With the rise of COVID-19, we find ourselves in unprecedented circumstances. As we work through this unique time in our history, we want to provide assurance to our customers by communicating CoNetrix's response to the COVID-19 crisis.

CoNetrix was nominated in the 2020 Cybersecurity Excellence Awards recognizing companies, products, and individuals that demonstrate excellence, innovation, and leadership in the information security industry. The awards are produced by Cybersecurity Insiders in partnership with the Information Security Community on LinkedIn, tapping into the vast experience of over 400,000+ cybersecurity professionals to honor the world's best cybersecurity products, professionals and organizations.

As more and more offerings are moved into the cloud under subscription-based licensing, it's both becoming easier for people to take advantage of software that previously may not have been as readily available, and more challenging to find a solution that doesn't involve storing your data one someone else's hardware.Office 365 is a great example of this as it really does seem like the writing is on the wall for non-subscription licensing of the Office Suite for on-prem installation of much of the server software platform. Granted, Microsoft does make it remarkably easy to just switch over to their platform and to use all the pieces of the software suite that have been designed to seamlessly work together, but there is always a concern (even if it's tiny) that your data is in someone else's hands.Let's look at cloud hosting from a data availability vantage point instead. The cloud makes it incredibly simple to access the platform from practically anywhere in the world – provided thie service is online. In early February 2020, there was a global outage of the Microsoft Teams platform which brought a lot of this to light. If you were already logged in prior to the outage, you were good to go. Anyone else trying to connect up after the fact was in trouble.The cause of the outage? https://twitter.com/MSFT365Status/status/1224351597624537088

I had upgraded an older ESX 5.5 host for a customer to version 6.7. That night, when Veeam backup tried to run, it stated that the remote certificate was invalid.The easy fix was to go to the Backup Infrastructure in Veeam and find the ESX host. Open the properties of the ESX host and "next" your way through the name and credentials pages. You will eventually get a pop-up about the untrusted certificate and asked if you "want to connect anyway". After accepting, the backups worked again.

CoNetrix holds a company meeting and dinner annually in February, bringing in all employees, both local and remote, to gather in fellowship and share in success. In choosing a location for our company dinner, Marvin Crossnoe, CEO of CoNetrix, shared "We look for an event venue that inspires our group to feel pride in our location here in Lubbock, and also provides an uplifting experience that we can share together as a single group." Crossnoe went on to say, "Our company is very diversified and it's important from a cultural standpoint that we provide times to get together to bond as a group."

Finding the right cybersecurity provider is not easy. While some services are like utilities where the options are very similar, the cybersecurity company that you choose is not just a matter of personal preference; you need a reliable provider because the potential risks to your business are much greater. As you consider your options, here are a few things you should consider to determine if a cybersecurity provider will protect your business.

I came across a system that was running very low on disk space.  Disk cleanup utility scans did not offer much to remove, even with system files checked.  When I looked at the drive with a graphical utility, I could see that a big chunk of space was being consumed in C:\Windows\Installer.

When you enable SSLVPN or HTTP/HTTPS for Management on your WAN interface on a Fortigate, the Fortigate creates global system Local-In policies. These are built-in policies that allow all traffic to the ports and services for SSLVPN and management on the WAN interface by default.

Windows released a tool called Windows Configuration Designer.  This allows you to automate new PC deployments. It can automatically uninstall all of the bloatware installed on the PC, skip the setup screen at the start, join the domain, and install programs. It will also allow you to place the PC in the correct AD organizational unit, allowing GPO's to apply instantly to the PC. After you configure a USB drive, all you have to do is plug in the USB to the new PC, and turn the pc on. WCD will do the rest for you.

CoNetrix recently assisted two customers with targeted phishing attacks in which the attackers attempted to redirect wire transfers. This activity is not new, however, some of the tactics utilized in the attack are noteworthy and provide insight into how organizations can better protect themselves. How did the attackers gain entry into corporate accounts? 

CoNetrix has been nominated in the 2020 Cybersecurity Excellence Awards recognizing companies, products, and individuals that demonstrate excellence, innovation, and leadership in the information security industry. The awards are produced by Cybersecurity Insiders in partnership with the Information Security Community on LinkedIn, tapping into the vast experience of over 400,000+ cybersecurity professionals to honor the world's best cybersecurity products, professionals and organizations.

CoNetrix strongly recommends all organizations implement the appropriate updates or mitigation measures for this confirmed vulnerability. CoNetrix has installed updates or implemented the mitigation steps for all affected CoNetrix Technology and Aspire customers. On December 17, 2019, Citrix announced a directory traversal vulnerability in the Citrix Application Delivery Controller (formerly NetScaler ADC) and Citrix Gateway (formerly NetScaler Gateway) products. If exploited, this vulnerability could allow an unauthenticated attacker to perform arbitrary code execution. This is similar to the Fortigate vulnerability in 2019.