New to Working From Anywhere? Tips to Keep You Productive and Efficient

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With so many businesses now encouraging, or even mandating employees begin working from home amid the heath concerns of Coronavirus. Millions have already changed their daily routines, in turn changing the way many of us work today. Not everyone has been made accustomed to working from home or getting work done can be a huge adjustment.

The good news about working from home, is the commute time has gone down. Many spending more time with family, and maybe you will get a few things done around the home. Some challenges can include loneliness, staying connected, heightened levels of distraction can significantly affect your productivity – so we are here to help!

Regardless of you working from a spare bedroom, or the lobby of your building, we have compiled some tips to help you set up, and limit the distractions, while maintaining confidentiality and professionalism. Read more

Can You Spot a Scam When You See One?

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Can You Spot a Scam When You See One? – Learn How to Recognize Suspicious Texts and Emails!

As we are all getting used to the new normal, people continuing to work from home or staff returning to work, there continues to be a lot of change and unrest. Users are frustrated, concerned, overwhelmed, hurried and uncomfortable. As such they may forget to follow due diligence recommendations. Additionally, our hackers just keep getting more creative and continue to hunt for opportunities.

Keeping your business and information safe is critically important to us. Whether these attacks are directed at the business or the home, your users are exposed. Therefore, we continue to identify new threats and help you stay in front of the latest business scams and hacking attempts.

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6 Important OS Hardening Steps to Protect Your Data and End Users

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Are your systems protected? Is your IT Team overwhelmed or your current IT Partner leaving your business vulnerable? According to the Duo Trusted Access Report, only 53% of Mac OS users are running either the fully patched, latest version of OS X, or the previous version, compared to 35% of Windows users on Windows 10 and 8.1. That means most of these operating systems are outdated, unpatched or unsecured – leaving your business vulnerable to compromises and extended downtime.

While proper patch management is critical to protecting business data and employee up-time, it is only one of many security considerations. Ransomware-as-a-Service continues to grow, it’s just as important, we are seeing a rise in popularity of Operating System (OS) Exploit Kits.
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Returning to the Office: A Checklist for Your Businesses

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As many counties ease lockdown restrictions, businesses around the Bay Area will slowly begin to reopen their doors. As some look forward to getting back into the office, other will continue to feel wary. One thing is for certain – the workplace is going to look very different for many of us.

How can you best prepare your team for the ‘new normal’? What should you take into consideration to ensure a successful return to the workplace, especially when it comes to employees, office space, and technology? While it is not an exhaustive list, our Returning to the Office: A Checklist for Your Businesses covers the items to consider as your office begins to reopen. Read more

Generating Your Security Mindset During These Times

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Here we are, months later, still dealing with the changes this pandemic has created. Most changes haven’t been fun, but it’s made for very interesting times. Many businesses are focused on balancing between more or (for some) less work, figuring out how to maintain staff, motivate existing staff remotely, determining how to keep staff busy and preparing for what tomorrow will bring as we slowly start to come out of the COVID-19 quarantine. Now, more than ever, is the time to re-evaluate your businesses Security Posture and implement solutions you may have been hesitant to consider previously. It’s predicted that by 2021, cyber crime will cost the world $6 trillion annually. Even more frightening is the fact that on average, there is a hacker attack every 39 seconds Read more

Insider Threats, What’s the True Cost to Your Organization

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Insider threats cost companies millions. According to the Ponemon Institute’s recently released study ”2020 Cost of Internal Threats.”  In the last two years we have seen a 31% increase in threats emerging from inside an organization. Costs range from $756K to $871K per incident, depending on the type of breach.

There are three types of Insider Threats:
  • Careless, Negligent Employee or Contractor– These are well-intentioned employees or other users who accidentally harm the enterprise. These incidents happen all the time, but  a lot of people don’t think about this threat. Employees constantly make mistakes that put company data at risk — whether that’s because they’re careless, taking shortcuts, or simply uneducated in security. These mistakes add to the challenges faced by IT Teams daily. Ransomware, for example, is often put on a computer because of an employee’s careless browsing or download habits. Phishing attacks are another great example.

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Average Ransomware Payment Rises Again

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COVID-19 continues to create opportunities for the “bad actors” to wreak havoc. In this week’s blog we discuss the latest security concerns created by the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically around Ransomware. This quarter saw a 33% increase in ransom from Q1 2020, with average payment requirement of $111K! It’s the seventh straight quarter that system hijackers have reaped more money and shows that this security breach continues to grow. Compare this to the previous numbers we shared in which the average ransom in Q4 2019 had increased from $84,116 reflecting a staggering increase from $41,198 in Q4 2018. Read more

We Are Here, Open for Business and Ready to Support You

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We at Clare Computer Solutions, first and foremost, hope that wherever you are that you are staying healthy and safe during this unprecedented and challenging time. These are difficult and admittedly uncertain times for all of us.

Clare Computer Solutions continues to provide service with integrity during this shelter at home order supporting our clients, community and employees to the best of our ability. As an essential business supporting other essential businesses, we’re committed to being a reliable partner to our clients and their end-users in difficult times – just as we are in good times. We remain open and available to provide you with the latest, most current information and technologies you need to keep your businesses running and are committed to doing our best to complete all active projects. We are available to assist any new clients with their design, implementation and support needs during these challenging times proving remote and onsite assistance.

We Are Here, Open for Business and Ready to Support You.

We appreciate your support and want you to feel confident that the Clare Team remains available to help guide you through your IT Technology goals and IT Support needs, in spite of the rapidly changing environment.

If we can be of any assistance to you or your firm please call us directly at (925) 277-0690 or email us at sales@clarecomputer.com or contact your dedicated Account Manager.

Business Email Compromise: How-To Avoid Joining Those Already Impacted

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Business Email Compromise (BEC) now encompasses the largest threat to business. Designed to evade traditional email security, Business including gateways and spam filters, spear-phishing attacks are often sent from high-reputation domains or compromised email accounts. Attacks typically use spoofing techniques and include “zero-day” links, unlikely to be blocked by URL-protection technologies.

Better enforcing your ability to curve attacks and avoid these scams. A lot of the time, attackers impersonate the HR, IT or Finance Teams, instead of an individual. Often, requests appear from a senior executive or trusted colleague. Read more

Clare Computer Solutions Windows 7 Extended Support Update

Stop Dreading the Update: Windows 7 Extended Support Update Relief

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On January 14th, 2020 Windows 7 will be reaching its end of supportable life. This means any business using Windows 7 on employee PCs, or Windows Server 2008 will no longer receive the security and bug patching needed when computing in today’s connected age. Rejoice in knowing Microsoft, and Clare Computer Solutions have implemented what is known as Windows 7 Extended Support Update (ESU) for several systems.

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