Author: Casserly Consulting

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Is USB Type-C the Answer for Fast Data Transfer?

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You might use USB every day for your general technology needs, but do you know the difference between the various kinds of USB? This week’s tech term is dedicated to investigating the different types of Universal Serial Bus (USB) ports, including its history, development, and uses.

The Origins of USB
First developed and implemented in 1996, the USB cable was created with the purpose of connecting devices to a computer in mind. A total of seven leaders in the computing and communications industry–Compaq, DEC, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, NEC, and Nortel–wanted to create a simple solution that could allow several different kinds of devices to connect to a PC.

Essentially, an early USB connection provided a data transfer of about 1.5 Mbps to 12 Mps. While this isn’t as fast as today’s standards, it was quite remarkable for the time. The first major release of USB technology was in September 1998, and it provided users with a 12 Mbps transfer rate on high-speed devices. Apple’s own iMac computer was actually one of the first devices to come with USB built into it, and it success played a major role in the commercialization and popularity of USB. The original USB came in two different connector types: type A, or standard USB, and type B, the more squared-off connector.

Innovations of USB
In August of 2000, USB 2.0 was released. The increase in data transfer was substantial at about 280 Mbps. Additionally, the first mini-USB (types A and B) were also developed. Furthermore, USB 2.0 introduced a new integrated battery charging feature, as well as fast data transfer from the emerging smartphone market. USB 3.0, introduced in November 2008, achieved an impressive 5.0 Gbs transfer rate, and the next decade would only further enhance this. September 2017 brought about the Type-C connector and USB 3.2, resulting in a transfer of around 20 Gbps.

USB Type-C
The USB Type-C uses a 24-pin USB connector system. You can identify it by looking for its rotational-symmetrical connector. We think that this is not just the most identifiable feature, but its most important as well. Nowadays, there is no wrong way to plug in your USB cable. In terms of size, the USB-C connector is larger than the micro-B connector. Just like the typical USB wire, one end has a type-A or type-B connection, while the other end has the new type-C connector.

For your reference, here are three of the best new features for USB Type-C:

  1. It’s designed to be easier to plug in since there is no discernible way that the dongle has to be entered into the device.
  2. Data transfer and power capability are basically twice what they were with USB 3.1.
  3. It’s designed to become a future-proof option for data and power transfer for mobile devices.

Unfortunately, not all devices support one cable, but maybe in the future this will become the new standard. For more information about new developments and the latest technology, subscribe to our blog.

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Save the Date: Microsoft Products End of Life

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There are one of two reactions every person gets when they get a save-the-date card in the mail. They either are excited for an event or they realize that the event is going to cost them money. For today’s blog, we give you our version of save the date as some of the most widely used Microsoft products in recent memory are coming up on their end of support date, and for some businesses, this save-the-date might be bad news.

We know that unsupported software can be a complete nightmare. This is especially true if the unsupported software is a critical component of your company’s computing infrastructure. Microsoft has announced that they will be officially ending support for two major operating systems, Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7, on January 14, 2020. Both pieces of software are currently in their extended support periods, meaning that people can pay Microsoft to support the software, but after January 2020, neither piece of software will have any type of support available.

Windows 7
In 2016, all Windows 7 users were given the option to upgrade away from the OS to Microsoft’s newest OS, Windows 10. Users that didn’t take advantage of that offer have since had to pay for it, but if you haven’t upgraded away from Windows 7 by now, you are probably paying for support or not receiving any, both of which are not advantageous. By upgrading today, you will get ahead of what could be a major problem down the road. Waiting until the last minute to implement new versions of the OS is not recommended, since upgrading sometimes comes with hidden problems and legacy software issues that could put your whole organization at risk.

Windows Server 2008 R2
In what will be a larger problem for businesses, support for the already extended Windows Server 2008 R2 is definitely going away. For the last four years, Microsoft has insisted that anyone using Windows server 2008 R2 needs to upgrade, but since it kept offering extended support, businesses kept on using it. Well, Microsoft has announced the end is near for the decade-old server OS.

Newer versions of Windows Server have a lot of new options, especially in the arena of virtual environments. So while it is possible to swap out Server 2008 R2 for another Windows Server OS, the best course of action will be to scrap the old server altogether and upgrade to new infrastructure. Since there are substantial costs that go along with changing servers, companies still using the old software will want to do their best to start upgrading immediately.

At COMPANYNAME, we can help any-sized business get upgraded, while finding you innovative options to reduce the capital costs of doing so. To find out more, contact us at PHONENUMBER.

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Your Router Can Host Some Pretty Nasty Malware

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Hundreds of millions of people use wireless Internet connections every day, and as a result, hackers are taking that as a challenge. They are now starting to develop malware that targets people through their routers. Recently, security researchers at Kaspersky Lab have discovered the malware named Slingshot. The code is designed to spy on PCs through a multi-layer attack that targets MikroTik routers. Today we take a look at Slingshot, and other router-based malware and what you can do about it.

Slingshot
Slingshot works by replacing a library file with a malicious version that downloads more malicious components and then eventually launches a two-front attack on the computers connected to it. The first one runs low-level kernel code that gives an intruder free rein of a system, while the other focuses on the user level and includes code to manage the file system and keep the malware alive.

It is a very intricate attack that calls the nefarious code in from an encrypted virtual file system; managing to do so without crashing the host system, a feat not lost on the security experts at Kaspersky Lab, who deemed it a state-sponsored attack because of the quality of the overall attack and the complexity of its components. Reports suggest that the malware can basically steal whatever it wants, including keyboard strokes, passwords, screenshots, and information about network usage and traffic.

MikroTik has announced that they have patched the vulnerability on versions of their routing firmware, but concerns remain as no one is sure if other router manufacturers have been affected. If that were to come to fruition, Slingshot could be a much larger problem than is currently believed.

Other Instances
Slingshot isn’t the first instance of a router turning on its owner. Traditionally, router security is known to be largely unreliable. Much of this is on the manufacturers, which have been known to build many different products without having a strategy in place to keep them working with up-to-date security. It is also up to the user to keep their router’s firmware up-to-date – something that is very easy to not keep top-of-mind. Plus, some routers make firmware updates time-consuming and difficult.

To attack the network, hackers seek to change the DNS server setting on your router. When you try to connect to a secure website, the malicious DNS server tells you to go to an elaborately constructed phishing site instead. By spoofing the domain and rerouting you to a website that is specifically constructed to take advantage of you, you have very little chance of warding off the attack before it’s too late.

Hackers have also been known to inject all types of user hindrances such trying to perform drive-by downloads, or inundating users with advertisements. Many attacks make use of cross-site request forgery attacks where a malicious actor creates a rogue piece of JavaScript that repeatedly tries to load the router’s web-admin page and change the router’s settings.

What to Do If This Happens to You
The first thing you should do is work to ascertain if your router has been compromised. You can do this in several ways, but the most telling is that your DNS server has been changed. You’ll have to access your router’s web-based setup page. Once in, you have to visit the Internet connection screen. If your DNS setting is set to automatic, you are in the clear. If it’s set to “manual”, however, there will be custom DNS servers entered in the space. Many times, this is the first sign of a problem.

If you have been compromised, ensuring your router is set up to your manufacturer’s specifications will help you mitigate damage. To ward against this happening to you, you should always:

  • Install firmware updates: Making sure your router’s firmware is updated to the latest version will definitely help.
  • Disable remote access: Stop remote access to secure against anyone changing settings on your networking equipment.
  • Turn off UPnP: Plug and play can be very convenient, but your router could be affected through UPnP if there is any malware on the network since it is designed to universally trust all requests.
  • Change credentials: Changing your passwords are a simple way of keeping unwanted entities out of your router.

For more information about network and cybersecurity, the expert technicians at COMPANYNAME are accessible and ready to help you keep your network and infrastructure secure. For help, call us at PHONENUMBER.

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Know Your Tech: Cache

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If you hang out around technology professionals for any period of time, chances are that you’ve heard the word “cache” used before. The word, pronounced cash, is usually heard in the phrase, “clear the cache,” but if you don’t know what this phrase means, how can you benefit from it? Since this week’s tech term is “cache,” let’s get into the details.

What is a Cache?
Most words used in computing have meanings outside technology, so it’s natural that cache has appeared elsewhere in language before now. A cache is essentially storage that is hidden away from the general public. Maybe you have a stash of goodies in your desk that are meant for “emergencies,” or perhaps you have a cache of pens hidden away because people keep stealing them from you. Either way, it’s a collection of something that you want to keep out of sight, and it has its uses for computing as well.

A cache can also be a hardware or software function that keeps data stored somewhere hidden away for faster processing in the future. This can be anything from a cache allowing your network’s data to travel faster from point A to point B, to a web browser storing information from certain web pages so that they are loaded faster than they otherwise would be. Simply put, the cache makes computing easier and more efficient–or at least, it’s meant to.

So What Does “Clear the Cache” Mean?
Clearing the cache in a web browser is easy. All it takes is the keyboard shortcut, Ctrl+F5. What this does for your device is that it allows the website to update any information that it has stored in the cache. This includes cookies and other website data that it may have stored. How this comes into play is when a website is updated and its appearance needs to be updated in the cache. If you fail to clear it, you might not be looking at the most up-to-date version of the website. Caches are most effective when they are small, so it helps to clear it once in a while to keep it that way.

Before clearing a network cache, however, you’ll want to first make sure that any drastic changes are handled by a networking professional. COMPANYNAME would be happy to further explain the process of caching and what it means for your business. To learn more, reach out to us at PHONENUMBER.

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Why You’ll Want to Consider Hosted VoIP Telephony

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Today, communications are an important part of business, and with nearly every organization looking to reduce redundancies, a lot of businesses are starting to take advantage of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) solutions, using the resources they already have in place to avoid paying twice over.

With today’s ISPs delivering faster and faster speeds to businesses, much of the bandwidth a business uses is lost. By choosing to utilize a VoIP telephony solution, your company gets more for less. You are paying for access to massive amounts of bandwidth anyway, why not cut your communications costs while you are at it? Today we will take a look at the various types of VoIP that are available and why the switch may be just the thing your organization needs.

What is VoIP?
Voice over Internet Protocol is just that. The ability to make calls, and have a feature-rich platform that provides all the services that your traditional phone system offers, for a fraction of the cost per user. If this seems too good to be true, consider that the VoIP market is growing rapidly (over 15 percent per year). It works through your organization’s Internet connection rather than through dedicated phone lines. So, instead of having to pay for a separate system or add expensive hardware, VoIP provides an organization the immediate cost reduction without a discernible shift in functionality.

Hosted VoIP technology can be hosted either onsite or in the cloud, but since you won’t have to pay for and maintain hardware with the cloud-based platform, the cloud-hosted version will save you money. It is still a completely managed and maintained PBX server, but instead of having the system in your office, your organization can access it through web-based applications typically available on both desktops and mobile devices.

Benefits of VoIP
We’ve already outlined the cost reduction that’s possible with VoIP, but there are some other benefits as well. They include:

  • Easier to Manage: If anything else, switching to VoIP eliminates a vendor that you have to manage. More than that though, VoIP doesn’t need special hardware, it can use the same wiring and switches as your LAN.
  • Unified Communications: Installing a VoIP platform likely means that you are able to unify your organization’s communications platform, giving your staff the option to communicate multiple ways at the click of a button.
  • Functionality: A VoIP platform can integrate with all types of business-management software to provide easy access to the communication capabilities that often make business run better. VoIP also has innovative features like Voicemail-to-email transcription, interactive voice recognition, and integrated chat.
  • Scalability: When you need another user, it’s as simple as adding a line to your VoIP plan.

VoIP makes a lot of sense for the growing business and the established enterprise, alike. If you would like more information, contact our professional consultants today at PHONENUMBER.

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Where You May be Seeing More AI Soon

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The notion of artificial intelligence has played out in fiction, on the silver screen, and on the small screen for decades. Instead of having sentient cyborgs that enslave humanity, people are using A.I for our benefit. Today, we take a look at the A.I. of 2018 and how your business can leverage it for your benefit.

What is Artificial Intelligence
Today’s world is filled with data. All the experiences and thoughts humans have produced over centuries have provided somewhat of a record of what is expected from A.I. After all, if humans are going to replace workers with machines, ensuring they can do the jobs as (or more) efficiently is going to be important. For now, however, A.I. is being utilized in conjunction with people–trying to make our world better by making the applications and services we depend on more intuitive and efficient.

At one time there were the American Titans of Industry. Today we have Titans of Technology, and not one of them isn’t completely fascinated by the practical applications that artificial intelligence (in some fashion) can have for humanity. The thing standing in the way from all this glorious A.I.-fueled innovation, of course, is humanity. It seems every so often there is a report that is written suggesting that millions of workers can now be replaced with machines, and in the interest of shareholder profits, any business that has been able to leverage A.I. and increase its profitability has gone ahead and done so, often against public sentiment.

One study predicted that 47 percent of all jobs could be automated by 2033. That’s only 15 years off. If you’re looking for some current statistics, another report found in 2016 that up to nine percent of all workers are now unnecessary. Yet another suggested that 800+ of the largest businesses in the world, will cut between four and seven percent of their workforce and replace them with more efficient and less costly artificially intelligent machines.

How Your Business Could Use A.I.
You use A.I. every day without even thinking about it. Every time you use Google. Every time you use Uber or Lyft. Every time your email sends an incoming email to spam. Even as people all look forward to an inevitable permanent vacation as a result of A.I., it can be extraordinarily useful for the smaller business. Here are three ways even the smallest of businesses can take advantage of the growing A.I. market.

  • Operations – For small manufacturers or service providers many of the often-redundant parts of the job can now be automated. Since an A.I.-fueled ERP or CRM platform adjusts to the data you enter into it, it increases the level of automation that you can use to make your business more efficient.
  • Marketing – Small businesses rely on very targeted marketing campaigns, and by utilizing A.I.-driven marketing platforms, companies can reduce their marketing costs and target the audience most likely to purchase their products and services.
  • Customer Service – Customer service representatives have a tendency to flame out fairly quickly and actually deteriorate a company’s relationships with its customers. By using A.I. to automate a big portion of the customer service load, customers will get better support, and will tend to become repeat customers.

How has your business been able to utilize artificial intelligence? Do you foresee using A.I. in any capacity going forward? Leave your thoughts below and return to our blog for more great technology-related information.

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Tip of the Week: Creating Canned Responses in Gmail

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If you’re like most business users, you rely on email quite a bit to stay apprised of what is going on, as do most of the people you are likely in communication with. As such, you most likely understand that, while most emails require some kind of response or confirmation of receipt, not all of these messages require a heartfelt message. This is where Gmail’s Canned Responses come in handy.

This week’s tip will go over how to set up your own canned responses to streamline your repetitive, but necessary, communications.

How to Set Up Canned Responses
First, you’ll need to log in to the browser version of Gmail. Once there, click on the Gear icon in the top right under your profile image and select Settings from the menu. From there, you’ll see a horizontal menu that will display Advanced, click into it. You will see the option to enable Canned Responses. Click the radio button to select enable, and then save your changes. You can now create canned responses to use in your correspondence.

Creating and Using Your Canned Responses
To create a canned response to use, open the message composer and write out what you want your message to say. Once you are satisfied with your return message, access the message window options by clicking the button in the bottom-right corner. That menu should now have a Canned responses option, with a sub-menu that allows you to save a New canned response. You will be prompted to give your new response a name, and then it will be saved for future use in that sub-menu.

What kind of messages would you anticipate using canned responses for? Tell us what you think in the comments!

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Technology Addiction is a Very Real, Very Scary Thing

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Technology has become essential to workplace functionality and personal productivity, but while the long hours spent glued to our tech during the workday are a necessity, the time we spend at home with our personal devices is definitely voluntary. However, more and more people – children especially – are finding it harder to let their devices power down.

This is the hallmark of technology addiction, or Internet addiction disorder (IAD). While it isn’t yet officially recognized in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), IAD caught the attention of health professionals in the 1990s and 2013 saw the addition of Internet Use Gaming Disorder to the DSM-5.

What Makes IAD a Problem
Many of the features and trends that are widely taken for granted in applications today – autoplay, in-app purchases, and even notifications – are actually undermining our self-control. Instead of being able to set down the device and move on to something else, these tactics have made it so that we feel compelled to compulsively check these devices.

After all, you never know what you may miss if you don’t check right now.

Of course, needing to use technology for work and being addicted to technology are two very different things, but that doesn’t change the fact that children and adults alike have increasingly presented the warning signs of this addiction in their personal lives. That’s right – as much as the attachment to technology has stereotypically been framed as a young person’s problem, it can affect adults just as easily.

In a poll, 66 percent of parents felt that their teens were investing too much time into using their mobile device. No real surprise there, right? However, the same poll measured that 54 percent of children believed that their parents were checking their own devices too frequently as well.

Symptoms of IAD
IAD has a few warning signs and symptoms that present themselves in the behavior and mood of the person affected. Repeatedly checking for incoming text messages or updates and excessive social media use are common behaviors to keep an eye out for in your loved ones, and possibly in yourself.

Those afflicted with IAD also frequently feel euphoric while using their technology, and when they aren’t, often feel restless. IAD sufferers are prone to social withdrawal and experience diminished interest in activities not centered around a gadget. Some schools have even implemented technology fasts, where students have gone without their precious devices for a week. Teachers have noted that these students often exhibit physical symptoms of anxiety while their devices aren’t accessible. Students will reach for a device that isn’t there, all the while shaking and sweating.

How to Reduce Addictive Tactics
Above, we mentioned how many modern applications have features that encourage this kind of pervasive presence and dependence. To avoid these affects, it is probably best that these features are deactivated for non-essential applications.

Notifications are some of the biggest culprits of encouraging persistent use, so if the information isn’t essential to your professional or personal life, you don’t need an app trying to get your attention. Ask yourself: do you really need to be informed that your energy has been refilled in that mobile game you play more than you should? At the very least, using the mute notifications feature will help keep your attention from being pulled away when it shouldn’t be.

Many of the same apps that spam you with notifications are also the ones that encourage users to make those tempting in-app purchases that give the user an edge, or more frequently, extend the amount of time you can use the app before you have to wait again. This is most common in the free versions of these applications, so if you insist on using the app, it is more economical in the long run to just bite the bullet and pay for the app itself.

What piece of technology can you not bear to be without? Share it with us in the comments.

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Is Your Cloud Solution Actually a Money Pit?

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The cloud has proven to be an extremely useful tool for the modern business. Not only does it provide anywhere-anytime access to applications, processing, storage, et al; it also delivers those products as a service, allowing you to budget for recurring costs rather than major upfront ones. This provides your organization with functional, supported, and secure computing environments that eliminate a lot of the support costs that traditional computing environments require. It sounds like a perfect scenario for small and large businesses alike, but things aren’t always what they seem, as a lot of cloud users have found that they have incurred several hidden costs by using cloud platforms. Today, we take a look at these hidden costs.

A study from Research In Action polled 468 CIOs about their cloud usage and the costs associated with them. Many admitted that cloud investment was one of the largest expenses their organization would have from a technology point of view. The study went on to find that while a majority of CIOs considered the “hidden” costs of this technology, much of the concern is alleviated by the reputation of their vendors. Some of the potential problems they considered include:

  • Having to put forth more effort to properly manage vendors, and their corresponding Service Level Agreements (SLAs).
  • Bottlenecking and the impact poor cloud performance could have on brand perception, productivity, and customer support.
  • The increased cost of solving complex problems inside cloud environments.

Are these concerns justified? Sure, but they are hard to measure. Many businesses just haven’t developed a system to properly quantify the perceived loss in revenue tied to cloud inefficiency. In fact, most companies don’t have updated, automated methods in use to track and manage their cloud performance.

Costs of Scalability
Many organizations also run into cloud cost overruns when dealing with the scale of their cloud platforms. Costs associated with over-provisioning (buying too much), under-provisioning (buying too little), management, and administration of cloud hosted environments present costs that may not look significant up front, but over time can have negative effects on the overall profitability of a business. Understanding the amount of space/processing you’ll need to meet your organization’s needs is almost always going to be a fluid situation, but understanding how they affect your business’ bottom line is crucial to mitigate unwanted monetary responsibilities or cost overruns associated with the cloud platforms you utilize.

Going Too Far
Cloud platforms are nice, but you don’t have to look much further than your personal situation to see how the ease of use these platforms provide can get expensive pretty quick. For the individual, costs add up quick thanks to cloud-based streaming media and other platforms that come in a subscription model. You’ve got Netflix, Spotify, Hulu, and many, many more that are relatively cheap. Microsoft Office 365 is exceptionally useful and affordable, providing unparalleled value for about any computer user. The more you subscribe to, the more costs add up, which is why you’ll want to design, and stick to a dedicated plan to avoid overextending yourself, or your organization.

Utility computing in the cloud, whether it be applications, storage, processing, or some other form, is extraordinarily valuable, but only if you understand how to avoid paying more than you should for your cloud assets. The knowledgeable technicians at COMPANYNAME can help you come up with cloud deployment strategy, while also helping you avoid cost overruns typically associated with these assets. Call us today at PHONENUMBER to learn more.

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Tech Term: Computer Forensics, Defined

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Pop culture gives us an impression of what cyber investigations look like. Official-looking people, in impeccable suits, typing away at terminals and analyzing the data scrolling past them on their heads-up displays. In reality, computer forensics (as they are actually called) are a little less dramatic, and much more serious. For today’s tech term, we’ll dig into the field of computer forensics.

What are Computer Forensics, and What Are They Used For?
Computer forensics can be defined as the application of certain specialized techniques to locate and analyze the information on a computer or computer system, protecting it for use as evidence in a trial. Once the requisite warrants have been acquired, a forensic technician is tasked with isolating the device from outside influence by disconnecting it from the Internet before copying every file and poring over their contents for evidence.

The investigator must make a copy of these files so as to preserve the original evidence. Accessing a file can be enough to change it slightly, potentially rendering their evidence inadmissible.

Computer forensics can be leveraged in a wide variety of cases, as any given device may contain evidence of a crime to be, or that was, perpetrated, as well as effectively be the scene of the crime itself. An investigation dives deep, not only focusing on the presence of files, emails, or other documents pertinent to the case on the device, but also on an analysis of these items’ metadata, as it reveals when data appeared on a computer, when it was edited and saved last, and who the user was that carried out these actions.

These methods have been used to crack cases involving a dirty laundry list of crimes, as this sample of their uses suggests:

  • Intellectual Property Theft and Industrial Espionage
  • Employment Disputes
  • Bankruptcy Investigations
  • Inappropriate Email and Internet Usage in the Workplace
  • Regulatory Compliance
  • Forgeries and Fraud Investigations

Alternative Sources of Analysts
Of course, law enforcement are not the only bodies that maintain and utilize computer forensics labs. Six major companies, including Walmart, American Express, and Target, have accredited laboratories, and there are countless other independent labs that have not been accredited. These in-house labs can often outperform traditional law enforcement groups, as they are better able to keep their solutions on the cutting edge.

In fact, these labs are often recruited by law enforcement to assist in solving crimes. Target’s labs have announced in the past that they have assisted with “felony, homicide, and special-circumstances cases” on a volunteer basis for years, a spokesperson claiming in 2008 that a full quarter of cases worked by Target’s laboratory had nothing to do with the company.

How Does Your Technology Compare?
If you want a team on your side that will take as much care to protect your solutions as a computer forensics team does to track down cybercrime, give COMPANYNAME a call at PHONENUMBER.