Trusted Tips and Resources

Trusted Tips & Resources

Trusted Saskatoon IT Pro's at Burnt Orange Explain How To Recognize Phishing Attacks

Gareth McKee and his Trusted Saskatoon IT team at Burnt Orange Solutions promise to have a one-hour response time for all your IT support needs. Honesty and respect are essential to them. They pride themselves on ensuring their clients understand IT concerns by providing a straightforward, reliable solution with exceptional service. Burnt Orange Solutions is a Trusted Saskatoon IT expert. In their latest Saskatoon IT expert tip, they share how to recognize phishing attacks to protect you and your loved ones.

 


What Is Phishing?

Phishing is an attack in which the scammer attempts to trick you into clicking on a malicious link, downloading malware, or sharing personal or sensitive information. Phishing attacks can occur via telephone, email, text, or social media platforms. Messages are often generic, and they often appear to be from a trusted, legitimate source, such as a bank or courier company. Phishing attacks are on the rise, so it is important to recognize the signs. 


What Are The Signs Of Phishing Attacks?

Spotting a phishing attack can be difficult. However, it is important to recognize those messages to ensure scammers are unable to take advantage of us. Here are some signs to look out for to recognize phishing attacks:


The Message Asks You To Share Personal Information

shark phishing for personal information

Any legitimate organization would likely never ask for personal information over the telephone, email, or text, so this should be a red flag. Scammers and cyber attackers are crafty in making their messages appear legitimate. If you are suspicious about a message you have received, it does not hurt to be cautious and contact the organization that supposedly sent the message. When contacting that organization, it is essential to use official contact information. 

The Message Involves A Threat

Scammers often utilize threats to persuade you to do what they want. Most people fear what may happen if they do not comply with the scammer's request. A common phishing attack is over the telephone, whereby scammers claim to be government organization members. They are after personal information, such as your social insurance number, and threaten fines or even that you will be arrested if you fail to comply. If you receive a threatening message that claims to be from a legitimate source, do not panic or let the scammer scare you into giving them what they want. 

The Message Comes From A Suspicious Sender

guy on laptop opening suspicious link

Phishing attempts can be difficult to spot as they appear to be from a legitimate organization. An immediate red flag is when the sender's email address does not match the organization. In terms of telephone calls or text messages, searching the sender's phone number will either confirm or deny its legitimacy. 

The Message Includes A Suspicious Link

Cybercriminals or scammers often send messages that trick victims into clicking on a link. In an attempt to steal personal information from the victim, the links are to websites that appear to be legitimate but are spoofs. If you do not click the link, the scammer cannot get what they want from you. 

Three signs of a suspicious link include: 

  • The link URL in the message does not match the legitimate organization’s website URL.
  • The message includes incorrect grammar or overuse of exclamation marks and other punctuation. 
  • The message involves logos that look ‘off” or poorly designed templates. A government organization would never send messages like this. 


Although there is no infallible way to recognize phishing attacks, knowing the signs will help protect you and your loved ones. Always remember that if something appears suspicious, it likely is. 

With predatory scams such as phishing attacks rising, we all must protect ourselves. They could fall victim to a predatory scam regardless of age or intellect. If you have any questions regarding phishing attacks, contact the IT experts at Burnt Orange IT Solutions. We can help your business mitigate risk and be prepared for any IT-related emergency.

We hope this article gave you some insight. If you want to ensure your business’s IT security, contact the Trusted Saskatoon IT professionals at Burnt Orange Solutions, and we will take IT worries off your plate.


Burnt Orange IT Solutions Products & Services:

"IT Support You Can Trust and Understand"

Burnt Orange Solutions are your Trusted Saskatoon IT Experts

Trusted Saskatoon IT Pro's at Burnt Orange Explains What Ransomware is and How To Prevent It

Gareth McKee and his Trusted Saskatoon IT team at Burnt Orange Solutions promise to have a one-hour response time for all your IT support needs. Honesty and respect are important to them. They pride themselves on ensuring their clients understand IT concerns by providing a straightforward and reliable solution with exceptional service. Burnt Orange Solutions are your Trusted Saskatoon IT Experts. In their latest Saskatoon IT expert tip, they  Explains What Ransomware is and How To Prevent It

Ransomware: How It Works And How To Prevent It


Ransomware is a form of malware or malicious software that encrypts files. During a ransomware attack, the attacker or cybercriminal demands a ransom (payment) from the victim to restore access to the files.  Ransom costs can be thousands of dollars and are payable to cybercriminals in the form of Bitcoin

How Ransomware Works

In order to protect your computer system from attack, it is important to understand how ransomware works. Ransomware can access a computer system in different ways. The most common way is through phishing spam, whereby attachments arrive to the victim via email disguised as a file they should trust. Once the file has been downloaded and opened, the cybercriminal has access to the victim’s computer. Often the cybercriminal or attacker will have built-in tools that trick victims into allowing them administrative access. Aside from phishing, more aggressive forms of ransomware exist that exploit computer systems without tricking the victim.

Once ransomware has taken over the victim’s computer system, the next step is to encrypt the files. In the event that files are encrypted, the only way to decrypt the files is through a mathematical key that is known by the attacker. Following encryption, the victim receives a message that dictates their files have been compromised. As a result, files are accessible only once payment is made through Bitcoin.

In order to gain the victim’s trust, the ransomware attacker may claim to be a law enforcement agency. For example, the attacker may inform the victim that their computer system is being shut down due to the presence of pirated software. In this instance, the payment is demanded in the form of a ‘fine’. For this reason, this type of trick is often successful. This is due to the fact that the victim is unlikely to report the ransomware attack. 


How To Prevent Ransomware

Luckily, there are proactive strategies to take to prevent ransomware attacks. The following tips will improve your defense against ransomware: 
  1. Keep your operating system up to date. An up-to-date operating system ensures you are less vulnerable to exploitation.
  2. Do not install software unless you are aware of exactly what it is, where it came from, and what it does.
  3. Antivirus software is crucial to detect ransomware. Whitelisting software is also necessary to prevent unauthorized applications from entering your system.
  4. Be sure to back up your files frequently, which can often be done automatically. Though this will not halt a ransomware attack, it may reduce the damage it causes.

If you have any questions regarding ransomware or how to prevent it, contact the IT experts at Burnt Orange IT Solutions. We can help your business mitigate risk, and be prepared for any IT-related emergency. 

We hope this article gave you some insight. If you want to ensure your business’s IT security, contact the Trusted Saskatoon IT professionals at Burnt Orange Solutions and we can take IT worries off your plate.

Burnt Orange IT Solutions Products & Services:

"IT Support You Can Trust and Understand"

Burnt Orange Solutions are your Trusted Saskatoon IT Experts

Trusted Saskatoon IT Pro's at Burnt Orange Explain Antivirus Mechanisms and Attacks

Gareth McKee and his Trusted Saskatoon IT team at Burnt Orange Solutions promise to have a one-hour response time for all your IT support needs. Honesty and respect are important to them. They pride themselves on ensuring their clients understand IT concerns by providing a straightforward and reliable solution with exceptional service. 

Burnt Orange Solutions are your Trusted Saskatoon IT Experts.  In their latest Saskatoon IT expert tip, Gareth shares why antivirus is useless against modern attacks. Antivirus software identifies malware and detects threats. However, now that attacks have evolved, today’s threats are able to get around Antivirus mechanisms.

WHY ANTIVIRUS IS USELESS AGAINST MODERN ATTACKS

Antivirus Software (AV): Signature-Based Approach

Antivirus software identifies malware based on signatures. These signatures are like fingerprints, and each malware has a unique pattern. Antivirus software contains the memory of each signature that it uses to identify malicious threats. Each time antivirus software recognizes new malware, antivirus companies add the signature to their blacklist. These blacklists contain the signatures that are denied access to your system. Thus, Antivirus protects your system by blocking these specific signatures from attacking.

Why Antivirus Software is Not Sufficient

This signature-based approach worked for detecting older malware that had already been identified and labelled. In the past, provided the malware was known, and your antivirus company’s signatures were up to date, you were protected. Unfortunately, threats have evolved and malware is not the only concern. Specifically, today’s threats include targeted attacks using unknown malware variants, file-less malware attacks, and exploits that leverage unknown software vulnerabilities. As a result, these persistent threats and ransomware attacks can all bypass antivirus detection. 

Another concern is that malware development has shifted. Attackers now test their malware against antivirus programs to ensure it can bypass them. In addition, attackers invent new malware at a faster rate. Thus, antivirus companies are unable to keep up with blacklisting all the signatures. Also, new types of malware can now go undetected by signature. New malware is hard to detect because it is polymorphic, meaning it changes as it spreads. Overall, as threats grow, Antivirus is no longer sufficient. 

Why Keep Using Antivirus If It Is Useless Against Modern Attacks?

The bottom line is antivirus software is necessary for legal and compliance purposes. For example, the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) requires up-to-date antivirus software for organizations that store, process, or send credit card information. Not to mention, a lack of antivirus protection makes companies appear irresponsible. This jeopardizes a company’s ability to collect insurance if a breach or lawsuit should occur. 

Though antivirus cannot detect modern threats, it does provide a certain degree of protection. As long as your current antivirus program can identify and block even half of the malware signatures, it is worth using. However, it must not be the only line of defence. 

Overall, as threats grow more advanced, an antivirus alone is not enough to protect your company. A more comprehensive IT strategy is a necessity. Contact the IT experts at Burnt Orange IT Solutions. We can help your business mitigate risk, and be prepared for any IT-related emergency. 

We hope this article gave you some insight. If you want to ensure your business’s IT security, contact the Trusted Saskatoon IT professionals at Burnt Orange Solutions and we can take IT worries off your plate.


Trusted Saskatoon IT Pro’s at Burnt Orange Solutions Owner Shares 5 Tips To Secure Data

Gareth McKee and his Trusted Saskatoon IT team at Burnt Orange, promise to have a one-hour response time for all your IT support needs. Honesty and respect are important to them. They pride themselves on ensuring their clients understand IT concerns by providing a straightforward and reliable solution with exceptional service. Burnt Orange Solutions are your Trusted Saskatoon IT Experts and in their latest Saskatoon IT tip, Gareth provides 5 tips on how to safely secure data at your company. 


GARETH'S 5 TIPS TO SECURE DATA AT YOUR COMPANY

Secure Data with Gareth’s 5 Tips for Your Company

Owner of Burnt Orange IT Solutions, Gareth McKee, provides his top 5 tips on how to secure data safely and improve the security of your data at your company. Watch the video below or read on.

1. Secure Data with the Use of Strong Passwords

According to Forbes, in the last 6 months of 2019 over 4 billion records were exposed by data breaches. Included in these records were over 1 billion passwords retrieved.

The top 5 easiest passwords to hack are:

#1 – 12345

#2 – 123456

#3 – 123456789

#4 – Test1

#5 – Password

But they are not always the easy ones to crack by hackers, as shown here:

#21 – princess

#30 – monkey

#48 – chocolate

#97 – babygirl

So, what do we learn from this? There are ‘bots’ and phishing scams active every day on the internet, looking to gain access to your network, steal your data or encrypt it to extort money from you.

What Does a Strong Password Look Like?

Strong passwords need 2 things: length and complexity. Both are really easy to achieve with a little imagination. Let’s firstly achieve the length. Rather than think of a passWORD, think of passwords (plural) or a passPHRASE.

One solution is to think of 4 unrelated words such as:

#Potato plastiC either strong!

The above is 30 characters and notice I have added the # and ! to make it a little more complex.

Or, you can use a phrase such as:

!Theres a m00se 0n the 100se#

The above is 29 characters. Replacing letters with numbers can be a good way to achieve complexity (for example, changing O’s to zero’s).

The best solution is to use a password manager, which is a secure app that remembers all your complex and long passwords for you so all you have to remember is the 1 password to the manager.

2. Secure Data by Locking Your Computer

How easy would it be for someone to walk past an office, walk-in and steal data from an unlocked PC? This happens more often than you think, and whether it is a disgruntled employee or a stranger who has walked into your building, it is so easy to steal data in this way.

The solution is to have your PC lock itself after a certain amount of inactivity. This is easy to achieve, simply decide the length of inactivity before allowing your PC to lock. I recommend 5 minutes.

Looking after a network properly can be a difficult and time-consuming job so to make your life easy, engage with a local, professional IT Security company such as Burnt Orange IT Solutions. You will find that the money spent on network security is easily recovered by staff efficiencies.

3. Receive a Suspicious Email? Call the Sender Before You Click

Email spoofing costs businesses millions of dollars every year. I am sure you can remember Saskatoon City Council being duped in 2019 to the price of $1 million.

If even a known client emails you asking to transfer money, providing you with new banking details, large orders, or asking you to click anywhere, call the client to ensure the information has come from them directly. A quick phone call can save a lot of money, embarrassment, and is a way to secure data. This should be a standard practice in your office. If you don’t have an Acceptable Use Policy or User Best Practice Policy in your organization, contact your best local IT company. They can help you achieve the best practices in your business.

4. Take a Breath

We all have 10 hours of work to complete in an 8 hour day, but just by taking 1 second to look at an email can save a lot of heartache. Hovering over an email address or a web link can show you where it is actually directing the click. Just because the link reads www.rbc.com, this does not mean it will direct you there.

Also, hackers often send a link which looks real, but is slightly misspelt, for example:

https://www.saskatoononliinetrucks.com/saskatoon/cheapestdeals/buytoday

if you look closely there are two ‘i’s in online. In a busy day that may be easy to miss, you navigate to a website with a virus, allowing it to download, the virus waits a day and ultimately encrypts all the data on your server. Not a good day for you or your company.

The accepted solution here is to put DNS protection in place. This service scours the internet all day, looking for dangerous websites, whether they are legit or not, and if a dangerous website is found, the service will stop you from accessing the website. If you can’t access the website, you cannot download the virus. Simple as that! Professional IT companies offer this service for a fraction of the cost of the downtime experienced should a virus be download by accident. Contact your local IT company for help.

5. Back Up Your Data

Even in a small office where there is no ‘real’ server, it is always a good idea to treat one of the PCs as a file server. Have all the data held there, back up that PC, and only that PC. This makes the backup and recovery activity simple and easy. Impose a rule that all data must be held on that PC. Configure each PC to share to that PC. Complete this task and you have just saved yourself days of non-productivity in a recovery situation.

The best backup solutions today backup to the cloud. They will:

Encrypt your data before it leaves your PC,

Be password protected,

Be automated,

and YOU will test it, at least once per month to ensure the data can be recovered.


A backup that does not work when you need it is as much use as a chocolate fireguard. Test it before you need it. As with all the problems discussed, your local professional IT security firm can help you with all these tasks, and for much less than you think.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to Burnt Orange IT Solutions.

We hope this article gave you some insight. If you want to ensure your business’s IT security, contact the Trusted Saskatoon IT professionals at Burnt Orange Solutions and we can take IT worries off your plate.

Burnt Orange IT Solutions Products & Services:

  1. Managed Networks

  2. Backup and Recovery

  3. Data and Network Security

  4. Hosted Services

  5. Telephone Systems

  6. Secure WiFi Networks

"IT Support You Can Trust and Understand"

Burnt Orange Solutions are your Trusted Saskatoon IT Experts

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Saskatoon, SK   S7K 1N7
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