Bryans Blog

Apple Products Targeted by Cyber-criminals

Mac users would be wise to be extra careful this holiday season. With Apple’s PCs growing in popularity, cyber criminals have written a new wave of malware directed at Macs. MacAfee found 5,000 pieces of Mac-targeted malware as of late 2010, and that number has been increasing 10 percent month to month.

Also don’t forget that smartphones are becoming targets of malware too.  Some malware writers are even creating the QR codes (the square barcodes that can be scanned by a smartphone) that direct your phones browser to malicious sites.  Most of the more well known Anti-Virus makers are now making anti-virus apps for phones.  AVG has an Android anti-virus application, and Blackberry has multiple anti-virus applications for Blackberry phones.  You can be sure there is at least one anti-virus app on the Market that can and should be installed on your Apple Products like iPhone, iPad, and iPod..

If you have any system questions or concerns, please contact the CCS Retail Systems Support Department at 800.672-4806 or email us

-Bryan

Holiday Screen-Saver Malware

We have all seen them.  Some of them even look pretty cool, but do you really know what you are installing?

I’m sure there are some safe or less intrusive holiday screen-savers out there, but most that I have seen either install spyware/malware, an obscure toolbar for some obscure search engine or both.  If the site requires an email address to download the program, I would bet that you will be getting spam in your email inbox from the latest sale at your local grocery store to the latest sale at the Big Box stores.

So before giving out your email to some unknown site, or installing something that may (and probably will) install spyware.  Think twice and be sure what you are installing is safe and malware/spyware free.  Download the screen-saver install program and scan it before performing the installation to make sure.

If you have any system questions or concerns, please call the CCS retail Systems Support Department at 800.672.4806 or email us.   We track many dangerous screen-savers by working with our customers.

Bryan.

Good and Bad Passwords – Create Complex Passwords for the Best Security
 

excepted from PC Mag

"Whenever simple passwords are discussed, the following story always comes up.  Five years ago, a group of Slovak hackers  hacked Slovakia’s National Security Bureau (abbreviated NBU), which stores tons of classified information. It was an easy hack. The NBU’s master login/password was simply nbusr/nbusr123. After cracking it, the hackers publicized the information, much to the NBU’s embarrassment.

What’s even worse? Days later, the password was still "nbu123."

That was five years ago, but bad passwords still abound. SplashData, a password management app maker, compiled a list of the 25 worst passwords of 2011, based on millions of stolen passwords that were dumped online. Typically after hackers compromise a server, like Sony’s or CIA.gov’s, they post all these personal details online.

Many of the passwords are sequential numbers like "12345" or "654321," while others contained messages like "letmein" and "trustno1". Even if you thought you were being clever with "qazwsx," (look at your keyboard, you’ll get it) it’s number 23 on the list. "Monkey," "password," and "qwerty" are ALWAYS on these lists. I know I’m preaching to the choir here but, seriously?

1. password
2. 123456
3. 12345678
4. qwerty
5. abc123
6. monkey
7. 1234567
8. letmein
9. trustno1
10. dragon
11. baseball
12. 111111
13. iloveyou
14. master
15. sunshine
16. ashley
17. bailey
18. passw0rd
19. shadow
20. 123123
21. 654321
22. superman
23. qazwsx
24. michael
25. football

Having a tough-to-crack password won’t thwart a sophisticated cybercriminal, who can use other methods to breach a server in which passwords are stored. But a solid password will at least deter the lowest common denominator like a nosy partner or a low-level hacker using a dictionary attack that simply tries thousands of passwords. "

So what is a good password then? 

Here are some rules and some examples:

A secure password will contain a combination of upper and lower case characters, numbers, and special characters like "@", and "#’. This makes guessing the password much harder, and blocks against a standard dictionary attack.

As for remembering such a password, there are some tricks that can make it easier. Let’s take a very simple password like "freddie". If we change the case of a letter (I recommend a letter other than the first one, as that may be done in a dictionary attack), we get something like "freDDie". Better, but not great. Now substitute a number for a letter, and get "fr3DDie". Then a special character, and you get "fr3DD!e". That is a much more secure password, and yet is still easy to remember.

To summarize:

• Don’t use passwords that are based on personal information that can be easily accessed or guessed

• Don’t use words that can be found in any dictionary of any language

• Use both lowercase and capital letters

• Use a combination of letters, numbers, and special characters

• Use different passwords on different systems

After all, your system, and information, is only as secure as the weakest security link, and a weak password a sure way to invite the hackers into your system.

Examples:

Uuu8lRXpnVzRL4h5qHbn
g0U3YQ2TYcyeeJI2bZhT
9JMZ2N5ANy0Da4uk6qr1
EbzSv5PewUrcciOyJxHr
mCWAzxR3Tauy8sVFxPi6

If you have any system questions or concerns, contact the CCS Retail Systems Support Department at 800.672.4806 or email us

-Bryan
 

Rules allow you to organize email automatically when it arrives in your inbox
 

Is your Outlook Inbox cluttered with email from everyone and everything?  If you are not aware, Outlook has a feature they call rules.  Rules allow you to organize email automatically when it arrives in your inbox.  For example, you can create a rule that will move an email to a specified folder based on a number of criteria.

Another great example of when and how to use a rule would be when you run an online store.  Say that when your online store receives an order it sends you an email.  You could designate a folder in your inbox so that when you receive and email from the online store it is automatically moved into your "Online Order" folder.   You could even generate a notification to pop-up or forward a notification to your iPhone, etc.

There are far to many criteria to list, but it could be based on the "From" address of the sender. Or if you have multiple accounts setup in Outlook, it could be based on the account it came from.  Moving email to specified folders it just one of the many things a rule can do.  A rule can also be based on the "Importance" flag or the "Follow Up" flag, or even create the follow up flag.

One of the simplest ways to create a rule is to right click on the email (before it is open) and there should be an option to "create rule" or it could just say "Rule" with some other options depending on what version of Outlook you are using.  One thing to be careful about is making sure you check an option to "stop processing" more rules.  If this is not done, although your mail will get moved to the specified folder, it will also be placed in your inbox. 

If you decide to try using rules to clean up your inbox, I would suggest you start simple and test before creating a bunch of rules and testing all of them at once.  You wont lose any mail, but it may accidentally be put in the deleted items box if you create a rule to move items to it.

If you have questions or need help creating rules in Outlook, give CCS retail Systems Support Department a call at 800-672-4806 or email us.

-Bryan

I was recently took a call from a customer complaining of slowness on their front registers which had been replaced with brand new equipment a few weeks prior.  After the initial install, the users were impressed with the difference in speed compared to their old registers.  The problem they were describing pointed to what sounded like a network issue.  I checked all network connections and tested all cabling, they tested OK, I also checked some of the "under the hood" setting within the application and Windows to be sure nothing was set to an incorrectly from the factory. I could find nothing that would cause the slow down, so an on-site visit was recommended.

Once on-site, I started my process of elimination.  I isolated the network to just the Server and Workstations removing any existing equipment with know good equipment like switches and routers and the problem still existed.  Remembering similar problems from another customers site, I decided to check some of the device settings that control how and what devices are being used.  Also remembering that incorrect settings within the Device setup can cause strange behavior (slowness being one of those strange behaviors). 

After checking and double checking the devices, something finally stood out.  A slow serial device was set to used as a Customer display, a Pin Pad, and a Payment Display.  Under normal setup conditions only the Pin Pad and Payment Display should have been configured, but in this case the customer display was setup also.  With this device being serial and a Pin Pad to boot, the communication settings are set very low to eliminate and data errors when sending information to the bank.  This also means that every time an item is scanned, or a user logs into the ticket screen, the system is going to try to send Customer Display information to the device also, hence the slowness at the register.

In the matter of a few seconds, removing this configuration from the setup made a night and day difference in how the register performed.  "It was like new equipment was installed all over again", I heard one of the users claim. 

But what really happened was that a savvy enough user was just trying to help and reconfigured the device setup without knowing exactly the consequences his or her help may cause.  In most any other case this probably would not have had such an impact on performance, but because the device is set at such a slow speed, it made all the difference in the world.  If CCS had this information, this could have been a 15 minuet call but it turned into a 2hr support call. 

Remember, we are not here to get people in trouble, or to place blame.  We want to help you as quickly as possible.  That is why we ask for ALL information pertaining to the problem.  Weather a new employee pushes a wrong button, someone prints a 40 page report to a receipt printer by mistake, everything helps.

If you have any questions or concerns, call the CCS Retail Support Department at 800.672.4806 or email us

-Bryan

Risks of Ignoring Virus Warnings

Although most viruses can be removed from your system, they can also damage files, important files needed for your computer to run, access the Internet, even protect your PC.

I recently ran into a problem that required an OS to be re-installed.  Although I was able to get rid of the virus, and everything seemed to work except for 1 detail.  No matter what we tried, the PC could not resolve Internet names.  If you were not aware, the Internet works on IP addresses or numbers, meaning that even though you might type www.google.com in the address bar, the DNS service resolves or converts the name into a number.  In this case, the virus injected itself into key files of the network protocol stack.  This prevented looking up an Internet site to determine its IP.  A site could not be accessed unless the IP address was typed in.

I have developed fairly good skills for removing viruses from systems using various tools, without any ramifications to the rest of the system.  But in this case, I had no choice but to re-install the OS, starting from scratch and lose everything. 

The main cause of this problem was that, even though the security software warned the user of a potential problem, the user still went ahead and ran the risky program.  Of course there will be some false positives, but assuming this is not a good idea since this is seldom the case nowadays.

The moral of the story is, if your security software warns you of a potentially harmful program, research it a little before determining on your own that it wont hurt anything.  A couple extra minutes typing a file name into Google could have saved years of information that was lost by being too impatient.

For system questions and concerns contact the CCS Retail System Support Department at 800.672.4806 or email us

-Bryan

 

Changing From 32bit to 64bit. 

If you are planning on getting a new PC or laptop this holiday season be aware that most new machines will have a 64bit OS preinstalled.  Although this is not a bad thing, you should do some research on you current devices to be sure they will work.  Microsoft has links to help you review this by device by manufacturer.

A good example of why you should check this before comes to mind.  Of all people, my father (A techy type person) just bought a new laptop that came preinstalled with Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit.  Unfortunately his printer (An older HP printer) did not have 64bit compatible drivers, and the 64bit OS would not allow installing 32bit drivers.  I mentioned to him to try using the XP mode and he was still having issues getting his printer to work.  Luckily his old Windows XP machine was still available and he was able to get his documents printed but this was still very frustrating for him.

So before going out to buy a new PC or laptop with a preinstalled OS, make sure the rest of your hardware weather it be a printer, SD card reader or in a business environment a Credit Card MSR reader will be supported (meaning has 64bit compatible drivers available) before taking everything apart to find out you can not print or swipe.

If you have any hardware or system questions call the CCS Retail Systems Support Department at 800.672.4806 or email us

-Bryan

Windows 8 Developers Preview 

Microsoft has released a "Pre-Beta" version of their flagship OS.  It is called Windows 8.  At first glance, it looks like a tablet/Smart phone type interface where as your screen slides to the left and right with your apps as "Tiles" like on your phone.  It is called the "Metro UI". There are options to switch it to a more classic view, which I prefer, the Metro UI seems cumbersome and not as efficient and a normal desktop. Being that this is a pre-beta release, I’m sure things will change, and like all things that change, it may just be something I will get used to. 

In a business environment, I don’t see the new interface being a big hit.  Internet Explorer 10 is the default browser,  besides some of the under the hood improvements, it looks and feels much like IE 9.  When I tried it. some of the default apps didn’t work.  It did take a little fussing to get it installed.  The boot up time is very fast compared to previous versions of Windows.

All in all, even for a pre-beta release it seems to be a stable OS much like Windows 7.  I guess we will see when an actually beta release comes out.

If you have any system questions or concerns, please contact the CCS Retail Systems Support Department and 800.672.4806 or email us

Upgrading A Drive With Cloning Techniques

I recently was asked to upgrade a hard drive in a laptop.  Sounds simple enough since I have cloned many drives before, some go without a hitch, other take a little more fussing.  But this last one had me going loopy.  Being that this was a laptop, there are adapters/enclosures that can be purchased to allow you to connect an internal hard drive to the laptop by USB for cloning (making an exact copy of the original drive).

So as usual, I prepared the new drive and the laptop for the cloning process, rebooted as asked by the software and started the process.  At first I received an error about the original drive having MFT table problems.  After researching a bit it was suggested that a disk check (chkdsk) be performed to check and repair the problem.  After the check ran and completed, it reported that there were no errors, this seemed odd.  So I ran a disk check on the new drive just to be safe and re-started the cloning process again.  This time it appeared to be going along fine albeit slow, but going.  Finally after a couple hours it was complete, or so I thought.  I swapped the new larger drive into the laptop and fired up the machine.  To my dismay it did not work out as planned and the laptop would not boot into Windows.  I pulled the drive and put it into another PC and could see why it wasn’t working.  Although the software said it was done (after 3 1/2 hours) not one thing was written to the new drive.

I though this was strange since I received no error messages about writing to the new drive.  At this point being frustrated, I moved both drives to a different PC, and tried the clone process again with direct motherboard connections.  This time it took about 45 mins for the whole process to complete.  I put the new drive into the laptop and BAM, we were up and running. 

Basically, even though software may or  may not give you an error message, does not mean that everything went the way it should.  In this case, the external adapter/enclosure being used may have had a problem, or something within the laptop bios may not have been able to send the software the correct messages for it to say weather or not it was having a problem.  The lesson here is that going back to the basics, without fancy adapters, almost always works.

If you have any system questions or concerns, call the CCS Retail Systems Support Department at 800.672.4806 or email us.

-Bryan 

Taken from MSN.com

 As easy as it is to swoosh around the house with one multipurpose cleaner, the spray you use to clean windows and mirrors could harm your computer. "Steer clear of all-purpose cleaners with acetone or alcohol, since they can take off the screen’s protective coating," says Darren Dotson, an IT systems administrator in New York City.

Instead, use a soft microfiber cloth, such as an Endust Micro Fiber Towel, to dust off the computer and the monitor. If the computer has endured too many sticky fingers and a dry cloth just won’t cut it, then turn off the machine and monitor to wipe down the screen with a slightly damp cloth. If you’re cleaning the exterior, use a cloth moistened with a mild all-purpose cleaner, like Windex. Or try a computer-specific product, like Sara Lee Cleaning Wipes from Endust.

Leaving your machine on while spraying any liquid could cause a short and ruin any electrical component attached even one not in contact with a liquid.

If you have any system questions or concerns, call the CCS Retail Systems Support Department at 800.672.4806 or email us.

-Bryan