Give us a call

Ferrum Technology Services Blog

Ferrum Technology Services has been serving the Elgin area since 2007, providing IT Support such as technical helpdesk support, computer support, and consulting to small and medium-sized businesses.

Scammers Can Really Be a Hindrance to Your Business’ Health

Scammers Can Really Be a Hindrance to Your Business’ Health

Imagine this scenario: amidst your daily routine, an email arrives in your inbox, seemingly from a cybersecurity company. The alarming assertion is that you've become the target of a hacking attack. Despite lacking IT expertise and being unfamiliar with your security agency's procedures, you trust the message and respond promptly. Unbeknownst to you, the email is a shrewdly disguised cyberthreat, ensnaring you in their trap.

0 Comments

How Do Hackers Get Around Multi-Factor Authentication?

How Do Hackers Get Around Multi-Factor Authentication?

Data security is one of those things that you have to stay out in front of. Hackers and scammers are changing tactics and getting a little more sophisticated as time goes on and it creates a pretty difficult situation for most IT administrators. Utilizing multi-factor authentication (MFA), two-factor authentication, or whatever it is called by the application you are using has become a great way to add an extra layer of security to organizational data protection efforts. Today, we will discuss the benefits of this strategy and why it isn’t a be-all, end-all to your overall security.

0 Comments

Black Friday and Cyber Monday Are Treasure Troves for Hackers

Black Friday and Cyber Monday Are Treasure Troves for Hackers

It should come as no surprise that one of the biggest online retail days of the year also incites a lot of scams and threats targeting not just consumers, but online businesses as well. Let’s go over some of the major statistics surrounding online retail scams and what you should know as you navigate the post-holiday chaos.

0 Comments

Hacked Social Media Accounts Are Bad for Your Business

Hacked Social Media Accounts Are Bad for Your Business

Social media has become deeply ingrained in today’s culture, from business to personal connection. Businesses stake their reputation on the platforms, and individuals and families use them to connect with one another in ways they never were able to before. This is why it’s so scary to think about what would happen if an account were hacked or taken over.

Let’s look at how social media hacks are disruptive and potentially catastrophic to a business owner.

0 Comments

Recent Data Shows Surprising Trends in Cybercrime Victimization

Recent Data Shows Surprising Trends in Cybercrime Victimization

When it comes to who is victimized in cybercriminal efforts, there may be a few stereotypes and presumptions that a lot of people may hold. A recent report, Oh, Behave!, released by the National Cybersecurity Alliance and Cybsafe, shows that the real victims of many forms of cybercrime aren’t who many would expect.

0 Comments

You Need These 4 Cybersecurity Solutions for Your Business

You Need These 4 Cybersecurity Solutions for Your Business

Modern businesses depend on cybersecurity to help keep operations from being targeted by hackers and other cybercriminals. Businesses need to be both resilient and agile in how they protect their infrastructure from these threats. Let’s discuss four of the most important ways your business can protect itself from the growing threats of malware, ransomware, phishing attacks, and other cybersecurity threats.

0 Comments

World Password Day Presents an Opportunity to Improve Your Security

World Password Day Presents an Opportunity to Improve Your Security

World Password Day is indeed a thing, and it’s a thing to celebrate in the world of business technology, as it celebrates password awareness and advocates account security in a time when cybersecurity has never been more important. To help you observe World Password Day, we want to go over why passwords are important and why you need to take password security seriously.

0 Comments

Are You a Cybercrime Target?

Are You a Cybercrime Target?

We focus a lot of our attention on securing our clients’ computing infrastructures from the large amount of threats that are out there. We look to legitimately protect the entire network and infrastructure with our tools and expertise. The hackers, on the other hand, understand that they are more apt to be successful if they target certain users of your organization. Let’s look at a potential profile of someone that a savvy hacker would like to target.

0 Comments

Different Scams Impact Different Audiences, Which Means You Need to Prepare for All of Them

Different Scams Impact Different Audiences, Which Means You Need to Prepare for All of Them

Back during the holiday season, the Federal Trade Commission shared some data that showed that members of Generation X, Millennials, and Generation Z are all more likely to fall for online shopping scams than those over the age of 60…and not by a little, either. Those under that age are apparently 86 percent more likely to fall for these scams. 

0 Comments

How Can T-Mobile’s Security Woes Help Your Efforts?

How Can T-Mobile’s Security Woes Help Your Efforts?

Bad news for T-Mobile users, they’ve suffered another data breach. Hackers have gained access to customer data for nearly 37 million individuals, including both pre-paid and subscription-based accounts. Let’s look at what has happened and what knowledge you might apply to your own network security practices.

0 Comments

While Crucial to Your Business, Cybersecurity Can Be Tiresome for Some

While Crucial to Your Business, Cybersecurity Can Be Tiresome for Some

Cybersecurity definitely needs to be a point of emphasis for any business who relies on technology, after all if you suffer a data breach, it can have a direct impact on the way your business is viewed by potential customers or it can even have an effect on the way that you are able to operate. In order to keep your business secure online you need to depend on your staff. Like it or not, they are a major part of your business’ cybersecurity system and if they aren’t trained properly and understand their role, your business is low-hanging fruit for hackers. 

0 Comments

Make Sure You Avoid this Malware-Spreading Version of WhatsApp

Make Sure You Avoid this Malware-Spreading Version of WhatsApp

As one of the world’s most popular messaging applications, WhatsApp is a well-known tool, even in the business world. More notable is that WhatsApp—a platform known for its end-to-end encryption and security—now has a modified and unofficial version called YoWhatsApp, which has been deploying malware to unsuspecting users.

0 Comments

What Happens When a Raven Goes Phishing?

What Happens When a Raven Goes Phishing?
What if Edgar Allan Poe wrote “The Raven” during the information age?
0 Comments

USB Drives Carry a Lot of Business Risk in a Tiny Package

USB Drives Carry a Lot of Business Risk in a Tiny Package

There’s nothing more intriguing than finding a random USB drive while cleaning up your office or while out and about. You might feel the urge to plug it in and discover its contents, but we are here to tell you that this is often a bad idea—particularly if the drive is unfamiliar to you. Unlike cloud storage, which is quite transparent, you don’t know what’s on a USB drive until you plug it in, and it’s often too late by the time this happens.

0 Comments

The Zeppelin Group is Making Us Ramble On About Ransomware

The Zeppelin Group is Making Us Ramble On About Ransomware

We apologize for the pun, but we couldn’t help ourselves.

When you go about your business and attempt to onboard a new client or implement a new tool for your company, you spend time getting to know what your business is doing and why. Well, a newly formed ransomware group will spend up to two weeks mapping your network before launching its attacks, making it a potent threat actor that you should keep an eye out for on your business network.

0 Comments

4 Cybersecurity Tactics that Smart Businesses Have Adopted

4 Cybersecurity Tactics that Smart Businesses Have Adopted

In today’s world of cyberattacks and cybercriminals, it’s more important than ever that you are taking the appropriate steps to protect your organization from all manners of threats. We have a list of cybersecurity best practices that you should consider following for your organization’s computing infrastructure. Let’s take a look.

0 Comments

Best Buy’s Geek Squad Scam is Touring Inboxes

Best Buy’s Geek Squad Scam is Touring Inboxes

Phishing scams are a topic we frequently discuss on this blog. In their simplest form, they are emails or messages sent that are designed to steal from you or gain access to computers or networks. One such scam uses the moniker of the popular IT support company Geek Squad, a subsidiary of Best Buy, to steal from its victims. Here’s how you can avoid falling for these tricks.

0 Comments

What Causes Most Data Breaches?

What Causes Most Data Breaches?

A data breach is no joke, and it can take many forms. Whether it’s a case of confidential data being viewed, copied, stolen, or destroyed, a data breach cannot be ignored. Let’s take a look at some of the various causes of business data breaches and what you can do to prevent them from sinking your organization.

0 Comments

Facts that Will Help You Identify Phishing Attacks

Facts that Will Help You Identify Phishing Attacks

Phishing messages are one of the scarier threats out there, especially when you consider that they force you to be on edge about most messages you receive, regardless of how sound they might appear to be. Thankfully, there are various telltale signs that you can look for when analyzing the messages you receive on a daily basis that can clue you in on some of the more suspicious phishing messages.

0 Comments

5 Most Dangerous Strains of Ransomware, Based on How Profitable They Are for the Bad Guys

5 Most Dangerous Strains of Ransomware, Based on How Profitable They Are for the Bad Guys

There are all kinds of threats out there that can make things difficult for your business, but one of the biggest threats from this past year was ransomware. Ransomware encrypts data on the victim’s device so that it is inaccessible without the decryption key. Hackers have been successful with these extortion methods, as well as many others, yet ransomware continues to be a serious source of anxiety for businesses of all sizes and industries.

0 Comments

Blog Archive

2024
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
2012
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
2011
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
2010
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
2009
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
2008
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
2007
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December

Mobile? Grab this Article

QR Code