April 2020 - FIT Solutions

Small Businesses: Does the CCPA Affect You?

Posted on April 29, 2020September 7, 2021 by CT Team

The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) went into effect January 1, 2020. This law deals with the right of consumers to know or even control how their personal information is used by organizations. For businesses that collect such information from consumers, this represents new burdens.

Do I Have to Comply with CCPA?

The CCPA comes with certain thresholds that may exclude some small or medium businesses from compliance requirements. What are these thresholds? You’re on the hook for compliance if you are:

Are a for-profit business operating in California
Collect personal information from consumers
Exceed one or more of the following:
- Buy, receive, sell or share personal data from 50,000+ devices, consumers, or households
- Have gross annual revenues of over $25 million
- Sales of California residents’ personal data represents 50% or more of total annual revenue

I Don’t Meet the Thresholds, So Why Should I Worry About CCPA?

The CCPA is the most extensive privacy law ever passed in the US. Other states are taking a page from California’s book and are considering or have already passed similar legislation. Plus, the possibility of having different standards instituted across multiple states could result in the enactment of a privacy law at the federal level. So even if the CCPA does not currently affect you, it will eventually.

Looking at the legislative climate, given the CCPA and likelihood of more laws like it coming soon, it’s clear that there is an increasing recognition of the need for businesses to handle consumer data responsibly, for consumers to have the right to determine how that data can be used, and for businesses to protect consumer data against theft or loss.

What is “Reasonable Security”?

Part of the CCPA revolves around an organization’s responsibility to protect consumer data against theft or loss, like through a data breach. If a business fails to implement reasonable safety measures, resulting in a breach, they may be liable to pay penalties of $100-$750 per consumer per incident, or even higher. What would count as “easonable security” measures? The CCPA does not specify, but some legal experts refer to the state attorney general’s words in the California 2016 Data Breach Report:

“The 20 controls in the Center for Internet Security’s Critical Security Controls define a minimum level of information security that all organizations that collect or maintain personal information should meet. The failure to implement all the Controls that apply to an organization’s environment constitutes a lack of reasonable security.”

These CIS Controls are comprised of a set of 20 broad categories of action, each of which contains subcontrols in the form of specific tools and practices. These subcontrols vary based on the sensitivity of the data you’re protecting, the size of your organization, and the extent of your IT resources. Together, these controls form a defense strategy against breaches and cyberattacks.

We recommend that companies of all sizes take a look at the CIS Controls—especially if you’re at or near a threshold for CCPA compliance. At FIT Solutions, we use CIS Controls and other security frameworks, like NIST, to follow best cybersecurity practices for our clients. Contact us or call 888-339-5694 for help in strengthening your organization’s defenses.

Patch Tuesday & Hack Wednesday—Why Software Patching Is A Necessity

Posted on April 20, 2020September 1, 2021 by CT Team

Applying software patches to fix security vulnerabilities is a key piece of system hygiene and protection against criminal computer attacks. Windows 10 is by default set up to handle this automatically. Unfortunately, for many users the prospect of having to stop the task at hand, wait for the updates to download and install, and hold off while the system restarts is too inconvenient. That leads many to delay the updates or tweak the settings so the updates can’t execute. This can be a big mistake—especially now.

The second Tuesday of every month is “Patch Tuesday”, when Microsoft rolls out the latest set of security patches to its operating systems and software. The set of patches first made available on April 14 closes many, many vulnerabilities. Every hour delayed in applying them leaves unpatched systems susceptible to attack.

A Whopper of a Patch Tuesday

This last Patch Tuesday was unusually large. It included:

113 patches overall
3 that close zero-day vulnerabilities/exploits for which no defense exists
3 known to be actively used to infect systems “in the wild”
17 deemed “critical”, which means a criminal can gain complete control over the system without any user interaction
96 deemed “important”, which means that some user action is involved (with or without warning prompts)

The products impacted include the Microsoft Windows operating system itself, the Edge and Internet Explorer browsers, various Microsoft Office applications, Microsoft Office Services and Web Apps, Windows Defender, Microsoft Dynamics, Microsoft Apps for Android, and Microsoft Apps for Mac.

Why Prompt Patching is Vital

To help you quickly grasp the importance of patching, we’ll first define a few terms. The first two have specific meanings when applied to computer software security.

Vulnerability: A weakness or oversight in the way software is coded or structured. It allows the code to be overwritten or tampered with so that it performs some action other than what it was intended to do.
Exploit: Rogue software code that a criminal uses to take advantage of a vulnerability. Such an exploit could allow a criminal to gain unauthorized access to a system or gain administrator privileges. The aim is often to inject malicious software code into a running process, leading to the criminal gaining control of the system.
Zero-day: A combination of a vulnerability and an exploit that either is unknown to the security community, or is so new that no defenses have been developed against it. A patch isn’t available to close the vulnerability. Security software hasn’t been updated or is unable to recognize the exploit and prevent it from being introduced into systems and executing.
In the wild: An exploit that’s out of the realm of being theoretical or a possibility. It’s being actively used to infect and take over systems.
Patch Tuesday: Microsoft’s monthly distribution of patches that close known vulnerabilities.
Hack Wednesday: What the security community calls the day after Patch Tuesday. When Microsoft releases the patches, criminal programmers are able to use the patches to understand the vulnerabilities. Within a day or two, the related exploits begin appearing for sale on the underground marketplaces of the “dark web”.

Put the above together, and you can see the importance of applying patches as soon as they’re available. The instant that the patches are released, criminals are racing to create the new exploits and infect as many machines as possible before the systems’ owners can get around to installing the patches.

How to Ensure Systems are Properly Patched

Assuming you’re running Windows 10, click on the Start button, then Settings, open Update & Security, then Windows Update. Here you can immediately check for updates, as well as review your settings to make sure you’re not effectively blocking the update process.

If you’re running a business with multiple machines, managing the update process to be sure that essential patches have been applied can be a time-consuming headache. As a managed service provider (MSP), here at FIT Solutions we use sophisticated tools to administer your systems and ensure your systems are up-to-date with the current patches—without inconveniencing your users. If you could use help with patch management, give us a call at 888-339-5694.

MSPs and Ransomware: Does Your Provider Practice What They Preach?

Posted on April 13, 2020September 1, 2021 by CT Team

Managed service providers (MSPs) are coming under increased scrutiny because of a number of ransomware incidents reported on various security sites over the last 12 months. Criminals have learned that by infiltrating a single MSP, they can use the provider’s tools to infect and take hostage all of the MSP’s clients. Because the reporting of these incidents is haphazard, the number of compromised MSPs could be a handful, or it could be dozens. What is certain is that hundreds or thousands of their clients have experienced severe business disruption — or worse.

The enhanced scrutiny is justified, and as an MSP, we welcome it. We use powerful tools to manage and monitor our clients’ networks and systems. With that comes a responsibility to ensure that our own security is equal to or greater than the level that we promote to our clients.

Healthcare MSPs in the Crosshairs

Given that many MSPs specialize in serving a certain type of business, here are a few examples drawn from healthcare organizations over last year:

During July, an MSP serving dental offices was infiltrated and used to spread ransomware across dozens of practices throughout Washington and Oregon. A week after the attack, the MSP realized it didn’t have the resources to restore all the impacted systems in a reasonable timeframe and advised customers to seek outside assistance with restoring their files. Two weeks after the attack, the MSP announced it was closing its doors.
An August attack on a Wisconsin-based MSP planted ransomware on 400 dental practices around the country. The attack encrypted not only patient files, but also emails and most worryingly, the company’s HIPAA-compliant backup system. A follow-up letter to their clients indicated that the MSP had a decryption key. Presumably, they paid the ransom.
In November, a Wisconsin-based MSP serving more than 100 clients, which operated nearly 2,500 nursing homes in 45 U.S. states, was hit, cutting off many of their facilities from patient records, email and telephone service. The MSP declined to pay the ransom. While it took days or weeks to restore the data, the MSP had a few factors working in their favor. One, a sharp-eyed employee spotted suspicious activity in the early morning hours during the attack and immediately alerted higher-ups within the company, who closed off the network. This limited the damage. Two, there were offsite backups.
In early December, a Colorado-based MSP was used to install ransomware on computers at more than 100 dental practices. The company refused to pay the ransom to unlock all of the client sites, and left the clients to restore their businesses on their own. Some negotiated separately to pay the ransom to restore their practices, while others restored from backups.

Closing the Vulnerabilities

Ultimately the criminals do their damage by gaining administrator access to the MSP’s remote monitoring and management (RMM) tool, which allows them to install and execute the ransomware infector on the clients’ systems. The following means of infiltrating and compromising administrator credentials are either explicitly known or have been implicated in one or more incidents. We also list the countermeasure; ask your MSP if these protections are in place.

Means of Gaining Administrator Access

Known vulnerability in an unpatched RMM tool or administrative console

Zero-day exploit in an RMM tool

Exploiting open remote desktop protocol (RDP)

Phishing email

Protective Countermeasure

Program of regular, systematic and diligent patch management and application

Proactive monitoring of the MSP’s IT environment

Password vaulting solution or encryption and best-practices password policy

Disabling RDP if not needed, or application of access control lists to limit RDP sessions to known IP addresses

Email filtering solution backed with regular cybersecurity awareness training

Above All, Do This …

A single countermeasure would have stopped the vast majority of these attacks: Requiring two-factor (2FA) or multi-factor authentication (MFA) without fail, for each and every administrator connection and session, to each individual client’s IT environment. MSPs should enforce MFA to the enterprise login and ensure it encompasses VPN connections, RDP sessions, RMM sessions, internal management systems, and SaaS applications.

The other essential countermeasure is regular backups that are air-gapped or stored offsite. In far too many ransomware incidents, backups were stored online and the ransomware infector encrypted the backups as well, making them useless for restoring the client’s data. Also, in some instances the criminals first disabled the backup agents on each system, then waited for the old backups to age before executing the ransomware. So it’s important to not only have a backup system, but to monitor the backups and test for recoverability.

At FIT Solutions, we do all of the above and encourage you to ask your MSP if they do the same. We also have the advantage of our cybersecurity offering, SOCBOX, which provides us with the services of a Security Operations Center for 24-hour proactive monitoring—but we don’t stop there. We also contract with a separate third party to do regular penetration testing and evaluate our environment to ensure our defenses are solid.

If you’d like more information about MSP security, please give us a call at 888-339-5694.

Is Your MSP Proactive or Reactive? The Role of a Technology Business Plan

Posted on April 7, 2020September 7, 2021 by CT Team

Here at FIT Solutions, we pride ourselves on the way our teams don’t just fix problems; they deliver additional business value for our clients. That means applying technology to improve operations, reduce costs, boost efficiency and productivity, and protect and enhance security. Let’s take a look at one of the primary ways we accomplish that: a regularly updated Technology Business Plan (or TBP, as we call it).

When you engage with us, we send one of our senior engineers onsite to take a holistic look at your facility and IT operations. A team of engineers assigned to you then delivers a set of recommendations. It is essentially a gap analysis between your current IT environment and prevailing best practices for an organization of your purpose, scope and size.

This is NOT a one-and-done exercise. The TBP is a living document, geared to a timeframe of up to 24 months, that is regularly updated to chart your progress. It’s a stepwise, realistic approach geared to budgetary realities and your own appetite for change and improvement. Many of the recommendations don’t cost anything.

While the recommendations are geared specifically to your organization, the TBP addresses four general areas.

Environment Enhancements

A great many IT environments have been built piecemeal over the years with a mix of workstations, Wi-Fi access points and various makes of networking hardware. We look for opportunities to consolidate and standardize, replace outdated equipment, and create common configurations that will make the entire environment easier to maintain and lower the cost of operations. We also address opportunities to cut costs and increase efficiency by switching Internet providers or swapping out telephone systems; bringing in management solutions for administering printers, computers, or mobile devices; making better use of existing software; or acquiring new solutions. Employees and staffing fall under this category as well, such as employee onboarding practices and user training.

Network Security

Many of the most valuable recommendations in this area are free, because they revolve around password-policy shortfalls such as password reuse, allowing short or weak passwords, not mandating regular changes, or instances where entire staff shares the same set of login credentials. Relatively low-cost security enhancements include cleaning out unused accounts and properly setting privileges. Additional security technologies such as multi-factor authentication, single sign-on, spam filtering and other email security measures, encryption or ransomware defense might be called for, depending on use patterns and your degree of susceptibility and exposure.

Licensing, Renewals, and Compliance

Here we address hardware and software that is reaching end-of-life or out-of-warranty, calling for replacement, refresh or upgrade as your budget allows. Legal matters such as email retention policies and your posture with respect to compliance and other regulations falls under this category as well, and might include our recommendations or referrals to third-party experts we have worked with.

Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity

This includes your backup and retention procedures and policies, and ability to restore if necessary. In addition, we consider shortfalls unique to your environment, such as whether you have remote users with critical files that need to be backed up, or whether you might be better served with a solution that enforces file storage on a network repository rather than individual workstations. We also consider your ability to work through a power outage or loss of Internet connectivity, and whether you need to have contingency solutions in place.

In this time of uncertainty and business upheaval, many are seeing a stark contrast between proactive and reactive managed service partners. Clients prefer proactivity. In our experience, clients appreciate these regularly updated technology business plans, especially if their experience with a previous IT service provider was more of a reactive, break-fix service than a proactive partner. Our clients use these reports to plan ahead, budget for essential improvements, and solve problems before they happen. Does this approach to IT services appeal to you? Give us a call at 888-339-5694.

Livin’ La Vida Zoom—Keeping In Touch with a Remote Workforce

Posted on April 3, 2020September 7, 2021 by CT Team

During this time of COVID-19, self-isolation and social distancing, businesses and communities across the nation and the globe are dealing with a lot of turbulence. More and more organizations are turning to remote workforce solutions to continue operations.

Many of these businesses are used to being in a physical location; moving to a completely remote setup may take some adjustment. In our last post, we discussed how a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) can allow your team to securely access corporate data from their personal devices. But the human element of your teams is just as important.

Now more than ever, company culture and structure are going to be vital for stability. Here at FIT Solutions, we made it a point to recreate our office environment as closely as possible in a virtual setting. This has allowed us to transition seamlessly into remote work. Some of the things we’re doing to maintain normal operations include:

Structure & Routine
We’ve encouraged our team to stick to their regular routine where possible—maybe filling the time they would have spent commuting with physical activity, like working out or walking the dog. Normal dress code still applies. By dressing professionally, team members are always ready to jump on a call or video meeting with a client or prospect. All remote employees are expected to have their cameras on for Zoom meetings; this helps everyone stay alert and engaged.
Department Touchbase
Each afternoon, department heads have a Zoom meeting, no more than 10-15 minutes, with all members of their team to make sure everybody’s on track.
Client Communications
Immediately after San Diego announced shelter-in-place guidelines, we began reaching out to our clients. Members of procurement and sales jumped in to help our account managers reach everyone as soon as possible. We asked how they were doing with the transition, whether they needed any help, and assured them that everything is business as usual on our end—they wouldn’t experience any gaps in service from our team!
Team Motivation
At FIT, we pride ourselves on the quality of service that we provide, and we love hearing positive feedback from our happy clients! We have a designated Microsoft Teams channel dedicated to sharing these testimonials and kudos with the whole team. It’s also a means for team members to shine a spotlight on a coworker that went above and beyond. These shout-outs keep us excited and determined to keep providing the best possible service we can.

Adjustments

While our normal structure was already well-arranged to support remote work, we did make a few adjustments, from which we’ve seen good results.

All-Hands Huddle
Every morning, we have a 15-minute all-hands meeting through Zoom. Cameras are required to be on, and virtual backgrounds are encouraged. Members of our management team take turns sharing recent wins, news, tips and positive thoughts to motivate our team to success. We center these stories around our core values to keep our company culture strong and focused. Since we began working from home, having this meeting daily (instead of weekly) helps to keep everybody on the same page and working towards the same goal.
Storytime
During our all-hands huddle, one or two employees take a few minutes to share something personal and positive—maybe their new home-office set-up, or what they’re doing to stay active or productive while shut-in, or a great experience they had with a coworker or client. We love seeing each other’s pets and kiddos!
Virtual Happy Hour
We usually do these monthly or semiweekly at the office, so it was only natural to continue this tradition on Zoom! Everybody’s welcome to dress-down and share a beer and stories from home.

Even though sometimes it feels like we’re practically living on Zoom these days, these tips are helping the FIT team to stay positive and busy! What is your business doing or trying to continue operations from home? If you need help getting your workforce set up with secure remote access, let us know; we’d love to have a conversation with you. Not sure if you’re fully equipped? Get your free assessment today or call 888-339-5694.

Month: April 2020