When in a low-lying, coastal area like most of Hampton Roads, our biggest concern comes from flooding. Be sure that if you are in an even remotely vulnerable flooding area, that your servers and computers are off the ground.

Some other questions we think are prudent-

Q: Should we unplug our computers?
A: Yes, we think this is a good idea, especially for critical systems. PCs will be virtually immune to power-related issues if they are not plugged in. If the computer is plugged into a line-conditioning battery backup, this is not as much of an issue.

Q: Should we turn off our computer?
A: Turning the system off does not technically protect it from a lightning surge; unplug it for the best protection.

Q: Should we turn off / unplug our servers?
A: If your server is protected by a properly configured, line-conditioning battery backup, this is not necessary or desirable in most cases.

You also want to be sure you have a fully verified and restorable backup stored offsite in case something happens to your on site backup.

For those clients who have a Netcare plan in place with Teklogic, we will be getting in touch with you over the course of today and tomorrow to go over last minute preparations specific to your environment. We will be proactively logging into servers and checking backups, power conditioning devices and server configurations.  If anyone has additional concerns please do not hesitate to get in touch with our office @ 757-644-4402.

Did you know that the peak of “Hurricane season” is considered from the beginning of August to the end of October?

If you are a business that is not on a technology management plan with Teklogic and you are interested in having us proactively maintain things for you, let us know! Teklogic specializes in offsite backups and disaster recovery planning for your business – give us a call today!

With all of the Advertisement Sharing Services that websites are using nowadays, it makes it harder for major websites to control content being displayed on their sites. What I’m getting at is that these exploits can sometimes come from big name, legitimate sites and not some shady back-alley website as you might expect – this is affectionately referred to as malvertizing. See: MSN Norway serving Flash exploits through malvertising and MySpace, Excite, and Blick Serve Up Malicious Banner Ads and Rogue ads pushing malware — how it works.

This specific vulnerability affects Mac, PC, Unix and Solaris Operating Systems. There is no known software patch for this issue – Adobe has announced that they are working on it. However, there is a workaround.

Mitigation techniques are discussed here on Adobe’s official Security Bulletin: http://www.adobe.com/support/security/advisories/apsa10-01.html

Clients of Teklogic that are on a Netcare plan have this workaround in place and are already protected. If you do not have a Netcare plan or are not a client of Teklogic’s please Contact Us and we will get you fixed up.

Thanks!

: — Justin Carter
: — Teklogic, Inc.
: www.Teklogic.net

If you would like to check it out I have set up a Flickr Photostream of the office. Click Here

You can bet Teklogic will be ready with future-proof solutions for businesses of all sizes – we look forward to showing you what we can do in 2010 and beyond!

Yours Technically,

-Justin Carter

This vulnerability is already being actively exploited and used to enable a “drive by download” of malware onto unsuspecting PCs. A drive by download is basically where, when you visit an infected website, it can effectively install software onto your computer without user intervention. This exploit can be used by many different kinds of malware to successfully infect your PC with all sorts of nasties.

If you are a client of Teklogic and are on one of our proactive maintenance plans, we have already applied a patch to you systems and you are 100% protected.

More information here:

http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=6733

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory/972890.mspx

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/972890

The Teklogic website is getting a total overhaul as well – more to come on this…Exciting times at Teklogic indeed!