Alonso Consulting

11/23/2022

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

05/15/2021

Ransomware has become the scourge of companies across the globe. Criminal organizations have encrypted the data of numerous companies, townships and hospitals in the United States. Recently, Colonial Pipeline was attacked by having their office data encrypted. This included their accounting data which they need to bill customers and pay vendors. According to news reports, Colonial took down their network which controls a major east coast pipeline. They did this to prevent it from being encrypted as well. This led to fuel shortages and price hikes across the east coast.

Colonial Pipeline paid a $5 million ransom to the criminals. We understand why they did this, but it only encourages more ransomware attacks on infrastructure.

We have a client that was hit with ransomware at around the same time frame. All servers, several PCs and their accounting data were encrypted. Ransom in Bitcoin equivalent to $275,000 was demanded. The criminals even managed to encrypt several different backup devices that were in place for disaster recovery.

Fortunately for my client, we were able to recover all their accounting data, restore their main server, their email server and PCs. They lost thousands of documents and spreadsheets. We were not able to do anything about those but saved a copy in case someone develops a decryption tool.

There are three things that can be done proactively to have a safety net against ransomware attacks. If you know any company that would like to have an analysis performed to see if any of these techniques are in place or can be implemented, please feel free to share this contact information:

Alonso Consulting
[email protected]
(973) 575-1414

Stopping payments would go a long way to stopping ransomware.

04/06/2021

If your privacy is important to you, use DuckDuckGo for your searches and clear your tabs in it frequently. Use FireFox for your browsing and use a Private Window for anything you don’t want saved to your PC. This is available on the far right corner in the menu that appears when you click on the icon with three lines.

Google Chrome is not only the worst browser for privacy, it is also the browser that uses the most resources on your PC and that will slow down other applications.

Billions of users warned to stop using Chrome after shocking new data harvesting disclosure...

03/21/2021

Computer tip for this week: If you are getting a blue screen and crash on Windows 10 when you try to print something, the problem is caused by an update called KB500082. You need to uninstall the update and the problem will be eliminated.

03/10/2021

If you have an Exchange Server in your organization you need to have it brought up to the latest cumulative update and then you need to apply a patch that removes the vulnerability to this new hack coming from China.

This is a very serious attack which allows the attacker to read emails and place files on your server. The Department of Homeland Security has issued an alert regarding it.

In addition to removing the attack vulnerability, each server needs to be inspected to see if any external files were inserted into it.

Feel free to message us if you need help with this.

Microsoft has released updates to deal with 4 zero-day vulnerabilities being used in an attack chain aimed at users of Exchange Server.

08/23/2018

Alonso Consulting (973) 575-1414 can help you fix your computer, phone or tablet issues remotely while you watch. It is a new remote control/viewing app that facilitates the process of tech support over the Internet. Call us if you need help.

08/20/2018

Car makers now want to monetize data they collect about you. This could make your car just as Orwellian as your mobile phone. Internet connected cars can report where you go, when you go, how fast you drive to get there, whether there was a passenger or not and many other facts you may not want disclosed publicly or to insurance companies.

Maybe it is time that end users demand privacy legislation before this gets out of control.

Alonso Consulting - (973) 575-1414

Auto makers can now collect large amounts of data from internet-connected vehicles, from location to driving habits.

08/09/2018

Microsoft Windows is getting a new feature that is long overdue and will make many happy. It is a way to run applications that you worry may have viruses, ransomware or any other malicious threat in an automatic virtual machine that protects your machine and data and goes away after use. It is similar to a private browser tab. I am hoping this comes out very soon. There are just too many threats out there that rob all of us of productivity.

If you need technical support, contact Alonso Consulting at (973) 575-1414. We will be happy to assist you and can even do it remotely with a simple app.

Apps will be run in a virtual machine that's discarded after use.

09/07/2016

There has been much talk about the software that was used to delete Hillary Clinton's emails. If you need that software, it has many excellent uses for clearing out unwanted or unnecessary files from your PC. You can get it at this link:

http://www.bleachbit.org/news/how-delete-secret-emails-microsoft-exchange

Do you have private, secret, or confidential emails on your Microsoft Exchange server that you do not want someone else to see? One user of BleachBit seems to have mixed success with this task: on one hand some emails have been found, and on the other emails were deleted "so that even God could not…

03/03/2016

The tech industry is rallying behind Apple in its fight with the government over iPhone data privacy. This battle affects every consumer of technology products. If Apple loses or Congress gets involved, all our tech products would be less secure and private.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/03/technology/tech-rallies-to-apples-defense-but-not-without-some-hand-wringing.html?emc=edit_th_20160303&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=45658833&_r=0

Silicon Valley appears to be siding with Apple in the San Bernardino iPhone case, overcoming worries about the consequences of an unfavorable ruling.

02/24/2016

This is something to consider. I have piece of tape over my tablets' cameras and store my phone in a leather sleeve that covers both cameras.

It might seem paranoid, but there's no downside to covering your laptop camera.

07/29/2015

This new type of memory could speed up the web and future PCs. It also might kill off mechanical hard drives.

http://www.wired.com/2015/07/deceptive-simplicity-intels-new-memory-tech/

The new computer memory from Intel and Micron is deceptively simple.