What is Two Factor Authentication and Should You Use It?

Office IT, Security, ,
07
Dec 2014

Two_Locks_Two_Factor_Authentication

We use the Internet for almost everything from email to banking. Lets review how two factor authentication works and how it can protect you.

How does one ensure that their accounts are being kept safe at any point without risk of theft?

The truth is, the world is full of hackers trying to steal your personal information and money.  They’ll go as far as to phish your information without you knowing it. However, one good way to lock down access to your accounts is by using two-factor authentication, also known as 2FA. It’s highly likely that you’ve already used 2FA without even realizing it.

High profile companies such as Google and Twitter, along with many more, have adopted this security measure. Does this make any sense to you? If not, don’t worry as we’ll elaborate more on this.

What is it?

Let’s begin by understanding what single factor authentication is. When you log into an account with just a password, this is considered to be a single factor.

However, two factor authentication is used to verify the identity of the person who they say they are logging in as with the help of an additional factor.
This additional factor can be a piece of information such as:

  • An extra password, pin or pattern
  • Something physical such as a phone, ATM card or fob
  • Biometrics, such as voice, fingerprint or iris scanning

The additional factor forms part of the two factor verification during authentication, even if there’s no evidence of the person accessing the system being the rightful owner of the account.

Once the two factors have been successful verified, this would grant access to a computer system or website.

Example of Two Factor Authentication

An example of how Zoho Uses 2 Factor Authentication

An example of how Zoho uses 2 Factor Authentication

A common example is when you use an ATM machine. For this to work, you’ll obviously need an ATM card, which is one factor, and a pin as a second factor.  This makes it somewhat secure, where one will not work without the other. Say if your ATM card (without long-strip) was lost or stolen, it wouldn’t be any good to whoever gained possession of it without knowing the pin. The opposite is also true, in the case of someone else knowing the pin without having the card. They would be unable to access your account.

Should you use two factor authentication?

In principle, yes. It adds an extra layer to dissuade hackers from gaining entry into your accounts.  Although it isn’t necessary to use it on all of your internet accounts, enabling it on your main email account if it’s supported by your email provider and any financial accounts such as banks or credit cards is a good line of defense.

There are, of course, some downsides to two factor authentication:

  • 2FA logins can take a little longer to work out to login, as the additional step can seem like an inconvenience when using something like a mobile or a fob key to generate a code.
  • If any device, such as a fob or a phone is lost, you’re stuck having to find a way to log in and you’ll need to contact the company’s support.
  • If a hacker gained access to your main email account, which is listed within your contact details in another important account, they can receive the account recovery email. They can then reset it causing them to bypass the 2FA of the account they’re targeting.
  • A good way to prevent this is by having a smarter recovery option, such as an SMS sent to a cell phone to request any account actions.

Final Verdict

All in all, it is better to have 2FA enabled on your accounts than no additional step at all, especially if it means dissuading unauthorized access to your accounts. As 2FA has become more commonplace, it is likely that new developments in security will pave the way for more practical two factor authentication methods. It is fast becoming a necessity for both personal and business use.

For more information on using two factor authentication to protect your business and personal accounts, contact your local IT professionals.

Read More
Virtualizing Desktops
Virtualizing Desktops

Benefits of Virtualizing Desktops and Workstations

Office IT
05
Dec 2014

Virtualizing Desktops

Virtualization is fast becoming the norm in many small to large sized businesses. Here are some benefits when you virtualize office desktops.

With so many benefits to virtualizing desktops and workstations, it’s no surprise as to why this has caught on so well.

How does virtualization fit within a Small Business?

First, a quick recap on the meaning of virtualization. Virtualization is imitating a physical machine set-up, which has an OS (operating system).  Imagine taking your laptop or desktop, and running it on top of another computer called a host.  This host can run many desktops or laptops, eliminating the need for expensive physical computers.

What is virtualization

  • In the context of virtualized desktops, a centralized server acts as the host to hold the virtual desktop sessions, which imitate real desktops just like your Windows 7 or 8 based computers, complete with a whole list of different applications.
  • Staff and users would then access their files and programs via their terminal machines, from which they log in from, to initiate their virtual sessions to work.
  • The “connection” here involves the user gaining access to their operating system and programs, which are virtual. These exist on the host server, which allocates such sessions to logged in terminals.
  • A terminal machine can be a computer, Smart-phone, or a Thin-client.
  • A Thin-client differs greatly from a physical desktop system, in that they are physically designed to be basic, with much smaller memory, hard-disk space and processor. This makes them more streamlined and much smaller than real desktops.
  • Since Thin-clients are much smaller, the processing power demanded from any given applications or programs wouldn’t overload it as all that is taken care of by the server that hosts the session.
  • Host servers are generally built to withstand higher demands on their resources, such as memory, processors and Hard-disk space, which are generally much more powerful than a standard computer.

The Benefits of Virtualizing Desktops

Now that we’ve covered the concept of how a virtual desktops are set up in a VDI, let’s now understand the benefits behind virtualization.

Cost

  • Lowers admin and operating costs by as much as 70%! Operating costs can include repairing faulty or broken desktops, and extra man-hours to handle such requests, which are all mitigated by virtualized machines.
  • Thin clients and other terminal machines are significantly cheaper to run, helping you save on energy bills by around 97%, compared to physical desktops.
  • Since they save on energy costs, it has a positive impact on a company’s carbon footprint, making it more environmentally friendly. These savings can be reinvested back into the business and reallocated towards much needed projects.
  • Save on having to purchase large office furniture as they’ll be more room on desks, which also looks aesthetically better than having a clunky desktop to look at!

Management and Administration

  • Simple to manage centrally from a server at a datacenter. For instance this involves policies, security updates, changes to applications and so forth.
  • Reduces the number of issues logged with IT staff, unlike physical desktops which may have isolated issues and can be difficult to track within a large company.
  • Keeps downtime to a minimum, as it’s all managed centrally and more efficiently, which in turn helps with productivity.
  • Backups of user’s laptops, devices and profiles are simple to manage, for instance backups are carried out centrally.
  • Easy to clone VMs ( virtual machines), for an entire department or company, as they’ll contain  all the settings including its operating systems, drivers, applications and files. This saves time and man-hours too!

Security

  • End terminals and Thin-clients are locked down, making them more secure from unauthorized virus threats and policy breaches.
  • Prevents data leaks by not allowing information to be copied to a disk. All copies are usually only available via the datacenter as backups.
  • Centralized management via a host server means simple processing and monitoring for both sessions and end terminals.

Productivity

  • As previously mentioned, increased productivity is a highly noted benefit. Gone are the days where you would have to wait for a Desktop to be repaired, which would interrupt workflow. Issues can be resolved very quickly, meaning business can continue as usual.
  • Easy to set up new virtual machines, which can be preconfigured and customized VMs for any department, and ready to use in a matter of minutes. Thus makes it incredibly easy to scale up system, when needed. This can allow new staff to be set up quickly and be productive too!
  • Users can access the same programs and applications from anywhere they can log in.

Final Thoughts

A virtualized desktop environment comes with so many benefits that it’s hard to ignore. The ease of implementing and managing all virtual machines securely and reliably through one host, lends itself mostly this new technology model.

Administrators will also benefit greatly, as there would be an orderly Virtual system which is straightforward to monitor and secure. Staff are able to have the flexibility to work from home. With a VDI being considerably economical, this makes it a highly viable solution for small to large businesses.  The leading virtualization vendors to consider include Citrix, VMware and Microsoft.

For more ways virtualization can help secure and streamline your technology, contact your local IT professionals.

Read More

What is Virtualization?

Network, Office IT,
25
Nov 2014

What_is_virtualization

Virtualization is gaining popularity in many businesses.  What is virtualization and will the benefits help you streamline and protect your business?

The idea of a machine not being physical may sound like a bizarre idea.  Here is an easy breakdown of virtualization:

  • In simple terms, virtualization is a virtual representation of something that can be physical like a desktop, server, storage device or another physical resource.
  • Just like your desktop or laptop computer, a virtual machine will perform and behave just like a real physical one.
  • When a computer is virtualized, it is no longer running on hardware like your desktop or laptop computer.  Instead many computers can run on one system.
  • For virtualization to be possible, there needs to exist a physical machine, which is known as a host.
  • A host will hold a virtualized guest machine. For example, you can have a Windows computer that can host a virtual machine running Linux on it. Both systems can co-exist within the same machine running completely separate from each other.
  • The software or firmware used to manage the virtual machine is known as Virtual machine Manager or a hypervisor.

virtual_vs_physical_system

Virtualization can be classified into three categories.

  1. Full virtualization. Nearly all of hardware is simulated. It runs complete with its own guest OS, and it runs unchanged.
  2. Partial virtualization. Only a portion of the environment is virtualized and a little configuration needs to be applied to some of the guest programs in order for them to run.
  3. Paravirtualization. In this setup, only the guest programs are virtual and run within their own boundaries, as if running on a completely different system. The programs run by the “guest” need configuring in order to run in such an environment.

Where it all started

IBM_704_mainframe

It first existed during the 60s on, what was known as, mainframes, which were huge heavy duty machines, much like servers. These mainframes used virtualization to split up the machines resources to run various applications. From then on, virtualization has evolved to what it has become today.  Whole operating systems with applications can be virtualized allowing individual users to interact with an entire system for themselves.

Benefits of virtualization

Now that we have a better understanding about the whole virtualization concept, we can briefly look at some of the main benefits to virtualizing a system.

Space saving–  Think about how much space you’ll save in a computer equipment room by having one single machine running multiple virtual machines. For instance. these can run servers to fulfill an entire business. An example of a hardware reducing ratio, by VMWare, is 10:1. All this will considerably change your server architecture.

Maximizing server efficiency– Within each virtual server in the host, you can seamlessly run multiple applications as well as different operating systems.

Reduces costs– By having less physical machines to purchase and maintain, you save a considerable amount of electricity, whilst helping to maximize productivity on servers and allowing business operations to run smoothly.

Easy to mange applications and resources– Migrations can happen whilst on a live environment, servers can be cloned at the click of a button, easy to set up load balancing over virtual farm servers and it’s easy to scale.

Final Thoughts

There exists a handful of leading virtualization vendors who offer different solutions according to your business and infrastructure needs. Some of the big names include VMware, Citrix, Microsoft Hyper-V and the like.

Do you use a Virtualization platform? If so, let us know what you think and how you rate it.

To determine whether virtualization can help streamline your business’ productivity, contact your local IT professionals.

Read More

Common Keyboard Shortcuts to Increase your Productivity

General, Office IT, Uncategorized, ,
24
Nov 2014

typingshortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts are an overlooked feature of the modern OS. Here are 28 shortcuts to keep your hands on the keyboard and to keep your productivity high.

Most of these actions can be easily done with keyboard shortcuts. The shortcuts have you press a combination of two keys at the same time to perform the action. Investing some time into learning these shortcuts and getting used to using them on a daily basis will significantly increase your work efficiency no matter what field you are in. Once you learn this way of navigating the UI there will be no going back! The following shortcuts are for computers running a Windows OS.

Action controller

  • CTRL+Y, Redo the last section
  • CTRL+Z, Undo the last action

For creating, opening, saving, and printing

  • CTRL+N, Creates new file or web browser window
  • CTRL+O, Open a file or document
  • CTRL+S, Saves a file or webpage
  • CTRL+P, Print all the selected areas

Format shortcuts

  • CTRL+B, Bold
  • CTRL+I, Italic
  • CTRL+U, Underline

Browsers

  • CTRL+T, Open a new tab in opened browser
  • CTRL+Shift+T, Reopen previously closed tabs
  • CTRL+H, Open browser history
  • CTRL+W, Close window
  • CTRL+F, Word search page

washington

Screen Capture

  • ALT+Print Screen, Capture screenshot of currently open window
  • CTRL+Print screen, Capture the entire screen

Function keys

  • F1: Open the Help Page
  • F2: Rename file
  • F3: Find or Search
  • F4: Shows the address bar in browser
  • F5: Refreshes the current browser page

Windows Shortcuts

  • CTRL+Alt+Delete,Open the Windows Task Manager
  • Alt+Tab, to move to the last working window
  • WIN+D, Show desktop
  • WIN+L, Lock desktop

97806723306984.20.9

  • CTRL+Shift+N, Create new folder
  • Shift+Delete, Permanently Delete file
  • Alt+Enter or Alt+Double click, Go to properties screen for file or folder

For more ways to increase your office productivity, contact your local IT professionals.

Read More
Why it's important to update Flash
Why it's important to update Flash

Malware Spreading Through Adobe Flash Exploit

Office IT, Security, ,
21
Nov 2014

Why it's important to update Flash

Flash is common enough to be a prime target for malware.  A new Adobe Flash exploit has been found allowing criminals to run malicious code.

Flash is susceptible to tampered files used to display multimedia, videos and animations while you are browsing the internet. This mainly affects desktops; however, it’s not an issue with servers since servers are less likely to have users on them browsing the internet.

Understanding the new Adobe Flash vulnerability

  • Taking a closer look at the cause for infections spreading through Adobe Flash, the risk usually lies in binary browser vulnerability within the .SWF files, where it is dropped by an undisclosed iframe.
  • Iframe is an inline frame. Back in the 90s, Microsoft came up with the idea for basic webpages to point to another page. This allowed a website to combine the content of its page with another. An iframe allows you to embed one site into another one seamlessly, with two different webpages displaying as one. Sounds like a great idea at the time, right?
  • It initially worked very well for Internet Explorer. What wasn’t foreseen was malware authors exploiting these iframe features.
  • This exploit affects only Internet Explorer users, which is why we urge everyone to use a more secure browser such as Firefox or Chrome. 

What does this Malware vulnerability do?

  • The injected iframe may have something subtly embedded such as a single pixel within the SWF file.
  • It’s high risk to Internet Explorer Users, where the Iframe can identified by its negative absolute positioning and random number approach.
  • The usual behaviour from these types of files will eventually take you to a currently black-listed blank domain.
  • This, of course, could change at any time. It could pose as a spoof site, aiming to steal data or to install malware.

How to protect yourself

The solution is simple, stay on top of your Adobe Flash updates. This is very important, especially if you use your web browser to do online gaming, stream music, watch videos and animations, such as on YouTube, which nearly always uses Adobe Flash Player.  By keeping updated with the latest Adobe updates, you’ll help to close down those vulnerabilities discussed above, and more.

Update_Adobe_Flash_Message

It’s good news if your choice of browser is Google Chrome. Chrome automatically updates your browser to the latest version of Adobe Flash.

All Onsite PC Solution Managed Services clients are automatically protected during their monthly maintenance.

To learn how to update Adobe Flash, please see our article Here (https://www.ophtek.com/should-you-update-adobe-flash/)

 

Read More
1 … 105 106 107 108 109 … 126