Due to the holidays, online shopping shoots through the roof and e-commerce websites often experience a surge in traffic. While this influx is great for sales, it also presents more risks to your website’s security. Understanding these risks and preparing your defenses is crucial to protect both your business and your customers.
Increased Vulnerability to Cyber Threats
The spike in traffic during the holidays makes websites a prime target for cybercriminals. Hackers often exploit this period by launching Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, which can overwhelm your site and cause downtime. Additionally, phishing scams and malware distribution tend to rise, preying on customer’s urgency to complete purchases quickly. During the holidays, consumers depend on reliable businesses to complete their transactions without the threat of cyber threats. Be sure to monitor your current software carefully during the peak of the season.
Data Breaches
The holidays often see an increase in online transactions, which means more sensitive customer data is being processed. This increase in data exchange can attract attackers looking to steal credit card information or personal details. A data breach during the holiday season can not only result in financial losses but also irreparably damage your brand’s reputation. Your website will appear unstable and you will see a significant decrease in traffic if your site is deemed unsafe.
Steps to Strengthen Your Security
To strengthen your security, start by upgrading your infrastructure to ensure your website can handle high traffic without crashing, and choose a reliable hosting provider with robust DDoS protection. Implement SSL certificates to encrypt data transfers and protect sensitive information from interception. Utilize advanced monitoring tools to detect suspicious activities in real time and respond promptly. Educate your team by training employees to recognize phishing attempts and maintain strong cybersecurity practices. Finally, regularly update all platforms, plugins, and software to mitigate vulnerabilities and ensure optimal protection.
Partnering with Westec
For comprehensive protection, consider working with a cybersecurity company like Westec. We can provide advanced threat detection, vulnerability assessments, and incident response plans tailored to your needs.
By proactively addressing these risks, you can ensure a safe and seamless shopping experience for your customers. For more tips and professional cybersecurity solutions, visit our website or contact us today. Stay safe and cyber-secure this holiday season!
The holiday season often brings opportunities to travel, whether visiting family or exploring new destinations. Unfortunately, this time of year can also be a prime opportunity for cybercriminals to target travelers. Protecting sensitive information while on the move is essential, especially in today’s digital age. At Westec, we prioritize your cybersecurity, so here are some practical tips to keep your data safe during your holiday travels.
Avoid Public Wi-Fi
Public Wi-Fi networks, like those in airports, hotels, and cafes, are convenient but often unsecured. Hackers can intercept your data over these networks. Instead, use your mobile hotspot or a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to encrypt your internet connection and safeguard your information.
Enable Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)
Before traveling, enable 2FA on all important accounts, including email, banking, and social media. This extra layer of security ensures that even if someone obtains your password, they cannot access your accounts without the second verification step.
Be Cautious with Devices
Keep your devices like laptops, phones, tablets, and USB drives secure at all times. Use strong passwords and, where possible, biometric locks (like fingerprint or facial recognition) to prevent unauthorized access if your device is lost or stolen.
Avoid Oversharing on Social Media
While it’s tempting to post about your holiday adventures in real time, sharing details like your travel dates or location can make you a target for both online and physical theft. Wait until you return home to share your vacation photos.
Update Your Software
Cybercriminals often exploit vulnerabilities in outdated software. Ensure all your devices are running the latest operating systems and security patches before you leave.
At Westec, we believe proactive measures are the best defense against cyber threats. By staying vigilant and prepared, you can enjoy your holiday travels with peace of mind, knowing your sensitive information is protected.
For more tips and professional cybersecurity solutions, visit our website or contact us today. Stay safe and cyber-secure this holiday season!
Anglers catch fish by dangling bait in front of their victims, and hackers use the same strategy to trick your employees. There’s a new phishing scam making the rounds and the digital bait is almost impossible to distinguish from the real thing. Here are the three things to watch out for in Office 365 scams.
Step 1 – Invitation to collaborate email
The first thing victims receive from hackers is a message that looks identical to an email from Microsoft’s file sharing platform SharePoint. It says, “John Doe has sent you a file, to view it click the link below…”
In most cases, the sender will be an unfamiliar name. However, some hackers research your organization to make the email more convincing.
Step 2 – Fake file sharing portal
Clicking the link opens a SharePoint file that looks like another trusted invitation from a Microsoft app, usually OneDrive. This is a big red flag since there’s no reason to send an email containing a link to a page with nothing but another link.
Step 2 allows hackers to evade Outlook’s security scans, which monitor links inside emails for possible phishing scams. But Outlook’s current features cannot scan the text within a file linked in the email. Once you’ve opened the file, SharePoint has almost no way to flag suspicious links.
Step 3 – Fake Office 365 login page
The malicious link in Step 2 leads to an almost perfect replica of an Office 365 login page, managed by whoever sent the email in Step 1. If you enter your username and password on this page, all your Office 365 documents will be compromised.
Microsoft has designed hundreds of cybersecurity features to prevent phishing scams and a solution to this problem is likely on the way. Until then, you can stay safe with these simple rules:
Check the sender’s address every time you receive an email. You might not notice the number one in this email at first glance: jo*****@gm***.com.
Confirm with the sender that the links inside the shared document are safe.
Open cloud files by typing in the correct address and checking your sharing notifications to avoid fake collaboration invitations.
Double check a site’s URL before entering your password. A zero can look very similar to the letter ‘o’ (e.g. 0ffice.com/signin).
Third-party IT solutions exist to prevent these types of scams, but setting them up and keeping them running requires a lot of time and attention. Give us a call today for information about our unlimited support plans for Microsoft products.
Published with permission from TechAdvisory.org. Source.
It’s easy to see why Office 365 is an attractive solution for small and medium-sized businesses already familiar with the Office interface. More and more companies are making the move to the cloud, but there are security issues to consider.
Identify your company’s sensitive data…
Most files housed within your servers contain sensitive commercial and personal data that must be properly identified and protected. Do this by conducting a security audit before you undertake your migration.
Your audit should identify the types of data stored in the various parts of your company network, including which specific information needs extra safeguarding. Be sure to consider everything from trade secrets and contract details to the personal information of your clients.
…and then restrict access to it
Once you’ve worked out where your most precious data lies, you can check who currently has access to it and whether their access is appropriate. After all, it’s not necessary for everyone to be able to get at all the data your company owns.
Ensure that each of your employees has access only to the data that’s necessary for them to perform their duties. The great thing about Office 365 is it lets you conveniently set different levels of permissions based on user roles.
Watch out for insider threats
It’s wise to consider everyone in your organization when it comes to auditing data access permissions – and that includes system administrators who may have master access to every element of your network infrastructure.
A rogue administrator is the stuff of nightmares, since their elevated position gives them much greater leeway to siphon off valuable data without being noticed – or even to allow others to conduct questionable business and bypass the usual built-in security precautions. You can mitigate this risk by monitoring your administrators’ data usage and activities.
Use machine learning to foresee security breaches
Every action performed by your staff within Office 365 is automatically logged, and with relative ease you can create detailed activity reports. But the sheer number of events taking place within Office 365 in the course of your business’s normal operations means that even attempting to identify questionable behavior will be akin to finding a needle in a haystack.
That’s not to say it’s unwise to be on the lookout for anomalies in normal usage – the export of unexplainably large volumes of data, for instance, could suggest that a member of your team is leaking intelligence to a competitor, or that they’re about to jump ship and take your trade secrets with them.
To make things easier, machine learning technologies can identify potential breaches before they happen by analyzing large swathes of data in seconds. Graph API is incorporated into Office 365, and allows for the integration of machine learning tools into your security environment to achieve just that. The same tools can also help you avoid being caught unawares by hackers, by identifying system login attempts from locations that are out of the ordinary.
By following these tips, you’ll be able to enjoy the powerful collaborative features of Office 365 while ensuring the robust security your business demands. To find out more about how we can help your Office 365 migration run smoothly, just give us a call.
Published with permission from TechAdvisory.org. Source.
Microsoft recently announced that Office 365 apps, including Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, and Word will be going through a design overhaul to boost productivity of their subscribers. They plan on releasing new features in the next few months. Check out what they have in store.
Simplified ribbon
The biggest update is with the ribbon, which is a command bar at the top of a window. The new design now has a simpler, cleaner look that gives users the chance to customize the tools they work with most, simply by pinning apps or files to your Windows taskbar. Even though this new ribbon is designed with simplicity in mind, if you don’t find it helpful you can still revert back to the regular three-line view.
Some users may already be using this new ribbon in the online version of Word, while Outlook for Windows will receive it sometime this month. However, Microsoft disclosed that they aren’t yet ready to roll it out to PowerPoint, Word, and Excel for Windows.
Improved search option
One of the major changes is with the search option in Microsoft Office apps. The developers improved the search experience by using Microsoft graph, so users can now see search recommendations when they move their cursor to the search box. Some have already seen this update take effect, but it won’t be available for Outlook on the web until August.
Better colors and icons
To make the overall design more aesthetically pleasing, the colors and icons of every app have been revamped, too. They wanted a more modern look crisp and clean no matter the size of the user’s screen, which is why they employed scalable graphics. It first debuted on Word before appearing on Excel, PowerPoint, and Works for Windows last month. As for Outlook for Windows and Mac, users can expect the update later this summer.
Office 365 is constantly evolving to benefit subscribers. And to make things even more interesting, users will be chosen at random over the next several months to receive the updates, and Microsoft will gather their reviews to make further improvements. Co-creating new features with customers is something Microsoft truly believes in, so this isn’t simply a social media tactic.
So as you hang tight for these coming changes, consider increasing office collaboration by migrating your files to the cloud. Call us today to get started!
Published with permission from TechAdvisory.org. Source.
A few weeks ago, Microsoft made an announcement to block future content that is embedded with Adobe Flash, Shockwave, and even their own Silverlight platform from Office 365. While the developers have their reasons for implementing this, they should have pulled this feature earlier to avoid many irate customers.
Microsoft recently announced plans to eventually stop the activation of Silverlight, Shockwave, and Flash content in Office 365. This is not just the developers disabling bugs with an option to click a link or button to look at content. Within a few months’ time, Flash will be gone from Office 365 for good.
What media will be affected once this is implemented?
Microsoft Silverlight and Adobe Flash or Shockwave content that uses Microsoft’s OLE (Object Linking and Embedding) platform and the “Insert Object” feature will be blocked. However, media that uses the “Insert Online Video” control via an Internet Explorer browser frame will not be affected by this change.
The following timeline shows the various changes that will take full effect by January 2019:
Controls in the Office 365 Monthly Channel will be blocked beginning June 2018.
Controls in the Office 365 Semi-Annual Targeted (SAT) Channel will be blocked beginning September 2018.
Controls in the Office 365 Semi-Annual Channel will be blocked beginning January 2019.
Why did the developers choose to take out the embedded content?
Microsoft pointed out various reasons for making their decision. It cited that malware authors have been exploiting systems through Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files with embedded content, and that most Office 365 users did not use or rarely use the controls anyway.
Aside from this, the developers at Microsoft decided to take action after Adobeannounced that Flash would reach its end-of-life cycle by 2020. Silverlight was discontinued in 2016, where enterprise customers would have support for the medium until 2021.
For businesses that still need to look at or embed Silverlight- or Flash-based content in an Office 365 document, Microsoft has provided a support page to guide users on re-activating the controls.
As more websites are transitioning away from Flash in favor of HTML5, Microsoft’s once-popular platform has experienced a steady decline over the years. According to Google, Chrome users who loaded a single web page per day that has Flash media had gone down from an estimated 80% during 2014 to below 8% in early 2018.
For more information about utilizing Office 365 features and other IT related concerns, feel free to get in touch with us today!
Published with permission from TechAdvisory.org. Source.
People who use OneNote for Windows are in for a surprise. The desktop version of the app will be phased out in favor of the UWP (Universal Windows Platform) app included with Office 365 and Microsoft Office 2019.
Microsoft’s OneNote desktop application is nearing the end of its journey, as the software giant will stop developing the product line past the 2016 edition. But don’t panic just yet, OneNote 2016 will share the same lifecycle as Microsoft Office 2016. The desktop app will receive security patches and updates until October 14, 2025.
Developers are directing their efforts to the Windows 10 OneNote app, where the switchover will be formal once Microsoft releases Office 2019. The current plan is to have Office 2019 in store shelves by the second half of 2018, and most of the features in OneNote 2016 have been added to the Windows 10 version.
What requested features will eventually make it to OneNote for Windows 10?
All of the features that can be used in OneNote 2016 add-ons will be built into the Windows 10 app to make an improved Class Notebook.
Edit and view files which allow users to collaborate on attached documents together. OneNote for Windows 10 will allow users to look at live previews of Microsoft Office files, and cloud files will help save space in the notebooks.
“Search and insert tags” which lets users search for, create and insert custom tags. The tags created in OneNote for Windows 10 will also be synced across other OneNote devices, and tags that other users made can be accessed in a shared notebook so you don’t have to make them again.
Users who are new to Microsoft Office 2019 or Office 365 can still install the OneNote 2016 application. The Windows 10 version and the 2016 version are still compatible until further notice.
Don’t hesitate to call us today for more information on how to keep your software up to date while securing your private data at the same time!
Published with permission from TechAdvisory.org. Source.
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