Are you afraid of social media?

I have a hard time trusting people who are not active and open on social media. My perception is that they are hiding something… What are some reasons for NOT using social media to connect with people and share either your personal or business life (or in my case, both)??? Reasons people might abstain from being social on the internet: …

Microsoft Office 2003 and Office for Mac 2011 Document Handling Vulnerability

This comes straight from our partners over at WatchGuard Security Center blog and may affect you if you are using Office 2003 for Windows or Office for Mac 2011. We happen to concur with the author’s thoughts that this is probably much more severe than Microsoft’s own rating of “important”. If you need assistance with this, or any other computer …

Firewall your business network! Don’t rely on home routers for protection!

This is pet peeve of mine: Business networks should be behind firewalls, not behind home routers! When we visit a client location, we generally find one of the following configurations. Absolutely NO firewall – just the router provided by the ISP A Linksys, TrendNet, Netgear, D-Link wireless router designed for home use An actual firewall such as a Cisco, WatchGuard, SonicWALL, …

ATTN: LinkedIn users – change your password. 6.5 million of you could be affected by a breach!

It’s all over the web today… Something like 6.5 million LinkedIn passwords “may be” in the hands of Russian attackers. Their advice is to change your password, and our’s is, if you are using the same login/password on multiple sites, then change all of those passwords too. Corey Nachreiner over at our firewall security partner, WatchGuard, suggests the following actions: …

Security breach at University of Nebraska may have exposed financial records

Last week, a security breach at the University of Nebraska resulted in hackers having gained potential access to the (financial and personal) records of 650,000 students, alumni, parents and university employees. The security breach was discovered by a staff member and quickly remedied, however, at this point in time it is not known exactly what information, if any, was actually …

What else does Homeland Secure IT do besides computers, servers and networks?

You know the elevator speech that you typical hear from people, where they pitch their services or wares to you? Mine goes something like this, “I’m John with Homeland Secure IT, and we provide small and medium businesses with computer, server and network support, service and sales here in the Upstate”. The person I am telling will usually walk away …

Russian hackers raked in 4.5 billion dollars in 2011

Thirty-six percent of the estimated $12.5 billion in ill-gotten gains by cybercriminals in 2012 can be attributed Russian-speaking hackers through various online criminal tactics according to an article over on ComputerWorld’s site. How can you help protect your business from becoming a victim? The only 100% effective way is to not be connected to the internet, however that would make …

Is your business computer network ready for IPv6?

Get ready for a slew of IPv6 news topics because World IPv6 Launch is right around the corner (June 6th, 2012). This means that a boat-load of ISPs will be flipping the switch and enabling IPv6 permanently on or before this magic date. A quick google search for IPv6 news will turn up lots of articles posted in the last few …

WatchGuard Technologies Registered Partner

We’re a WatchGuard Technologies Registered Partner offering sales, installation and support of all WatchGuard security products and services including firewall, email and web security, data loss prevention and UTM and various other small business security solutions. For more information, please call 864.990.4748 or use our CONTACT form.