16Jan 2023 by nathan

January 2023 News & Updates

CTC NEWS, Industry News, Monthly Newsletters, Tech news
We're currently interviewing for a Tier 1 and Tier 2 Support Tech to join our team. If you'd like more information on joining our team, use our online application available here. Updates to Policies and Procedures - We've made some slight changes to our Policies and Procedures and posted them here. Upcoming End of Life for Windows Server 2012 - In October 2023, Microsoft will be ending support for it's Windows Server 2012 operating system, meaning anyone currently using Windows Server 2012 will need to make plans to replace it before October. Changes to the MyIT Program - We are in the process of making some changes to the MyIT Program that we're pretty excited about. The biggest and most visible change for most MyIT Customers will likely be related…
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16Dec 2022 by nathan

Merry Christmas from Cyber Tech Cafe

CTC NEWS
Cyber Tech Cafe will be closed from Friday, 23 December 2022 until Monday, 2 January 2023 to celebrate Christmas and the New Year and to enjoy time with family, friends and loved ones. Any non-emergency support requests will be responded to on a first come, first served basis on Monday, 2 January 2023. If you need emergency technical support Thursday thru Sunday, our emergency on-call technicians will be available. You can page the emergency on-call technician by including the word ’emergency’ in the subject of your email request or using the emergency support telephone option. Please note the holiday rate will apply. From all of us here at Cyber Tech Cafe, we wish you and  yours a very Merry Christmas! Nathan and Kristy Underwood
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20Nov 2022 by nathan

Happy Thanksgiving

CTC NEWS
Cyber Tech Cafe would like to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving! We will be closed on Thursday, 24 November 2022 and Friday, 27 November 2022 to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday with family, friends and loved ones. Any non-emergency support requests will be responded to on a first come, first served basis on Monday, 28 November 2022. If you need emergency technical support Thursday thru Sunday, our emergency on-call technicians will be available. You can page the emergency on-call technician by including the word 'emergency' in the subject of your email request or using the emergency support telephone option. Please note the holiday rate will apply. From all of us here at Cyber Tech Cafe, we wish you and  yours a Happy Thanksgiving! Nathan and Kristy Underwood
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15Nov 2022 by nathan

November 2022 News & Updates

CTC NEWS, Industry News, Monthly Newsletters, Tech news
Six Zero Day vulnerabilities patched by Microsoft this month, all of which are being actively exploited by threat actors. All MyIT Customers should be updated and protected against all of these vulnerabilities but it is critical to reboot if prompted by the update management tool. Updates to Policies and Procedures - We will be posting our updated policies and procedures to our current Policies and Procedures page in January. Upcoming End of Life for Windows Server 2012 - In October 2023, Microsoft will be ending support for it's Windows Server 2012 operating system, meaning anyone currently using Windows Server 2012 will need to make plans to replace it before October. 2022 Holiday Schedule Thanksgiving - Closing Thursday, 24 November and re-opening for regular business on Monday, 28 November. Christmas &…
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06Nov 2022 by nathan

2022 Holiday Schedule

CTC NEWS
It's hard to believe that the holidays are already upon us once again. We will be closing the office for the Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year holidays based on the schedule below and, as always, emergency support will be available for our Commercial and MyIT customers at holiday rates. Non-emergency support requests will be addressed based on priority and the order received as the office re-opens. Please see our FAQ page for details on hourly rates, emergency support and our Triage process. ThanksgivingClosed Thursday, 24 November 2022 and returning to normal business hours on Monday, 28 November 2022.Christmas & New YearClosed Monday, 26 December 2022 and returning to normal business hours on Monday, 2 January 2023.
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11Oct 2022 by nathan

October 2022 News & Updates

CTC NEWS, Industry News, Monthly Newsletters, Tech news
Accepting Applications - We are looking to add a new member to the team and are accepting applications for a Tier 2 Support Position. If you know someone that's got a passion for good customer service, a solid technical pedigree and is looking to work with some of the greatest customers on the planet, definitely send them to our online application here.Multiple zero day vulnerabilities have been addressed by Microsoft this month including (at least) two in Microsoft Exchange that have been actively exploited. Microsoft released updates to fix 84 security vulnerabilities this month including 20 remote code execution vulnerabilities and 13 (including some of the RCE) that it has rated as Critical. Worth noting is that this does not include the 12 patched on 3 October and fixes for…
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01Sep 2022 by nathan

Closed Monday, 5 September 2022 for Labor Day

CTC NEWS
We will be closed on Monday, 5 September 2022 to enjoy the Labor Day holiday with friends, family and loved ones and will reopen during normal business hours on Tuesday, 6 September 2022.  Emergency support will be available for our commercial and MyIT clients.  If you need emergency support on Monday, simply include the word 'emergency' in the subject of your email to help@ctc.co or by noting it in your voicemail at 770.386.8900.
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09Aug 2022 by nathan

Continued widespread dictionary / brute force attacks

CTC NEWS, Industry News
Over the past two weeks, we have seen a significant spike in the number of brute force attacks against SSL VPN endpoints and VPN web portals. Initially, the traffic was coming from several hundred IP Addresses but we were pretty quickly able to distill it down to about 47 netblocks from two geographic areas (Russian Federation and China). All of the login attempts were failing and in the initial set of login attempts the usernames were varied and included admin, administrator, vpnuser, sslvpn, backup, user, sales and others. This most recent set of attempts though were for admin and administrator and, after distilling the data down we saw a new pattern emerge. A very small number of the attempts are now coming from domestic IP Addresses and, specifically, some of…
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27Jul 2022 by nathan

Possible delays in support due to labor shortage

CTC NEWS
Like many small businesses, we are feeling the strain of the labor shortage. In most cases, we have been able to schedule around it but we are seeing our response times start to stretch out longer than we would prefer. As a result, we are having to triage and prioritize some support requests and want to be very transparent about how this prioritization works. We will prioritize first based on customer type (MyIT, Commercial and Residential) and then based on the request types detailed in our Policies and Procedures page here. In any case, we will continue to respond to all support requests same day and, in most cases, within four business hours of receiving the request. We will continue responding to and addressing support requests as promptly as we…
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20Jul 2022 by nathan

Widespread brute force / dictionary attacks overnight

Industry News, Tech news
We received notifications from literally every Internet facing firewall that we have deployed as well as a number of honeypot devices for failed login attempts from an IP Address 45.134.144.200. This IP Address is in the same network (45.134.144.0/24) that we've seen similar traffic from in the past and we have no indication of any legitimate traffic to or from that network in the past 12 months. If you manage one or more networks with Internet connectivity, it may be worth looking into this network range to see if there has been any traffic (or successful logins). For our MyIT clients, we had already blocked a few specific IP Addresses based on similar traffic in the past but are now updating all of our managed firewalls to block the entire…
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