all of your computes up-to-date.
We use a network version of our anti-virus program, which is administered from a central server. From this server, all of the desktops can be scheduled to update their anti-virus software, virus signatures, and scheduling system scans. I can check the status of all desktops from this one location, to make sure that they have the latest virus updates installed, check the results of their system scans, and so forth.
Since it is much faster to check them all from this one location, they are monitored more closely than they would be if I had to go to each machine to check them.
That is just one example of a product that can be administered centrally. Contactl us if you would like help centralizing more of your administration.
The Devil in the Details
You may have read a blog or two on the CCS retail Systems website about giving as much information as possible when describing a problem with your system. I recently troubleshot and fixed an on-going problem for a customer that proves this point.
The initial issue was that one of the registers was "Slow". I tried to ask the actual users what the problem was, and all I got was that the register was slow compared the the other registers at the store. I even went as far as to ask the users to start a problem log in hopes of getting more information. With such a vague description the problem it could be anything from a virus or malware to a network problem. I logged in to the problem register, and had the user help me by describing where things were plugged into it. I checked cables, and some of the more obvious stuff which may not have been check before. While talking to the user, I finally got the key piece of information which led to the resolution of the problem. Sometimes techs pickup on these key pieces while talking to the users while we are waiting for a system to reboot or while the user is logging in.
The key piece of information was that it was not the whole computer that was slow or even that the software was slow, it was that a certain task was slow depending on the type of transaction being processed. Armed with that information (which was not disclosed or documented before) I knew exactly where to go and what to do to fix the problem.
A simple problem log could of made this issue go away in 15 minutes rather than the time it actually took. So as you can see the Devil really is in the details.
If you have any system questions or concerns, call the CCS Retail Systems Support Department or email_us
-Bryan 
Amazon cloud problem point out vulnerabilities
Recently, Amazon has had problems with its cloud computing service. Part of their systems became overloaded, causing a large amount of re-mirroring, which took many sites offline. Many also permanently lost their data.
This points out the problem with cloud computing. You are at the mercy of those running the cloud. Many sites were down, because they were using a cloud, where the problems that arose were totally out of their control. Even if their data was not lost, they had to wait until those in charge of the cloud got around to restoring their data.
If you are using cloud computing, and there is a problem, all you can do is wait for the problem to be fixed. If you are running your site in-house and there is a problem, at least you are in control of getting it resolved. You can make the decision if the existing systems can be revived, or a new system is required. You also can take steps to insure the safety of your data.
Contact CCS Retail Support for a Data Security and Reliability Audit that addresses these and related issues. Most retailers cannot afford to be down at all. Every few minutes down can result in lost revenue from lost counter activity.
Using Windows Media Player Files
Windows Media Player Files (.wmv) requires that your Windows system has all the libraries needed registered in the Windows registry. One of the most common reasons for Internet Explorer failing to load .wmv files is the wmp.dll is not registered. To correct this do the following on your PC:
Run a command prompt as administrator ( Enter cmd to the Run command prompt )
Enter: cd \windows\system32
Enter: regsvr32 wmp.dll
You should get a window showing successful registration.
Now try your .wmv file link again.
Avoid clicking on links and images in malware-laden emails, McAfee warns
Avoid clicking on links and images in malware-laden emails, McAfee warns
Computer users around the world received phony Easter greetings with links to malware on Monday, according to research by McAfee Labs™.
Cybercrooks often take advantage of current events to grab computer users’ attention, and this time they are using the upcoming Christian holiday to distribute dangerous emails with links to a password-stealing program.
Fortunately, the threat has already been identified by McAfee and McAfee software will protect customers against it.
One email appears to be a typical e-card with a colorful image of a bunny, chicks and eggs. A message invites you to “Download Animated Greeting Here.” If you click on the link or image, it installs malware onto your machine that can steal passwords and other sensitive information, as well as give control of your machine to the attacker.
http://blogs.mcafee.com/consumer/consumer-threat-alerts/easter-bunny-delivers-basket-of-malware