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Technology and Business News

Javan Miller Acquires Several Certifications

August 12, 2022 by Dan Lingenfelter
Javan Miller Photo

In the last several months, Javan Miller has pursued and achieved several certifications. He has completed the Sophos Certified Engineer coursework, acquiring both the Sophos Firewall and the Sophos Central Endpoint and Server certifications. This will allow Javan to support our customers who utilize Sophos as part of their security framework.

Beyond that, Javan has also acquired the Google IT Support Professional certification. This coursework provided a thorough level of the fundamentals of Information technology and will be a good launching point for additional learning in the future.

PCS continues to be grateful for our team, and their desire to continue to learn. Thank you Javan and wishing you continued growth!

Categories Technology and Business News

Celebrating Chris Music’s 15-year Anniversary!

October 28, 2020 by Kevin Denee
Chris Music celebrates 15 years with Palitto Consulting Services

The PCS team would like to congratulate Chris Music for recently reaching his 15-year anniversary at PCS. Chris’s non-stop service to our clients is something that we deeply appreciate.

Chris is instrumental in the installation and maintaining of our VoIP phone systems for our clients. He also focuses on client/server implementations. Thank you, Chris, for your dedication to our clients and fellow team members! To learn more about Chris, read his bio.

Categories Technology and Business News

RMM Solution Quickly Fixes DNS Vulnerability

July 24, 2020 by Kevin Denee

Last week, a vulnerability (CVE-2020-1350) was discovered in Windows DNS Servers which has been classified as critical by Microsoft. It has a CVSS score (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) of 10.0 out of 10.0, which is the worst possible score. This vulnerability impacts major versions of Windows Server from Windows Server 2003 to Windows Server 2019 with the DNS role enabled.

Many of our customers have a Remote Monitoring Management toolset which pushed a workaround to those servers within 24 hours of its release.

Remote Monitoring Management, also known as RMM, is a software solution that allows for remote network management. It provides a set of tools to efficiently secure and maintain IT systems.

If your company does not have an RMM solution, reach out to our team. As threats continue to come from many different angles, it’s important to be as proactive as possible to keep your systems secure.

Categories Technology and Business News Tags Cybersecurity, data protection, Network Security, Palitto Consulting Services, RMM, security

Dropbox is Not a Remote Access Solution: A COVID-19 Case Study

April 30, 2020 by Kevin Denee
Dropbox is not a remote access solution article feature

The Scenario in Brief

During this challenging time, we all have had to scramble to adjust to a new normal, both on a professional and personal level.

Here is an example of a company that was trying to find their own way to work remotely. This particular customer has a case management suite that links to Dropbox in the office. Their case files and templates link to the cloud, their Dropbox. Our client decided to give all their employees access to Dropbox through their personal home computers.

It was easy.

The employee can work from their home computer, make their edits on Dropbox, and it updates to their case management suite. When we dug deeper, we learned that the computers they are using are shared with other family members.

If ransomware got on this computer from a clicked email that would then infect the locally-stored Dropbox files. This would then sync up to the cloud because Dropbox would not know that the data is compromised. It just sees data. The original data would not be available and the new data would be encrypted and locked.

From a support side, we had servers being backed up in the office, as well as other important folders. The client thought they had a backup, but they did not realize that Dropbox was not being backed up.

Further, the client was not aware that Dropbox stores a local copy of its files on computers that are synced. This means these confidential case client files were available to other family members in the household. To make matters worse, if the machine got infected, the case studies would be readily available to bad actors.

The Solution

We ended up setting up a VPN solution for this client, which allowed them to remote into their desktops. This is a common and easy solution, which gives employees their work environment at home. They now log in to their work computer that already had Dropbox. We uninstalled Dropbox on the unsecured personal computers.

People have this belief that everything that is going to be out in the cloud is going to be safe. Sometimes it is not clear that this “cloud” is just a server sitting somewhere else. The reality is unless you invest in creating backups, or backing it up yourself, it is as susceptible as your hard drive getting ransomware.

Finally, Dropbox has an additional plan that allows data retention for the 30 days. We implemented this as an extra safety measure.

The Lesson

Companies are going to find quick methods to solve their problems. This case study was an easy solution to remote access and our client had no idea they exposed vulnerabilities and security holes. Nothing had gone wrong, so they thought they were safe.

It’s always wise to engage a consultant in cases like this. We were thankful we could help in this regard and prevent what could have been a bad situation.

Categories Technology and Business News Tags cloud, COVID-19, data protection, data security, remote access

The Risks of Rushing Remote Desktop Solutions: A COVID-19 Case Study

March 26, 2020March 26, 2020 by Kevin Denee
the-risks-of-rushing-remote-desktop-solutions

The Scenario in Brief:

Our client performs medical billing services for their clients across the country and had recently acquired a new customer in New York. Each time they intake a new customer our team is engaged to set up secure remote access to that customer’s site.

Given the sensitivity of the data being accessed it was necessary to provide an extremely secure solution, compliant with HIPAA regulations. In this case we deployed remote access utilizing the SolarWinds Remote Monitoring & Management (RMM) platform, with the included Take Control software. This solution provides an encrypted connection protected by multiple factors of authentication to gain access.

As soon as this monitoring software was installed it began reporting attacks from a host of different public IP addresses from multiple countries. We know from experience that when this activity is seen, typically someone has forwarded Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP)  port through the firewall, for simple (albeit insecure) remote access. One of the greatest dangers of utilizing this antiquated remote access methodology, is that it has become a go-to method for bad actors to infiltrate and launch ransomware attacks against the target.

This particular chiropractic customer had recently employed an acquaintance to implement this solution. Given that the state of New York was recently shutdown, they had little time to act or properly plan for this sudden change. Unfortunately, the party was either not thinking through the cybersecurity ramifications or perhaps was unaware that ransomware is often spread through open RDP ports.

The Solution:

Our team quickly consulted with the parties involved, and offered options, including alternative remote solutions that were flexible enough to fit their workflow of iPad’s and Windows devices. We also suggested engaging with a local IT company if that was their preference. The client was relieved to know that this attack was caught in time (even if it was outside of the scope of our initial intent) and the opportunity was given to avoid business disaster. This would have conceivably shut down their business in the short-term in the middle of an already difficult situation.

We are thankful we can help this business stay in business through an already difficult time.

The Lesson:

We know that everybody is scrambling to setup remote access but you could make a bad situation worse if it is not accomplished in a secure method. Contact your trusted IT provider, or find a firm that can help you. If you have questions, don’t hesitate to reach out.
Categories Technology and Business News Tags cyber security, Cybersecurity, it services, ransomware
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