Your Portland & Vancouver IT Information Source

There is nothing more frustrating than being pressed for time and your printer jams. Of course, it always happens when you have a very important deadline looming. Murphy’s Law is cruel, after all. You run over to the printer, clear out the jammed paper, and think you are in the clear.

It’s never easy to let go of an employee, but sometimes, it simply has to be done; whether you’ve fired the employee or the employee decided to move on to another company. So what happens to your sensitive business data when an employee leaves the company? Is it necessary to involve an IT support company while saying goodbye to an employee?

Here’s the simplest answer: it’s absolutely necessary to involve an IT support company! Why? Well, when an employee leaves the company, it’s fundamental to prevent the employee from accessing the company’s network, applications, and data.

Do you remember when the Internet was text only, speeds were fast, and information was easy to get your hands on? A lot has changed in the past 15 or so years. Now graphics and animations are expected, infographics rule our online world, and knowing exactly what every one of your friends is up to and any given time is just standard operating procedure.

Most of us don’t. We’re too busy getting all excited when we find some free public WI-FI. After all, that means we get to stop using our expensive cellular data and save some money, and who doesn’t want that? But is it really free?

Cybercriminals have several ways to grab hold of the information you are sharing or sending using a WI-FI hotspot.

Did you say free? That’s always a word that’s worth looking into if it comes from someone you trust.

Keeping up with the news or articles online can be pretty challenging these days, especially if you want a balanced approach by reading from multiple sources.

In the past few weeks, you’ve probably heard some pretty scary news about Shellshock, the vulnerability that impacts “bash” software. According to some security researchers, Shellshock could potentially be more dangerous than Heartbleed, the open/SSL bug that posed a huge threat to businesses a few months ago!

So how does the vulnerability work? That’s simple: the vulnerability allows hackers to infect their own malicious code into bash.

Say it ain’t so? Apple computers infected with a virus? But that never happens, right? It’s one of the reasons you went Mac instead of Windows.

Yes, virus writers do write viruses for Macs. It does happen.

You need to believe us; just because rumor on the street is that Macs are immune from viruses and malware, doesn’t mean it is true.

The largest hacking attempt ever has been announced. JPMorgan Chase Bank announced on Oct 2 that 76 million personal accounts and 7 million business accounts were compromised in a recent cyber attack.

Did we say this is the largest hacking attack ever in the business world? 83 million people – that’s more than double the entire population of Canada.

Are you using Chrome or Firefox to browse the Internet? If so, IMMEDIATELY make sure you’ve got the latest updates for these Internet browsers.

Why?

A very dangerous security flaw has been identified that lets hackers and malware skip over the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) of Google Chrome and Firefox.

Do you know how many users are tapped into your wireless network right now? How about when you’re not around?

The fact is that many small business owners have no idea who is accessing what on their wireless network, and they’d be shocked to find out just how many people are leeching their bandwidth away.