

Publish Date
22/11/2022
Categories
Blogs
We’re often told that the passwords to access our online accounts should be really strong, and not to use them anywhere else. This is especially true for the password for your email account. If you’ve used the same password across different accounts, cyber criminals only need one password to access all your accounts.
Always use a strong and separate password for your email; that is, a password that you don’t use for any of your other accounts, either at home or at work.
If you have re-used your email password across other accounts, change your email password as soon as possible. It should be strong and different to all your other accounts.
Ideally, you should use unique passwords for all your important online accounts (such as banking accounts, shopping/payment accounts and social media accounts), not just your email account. You should also provide additional protection by setting up 2-step verification (2SV) on your email account, which will prevent a criminal from accessing your email account even if they know your password.
Weak passwords can be cracked in seconds. The longer and more unusual your password is, the harder it is for a cyber criminal to crack.
The trouble is, most of us have lots of online accounts, so creating different passwords for all of them (and remembering them) is hard.
This is where a password manager can help. A password manager can store all your passwords securely, so you don’t have to worry about remembering them. This allows you to use unique, strong passwords for all your important accounts (rather than using the same password for all of them, which you should never do).
In addition, many password managers are helpful because they can:
To find out more about LastPass, Cobweb’s Password Manager Solution, get in touch with the team today!
Publish Date
21/11/2022
Categories
Blogs Hot Topic
Malware is malicious software, which – if able to run – can cause harm in many ways, including:
Ransomware is a type of malware that prevents you from accessing your computer (or the data that is stored on it). The computer itself may become locked, or the data on it might be stolen, deleted or encrypted. Some ransomware will also try to spread to other machines on the network, such as the Wannacry malware that impacted the NHS in May 2017.
Usually, you’re asked to contact the attacker via an anonymous email address or follow instructions on an anonymous web page, to make payment.
The payment is invariably demanded in a cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin, in order to unlock your computer, or access your data. However, even if you pay the ransom, there is no guarantee that you will get access to your computer, or your files.
Occasionally malware is presented as ransomware, but after the ransom is paid the files are not decrypted. This is known as wiper malware.
For these reasons, it’s essential that you always have a recent offline backup of your most important files and data.
It is essential to plan for any incident. When creating your plan consider the following points, which should help you clarify the level of security you require and the budget you will allocate:
*Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Publish Date
16/11/2022
Categories
Blogs Hot Topic
Think about how much you rely on your business-critical data. Customer details, quotes, orders, and payment details. Now imagine how long you would be able to operate without them.
All businesses, regardless of size, should take regular backups of their important data, and make sure that these backups are recent and can be restored. By doing this, you’re ensuring your business can still function following the impact of flood, fire, physical damage or theft. Furthermore, if you have backups of your data that you can quickly recover, you can’t be blackmailed by ransomware attacks.
Protecting your organisation from malware Malicious software (also known as ‘malware’) is software or web content that can harm your organisation, such as the recent Uber hack.
The most well-known form of malware is viruses, which are self-copying programs that infect legitimate software.
Mobile technology is now an essential part of modern business, with more of our data being stored on tablets and smartphones. What’s more, these devices are now as powerful as traditional computers, and because they often leave the safety of the office (and home), they need even more protection than ‘desktop’ equipment.
Your laptops, computers, tablets, and smartphones will contain a lot of your own business-critical data, the personal information of your customers, and also details of the online accounts that you access.
It is essential that this data is available to you, but not available to unauthorised users. Passwords – when implemented correctly – are a free, easy, and effective way to prevent unauthorised users from accessing your devices.
In a typical phishing attack, scammers send fake emails to thousands of people, asking for sensitive information (such as bank details), or containing links to bad websites. They might try to trick you into sending money, steal your details to sell on, or they may have political or ideological motives for accessing your organisation’s information.
Phishing emails are getting harder to spot, and some will still get past even the most observant users. Whatever your business, however big or small it is, you will receive phishing attacks at some point.
If you would like help or advice about implementing these security measures fill in this form to discuss with one of our security experts.
*Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Our guide looks in further detail about why firms within the legal industry in particular need to ensure their data and devices are kept secure and protected. We'll cover:
Why the legal industry is a prime target for cybercriminals
The cost of an attack
A ten-point checklist to keep your firm secure
Publish Date
20/09/2022
Categories
Blogs
Online taxi company Uber and the Intercontinental Hotel Group (IHG) were last week the latest victims to be hit by cyber attacks.
In the case of Uber, a teenage hacker posted several screenshots within Uber systems, and appeared to have access to many of their internal platforms.
It has transpired since that the 18-year-old hacker stole an employee’s password through social engineering and also tricked the employee into approving the push notification for Uber’s Multi-Factor Authentication, or MFA. Social engineering is the psychological manipulation of people into performing actions or divulging confidential information.
The hacker confirmed they then used the stolen credentials to send repeated push notifications to the employee. They then sent the employee a WhatsApp message, claiming to be from Uber IT, stating for the authentication notifications to stop, he must accept, which he did.
This shows a classic case of the weakest point in any cyber defence, the human element. There are two points of failure, the inability to stop the details being stolen, and the lack of education for the employee to accept the instructions given in a WhatsApp message.
In the other high-profile hack of last week, 2 Vietnamese hackers infiltrated the Intercontinental Hotel Group (IHG). Initially planning a ransomware attack, IHG cyber security moved quickly to prevent this by isolating servers, however the hackers then deleted large amounts of valuable company data in response.
They initially gained access when an employee downloaded a malicious attachment from a phishing email. They also had to bypass an additional security prompt message sent to the worker’s devices as part of a MFA system.
MFA requires at least two independent factors, either something you know such as a password or pin, or something you have such as a card reader or dongle, or something you are such as a fingerprint or facial recognition.
Once past the MFA layers of security, the two hackers were able to access the company wide (200,000 employees!) password manager using the password…..Qwerty1234, giving access to every single system.
Both the Uber and IHG incidences highlight that even with MFA there are still risks posed. Not all MFA options are created equal with some being stronger than others. The less secure include the something you know, which can be engineered, or something you have where the codes can be intercepted or stolen.
The most secure MFA today is phishing-resistant authentication. This eliminates the use of shared secrets in the login process, removing the ability to intercept and replay access credentials. Even with these processes in place, MFA can be defeated by exploiting vulnerabilities in human behavior.
If you have concerns about your security and would like to enquire about a tenant security review, email protection or would like to arrange security training for your team(s), please fill in this form.
Publish Date
31/08/2022
Categories
Company News
Cobweb has today announced the appointment of Clare Satchwell as Managing Director. Clare takes the helm, following Cobweb’s strategic sale of their distribution business.
Cobweb, established in 1996, is an award-winning Cloud Managed Service Provider (CSP/MSP) and Gold Microsoft Partner, serving over 4,000 small to medium sized companies.
Clare, who worked for Cobweb as Operations Director back in 1999, returned to the company in 2018, following a spell running her own successful online business.
‘I am proud and honoured to be appointed as Managing Director of Cobweb. Over recent years the company has grown both financially and in the level of support we provide.’
‘Moving forward we will continue to deliver a 100% customer focussed approach and invest further in Cobweb’s long-term future. Understanding the cloud can be complex, but helping organisations optimize and save money through cloud adoption is key in the current economic climate.
Also, at a time of unprecedented cyber threats, we continue to ensure we educate and protect our customers to keep their businesses safe. I know our outstanding team of professionals are ready to take Cobweb to the next level.’
Cobweb Owner and Executive Chairman Paul Hannam said ‘The strategic sale of our distribution business means we can return to our roots and concentrate solely on our direct customers. Clare has been with the Cobweb Group for 10 years of our 25-year history and I am delighted that she agreed to take the Cobweb business forward.’.
Publish Date
23/08/2022
Categories
Blogs
Microsoft recently announced that from 1st September 2022, they will stop supporting Version 1 of Azure AD Connect.
Azure AD Connect is a tool provided by Microsoft to synchronise Windows Server Active Directory environments with Azure AD. All version 1 installations of Azure AD Connect will stop working 12 months from the date they are superseded by a newer version.
We are advising that all customers running Version 1, upgrade as soon as possible to avoid any potential disruption.
If you do not upgrade and continue to run a retired version of Azure AD Connect, it may unexpectedly stop working. You also might not have the latest security fixes, performance improvements, troubleshooting diagnostics tools, and service enhancements.
Cobweb can complete the upgrade to Version 2 for you through our Professional Services team who will conduct a discovery to determine the upgrade path options and recommend a course of action.
Alternatively, you may choose to carry out the upgrade internally.
To ensure you are not impacted by this change, you should implement a plan to have your existing installation of Azure AD Connect upgraded to version 2 as soon as possible.
To find out more information, book an upgrade or for any other Azure-related enquiry please fill in our contact form.
Publish Date
16/08/2022
Categories
Blogs
Security is always high on the agenda for any IT Administrator. New vulnerabilities and threats are being identified every day, with Microsoft reporting a rapid rise in cyber crime in the past year.
With this in mind, it is important to keep your Azure environment secured to protect your business from threats, vulnerabilities, and data breaches. Microsoft consider security a shared responsibility between themselves and their Azure customers.
Microsoft is responsible for the physical security at their Azure Datacentres. Access is only granted if there is a valid business justification, and to the specific area of the datacentre required. The entire facility perimeter is comprised of a high steel or concrete wall, with a specific access point all staff and visitors must go through. Once inside, two factor authentication with biometrics must be completed to continue to move through each area of the building. Cameras and security staff are posted all around the building, inside and out, and full metal body scans must be completed when entering and exiting the building.
For your Azure platform, there is a joint responsibility and as such Microsoft provides the necessary tools to help secure your virtual infrastructure, with the primary being Microsoft Defender for Cloud.
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is designed to help you gain an understanding and improve the overall security posture of your environment.
The tool continuously scans every Azure resource you deploy to assess the resource configuration, identifying risks and providing security hardening recommendations such as the ones shown below.
You can drill down into each recommendation, which provides a detailed justification, a list of relevant resources associated, and the remediation steps. For many of the recommendations, the tool can automatically perform the remediation task for you.
The recommendations are organised into three colour coded categories, helping you identify the most severe and critical security issues in your environment.
There are some platform designs the tool cannot account for, so consideration needs to be made when following the recommendations to ensure they are appropriate for your individual needs.
These factors include the type of workload, are the resources being assessed running in a dev/test environment or are they running a mission critical workload, and whether there are any cost implications of configuring the recommended changes.
If implementation is not required, the recommendations can be overridden so you are no longer alerted about them.
Another important feature of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is the real time threat intelligence capability.
Microsoft’s dedicated Cyber Security teams, comprising of thousands of security experts located across 70 countries, leverage Artificial Intelligence (AI) to monitor billions of signals across the Azure ecosystem every day to identify vulnerabilities, detect threats, and prevent attacks. Microsoft Defender for Cloud taps into this telemetry to help protect your workloads and provide security alerts notifying you of any potential threats.
These alerts are arranged by severity, with the highest meaning there is a high probability your environment is compromised and must be investigated as a priority, and the lowest meaning there is potential suspicious activity.
Defender for Cloud Threat Intelligence also includes anomaly detection, which is specific to your deployment. Using machine learning, it creates a baseline of normal behavioral patterns in your environment, and any activity determined to be outside of these conditions will trigger a security alert.
Other features of Defender for Cloud include analysing your resources for compliance with industry and regulatory standards, such as ISO 27001, and Azure Firewall Manager to protect your infrastructure.
Ensuring your Azure platform is secure is a shared responsibility between Microsoft and you, with Microsoft giving you the necessary tools and information required to help achieve this.
To learn more, or if you would like assistance digesting and interpreting the information provided by Microsoft Defender for Cloud in your environment contact us (hello@cobweb.com) who will be happy to put you in touch with a member of the Cobweb Azure team.
Microsoft report: https://query.prod.cms.rt.microsoft.com/cms/api/am/binary/RWMFIi.
Download our free guide to find out more about Identity & Access Management. We cover:
Being able to communicate easily and still have access to all your files and data is absolutely vital to remote working successfully. Microsoft Teams has incredible functionality that allows you and your employees to work together through chat, online meetings, document collaboration, file sharing and phone calls — from any device.
In the guide, you'll discover:
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