Identity Theft: CMIT Solutions of South Nassau Offers Advice During National Awareness Campaign

Don't let your business fall prey to phishers, scammers and credit card fraudsters

Merrick, NY (Grassroots Newswire) December 28, 2009 – Identity theft is a serious issue, no matter who the victim is, but the situation can be more complicated when somebody tries to impersonate someone's business, says Armando D'Accordo owner of CMIT Solutions of South Nassau. That is why CMIT Solutions of South Nassau is offering tips and advice to small business owners in the local community for Identity Theft Prevention and Awareness Month this month.

"Since businesses need to make themselves visible to prospective customers, they are compelled to share a lot of information with the public that individuals tend to keep private, such as their phone number and address," D'Accordo said. "Easy access to private contact information means heightened vulnerability to identity theft."

According to security firm Panda Security, a significant percentage of small businesses haven't taken very basic steps to secure their data assets. A recent survey showed that "97 percent of U.S. small businesses have installed anti-virus and 95 percent claim their security systems are up to date. Yet, 29 percent said they have no anti-spam in place, 22 percent are without anti-spyware technology and 16 percent do not have firewalls. In addition, 52 percent said they have no Web filtering solution in place. And, 39 percent of respondents said that they have yet to be trained about IT threats."

"All an identity thief has to do is open up a mailbox in your shared office building, create a fake letterhead, and obtain your business license number, which many businesses are required by law to display. Then the thief is well on his or her way to opening up credit card accounts in your name, filing purchase orders, and running up bills that will eventually come to you," D'Accordo added.

So, what can business professionals do to prevent identity theft? D'Accordo provides the following advice:

1. Check Credit Cards – Review your business credit report regularly.
2. Review Employee Charge Cards – Go over employee charge card billing statements thoroughly before they are paid, especially if you've issued multiple cards for a single account.
3. Educate Employees – They should be on the lookout for phishers, phone and email scammers. People who would never think to open a suspicious-looking email in their personal inbox might not hesitate to turn over your Federal Tax Identification Number and names of key executives to someone posing as a vendor or a government representative.
4. Beware of "Inside" Theft - Once an employee leaves the company, make sure you immediately cut off access to all your IT resources. Unfortunately, a lot of identity theft is still an "inside job".
5. Protect Company Data – Install a business-class firewall, encrypt your network, assign access privileges sparingly, and perform regular updates to your security software.

"There is no better time than now to make more business owners aware of the dangers of identity theft. We want to bring light to this issue that affects many of our customers and others in the local community," D'Accordo said.

CMIT Solutions of South Nassau offers anti-spam, antivirus, and anti-spyware protection as part of CMIT Marathon – the company's suite of monitoring and maintenance services that keep your IT systems up, running, and protected, 24/7.

For more information about CMIT Solutions of South Nassau please contact Armando D'Accordo at (516) 208-4161.

About CMIT Solutions

Armando brings more than 23 years of experience to the support industry. He has received extensive training in business management, customer service, sales and quality assurance from the University of Michigan, Disney, Citibank and the Help Desk Institute. As President of CMIT Solutions of South Nassau, Armando assists his small and medium size business clients with technology solutions focused on compliance, security, business continuity and disaster recovery. In 2001, Armando was named Support Director of the year. He continues to be an industry leader as well as an accomplished public speaker and in 2007, he was named CMIT Rookie of the Year. Armando is co-author of the book 'I Just Want My Computers to Work' published in 2009. Armando is active in his community and is a frequent volunteer and fundraiser.

CMIT Solutions started as a small computer support company in Austin, Texas in 1996. Over the past decade,
we have grown into a leading provider of managed services and other computer consulting services with over
120 franchise locations nationwide. We’re able to combine personalized local service with all the technical
resources of a large national company-- offering our small business clients the products, partnerships, and
round-the-clock technical support that standalone locals can’t always provide.

Five Easy Steps for a Safer, Happier Year in Technology

Get a good start on 2010 by embracing a few simple principles that can do wonders for your safety and productivity:

1. Run your backups. Everybody says they’ll back up their machines, but how many of us actually do it? And even if your workplace is running automated backups, you should still get in the habit of backing up your own work to an external hard drive or to the corporate server. That way you won’t have to bother your IT guy if you’ve been working for several days on an important project that suddenly vanishes from your machine.
2. Update your virus definitions. This is another task that people promise to do periodically, rarely actually get to, and are generally safe anyway because the service runs automatically. However, if you have your antivirus software set to update and scan during the day, it can slow your machine down to the point where you’re constantly suspending or cancelling the update just so that you can get some work done. That leaves you vulnerable to new virus attacks. So to be on the safe side, make sure your antivirus software updates regularly at night or during hours when you’re usually not working.
3. Clean your keyboard. Have you ever dismantled your keyboard and seen what’s floating around in there? Enough said.
4. Empty your temporary files. Temporary files are backup versions of open files created automatically by many programs. In the event that the program unexpectedly crashes or quits before a user has a chance to save their most recent changes, the temporary file will offer the most up-to-date version of the file. They’re handy for that reason, but over time, temp files can take up a lot of space on your hard disk. Look for the Temporary Files folder on your hard drive. Verify that you don’t need any of the files, and simply move them from the recycle bin.
5. Change your passwords. Even the most foolproof, uncrackable passwords should be rotated out once in a while. Just make sure you remember the new ones!

Proper Use of Tabs Versus Spaces

If you are working in Microsoft Word, chances are you will need to format your document. Anytime that you are not simply using the left margin to align paragraphs, you should use tabs to properly align your text and numbers.

The default tab stops are every 0.5 inches from the left margin. You can easily customize this by simply clicking on the ruler at the top of your page in Microsoft Word. Wherever you click, you will see a tab symbol as shown in the image below. If you'd like the tab to right align text, double-click your new tab symbol. In the menu under Alignment, select Right.

Every now and then you might get a Word document from somebody who uses multiple spaces instead of tabs to space out items or begin paragraphs. It's also pretty common with information downloaded from the Web -- when it's converted from HTML to text format, a whole bunch of spaces appear. Suddenly your lovely Web chart looks like a mess in Word.

First, how can you tell if the document uses spaces instead of tabs?

1. Click on the paragraph symbol in the Paragraph tools.
   
   
2. You will see dots for spaces and right arrows for tabs.
   

Next, how do you clean it up?

Easy! Just perform the following steps:`

1. Press Ctrl+H to pull up the Find and Replace box.
2. Click on the More button and check the Use Wildcards box.
3. In the Find field, enter a single space followed by a left brace, the number 2, a comma, and the right brace.
4. In the Replace field, type ^t. The Find and Replace box should now look like this:
   
   
5. Click on Replace All.

You're done! Now all your multiple spaces will be replaced with tabs, and you can adjust the tabs as needed.

Don't Fall for the Latest Phone-Based "Tech Support" Scam

We've heard news recently about a new form of scam that preys on people's fears about accidentally downloading computer viruses and spyware. Here's how it works: the scammer calls the victim and claims to be working for a computer monitoring firm, a security software provider, or "your Windows XP provider." They say that they have reason to believe the victim's computer has been compromised, and that they can investigate the problem if the victim gives them access to his or her computer using a popular (and legitimate) remote access program such as LogMeIn. If the victim complies, the scammer has the entire contents of the victim's computer at their fingertips -- including passwords, logins, and all kinds of information that are catnip to identity thieves.

Here's how to spot the scam:

1. They say they're from "your monitoring service" or "your provider" but they don't identify themselves by name. This is a huge red flag, particularly if you aren't signed up for a monitoring service!
2. They're contacting you by phone. If there's a real security problem, you're usually notified automatically when your security software runs.
3. They want a credit card number before they'll render their "services."

Naturally, we're concerned about this because we don't to see innocent computer users getting scammed -- particularly by people purporting to do the same kind of work that we do! Here's how we're different:

1. When we contact our clients, we identify ourselves as CMIT Solutions, not "your provider." And because we value our relationships, our clients know us personally and by name -- so there's no question that we are who we say we are when we call.
2. If it's a screaming emergency, we might contact you by phone -- but because you know us and can always call us back if you're in doubt about who's really calling you, you can feel safe knowing you're working with a trusted resource. Otherwise, we can take care of most security issues for our CMIT Marathon customers without them even noticing. (CMIT Marathon is our remote monitoring and maintenance service, which includes security updates.)
3. If you're a CMIT Marathon or Guardian customer, you're subscribed to an ongoing service and won't have to provide payment over the phone if you ever call us with a question. Depending on your individual plan, we might have to bill separately for a visit to your office -- but you'll get a proper invoice, not a pushy technician pressuring you for a credit card number on the phone.

For more information about the phone-based "tech support" scam, you can check out this helpful AARP Bulletin article: http://bulletin.aarp.org/yourmoney/scamalert/articles/scam_alert_helpful_hackers_.html. For more information on CMIT Marathon, click here: www.cmitsolutions.com/southnassau/marathon.php.

Smart Spending Helps Minimize Your Taxes

If you're a small business owner who turned a profit in 2009, congratulations! It's been a tough year, and any business that succeeded in a very challenging economic environment deserves a pat on the back.

The downside to making a profit, of course, is that it can be subject to taxes. In order to minimize the amount they'll have taxed at the corporate rate, many businesses look for ways to spend down their excess profit. Here are just a few purchasing options that might help minimize your tax liability while also enhancing your business:

Hardware. Need new PCs, external hard drives, servers, wireless routers, or other physical equipment? Get it before the year's out.
Software. It might be time to do that big OS upgrade you've been planning. Ditto that accounting software purchase you've been putting off: once you've mastered it, it will save you hours of bookkeeping every week. And that's an investment worth making any time of year.
Office Supplies. Think about what you'll need in the first quarter of next year and buy it now to maximize deductions for 2009. Stock up on paper, photocopier and printer cartridges, and other supplies you know you'll use.
Services. Many CMIT Solutions locations offer service hours in blocks that you can purchase in advance and use over the course of the year. Check with us for details.
One thing you'll want to consider with equipment purchases is whether you want an immediate write-off or whether you want to depreciate the item over several years. (You'll also need the
equipment in your office, in use by year's end.) Your accountant should be able to advise you on how to maximize your deductions and structure a plan that's best for your business.

Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor - Is your PC ready for Windows 7?

Windows 7! It continues to soar. If you are wondering whether your current technology can support this newest Microsoft release, click here.
Windows 7 Description: Everything you need for work and home. With Windows 7 Professional, fewer walls stand between you and your success. You can run many Windows XP productivity programs in Windows XP Mode and recover data easily with automatic backups to your home or business network. You can also connect to company networks effortlessly and more securely with Domain Join. With all the exciting entertainment features of Windows Home Premium, it's a great choice for home and for business. Ask CMIT Solutions if Windows 7 makes sense.
Share Office 2007 documents with users of previous versions of Microsoft Office If you have friends or colleagues with pre-2007 versions of Microsoft Office, they can download the Compatibility Pack and easily open, edit, and save Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 documents.

Create great-looking signatures for your e-mail Want to give your Outlook 2007 e-mail messages polish and pizzazz? Take this free online training to learn how to create custom e-mail signatures and automatically insert them. Get your calculations done automatically Want to ditch that calculator? This online training shows you how to use simple formulas in Excel 2007 worksheets and let Excel do the calculating for you!
Video: Create drop-down lists in Excel 2007 To make data entry easier, you can create a drop-down list in your worksheet. Watch this video to see how to use Excel 2007 to create a drop-down list from a range of cells.

Alert: Fraudulent Email Is Not From Intuit

A number of fraudulent emails have gone out recently purporting to be from Intuit. The latest one claims to be from the QuickBooks Update Center and contains the subject line "Intuit Secure Update. This email is not legitimate. Ignore it and delete it.

For reference, the text of the fraudulent email is as follows:

From: QuickBooks Update Center [mailto:software@quickbooks.intuit.com]

Subject: Intuit Secure Update

As is the case with many companies that maintain large databases of information, Intuit is the target of fraudulent attempts to get access and extract information from its database. We recently watch our database was illegally accessed and certain contact and account information were taken, including QuickBooks email addresses, names, phone numbers. The data accessed does not include banking information.

Immediately upon learning about this, Intuit started an investigation and took corrective steps. It is important to know the company continually monitors for any illicit use of information in our database, and so far, we have not detected the misuse of this information.

In order to help assure the security of your information, we have developed a special plug-in for browser and Windows® - QuickBooks Update. This software will protect yours private information from any kinds of spyware or malware.

System requirements :

* Windows XP, Vista, 2000, 2003

* Internet Explorer 6.x, 7.x, 8.x

ATTENTION: You will not be able to use our service without update from 17 of November 2009

Download :

* Windows® QuickBooks Update

* Internet Explorer plug-in

If you are not Microsoft Windows® user you can use our services as usual

Intuit has confirmed that this is a fraudulent email (for more details, see the Intuit security blog at http://security.intuit.com/alerts/alert.php?a=8). But even without their confirmation, it's pretty easy to tell. Here's how:

1. You can often spot a phishing attempt because it contains misspellings or poor grammar. In the above example, a phrase like "We recently watch our database was illegally accessed" is a big red flag that the email was probably written by a scammer whose first language isn't English.

2. Any email that requests personal information or asks you to download something is probably a phishing attempt. Legitimate companies do not ask their clients to re-supply information the company already possesses. Nor do they ask their clients to download plug-ins by clicking on an email link.

If you receive a phishing email, do not click on any of the links or consent to download anything. Forward a copy of the email to your IT administrator so that they're aware of the problem and can alert other users. Then delete the email from your inbox and trash bin.

Give Your Documents a Uniform Look with Themes

A nice feature of Office 2007 is that you can make documents from several different programs Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Outlook all have the same look and feel. Whereas in the past you'd have to alter the color and style of every table, chart, and shape in every document separately, you can now just select a theme that takes care of all those details automatically.

For example, here's a simple chart using the theme called Office:

Here’s that same chart using the theme called Perspective:

As you can see, the theme affects the font, color, shading, and shadow effects. And because it's available in Word, PowerPoint, and Excel, your chart will look the same no matter what program it appears in and all the other charts you use will have a similar look.

The Themes gallery is accessible from the Formatting Palette. To create your own custom theme, you can open up a given theme and then alter the font, colors, and effects, and then save as a new theme. Just use the customization settings to the right of the thumbnailed themes, visible in the screen shot below.