18Mar 2021 by nathan

March 2021 News & Updates

CTC NEWS, Industry News, Monthly Newsletters, Tech news
Executive Summary A number of Windows Users, after installing the latest security updates, found that they were unable to print. In some cases, the symptom was simply that blank pages were printed and in some cases the computers would blue screen (crash) or freeze (requiring a power cycle). Additional information is available here.Four zero day vulnerabilities were published and publicly exploited in Microsoft Exchange servers including Exchange Server 2013, 2016 and 2019. The vulnerabilities were used extensively to target and attack US targets including healthcare, government and more. Additional information is available here.Microsoft's Azure Platform (Azure AD, AAD) suffered a pretty significant outage on 15 March starting at apparently 19:15 UTC and finally ending at approximately 09:37 UTC on the following day. Impacted users were unablet o access Azure resources…
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15Mar 2021 by nathan

Microsoft Outage (Azure, Microsoft 365, others)

Industry News, Tech news
Microsoft is reporting an outage in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem that's impacting a number of services including Teams, Office (Outlook / email), Xbox Live, the Azure Portal and others. If you are a Microsoft 365 user and are having problems logging into your services, this is the likely issue. The issue is being tracked and updated [by Microsoft] on the Azure Status Page.
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10Mar 2021 by nathan

March 2021 Updates are breaking Kyocera, Ricoh, Zebra and other printers

Industry News, Tech news
Windows 10 update KB5000802 is an automatic security update released by Microsoft in March or 2021 (this week). Since the update is a security update and is rated as critical, it is automatically installed in most cases. We have had a number of clients report that, after the update is installed, their computers are crashing as soon as they try to print to Kyocera, Ricoh, Zebra and other printers. In some cases, the users are getting a Blue Screen (BSOD) and in some cases the computers simply freeze. Since the patch is a security update, we are encouraging anyone who has already installed the patch and is not having problems to leave it in place. If you have installed the patch and are experiencing problems printing, removing the patch appears…
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15Jan 2021 by nathan

January 2021 News & Updates

CTC NEWS, Industry News, Monthly Newsletters, Tech news
Executive Summary Happy New Year. We hope that you were able to enjoy time with family, friends and loved ones over the holidays and that you're doing well in the New Year.Microsoft is getting the year off to a rough start, patching 80 vulnerabilities including one that is being actively exploited.Ubiquiti noted Monday that it had "…became aware of unauthorized access to its systems hosted by a third-party cloud provider…". Adobe Flash Player is officially end of life.We are excited to announce that we will be looking into more / different / better ways to interact with you over the coming weeks and months. I don't have a lot of details available to share at the moment but announcements will be made on our website and mailing list as we're…
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11Jan 2021 by nathan

Ubiquiti Breach – Change your password, enable 2FA

Industry News, Tech news
Ubiquiti has been notifying it's customers today (Monday, 11 January 2021) that it had "...became aware of unauthorized access to its systems hosted by a third-party cloud provider...". The notification email was relatively vague (screenshot below) but he point of the email was very clear, change your password and enable 2FA if you haven't already. According to the notification, the data that any potential attackers were able to get was minimal (name, email address, and the one-way encrypted password to your account and address and phone number if you provided it) but, to a skilled attacker, certainly not low value. If you have any Ubiquiti gear deployed, we would recommend taking this opportunity to change the password and enable 2FA. Additional information TechCrunch ArticleKrebs on Secutity
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21Dec 2020 by nathan

December 2020 News & Updates

CTC NEWS, Industry News, Monthly Newsletters, Tech news
Executive Summary We will be closed Thursday, 24 December and Friday 25 December to celebrate Christmas with family and friends. We will be closed on Friday, 1 January 2020 for New Years Day.Probably the biggest news for December (so far, 2020 isn't over yet) is what looks to have been a very successful compromise of SolarWinds with impacts reaching both far and wide including the Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration, Treasury and a who's who of other critical infrastructure and large enterprise. There's additional information from FireEye here and Krebs here but, short term, removing anything related to SolarWinds immediately would likely be a good plan. Microsoft patched 58 vulnerabilities this month with only nine listed (by both Microsoft and SANS) as critical and none currently being actively…
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17Nov 2020 by nathan

November 2020 News & Updates

CTC NEWS, Industry News, Monthly Newsletters, Tech news
Executive Summary We will be closed Thursday, 26 November 2020 and Friday, 27 November 2020 to celebrate Thanksgiving with family and friends. We are currently beta testing our device to tether your office network to your mobile phone / hotspot to provide emergency / backup Internet access to your office network. We hope to have a production version available mid December.Microsoft patched 112 vulnerabilities this month, tipping the 100 vulnerabilities in a month scale again. One update, rated as Important by Microsoft, is being chained with a Google Chrome vulnerability and exploited in the wild. Microsoft patched 112 vulnerabilities this month, 17 were classified [by Microsoft] as CRITICAL, 93 rated important and 2 rated moderate. One vulnerability patched this month , CVE-2020-17087, is rated by Microsoft as important but is…
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12Nov 2020 by nathan
I moved my website and now my email doesn’t work? Help!

I moved my website and now my email doesn’t work? Help!

Industry News, Tech news
So, you've hired an awesome website designer to create a new website, got the new website setup and running and all kinds of awesome but now your email doesn't work. Believe it or not, it's something that happens a lot and it's usually a pretty simple fix. First of all, what's happening? In many cases, web designers and marketing companies have preferred companies that they use for web hosting. It may be because that hosting company has better pricing, a preferred management console (cPanel, Plesk, etc.), that the designer is more familiar with or the hosting company offers high commissions but it's rare that the designer wants to or will put the new site wherever the old site was. Without getting too deep in the weeds here, what's happening is…
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05Nov 2020 by nathan

In an emergency, use the mobile hotspot on your phone to get Internet for your office

CTC NEWS, Tech news
With the recent bad weather that moved through the southeast from Tropical Storm Zeta, we and a number of our customers, were without Internet for an extended period of time. We and many of our customers depended on our Internet connection for things like email, Point of Sale (POS) systems, etc., so the Internet outage was crippling. In some cases, the ISP has a wireless backup option but a) there was an additional monthly cost and b) it wasn't immediately available. As a work around at our office, we built a small device (based on our Network Ninja) that connected a mobile phone and our firewall and, using the phone's mobile hotspot, got the office Internet access for all of our computers and VoIP phones. It worked very well and,…
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15Oct 2020 by nathan

October 2020 News & Updates

CTC NEWS, Industry News, Monthly Newsletters, Tech news
Executive Summary The US Treasury Department released an interesting advisory earlier this month suggesting they were prepared to file civil charges against the victims of ransomware who pay the ransom and anyone offering material support.Microsoft released patches for 87 vulnerabilities this month, making it the first month in 8 with less than 100 (and the first in 5 with less than 120).Twelve of this months patches address vulnerabilities considered by Microsoft to be critical.Adobe released a patch for a critical vulnerability in Flash Player that affects Windows, Apple / Mac, Linux and ChromeOS. Microsoft releases regular updates the second Tuesday of each month, often referred to as ‘Patch Tuesday’. These updates are categorized as Low, Moderate, Important or Critical. Details on the categories are available here. The updates can include…
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