Statement from Symantec Corporate

In an effort to keep you up-to-date on the unfolding events surrounding the
Symantec source code disclosure, further investigation of the claims made by
Anonymous brings us to believe that the disclosure was the result of a theft of
source code that occurred in 2006. Since 2006, Symantec has instituted a number
of policies and procedures to prevent a similar incident from occurring.

Affected products include:

• Norton Antivirus Corporate
  Edition
• Norton Internet Security
• Norton SystemWorks (Norton
  Utilities and Norton GoBack)
• pcAnywhere 12.0, 12.1 and 12.5
• Symantec Endpoint Protection
  v11.0, which is four years old
• Symantec AntiVirus v10.2, which
  is five years old code, and a product that has been discontinued

Due to the age of the exposed source code,
except as specifically noted below, Symantec customers – including those
running Norton products — should not be in any increased danger of cyber
attacks resulting from this incident.

Customers of Symantec’s pcAnywhere product may face a slightly increased security
risk as a result of this exposure. Symantec is currently in the process of
reaching out to our pcAnywhere customers to make them aware of the situation
and to provide remediation steps to maintain the protection of their devices
and information.

How you can help customers using Norton Antivirus Corporate Edition, Norton
Internet Security, or Norton SystemWorks (Norton Utilities and Norton GoBack)

By keeping your customers’ solutions and virus definitions updated to the
latest version, you will help ensure protection against any new possible
threats that might result from this incident. Additional steps to take include
confirming that your customers are following best practices for protection
technology settings: tamper protection and IPS technologies defend against
vulnerabilities. Also consider enabling the uninstall password feature. This
helps prevents malware or other software from uninstalling Symantec AntiVirus
v10.2 or Symantec Endpoint Protection v11.0.

How you can help customers using pcAnywhere

As always with any remote control product (such as pcAnywhere), it is extremely
important that best practices are followed regarding physical security,
endpoint security, network perimeter security and secure remote access. For
example, all computers should have an endpoint protection technology installed
that is current and up-to-date. Corporate firewalls should not allow inbound or
outbound access to pcAnywhere without using VPN tunnels. Unauthorized
individuals should not be permitted on company property. Additionally,
companies should employ best practices when it comes to the configuration of
pcAnywhere – e.g. password strength, password retry limits, and requiring the
user to approve remote connections.

Symantec is committed to eliminating the increased risk as a result of the
exposure. In addition to a partner FAQ, we will also provide a technical white
paper that addresses initial remediation steps and issue maintenance patches as
a final step.

Given the nature of this ongoing investigation, we have no further details to
disclose at this time but will provide updates as we confirm additional facts.
For general information updates, please visit go.symantec.com/sourcecode.
For specific questions, please contact your Symantec account representative or
reference the partner FAQ or technical white paper being made available to you
via your partner account manager.

So what do you do as the company?   Just get over it?  Try to buy the name (which violates Twitter’s terms of service) ?   Or something else?   With a marketing group and M&A team as large as Netflix, was this an oversight or just one of those things that people didn’t think was important? 

As a business owner or marketer, what would you do?

I had left the office assuming the tarp was being put back on and left some documents on my desk and a laptop as well.   Suprise on Monday – documents ruined and water all in the laptop – and NO TARP ON THE ROOF.  Those of you who know me, understand that I remained calm (not!), called my landlord calmly (not) and explained the situation calmly (not!). 

So this week, they are working on resolving the roof issue, but as you can tell – I now have a bunch of documents I have to recreate and a laptop which MIGHT be able to be salvaged (we’re still trying to dry it out and see if it will start).  So what are the lessons learned from here?

1. Never assume someone else is going to do something they have shown they are not going to do
2. Plan for the worst, a simple thing like a roof leak can cause major damage
3. Know what to do and who to call in the event of an emergency or issue.
4. Be persistent when an issue is not being resolved to your satisfaction

So an analog world issue causedhavoc in my digital world – a simple water leak causes digital damage and sets me back a day of work.   What would you have done in this situation?  Should I have done something different?   What’s your plan if something like this happened?

I know it won’t be easy, but it might be fun, inspiring, awesome and wonderful. Therefore I’m promising to make use of The DailyPost, and the community of other bloggers with similar goals, to help me along the way, including asking for help when I need it and encouraging others when I can.

If you already read my blog, I hope you’ll encourage me with comments and likes, and good will along the way.

Signed,

Joe Vivona

W32.Spyrat opens a backdoor using a predetermined port and IP address, allowing an attacker to perform the following actions on the compromised computer:

• Read, write, and execute files
• Steal stored passwords
• Issue commands
• Activate and view a webcam, if present
• Log keystrokes
• Create an HTTP proxy to route traffic through the compromised computer

Do not open this email or click on the URL if received. Read on for the full article at Symantec .

Julie Settle, A&J Computers Inc.

For now the site is free for both companies and attorneys.  It’s a great resource for startups, especially those who have not yet established a relationship with an attorney.  Questions are completely confidential.  Each question posed will receive confidential answers by various attorneys who cannot view each others answers.

If you are any type of attorney, I suggest you check out the site and see if it’s for you. I imagine a lot of start ups will. Visit http://www.LawPivot.com for details.

^ Julie Settle, A&J Computers Inc.

Co-CEO Sanjay Jha comments, “Just as Droid was competitive…with iPhone, we want to make sure that any tablet that we deliver is competetive in the marketplace. We will only deliver that when that occurs. Hopefully that’s early next year.”

Other companies competing in the tablet device wars are Research in Motion (RIM), Cisco, Hewlett-Packard Company, Lenovo Group Ltd. and LG Electronics Inc.

^ Julie Settle
A&J Computers Inc.

Online:

1. Keep your personal information private on social networks.
2. Install a URL scanning tool to alert you of potentially harmful web links.
3. Review your bank account and credit card statements regularly for questionable charges.
4. Review your credit report and credit score regularly.
5. Choose difficult encrypted passwords, consider using KeePass to safely store all your passwords.

On Your Computer:

1. Keep your operating system and software programs up to date.
2. Install these type software programs: anti-virus, anti-spyware and firewall .
3. Back up your computer data regularly.

Below are our recommend downloads to keep your computer safe:

• Anti-Virus:  AVG Antivirus, Symantec Anti-Virus, Trend Micro AntiVirus
• Firewall:  MS Windows firewall
• Anti-Spyware:  Webroot’s Spy Sweeper
• URL Link Scanner: AVG LinkScanner
• Credit Report: Federal Trade Commission
• Credit Score: Credit Karma
• Password: KeePass

Below are additional sites listed by the NCSAM:

• Anti-Virus:  ESET NOD32 Antivirus, F-Secure Internet Security, Kaspersky Anti-Virus, Norton AntiVirus, Webroot Internet Security
• Firewall:  ZoneAlarm, Norton Internet Security
• Anti-Spyware:  PC Tools Spyware Doctor with AntiVirus 2011, STOPzilla (removal)
• Credit Report:  Equifax, TrustedID
• Credit Score: myFICO

A&J Computers offers solutions for all your IT security needs. Visit us at ajcomputers.com for more details or contact with questions.

^ Julie Settle
A&J Computers Inc.

First the big news – RIM is releasing a new tablet device called the PlayBook – while there are a ton of sites and blogs that will give you all the tech specs and other things – here’s my take:  the PlayBook is a logical extension to your blackberry smartphone. Providing an enhanced platform including adobe flash and air which gives application developers more features – I see the PlayBook opening up a number of web based and widget based application areas for companies like ours and enabling a much easier development experience. From reading email on a larger screen to multitasking blackberry and walking around a conference with all the key information at your fingertips – this is a positive development for corporate users.  From an it perspective – one the device is unpaired from your smartphone (bluetooth) all your email and other sensitive information is gone – making the security person in me feel better at night.  So this seems like a win/win device for us here and really I can’t wait for 2011 to come so I can get one (availability in North America slated for q1).

WebWorks is the rebranded and improved widget technology. RIM made a bold move here by open sourcing the runtime and taking a major step forward to attract developers to the device. By allowing a developer to harness the power of the web, access on-device items like email, GPS, BBM and others – the platform is staring to compete on an even level with other device OSes and make development of the so-called ‘super apps’ a ton easier with the removal of the need to code in java.  We will be building some super-apps in the very near future and enable our customers to do stuff on their blackberry smartphones we’ve only just discussed in the past. An additional benefit to open sourcing the runtime – the arrival of extension development. We all know the base of any runtime environment is great (a la .net, java, Silverlight, etc.) – but it’s the extension and control developers which truly empower app developers to take good apps to great apps.   If you’re a developer, this is the platform to build BlackBerry apps on.

The final announcement was around the change in policy by RIM for developers who want to submit the application to AppWorld.  Normally a token fee was charged for administrative purposes and to stop the ‘truly useless’ applications from going up on AppWorld.   Well no more – at DevCon 2010 RIM announced they are going to waive this fee for developers.  While a seemingly small item, this allows the hobbyist developer a no-cost option to publish their application to the masses and opens up development to a whole new genre.

Overall DevCon 2010 was a great experience as always – one thing I found out as I was writing this is the BlackBerry Developer Zone will make available the recordings from DevCon 2010 to all its members for free.  That content is being produced and should be up soon.  If you’re not a member and you didn’t get a chance to become a member, join now for free and see what you’ve been missing (http://blackberry.com/developer).

For any of you who missed the keynotes, announcements, etc. – you can check it out at http://www.blackberrydevcon.com (shameless plug for our web site development team).   WES 2011 is in 7 short months (May 3-5, 2011) in Orlando, Florida – maybe we’ll see you there.

Good-Bye San Francisco, thanks for the hospitality for a 2^nd year and we’ll see you again very soon.

Here are the 2 main questions we are hearing regarding XP’s discontinuation:

1. My whole business relies on Windows XP. What if I need technical support?
        A&J Computers Inc. is here to support your technical needs, and Microsoft will continue to directly offer Extended Support until April 2014.
2.  Can my Windows XP programs run on Windows 7?
        In most cases the answer is Yes. Microsoft has a Windows 7 Compatibility page to help you find out if your programs or hardware will work with Windows 7.

View the Microsoft announcement for full details about Windows XP End of Life at:  http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-xp/end-of-sale.aspx.

Please contact us as soon as possible to place any computer orders that require Windows XP preinstalled to ensure they ship by the 10/22 deadline.

Julie Settle
A&J Computers Inc.

Initially released as a mainstream consumer product, the iPad is here to stay…love it or leave it. In its first 3 months on the market, over 3 million iPads were purchased, and projections for media tablets as a whole are liable to reach almost 8 million consumers this year alone.

Like the iPhone, the iPad shares the same operating system, making it a legitimate tool for employees on the go. However, without videoconferencing capabilities, a staple tool for employees in the field, the iPad has room to grow. Also, like the iPhone, it does not support Flash and is still a bit too small to handle a serious at your desk workload.  On the plus side, those handy apps are the main draw to the mobile workforce and they do a great job.

How well it works in the Enterprise is still up for debate.   Third party application developers are helping to bridge the gap by developing apps to read and write common office file formats (such as Microsoft^© Word and Excel), plus a plethora of utilities for day-to-day office tasks including many for IT administrators. Updates to the Operating System will ensue, enabling more multi-tasking abilities as time goes on.

While the iPad is still primarily a consumer-related product, the workforce is rapidly clamoring to justify its support within the corporate enterprise network. But don’t toss the laptops out just yet. The iPad was never intended to replace the standard computer; it is — and will remain to be — an additional tool in the workforce arsenal. 

At the end of the day, we own iPads, iPods and iPhones and we use them every day.  Just like every tool in a carpenter’s toolbox has its place, we believe in using the right tool for the right job at the right time.  And that’s truly how to live happily ever after.

Julie Settle
A&J Computers Inc

If you are like most folks, the immediate response is NO. It normally doesn’t pay for itself in the long run. But before you do that, regardless of whether you are a single user or a small business office, consider some of these key points:

• Do you know what to do or where to look when there is a problem?
• Can you fix most minor issues on your own?
• Do you proactively maintain and back up your equipment?
• Can you resolve an issue involving multiple third parties (ie–when they are pointing the finger at each other)?
• Do you have the time to research and implement updates and repairs?

Today’s IT warranties are tailored to you and your environment and are simple, expedient and on your terms. Your support solution helps resolve the situation, not get in the way. Many are also designed to provide tech-to-tech support, allowing your IT staff to fix the situation and free up your time to focus on the bigger picture.

Warranties may not be such a bad idea anymore, the choice is yours.

^JS

Here’s a exceprt from an article about using someone else’s internet connection:

Perhaps the first and most notable case of an individual being arrested for illegally accessing a wireless network is that of Benjamin Smith III of St. Petersburg, FL.  In the spring of 2005, Richard Dinon noticed someone parked outside his home and obviously staring at a laptop PC.  According to Dinon, when Smith saw that he was being watched, he quickly closed the laptop. Dinon left to run some errands, but upon his return over an hour later, Smith was still outside staring at his PC.  Dinon called the police, who arrested Smith, claiming that he was illegally accessing Dinon’s wireless network. Police said Smith admitted using the network and was charged with unauthorized access to a computer network, a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

A subsequent inspection of Smith’s PC found child pornography, leading to an additional felony count of sexual performance by a child.  In June of this year, Smith pled no contest to stealing a wireless computer signal and no contest to an amended, lesser, charge of felony child abuse relating to child porn police found on his laptop computer.  According to a report in the St. Petersburg Times, “Smith’s attorney, Hubbell Losson, argued in motions that the statute outlawing unauthorized access to computers did not apply to wireless service, but Peters ruled against him.”

The key here is not that the guy was accessing the Internetor that he was parked outside the house, but that this can happen to you without your knowledge.   If you are accessing an open wireless network or someone is accessing yours, how do you know what they are doing – they could be downloading music off a file sharing site (a felony here in the United States), hacking into a restricted site (which will be traced back to your Internet connection, not their specific computer) and do you want to be caught up in whatever they are doing?   I trust my neighbors and the companies that are near me, but if they have an open Internet connection I make sure I steer away from it at all costs.  In addition to the security risk I am taking (the open wireless could be a trick to steal passwords, bank account information or infect you computer with viruses and spyware), you are putting your future in someone else’s hands.  So my recommendation is the not access that wireless network  and to make sure yours is secure as well.   Public wireless access connections (Starbucks, Barnes & Noble, etc) are OK as long as you have a firewall installed on your computer and good anti-virus/anti-spyware software.  Here’s a quick wrap up of my recommendations:

1. Don’t access an open wireless network unless it’s from a commercial service (e.g. Internet hot spots)
2. Make sure your wireless network is secure from access (most devices have an easy to follow set of steps to secure your connection)
3. If you are accessing one of the many public Internet connections available, have your firewall turned on, anti-virus and anti-spyware software installed correctly
4. If you see any suspicious activity, call the police – it’s a felony to gain access to a computer or computer network without authorization.

So stay smart, stay secure and keep your network safe.   If you are having trouble checking your wireless network, just give us a call and we can come out and check it for you.

Joe Vivona
A&J Computers Inc

For those of you who host their email with us, let me give you an idea of the amount of spam we filter every day.   As of July 1, 2009 we host about 150 domain names for customers with a total of 500 mailboxes.   Every day we receive approximately 800,000 emails – of those, we allow around 20,000 emails into mailboxes.   That’s 97.5% of all emails are tagged as spam by our filtering software.   It’s a never ending battle for us every day.

If you want to read more about the FTC action, or see the rules around CAN-SPAM compliance (which every company is supposed to abide by), you can check out the FTC’s site.

FTC’s action against Pricewart: http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/06/3fn.shtm

FTC’s page on CAN-SPAM: FTC’s page on CAN-SPAM: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/business/ecommerce/bus61.shtm