The shiny new phishing tactic on the block is malvertising, or the efforts of threat actors to mimic a legitimate company’s website, landing pages, URL, and more. Google Ads has recently come under fire for their handling of final destination URLs, and the relative...
Portland IT Support Articles & Business Tech News
Cybersecurity, M365, Managed IT Services, AI, & Technology Trends for Portland Businesses
Latest LastPass data breach exposes user passwords: here’s what to do
The password manager LastPass has suffered a major data breach. Or, more accurately, another major data breach. Using information gained during a security breach in August 2022, threat actors were able to get a full copy of the data LastPass stores on a cloud-based...
The 200 Most Popular Passwords of 2022: Tips for Strong Password Protection
The NordPass Research team has published a list of the 200 most popular passwords. If you use any of these most popular passwords... don’t worry, we have recommendations to create strong passwords in 2023. NordPass Research partnered with independent researchers who...
Microsoft patches a zero-day vulnerability from October
In an update released December 2022, Microsoft patched a zero-day vulnerability that was exploited. A zero-day vulnerability refers to potential weak points in an update that could be exploited the day it is released. The fear is that someone could learn to exploit...
Tech trends forecast for 2023
Remote flexibility According to a 2022 LinkedIn report, remote positions drew nearly half of all applicants. The amount of people applying to remote or flexible positions has risen nominally from 2021 to 2022, while the amount of remote jobs available has...
Emerging phishing tactics that bypass Multi-factor authentication
If you haven’t adopted multi-factor authentication (MFA) yet, what the heck are you waiting for? MFA curtails most malicious phishing attacks, as even if an attacker has access to your login credentials, they would not be able to access the MFA code, which changes...
Phishing Education: two case studies and tips
Continuous phishing education is important to anyone who uses the Internet. So, pretty much everyone. A "successful" phishing campaign can lead to the loss of sensitive data, personal information distributed, or extortion. People know not to click on spam messages, or...
Year-end checklist for small businesses
Be aware and be prepared! Whether you’re beginning to start a small business, or you are a fellow small business owner looking for guidance, please enjoy our checklist to help you through some year-end planning. IT Checklist Backup dataThe best way to ensure your...
SpireTech exiting hosting business to focus on Managed IT Services
Celebrating our 29th year in business, SpireTech has been making some moves. We are exiting our long-established hosting and datacenter businesses to focus exclusively on Managed Services and Microsoft 365 moving forward. Effective October 4,...
TikTok Hack Breaks Accounts
There was an exploitation available in the Android version of TikTok that would have allowed hackers to effectively take and shut down a user’s account with one click. This bug was present in just the Android version of the app. Luckily, the issue was found and...
Goodbye Basic Authentication, Hello Modern Authentication
Beginning on October 1, 2022, Microsoft is disabling the ability to connect to Microsoft services using legacy authentication protocols. Users are moving to modern authentication whether they want it or not. It is also up to the user to make the switch, and after...
If you use Windows 11, you may be at risk for data loss
Users of Windows 11 or Windows Server 2022 with recent CPUs are at risk for data loss. Luckily, few users will be affected. The people who do need to worry are the ones who encrypt data regularly. To be at risk, users needed to have had one of the following hardware...
End-of-life for Sophos XG Firewall
If you depend on Sophos for your firewall, beware of the end-of-life date on August 17, 2022. On that day, Sophos firewall series XG 85, XG 105 and Sophos Firewall OS v17.5 reaches its end-of-life and will stop receiving security updates. If you are using these models...
Do Not Open: Phish Inside
There’s been a large increase in SMS-phishing (or short message service) in the past few years. If you receive a suspicious text, especially one with a link, do not open it. If you do get hacked, report it to your local law enforcement and inform your wireless...
Windows Server 2012 ends its ten-year reign
Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2 will soon be ending its ten years of service. Its End-of-Life date is October 10, 2023. Why does this matter now? If you use Windows Server for your business, upgrading to a newer version of Windows Server, like Windows...
Welcome Sarah, Your New Best Friend
Highlight on our new team member Sarah, who will be interacting with many of our clients!
