by Felicien | Sep 12, 2018 | Education
What Are Keyboard Shortcuts?
Keyboard ‘shortcuts’ are the strategic use of combinations of keys on your keyboard to perform some task in your software more efficiently. There are shortcuts you can use in your file folders, word processing programs, and even for your email accounts or any social media services, you might use. In addition to increasing time efficiency, some users prefer the potentially increased accuracy of certain keyboard shortcuts.
Text highlighting and spreadsheet cell selection, for example, may be more accurate using a keyboard shortcut versus selections from even the most advanced mice. In any case, if you use mainstream computer software frequently, keyboard shortcuts have been designed for some potential benefit you or your employees can experience.
Which Shortcuts Have Been Most Helpful?
While general preferences have the most priority in what is defined as truly helpful for use, online resources have reported some keyboard shortcuts being more popular or commonly beneficial than others. Here are five keyboard shortcuts that could potentially be ‘life-changing’:
Locking a screen
Window or app switching
Opening Windows Explorer
Opening search bars
Selecting all text
These shortcuts are reported to be the most common time savers when performing common computer software tasks. Pressing the Windows key with the L key (Windows + L) allows a user to quickly lock their screen to more quickly step away from their system.
Pressing the ALT and Tab keys (ALT + Tab) allows a user to navigate between programs they are using. This can be more efficient than using a mouse to click through or minimize several programs as users navigate through their software.
In the common event of a need to locate an unused file, pressing the Windows and E keys (Windows + E) will open Windows Explorer without a mouse navigation and click. This can be useful even if the application is already on the user’s taskbar.
In the event you need to search for additional information, you can press the CTRL and F keys (CTRL + F) to open a search bar. If you need to select all text in a document or screen, pressing the CTRL and A keys (CTRL + A) will result in this being automatically performed, and without the more tedious mouse-button-holding-while-scrolling action notorious for its frustrated multiple attempts.
Other keyboard shortcuts may be less commonly demanded by users but still potentially beneficial to you. Pressing the CTRL and D keys (CTRL + D) automatically moves files to the recycle bin on your system. Pressing the CTRL, Shift, and Escape keys (CTRL + Shift + Esc) automatically opens the Task Manager, allowing you to search for problems.
MoneyTalks News and Buffer recommended several additional keyboard shortcuts as potential ways to boost organizational productivity. In addition to the more commonly known but often still uncommonly used CTRL + S, CTRL + C, and CTRL + V shortcuts for saving, copying, and pasting respectively, these sources report that an emphasis on shortcuts can have a measurable impact on organizational or general productivity and output.
Windows shortcuts recommended include:
CTRL + N (Open new window)
CTRL + T (Open new tab)
Windows key + M (Hide window)
Gmail shortcuts recommended include:
CTRL + Shift + C (Add CC recipient)
CTRL + Shift + B (Add BCC recipient)
Twitter shortcuts recommended include:
G + L (Move directly to Twitter lists)
J/K (Cycle forward or backward through tweets)
Enter (Open tweet details)
| (Close open tweets)
Facebook shortcuts recommended include:
0 (Help page)
1 (Homepage)
2 (Timeline page)
3 (Friends page)
4 (Inbox)
5 (Notifications)
6 (Settings page)
7 (Activity Log page)
J/K (Scroll forwards or backward along posts)
L (Like or Unlike a post)
C (Comment creation)
S (Share post)
P (Create new post)
/ (Search)
YouTube shortcuts recommended include:
1 (Jump to the 10% mark of a video)
2-9 (Jump to the corresponding 20%-90% through a video)
Spacebar (Pause or Unpause the video)
Google+ shortcuts recommended include:
/ (Open search bar)
J/K (Scroll up or down in posts)
Left Arrow (Jump to the menu)
WordPress shortcuts recommended include:
<Command> + 2, 3, or 4 (Jump to corresponding heading)
Alt + Shift + A (Add link)
Alt + Shift + M (Insert image)
What’s In Store For The Future Of Keyboard Shortcuts?
More innovative developments are on the way in an attempt to further improve efficiencies, and you may be able to take advantage of them quite soon. One recent development by a team of researchers extends keyboard shortcuts with arm and wrist gestures so that users can work more quickly with rotations using sensors.
In another development, a research team developed ‘finger aware’ shortcuts, which senses hand posture while allowing secondary movements to trigger shortcuts as other tasks are performed. Actions potentially triggered with a user’s thumb are being coined ‘FingerArc’ functions, while the secondary key actions are being referred to as ‘FingerChord’ functions. Both of these may be considered useful, or even become commonplace in the near future.
What Should I Remember About Keyboard Shortcuts?
Keyboard shortcuts exist in great numbers.
They can be beneficial for better efficiency.
When used across a workplace, measurable productivity increases may be observed/experienced.
Additional, and potentially revolutionary, developments are underway.
by Felicien | Sep 12, 2018 | Education
What is Fluxion?
Fluxion is a new program that combines social engineering and technology to trick users into giving up their log-in and password information. This program is a step above Wifiphisher, which lacks the ability to verify WPA passwords. Fluxion takes all the work out of hacking using a variety of processes that quickly and easily convince users to provide their Wi-Fi password.
Hackers can acquire these passwords through a few simple taps on a keyboard. Fluxion is regarded as a success in making it easier than ever for cyber thieves to steal valuable information from users.
Fundamentally, or in terms of many aspects of its basic framework, it is similar to previous developments but uses a twin access point in combination with handshake capture and integrated jamming functions. These can work together so that aspects of hardware and software operations that normally take place in the standard functionality of the user account are overwhelmed.
What Recent Developments And Potentials Should I Be Concerned With?
The extent that Fluxion has developed in combination with its accessibility and ease of use online is the most concerning. A search of Google or other major internet search engines will reveal numerous instructional pages that can be downloaded. These instructions provide anyone with a little Internet skill to begin a new career as a cyber thief. These sites provide public access to a range of resources that make it possible for anyone to violate user privacy and accounts and steal login information.
The program initiated as an improvement over a successful attack and was rewritten, so both the structure and coding have been strategically optimized in addition to its user-friendliness and availability.
How Does Fluxion Work?
Fluxion uses what is known as a WPA handshake to affect the functionality of a login page as it attempts to gain receipt of user information. It can affect how the user’s entire script is controlled as the original network is jammed, and a clone is created with the same name, attempting to persuade the user into making an unsafe connection under the guise of a familiar one. It often requests that the user allow time for their router or firmware to reload or be updated. This is just a ploy; the real objective is to steal sensitive information.
Fluxion is an EvilAP attack tool, written with a combination of Bash and Python, that is used for MiTM attacks on WPA Wireless networks. Online sources report on Fluxion as a potentially beneficial tool while touting its features similar to how potential improvements in business functions could be experienced through software installation. Hack Insight claims that the use of Fluxion allows network scanning, handshake capture, web interface use, imitating original access points, the de-authentication of all users on a network, capturing and redirecting of all DNS requests, captive portal launching, password verification processes, and automatic program termination following the recording of a viable password. Technology and strategies applied include the launching of FakeAP instances for access point emulation, fake DNS server launching, and MDK3 process spawning.
What’s Been Happening In Research And Development?
Research and development (R&D) regarding Fluxion and related computer software security processes have involved multiple studies and patents in the past year. At the 12th International Conference on Recent Innovations in Science, Engineering, and Management, researchers reported having developed a highly successful cracking system by using Fluxion as their foundation. They explained that the damage that can be done with new hacking software using Fluxion demands better software processes in addition to network strategies in currently maintained and improving systems, particularly those that handle network connections and passwords.
At the 2017 IEEE International Conference on Power, Control, Signals and Instrumentation Engineering (ICPCSI), researchers reported that a number of new security patents have been involved in safeguarding against new hacking techniques that are relevant to the processes used by Fluxion. Fluxion was projected to remain a target of ethical hackers in ongoing research and development, and a foundation of the more damaging tools developed and made accessible online.
What’s The Bottom Line?
Accessibility and ease of use make Fluxion particularly dangerous
Combines multiple processes for high potential effectiveness
Foundation of new and more deadly cyber security attacks
Warrants multiple security upgrades and ongoing R&D
by Felicien | Sep 12, 2018 | Education
You may have an EHR system, decision support systems, purchasing, payroll, laboratory, pharmacy, personnel, finance, planning, and a myriad of other systems running on hardware that’s getting very long in the tooth.
Many PCs are still running some older version of Windows. These issues can be a constant source of security headaches for the IT staff of today’s healthcare organization. From causing security breaches to all-out system failures, this type of trouble can cost your health organization money. In addition, your staff will not have the modern tools they need to do their jobs.
The cloud vendors see your suffering, and, as they are kind, they offer to take this all off your hands and move all your IT operations to the cloud. “For how much?” you ask. “Between $35 and $165 per seat per month,” they reply. You are taken aback. $35 per seat per month is about what you’re paying for Microsoft Office Enterprise, which, you dimly recall, sort of runs in the cloud, or at least it can. What a deal! Where do you sign?
What Was That You Said About Cost Again?
The first thing you realize is that cost is the actual cost of cloud operations once the migration has been completed. Nothing was said (yet) about the cost of moving to the cloud. Digging deeper, you note that the amount charged will vary by processor load, storage used, and “egress” – the cost of moving your data out of the cloud vendor’s data centers down to your PCs, smartphones, and tablets. You quickly discover that if all you want to do is store your data, the cloud is an incredible bargain. If you want to use your data, on the other hand, then this is a whole different story.
There are two choices when it comes to the Cloud: the private and the public cloud. In addition, there are two big vendors: Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft’s Azure.
So many choices to make and it’s important to make the right ones in order to get exactly what your healthcare organization needs without paying too much.
If your hospital is located in a rural area with practices spread far and wide, then your healthcare facility will need many different services than if you are a single large hospital in a big city. Keeping all of this info on a yellow legal pad may not be ideal. With so many different choices to make, it can be beneficial to work with a trusted IT consultant instead.
There are so many decisions to make and it’s important to find the right IT provider who will oversee everything from start to finish. If you run a busy healthcare facility, you probably don’t have the time or the skills to do all this work yourself. Once you find the right IT service provider, work very closely with them to develop a migration plan, an infrastructure plan, a schedule for moving services, backup storage, and security services.
So, What Are The Real Cloud Advantages?
Moving your operations to the cloud has four substantial advantages:
You no longer have to worry about back-end hardware. All that goes away, except for the servers that interface with the cloud.
You no longer have to worry about capacity, in terms of processor load, memory, or storage. Whatever you need, the cloud provides.
Your security worries will be, not eliminated, but drastically reduced.
You will be able to reduce your in-house IT staff, possibly substantially.
These benefits are arguably worth a tidy sum to most healthcare organizations. AWS, Azure, and a private cloud can provide all of them. So how do you choose?
How Do I Choose The Vendor?
The first thing you need to realize is that you will need a redundant, “failover” site that automatically comes online if the cloud provider’s main site for your applications is down. This does happen – Amazon ran into this issue with its own site on Prime Day 2018.
The cost of this is not automatically included, and it can be substantial. The second thing is that private clouds, where the vendor can treat you as a sole client, are much more configurable than the public cloud (AWS or Azure), which has to be configured to support all comers. Of course, if the situation demands it, you can run part of your operations in a private cloud, and the rest in the public cloud; setting up communication between them is relatively easy.
Should I Wade In Or Jump In?
McKinsey, the renowned consulting firm, has studied both failed and successful cloud migrations and recommends a phased approach. Of course, no solution is one-size-fits-all, but there is a good deal of thought and expertise behind their recommendations. In other words, they say wade in, don’t jump in.
Wading rather than jumping allows you to:
Test the feasibility of cloud migrations
Orient your IT staff to cloud operations
Distribute costs over time
End the project gracefully if it is proving infeasible
Wading will also give you a much more realistic appreciation of the costs and the benefits that are involved.
So, What’s The Bottom Live?
Unless the IT gods are smiling at your organization, you will not be running all your IT operations in the cloud for the $35 you pay for Microsoft Office Enterprise. When site redundancy, egress costs, and processor surge demands are considered, your total costs per seat per month are likely to be higher than this.
When you consider that cost versus a realistic assessment of your current costs (including hardware, software, staff costs, network costs, electricity, cooling, backup, and security), moving to the cloud may still be a bargain. It totally depends on your organization’s needs and the way it handles data. With most healthcare organizations growing by leaps and bounds and considering the high demands that doctors and patients place on the healthcare system, there’s every reason to believe that you will eventually have to make the switch.
by Felicien | Sep 11, 2018 | Education
Vacation and time away from work is a necessity in order to be able to unplug and recharge. As research often tells us, disconnecting from work, talk around the water cooler, office politics, and even checking email can ultimately help us lead a more productive life.
Too often we feel the tension of knowing we need to take a break and fearing that our time away from work will just lead to more work when we get back. While many factors play into this tension, there are small ways we can alleviate the stress of the return to work after much needed time off.
One of the first steps to making our vacation time more productive is placing a fitting out of office (OOO) email that establishes well-defined boundaries for our time away from the workplace. So how do we write the perfect OOO message that doesn’t make us look like a “slacker,” or potentially lead to missed opportunities while we’re away from work?
Believe it or not, what we often perceive as something that can negatively affect the way we are seen or our business success — can frequently be used to our advantage. OOO messages that are written carefully and effectively can be an unbelievable implementation that leads us to a win. These little autoresponders built into our emails can give us the opportunity to make social contacts with teammates, customers, and retailers. Whether we are taking a vacation, spending time with family during a funeral, away at a conference, or celebrating the birth of a new baby, Out-of-Office messages can lead to greater success.
Making the Message Meaningful
Sharing a little information about your absence can be turned into a conversation starter the next time you communicate with the recipient of the OOO email. Let the individual reader know that you are just as human as everyone else. This will be a good reminder that you have quite a bit in common.
Begin by asking yourself a few important questions: Why am I taking time away from the office? Where are you going on vacation and why is your time away with friends and family significant? What is the purpose of the conference you are attending, and how will that help you attend to your client’s needs?
Applying OOO emails that have a personal touch can lead to better conversations at work and with your clients. Upon your return, they will be more likely to ask you about the conference you attended or the vacation destination. Perhaps they went to the same place on one of their vacations or they desire to go there someday. This connection may lead to a more meaningful relationship with others in your office.
Sharing a Valuable Resource
Sometimes you can share a resource that was beneficial to you either at work or personally. If you know your audience, what can you suggest to them that can be beneficial? Have you considered what could help the people who email you the most? It could be an online article you found to be helpful. Maybe you have the ability to offer a coupon or discount in your OOO email to clients while you are away. If you are attending a conference where there is a recognized presenter that could resonate with your email recipients, you could possibly include a link to his/her material.
Customizing Your Email Message
Some email providers allow you the option to draft messages to various groups. For example, Gmail gives you the ability to send autoresponders to those you have designated in your various address book groupings, while also sending it out to people you don’t have in your address book. This gives you the capability to be more flexible and personal with your various groups. So often, we tend to share more personal information with our colleagues at work versus our clients or customers.
Let’s look at some examples of OOO emails that can give you the ability to make an impact with the recipients of the email while you are away from work.
Effective Out-of-Office Email Samples
Hi, I’m celebrating the birth of my newborn girl, as well as taking some time to assist my wife during the new transition. Because of this momentous occasion, I will not be checking my email until [date]. If you need anything right away, please contact my office partner [email].
Hi! Thank you for reaching out to me. I trust you are having a wonderful summer. It’s time for my annual family vacation at The Cape. I look forward to answering your email when I return on [date]. While I’m away, let me share this valuable online discount with you. I hope you find it helpful.
An external email could say: Hi, I’m currently celebrating my much-anticipated marriage with my husband. I’ll be away from the office until [date]. Please don’t hesitate to touch base with [my assistant] if you need support while I’m away. I look forward to connecting with you when I return from my honeymoon.
An internal email might say: Robert and I are officially tying the knot on [date]. After the wedding, we will be heading to The Bahamas for the honeymoon until [date]. In my absence, please contact [colleague] for any assistance. Just in case you have never seen my handsome husband, I’ve attached our engagement picture of this email!
Conclusion
As you can see, you can be as personal as you like with these emails. They can share as much information as you’re comfortable with. The goal is to connect with readers and make them feel like part of the family. This will build relationships both in and out of the workplace.
by Felicien | Sep 11, 2018 | Education
What is CVE-2018-6177?
Today’s new releases of browser software are supposed to be improvements over past versions in terms of functionality, helpful features, security, and the speed of overall operation. However, these changes often involve new vulnerabilities which hackers can target and exploit. A recent release of Google Chrome is a good example. A vulnerability allowed hackers to access user information stored in major web platforms such as Facebook and Google. This vulnerability was identified as CVE-2018-6177. It was only recently addressed with the release of a patch known as Chrome 68.
How Have People Been Affected?
The Chrome vulnerability has caused people to hesitate about upgrading to the most current version of the browser. The previous release’s vulnerability has allowed hackers to have increased access to data stored on online databases, including Google and Facebook, leaving a full range of personal information exposed.
The vulnerability exploits a weakness in audio and video HTML tags used in the engine. It has been listed in the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures database, a dot.org website dedicated to such issues. The National Vulnerability Database (NVD), a US government establishment also dedicated to this cause notes an entry about these issues that is incomplete.
The most severe attacks that a user can experience include identity theft, resources theft, and system damage through the execution of arbitrary code. Users could also experience common side effects of hacker attacks, including being locked out of their accounts, or having to address unauthorized messages or postings. Users may also be redirected to sites that could involve phishing attempts or some other damaging hacking effort. Denial-of-service and authorized network accounts are also possible for organizations or individuals becoming victims to hackers exploiting the vulnerability.
The Center for Internet Security reported that the most recent release of the browser will show unsecure designations on websites using HTTP rather than HTTPS (standard hyper-text transfer protocol rather than secured protocol of this type). This may make users assume that state, local, tribal, or territorial (SLTT) government websites are not secure. While users are recommended to follow federal and developer organization guidelines for security, the risk of the vulnerability remaining in the software is classified as high for multiple user types. More specifically, the range of vulnerability levels for user types are reported as being:
‘High’ for large and medium government and business entities
‘Medium’ for small government and business entities
‘Low’ for home or individual users
The vulnerability is also referred to as a cross-origin information leak specific to the internal Blink Engine, or web browsing database used as a foundational operating platform for the browser. The Center for Internet Security recommends that users:
Apply the stable channel update available through Google
Run software as a non-privileged or non-administrative user (to minimize impacts of successful attacks)
Ensure non-trusted links are not browsed
Inform all users of the vulnerability and its demands
Apply a Principle of Least Privilege (maximizing security and minimizing accessibility amid organizational requirements) to all systems, users, and services
Reporting on potential instances of successful hacks through this vulnerability, The Hacker News described a scenario where a user with a Facebook account could potentially have their personal information accessed and misused.
A researcher with this source made several Facebook posts, using different combinations of audiences to categorize potential victim types by personal traits categorized by the service, and confirmed the nature of the vulnerability. When a website embeds multiple Facebook posts of this type on a webpage, it loads and displays only some of them, based on matching to individual profile information.
The vulnerability allows hackers to gain access to the personal information of visitors to such pages, and regardless of their privacy settings. The browser version does not have a direct way for administrators to determine if embedded posts were loaded for specific visitors, creating a security demand to check and address this.
Users can attempt to rely on Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS), a security feature within the browser that blocks websites from reading content from other sites without authorization. However, as the aforementioned audio and video HTML tags do not validate the types of content retrieved from other sources or block responses with invalid Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIMEs), hackers are able to use multiple hidden tags on websites to request Facebook post information.
While the approach does not generate Facebook posts, hackers can exploit the vulnerability while using JavaScript to gauge request numbers and read the sizes of cross-origin resources to determine which posts and information sets they can get from users. Since several scripts run simultaneously, hackers can effectively data mine once they are able to generate these responses.
Hackers can potentially design sites to return different response sizes dependent on the traits of the logged-in users, and then record information from all people observed through the connections.
The vulnerability is similar to another recent browser issue, a related difficulty involved in cross-origin requests that allowed hackers to read Gmail and Facebook messages. The previous issue was patched in June, and although the current issue was addressed in a patch included with Chrome 68, unpatched users remain vulnerable to the described exploitations.
What’s The Bottom Line?
Chrome releases have been subject to audio and video HTML tag vulnerabilities.
Facebook and Google messages, along with personal information are vulnerable.
Chrome 68 has addressed the issue; users are recommended to replace their older version with the patched version immediately.
