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IT News
March/April 2016
In This Issue

 

 

All 2016 recycling proceeds are donated to Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies Coalition of Georgia.  Read more about their mission here!

Connect With Us
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Join us on Friday, April 22nd 11-2 for our annual Earth Day Celebration.

  

Each year, millions of tons of electronics are discarded putting toxic chemicals and heavy metals into our landfills and incinerators. But those elements don't stay put, they contaminate our land, air and water.

 

Bring your electronics to recycle and then stay for the food and fun!

 

Mary

 
Get to know Windows 10
What can Cortana do?
Cortana can search the web, find things on your PC, show you the local news and weather, and provide reminders based on time or location. Cortana even adapts her behavior to your device.
Locky Ransomware Sent as Invoice Attachment
You have probably noticed an increase of emails with invoice attachments to your inbox, junk mail or clutter folder.  Chances are it is a Locky attack.

Locky ransomware is the latest threat and is a variation on previous encryption attacks. It is delivered by email and fools you into opening an invoice attachment.  After deploying, it encrypts files on local and network drives. Although CryptoLocker and CryptoWall used different methods to gain access to your system, they had the same goal to get you to pay a ransom to unlock your files.
Currently, Locky is using an email attachment of an invoice as its entry point, but the delivery will certainly change as the threat evolves. After you click on the invoice, the view looks scrambles and you are prompted to instructed to Enable Macros.  Once you do that, Locky executes and encrypts your files. Locky has some additional attack strategies not seen in previous crypto-type of attacks. 

Here are two links if you want to read more:

Protect Yourself from Locky Ransomware in three easy steps:
  1. Have a good, complete, current, offline/offsite backup
  2. Don't click on email attachments unless your are absolutely certain of the authenticity and origin
  3. Don't enable macros
For more information or if you want to discuss or if you have been hit with Locky or another crypto-type of attack, feel free to contact me at mary@lansystems.com.

PS Did I say to have a good, complete, current, offline/offsite backup for protection?
The Brave Browser

In our Top IT Trends for 2016, we mentioned the frustration users have with online ads in Digital Marketing.  Ads are ads.  We can dress them up as content, information or social, but most users will see through the veil and just see an unwanted ad. It is irritating and we all think, "Why can't someone do something about this." Enter Brave ...

Brave is a software company headed by one of the most recognizable names in the industry, Brendan Eich, who created the JavaScript programming language and co-founded Mozilla.  Brave has a mission to save the web with a new web browser that is faster, safer and better. Because it strips out ad content and tracking software, it loads quickly and also protects you from webpage malware.  They also have a plan for a different way of distributing ad revenue. It may be a great idea, but with online marketing being a 30 billion dollar a year industry you would have to expect resistance.

The resistance came in the form of a "cease and desist" letter to Brave signed by 17 newspaper groups last week. You can read the letter here. Certainly this is just the beginning as others will believe that feel Brave is stealing their content and profiting from ads.

As this issue is litigated, some very important questions will be asked like - Who owns content on the Internet? Is the owner the content creator, the webpage owner or is it in the public domain?  Should a browser have control over advertising, over content? Should the Internet be regulated for safety and privacy?  If so, who should regulate it? 

Stay tuned as this is going to get interesting.

To learn more about Brave and their browser, go to https://www.brave.com.

Learn more about the mission and resources offered by