CrexTechs Blog

Just like the firewall in your car that protects the passenger compartment from the heat and fumes of the engine compartment, in the world of computing a firewall is the first wall of defense protecting your personal or proprietary information from unauthorized access.  Both hardware and software firewalls are employed for this purpose.

Hardware firewalls are used by individuals, companies and  internet service providers on their routers, switches and servers to check data packets (all internet information is sent in packets of data) for authority to pass into and out of the computer or network. Hardware firewalls are very good but can be vulnerable to what is call IP Spoofing.

Software firewalls are installed on individual machines and so only protect the machine they are installed upon.  Software firewalls sometimes come as part of your virus protection software but can be purchased separately.

Software firewalls function differently from hardware firewalls and from anti-virus software.  Like anti-virus software, software firewalls must be updated regularly.  They will use system resources, slowing your computer down somewhat,  as they run continually in the background checking for attempts to gain access to or control of your machine.   Software firewalls may also help block worms and Trojans coming in on email.

Dial-up modems to don't have firewalls.  Because dial-up connections are so slow, users would not be able to keep a software firewall up to date which leaves these users vulnerable.

Cable and wireless routers do have firewalls.

Regardless of hardware or software firewalls, wireless users are more vulnerable to hacking because their information packets can be intercepted by anyone sitting near to them or outside their house because wireless bypasses both the hardware firewall on the router and the software firewall on the user's computer.  Wireless uses encryption of data packets to increase security.  Look for the https on the URL address line of your browser when using a wireless connection on the web to access sensitive information.  The https indicates that encryption is being used.  Using public wireless can still be risky.

We recommend a software firewall for all of your customers who have experienced repeated problems with malware infection on their machines and for anyone who does a lot of online banking and purchasing.

No firewall, whether software or hardware, will protect against users who click on links or open files infected with malware.  So be sure about what you are opening and clicking on.  Shut down your machine as fast as possible the moment you think something is hinky!

For more information on firewalls and wireless security check out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firewall_(computing)

http://compnetworking.about.com/od/wirelesssecurity/tp/wifisecurity.htm

Looking for a laptop? For personal or business use? Do you have specific requirements as to hard drive size (will you be storing a lot of pictures, videos, music), RAM and CPU (is processing speed important), operating system (do you want Windows7 or are you used to XP). You definitely want WiFi. Do you want a webcam? How large does the screen need to be. Do you prefer a glossy screen or a matte finish.

And what about programs?

At the big box stores you will find the prettiest, shiniest laptops with all the bells and whistles--the largest hard drive, the fastest CPU, the most RAM,  and features and programs you might never want to use.

At CrexTechs, our first question is, why do you want a laptop? If it isn't for mobility--to take traveling for business or pleasure--we will probably try to talk you out of it.  Here's why:

• Laptops are notorious for component failure--the average life of a laptop is 2 to 3 years mainly because they are very expensive to fix so people generally buy a new one when they need work rather than pay to have them fixed.
• They are easily dropped.  Cracked screens are a big reason laptops need to be replaced.
• They are sensitive to extremes of heat and cold.  Bringing a laptop in from the cold can cause condensation.  This moisture causes corrosion to parts.  Extreme heat, from say a locked car sitting in the sun, can cause heat expansion which can damage solder points on boards and damage the screen.
• We get laptops in that have been taken to the beach or other locations were they can get lightly sprinkled with sand, dirt or water. These things will do in a laptop very quickly especially sea sand and salt water.
• Laptops are easily lost and stolen as well.
• Kids especially can be hard on laptops!

Laptops are definitely convenient so if you are traveling for work or pleasure or if you like to sit in a coffee shop and and write or work on spreadsheets, they are nice to have but you may not need all the bells and whistles that come with the high-end machines.

If you want a machine to hook up to wifi to check emails, play games, watch videos or to compose documents, picking up a cheap refurbished laptop for half what a new machine will cost could be just what you need.  We won't try to talk you out of a refurbished machine or even a new one if a laptop is really what you need.

At CrexTechs, our laptops do not come with all the software built in that you might find on a big box store machine.  We usually load a free suite of programs called Open Office which is the equivalent of Microsoft Office Suite but it is FREE!  Libre Office is a newer office suite that Dennis likes--it is also free. These programs can create the .doc .xls etc files that anyone can open. These suites also have the equivalent of PowerPoint and Publisher as well.  For photo editing we load GIMP.

We include our maintenance utility that tells you what maintenance to perform and a remote service icon so that we can service your computer remotely when applicable. We also load a free trial version of Vipre anti-virus. We can load any programs that you own and have the license key for.

Let us know what your requirements are for a laptop and we will see if we have a machine that fits the bill!

I recently got a spam email of the most egregious nature.  This is an email from a bogus Bank of America security department wanting me to update information.  I am sharing the actual email below to point out what to look for in such emails.

Here it is:

Subject:  Security Update Checkup

Dear Customer,

We need to confirm your identity. We apologize for the inconvenience, but we do not recognize the computer you are using. In order to help prevent an unauthorized person from accessing your accounts, we need to verify your
identity before you log on.

Confirm Your Identity

Why do we not recognize your computer?

* You may have bought a new computer or are using one you have not previously used.
* You may have changed the settings on your browser or switched to a new browser.
* You may have deleted your cookies.
* You may have reconfigured your computer, operating system or other software settings.
* Your Internet Service Provider may have changed settings on their system.

What do you need to do?
All you need to do:
1. Download the security lo-gin file attached to this email.
2.Fill the form on the security page you will be directed to and submit it.

This will verify your computer as an authorized user and grant you access to your lo-gin page.

Once again, We apologize for the inconvenience. Your security is our job.

SECURITY SERVICES
BANK OF AMERICA

End of email.

Looks official doesn't it? But Bank of America and every other banking or financial institution will never ever ever ask you to verify this information either through email or by phone.   If there is a problem they will send you a letter and will ask you to go into the bank or to go to the official website.  If they send you an email it will usually be about a product or service and they will use your name not "Dear Customer."

They seem to give a lot of good information as to why they want you to verify your identity.  You will know this is bogus when you go to the website of your financial institution and log in as you normally do with no problem at all. Your bank doesn't care what computer you are using.  They do care that you know your user ID, the correct answers to your security questions, and your password.  What computer you use or what browser setting you have or what cookies you may have deleted are all immaterial.

Don't be fooled and never, never, never follow a link given in the text of the email or as an attachment.  Go directly to the webpage you have always used to log on.  If there is a problem, you will handle it there.

If you haven't been keeping track of the news, there are a couple of pieces of legislation making their way through congress.  One is SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and the other is PIPA (Protect IP Act). These pieces of legislation are being championed by big business interests in music, video, film, images and other media that holds copyrights to the intellectual property they produce. The purpose of these bills is to protect the copyrights by making every site on the internet responsible for what is posted to that site.

Can you image Facebook scanning everything you post to be sure you aren't posting something that might be copyrighted. MIGHT BE is the operative phrase here because checking for copyrights on every bit of data won't be possible and yet the sites could be shut down or fined if they failed to shut down users who post such content.

There seems to be agreement that these two bills, as they stand now, will not pass and will not be signed into law but that hasn't stopped many sites from jumping on the band wagon to be sure we all know just what is going to happen to the internet if moneyed interests prevail in making these sites responsible for what users post.

This goes well beyond sites that facilitate the illegal downloading of protected music, videos, books and films. It enters the realm of censorship and tries to make every internet server the police.  The cost alone of implementing policing mechanisms would shut down most sites.  The fear of prosecution, defense cost, jail time and fines would shut down most of the rest.

I, for one, cannot image a cyber world without Wikipedia.

Read more about it.

http://t.crextechs.com/SOPA

The promise of a paperless society with the advent of the computer has not proven out. On average, Americans use about 700 pounds of paper products per year-- more, per capita, than ever before.  Despite efforts, there is little hope that this will change any time soon.

Do we really need to use so much paper?  And what about all the paper we save because we fear throwing out important records.

Getting out from under all that paper can be a real freeing experience and can make it a lot easier to file away and retrieve the paper records we do need to keep.

Here are a few guidelines for what to keep and what can be tossed (shredded and recycled)

• Cancelled checks or paper images of your checks: shred and discard, but keep those related to your taxes, business expenses, and housing and mortgage payments.  Save these for at least 6 years.
• Utility bills: Throw away those not needed for business or tax purposes.
• Personal Tax records: Save these for at least 6 years.
• Business records for tax purposes: Archive these indefinitely.
• Insurance policies: Keep your policy and updates for the life of your policy. Insurance claims records may be needed for tax purposes, save these for at least 6 years.
• Personal documents such as (birth, marriage and death certificates, diplomas, certifications, military records, work permits, passports, divorce decrees etc: Store in a fire safe or safe deposit box indefinitely.
• Mortgage papers, deeds, titles, and abstracts to real property such as your house, cabin or commercial property: Store in a fire safe or safe deposit box indefinitely.
• Wills, power of attorney documents, and other estate-planning documents: Keep the most current copy in a fire safe, safe deposit box or with your attorney.
• Stock certificates and other investment certificates and documents: Store in fire safe of safe deposit box. Save brokerage records for tax calculations at the time of sale.
• Medical records, prescriptions, medical power of attorney and any end-of-life directives: Save pertinent medical records and a list of current medications as well as clinics and doctors you have used where they can be easily accessed in an emergency. Current copies of your medical power of attorney and end-of-life directives should be given to appropriate family members.
• Receipts, warranties, guarantees and manuals for large and small appliances, tools, electronics etc: Keep as long as you own the item.

Staying organize is not easy, nor is winnowing out what you don't need to be discarded. Some records can be kept electronically, like downloaded bank records (be sure these are backed up). Most other records you will want to save hard copies.

January is a good month to get going with cleaning out files as you will want to start collecting the documents needed for tax time.  April will be less stressful if you can get much of the work done early.  Reducing the amount of space you need to store all that paper will be an added bonus!!

Resolve this year to clean up and backup your computer. Delete old files that you no longer need (be careful not to delete system files) including old download files. Arrange your files so that all your documents and pictures are stored in My Documents or on your desktop for easy backup.

I am always harping on backing up your files.  One of the questions we ask when folks bring in their computers for service or virus cleanup is, are there critical files on your machine. We love it when people say, yes but I have a recent backup so don't worry about it.

What is critical data?

• Family photos top the list for most people.
• Financial records in the form of downloaded bank statements, spreadsheets, accounting software files.
• Genealogy records.
• That manuscript you've been working on!
• Job search records--your updated resume and other documents used in job searching.
• Business records and work product that you need for your job or business.
• In short, anything on your computer that you can not duplicate elsewhere or wouldn't want to try to duplicate.

As hard as we try to keep our machines free of viruses and in good working order, they can be crashed by malware or by hardware failure.

So keep this one resolution.  Clean up your files so they are easy to backup, then backup regularly.  You will be glad you did.

If you are uncomfortable navigating through your files, deleting files or moving files for backup, CrexTechs can help.  If you have high speed internet, we can help you by connecting to your computer with our remote utility and can go through files with you, organizing them and deleting what is not needed. We can also help advise you on what you will need to backup your critical data. Remote charges are by quarter hour.  Give us a call at 715-463-2365.

One of the latest scare-ware viruses out there is called XP Security 2012 or Vista Security 2012 or Win7 Security 2012 depending on what operating system you are using.  If you haven't seen this one, you probably will.  Hopefully you will know it is bogus and will sever your connection to the internet immediate--unfortunately, it may already be too late.

It is really hard to tell our customers that the reason they have a virus, even though they have Vipre and Malwarebytes installed on their machine and update and use them religiously, is that they themselves downloaded the virus and installed it, not realizing what they were doing.

It always feels like blaming the victim or like we're making excuses for why our recommended anti-virus program didn't protect them.

Though most users can pretty much tell us what happened just before their machines went haywire, they don't want to believe that they've fallen for a bait and switch--the oldest scam in the book.  But it isn't hard to understand how this happens.

The come-on seems innocuous--open this interesting looking email or get a free something just for answering a couple of survey questions or download this free game or click on an interesting image.  There are hundreds of ways that scammers have of getting you to click.  And clicking is the key.

You may never know what you initially clicked on but what you have now is an official looking message warning you that you are infected with hundreds of viruses and Trojans and must download some software.  So you click the OK button or the Order Now button or any button at all and you are now directed to pay for the download.

If you don't pay you will keep getting the pop-up and will not be able to use your computer.  If you do pay for the download, you will have no more problems for maybe a week.  Then you will be asked to pay again with incessant pop-ups until you pay or bring in your machine.  We had one customer who paid three times before bringing in their machine.

Was there something you could have done to keep from getting infected? Possibly.  It is important to click on nothing the first time you get the warning that you are infected.  You must shut down your connection to the internet or shut down your machine immediately.  Even clicking on your browser to shut it down, could start the download process in which case shutting down the internet connection or your machine quickly is your only hope of avoiding the virus.

Try these steps:

• Unplug your internet connection or shut off your wireless router if it is handy.  Or...
• Press the on button (the button you use to turn on your computer) on your computer to shut it down.  If it is not shutting down quickly enough...
• Press and hold in the on button on your computer until it goes off or unplug your computer.  This will do a hard shut down which is not good for your machine but it may do less damage than the virus you are about to download.  If you have a laptop you may have to unplug it and pop out the battery to get it to shut down.

Disconnecting and shutting down may not be enough if the program has successfully downloaded and installed.  These are small programs and they will download and install quickly.

If every time you reboot and reconnect to the internet, you get the warning messages, you are already infected and will have to bring your machine in to have it cleaned.

Stop in at Crex Techs and pick up one or more of the following items for useful, inexpensive, last minute gifts

• Thumb drives,  4 gig and 8 gig  (from $15.00)
• Digital memory cards for cameras, 4 gig and 16 gig (from $10.00)
• Surge protectors from ($26.50)
• Standard keyboards (from $24.00) and mice (from $10.00)
• Desk mic ($10.00)

On the higher end we have:

• Gaming keyboard, mouse and headset from Razer (demo items)
• Gaming machine (demo item)
• Other headsets and speakers
• laptops, both new and refurbished
• Widescreen flat monitors, 15 to 22 inch  (from $100.00)
• Battery backup surge protectors
• Backup media up to 320 gig and 1, 1.5 and 2 terabyte

We also have gift certificates as well as anti-virus subscriptions!!

Get a free CrexTechs mouse pad with your purchase.

For a lot of users, smart phones have made old fashioned desktop computing obsolete.  As apps proliferate and communication with friends, family and colleagues is streamlined with these powerful little handheld devices, it is easy to forget to ask, how secure is this?

If you have not asked yourself this question, is my smartphone the right choice for accessing my bank accounts, credit accounts, making purchases or communicating sensitive personal and business  information? then you are at risk and need to take immediate action to safeguard not only yourself but anyone you are in contact with on your mobile device.

Smartphones access communications networks just like computers and are equally as hackable and much more vulnerable.  Malware written for and targeting mobile devices is increasing exponentially.  Yet only about 4% of these devises are protected by some form of third party protection.

This is alarming in that unprotected devices help to spread infection throughout public and private networks and will be instrumental in compromising everyone's security.

Protect yourself, your family and friends and maybe even your employer or customers by making smart choices for your smart phone.   Here is how:

• Don't lose your smartphone!! Easier said than done perhaps. So be sure to password protect your device in case it is lost or stolen.
• If at all possible, limit your use of your smartphone for purchases and accessing bank and credit card accounts. If you must use your smartphone be sure all your account verification is in place and change your passwords frequently from a secure network.  And be aware of who is near you when you are using your phone for these purposes.
• Be sure your IT department at work is aware that you are using your smartphone to access the company network so they can be sure you are using appropriate safeguards.
• If your customers are using their smartphones to access your network, be sure all necessary security is in place and up-to-date.
• Most importantly, be sure you are protected with mobile security software as malware can find you on your mobile devise just as easily as it does on your computer.  Here is a link for comparing the top software out there.

To learn more about the importance of mobile device security check out the following links

96% of smartphones and tablets lack necessary security software

Ten things you should never do with a cell phone

Having trouble with your WIFI reaching the far corners of your house?

Here is the cheapest and easier way to increase your range:

Place your router higher in the house and away from appliances and other electronic equipment.  This will help with the dampening affect of physical objects and walls and help reduce interference from  other electronics. Centrally locate the router if at all possible, in a room without doors or where doors will remain open.

For other helpful informations check out this link:

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/upgrade-your-life/upgrade-life-extend-wifi-range-214513350.html

If you think a new router is in order, check with CrexTechs before you go anywhere else.  We have routers and whatever else you may need to improve your computing experience!

Here is a fun experiment to try  (disclaimer: Crextechs is not responsible for any injury or damage this experiment may cause to people, pets, plants, furniture  or equipment. We do not advocate this method of boosting your WIFI range.)
The steps are pretty self explanatory (step 1 is suggesting you wash out the can first--you will want to work with a dry can so let it drain fully and dry damp parts).  A soda can will work just as well!  Also, use and adhesive that is not permanent when applying the can top to the router.
http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Wi-Fi-Booster-Using-Only-a-Beer-Can
If you do try it, let us know at blog@crextechs.com how this worked!!