In light of Mother Nature’s recent earthquake in the Mid-Atlantic and now bracing for Hurricane Irene we want to ensure that we pass along some basic business preparedness tips to keep your business running after the storm passes.  With a high likelihood of power outages this weekend and flooding in low-lying areas, we encourage you review these tips to help protect your IT infrastructure:

We hear it a lot.  What is “the Cloud”?  Cloud computing can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people.  Depending on the size of your business and what your specific needs are; Cloud computing might be the right answer.  With Cloud computing you may be able to cut costs and improve efficiency.  As we said before, it depends on your needs:

Last week we spoke about the big hack attack in the Washington, DC area.  We mentioned several viruses and online scams to watch out for.  We also mentioned tricky scams that can lure you into paying for fake anti-virus tools.  It is a very persistent and real threat on the web.

Fake Anti-Virus:  What it Is

Fake AV or Anti-Virus is malware, which once downloaded onto the computer scares the user into believing that their system is infected.  Threatening virus messages will continue to pop up until you purchase services to clean up the threat.  The crux is that the threat never existed in the first place; hence the “fake” portion of the “Anti-Virus”.

This week a group of hackers claim to have exposed over 90,000 military personnel email address and passwords by penetrating a McLean, VA based defense and homeland security consultant to the US government.  If the hackers take a swipe at the big guys, imagine the havoc they can wreak on a small business.

The one issue we at Sentinel IT Solutions are seeing lately is rouge security viruses that seem to bypass Anti-Virus software.  This occurs when the end user unknowingly clicks on the virus and installs it - wreaking havoc all on their own. 

Who doesn't want to shave a few minutes off of your busy day by enhancing productivity in all you do at the office?  How about a few easy (Windows-centric) keyboard shortcuts ?  Do you use any of these?  Is your favorite listed?  

Do you want to provide visitors to your website the opportunity to recommend your pages to their friends?  We do - Look to the upper right... 

IP Address Basics

Like the majority of us you probably have a PC and use a Windows environment for work or at home.  However, if you have an iPhone or use iTunes for your iPod, or you love your new iPad, you’ll want to know about Apple’s recent announcement of its place in the ubiquitous world of Cloud Computing with iCloud.

Recently we had to fight some nasty viruses for our clients as well as increase their network security to beef up protection against cybercriminals.  Here are a few IT security headlines that could affect you.