We often see millennials pressed into service as IT advisor for their company. However, they are not usually certified and abreast of the latest IT vulnerabilities your company is facing. Take a look at this million dollar reason to employ an out-sourced IT department to care for your network.

Here's how it happens. A 62-year-old execu-

tive is stumped about how to edit his e-mail signa-ture. Other venerable bosses have trouble navi-gating new applications, running updates or even operating their own peripherals (printers, faxes, scanners, etc.) They all spend time trying to do it themselves and might truly be just a keystroke away from doing it, but in the end they ask a younger person for help and the problem may be solved within seconds or minutes.

Why millennials? In the office, the 18-to-34-

year-old crowd is usually fearless about adapting to new gadgets or system upgrades. While they may seem a bit cocky at times, they really make life online look like second nature. Tech experts explain that millennials probably already helped

their baby boomer parents with technology and now they see similar situations in the workplace. They are quick to dive into an issue hoping to build rapport and sometimes even prove themselves as a more valuable asset for the company. Unfortunately, technology is not easy.

Being an office techie has its ups and

downs. Sure, the office techie quickly becomes

one of the most sought after people in the office, but there are some pretty big drawbacks to this reputation. Sometimes their own work is interrupt-ed so often that their efficiency is greatly impacted. Other times, it is hard to explain why they cannot fix an issue and this could damage their rela-tionships with coworkers. Fixing misbehaving tech-nology is not like grilling a burger. There is no set time for repairs, no exact

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Adobe Acrobat XI Sup-port Ends Soon…..Pg. 2

Update Your Pass-word……………..Pg. 2

6 Types Of Spam Fil-ters; Because Even Mild Spam Can Lead To An Infection………....Pg. 3

Spoofing Paypal Scam Tactic……...……..Pg. 4

How To Handle E-mails, Interruptions, And Phone Calls...Pg. 4

It’s safe to say that cheeseburgers are an American favorite. Sep-tember 18th, treat your self to a nice juicy burg-er to celebrate National Cheeseburger Day.

The beginning of the

burger. There are a

number of theories about where the cheese-burger began. History shows the hamburger was invented in the 1880’s by Fletcher Da-vis of Athens, Texas. Who knows when the cheese was truly added to the recipe. Lionel Sternberger, a Pasadena sandwich shop fry cook, experimented with a piece of cheese on a hamburger and found the result sensational in 1926.

Origins of this tasty

celebratory day. While there really is no record of when this iconic food celebration started, but it really took off. Many restaurants around the world have taken this observation as a way to bring every-one together with great cheeseburger deals and new cheeseburger crea-tions.

(Continued on page 3)

“Quality in a service or product is not what you put into it. It is what the customer gets out of it.

~ Peter Drucker

“One important key to success is self-

confidence. An important key to

self-confidence is preparation.”

~ Arthur Ashe

“Discipline is doing what you hate to do but nonetheless doing it like

you LOVE it.” ~ Mike Tyson

“If opportunity doesn’t knock build a door.”

~ Milton Berle

September 2017

Covered I.T. 24/7—Never Worry Again!

microTECH Times

PO Box 503

Deepwater, NJ 08023

877-540-6789

www.microent.net

science for the secret sauce, and no farmers market where you can quickly pick up the most delicious additions for your network. Technology is an ever changing and growing monstrosity that takes a big commitment of life long learning to tackle. At the end of the day, investing a little extra money in a trust-ed resource could save your company countless hours of repairs and a bundle of money.

Honestly, how bad could it be? We recently had a client come to us with a Cryptolocker virus. They were so frustrated that their IT guy allowed this to happen. They were down for a num-ber of days before we received the call. We were able to rush onsite, assess the damage and work with them to recover the files they needed. Later in our Net-work Audit, we discovered that every-one in their company could access their backups, every area of their servers, and many of their workstations were not up to date. We were very surprised this was their first experience with a Cryptolock-er virus. Not only was this office crip-pled by this one infection the ransom to recover their data was just like burning your cheek on hot fries, an instant wake-up call followed by a raw sensation.

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These are the twenty-five most common pass-words for 2016. If you see your password listed here, change it now!

1. 123456

2. 123456789

3. qwerty

4. 12345678

5. 111111

6. 1234567890

7. 1234567

8. password

9. 123123

10. 987654321

11. Qwertyuiop

12. Mynoob

13. 123321

14. 666666

15. 18atcskd2w

16. 777777

17. 1q2w3e4r

18. 654321

19. 555555

20. 3rjs1la7qe

21. Google

22. 1q2w3e4r5t

23. 123qwe

24. 1q2w3e

Password best practices. A good password should not be pulled directly from a diction-ary, family name, user name or identification number. They should be 12-16 characters, contain a combination of numbers, symbols, upper and lower case letters as well as a space. Keep your pass-words fresh too. Update them once each quarter

just to change things up a bit.

Page 2

microTECH Times September 2017

Adobe Acrobat XI and Reader XI sup-

port will end as of October 15, 2017.

What does this mean? What can you

do?

End-of-life for Acrobat. This term

simply means that Adobe will no longer

offer technical support, product updates,

security updates, or new versions.

While this may not seem like a big deal,

it can lead to a dangerous weakness in

your network.

Vulnerability. When a piece of software is essentially set aside by its creator and

marked for an end-of-life date, it be-

comes a target for hackers to exploit.

These unpatched programs can essen-

tially leave a backdoor opening in your

network for clever attackers to dive into

your and take what they want.

Adobe recommendations. Adobe

strongly recommends updating your

Acrobat programs to the latest version

as soon as possible. That way you can

benefit from the most recent enhance-

ments and security updates while your

company decides on the next step.

The best option moving forward. If your company is using a cloud solu-

tion, there are subscription products

available. Adobe is even offering a new

annual and month-to-month subscrip-

tion plan for Acrobat DC. These afford-

able subscription services allow you

grow and increase the user count as

needed with minimal investment. In

addition, subscription services are cou-

pled with full-support when you need it

most.

Malware now makes up over

10% of all infections these days. According to Check Point software, ransomware has doubled its share when compared to the volume of malware attacks and is likely to double again in 2017. Some ransoms are even hitting $1 million dollars. Most experts say, “Just pay the money so you can get your files back and move on.” But, what about preventative measures?

Hire a team of IT professionals to

help. This may seem like a crazy no-

tion due to the expensive salaries for in-house IT professionals these days, but can you truly afford to sidestep security and pay a hefty ransom just to keep your business moving? There is an alterna-tive. What if we said you could hire an entire office of certified technicians to-day? What if we even offered a Net-work Security Audit to review all of your IT needs and help you build up a good defense against this million dollar threat? Would you call today? How about now…

Micro Enterprises LLC

877-540 -6789

Cheeseburger types. Did you know there are over 500 types of cheeseburgers and thou-sands of ways to ar-range the toppings? Amazing that this dish can be so versatile. Here are a few cheeseburger types you may want to seek out for a taste:

• Sticky cheeseburg-er: grilled burger spread with peanut butter, topped with bacon and Jack cheese.

• Tough Texan cheeseburger: grilled beef sea-soned with hot sauce, topped with dried red peppers, smothered in pep-per cheese and BBQ sauce.

• Hawaiian Spam-burger: Grilled spam patty, topped with melted swiss cheese, pineapple slices, creamy mus-tard, garlic chunks, green bell peppers and leaf lettuce.

• A donut cheese-burger: A sizzling hamburger patty, smothered in the cheese of your choice, topped with bacon and housed in a sliced donut.

Whatever your prefer-ence, take a moment to check into cheeseburger deals near you and join in the fun celebrating National Cheeseburger Day.

(Continued from page 1)

Page 3

microTECH Times September 2017

Everyone knows a spam filter keeps the undesirable messages out. But how ex-actly do they work? And how can you ensure yours is the right one for your business?

What is a spam filter? A spam filter

is a sorting solution that helps you weed out the infectious or bad messages in your e-mail. There are three basic ways these filters are implemented; a hosted solution on a cloud service, a device in your office or an on premise appliance, and a local copy installed directly on your computer. While no spam filter is a 100% effective, a business operating without a filter is generally bombarded with so many messages that e-mail is almost rendered useless and unmanage-able.

What are the different types of

spam filters? Spam filters come in a

variety of types. Here is a quick list of six filters that help block out risky e-mail messages:

1. Content filters: These filters re-view the words and content inside of your e-mail messages to decide if they are spam or safe.

2. Header filters: This filter looks simply looks at the e-mail header to identify falsified or known infec-tious information.

3. Permission filters: These filters force the sender to be approved by the recipient before accepting any correspondence.

4. General blacklist filters: This type of filter stops all e-mails that come for known spammers that are kept on a list of offenders known as a blacklist.

5. Challenge-response filters: These filters are on the inside of your company to restrict outgoing mes-sages. They require anyone sending a message to enter a code gaining permission to send an e-mail.

6. Rule-based filters: This type of filter references a defined set of criteria and filters the content of your messages based on specific wording in the body or header.

Spam filter basics for business. The spam filter you use will largely de-pend on the volume of messages you and your staff manage daily. It is also good to consider the types of message you send and receive. Do you often exchange sensi-tive personal or busi-ness information? A company that is regu-lated by industry standards may re-quire tighter security.

Test and monitor

your filter. Even

when you select a filter, test and moni-tor its effectiveness. New threats arise at an alarming rate and these filtering solu-tions can be modified to block the specific types of messages your company is re-ceiving. Ask these critical questions; Do the good messages come through? Do spam or virus messages still land in your inbox? How quickly are patches and updates being pushed to your ma-chines?

Questions? Having issues with infec-

tions, spam in your inbox, or are you concerned about up-dates and patches? Give us a call. We can help put the right tools in place to improve your e-mail security solution. Your busi-ness relies on e-mail communica-tions so make sure it is secure and reliable.

From a recent count by the Radicati Group, there are roughly 2.4 million

e-mails sent every second. This equates to 74 trillion annually. Just

over 49% of these messages are spam. That’s about 36 trillion spam

messages annually. With the average recipient bringing in 121 messages

daily, even mild spam can be terribly dangerous for businesses.

Spoofing Paypal Scam Tactic. Spoofing is when a hoax web-

site is constructed to deceive visitors and gather information for malicious intent. Watch out for these dangerous websites. Even giants like Paypal have issues with spoofs.

Paypol.com Nope, this isn’t a typo. This is an example of the

way attackers spoof the Paypal site. Changing one letter of the website address is a common way for hackers to spoof a domain. It is so close that with a quick glance, many visitors don’t even realize they are not on a legitimate site. The design of these spoofed websites is mimicked so you really can’t tell the differ-ence, but the website address can never be duplicated exactly.

Why are spoofed sites dangerous? The goal of these types

of websites is to gather data. While you may think you are simply logging into the Paypal site to make a payment, it’s really a phish-ing site that records the user name and password you enter and repeatedly says you’ve entered it wrong. As you continue to try other passwords the site will keep those too. From there, attackers use the data you’ve entered to attempt logins on various websites like banks, social media and medical sites.

Keep your eye on the domain. The website address, also

known as a domain name, will help you identify a spoofed web-site. Sometimes these domains will come to you in a spam mes-sage, but they are prevalent in online advertisements too. Be aware of the way these spoofing sites work and if you are at all suspi-cious, don’t enter your password information.

microTECH Times September 2017

“We make all of your computer problems go away

without adding additional full-time I.T. staff!”

Ask about our fixed price service agreements — Computer support

at a flat monthly fee you can budget for, just like payroll!

How to handle e-mails, interruptions, and

phone calls. Thomas Edison did his best work

during the night. Some people today do their best work at night too, but that’s mainly because they are interrupted so often during the day. The problem is that no one was ever taught how to fight information overloads and constant interruptions.

Fortune magazine offers a few solutions. Experts say you should ask yourself these questions: What are you supposed to accomplish in your work? What do you actually spend time doing? Do you achieve “flow?” Flow is the state where everything seems to be going your way. You feel calm, alert, focused yet receptive. It feels like the full exercise of the thin your truly supposed to be doing. It’s the Aristotelian concept of happiness.

Tips to find your Aristotelian flow: If you’re the one who calls

meetings, call fewer of them. Switch off the ping that signals an incoming email. Create folders for less critical messages to move automatically out of your inbox and schedule time for their review later. Block out time in blocks of an hour or two for uninterrupted work flow, no calls, no emails, no chitchat. Devote 30 minutes each day to planning your day so you can get the most out of your work. Studies show that 20% of our time is spent on nonproduc-tive activities. Cut them out or delegate them so you can keep your work flowing smoothly.

Have you been considering new computers or dual monitors?

Not sure what improvements will help your company grow?

Give us a call today for a Network Tune-Up

Let’s get started planning your next upgrade or improvement pro-

ject so we can get it implemented before the year end. That way,

you may be able to take advantage of the Section 179 deduction on

your taxes. This deduction was extended through the 2017 with

limits back up to $500,000 for qualifying equipment and software.

Micro Enterprises LLC ● (877) 540-6789

Ready for an upgrade or new equipment?

PO Box 503

Deepwater, NJ 08023

877-540-6789

www.microent.net