19May 2021 by nathan

May 2021 News & Updates

CTC NEWS, Industry News, Monthly Newsletters
Executive Summary May 2021 is proving to be a busy month (already) from a technology perspective. Between massive ransomware attacks on critical infrastructure (and $5M USD ransoms paid) to newly patched wormable vulnerabilities (that could easily be weaponized and used against other critical infrastructure targets) to the latest Windows Feature Release, IT Pros have certainly been tested. Regular site visits return - When we saw the potential for a fuel shortage and the subsequent rush on gas stations, we halted all non-critical site visits. With the fuel supply stabilizing, I'm happy to report that site visits are back to normal.Enhanced Patch Management - Cyber Security impacting the physical world - We have two cases where cyber attacks had real world impacts on the physical worldColonial Pipeline Breach - Details are…
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12May 2021 by nathan

Enhanced Patch Management Reboot Prompt

CTC NEWS, Tech news
Your computer may need to be rebooted for some important updates to be installed. Failing to restart and / or install these updates can leave your computer and the network of devices that it's connected to open and vulnerable to attacks like ransomware, viruses, data theft and more. Our Enhanced Patch Management system can install updates for more than 300 programs and applications and, if there is a need to restart, will prompt you to restart now (with a 5 minute countdown timer) and give you the option to postpone the restart for 4 or 6 hours or the next time that you log out. The default is to "Restart Now" with a 5 minute countdown timer. If no action is taken, the computer will restart and the updates will…
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11May 2021 by nathan

Important Notice Regarding Site Visits

CTC NEWS
Like everyone else, we are watching as the fallout from the Colonial Pipeline breach and subsequent shutdown ripples through every corner of commerce. Specifically, as we're already seeing widespread fuel shortages and stations simply out of fuel, we're looking at the cost and availability of fuel in the coming days and weeks. Effective immediately, we will be limiting site visits to matters that cannot be addressed remotely. We want to do what we can to conserve fuel for first responders and other essential workers. We apologize for any inconvenience and appreciate your understanding and support.
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30Apr 2021 by nathan
But the HIPAA Security Rule doesn’t explicitly say anything about patches and updates!?!?

But the HIPAA Security Rule doesn’t explicitly say anything about patches and updates!?!?

Industry News, Tech news
Technology is a requirement for business and is deeply embedded in modern healthcare. Although no specifics for patch management is available in the HIPAA Security Rule, healthcare providers who fall victim to threats like phishing, malware, ransomware or other cyber criminals may be subject to significant fines if they do not have a documented patch management program in place. Most of the software that powers the technology used in healthcare contains "bugs" that can negatively affect how the software works and create risks to the confidentiality, integrity and availability of the data. These "bugs" are regularly fixed with updates and patches by the manufacturers, but it's generally the users responsibility to test, approve and install these updates and patches. While the HIPAA Security Rule doesn't explicitly detail a patch management…
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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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11Feb 2021 by nathan

February 2021 News & Updates

CTC NEWS, Industry News, Monthly Newsletters
Executive Summary A remote attacker was able to breach a water treatment facility in an attempt to poison the water supply. The facility was running Windows 7, using shared passwords, Teamviewer for remote access and had no firewall in place. Thankfully, the attack was thwarted. Additional information is available here and here.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 able to share more.Quite a few of you noticed some changes that we're making to the MyIT systems including the ability to push critical updates (like…
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