If you feel like you’re hearing about ransomware a lot right now, it’s not in your imagination. In the second half of 2018, ransomware attacks on businesses went up by 88%. It’s become lucrative to prey on companies that are desperate to restore their data and resume day-to-day functions. The popular ransomware variant, Ryuk, has […]

Have you ever visited our Knowledge Base page? Maybe you didn’t even know it was there! It’s a great place to get information about using Portal or making changes to your account. Many of the articles feature step-by-step instructions and images to guide you through each step. It also has how-to articles about specific configurations, […]

Two months ago, Microsoft did something unusual and released security patches for operating systems it no longer supports. This action is rare for Microsoft, so alarm bells go off for security experts when it happens. The reason for the alarm is vulnerability CVE-2019-0708, nicknamed, “BlueKeep.” It’s a remote code execution vulnerability that exists within Remote […]

In early March, the cloud computing company, Citrix received an advisory from the FBI that “they had reason to believe that international cyber criminals gained access to the internal Citrix network.” 1 A forensic investigation determined that hackers had likely used a brute-force technique called password spraying to gain access. Citrix confirmed that hackers had […]

Starting July 1, 2019, Vivio will begin offering monthly software leasing for SmarterTools products. You’ll now be able to lease the latest Pro or Enterprise versions of SmarterMail, SmarterTrack, or SmarterStats on a month-to-month basis. The full suite of SmarterTools software add-ons to accompany this software are also available for lease. This convenient monthly lease […]

One of my kids has a favorite online computer game and invests quite a bit of time playing it. The end of April, someone decided to take over this beloved account by changing the login credentials, and they were pretty determined to do it. I’m not sure what approach they were using to hack into […]

Project Gunman In 1984, a covert NSA operation called Project Gunman quietly swapped out eleven tons of communication equipment from the US embassy in Moscow. President Reagan had quickly authorized the creation of Project Gunman after receiving information from France about a surveillance device they’d discovered while repairing one of the teleprinters from their embassy […]

Spyware is a form of malicious software (malware) that purposely disguises its presence so that it can collect sensitive information from a computer system. Historically, spyware has been distributed using a wide net, trying to bait anyone and everyone that it can. However, in the last year, there has been a significant shift in focus […]

Adware has a conflicted history. A general description of the term is software that automatically generates and displays advertisements. These delivered advertisements then create revenue to cover expenses for the developer. Using ads to generate income for free software or applications is a very successful business model for many companies. The distinction between this legitimate […]