Tag Archive for: email

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Can you get rid of junk mail once and for all?

Email is a terrific tool that brings together friends, family, and business connections. But, unfortunately, it also has a terrible underbelly — spam, often called junk mail.

Stopping junk mail requires diligence, patience, and following specific steps. Unfortunately, that might not be enough to eliminate or even cut down on the spam you receive on any given day — but you can try.

It’s time to learn more about junk mail and how you can (attempt to) stop it.

What is junk mail

Like its physical counterpart, junk mail is typically unsolicited messages and usually contains commercial advertisements. Some junk mail also includes viruses and malware, which could cause real damage to your computer. To stop junk mail, you need first to understand how it happens. Most spam results from mailing lists bought and sold by businesses that contain your contact information. This information is often collected through above-board means, but deception often also plays a role.

For example, a mailing list could have gotten your information after you created an account on certain websites, such as a retailer you frequent or a company you seek more information. Sometimes this information gets collected after someone tricks you into applying online for a “free” gift or visiting a government or official site that is neither.

Today, most email services have a built-in spam blocker separating these messages from legitimate ones. And yet, nothing is foolproof, which means your inboxes will sometimes contain these annoying messages.

What you can do right now

The better combat junk mail, there are various steps you can take. Some can help with current emails, while others are more proactive.

First, use a junk mail filter on your email account: Most of the best email providers include junk mail filters automatically with their service. These tools filter unwanted or unsolicited emails, so you don’t have to.

Junk mail filters typically analyze the content of a message when it comes into your account, looking for keywords and phrases most likely to be found in these types of emails. As a result, junk mail filters not only clear your inbox of annoying messages, they can also protect you from phishing scams and other threats.

A good rule is not to open an email from someone you don’t know. If you’ve already done so, there’s an even more important rule: never open or click on links in unsolicited emails. Many bad things can happen when you do, such as dangerous files being accidentally installed onto your computer, prompts from questionable websites asking for your personal details, and suddenly more junk mail entering mailbox.

You might also consider unsubscribing from unwanted newsletters. These types of messages are often the result of visiting a website and entering your contact details. For example, you might be in the market for a new car, and upon visiting a site, you’re asked to enter your name and email address. That information is typically sold to mailing list companies, hence the steady rise in junk mail.

There are different ways you can do this. First, you can look for an unsubscribe link at the bottom of an email. Clicking on the “unsubscribe” link, and following the directions, will eventually remove you from that mailing list.  You can also attempt to contact the sender directly and ask to be removed from the list. This solution is best when there isn’t an unsubscribe link in an email.

Another solution is to use a newsletter management service and request that your name is removed from subsequent emails. The best newsletter management services typically make it relatively pain-free for someone to get removed from a list. These services are typically very responsive to these types of requests, although it might take awhile before you see a drop-off of mail.

It would be best if you also considered using the Surfshark Incogni tool, which will identify and communicate with dozens of data brokers so that your personal details can be deleted from databases stored by brokers. There are over 4,000 data brokers worldwide that now collect consumer information. Yes, 4,000!

Proactive steps you can take

Moving forward, there are a few online behavioral changes you can make to stop junk mail. These include:

Don’t engage: Your personal information is crazed by companies and organizations, good and bad. So from now on, be extra careful about who gets this information. When visiting a new website, for example, decide whether it’s worth handing over your email without making a purchase. And if you do decide to hand over this information, read the fine print first to see how this information is collected and used.

Trick them: You can give them a different email address when registering. This email can be a secondary email address you only use for website registrations. That way, any would-be solicitations are already separated from emails from your primary account. Perhaps a better way to do this is by using a mechanism like Apple’s Hide My Mail or the open-source SimpleLogin. These tools keep your personal email address private by creating unique, random addresses forwarded to your email. These addresses are made per incident, so you can quickly delete them when no longer necessary.

Start over: If you find it impossible to avoid spam, you can also consider the nuclear option and stop using your current email address. This would require signing up for a new email account and telling your important contacts about the switch, including any company you do business with. Once that tedious task is complete, use the new address and change some of your online habits, as mentioned above.

It’s hard to stop junk mail, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. There are various steps you can take to at least limit the amount of spam you receive. Luckily, some of the most straightforward steps get done automatically by whoever supplies you with your email. Beyond this, you can take additional steps, including proactive ones, to improve your situation.

If you are looking for an expert to help you find the best solutions for your business talk to GCInfotech about a free technology assessment

Published with consideration from TechRadar SOURCE

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Information Technology Services
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An I.T. Manager’s New Year’s Resolution

An I.T. Manager’s New Year’s Resolution

The beginning of the year is the perfect time to review your systems maintenance program, tweak your plans and processes and optimize your overall I.T. strategy.

Review, Evaluate and Optimize.
More than likely, your business could live or die based on your IT strategy. We have all become dependent on our technology both in our personal and professional lives, so be sure to give it the TLC it needs. Review your key procedures and plans such as network failure testing, disaster recovery, business continuity, virus protection and data backup (for an integrated, online backup, storage and sharing application, click here). For those of you with an on-site backup solution, now is the perfect time to run those backups with a test recovery. With erratic weather on the rise and winter around the corner, taking the time to be sure you have a tight, foolproof strategy in place to keep both your systems and your information protected from loss or damage.

Be Smart About Your Data.
Inadequate protection or spotty management of critical data can have a profound effect on sustainability. Regularly scheduled testing of your backup strategy and implementing a daily backup routine will help prevent the disasters that prove fatal for many companies.

  • 31% of PC users have lost all of their files due to events beyond their control.
  • 34% of companies fail to test their onsite backup solution, and of those that do, 77% have found back-up failures.
  • 60% of companies that lose their data will shut down within 6 months of the disaster.
  • Every week 140,000 hard drives crash in the United States.
  • Simple drive recovery can cost upwards of $7,500 and success is not guaranteed.

We recommend assessing your existing data protection strategy and learn what data repository and storage medium options are available. It’s important to understand traditional backup methods as well as the benefits of developing an enhanced protection solution that meets the needs of your particular business.

Think of it as a Flu Shot for your Systems.
There are lots of people out there determined to infect your computers with viruses. Optimize your security with new or updated anti-virus, Spyware and Malware software. Be wary of free anti-virus software that sounds too good to be true because it often is.  You get what you pay for, and software that protects your computer needs regular and consistent updating to stay useful because viruses are constantly being generated. This is especially important if you use a networked computer system. Do your homework,  invest in effective software and keep it updated. (For an easy-to-use, simple, and effective anti-malware application, try Malwarebytes)
Give your Computer a Tune Up.
Straight out of the box, computers have often been loaded with unnecessary programs at the factory.  So, from day 1, your computer is accumulating software programs, update reminders, “bonus” software, and random files that you don’t need and over time it will become increasingly sluggish. By taking a few important steps, you can get it running efficiently again, for a lot longer. The first thing you should do is disable the programs that start up when your computer boots.  While there are many places this can occur, the easiest one to check is the Startup menu in your Programs menu. Additionally, simple tasks such as clean out your Windows Registry, remove unneeded files and programs, empty your recycling bin or trash, and perform a disc defragmentation can make a huge difference.  Even if your computer has been performing slowly for some time, beginning this regimen is sure to produce results.

Email – a Blessing or a Burden?
Most of us are guilty of being slaves to our inbox, whether we like to admit it or not. We keep every thing that has ever been sent to us out of some sort of unfounded fear of not having it should we ever need it. And the “reply all” function makes it exponentially worse. Well, each of those emails, particularly the ones with large attachments, take up space on your computer  – and space in your head when you are actually trying to find something. Email is the third largest culprit of workplace interruptions and email mismanagement costs you money.   Take charge and clean up that clutter by creating folders and subfolders to organize your communications. Save the attachments that you will need later onto your hard drive in a logical place, then delete the email if its unnecessary. Set your computer to delete your Trash after 30 days. Anything you can think of to reduce the number of emails in your actual inbox will save you time and money down the road.

GCInfotech can get you started on the path to a leaner, more efficient IT strategy. If you don’t have an IT Manager to make a New Year’s Resolution for you, then give us a call.

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You’re right – a huge number of your work emails are just spam

2022 sees rise in ‘unwanted’ emails as phishing attacks remain popular

A large proportion of your work emails may not be useful in any way, a new report examining billions of messages has claimed.

Research from Hornetsecurity analyzing 25 billion business emails found nearly half (40.5%) are ‘unwanted’, and could even represent a serious threat to businesses.

The report also revealed how email remains an incredibly popular threat vector, with the most common kind of malicious messages being phishing attacks – emails pretending to be from well-known companies, sometimes quite convincingly – which made up 39.6% of all threats.

False sense of security

When it comes to malicious email attachments, Archive files such as Zip made up the greatest proportion (28% of messages), followed by web files (HTML) at 21%. Text based files were also commonly employed, with tainted Microsoft Word documents making up 12.7%, PDF 12.4% and Excel 10.4%.

The report also found new methods are being developed by cybercriminals in response to the changing digital landscape. For instance, attacks exploiting the macro capabilities in Microsoft 365 are no longer viable since Microsoft disabled the feature last year, specifically to shore up its security.

As a result of this, new tactics have been adopted. HTML smuggling has risen, where hidden LNK or ZIP files are contained within web links to deploy malware.

Hornetsecurity CEO Daniel Hofmann warned that given the prevalence of cloud based systems, such as Microsoft 365, their use should merit the same level of caution. Hornetsecurity’s report found that a quarter of respondents did not know that 365 could be a potential gateway for ransomware – some even presumed it was invulnerable to such threats.

“Ongoing training should be in place to prevent fraudsters from manipulating the trust people have in Microsoft and other office systems”, Hoffman advised. He also made specific mention of Microsoft Teams, adding that “it’s also critical to ensure all data shared via this platform is backed up.”

Other reports have found a similarly high – or even higher – proportion of spam emails in people’s accounts. Recent findings from Kaspersky, for instance, put the figure between 45-85%.

If you are looking for an expert to help you find the best solutions for your business talk to GCInfotech about a free technology assessment

Published with consideration from TechRadar SOURCE

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How to spot ‘spear phishing’, an insidious cybercrime trend

True story: At a company I once worked for, employees received an email about an unexpected bonus. In private Slack channels, we wondered whether it was a well-played phishing attempt. Turns out, the bonus was legit, but so was our inclination to question it. Phishing—when cybercriminals pose as legitimate institutions to get info or money from you—is the origin of up to 90 percent of breaches and hacking incidents, says Frank Cilluffo, director of Auburn University’s McCrary Institute for Cyber and Critical Infrastructure Security in Alabama.

These cyber bad guys have even taken it to the next level with “spear phishing,” a practice of sending emails that appear to be from someone you personally know. “This happened to me once and it was a humbling experience,” says Adam Doupé, director of the Center for Cybersecurity and Digital Forensics at Arizona State University in Tempe. Turns out, the email seemed to be coming from a colleague, and Doupé was boarding a plane when he got it so he wasn’t as careful as he would normally be. “I ended up replying with my cell phone number,” recalls Doupé. “When the phisher responded with a request to send gift cards, the alarm bells went off.”

Knowing that a cybersecurity expert got played, an average person has to be hypervigilant. But could you be missing out on legit offers and emails because you’re being too cautious? Your first line of defense: install a protection software (like Malwarebytes). This sort of protection that lives on your computer, coupled with our expert tips below, will stop phishers in their tracks.

3 Ways To Tell If It’s Phishing Or Not

Experts say there are a few things you can do if you’re unsure whether an email is a phishing attempt.

1. Check the email address carefully.

Hover your cursor over the full email—not just the sender’s name—to see if anything looks off. “For instance, instead of .com, the address may contain .ru,” says Cilluffo. (.Ru indicates that it’s from a Russian server.) Compare the address on a recent email to one that you’ve responded to previously.

2. Call or text the person you think may have sent the email.

Ever receive an email from a friend or colleague and it seems off? Maybe it’s much briefer than usual or perhaps they addressed you by your full name rather than a nickname. Trust your gut, and don’t respond or click on any links or attachments until you’ve verified the email. While it truly may just be a link to their kids’ fundraiser, it could be the work of a cyber criminal trying to get you to download malware—aka malicious software.

3. Verify through an independent news source.

Sometimes you may receive an email about an important recall notice or info about a class-action lawsuit. Search on a trustworthy news site whether the link contained in your email appears in any news articles, suggests Doupé.

Bottom line?

Cyber criminals are getting more and more creative at making their phishing attempts appear legitimate. Go with your gut, slow down to verify the validity of messages you receive and install a protection software (like Malwarebytes) to stop phishers before they start.

Are you interested in learning more about cybersecurity? Call us today and discover how our wide array of tech services can safeguard your business.

If you are looking for an expert to help you find the best solutions for your business talk to GCInfotech about a free technology assessment

Published with consideration from yahoo.com SOURCE

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5 Tips to work smarter in Outlook

Microsoft Outlook comes with a raft of features that make managing your busy schedule and boosting your productivity easier. If you find Outlook’s myriad capabilities a little overwhelming, don’t worry — these tips and tricks will have you using Outlook like a pro in no time.

Organize your inbox

Is your Outlook inbox getting a little too cluttered for your liking? Use the Clean Up feature to tidy up your inbox.

From your inbox, click the Home tab and choose from one of three Clean Up options:

  • Clean Up Conversation – reviews an email thread or a conversation and deletes redundant messages
  • Clean Up Folder – reviews conversations in a selected folder and deletes redundant messages
  • Clean Up Folder & Subfolders – reviews all messages in a selected folder and any subfolders, and deletes redundant messages in all of them

Ignore conversations

Besides redundant messages, group conversations that aren’t relevant to you can clutter up your inbox. The Ignore button helps you organize your inbox and focus on relevant emails.

To activate this feature, select a message, then click Home > Ignore > Ignore Conversation. Alternatively, you can open a message in a new window and click Ignore under the Delete function. You can easily revert this action by going to the Deleted Items folder and clicking Ignore > Stop Ignoring Conversation.

Send links to files

This function is especially useful when you need to send large files to your coworkers or clients. You can send a link to the file instead of the file itself as well as set permissions to allow recipients to edit and collaborate on linked files in real time.

To do this, upload the file you wish to send to OneDrive. Then from the message box, click Attach File > Browse web locations > OneDrive.

Tag contacts

To get the attention of a specific person in a group email or meeting invite, use the @Mention function. This works particularly well for emails sent to multiple recipients or if you want to convey the urgency of your message.

In the body of your email or invite message, type the @ symbol followed by the name of the person you want to tag (e.g., @johndoe). Doing so will highlight the name in the message and automatically add it to the To line of your message.

You can also search for messages you’re tagged in by selecting Filter Email from the Home tab, and then clicking Mentioned.

Add notes to emails

With Outlook, you can add sticky notes to specific parts of an email. To add a sticky note, simply drag your cursor to highlight your chosen text in the email, and then release the mouse button to trigger a pop-up object menu. On that object menu, select Add Note. This will open a OneNote feed within Outlook, where you can add text or images to your sticky note.

Schedule a Teams meeting

Teams is Microsoft’s unified communication and collaboration platform, and it includes the Outlook add-in. This feature allows you to set up Teams meetings directly from Outlook. It also lets you view, accept, or join meetings while in either app.

To schedule a Teams meeting on Outlook, follow these steps:

  1. Switch to the calendar view on Outlook. Click the New Teams Meeting tab.
  2. Add individual participants or entire contact groups to the Required or Optional fields.
  3. Type in the topic, start time, and end time of the meeting. There’s no need to add the dial-in phone numbers and conferencing IDs to the invite, as Outlook does this automatically for you.
  4. Create a message inviting the recipients to the meeting, then click Send.

Share emails to Teams

With Outlook, you can easily share an email from your inbox directly to a specific Teams channel. To do that, follow these steps:

  1. Select the email you want to share.
  2. Click the Share to Teams button.
  3. On the Share to Microsoft Teams pop-up menu, type the name of the person or channel you want to share to. Check the “Include attachments” tickbox if you want to include the email’s attachments.

These are just some of the things you can do to improve your Outlook experience. For more on how to get the most out of Outlook and other Microsoft products, drop us a line today.

If you are looking for an expert to help you find the best solutions for your business talk to GCInfotech about a free technology assessment

Published with consideration from TechAdvisory.org SOURCE

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Six Essential Cloud Solutions for Every Business

Over the past several years, the debate about cloud technology in business has moved away from “Is it a safe option?” to “How can I move more of my tools to the cloud?” There is an overwhelming number of options and many business owners don’t know where to start. If that’s the position you find yourself in, we recommend starting with six basic tools.

Email

Every business needs email. And while there are plenty of non-cloud options to choose from, they require a lot of maintenance. Opting for cloud-based email means you pay for the service without worrying about hardware requirements or software updates. These issues, among others, will be handled by the provider and backed by service level guarantees.

File storage

Storing company files in the cloud is a great way to give employees more mobility and flexibility. Everyone can access information from almost any internet-enabled device without compromising security, since providers include things like encryption and multi-factor authentication as part of the monthly service fee.

You can opt for either DIY cloud storage such as Microsoft’s OneDrive and Dropbox or a slightly more expensive managed solution that will provide customization opportunities and regulatory compliance management.

Document creation and collaboration

It’s easy to confuse apps like Office 365 and Google Docs with cloud file storage but they’re not the same. What sets them apart is whether or not you can edit documents stored on these platforms. In most cases, multiple users can alter the same document simultaneously and see mirror images on their screens even if they’re hundreds of miles apart.

Between faster document turnaround times and fewer separate versions of files, there’s no reason to keep everything offline. Business owners used to worry about security but vendors today invest 100 times more resources in protecting client info than a small operation could ever match.

Server hosting

Whether your business requires a single low-scale server or several high-powered ones, it’s becoming harder to justify maintaining those at your physical location. They’re too finicky and expensive compared to their cloud alternatives.

Server hosting enables you to accomplish via an app all that you could with in-house hardware. The costs are also spread out month to month rather than all at once during the setup phase.

Backup and recovery

The entire basis of cloud technology is that you have total access to hardware and software that’s located far from your office. That makes things like cloud file storage and server hosting perfect for recovering from a disaster. If a natural disaster or cyberattack renders your office inoperable, all you need to do is log in to your cloud platform from somewhere else.

If you are looking to move your business into the cloud, we have a broad range of products tailored to small businesses.

To learn more about how to safeguard your business, or if you are looking for an expert to help you find the best solutions for your business talk to GCInfotech about a free technology assessment.

Published with consideration from TechAdvisory.org SOURCE

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Fix these enterprise security flaws now

As businesses have become more reliant on digital technology for day-to-day operations, they’ve also become a favorite target of internet threats. If you want to protect your organization from cyberattacks, make sure your security is clear of the following flaws.

Open wireless networks

With one main internet line and a couple of wireless routers, a whole office can go online. A wireless internet connection saves money, but there is an inherent risk that it’s an unsecure network.

If you need a secure network, plugging in a wireless router and creating a basic network is not enough. If you don’t set a password on your routers, then anyone within range can connect. With fairly simple tools and a bit of know-how, hackers and criminals can start capturing data that goes in and out of the network, and even attacking the network and computers attached.

Therefore, you should take steps to ensure that all wireless networks in the office are secured with strong passwords. Many internet service providers that install hardware when setting up networks will often just use an easy password for the router, such as the company’s main phone number. These need to be changed.

Email is not secure

Most companies that have implemented a new email system in the past couple of years will most likely be secure. This is especially true if they use cloud-based options or well-known email systems like Exchange, which offer enhanced security and scanning.

The businesses at risk are those using older systems like POP, or systems that don’t encrypt passwords (what are known as “clear passwords”’). If your system doesn’t encrypt information like this, anyone with the right tools and a bit of knowledge can capture login information and compromise your systems and data.

If you are using an older email system, it is advisable to upgrade to a newer one, especially if it doesn’t use encryption.

Mobile devices that aren’t secure enough

Mobile devices offer a great way to stay connected and productive while out of the office. However, if you use your tablet or phone to connect to office systems but don’t have security measures in place, you compromise your networks.

Imagine you have linked your work email to your tablet but don’t have a screen lock enabled, and you lose your device. Anyone who picks it up will have access to your email and all your sensitive information. The same goes if you install a mobile device app with malware on it. Your infected device will spread this malicious program to your entire network and cause major disruption to your business.

Take steps to ensure that employee devices have adequate security, such as passcodes, and that your company has sufficient security policies in place to govern their use. Lastly, mobile device management solutions are specifically designed to prevent your bring your own device (BYOD) policy from being a risk with employee devices causing havoc to your network.

Anti-malware software that isn’t maintained

These days, it is essential that you have anti-malware software installed on all devices in your company, and that you take the time to configure these properly.

It could be that scans are scheduled during business hours. If you install these solutions onto your systems and they start to scan during work time, most employees will just turn the scanner off, leaving your systems vulnerable.

The same goes for not properly ensuring that these systems are updated. Updates are important for software, especially anti-malware applications, because they implement new databases that contain recently discovered threats and the fixes for them.

Therefore, anti-malware software needs to be properly installed and maintained if they are going to even stand a chance of keeping systems secure.

Lack of firewalls

A firewall is a network security tool that can be configured to block data traffic from entering and leaving the network. For instance, it can protect data from being accessed from outside the network. While many modems or routers include firewalls, they are often not robust enough for business use.

What you need is a firewall that covers the whole network at the point where data enters and exits (usually before the routers). These are business-centric tools that should be installed by an IT partner like a managed services provider (MSP), in order for them to be most effective.

How do I ensure proper business security?

The best way a business can ensure that their systems and networks are secure is to work with an IT partner like us. Our managed services can help ensure that you set up proper security measures in place and that they are managed properly. Tech peace of mind means your focus can be on creating a successful company instead.

To learn more about how to safeguard your business, or if you are looking for an expert to help you find the best solutions for your business talk to GCInfotech about a free technology assessment.

Published with consideration from TechAdvisory.org SOURCE

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