IT Link Maine has Partnered with Barracuda Networks and Vision Solutions to provide cutting edge technology to enhance and secure your business!

October 15, 2014

KnowBe4 issued an alert to IT Managers that a new version of the world’s most widespread ransomware CryptoWall has migrated to the TOR network. It has been upgraded to version 2.0, and continues to encrypt files so that a ransom can be extracted if there are no backups or if the backup process fails, often a common occurrence.

KnowBe4 received a panic call from an IT admin who was hit this week with CryptoWall. The admin’s workstation became infected with the malware. The workstation was mapped to 7 servers and within an hour, the entire server farm was shut down. The admin explained he had backups but it would take days to recover the data and get them back up and running. The company’s operations would be severely impacted.

“The cyber criminals hit pay dirt with this one and the admin ended up paying the ransom, 1.3 Bitcoin, rather than face the serious costs caused by days of downtime, said Stu Sjouwerman, KnowBe4’s CEO. “This is the next generation of ransomware and you can expect this new version to spread like wildfire.”

CryptoWall 2.0 went live October 1st and is now using the anonymous TOR network, making it very difficult to analyze or take down. Earlier versions of CryptoWall were not using TOR but HTTP, which allowed researchers to analyze the communication between the infected machine and the command & control server so they could take down the servers that delivered the malware. This version of CryptoWall has been tested for months and the malware uses innovative ways to propagate itself, like using ads on websites that take advantage of vulnerabilities in browsers and unpatched plug-ins.

Sjouwerman advises these three steps as something IT admins have to do:

1.” Make regular backups, and have a backup off-site as well. TEST your restore function regularly to make sure your backups actually work.
2. Patch browsers as soon as possible, and keep the amount of plug-ins as low as you can. This diminishes your attack surface.
3. Step all users through effective training on security such as Kevin Mitnick Security Awareness Training to prevent malware infections to start with.”

For end users, Sjouwerman advises, “Think before you click. Don’t open anything from someone unless you are expecting it. Hover over an email address to make sure its from a valid domain, one you know and recognize.”

KnowBe4 offers a free Phishing Security Test(PST) to find out just how many of your users are Phish-prone. KnowBe4 also offers a Crypto-Ransom guarantee and is confident its training works so well, they will pay your ransom if you get hit with ransomware while you are a customer.

For more information on KnowBe4 visit http://www.Knowbe4.com.
For more information on ransomware, download the whitepaper Your Money or Your Files!

About Stu Sjouwerman and KnowBe4
Stu Sjouwerman (pronounced “shower-man”) is the founder and CEO of KnowBe4, LLC, which provides web-based Security Awareness Training (employee security education and behavior management) to small and medium-sized enterprises. A data security expert with more than 30 years in the IT industry, Sjouwerman was the co-founder of Inc. 500 company Sunbelt Software, an award-winning anti-malware software company that he and his partner sold to GFI Software in 2010. Realizing that the human element of security was being seriously neglected, Sjouwerman decided to help entrepreneurs tackle cybercrime tactics through advanced security awareness training. KnowBe4 services hundreds of customers in a variety of industries, including highly-regulated fields such as healthcare, finance and insurance and is experiencing explosive growth with a surge of 427% in 2013 alone. Sjouwerman is the author of four books, with his latest being Cyberheist: The Biggest Financial Threat Facing American Businesses.

About Kevin Mitnick
Kevin Mitnick is an internationally recognized computer security expert with extensive experience in exposing the vulnerabilities of complex operating systems and telecommunications devices. He gained notoriety as a highly skilled hacker who penetrated some of the most resilient computer systems ever developed. Today, Mitnick is renowned as an information security consultant and speaker, and has authored three books, including The New York Times best seller Ghost in the Wires. His latest endeavor is a collaboration with KnowBe4, LLC.

For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/10/prweb12248713.htm

As a high level overview the steps go like this:

Install ADFS 2.0, do not install via Roles as this will install the prior version which means you’ll need to download from here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=10909
After ADFS has been installed launch the Add Trusted Rely Party Wizard

Select “Start” to start the configuration of the Relying Party Trust.

Select “Enter data about relying party manually” and click Next.

Enter a Display name and click Next. For example, Google Apps your_domain

Select “AD FS 2.0 profile” and click Next.

Select “Enable support for SAML 2.0 WebSSO protocol” and enter “https://www.google.com/a/your_domain/acs” as the “Relying party SAML 2.0 SSO service URL” and click Next.

In the “Relying party trust identifier” field, add “google.com/a/your_domain.com” and any secondary domains (e.g., google.com/a/your_secondarydomain.com) used in the Google Apps account as the relying trust identifiers, and click Next.

Select “Permit all users to access this relying party” and click Next.

Click Close, and Check “Open the Edit Claim Rules for this relying party trust” when the wizard closes.

Under Edit Claim Rules click add claim

Select the template “Send LDAP attributes as Claims” and click Next.

Define a “Claim rule name” to identify the this claim for future references.

Attribute store should be “Active Directory”.

“Mapping of LDAP attributes to Outgoing Claim types” should be defined as

LDAP Attribute “Email-Addresses”

Outgoing Claim Type as “Name ID”

Note: In a Google Apps Multi-Domain Management configuration, the LDAP attribute must be the full SMTP address (user@domain.com). The full SMTP address is required so that Google Apps can uniquely identify which domain in the Multi-Domain Organization contains the user’s primary account. Click Finish and OK.

Create a self signed certificate to replace the Token Signing Certificate

Add this certificate to the signature tab by launching ADFS and right clicking on the relying party trust that was setup earlier. While this dialog is open check the Encryption Tab and be sure there is no encryption certificate. If there is you will not be able to authenticate properly.

These last steps are also cruicial.

Navigate to the Machine Keys folder and be sure that NETWORK and SERVICE both have full access to this folder

Open MMC and add the certificates snap in

Choose local computer and then pick computer account

Under the Certificate Personal Store right click the token signing certificate, go to all tasks and select manage private keys, make sure NETWORK and SERVICE have full access.

Next Disable Integrated Windows Authentication by navigating to c:\inetpub\adfs\ls and edit the web.config file

Under the “<localAuthenticationTypes>” section, comment out or delete the integrated option which reads “<add name=”Integrated” page=”auth/integrated/” />”

Last but not least under IIS edit the bindings for HTTPS and assign the token signing certificate

I’ve excluded the steps to setup and enable SSO in Google Apps, that peice seems pretty self explanatory. Just be sure you export the Token Signing Certificate and upload this to the SSO settings page. Please make sure ports 80 and 443 are forwarded to your internal ADFS server if it’s behind a firewall. I welcome any questions or comments.

Managed services is the practice of outsourcing day-to-day IT management responsibilities as a strategic method for improving operations. This can include outsourcing Production Support and lifecycle build/maintenance activities. The person or organization who owns or has direct oversight of the organization or system being managed is referred to as the offer-er, client, or customer. The person or organization that accepts and provides the managed service is regarded as the service provider.

To break it down here are the different scenarios available to you:

• Tape backup: Tape is a dying breed, I still have clients who do tape backups but most have transitioned to some other form of media. Tape is slow and in the event that everything was lost you’d normally lose a days worth of work depending on timing, and that time  includes getting the tape that is stored off site. The standard backup model here is backing up your data to a tape such as an LTO or other type of tape.
• Disk Based Backups: Disk based backups are quickly becoming the media of choice. An example of a device would be a SAN (Storage Area Network). You’d backup your data to an array of disks which then could be replicated off site to another SAN. This is the ideal situation. Advantages are increased capacity, quick restores and replication capabilities.
• High Availability: High availability is the replication of your live enviornment in real time. An example of this type of scenario would  cosist of 2 servers, one production server that’s in use and one recovery server located typically at a another location. Data is replicated in real time to the recovery server and in the event of a disaster business could resume at the chosen location. This is the ultimate in disaster recovery. We use Double Take software to accomplish this for our customers.

The method you chose to use depends on your budget but consider the sales that would be lost due to unfortunate down time as the result of a disaster. If Disaster Recovery is a topic your business talks about but doesn’t implement, give us a call! 888.669.5654

02/21/2012 — I.T. Link today announced it has become an authorized reseller of the Google Apps™ suite of communication and collaboration tools. Dan Doucette states his main focus will be on introducing people to how Google Apps can increase productivity and provide better collaboration. “People just spend way too much time wading through e-mail and we’re going to show them they don’t have to do that anymore,” said Dan Doucette.

“The Google Apps Reseller program will help us enhance the value of Google Apps for our current and new customers,” said Dan Doucette from IT Link.  “Google Apps for Business offers a broad set of powerful tools that will allow us to show our customers how they can get more done and do so with simplicity.”

Google Apps brings simple, powerful communication and collaboration tools to organizations of any size – all hosted by Google to streamline setup, minimize maintenance, and reduce IT costs. With Gmail (including Google email security, powered by Postini), Google Calendar, and integrated IM, users can stay connected and work together with ease. And, using Google Docs and Google Sites, which include word processing, spreadsheet, presentation and website creation tools, they can share files and collaborate in real-time, keeping versions organized and available wherever and whenever users work.

The Google Apps Reseller program includes resellers, consultants and independent software vendors that sell, service and customize Google Apps for Business for their customers. I.T. Link Maine received training, support and deployment services from Google, as well as access to APIs for integrating Google Apps into their customers’ business operations. I.T. Link is able to retain a close relationship with their customers in order to provide additional service and support. The businesses receiving Google Apps will benefit from the additional attention to their specific needs.

Google, Google Apps, Gmail, Google Talk, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Sites and Google Video are trademarks of Google Inc.

Back to Google Sites, the integration of Google Docs with Google Sites simply blew my mind. It’s obvious that this is the direct competitor to Microsoft’s Share Point except in my opinion it’s much better.  I immediately thought of a solution that would help I.T. Link and a company we work with mange projects better and also provide a location where users can go to track the progress of our projects as well as access all of the files associated with the projects we have going. Specifically, we do a large amount of Price updates which involves many spreadsheets from multiple vendors and in addition to that we maintain a separate sheet that holds information such as when the pricing for individual vendors was imported and completion date. Google Sites allowed us to put all of this information in one easily accessible private location. For this particular company they are a Google Apps business user which means we could structure the access to this site based on user. The direct integration of Google Sites with Google Docs is awesome and we’ll be recommending this to all of our clients.

Check out Barrels Market (www.barrelsmarket.com), a community driven market filled with local products. We helped Barrels develop a page based around their needs.