Microsoft Goes Toe-to-Toe with Ransomware in New Office 365 Updates

Ransomware and cybercrime continue to be in the news cycle, claiming more victims every day. Microsoft has developed a new level of protection for Office 365 home and personal users with an update that can detect ransomware and help restore files from OneDrive.

“If an attack is detected, (users) will be alerted through an email, mobile, or desktop notification and guided through a recovery process where you’ll find the date and time of attack preselected in Files Restore, making the process simple and easy to use,” said Kirk Koenigsbauer, corporate vice president of Microsoft Office. “As these threats evolve, we are continuously improving detection capabilities to help keep you safe from the most advanced ransomware.”

Later in 2018, Microsoft is planning to add a security-enhancing link-checking feature to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. When users click on embedded links to websites that serve up malware or are associated with phishing scams, the apps will point users to a warning screen that alerts them to the threat and urges them to turn back.

Yeo & Yeo Technology is a proud Microsoft Partner. If you have questions about Microsoft Office 365, contact us today.

As a business professional who works in an environment that relies heavily on IT, you are undoubtedly aware of downtime. All of a sudden, something on your PC stops functioning, and the waiting begins. You call on your internal technicians to get your system up and running, and you’re back to work. However, have you thought about how much that downtime is truly costing your business?

According to StorageCraft, businesses with a weak disaster recovery plan experience 29 hours of downtime annually, as compared to those with a solid plan, at 1.2 hours of downtime. Also, according to the 2017 Veeam Availability Report, while downtime costs vary, the average annual cost of downtime for enterprise companies is $21.8 million, up from $16 million in 2016.

To limit downtime, it is important to know what causes it. Unstable networks, cyberattacks, natural disasters and employee mistakes can take your system offline. No matter the reason, downtime disrupts operations and reduces profit. Your should work to increase productivity, not work against it.

Downtime cannot be totally eliminated, but with the right Managed Service Provider (MSP) and a sound managed services plan, it can be limited.

Following are some services you should look for from an MSP to ensure your is up and running efficiently:

24/7 monitoring and support of your network
Data backup and disaster recovery
Access to certified professionals
Access to the latest hardware and software updates
Cost-effective monthly fees

When it comes to avoiding downtime, nothing is more effective than ensuring your IT infrastructure is secure and managed correctly. When your organization’s is maintained and controlled, you can serve your clients better.

Learn more about YYTECH’s Services.

Yeo & Yeo Technology will join Yeo & Yeo CPAs & Business Consultants at the Michigan Manufacturers Association’s (MMA) MFG Forum on Wednesday, May 9, at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi.

1. Collaboration can inspire you.

It is easy to get into a routine during the day-to-day operations of your business and forget that there may be a better way to do something, different techniques to try, and new tools that can save you time and money.

While you can read blogs, magazines, and books for inspiration, if you are not communicating, sharing, and discussing that information, the benefits are limited. It is vital to get outside of your own head in order to get a fresh perspective, trigger your creativity, review incoming information objectively, and add new contexts to the data you are gathering so you can use it effectively. Going beyond what you do and see each day to explore collaboration can be inspiring and help you think in a new way.

2. Collaboration helps you grow your network.

Successful entrepreneurs have a common interest in meeting new people and building a list of contacts and colleagues.

Being successful in business requires that you consistently make connections and form alliances. Imagine how your business would dwindle if you continued to network with and sell to the same group over and over again.

While every contact you make may not result in collaboration, every time you reach out to someone to explore the possibility, you are expanding your network.

3. Collaboration is educational.

One of the biggest benefits of collaboration is the opportunity for learning. In fact, every interaction you have with someone outside of your immediate circle can teach you something valuable. Some of the most successful collaborations involve two professionals who bring two very different skill sets, perspectives, and strengths to the table. When this happens, you are certain to be surrounded by learning opportunities.

4. Collaboration can help you save money.

Many collaborative relationships involve splitting intellectual contribution, hands-on work and, sometimes, expenses. If you collaborate with another business and part of the terms involve sharing development and marketing expenses, you can double your budget while reducing costs.

In this case, you can be fairly certain you will be getting a bigger bang for your buck than you would be if using only your own resources, provided all of the parties involved are equally invested in the success of the collaboration.

5. Collaboration solves problems.

There is a reason why crowdsourcing is so popular; there is an undeniable power in numbers. If one person can’t accomplish something on his or her own, two or three or more people may be able to get it done.

Think about the last difficult problem you faced in your business. When we get stumped, most of us immediately go to a partner, mentor, or other trusted resource who acts as a sounding board and helps us work through the problem. The harder the problem is to solve, the more we can benefit from getting the input of someone outside of the situation. And when you add new viewpoints and experiences to the mix, the end result will often transcend what you originally set out to accomplish.

The good news is that small business collaboration doesn’t necessarily require a significant time or financial investment. Contact us

Article provided by ContentMX.

Microsoft has announced that it’s newest version of Office, Microsoft Office 2019, will only be supported on Windows 10. Expected to ship in the second half of 2018, Office 2019 will introduce a number of new features such as improved inking; data analysis, new formulas and charts for Excel; and visual-animation such as PowerPoint Morph and Zoom.

Office 2019 is expected to have a shorter support cycle than its previous versions; Five years of mainstream support followed by only two years of extended support.

Yeo & Yeo Technology will continue to release information about Office 2019 and its launch date approaches.

Yeo & Yeo Technology’s Business Applications Group specializes in working with clients to get more from their business software through custom programming and reporting solutions. Many of these clients look to information to improve their daily processes and resources, making them more competitive in their industry.

Recently, a manufacturing client of YYTECH identified a need to improve how they create and track their customer quotes. They were using a Microsoft Excel based system to produce their quotes and found their salespeople were often missing crucial options, resulting in pricing issues. In addition to not pricing their jobs correctly, there were no analysis reports on quote wins or losses and their quotes overall were not very uniform in their appearance.

The Business Applications Group created a custom program that allowed them to enter, track, and print their customer quotes. The program incorporated their business rules so their quotes were uniform and required certain fields to be filled in before completing the process. This immediately increased the accuracy of their quotes and allowed them to archive their quotes for easy retrieval and analysis.

This is one example of how the Business Applications Group’s custom programming and reporting solutions work with businesses to streamline operations and improve the accuracy of their information systems.

Business Applications Group Services

One of the fundamental foundations of a healthy lifestyle is the food pyramid. We’ve all seen the food pyramid, how food groups are divided and how it’s changed over the years as we have learned more about what’s best for our bodies. The vital parts of managed services can be divided the same way and are constantly evolving.

We decided to build our own pyramid, featuring all of the qualities for a healthy network. These services are in place to help you reach your IT goals and make your network the best it needs to be. Let’s take a closer look at what managed services are needed to keep your network in tip-top-shape.

One of the questions we get asked frequently is, “why should I outsource my IT?” The simplest answer is, cost savings. But saving money is only one of many benefits for switching to managed services.

At YYTECH, we call our managed services offerings YeoCare Managed Services. YeoCare was designed to keep networks healthy and help detect failures before they happen. YeoCare allows users to have important resources and knowledge right at their fingertips.

Managed Services diet plan

Ingredients

Access to 24/7 Support
Onsite Consultation and Analysis
Remote Connectivity
Yeo Helpdesk Assistance
Warranty Repair and Facilitation
IT Procurement Assistance
Weekly Hard Drive Defragmentation
Weekly Deletion of Windows and IE Temp Files
Monitoring of Servers
Monitoring of Workstations
Monitoring of Backups
Monitoring of Network including Switches, Router and Firewall
Monitoring of Messaging Services including Email and Spam
Microsoft Software Patching and Updates
Antivirus Software Patching and Updates
Network Device Patching and Software Updates
Third Party Application Patching

Health Benefits

Cost Savings

When it comes to saving money, businesses need to balance efficient spending and quality service. IT managed services allow a number of different forms of cost savings for clients. The first being controlled overall IT costs. Setting fixed costs allows businesses to set an effective yearly budget and stick to it. Secondly, IT providers, such as YYTECH, have certified employees on staff to assist with any IT related issues that businesses may come across. By eliminating the hiring and training of internal employees, labor costs are reduced.

Experience and qualifications

When dealing with a managed service provider, a business is taking a strength in numbers approach. Having an internal IT person or staff is great, but outsourcing some or all of IT opens businesses up to a fleet of experience and certifications. Typically managed service providers have a number of employees who specialize in specific areas. Instead of stretching out one person who is good at a lot of things, clients now have access to a staff of individuals with specific skillsets and focus areas. This expands the levels of service received.

Implementation at your speed

is always changing, that goes without being said. By outsourcing IT, businesses have access to new, higher quality – fast with the assurance of quality. Projects that might take an internal business months may be completed in weeks through a managed services provider. Certain technologies are able to scale up or down based on the need of your business.

Disaster Recovery

One of the greatest advantages of working with a managed service provider is their access to secure data centers and networks. A managed service provider can setup a business continuity plan for businesses to be sure that data is always properly backed up and secure. If a disaster strikes, data can be accessed within a short amount of time.

Improved concentration on business

Time. Sometimes it seems like we never get enough during a work day. Outsourcing IT allows extra time to focus on other needs of business. Just as our clients have become professionals in their industry, IT engineers and technicians spend their days focused on IT. They know the trends and idiosyncrasies of the IT world.

Cyber security is a continuous battle, not only for organizations, but IT professionals too. Staying informed can be a daily and sometimes hourly chore. This is why YYTECH developed Critical Info Email Alerts. If there is a threat, recall or vulnerability that could affect our clients, they are alerted as soon as possible.

Here’s an example of our two most recent Critical Info alerts:

If you would like to have Critical Info Alerts sent directly to your inbox, visit our Contact Us page, fill out the form and check the “Critical Info Email Alerts” box before submitting.

U.S. manufacturers are optimistic about their businesses and the industry, according to the Leading Edge Alliance National Manufacturing Outlook Survey. With 455 participants, the survey report contains the expectations and opinions of manufacturing executives who produce a wide variety of products.

Click here to read about the challenges the respondents face, the key strategies that the best-run manufacturers believe will be most effective, and the outlook for 2018.

This blog post is provided by our partners at KnowBe4.

The second-annual Cyren-Osterman Research U.S. security survey shows a significant disconnect between rising IT security spending and a low level of confidence in current protection, among many topics covered in the 24-page report, IT Security at SMBs: 2017 Benchmarking Survey, available for free download.

Security Budgets Up Sharply

On average, survey respondents reported that IT security budgets grew a robust 17% during the past 12 months. That’s on top of a 21% increase reported one year ago in the first annual Cyren-Osterman Research survey. However, sixty-eght percent of businesses reported one or more breaches or infections during the prior 12 months, and significantly less than half believe they are well prepared to meet priority threats like ransomware, phishing and zero-day exploits.

The survey focuses on the current web and email security status and priorities of IT and security managers at organizations with 100 to 3,000 employees. The survey results allow security personnel to benchmark their own security posture and planning against their peers.

Security breaches are prevalent – Slightly more than two-thirds of the organizations surveyed – 68 percent – reported that they had experienced one or more breaches or infections during the past 12 months, with 29 percent reporting a successful phishing attack and 18 percent a ransomware infection that had gotten past their security defenses.
Ransomware is the #1 concern – Ransomware surged from fourth place in the 2016 Cyren-Osterman Research survey to the top of the heap of issues about which IT and security managers are concerned or extremely concerned (62 percent), slightly edging phishing (61 percent), and data breaches (54 percent).
Security concerns rule, controlling employees doesn’t – While threat categories are the top concerns among U.S. SMB security decision makers, only 24 percent expressed concern about shadow IT, with even fewer giving importance to controlling employee web behavior. (Our comment: this is a recipe for disaster)
Security effectiveness trumps cost – and everything else – Security effectiveness (85 percent) and speed of defense against new threats (74 percent) markedly outdistanced all other capabilities that were rated (reporting, user experience, management ease, etc.). Cost considerations were among the lowest-rated factors in evaluating a security solution.
Stopping threats in HTTPS is a priority – Fifty-nine percent rated as highly or extremely important the ability to perform SSL traffic inspection for threats, ranking it fourth among desired features in a web security solution. Fifty five percent indicated they have deployed an SSL inspection capability, which contrasts with a far lower deployment rate of 19 percent found in a similar survey in the UK in February 2017.
Few think highly of their current protection – Most SMB decision makers believe that the security deployed for their organizations is not doing well, with the largest “security gaps” around the threats of greatest concern. For example, while 61 percent rate phishing a top concern, only 39 percent rate their protection highly.
IT security investment is exploding at SMBs – Presumably driven by the poor opinion of current security, and the reality and risk of recurring infections and breaches, SMB IT security budgets jumped significantly for the second year in a row, rising 17 percent on average in the past year, following a 23 percent increase reported in the 2016 Cyren-Osterman Research survey.
SMBs have limited IT security staff – Respondents indicated that they generally have a low number of dedicated IT security staff members available to deal with security issues. We found that over half (52 percent) of the organizations surveyed have two or fewer security staff members, with the figure rising to 80 percent for the smallest cohort, with 100-500 employees.
Mobile device security is lagging behind – While 70 percent protect remote offices and roaming laptop use, only half protect company owned mobile devices, dropping to one-fifth providing protection of BYOD mobile devices, even if they connect to the corporate network.
Preference growing and nearly equal for cloud-based SaaS vs. on-premises – The preference in terms of deployment model for security solutions is now nearly equally divided, with 32 percent preferring on-premises solutions, and 29 percent preferring cloud-based SaaS – with the latter up sharply from 21 percent in the 2016 Cyren-Osterman Research survey.
Email security is now predominantly done in the cloud – Fifty-seven percent of SMBs rely on SaaS security for their email, considering together those who subscribe to a SaaS Secure Email Gateway (28 percent) and those who rely on the security provided by their SaaS or hosted email service provider (29 percent).
Cloud-based web security is moving up the adoption curve – Eighteen percent of SMBs reported that they subscribe to SaaS web security, with another 16 percent reporting deployment of “hybrid” cloud and on-premises solutions, and six percent relying on a hosted virtual appliance.
Security breaches cost significant staff time (and money) – After a security breach, organizations reported an average of 152 person-hours in IT staff time devoted to addressing the problem.

Download the full report here: https://blog.cyren.com/articles/survey-finds-security-investment-increasing-but-not-security

Cybersecurity for your Organization

Take a moment and think about all of the security features that are used to keep your organization’s network safe. There are passwords and firewalls that help keep the bad guys from your vital information. But all of these security measures don’t mean a thing if someone clicks a malware link inside an email.

As phishing attacks have grown, so too has the emphasis on Cybersecurity. One tool that many organizations have begun to deploy is security awareness training as a way to educate employees. In fact, having knowledge on malware and phishing is as important as having proper antivirus and firewall protection.

How does security awareness training work?

A security awareness training provider will begin the training process with an email exposure check that shows which email addresses, with an organization’s domain, are being exposed to spear-phishing attacks on the Internet. This service looks deep into websites, Word, Excel and PDF files that are on the Internet. By performing these tests, business owners and managers can see which employees are the most susceptible to phishing emails. Training modules soon follow and teach employees what to look for.

Statistics show that it works

Security awareness training helps turn your employees into your organization’s first firewall. Through training, employees become the best defense you can have. We aggregated the numbers and the overall Phish-prone percentage drops from an average of 15.9 percent to an amazing 1.2 percent in just 12 months. The combination of web-based training and frequently simulated phishing attacks really works.

It’s important to remember that everyone is a target of phishing attacks. These attacks happen every day but the good news is they can be prevented. Proper training is great a great way to prevent attacks but equally important is having a proper backup and disaster recovery plan in place. Nothing is bullet proof in IT, but being prepared for any circumstance can help save money and downtime in the event of a disaster.

On September 6, Equifax, one of the three major credit reporting companies, announced a cybersecurity incident potentially impacting approximately 143 million U.S. consumers. Criminals exploited a U.S. website application vulnerability to gain access to certain files. Based on the company’s investigation, the unauthorized access occurred from mid-May through July 2017.

Equifax, one of the three major credit reporting companies, announced a cybersecurity incident potentially impacting approximately 143 million U.S. consumers. Criminals exploited a U.S. website application vulnerability to gain access to certain files. Based on the company’s investigation, the unauthorized access occurred from mid-May through July 2017.

According to Equifax, “The information accessed primarily includes names, social security numbers, birth dates, addresses and, in some instances, driver’s license numbers. In addition, credit card numbers for approximately 209,000 U.S. consumers, and certain dispute documents with personal identifying information for approximately 182,000 U.S. consumers, were accessed.”

Equifax has established a dedicated website, www.equifaxsecurity2017.com, to help consumers determine if their information has been potentially impacted. In addition to the website, Equifax will send direct mail notices to consumers whose credit card numbers or dispute documents with personal identifying information were impacted. If your information has been compromised, Equifax is providing free identity theft protection and credit file monitoring services. As with any contractual service, be sure to read all terms and conditions.

Please visit www.equifaxsecurity2017.com to learn more about the incident and determine if your information may have been affected.

According to a 2017 survey that Sage conducted of customers, accounts payable automation was the most requested new functionality. So it should come as no surprise that Sage recently introduced Sage AP Automation powered by Beanworks. Let’s take a look at this new suite of AP automation features now available for Sage 100cloud.

What is Sage AP Automation?

Sage AP Automation is designed to simplify and remove manual tasks from your entire accounts payable process, from purchase to payment. Invoices enter your Sage 100cloud system with guaranteed accuracy and are stored securely in the cloud, saving time and removing the complexity from manual data entry. Other benefits include:

Improved visibility into invoices and AP documents
Better cash management
Higher levels of payment accuracy
Mitigation of payment related fraud

Why Sage AP Automation?

There are a variety of reasons that automating your accounts payable process could be highly beneficial to your business. Here are some common questions to ask yourself:

Does your current process require a lot of touch points, moving parts, and paper filing?
Is your invoice approval process manual and inefficient?
Do you spend a lot of time manually entering AP data?
Do you have remote employees and/or multiple locations that need access to AP invoices?

On average, a single invoice can cost businesses up to $15.96 to process manually when you consider the price of labor, materials, printing, and postage. But automating the accounts payable (AP) workflow can drastically reduce that cost to just $2.94 on average. With Sage AP Automation, the more invoices you process, the more your per-invoice (and overall) costs decrease.

What’s more, manual AP processes can take approximately 11.4 days to complete as you enter data, code invoices, chase down approvals through emails and phone calls, and cut printed checks. AP automation can reduce that processing time down to just 3.6 days.

Now Available for Sage 100cloud

Sage AP Automation is now available for customers on a Sage 100c subscription. Be sure to get in touch with your Sage Authorized Partner, such as Yeo & Yeo Technology, if you’d like to learn more about Sage AP Automation pricing, capabilities, or benefits.

*Blog post courtesy of www.top-sage-resellers.com.

Microsoft has announced a new licensing bundle for businesses called Microsoft 365. This new licensing option gives users access to Office 365, Enterprise Mobility + Security (EMS) and the Windows 10 operating system.

Microsoft 365 will debut this fall and will be offered in two bundles, Enterprise and Business. The Enterprise bundle is built for larger organizations while Business has been designed for small and medium-sized organizations (SMB).

Microsoft 365 Enterprise will be available in E3 and E5 plans and highlights a number of high security features, Office 365 applications and Power BI Pro analytics. For SMBs with up to 300 users, Microsoft 365 Business is a perfect fit and touts integrates Office 365 Business Premium with tailored security and management features from Windows 10 and EMS.

Sales of Microsoft 365 Enterprise and Business will begin on August 1 and 2 respectively.

Crystal Reports is a great tool for creating complex reports and creating a more professional report with your company logo is not challenging. YYTECH’s Cristopher O’Brien has created this short video to teach users how to locate and open a Crystal Report, add an image by choosing it from a file, placing it, and resizing it. There are many out of the box Macola forms and after learning this quick skill users can make their forms their own, while at the same time, making forms more meaningful to end users.

By now we all know that protecting ourselves against viruses and malware is vital, and having a secure antivirus solution in place is a great, proactive step.

First, let’s make sure we understand what antivirus (AV) is. AV, in simple terms, is a software program or designed to prevent, search for, detect, and remove software viruses. Next-Generation Antivirus (NGAV) is the evolution of traditional AV that protects computers from the full spectrum of modern cyberattacks, delivering the best endpoint protection with the least amount of work. NGAV speaks to a fundamentally different technical approach in the way malicious activity is detected and blocked.*

So how do we know when it’s time to make the transition from traditional AV to NGAV? Here are a few steps to help you decide.

Step 1: Understand your organization’s resources

Consider what your employees are using (desktops, laptops servers) and the types of software and information they need to do their job. If your employees work remotely, they may be even more susceptible to malicious attacks by simply connecting to an open network.

Step 2: Know your environment

Consider the information running through your organization. Records, billing information, all of your data (and your client’s data) can be hacked into. NGAV examines every process on every endpoint to detect and block malicious content hackers use to steal information.

Step 3: Choose a respected vendor

This is the bottom line when looking as solutions that can protect your data. Although the concept is still fairly new, there are a number of NGAV vendors available that can provide the right solution for you. Whether you’re an SMB or large-scale enterprise, leaders in the firewall space know the future, for all business types, is to inevitably switch from the traditional AV solutions to NGAV.

The threat landscape is becoming more and more treacherous. Whatever you choose, be sure to do your research before taking the leap into new . YYTECH’s professionals are always available to make sure you choose the right solution for your organization.

*Information courtesy of Carbon Black

A new reality in printing

HP has long been known for developing high quality printers for home and business use. Now HP has developed a new generation of printing solutions, HP PageWide with HP Thermal InkJet Printheads.

HP PageWide and HP Officejet Pro X Series desktop printers deliver up to twice the speed at up to half the printing cost compared with color laser printers. This new class of devices offer the best of both ink and toner technologies.

HP PageWide Offers

Fast printing speed, up to 70 pages per minute in General Office quality mode
Powerful savings—up to 50 percent lower cost per page than standard color laser printers
Compatibility with corporate enterprise networks for management and workflow solutions

See how HP Thermal InkJet Printheads power HP PageWide

The time of the year to start your IT planning for 2018 is here. Much like 2016, in 2017, security was a major focus at Yeo & Yeo Technology and we believe that security is going to be a focus for years to come.

This is a great time to review your needs. As many of us look at our budgets for 2018, we feel it’s important to consider the following:

Security Upgrades: Staying current is important and making room in your budget for security upgrades is vital. Many of the tools we use, like Microsoft Office, automatically receive upgrades and you need to be sure your computers are getting them. Some of you may have an IT staff in place while others may need managed services. Keeping up with all of the patches that are released can be daunting and many of you are going to need assistance.

Next-Generation Antivirus: While looking into your security infrastructure, it’s also good to look at new that’s making its way into the industry. One we have been keeping an eye on is Next-Generation Antivirus (NGAV). Hackers are constantly inventing and innovating ways to steal our vital information. This is where NGAV has entered the market.

There are countless ways NGAV benefits users. The biggest benefit being protection going beyond just malware attacks. For many years, traditional antivirus was enough. Not anymore. Many organizations, with good traditional antivirus, fall victim to ransomware-type attacks that go undetected by standard antivirus . NGAV incorporates the industry’s newest features that target the tools, techniques, tactics, and procedures used every day by both mass scale opportunistic attackers and targeted advanced threats.

Ransomware: We have hit on Ransomware a lot this year. However, there is a reason for that – it continues to grow. We have some tips on prevention and what to do if you believe your system is infected.

Preventative Measures

Do not follow unsolicited web links in email messages or submit any information to webpages in links.
Use caution when opening email attachments.
Keep operating systems and third-party software, including anti-virus, up-to-date with the latest patches.
Perform regular backups of all systems/data to avoid serious consequences should your system fall under attack. Testing of your backup should be done monthly.

If you believe your system may be infected with the CryptoLocker Malware, follow these steps

Immediately disconnect the infected system from the wireless or wired network. This may prevent the malware from further encrypting any more files on the network
Change your passwords AFTER removing the malware from your system
Users infected with the malware should consult with a reputable security expert to assist in removing the malware, or users can retrieve encrypted files by restoring from backup, restoring from a shadow copy or by performing a system restore

Updating Your PC: Every year it’s important to consider the state of your PC. Hardware and software are always getting better and both need to be considered when looking at your budget. Consider the following:

Does your PC still have enough storage?
How old is your PC?
Is it running slow?
Is your software up to date?

Most small and medium sized businesses don’t spend nearly as much on IT as they should. In a 2015 study by Alinean, Inc., the average small business spends 6.9 percent of revenue on IT while medium sized businesses spend just over 4 percent. Gartner said that IT spending decreased 0.5 percent in 2016. Everyone has a budget they need to stick to but there should always be room for keeping your IT current, updated and secure.