Signs of malware may be easier to spot than you think!

2016 has been filled with news of cyberattacks and hacking. 

• In February the Central Bank of Bangladesh was the victim of a cyber-heist that resulted in $81 million in losses and another $850 million in halted transactions.
• In July, the Democratic National Committee’s email servers were breached.  The resulting leaked emails caused much embarrassment and lead to the resignations of some of the organizations key officials.
• In September, Yahoo announced that half a billion of its users’ accounts were hacked back in 2014 thus gaining access to names, email addresses, phone numbers, dates of births, and in some cases, even security questions and answers.  This event alone exposed 500 million people to potential identity theft.
• In October, major websites went down due to a massive attack on one of the backbones of the internet; thus leaving Twitter, PayPal, Spotify and many businesses hosted by Amazon Web Services unable to function.
• Over Thanksgiving weekend, the San Francisco rail system was hacked allowing riders to ride for free while a hacker held the system hostage with the use of Ransomware.
• Most recently, Google announced that upwards of 1 million user accounts were compromised with the use of “Googlian” malware on Android-powered smartphones.  The company warns that 13,000 additional devices are being infected every day.

The news is continuously flooded with reports of cyber-attacks and it is clear at this point that no one and no business is immune to the dangers of the hacker community.  With the onslaught of cyber-crimes, what is an SMB owner to do?  You have taken what you feel are the necessary steps to keep yourself safe; installing firewalls and communicating to employees the importance of strong passwords.  Even though you have taken these steps, you could still be the victim of hackers.  Here are five clues that you and your network might have become victims:

Clue 1) Slow internet connection. When hackers gain access to your network they begin to use your bandwidth for their own purposes.

Clue 2) Unauthorized programs have been installed on your network.  If you notice an unfamiliar program that was not authorized, documented or installed by anyone within your organization, that’s a sure sign that a hacker has invaded your network. 

Clue 3) Spam emails are being sent from your company computers and email accounts.  Spam emails look legitimate because they are coming from your trusted email address.  Many of your customers may open them, annoying your subscribers and possibly leaving them open to security threats of their own.  

Clue 4) Unfamiliar programs are requesting access to your network; or your Firewalls or other security programs have been uninstalled.  If your security systems are dismantled, unfettered access to your systems may be allowed to wreak havoc in your network.

Clue 5) Visitors to your home page are redirected to another site or antivirus solutions are flagging your site.  An internet search for your site results in error messages that warn the searcher that malware has been detected on your site.  This warning means that hackers have certainly uploaded some sort of malicious software to your system. 

If you have noticed ANY of these signs, do not wait any longer.  Contact Capstone Works.  We are Managed IT Services cyber-security experts and will perform a full security audit on your entire system.  We live in a complex connected world; you cannot afford to face downtime or data loss due to hackers.  Threats are everywhere, don’t try to take on the hacker community on your own.  Contact Capstone Works today (512) 343-8891!