Archive for the ‘Security’ Category

BYOD to Work

Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012

Bring Your Own Device to Work?

BYOD is an acronym that stands for Bring Your Own Device. Many workplaces allow employees to bring their own data devices to work and connect to the company’s network. Allegedly, this increases productivity and keeps equipment costs down as well. Unfortunately, unless certain precautions and security measures are employed, BYOD could just as well stand for Bring Your Own Destruction.

Here at The Data Rescue Center, a data recovery lab in Livermore, California, we see damage that is caused by lax BYOD policies. There are several dangers in allowing employees to use their personal devices for work. For example, not every computer user employs adequate antivirus and malware protection. I’ve often worked with folks who didn’t realize that the AV software that came on their new laptop was only a trial version that had to be renewed after three to six months.

Back in the day, computer viruses were often transmitted from machine to machine via a floppy disk. While the floppies are gone, the risk is still prevalent. The old floppy has been replaced by the USB key or flash drive. Their capacity makes it very easy for a complex virus or keylogger program to hide in email attachments saved to the drive.

Smartphones, tablet PCs and media devices are not immune from infection. Allowing a device to connect to a business network without proper security measures is asking for trouble. If a computer or server is infected, HDD data recovery might be necessary to retrieve lost or inaccessible files. This could disrupt business operations, even to the point of financial loss. Add to that the data recovery prices that will need to be paid. You may find that allowing these devices on your system may not worth the perceived benefits.

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Top Trends in Security Threats

Wednesday, February 15th, 2012

Data Breach

A recent post on the Experian Data Breach Resolution blog identified five of the top trends in security breach threats. They listed five classes of threats that appear to be the most troublesome:

· Targeted attacks are attacks that usually focus on gaining access to sensitive information from a particular company. These are often perpetrated by sending email links and attachments that appear to be from legitimate sources.
· Information compromise of social networks and social engineering sites is accomplished by posing as friends, thereby gaining access to personal information.
· Zero-day rootkits and vulnerabilities are often called hide-and-seek attacks. Hackers insert their malware into a company’s system, attempting to hide them from detection until a security vulnerability is discovered.
· The sophistication of mobile device operating systems make mobile threats a growing concern. Trojans and other malware are often secreted in seemingly legitimate phone apps, waiting to glean sensitive information.
· Probably the most insidious threat, in my opinion, is the availability of kits that allow the creation of malware without any expertise. In 2011 alone, the creation of over 268 million variants was made possible through DIY malware kits. This statistic comes from Symantec, a leader in security technology.

I believe that these malware kits present a particular danger to computer users’ data. An expert hacker will normally try to not leave any trace of infiltration, leaving the door open to future attacks. However, a would-be attacker, with little or no expertise, might create an attack weapon that trashes the drive on the victim’s computer, damaging valuable data files.

Our recovery engineers at The Data Rescue Center are expertly trained in HDD data recovery. If your data has become inaccessible, our data recovery lab is fully equipped to handle any type of damage that has occurred. Call us today to see what options are available and to check our data recovery prices. Becoming informed before disaster strikes will keep panic to a minimum and ensure expedient recovery.

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Make Sure You Can Trust Who Has Your Data

Monday, February 6th, 2012

Megaupload and Megavideo shut down by the Feds

Cloud computing services, such as online file sharing, file storage and backup, have become very popular over the last few years. These online services give the home computer user the ability to quickly and easily share personal photos and home videos. The business computer user also benefits from the ability to access their files from any computer in the world, enhancing business mobility.

Even so, recent events should warn us all that we need to be careful with whom we trust our data. The FBI seized and shutdown the servers used by Megaupload and Megavideo, two related online file storage and sharing sites. They were allegedly allowing users to upload illegal, copyrighted files. As a result, many innocent site users lost access to their important files. Furthermore, it appeared as if their files were going to be deleted before they could be retrieved. Fortunately, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit legal service, is working to ensure these files can be reclaimed.

Caution should also be exercised when choosing a data recovery company. Emergency data recovery is a complex, exacting process and you need to trust the company that you are contracting for recovery. The Data Rescue Center is a data recovery service in Livermore, California, and we would invite you to check our credentials. We are a BBB accredited business and we take the protection of your data seriously.

We do all recovery in-house, have 24-hour surveillance cameras and protect your equipment in a UL listed Class 2 vault when it is not being repaired. Additionally, the computers used to recover your data are never Internet connected, ensuring that your files are safe from hacker attacks and viruses.

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Do You Know Where Your Hard Drive is Tonight?

Monday, January 23rd, 2012

Bamboozled: Unknown error on PC repair

A recent news article about a New Jersey woman’s quest for simple data recovery drives home a simple point. It is imperative that the client’s equipment be handled safely and securely when dealing with data recovery.

The lady had taken her high-end computer to a local electronics retailer so that their computer technicians could try to recover some files that had come up missing. After hearing nothing about her computer for several weeks, the lady finally got a call telling her that the motherboard and fan had fried. Amazingly, the call came from a repair center several states away. She had never been informed that her computer had been shipped out of state for repair. After being shipped back and forth between New Jersey and Kentucky several more times, the computer was deemed irreparably damaged and a replacement computer was eventually given to the customer in January. Of course, this replacement computer had none of her files on there, since it was a brand-new computer. Her entire photo collection, personal documents and more were all gone-

Unfortunately, when clients take their hard drives to a data recovery lab, they could suffer the same fate. Many of these so-called labs are merely collection points and the recovery work is actually done at a remote location. The drive stands the chance of being damaged, lost or stolen any time it is shipped to another facility.

When a drive is placed in The Data Rescue Center’s care, all of the work is done in-house. The drive is secured in a UL listed class 2 security vault when it is not being repaired. The client is informed and consulted with at every step of the recovery process. This includes everything from initial quotes on data recovery prices to the results of the HDD data recovery process.

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How to Protect Yourself from Identity Theft

Tuesday, January 17th, 2012

Protect yourself from identity theft.

The recent successful cyber-attack on online retailer, Zappos, should sound a warning to everyone who uses the Internet for activities that involve sensitive information. Hackers stole important information from approximately 24,000,000 users of the Zappos site. Information that was stolen included names, addresses, telephone numbers and the last four digits of customers’ credit card numbers.

Secure password practice is extremely important when an Internet user is developing their online persona. Unfortunately, many folks use inadequate and even unsafe techniques when they developed their passwords. Here are some do’s and don’ts for password creation and usage.

· Don’t use passwords that are easy to crack. Use a combination of upper and lowercase letters and numbers. Do not use common words or the names of your children or pets.
· Do use a different password for every website log on. This is especially true if you use social networking sites. Use the secure mode on networking sites if it is available.
· Use a password generator to make your passwords. This type of software will generate random passwords and allow you to store them in one place on your computer. The password database is encrypted and requires a password to open, the only one that you will have to remember.
· Only enter password and personal identification information on websites that display the secure website symbol.

The Data Rescue Center recommends that you also use caution when you need emergency data recovery. You need to choose a data recovery company that is trustworthy. Our data recovery service is located in Livermore, California. We hold a Better Business Bureau A+ rating. All of our employees, including our recovery engineers, are given extensive background checks before they are hired as well. We are the only data recovery service in the world with a Class 2 Vault to store your hard drive.

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Protect Your Privacy

Tuesday, January 10th, 2012

Protect your privacy

The team at The Data Rescue Center, a data recovery service based in Livermore, California, would like to remind their clients that protecting personal privacy and information is vitally important. This includes both offline and online information. We would like to recommend that everyone visit the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse website for extensive information on how to protect privacy and personal information. All Internet users should read the article entitled “A New Year for Privacy: The PRC Launches Online Complain Center.”

The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse is a nonprofit organization that is nationally recognized for consumer education and advocacy. They have been tracking privacy issues since 2005 from their office in San Diego, California. Their website contains information on how consumers can protect their identity. They also include guidelines on how to recover from identity theft and privacy issues. The topics included range from telephone scams and junk faxes to web-based hazards such as email use and online shopping.

For example, they recommend that consumers monitor their credit reports to ensure that no one has stolen vital information and is using it for fraudulent purposes. Furthermore, the PRC explains what to do when a consumer is asked for his or her Social Security number. This includes requests from government agencies as well as businesses.

The Data Rescue Center recommends that consumers thoroughly check into the background of any service working on their computers, especially if disk file recovery is involved. Personal data might even be found during flash drive recovery; therefore, the client should ensure that the recovery lab has been proven trustworthy.

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