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.

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Protect Your Data from Being Taken Hostage

Network, Security, ,
14
Nov 2014

Locked_Computer

Cryptowall can bring your business to a screeching halt. Here is how you can protect yourself against what’s becoming the most malicious malware of 2014.

You don’t need to end up in trouble.  We’ve outlined some very important guidelines on what to do to avoid an attack like Cryptowall and Cryptodefense:

  • Scan any email attachments that land on your email account– especially PDF attachments, which can be disguised as either payments, invoices, receipts, complaints and so forth. This is generally how this Trojan enters the system.
  • Avoid clicking on any advertisements– not only does this attack happen through attachments, they have also been identified through infected banners on different web pages. Avoid clicking on them at all costs!
  • Avoid mapping drives directly to servers– For any person with administrator rights, if you’re working from your computer, aim to use remote access tools as needed. This will help reduce risk to the servers directly.
  • Lock down admin users– assign user accounts by name, so that if an attack happened, the user’s account can be frozen to avoid its credentials being for further used for unauthorized installations.
  • Verify Backups– a backup is only good if it’s one that can be restored. Test your backups regularly.
  • Off-site or offline backups– having these will reduce the chances of suffering from a single point of failure due to such an attack. Please note that mapping Dropbox on your computer can still make it subject to this attack.
  • Whitelisting approved software– you can find tools and systems that can help you with these. You can specify what can run on any system on the network.
  • Utilize Windows Group or Local Policy Editor – Software Restriction Policies can be created to stop executable files from running on any given path.
  • Have a Bitcoin account set up in case nothing else works. Being prepared can help you save time.

Here’s what you can do if you find yourself compromised:

Like they say, prevention is better than a cure.

For more ways to protect yourself and your business from malicious attacks, contact your local IT professionals.

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Malware holding data ransom
Malware holding data ransom

Cryptowall Becoming The Most Destructive Malware of 2014

Network, Office IT, Security, ,
11
Nov 2014

Malware holding data ransom

Cryptowall, Cryptolocker and Cryptodefence; all malware looking to hold your computer ransom. Here’s what you need to know about these viruses.

Cryptowall is one of the worst malwares out there that can maliciously encrypt your network and system files, holding them ransom in exchange for a Bitcoin payment. Typical Bitcoin payments can vary between $500 to $1000. Since there’s many hacker groups in existence in the wilderness, Cryptowall  has evolved from Cryptolocker to practically do the same thing. And to confuse matters even more, there’s another variant like Cryptowall known as Cryptodefense.

Cryptowall Decrypt Message

The ransom message from a Cryptowall infection

Cryptowall in a nutshell

  • Cryptowall works by using encryption to change all of your network files, making them unreadable.
  • It affects Windows XP to Windows 8 Operating Systems.
  • It also cleverly deletes Shadow Volume Copies to stop any admins from restoring encrypted files.
  • Only the attacker holds the key to decrypt the files that makes them readable again.
  • The ransom increases after 7 days to nearly double the amount and is only payable with Bitcoin.

With this angle of attack, it’s no wonder why hackers are using this hostile method to forcibly siphon Bitcoin payment from their prey.

Examples of attacks

Durham Police

Durham Police Department hit with Cryptowall

  • One prime example that has gained recent media coverage is Durham town police in New Hampshire. As a typical response from any law enforcement agency, the police refused to pay the ransom to cooperate with the cyber criminals.
  • It had impacted 1500 of their own computers, with most of their police e-mail system, spreadsheets and word processing functions being affected. It had bypassed their spam and AV filters, and was masked as an attachment in an email.
  • The danger lies in that the police receive plenty of emails with attachments to notify them of complaints such as potholes from residents, which of course, aren’t to be ignored. For this very reason an infected email attachment was opened, executed and it ran through the system.
  • Fortunately for them, they were able to stop the attack from spreading to other company functions and police networks in other towns by isolating their network and recouping their system from offline back-ups.

Business Decisions

Another example of an attack came from a client of Stu Sjourwerman’s security training firm knowB4.  The attack happened after an administrator opened an infected file, which ran through onto their 7 mapped server drives, encrypting all 75 GB of data held there.

There were many negative factors against them:

  • Firstly, they had unverified backups, which would take time to see whether they worked or not, a risk which would be costly to the time in terms of extended downtime with no guarantee of a successful restore.
  • Secondly, setting up a Bitcoin account involves a lengthy process to set up with society checks that can take days to complete.
  • In desperation with shortening their downtime, they decided to pay the ransom. It was a business decision, meaning either losing out $500  in Bitcoin or thousands for operation downtime.
  • The problem was, they didn’t have the Bitcoin to pay the ransom.

The turning point:

Bitcoin

  • Luckily, they had sought Stu Sjourwerman’s help, where he had Bitcoins at hand, ready for such an event like this one.
  • This company’s IT admins had, prior to this event, taken a security awareness course lead by ex- hacker Kevin Mitnick and with Stu Sjourwerman.
  • Contrary to the police case, this company had taken the advice from the course, and with Stu Sjourwerman’s Bitcoins, they managed to pay the ransom to avoid further downtime.
  • In the end they did recover their files; however there was corruption to one of their databases, which all in all took another painstaking 18 hours to return to normal.

Not all cases end well and not all ransoms release the files as promised. It’s really at the discretion the criminal cyber gangs controlling the attack.

For more ways to strengthen your office security and IT policy enforcement, contact your local IT professionals.

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Limitations of a Gigabit Network
Limitations of a Gigabit Network

Limitations of a Gigabit Network

Network, Office IT,
29
Oct 2014

Limitations of a Gigabit Network

You’ve upgraded to a gigabit network and you already notice a big speed boost.  Here are the limitation of a gigabit network you should know about.

What is a Gigabit Network?

Wired Gigabit networks have far superseded the days when Ethernet or its successor, Fast Ethernet, were employed to deliver 10 Mbps to 100 Mbps over a network. However, the next best thing, which has been around for over a decade now, is Gigabit, running at 1000 Mbps or 1 Gigabit over many networks.

Bearing this in mind, what would be the first thing you’d think of when you hear of a “Gigabit network”?  You may associate Gigabit networks with large corporate companies who can afford to implement this “expensive” technology in order to gain faster connections, along with all the “complex” equipment needed to support such requirements.  The truth is, it was expensive when it was first introduced into the market, however the price has eventually dropped so that small businesses and home users alike can benefit from it.

Gigabit_Router_Speed_Comparison

In a previous article, we explained the benefits of upgrading to a gigabit network at your home or office.  Here are some points you should keep in mind.

Limitations of a Gigabit Network

It doesn’t help to speed up internet connection

Gigabit networks are designed to help speed up the transfer rate of data between one device, desktop or server, to another, within an internal network. Whoever your broadband provider is, they’d be the ones who’ll determine and set your Internet connection speed. This is why a Gigabit network will leave this area unaffected until services like Google Fiber are widely available. Just think of the Internet as connecting to an external source from your desktop, phone or device.

Your gigabit networks will not run at 1000 Mbps for everything

Since resources are shared, there are many things running on your network that will be utilizing pieces of that 1000 Mbps gigabit speed. Speedier performances will however be very noticeable compared to a 100 Mbps network.  Also, note that many wireless devices still haven’t reached gigabit speeds, although we are getting there.

Is all of your equipment gigabit capable?

Have you confirmed that all of the equipment on your network is capable or running at your new gigabit speed? Having a gigabit router and the correct Cat 6 cabling is enough to get you up to gigabit speeds only for devices that support Gigabit.  It won’t break the bank to get them up to speed though.  For instance you can buy $15 switches, $20 routers with Wi-Fi, $0.50 cables, and even PCI gigabit network cards to install on old computers for around $10-25, making the possibility of running a Gigabit network an affordable reality!

For more advice on setting up a gigabit network in your office or home, contact your local IT professionals.

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Why You Need a Gigabit Network

Network, Office IT,
27
Oct 2014

ethernet

Whether at home or in the office, the low cost and huge benefit of running a gigabit network is too good to pass up.  Here’s what you need to know.

What is a Gigabit Network?

Let’s start with what a network, let alone gigabit network means in the context of your office or home.  The network is how all of your computers, wifi/wired printers, tablets and even TVs talk to each other.

Gigabit_Router_Speed_Comparison

The speed at which your devices talk to each other is determined by your network equipment such as your wireless router and network cables connecting all of your devices to the router. Having equipment and cabling capable of gigabit speeds means you are running 10 times faster than traditional networking equipment often running at 10 or 100mbit speeds.

Benefits of a Gigabit network

  1.  Google fiber could be coming to you 

    That’s right, gigabit internet could well be accessible to you, helping your network perform better, along with improved traffic flow to better avoid bottle necks.

  2. Faster file transfer rates and program load times 

    Up to ten times the speed to help increase communications between your office computers for file sharing, and loading programs over the network. It can also, for instance, considerably reduce the waiting time for backups to complete, compared to the average standard Ethernet rate of 12.5 Mbps.

  3. Your equipment may already be compatible 

    If your equipment is fairly new, the chances are that it may support running on a Gigabit connection. Equipment such as desktops, LAN switches, cables, and so forth, all need to be able to run 1000 Mbps and have ports that support this too. Category 5e or 6 cables are the best to use in a Gigabit network.

  4. Old switches/ routers can still work on a Gigabit network 

    What’s good is that you don’t need to throw your existing switch/router away. You can obtain a standalone gigabit-enabled switch, like a Netgear that can cost around $40, and connect it up your old switch or router.For the low price of setting up a Gigabit network it’s definitely worth the upgrade. Anything that streamlines access to applications, facilitates smooth daily backup operations, or allows access to any shared resource in the company is going to benefit everyone.

For more advice on setting up a gigabit network in your office or home, contact your local IT professionals.

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