Shopping For a VPN App? Read This.

You probably know by now that using your mobile device on the public Wi-Fi network of your local coffee shop or airport poses some risk. Public networks are not very secure – or, well, private – which makes it easy for others to intercept your data. So, what can you do to keep your mobile data private and secure while out and about? Some consumers have started using Virtual Private Network (VPN) apps to shield the information on their mobile devices from prying eyes on public networks. Before you download a VPN app, you should know that there are benefits and risks.  

VPN app basics

How do VPN apps work? When you use a VPN app, data sent from your phone – be it your browsing data or the apps you are using – is routed through servers located elsewhere. A VPN app can make traffic from your phone to a website you visit appear to come from a server operated by the VPN provider, rather than directly from your phone. Some VPN apps also encrypt the data sent between your phone and the VPN server. So, for example, say you are using a public Wi-Fi network that isn’t secure – such as a network that allows anyone to use it, even if they don’t have a password.  Other people on the same network can see your traffic.  But when you use a VPN app that encrypts the data, anyone monitoring your network connection only sees gibberish – even if the particular site you are visiting doesn’t itself employ encryption.

Why would someone use a VPN app? VPN apps tout a variety of uses. Not only do some VPN apps promise to keep your information secure on public networks, but some also claim they will keep your information private from advertisers and other third parties. And because VPN apps route your traffic through another network, they can make it appear as if your traffic is coming from somewhere else.  This is similar to how a company might use a VPN to allow employees to use their work computer as if they were on the company’s network, even while they’re on the road.

What are some privacy and data security concerns about using a VPN app? First, you should be aware that when you use a VPN app, you are giving the app permission to intercept all of your internet traffic. You don’t want to grant such permission lightly. Also, a group of technical researchers who studied almost 300 VPN apps found potential privacy and security risks with some VPN apps. According to the study, for example, some VPN apps did not use encryption; some requested sensitive, and possibly unexpected, privileges; and some shared data with third parties for purposes such as injecting or serving ads, or analyzing the data to see how people are using a particular site or service.

Given these findings and the considerable trust you must place in a VPN app with your traffic, here are some things to consider before you download a VPN app.

Before you download a VPN app

• Research the VPN app before you use it. You are trusting a VPN with potentially all of your traffic. Before you download a VPN app, learn as much about the app as you can. Look up outside reviews from sources you respect. You can also look at screenshots, the app’s description, its content rating, and user reviews, and can do some online research on the developer. The fact that an app promises security or privacy does not necessarily make it trustworthy.
• Carefully review the permissions the app requests.Apps will present the permissions they request on their app store page, during installation, or at the time they use the permission. It’s useful information that tells you what types of information the app will access on your device in addition to your internet traffic. If an app requests particularly sensitive permissions (reading text messages, for example), consider whether the permission makes sense given the app’s purpose and whether you trust the app developer with that access.
• Know that not all VPN apps actually encrypt your information. Some VPN apps use protocols that do not encrypt your traffic, or encrypt only some of your traffic. Outside reviews from sources you respect might provide more information about a particular app’s use of encryption.
• A VPN app generally isn’t going to make you entirely anonymous. Instead, the app will typically obscure the content of your traffic from your internet service provider or public Wi-Fi provider, shifting trust from those networks to the VPN app provider. In addition, sites you visit may be able to determine that you are using a VPN app, and can still use any identifying information you directly share with them (for example, filling out a form with your email address) to track you.
• VPN apps may share your information with third parties. Many VPN apps are free because they sell advertising within the app, or because they share your information with (or redirect your traffic through) third parties. If you are using the VPN app to keep your traffic private, make sure you review the VPN app’s terms and conditions and its privacy policy to determine if it shares information with third parties such as advertisers, and if so, what information it shares.

Security and Privacy Tips for Cryptocurrency Holders

The cryptocurrency trend is definitely a big boom in today’s financial market. More and more people are starting to treat digital currencies seriously, as they are now a great alternative for managing your personal and professional budgets. And because the stakes are getting higher, there is an increasing need for cybersecurity measures.

If you’re a cryptocurrency holder, you probably love what you’re doing. You’re grateful because you have the opportunity to invest, trade and save a lot of money by leveraging your digital coins.

However, what would happen if one day all your coins were gone? You’d likely blame the hacker at first, but it is partially your responsibility to protect your investments.

Here are some security and privacy tips that will add a significant layer of protection to your cryptocurrency funds.

1.    Secure Your Wallets

The first and most important way to protect your digital currency is to choose a secure wallet. That means you should find a company that offers more security measures than the “normal” wallet providers do. For example, wallets that use encryption to protect the private keys can be much better and safer. Moreover, you can encrypt your data using different crypto encryption providers.

2.    Secure Your Devices

It takes just one security vulnerability for your PC, mobile or tablet to be hacked. I’d suggest you take advantage of a premium antivirus, set your firewall settings to maximum security and take advantage of an antispyware software to regularly check for malicious software. You can also consider using a secure operating system.

3.    Back Up All Your Crypto Data

Your crypto data is really the most important element of your entire operation. If you ever make the mistake of not backing up your data, you’ll regret it forever. When your PC gets hacked, or when your laptop gets physically stolen, you can always buy another one. However, when a hacker steals all your cryptocurrency funds because they’ve gained access to your data, you’re in a sticky situation. To avoid this, store your crypto data in an offsite place. Use a colocation server, a thumb drive and an encryptedexternal disk.

4.    Dedicate One Device to Cryptocurrency Only

The best way to add an extra layer of security to your cryptocurrency wallets is to base all your cryptocurrency activities and operations on a single device. You should have a personal PC/phone and a cryptocurrency PC/phone.

Do your best to keep your work device as private as possible by using dedicated IPs and private servers that keep your location, name and activity anonymous.

5.    Don’t Keep All Your Funds in One Wallet

Most of you know the saying “don’t keep all your eggs in one basket”. This advice is actually very concrete and worth following when it comes to our cryptocurrency operations.

That is why you should have two digital wallets that serve different purposes. Through the first wallet, called the “hot wallet,” you will perform all your trading and transactions. The other wallet is called the “cold wallet” or the “cold storage,” and it is the wallet that stores your savings. Back up both your wallets’ private keys and store them offline.

6.    Avoid Public Wi-Fi

Public Wi-Fi is definitely a no-no for all cryptocurrency holders that want to keep their funds safe. There are many hackers that attack their victims through public Wi-Fi, so you must pay a lot of attention whenever you connect to the web using your phone, laptop or tablet.

Better, don’t connect if you’re not sure. Moreover, make sure that you don’t lend your phone to unknown people. If you’re a student who lives on campus, do not lose sight of your smart devices.

7.    Regularly Look for Intrusions

When you install a clean version of an operating system, you will be able to note the default programs that run in your Task Manager under Processes. Note down that list and know the number of processes that your PC usually opens.

Great hackers are always working silently. They might have infected your PC already and be waiting for the perfect moment to strike. That’s why you should regularly check for new processes that start when your PC starts. If you find something unwanted, you should take action and remove it immediately.

8.    Enable Strong Authentication

If your wallet allows it, enabling two-factor (strong) authentication is absolutely essential to your crypto security. Strong authentication provides an extra layer of security beyond your username and password to protect against account hijacking.

9.    Use Your Common Sense and Stay Safe Online

Lastly, yet most important, you should always use your common sense to stay safer online. Whenever you have suspicions about a link, email, invitation or process that runs under your Task Manager, it’s to better follow your instincts and use common sense.

Takeaways

Securing your cryptocurrency funds is probably the most important thing that should concern your mind right now. Unless you believe you’re super protected, start taking action and dedicate your time to optimize the level of protection of your crypto operations. Good luck and stay safe!

Are You Sharing Your Security Answers on Social Media?

Social media can be a lot of fun, but if you’re not careful, it can be an easy road to identity theft, account takeover, and more. The three texts mentioned above are from actual poststhat have come across sites like Facebook, inviting others to share their answers…but why?

“Who Remembers Their Childhood Phone Number? Share It Below!”

“Tag Your Mom If She’s the Best Mom in the World!”

“What’s Your Dragon Name? Find Out Below and Share It in the Comments!”

Social media can be a lot of fun, but if you’re not careful, it can be an easy road to identity theft, account takeover, and more. The three texts mentioned above are from actual posts that have come across sites like Facebook, inviting others to share their answers…but why?

Think it through: does anyone really care if you can remember your very first phone number? Wouldn’t it be enough to simply answer yes or no, rather than proving it by typing it in the comments? The only people who genuinely care about this knowledge are people who are hoping to figure out the name of your hometown from the area code and call prefix.

The name of your childhood town, or rather, the city where you were born…

Of course, your first phone number might not have been the city where you were born. One ITRC staffer has a hilarious story about being born in another city while her parents were simply passing through. But that’s obviously not the norm, and it just means that a scammer would have to give up and move on to the next person who’d answered the question.

Who has the best mom in the world? I do, of course! And I’ll prove it by tagging her in the comments! Not just typing her first name or the words, “My mom is the best,” but actually tagging her according to the post’s instructions. But once I’ve tagged her, a scammer can simply click on the profile name and see her account. Many women use their maiden names in their social media profiles so that childhood friends can find them.

So, now the scammer has my mother’s maiden name…

But what can be the harm in finding out my “dragon name?” All I have to do is match up the month I was born with the date, and then I pick from the list of names. Once I type “Golden Slasher” in the comments, the scammer knows that Golden equals August and Slasher equals the 3rd. Based on information in my profile, like the fact that I’m in the Class of ’67 Facebook group for my high school, it gives an identity thief plenty of jumping off points to guess my complete birthdate.

And now they’ve got my birthdate…

Posts like these are common on social media, and they fall into the category of oversharing. You might think you’re just playing along and having fun, but the thief who first originated the viral post is gleaning identifying information from thousands of social media users at a time. It only takes a few seconds’ work to figure out if your answer leads to access to your account.

Remember, adopt an air of caution when it comes to the things you share about yourself or your family, especially when you don’t know where that information will end up or who will be able to see it. It’s far better to be a party-pooper (because everyone was just DYING to know your dragon name) than a victim of identity theft.

Save Money & Drive Innovation with IT Managed Services

Hiring internal staff to take care of your company’s technology infrastructure and IT needs can be costly.  To cut down costs, an increased number of small to medium sized businesses are turning to Managed IT Service Providers.  Our team will ensure your business has all of the necessary IT support staff at a fraction of the cost.  In this blog, we will explain how IT managed services will both improve and save your business money.

Using Our Team to Supplement Yours

It takes a fleet of networking, administrative and support staff to keep a company's IT infrastructure patched and bug-free — and that doesn’t count the cost of a 24-hour security team to prevent breaches, or expensive outside experts to help in a crisis.

The problem is, you only need these staff members for emergencies, upgrades and a few daily maintenance tasks. Your admins will do their jobs and wait for something to break. Your security team? 95% of the time, they’ll be sitting there, watching for an attack with nothing else to do. For onsite IT, you can either eat the costs, or risk being caught unprepared.

Nebula Consulting's IT managed services team provide better support for less by spreading the labor costs among our partners. With daily hardware and software maintenance, state-of-the-art cybersecurity and 24-hour emergency support, we provide a level of service you couldn’t afford in-house, at a far lower cost. We can take the worry — and the expense — out of your IT systems.

Quick Access to New Technology

Whether it’s the latest in spam filters, or a new firewall, having a dedicated IT support partner means you’re gaining ready access to software and hardware that will be a great fit for your organization.  No longer will you incur technology costs and discover later that a solution is incompatible with your system.

Few in-house IT teams in small to mid-sized businesses (SMBs) have time to research or stay certified in new tools and solutions. Fortunately, when you leverage the power of an IT MSP, you’re gaining the depth-of-bench and group research power of a much larger organization, without the high cost of employment.

Proactive Security and Support

When something goes wrong with your network, you need to know that someone is immediately jumping into action to bring your services and infrastructure back online. While not all failures can be prevented, the good news is that early detection can often help mitigate damage, and ensure that critical data is secure at all times.

A Strategic Focus on Growth and Innovation

Innovation is a term that’s used loosely throughout the business world.  What does it mean for SMBs? It can be challenging for them to be leading adopters simply due to the cost of entry.

IT decision-making is vastly different for SMBs than it is for larger enterprises.  Leaders of SMBs often have more input into how technology dollars are spent than their larger counterparts. However, it typically takes them longer to implement innovative IT projects.  The answer for many is to outsource this task to a managed services provider rather than using in-house techs.

5 Things That Will Slow Your Wi-Fi Network

Wi-Fi is quite fickle. The contention between Wi-Fi devices and the dynamic communication medium of the airwaves makes it a sensitive technology with many settings and situations that can slow it down.

And even if you aren’t using high-bandwidth devices and applications, faster Wi-Fi is always better. Here are some things to avoid that can slow down your Wi-Fi:

Old wireless and security protocols

Using the older security protocols on your Wi-Fi network significantly reduces performance. This is regardless of the access point’s highest supported standard and its promises. For instance, 802.11ac can support data rates over 1,000 Mbps. But if you have WEP or WPA security configured, the data rates will be limited to 54 Mbps. This limitation is due to those security types using the encryption method of Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP).

So, to ensure old Wi-Fi security methods aren’t slowing your network, enable WPA2-only security using Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). Don’t choose WPA/WPA2-mixed mode or WPA2-TKIP.

If there are older Wi-Fi clients that don’t support WPA2-AES security, see if there are firmware updates that add that capability. Next, consider adding a USB or PCI based Wi-Fi adapter to the computer or device to give it modern Wi-Fi connectivity. If those adapters aren’t supported, consider a wireless bridge for devices that also have an ethernet connection. Consider creating a separate SSID with older protocols enabled for legacy devices or replace the old Wi-Fi client devices altogether.

Under-utilizing the 5GHz band

The 2.4 GHz frequency band has 11 channels (in North America), but only provides up to three non-overlapping channels when using the default 20 MHz wide channels or just a single channel if using 40 MHz-wide channels. Since neighboring APs should be on different non-overlapping channels, the 2.4 GHz frequency band can become too small very quickly.

The 5 GHz band, however, provides up to 24 channels. Not all APs support all the channels, but all the channels are non-overlapping if using 20 MHz-wide channels. Even when using 40 MHz-wide channels, you could have up to 12 non-overlapping channels. Thus, in this band, you have less chance of co-channel interference among your APs and any other neighboring networks.

You should try to get as many Wi-Fi clients as you can to use the 5 GHz band on your network to increase speeds and performance. Consider upgrading any 2.4 GHz-only Wi-Fi clients to dual-band clients. Additionally, utilize any band-steering functionality on the APs to increase the chances of dual-band clients connecting to the 5 GHz access instead of 2.4 GHz. If you have full control over the Wi-Fi clients, and you’re confident your 5 GHz coverage is good, maybe even see if you can disable 2.4 GHz on the clients.

Incorrectly setting AP channels

Since the 2.4 GHz band is so crowed, the channels utilized by your APs are crucial. It’s easy to have co-channel interference from neighboring networks and even your own APs. For this lower band, try to stick with the non-overlapping channels of 1, 6 and 11 at 20 MHz channel-widths. Although most APs and wireless controllers have an automatic channel feature, sometimes they don’t work well. Double-check the automatic channel assignments to see if they make sense. If they don’t make sense, try setting the channels yourself.

When verifying automatic channel assignment or manually setting them, it’s a good idea to get out the floor plan maps that have the AP locations identified. That way you can visualize the AP locations and write down the channel assignments. If you have more than three APs, you’ll have to reuse the channels 1, 6 and 11. But try to make it so APs set to the same channel are as far away from each other as possible. For instance, if you have six APs spread out equally going down a long hallway, you set the AP channels in order: 1, 6, 11, 1, 6, 11. Don’t forget about any other levels of the buildings Try to minimize setting APs with the same channels on top of each other, too.

Utilizing low data rates

 APs have control over what data rates are supported for the connections to Wi-Fi clients. When APs are supporting the lowest data rates, that means they’ll accept slow/poor connections. Though APs that don’t support he lowest data rates will drop Wi-Fi clients quicker, that’s typically what you want. You don’t want Wi-Fi clients staying connected to APs when the connection gets too slow, because it will slow the overall performance of the network. If a Wi-Fi network is properly designed with good coverage, you want the Wi-Fi clients to roam to the best AP as quick as possible, not stick to an AP that provides a slower connection.

Most enterprise-level APs provide control over the exact data rates that are enabled. If possible, consider disabling the lowest data rates: 1 – 12 Mbps. If you have a high-density network with great coverage, consider disabling further rates, maybe even up to 54 Mbps.

Lacking design and configuration

An overall poor wireless design and/or configuration can cause performance issues on the Wi-Fi. A professional wireless site survey should be performed to figure out proper AP locations and a post-install survey done to verify correct coverage. Resurveying should also be done after any significant physical changes to the building and/or layout.

Without performing map-based site surveys with tools like Airmagnet or Ekahau, it’s hard to visualize coverage to discover any coverage holes. Survey tools also help identify co-channel interference and aid in setting proper channel assignments. And don’t design a network solely on coverage. Design for throughput and user density as well.