How to protect yourself against cyber threats on an ongoing basis
In part five of his interview with The Cleaning Crew, Bryley Systems President, Gavin Livingstone, discusses how to ensure that you remain protected against cyber threats.

In part five of his interview with The Cleaning Crew, Bryley Systems President, Gavin Livingstone, discusses how to ensure that you remain protected against cyber threats.
In part four of his interview with The Cleaning Crew, Bryley Systems Inc. President, Gavin Livingstone, explains some of the steps a small business can take to protect their online identity.
In part three of his interview with The Cleaning Crew, Bryley Systems President, Gavin Livingstone, answers the question “what are some of the threats associated with cyber security?”
I estimate about 50-60 attendees who arrived early (about 4:45pm) and left late (last one out the door at 8pm).
Everyone seemed engaged; there were conversations in every nook and corner with people sitting in the comfortable chairs, moving from one area to another, and, generally, having a good time.
Thank you to Telly and Garin who stuck around past 6pm and met folks; Roy, Beverley, Mike M., and Terry also made appearances.
Special thanks to Cathy L., who prepared the food and drink and made everything wonderful. Kudos to Anna and JoAnne with an excellent gift basket, which was won by Nancy Z. of Certified Bank Trainer.
Gavin
There have been some changes recently at Bryley, and the Worcester Business Journal has commented:
“MICHELLE DENIO has been promoted and JAMES WHEELERand TELLY CASTERNOPOULOS hired at Information technology service provider Bryley Systems of Hudson. Denio was promoted to administrative support technician. She joined Bryley Systems in 2008 and is a resident of Clinton. Wheeler has been hired as an Internet marketing associate. He is the assistant clerk for the town of Berlin. Wheeler has a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Maine in Orono. Casternopoulos joins Bryley as service desk technician. He served with the U.S. Army for five years at the rank of sergeant. He was an air traffic control maintenance technician and served in the Information Management Office while stationed in Iraq.”
Have you received a rogue email from a friend or acquaintance that seems out of character? For example: Why is Aunt Mildred calling me “Friend” in her email? Or, does neighbor Fred really want me to invest in Nigeria?
Odds are, their email accounts – particularly if located at online services like Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, or Windows Live Hotmail – have been hijacked. (Visit About.com at About.com:Free Email Review for a review of the top 16 free email services by Heinz Tschabitscher.)
With an online service, the email application is cloud-based; the application does not reside locally on the computer, so it is probably the online account that has been compromised. (Your PC could also be infected, which is discussed later.) Typically, the password is discovered, providing an easy entry to stored emails (which could contain sensitive information) and a contact list that can be exploited.
If this happens to you, login to your account and take these steps:
As with any account, change your password regularly and change your challenge questions periodically. Visit the About.com article on how to change your Gmail at About.com: Change Your Gmail Password.
For a related article by Leo Notenboom at Ask Leo, please visit Ask-Leo.com: How to stop someone sending email with my address.
If the email application reside locally and connects to a secure site, your PC would be suspect and should be interrogated by virus and malware scanners. You should also scrutinize your Microsoft Outlook contacts and rename the Contacts folder.
It is still possible that your computer is infected; your account information might have been recovered through a keyboard logger that records your keystrokes and sends them to the hacker. If so, you need to clean-up your computer before taking the steps above.
Despite internal issues, HP remained the top manufacturer of PCs worldwide in Q4 of 2012 followed by Lenovo (the Chinese firm that purchased IBM’s PC business in 2005) and then Dell. Overall, PC shipments dropped 6.4% from Q4 of 2011.
Dan Reisinger of eWeek notes that Q4 of 2012 is the first time in five years where the PC market declined; possibly due to economic conditions or the increasing popularity of tablets. Other potential factors noted by Mr. Reisinger:
Go to HP tops Lenovo in lackluster PC market for the full briefing from Lance Whitney at CNet News. Visit HP barely maintains PC lead over Lenovo in Q4, says IDC for a related article from Sharon Gaudin at ComputerWorld. Visit PC Sales Persistently Declining: 10 Reasons Why for more from Don Reisinger of eWeek.
In addition to Windows 8, I have also been using Office 2013 over the past few months; I like some things, but not everything:
• Excel updates ripple slowly down the page; they seemed to run a bit faster in previous versions.
• The top-right Window icons have shifted somewhat; the Minimize icon ( _ ) is now in the middle rather than on the left while the Help icon is now on the left.
Since I rarely use the Help icon, but occasionally use the Minimize icon, I dislike this change
Safe Mode is useful for diagnosing PC problems. Because Windows 8 starts quickly, you cannot get into Safe Mode by pressing [F8] during the boot-up process (as you could with previous versions of Windows). The new procedure:
Bryley Systems and Yours for Children together raised $295 for the Hudson Food Bank and the Hudson Boys & Girls Club. The money was generated through a free giveaway of refurbished PCs in exchange for the suggested donation of $35 to either Hudson non-profit organization.
With the generous contribution of 9 used PCs by Yours for Children, Bryley Systems was able to rebuild and provide the PCs for the donations. Not only did the swap prove successful, but it also promotes a greener solution to the removal of office equipment via renewal and recycling. Bryley Systems has performed this PC-for-donations fundraising twice in 2012 and approximately annually since October 2002 and this will not be the last time that such a fundraising strategy is demonstrated.
Yours for Children, a nonprofit Massachusetts sponsor of the USDA Child and Adult Care Food Program is located at 303-313 Washington Street in Auburn, MA. Bryley Systems, a Managed IT Service Provider, is located at 12 Main Street in downtown Hudson.
Garin Livingston, Bryley’s Senior Tech, rebuilds donated PCs.
http://www.wbjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130218/PRINTEDITION/130219952/0/FRONTPAGE
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