WHAT IS RANSOMEWARE???????

What is Ransomware?  Let us define Malware first.  Malware is a term used to describe any type of software that’s designed to disrupt normal computer operations. Malware can also collect private information or take control of a computer system. The history of malware dates back several decades, with one of the most notable examples being the first Internet Worm. Although many early examples of malware were written as pranks or experiments, modern malware is generally created and distributed with very specific goals in mind.

Within the umbrella of malware is a specific type of software known as ransomware. The way that ransomware works is it stops someone from using their computer. The reason this type of software is called ransomware is once it blocks someone, it displays a message indicating that the only way to regain control of their computer is to send a payment.

Scare Tactics Used By Ransomware

While ransomware comes in many different forms, one of the most common examples is a web browser will suddenly display a message that is supposedly from the FBI or another government agency. The message will accuse the user of doing something illegal, and then inform them that they can avoid criminal charges by paying a fine. Money Pak is the most commonly requested form of payment.

Another example of ransomware that has become quite prevalent is known as FakeBsod. This malware program injects JavaScript code into a browser and displays a blue screen that mimics the look of a fatal Windows error screen. The screen includes a message to call a Microsoft technician. If someone calls the toll-free number that’s listed, they will be asked to send a payment to fix the issue.

Chimera Ransomware is Targeting Businesses

Ransomware has really taken off during the last couple of years. In most cases, ransomware has targeted people who are browsing the Internet on their personal computers. However, a new ransomware program known as Chimera is specifically targeting businesses. The way that this especially nasty form of ransomware works is it will send an email to an employee.

The email will include a link to what’s supposedly an internal job application or corporate deal. If an employee clicks the link, they will be taken to a Dropbox file that contains the malicious code. Opening the file will result in that computer being infected and all local files getting encrypted. Upon restarting the computer, the employee will see a message on their desktop that demands a Bitcoin payment of around $700. Although it’s possible to remove this ransomware without paying, a much better option is to prevent it from getting on a company network in the first place.

If you want to protect your business against ransomware and other forms of malware, be sure to learn about the different managed network services in Cincinnati that we offer. Call or e-mail for more information, or to schedule a network security Evaluation.

Full Sky Technologies: 513 206 9971 Email: Info@fullskytech.com

The Top 5 IT Trends That Will Stand Out in 2016

If a business is thinking about outsourcing their IT needs and decides to follow through with this plan, they will see both immediate and ongoing benefits from this decision. Because there are numerous benefits that go along with outsourcing IT to the right provider, we want to highlight the top five:

Easily Control IT Cost

Outsourcing is the easiest way to control IT costs. Trying to handle IT in-house comes with a lot of unexpected variables and almost always ends up costing more than projected. With outsourced IT, you’ll know the exact costs of specific IT investments before committing to them. The cost transparency provided by outsourcing empowers businesses to make the best IT decisions at different stages of growth.

 Professional Support You Can Count On

Trying to build an in-house IT department is a complicated and potentially risky task. It only takes one bad hire to compromise an entire IT department. For businesses that are just starting to look at IT, trying to figure out what qualities a new hire should possess can be next to impossible. Outsourcing eliminates this complexity. All you need to do is get client references from an outsourced provider and then speak to the references that are similar to the size of your business. This will allow you to easily confirm that the provider is able to handle all of your IT needs.

Save on Labor Costs

Not only does outsourcing put your IT needs in the hands of highly trained and experienced professionals, but the excellent work done by outsourced IT professionals costs significantly less than having a team in-house. The reduced costs of outsourced labor actually makes it possible for businesses to do more in terms of IT than they could afford in-house.

Increase Security and Reduce Risk

 Taking advantage of a managed IT service Contract is the best way for a business to dramatically increase their security and significantly reduce their risk of any type of digital breach. The importance of having an outsourced team that’s constantly monitoring for and taking proactive steps against digital threats can’t be emphasized enough.

 Focus on What Your Cincinnati Business Does Best

While IT can play a key role in helping a Cincinnati business grow and thrive, trying to deal with IT in-house can be a major distraction. Instead of requiring a huge investment of focus and resources, outsourcing allows a business to take care of all their IT needs without getting pulled away from what they do best.

At Full Sky Technologies, we specialize in providing outsourced IT services to small and medium businesses across Cincinnati. We’re able to provide custom IT solutions based on exactly what a business needs. So if you want to work with an IT provider that will treat your business as a true partner, be sure to get in touch with us online at info@fullskytech.com  or by calling 513-206-9971.
www.fullskytechnologies.com 

Add Value to Your Business by Consolidating into a Managed Service

With a Managed Service Agreement you don’t have to worry about handling your IT needs in-house. Instead, you can let Full Sky Technologies handle all your computer network, IT management and technical support needs. If you’re wondering whether or not this type of arrangement makes sense for your business, we want to cover five ways managed IT support can add value:

1. You’ll Save Money

As a business, it’s vital to keep an eye on your bottom line. One of the reasons that managed IT solutions, often sell themselves is businesses can immediately calculate how much they’ll save. When compared to the cost of having one or more in-house IT employees, as well as the potential cost of not taking IT seriously, the savings offered by a managed option are very appealing.

2. Focus on What Your Business Does Best

In order for a business to grow, it needs to have the right IT resources. However, that doesn’t mean you want to turn into a tech company. Trying to deal with IT needs in-house can become a huge distraction for a business. By handing this type of work over to knowledgeable professionals, you can stay focused on the things that your business does best.

3. Benefit from Proactive Solutions

When you hire an IT service provider, they’re not going to wait around for something to go wrong. Instead, they’re going to take the necessary steps to ensure that your business is protected against a wide range of problems. Knowing that a dedicated team is working diligently on all of the IT needs for your business will provide you with peace of mind.

4. Know Costs Ahead of Time

Cash flow is an issue that affects businesses of all sizes. What’s great about the straightforward pricing structure of IT is you don’t have to waste time guessing about price or being worried that you will get hit with unexpected charges. Instead, you’ll be able to negotiate an ongoing standard rate. Not having to deal with fluctuations in pricing is a big plus for businesses.

5. Fast Responses When You Need It Most

While the managed team responsible for your IT support will work hard to keep things running smoothly at all times, there will still be situations where your business requires immediate IT help. Since those are the times when you want to know that help is available, it’s very reassuring to be able to enlist immediate and reliable help with a single phone call to your managed IT provider.

If you would like to talk about the specific IT needs that your business has, you can easily get in touch with us by calling us today at 513 206 9971 or emailing us at helpdesk@fullskytech.com

What You Need to Know about Disaster Recovery

Far too many businesses operate under the assumption that a disaster scenario could never happen to them. Although it would be great if no business ever had to deal with a disaster and the subsequent fallout, the reality is this is something that many businesses will have to deal with at some point. Regardless of their size, there are circumstances that are outside the control of any business. Whether it’s the result of a freak accident or a deliberate sabotage, businesses need to have a plan in place for how they’re going to deal with this kind of event.

Since recovering from a disaster isn’t something that most businesses have experience doing, it doesn’t make sense for them to try to figure out everything on their own. Instead, a much better approach is to enlist the help of disaster recovery services.

At Full Sky Technologies, we offer IT disaster recovery solutions. Because we have so much experience in this area, we want to share our advice about what businesses should do to recover from a disaster scenario:

Have a Master Contact List

If a business experiences a major disaster, it can turn all operations upside down. One of the best ways to minimize the negative fallout from this type of incident is to keep everyone in the loop. By having a contact list that includes vendors, partners and all other individuals who are relevant to a business, they can keep some form of communication open as everything else is being addressed.

Backups and Risk Assessment

Most businesses know that they should back up all of their data. However, due to everything else they have going on, backups often get done far less frequently than they should. Ensuring that no one is caught off guard is why a business should work with an IT provider to create the right type of backup strategy.

Going through the process of pinpointing when and how backups should be handled is also a good opportunity to look for other points of risk. By understanding the potential weak points of a business, it becomes much easier to look for potential solutions.

Don’t Try to Do Everything Alone

Dealing with a disaster of any scale isn’t something that’s easy for a business to do. That being said, it’s not something a business should attempt to resolve all on their own. Instead, they should turn to experienced professionals for help. By working with Full Sky Technologies, data recovery in Cincinnati, OH will be far more effective.

Additionally, businesses can minimize their downside by being proactive. Call Full Sky Technologies today at 513 206 9971 or Email us at helpdesk@fullskytech.com to learn more about what your business can do to help prevent data loss, as well as how we can help you prepare in the event that disaster does strike.

Does IT Support make Sense For your Business? Answer These Following Questions.

Business growth is a very tricky subject. If certain decisions are made too early, they can hurt the business before it gets a chance to establish a solid foundation. On the other hand, putting a decision off for too long can hold a business back from hitting its stride.

One key area of decision making for many businesses is in regards to IT. As a business starts to grow, decisions need to be made about whether or not the time is right to hire an IT service provider. Because not every business has the same needs, the best IT solutions are those that can be customized.

While not every business is going to follow the exact same path with IT, there are some practices for putting the right pieces in place at the optimal time. So with that objective in mind, let’s look at the top five signs that it’s time to invest in IT solutions for your business:

1. You Need IT But Hiring Doesn’t Make Sense

Putting together an in-house IT team can be very expensive. Most companies are going to need IT services long before they have the revenue to support the salary and other costs of an in-house team. In this scenario, a managed IT service provider in Cincinnati can provide the solutions you need in a more cost-effective manner.

2. Your Business Doesn’t Have a Clear Backup Strategy

Far too many businesses take an “it won’t happen to us” approach to data backup. Unfortunately, that type of gamble can lead to major consequences. If you want to properly protect your business and customers, you need an IT service provider that can put a reliable backup strategy in place and manage it.

3. Initiatives Are Being Held Back By Lack of IT Capabilities

If there are things that your company wants to do but are unable to do them because you don’t have the IT resources in place, enlisting the help of IT consultants needs to be at the top of your to-do list.

4. You’re Concerned About Security

As Sony and other high profile hacks have shown, businesses that don’t take the necessary steps to protect themselves run the risk of major cyber-security breaches. If you want to protect your business, then your business needs an IT service provider sooner rather than later.

5. You Can’t Get IT Support When Your Business Needs It

IT issues are going to come up during the course of a normal business day. Being unable to deal with those issues in a timely manner is a clear sign that the time is right to start working with a reliable IT service provider.

Let Full Sky Technologies be your one stop solution for your IT. Call us anytime at 513 206 9971 or email us at info@fullskytech.com  

www.fullskytechnologies.com

Being Proactive Rather Than Re-Active

How Proactive IT Services Can Help Improve Your Business Security

Over the last year, companies of all sizes have found themselves dealing with large hacks and data breaches. While it's easy to assume that these kinds of hacks are events that come out of the blue, that's not an accurate picture of what often happens.

In multiple cases, it's come to light that businesses have failed to take the necessary steps to prevent these hacks. In several high-profile incidents, companies actually went out of their way to avoid spending on the necessary security measures. As these events have shown, trying to cut costs upfront is simply not worth the potential risk exposure that doing so can create.

The Reality of Hacking and Data Breaches

When hackers take the time to go after very large corporations, they generally have a very specific reason for doing so. Whether it's because they see the corporation as a lucrative target or don't agree with the way the corporation does business, these hacks are very coordinated efforts.

What many people don't realize is for the majority of other hacking and data breach incidents, the individuals carrying out these acts aren't targeting their actions in a hyper-focused way. Instead, they're looking for the lowest hanging fruit in terms of weaknesses. From software that hasn't been updated to companies that don't have a strong password policy in place, these are the types of vulnerabilities that hackers can target on a large scale with minimal effort.

An IT Services Company Can Help You Take Preventative Action

Since the majority of hacks and data breaches result because companies have little to no cyber security in place, Cincinnati business owners can greatly reduce their risk of any type of compromising event by working with knowledgable IT consultants.

By actively seeking out IT support in Cincinnati for security, your business can eliminate many of these issues that create hacking vulnerabilities. Some of the steps that IT support in Cincinnati can take include implementing solutions to secure against spyware, malware and viruses.

Remote backup and patch deployment are two more business IT solutions that can play a key role in ensuring that all of a company's data is secure. And whether your business is already utilizing cloud technologies or wants to transition to the cloud in a way that's fully secure, we can assist with all the necessary preventative steps. Another big advantage of working with Skynet Innovations is we can provide ongoing support to ensure your networks and data remain secure.

If you want to be sure that your business doesn't have any large vulnerabilities that could leave it open to a hack or data breach, be sure to contact us today to set up a consultation. 513 206 9971

info@fullskytech.com

www.fullskytechnologies.com

Are You A Small Business In Need Of IT Support???

The Smart Way to Approach Small Business IT Budgeting

Most businesses are aware that they can gain a lot by making the right investments in IT. However, just because businesses understand the value of IT doesn't mean they automatically know which investments they should make. In addition to being unclear about which investments make the most sense, plenty of businesses have questions about the most effective way to approach budgeting for IT.

Since these are questions that come up on a regular basis, we thought it would be helpful to share some of our insights. In terms of IT budgeting, two things that businesses need to take into account are emergencies and unexpected issues that come up. For example, even though it may not be possible to foresee when a computer or server is going to crash, it's important for those types of events to be taken into account during conversations about budgeting.

Preventative Action is the Best Way to Optimize An IT Budget

One lesson that far too many businesses have to learn the hard way is that it costs more to fix something that goes wrong than it does to make an upfront investment in preventing it from happening. That reality is why small business IT support is such a wise investment. When a Cincinnati business takes advantage of IT support prior to anything going wrong, they are able to avoid many of the issues that end up plaguing other businesses at some point.

The reason why preventative action is less expensive than reacting to an emergency is straightforward. When IT professionals are asked to provide preventative services, they are able to do so in a way that is measured and can be carried out in a straightforward manner.

On the other hand, when a business has something go terribly wrong and calls an IT company in a panic, the company doesn't have any reference point for how the business operates. Instead, they have to go into the situation blindly and try to pinpoint what went wrong as quickly as possible. So just as ER visits are more expensive than routine checkups, the same is true for  IT services for small businesses.

Take Action and Stay Up to Date

When you take the initiative to hire professionals who can provide you with small business IT solutions, you can be confident that your software will be kept up to date. Just keep in mind that in addition to software, hardware also needs periodic updating. So when this advice is provided by your IT consultants, it's something that your business will definitely benefit from following.

If you'd like to speak in detail about the IT services for small businesses that are the right fit for your specific needs, be sure to contact us so we can set up a consultation. Info@fullskytech.com or 513 206 9971 to speak with a representative.