Facebook Privacy Settings

The classic Facebook privacy hoax made a comeback recently.  While posting some “declaration of  privacy” doesn’t do diddly, there are some steps you should take to be relatively safe.  If you really want to keep your information private, DON’T join Facebook!  In fact, don’t use e-mail either, but that’s another story.

Facebook Privacy Settings in detail:

Ok, let’s say you want to use Facebook, but want to limit what strangers can see.

First, in the top title bar, click your name.  Now, at the bottom of your cover photo, click on the … button.

Click “View As…” and you’ll see what the “public” sees.  In other words, people who are neither friends, nor friends of friends.  You might be surprised what’s here – I was!  Especially since my privacy setting is “Friends”.  My account has been around a long time, though, and older posts were viewable.

To fix some of this, go back to the title bar, and click the down arrow. Click Settings. On the left, click Privacy.

 

Set “Who can see your future posts” to Friends.

If someone wants to see your posts, let them send you a friend request.   I see no reason why friends of friends would need to see everything I post.

Now, click “Limit The Audience for Old Posts on Your Timeline” and click the “Limit Old Posts” button. Now, you would think that everything is fine, but you would be wrong!

Go back and look at “View As”.   You should see MUCH less than you could before. But there are still posts here. In my case, they were all junk, so I just went through and deleted them.  Now, when I click “View As”, it just shows my friends and profile photos.

Be aware that any time you tag someone in a photo, they can see that photo.  So can their friends.

Now, let’s secure your Friends list.  Without doing this, an anonymous visitor to your Facebook profile will see everyone you’re friends with.

While on the same page (the one you get to by clicking your name), hover over the Friends area on the left.  A pencil will appear.  Hover over that and click “Edit Privacy”.

Set “Who can see your friends list” to Friends.   Also set “Who can see the people and lists you follow” to Friends.

Check your profile now using the “View As” tool and I think you’ll see a definite improvement in your Facebook Privacy!

To read more, click here:  https://www.facebook.com/about/basics/what-others-see-about-you

To see our Company Page on Facebook (we hope you ‘Like’ us!) please click here:
https://www.facebook.com/Mullarky-Business-Systems-214459388574037/

Please post something good about us before you update your Facebook privacy settings!

 

Facebook Privacy Settings

Clever Crooks Attempt Email Fraud

Email Fraud

Recently, an employee at one of my clients received an e-mail from one of the company’s owners.  It said a wire transfer needs to be made and details would follow. It was signed with just a first name.

This attempted email fraud looked very legitimate – luckily, the recipient noticed a dash in the domain name portion of the e-mail address. For instance instead of @xyzcorp.com, it said @xyz-corp.com. That guy deserves an “Atta boy!”  He forwarded the e-mail to the sender and asked what’s going on.

Email Fraud attempted locally.   Stay alert.

I did some research and found that this was the crook’s second attempt in a few hours. The first attempt was sent to a person in accounting who doesn’t work there anymore.

A quick WHOIS query told me who registered the fraudulent domain name, assuming that information wasn’t also forged.  It should have been, but the crooks may have screwed up there.

I don’t know how this will play out yet, but I filed a complaint with the IC3 (Internet Crime Complaint Center) which is run by the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center. If I don’t hear from them about this attempted email fraud, I will contact the registrar who registered the domain name and go from there.

If you are the victim, or the intended victim of cybercrime, go here and fill out the form: http://www.ic3.gov

CROOKS!

 

 

Clever Crooks Attempt Email Fraud

Spruce Up Windows With These Free Windows Themes and Backgrounds

Free Windows Themes the Right Way

No deep technical jargon in this post, I promise.

As you roam around the office, you’ll see the same Windows backgrounds on everybody’s computer. If I had a nickel for every time I saw the scene with the palm trees on the little island…

Why not give yourself something to look at that’s a little different from everyone else?

Go here: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/themes and download any of the free windows themes you like.   Or just download a free background if you like.  These are free windows themes, and you can be confident that they are virus-free as well.

Warning:  The wrong way to get Free Windows Themes

Please do not Google “Free Backgrounds” or “Free Windows Themes” and go whereever it leads you!  This is a common way to pick up Malware, and nobody wants that (except the black hat hackers)!

Personalize Your Free Windows Themes

Microsoft provides info on personalizing your free windows themes. Mullarky Business Systems is glad to help.

You’ll find lots of ways to personalize Windows 8x and your free Windows 10 upgrade coming soon, as described in our previous post at XXXXXXXXXX – right here:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/personalize-pc-tutorial

You’ll find tips on choosing where you go when you login, making your desktop look (and function) the way you like, personalizing your lock screen and more.

 

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Uptime, security and productivity are key ingredients for business.  It sure doesn’t hurt – and may well help – if you have a little fun and increase engagement while you cover those bases!

Please contact us for help with your computer / network uptime, security and productivity – and to personalize your work spaces for the productivity, engagement and enjoyment of your staff.

 

 

Spruce Up Windows With These Free Windows Themes and Backgrounds

Windows 10 - Should You Upgrade?

Windows 10 Coming Soon

If you have even a casual interest in computers, you have likely heard about the release of Windows 10. There is a lot of hype about this release and people have high expectations. The latest rumors say Windows 10 will be released in July.  Some sites say “it’s official” – Windows 10 will be released on July 29th, 2015.

This 1 1/4 minute video has nearly a million views in the first week:  Windows 10 Features

Our advice to business users is to hold off on the actual upgrade to Windows 10

The best policy is to upgrade ONE computer that runs your critical programs.

Windows 10 coming soon…should you upgrade?

After testing and confirming that everything works as expected, then go ahead with the rest.

Even at that,
I would let the early adopters work out some of the bugs before I get on board.

Naturally, make sure you have your critical information backed up before you start the process.

The download will be massive, and I’m sure it will take a LONG time to install.

Set aside time to plan, install, implement and test in round one (the One Computer evaluation).

Set aside plenty of time for the same in round two ( the rest of the network).

Microsoft has already released a Windows Update that prompts you to “sign up” for the free upgrade. You can go ahead with this if you like. The free upgrade offer (see our post from earlier this year:  http://www.mbswi.com/2015/02/free-upgrade-to-windows-10-big-news/)  will be good for one year after its release.

Learn more about your upgrade to Windows 10 at windows.com/windows10upgrade

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Please Contact Us if you’d like help testing, planning, installing and implementing Windows 10 on your network in the Greater Milwaukee / Lake Country area.  Our “sweet spot” is networks from a few to 50+ PCs.  Whatever you need, we’re happy to help, or at least to get you going in the right direction.

 

Windows 10 - Should You Upgrade?

Overwhelmed By Spam? We Can Help

I was onsite with a new client and mentioned e-mail. He said he has a hard time with e-mail because he gets so much of it. I asked if he gets a lot of spam. Well, yes, he sure did! I watched as Outlook did a

Email Security Service at Affordable Prices!

send/receive and got about twenty e-mails, nearly all of them junk.

I told him I could set up a spam and virus filter to remedy the situation. This is the Barracuda “Spam Filtering Service” you’ll find under our services.

This cloud service sits between “the world” and your e-mail server. It doesn’t matter if you’re using an Exchange server, a POP/IMAP server, Gmail, or Office365. The service filters out viruses and spam, then sends the remaining e-mails to your mail server.

As I write this, I’m looking at their statistics for the last 24 hours. Out of 639 incoming messages, 92 were allowed, 259 were quarantined, and 288 were blocked outright. That’s cutting incoming e-mail by 85%!

Mullarky Business Systems, LLC can provide this service to you at a VERY affordable rate. Call us for details!

Overwhelmed By Spam? We Can Help

Great Mileage Tracking App

MileIQ, a great mileage tracking app.

 

Do you track business mileage, either to report to the IRS, or your employer? I do. And I often forget to record trips as I travel around the Milwaukee, Waukesha and Jefferson areas visiting IT clients.  If you’re in the same boat, I found a great mileage tracking app for your phone – MileIQ.

MileIQ automatically tracks your trips during working hours, which you can define. Then, you classify trips as business or personal. From their web site, you can print a monthly or yearly report. I plan to print a report monthly – just in case these guys ‘disappear’. I’m afraid that sort of thing DOES happen!

There is a free plan that allows 40 “drives” per month, or an unlimited plan for $60/year. If this app saves me two hours of manually entering data into Excel every month or two (which it does), it is worth every penny.

I use this app on my iPhone, but an Android app is also available. To my surprise, the app does not drain my phone’s battery.

Here’s a video from MileIQ’s web site:

 

Please follow us on LinkedIn.com

Great Mileage Tracking App

Test Post from Mullarky Business Systems

Test Post from Mullarky Business Systems http://www.mbswi.com

Anthem Hacked (Blue Cross)

Hacked! Here’s another very large data breach. Anthem Inc. reports that hackers accessed a database with about 80 million records in it.

Anthem hacked. Security is always important.

If you are one of their customers (and even if you’re not), change your passwords. Change your passwords occasionally and don’t use the same password for everything.

The article doesn’t mention HIPPA or HITECH Act liability. I am curious if those regulations will come into play.

Here’s the article: http://www.wsj.com/articles/health-insurer-anthem-hit-by-hackers-1423103720

That Anthem was Hacked made 60 Minutes, the Nightly Business Report and many local news broadcasts.

Please contact us if you’d like to keep to take steps to keep your business secure.  Call or email for a free consultation regarding your computer and network security.  Keep from being hacked like Anthem and so many others.  An ounce of prevention is worth a ton of cure.

 

Anthem Hacked (Blue Cross)

Free Upgrade to Windows 10 - BIG NEWS

I’d heard some rumors and simply did not believe them.

Microsoft is good at some things and lousy at others.  What they are best at is making money!  So the rumors that Microsoft would offer a free upgrade to Windows 10 made me laugh.

But seriously, folks, it’s TRUE! According to their web site, they will offer a free upgrade to Windows 10 for qualified Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 devices for a period of one year.

Windows 10 Free Upgrade Offer

I am waiting for details of this plan, but in the meantime, you can read about it here:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10/about

While you’re there, be sure to give them your email address so they can notify you when your Free Upgrade to Windows 10 is available.

Remember, when something is free, you usually get what you pay for.  Do your backups.  Check your security after the new Windows 10 install.  Or contact us and stay on the right track.  We’ll save you money on licensing, and an ounce of protection in security and backups is worth at least ten pounds of cure!

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Free Upgrade to Windows 10 - BIG NEWS

Windows Group Policy - Be Careful!

I just got done helping a friend in Mequon with an Exchange server that would no longer work as an Exchange server.

The Exchange services would not start. Fortunately, he had already figured out that a group policy was part of the problem. The IT guy who came before had tried to secure the network by restricting some rights. He changed the “Access this computer over the network” such that “Everyone” was no longer in the list. Now, that sounds like a great idea. Why would Microsoft allow EVERYONE to access this server over the network? Being an Exchange server, however, certain services would not start. We changed the policy back to default and a FEW of the Exchange services worked again.

Next, the AD Topology service would not start. Looking through the event logs and searching for the error codes led me to this… The Domain Controllers policy “Manage auditing and security log” did not include “Exchange Servers” in the permissions. I fixed that, applied the policy to the domain controllers, and we were back to normal – Which is a HUGE relief!

The moral of this little technobabble story is: If you change Group Policy on a Windows domain, be CAREFUL! Document what it was before, what you changed it to, and when you changed it. You may run into unintended consequences!

Windows Group Policy - Be Careful!

Poweliks Malware Removal

I just got done cleaning a “Poweliks” infection from a client’s PC in Muskego. It went undetected by two anti-virus / anti-malware products. Symptoms of this Trojan horse include slow performance, high disk activity, lots of connections displayed when you type netstat at a command prompt, and powershell appears in task manager for no good reason.

By far, the fastest way to clean it up is a free Poweliks malware removal tool at: http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/virus-removal/remove-poweliks-trojan. Download the file and run it. Very quickly, it will tell you if you are affected or not. If you have the Malware infection, the tool will allow you to remove it. You should then reboot.

After the reboot, run the program again and it should come up clean. Then, run another virus/malware scan to find any other malicious programs. Why doesn’t your anti-virus / anti-malware program detect this? Because Poweliks lives in your registry, rather than as a file on the hard drive.

Let’s be careful out there!

Poweliks Malware Removal