by Felicien | Jan 10, 2018 | Education
LinkedIn’s InMail can be a powerful communication tool once you’ve figured out to craft messages people will actually want to respond to.
Anyone who has had a completed LinkedIn profile for any length of time will have at least a passing familiarity with InMail, the social platform’s messaging feature. InMail has the potential to be a very powerful networking and marketing tool, but like any other messaging system, how useful it is to your business will depend on how well you’re able to leverage it.
The volume of InMail messages being sent out has been on the rise in recent years as more and more business professionals recognize the value this tool offers. That being said, with more messages making the rounds, it’s getting trickier to get your messages to stand out and get the response you need from them.
After taking a look at what works and what doesn’t, we’ve come up with 5 tips to help your InMail messages grab attention and get you results.
Make It Personal, And Make A Connection
Chances are you’re not just blindly sending InMail messages out to random recipients. You’ve got a target demographic in mind or a specific mailing list comprised of businesses or individuals you want to interact with, so put forth the effort to make those recipients feel like they’re important to you. A well-crafted email template can go a long way, but it’s personalization that will get you real results. Personalized InMail messages can boost response rates by as much as 15%, and for very minimal effort.
Create a loose email framework that touches on all of your talking points and gets your message across, but before you hit ‘send,’ tweak each InMail message to target that specific recipient. Make a personal connection by referencing commonalities between your business and theirs, a shared educational background, or even a preferred philanthropic activity. This level of personalization can increase response rates even further by sparking an interest not just in your message, but in your business and you as a person.
Using language like “connect,” “chat,” “talk,” and “call” also boosts response rates by cutting down on some of the informality of these types of messages. Open-ended invitations to start a conversation without any pressure are typically much more well-received than aggressive messages that suggest specific times and dates for a follow up of some sort.
Keep Your Messages Short And Sweet
The best way to make a fellow business professional like you right off the bat is to show respect for their time. Long-winded emails packed full of details and specifics aren’t easy reads. At best, the recipient will skim through your message and likely miss the point you were hoping to make. At worst, they’ll see a wall of text and simply hit ‘delete.’ Keep subject lines short, and make sure the body of your InMail messages are between 200 and 500 characters.
Timing Is Not, In Fact, Everything
A lot of professionals put considerable thought into when “peak times” for sending out correspondence happen to be. The idea is that they want to avoid their message getting lost in Monday’s catching-up-from-the-weekend rush, or being ignored because it’s Friday and everyone has already started to mentally check-out. The fact of the matter is, it doesn’t matter when your InMail message hits their inbox. Most people answer emails and messages when they have the time to do so. They’ll get to it when they get to it, regardless of when you sent it.
Show Them You Did Your Homework
If nothing else, your InMail messages should refer to details found in the recipient’s LinkedIn profile. Showing them you took the time to review their profile is a great way to demonstrate that you’re genuinely interested in them, and in their business. Since their profile is right there for you to read, it’s only common courtesy that you do so. Having that information also makes it easier to personalize your messages by engaging with them regarding their interests and values.
Focus On Contacting People You Already Know Want To Hear From You
A quick scan of a person’s LinkedIn profile will tell you what type of business they run, the field they operate in, the path their business has taken to get to where it is today, and the goals and ambitions they have for their business’ future. That information can help you gauge whether or not they would be interested in what your business has to offer, either from a services or networking standpoint.
It should come as no surprise that by targeting individuals you know would want to connect with you can increase your response rates dramatically. You don’t appreciate it when someone wastes your time, so make an effort not to waste someone else’s.
by Felicien | Jan 10, 2018 | Education
Microsoft has identified a compatibility issue with a small number of their antivirus software products. The compatibility issue arises when antivirus applications make unsupported calls into Windows kernel memory. These calls may cause stop errors (also known as blue screen errors) that prevent a device from booting.
Microsoft released an out-of-band update for Windows-supported machines on the 3rd of January 2018. Microsoft is still working on finalising all the details of the fix and is working with antivirus vendors to ensure systems are properly protected.
We are aware of the potential issue with the new release from Microsoft. For those customers who are on a support agreement, we’ve been pushing this out to devices ever since its release.
Managed Antivirus Solutions
For those who are on a Managed Antivirus Solution, Symantec has rolled out an update for the Microsoft changes and will continue to refine this in the coming weeks.
This vulnerability* also effects Macs, iPhones, and Apple TVs. Apple is recommending that the following updates be installed to protect these devices:
Mobile Devices: iOS 11.2
Macs: macOS 10.13.2
Apple TV: tvOS 11.2
There are currently no known exploits for these vulnerabilities, and we are working to ensure all systems are protected before there are any.
Meltdown and Spectre
Meltdown and Spectre exploit critical vulnerabilities in modern processors and have the potential to leak your passwords and sensitive data. These hardware vulnerabilities allow programs to steal data that are being processed on the computer. While programs typically can’t read data from other programs, a malicious program can exploit Meltdown and Spectre to get hold of secrets stored in the memory of other running programs. This includes your passwords stored in a password manager or browser, your personal photos, emails, instant messages and even business-critical documents.
Meltdown and Spectre work on computers, mobile devices, and in the cloud. Depending on the cloud provider’s infrastructure, it might be possible to steal data from other customers as well.
The team at Steadfast Solutions works hard to be one step ahead when instances like this occur to ensure the safeguarding of your systems. If you have any questions you can contact us by phone at {phone} or by email at {email}.
by Felicien | Jan 10, 2018 | Education
Information Technology is a critical and often confusing part of your business operations – which is why great IT support makes all the difference.
As technology becomes more and more integral to the way businesses do business, making sure you have the right technology in place becomes more and more important. When you count on technology for everything that you do, you quickly find yourself with a complex infrastructure that can be tricky to manage successfully. Not only do you need to be sure you have the right technology solutions in place to suit the specific needs of your unique business, but you need to be able to keep that technology running smoothly around the clock.
That need to manage and maintain increasingly complicate Information Technology is the reason why businesses of all sizes are turning to outsourced IT support from a Managed Services Provider.
Managed Services Providers (MSPs) act as your business’ complete IT department, handling your entire IT infrastructure from top to bottom. Their team of highly trained and certified professionals is there to help by taking over day to day IT responsibilities from your staff, or stepping in to support your in-house IT personnel by adding specialized expertise to your existing setup.
The goal of managed IT services is to take the stress out of your business technology. You’ll always have someone to turn to with your IT questions, and a team of technicians will be there to fix any issues that crop up and actively work to keep disruptions and downtime to a minimum. Most importantly, unlike working with a break/fix IT contractor, you’ll be working with the same people each and every time you need assistance. An MSP takes the time to get to know your business and your staff, offering guidance and support we know will help you based on what your specific business needs.
An MSP gives you all the advantages of a fully-staffed in-house IT department at a fraction of the cost, with a range of services available for a low, predictable monthly fee. Not only do manage IT services take the guesswork out of your technology, but they also take the guesswork out of budgeting for your technology.
To learn more about what managed IT services from {company} have to offer your business, get in touch with us at {email} or {phone} today, or check out our {website} for more information.
by Felicien | Jan 10, 2018 | Education
Since the implementation of HIPAA in 1996, several revisions were made to it including the ARRA/HITECH Act in 2009 and the Omnibus Rule in 2013. But one thing that remains consistent is the overall lack of understanding of this Act.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act is so complex that most organizations hire specialists to handle all their compliance needs. This is somewhat odd because the original intent of HIPAA was to improve the healthcare industry by simplifying administrative procedures, reducing costs and upgrading the level of patient privacy and security throughout the healthcare industry. HIPAA seems to have accomplished just the opposite on all fronts.
How Windows 10 HIPAA Traceability Section Enterprise Can Help
In an effort to address this, Microsoft Windows 10 Enterprise has included support and guidance that streamlines some HIPAA compliance issues. The operating system provides greater security and comprehensive architectural advancements designed to thwart hacking and malware threats.
As the world moves into an age where security problems are a growing concern, Microsoft has proven that it’s a global leader in operating system designs for computers, smartphones, iPads and other devices. With Windows 10 Enterprise comes a new need to understand how the operating system can address and deal with HIPAA’s complicated issues.
Many users believe that Windows 10 will expose an organization to HIPAA violations because it utilizes the Cloud to send and receive information. The Cloud is now part of the default operation for many pieces of software. Though there are risks, experts believe that users will accept them because of the convenience of cloud storage. As the use of the Cloud grows, there’s an expectation that greater security will be a primary goal for developers.
Microsoft’s programmers have ensured everyone that Windows 10 Enterprise can be easily configured to support the privacy and security requirements of HIPAA. This can prevent organizations from incurring the hefty financial penalties associated with failure to implement and use HIPAA correctly.
Within most organizations, CIO and IT professionals are often deputized and given the responsibility to ensure compliance with HIPAA standards. For them to do their jobs properly, there’s a great need to fully comprehend the issues of privacy and security surrounding the Protected Health Information (PHI) of patients within their network.
Privacy Issues
The HIPAA Privacy Rules were developed to protect patient data. Healthcare professionals should become familiar with the two sides of HIPAA regulations. The first deals with the privacy of patients. HIPAA maintains strict rules for protecting the health information of an individual. PHI refers to demographic information, medical history, test and laboratory results, insurance information and other data that a healthcare professional needs to identify an individual and determine appropriate care. It also includes key identifiers such as phone numbers, patient ID numbers, social security numbers, insurance ID numbers, electronic mail addresses and even some vehicle ID numbers. In fact, there are 18 different types of information that might reveal the identity of a patient. These must all be protected from intruders.
Security Issues
With so many hacking and cyber-theft events occurring each year, it has become even more challenging to protect the personal health information of every individual.
HIPAA Security rules cover five categories:
Administrative safeguards
Physical safeguards
Technical safeguards
Organizational requirements
Documentation requirements (procedures and policies)
The only exception to these rules is in cases where an implementation specification is deemed “not reasonable and appropriate.” In this case, it’s necessary to produce evidence that a ‘good faith’ effort was made to implement an alternative security measure to protect the patient’s information. This results in two categories of implementation specifications:
Required-These must be applied by each covered entity.
Addressable-Used in cases where a covered entity either makes a good faith effort to implement security or has documentation that justifies the decision not to do so.
In this day and age, the process is complicated by the fact that personal data can be stored in a number of different devices. You may have electronic protected health information (ePHI) stored in your email server, voice mail, fax machine, computer, cell phones, tablets, medical devices and other places. Of course, many of these areas are not within the organization’s scope or purview and therefore are excluded. In any area that is considered within the purview of the organization, there are serious financial penalties for breaches. The fines range from $100 to $1.5 million.
Upgrading to Windows 10
With the new and more comprehensive updates to Windows 10 Enterprise, numerous companies and government organizations are upgrading their operating system. To date, businesses in every industry have made these upgrades hoping to improve their security. This list includes the Department of Defense and the Pentagon. Most CIOs and IT professionals of health organizations consider Windows 10 a more dependable operating system and have either already installed it, or will in the near future. However, they face multiple challenges:
Cyber-attacks, data leaks, and evolving security threats
Greater user mobility and collaboration
Strict HIPAA compliance regulations and greater scrutiny
Apps that collaborate with other programs
Legal implications including lawsuits
Eroding patient trust
Increasing costs to maintain health records
Out-of-date software programs
Many others
What is an Acceptable Risk?
Today, one the major components of HIPAA compliance is to demonstrate an acceptable level of appropriate IT-related security measures. These must include known and unknown risks. For instance, while it’s obvious that a company might experience a cyber attack, the CIO should also take into consideration other methods of data leaks. Some of these include the carelessness of employees, fraud committed against the organization and the break down of equipment and computers.
Millions of patient records are stored in thousands of computers across the U.S. With so much data at risk, HIPAA’s proactive approach seeks to ensure our privacy. However, the threat of exposure escalates with each new cyber attack. Citizens are becoming accustomed to having information at their fingertips, but any time one medical practice shares patient information with another, a new risk is born.
Extending Protection to all Business Associates
Another huge area of concern are the companies that a medical practice might do business with. These include laboratories, accountants, hospitals, sub-contractors and even the company that delivers water. Any exchange of a patient’s health information must be dealt with appropriately. HIPAA requires all healthcare providers, hospitals, and organizations to take these five steps to ensure the confidentiality of healthcare records:
1. Review system activity records on a regular basis, including reports and audit logs.
2. Ensure the confidentiality of all electronic health information, whether sending, receiving or maintaining these records.
3. Monitor login attempts and report discrepancies.
4. Identify and respond to data breaches, and notify the appropriate parties.
5. Protect all exchanges of healthcare information between entities.
Who is Responsible for HIPAA Compliance?
Under HIPAA’s and ARRA’s Omnibus rule, any organization that deals with patient information must comply with these regulations. This includes anyone who retains, accesses, stores, modifies or destroys protected healthcare information. In order to fully comply, it’s necessary to create a solid audit trail of any disclosures, whether past, present or future. An organization must be diligent to protect any information that might identify the patient.
Although the HIPAA Privacy rule deals more with any type of protected health information, the HIPAA Security Rule focuses more on the electronic side of things. The Microsoft Privacy Statement uses flexible language when talking about how personal data is collected, shared and used. Experts say that the default configuration of Windows 10 may violate some HIPAA requirements. However, when IT managers understand what’s required by law, they can install Windows 10 Enterprise so it doesn’t compromise sensitive information.
Updates to Windows 10 Enterprise
The Fall Creators Update to Windows 10 Enterprise offers a higher level of protection against today’s most prevalent security issues. It was developed to help healthcare organizations better manage the ongoing threats that compromise our privacy. It was also aimed at helping healthcare organizations perform their due diligence under HIPAA regulations. With the continuing threats of cyber attacks, most healthcare organizations need an operating system with built-in compliance features, and Windows 10 delivers this.
The Windows Restricted Traffic Limited Functionality Baseline allows you to configure your settings for all the devices in your organization. Though some of these may slow down the functionality of operations, these can easily be bypassed. Your CIO or IT director can choose the right combination of settings for your operating environment for the fastest operations and best security. Although Windows 10 Enterprise does have some drawbacks, it is now considered a solid foundation that any healthcare organization can use to protect sensitive data and fulfill the requirements of HIPAA.
There is a wide range of administrative and technical safeguards built into Windows 10 Enterprise. Its refined architecture was designed to make the job of compliance a bit easier. The operating software takes a fresh approach to this task by creating hardware-based virtualization that segregates high-value functions. This approach has proven to reduce attack surfaces by protecting things like credential management from hackers.
In addition, controls were added that provide better tools to detect and reduce data breaches. As the world moves forward, many software developers will follow Microsoft’s lead and begin to build programs that give us a higher level of protection from hacking and cyber invasion. Today’s experts believe that the future of software development will be to identify and solve risks in advance so that all of our data—not just healthcare—is afforded the strongest level of protection.
Newest Features of Windows 10 Enterprise
Although some of these are not new at all, most of them were fine-tuned to prevent hacking. These connected features include:
3rd Party Advertisers-As in the past, 3rd party advertisers want to gather as much information about users as possible in order to create targeted ad campaigns. You can turn this feature off, but you’ll still receive ads. They simply will not be customized specifically for the user.
Cortana-a feature that allows you to interact with the computer using speech.
BitLocker- This full disk encryption feature is designed to protect data using encryption algorithms for entire volumes. For PC’s connected to an Active Directory domain, Windows 10 automatically backs up the recovery key on a personal OneDrive account. For those not connected, the BitLocker is stored within the directory.
Settings Sync- This feature allows you to sync all your settings across multiple devices. This includes passwords, so it should be used with caution in the healthcare industry.
Microsoft’s “zero-exhaust” initiative works to ensure that no data is inadvertently communicated across the Internet. By correctly configuring Windows 10, an organization can greatly reduce its risk of violating HIPAA regulations.
Microsoft’s Restricted Traffic Limited Functionality is a baseline that was developed to restrict connection between Microsoft and Windows 10. These baselines can be used to configure the operating system to a known secure state.
Windows 10 and The Cloud
The HIPAA Traceability Section seeks to ensure that cloud communications are maximized while preventing data leaks. Any computing environment that stores ePHI must be managed so that it doesn’t inadvertently expose sensitive information to cloud-based programs. When configuring Windows 10 Enterprise, it’s important to consider the recommended privacy and security strategies. This can help organizations avoid hefty fines. The software can be set up where accidental data leakage is greatly curtailed.
All IT decision makers within the healthcare industry can review the changes and upgrades to Windows 10 Enterprise and decide for themselves which features will best accomplish their goals. The software is only available through a volume licensing agreement. Once this is in effect, you can go to the: Volume Licensing Service Center to download 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 10 Enterprise. If you don’t have a volume license, you should contact a Microsoft reseller.
by Felicien | Jan 10, 2018 | Education
The Slack messaging tool suffered a major outage today that left users unable to connect to the service. In a post on its systems status page, Slack reported that their customers were experiencing connectivity issues as a result of the outage:
“A majority of customers are unable to connect to Slack. We’re aware of the issue and are working to resolve it as quickly as possible…We’ve isolated the problem and are working on bringing the service back online for all users. More details to come as they become available.”
Later this afternoon they reported that most customers should be reconnected. They didn’t reveal the cause of the connectivity issues, but they were able to restore the service 45 minutes after noting the outage.
Users went on Twitter to discuss what some jokingly referred to as “The Great Slack Outage of 2018.”
How Slack Works
Slack is a cloud-based messaging application designed for business teams that need to collaborate. Slack helps users see what’s going on in the entire organization. It’s an internal messaging platform designed to make work simpler and more productive. Users can stay in constant contact with others at all hours.
Slack teams work together in channels that can be organized by project, department, office location, and more. It builds a searchable archive of a team’s conversations, decisions, and work; and over time becomes more useful due to its machine-learning capabilities. It integrates with nearly every enterprise and productivity application available today.
Everything shared in Slack is automatically indexed and archived so a business can create a comprehensive knowledge base with zero effort, simply by working in Slack. And, Slack’s search makes it easy find the information business users need. It centralizes notifications, files, and data from hundreds of different applications. What this means is that there’s no need to search through emails for information or use dozens of tools each with their own login. Slack provides all of the information and context needed to make effective decisions quickly.
Slack team administrators allow communities, groups, or people to join their team through a specific URL or by invitation. Slack was originally used for organizational communication, but it has been now turned into a community platform replacing message boards and social media such as Facebook or LinkedIn groups. These communities are categorized by topics that a group of people is interested in.
With Slack, team members can communicate without using email or group SMS (texting). Teams are open to anyone invited to join by the administrator. Private channels allow for conversations between smaller parts of the overall group so admins can break up large teams into smaller projects.
Direct messaging allows users to send private messages to a specific user rather than a group of people. Direct messages can include up to nine people (the admin and eight more). A direct message group can also be converted to a private channel.
Slack advertises itself as free for an unlimited number of users, but it was reported that the limit is actually 8,462 users per channel. However, users can upgrade to different paid versions to gain access to larger channels and additional features.
Slack provides mobile apps for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone (beta), along with their web-browser client and native desktop clients for macOS, Windows, and Linux (beta). Apple Watch users can also use Slack to send direct messages, see comments, and make simple replies.
Slack Technologies
Launched in 2013, Slack is considered one of the fastest-growing business applications in history with 9 million active users, and 50,000 companies including a range of government agencies and private companies that pay to use its service. Its home office is located in San Francisco, but they have offices around the world.
The company originally raised nearly $43 million in April 2014, in October 2014 they raised another $120 million, and in March 2015 another $160 million. At that point, they were valued at $2.76 billion. Since then they’ve raised another $360 million. Amazon was interested in acquiring the parent company in 2017. It’s now valued at around $9 billion.
The Financial Times reported in March 2015 that Slack was the first business technology to have crossed from business into personal use since Microsoft Office and the BlackBerry. Slack was recognized as the best startup of the year at the 10th Crunchies Awards, organized by TechCrunch.
Slack Has Had Problems Before.
Slack announced that it had been hacked over the course of four days in February 2015 and that some of their users’ data were compromised. This information included email addresses, usernames, hashed passwords, and, in some cases, phone numbers and Skype IDs. Afterwards, Slack added two-factor authentication to their service.
During the outage today, “Slack” was the #1 trending topic on Twitter. Users joked about how the outage may force them to actually talk face-to-face with their co-workers. Another example of how technology is changing our culture today
by Felicien | Jan 9, 2018 | Education
The most talked about hardware issue in the news right now is the “Meltdown” (CVE-2017-5754) and “Spectre” (CVE-2017-5753 and CVE-2017-5715) exploits. Nearly all the computers around the world are affected by one or both bugs. All the big-name software and hardware vendors such as Microsoft, Apple, and Google have been hard at work crafting a fix for this potentially damaging issue. Some patches are available while others are on the way.
Meltdown allows malicious programs to gain access to higher-privileged parts of a computer’s memory. Spectre steals data from the memory of other applications running on a machine. Meltdown is said to be limited to Intel, but Spectre has been exploited on ARM and AMD as well.
While programs typically aren’t permitted to read data from other programs, malicious programs could exploit Meltdown and Spectre to get hold of secrets stored in the memory of other running programs, which include your passwords stored in a password manager or your browser, personal photos, emails, instant messages and even business-critical documents.
Meltdown breaks down the most basic of walls between user apps and the operating system. It allows a program to access the memory of other programs and take its secrets. Spectre breaks the isolation between apps, allowing hackers to unexploited apps into leaking information.
What Happens to Your Data
When modern Intel processors execute code, the code reaches a pre-programmed point in the algorithm. Instructions branch out into two different directions, saving time by “speculatively” venturing down these forks. So, in other words, they take a guess and execute instructions to get a head start. If the processor learns that it went down the wrong path, it jumps back to the fork in the road and throws out the speculative work.
A hacker could trick a processor into letting their unprivileged code sneak into the kernel’s memory by using speculative execution. When the processor throws out the temporary data, it jumps back to the fork. Making data retrieval difficult. It does temporarily store this information in the computer’s cache. With some clever code and patience, a hacker could easily find and steal the data in the cache, giving them access to personal information, passwords, and more.
While Meltdown and Spectre require access to your system, hackers have various ways to gain access. Already hackers are using phishing emails to trick users into giving them access. They send out an email claiming to contain a patch for Meltdown or Spectre. Instead, the email installs malware on your system. This malware gives the hacker access to your system, allowing them to exploit the bugs and take the unprotected data.
Now What?
As an MSP or IT Services firm, how do you handle the inevitable influx of customers calling with concerns that their systems may be vulnerable? Techies like us understand how this works and how to avoid falling prey to a scammer looking to exploit this vulnerability. But what about the average business owner? Some things to keep in mind are:
First, vendors like Microsoft and Google are already rolling out patches for these exploits. Some antivirus software isn’t compatible with the new patch and could become an issue for some. Also, remember that antivirus doesn’t protect against this vulnerability.
Second, customers may notice that some services are running slower than usual. It may not be the sign of a bigger problem. It could be a side effect of the provider is taking steps to fix the problem. There have already been reports that cloud services may experience some slowdown to mitigate the issue. While it’s still too early to know exactly how significant the slowdown will be, some researchers are saying it could be as high as 30%.
Third, be wary of social engineering scams like phishing emails. Hackers are all too eager to take advantage of problems like this, and unfortunately, some people are so eager to fix the problem that they might not realize that the “patch” they just clicked on is now allowing a hacker to steal all their data.
Fourth, Spectre has been identified to affect ARM, AMD, and Apple chips, found inside the set-it-and-forget-it Internet of Things devices like iPads and smartphones, and where the Spectre issue might linger the longest.
Fifth, the information we have points to a human problem. Last summer the bugs came to light, but the news was broken suddenly this month when Google determined that someone may have been leaking the information. Which happened before patches were ready, so now manufacturers are scrambling to get the fix out.
Because the affected system needs malware running to use the exploit, there is still time to retrain customers on proper cybersecurity and training on how to spot phishing scams. This issue of Meltdown and Spectre potentially will be around for a while.
