Best wishes for a happy holiday season and our sincere thanks for your loyalty and goodwill throughout the year.

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Optimizing your technology for success in business won’t happen by accident. Achieving an efficient and effective IT environment requires time, expertise, structure and a proven strategy tailored to your needs, all of which you can get from our IT Experts.

New Popcorn Time Ransomware Demands Cash Unless Infected User Agrees to Spread the Virus to Friends

We’re Urging Local Individuals and Businesses to be Informed about Latest and Most Sophisticated Cyber Scam

The need for cyber security has been on the radar and in the playbooks of serious companies and their executives for some years. However, recent advancements in a particularly virulent strain of software called “ransomware” has made even forward-thinking CIOs sit up and take notice. Ransomware attacks are hitting individuals, institutions and businesses hard, right here in {city}. Ransomware attacks are defined by their demand for incredibly high ransom fees simply to restore access to information and reinstate productivity.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the newest form of diabolical ransomware floating around the internet is through a software called Popcorn Time. Popcorn Time is deviously named after but unrelated to the bittorent piracy app and quickly infects a user’s machine and demands a 1 bitcoin ransom (over $700), to reinstate access to data held hostage. However, the particularly daunting aspect of this strain of ransomware is the alternative escape option it offers. If an infected user can’t afford the bitcoin payment, they can have their files released for free on one condition: send the malicious link to two friends, have them download the infection and pay the ransom.

Reminiscent of a B-rated Hollywood horror film or a bad pyramid scheme, this new method of spreading the virus and seeking out more victims is incredibly hard to track, prevent and slow down. The frightening new software was discovered by cyber-security researchers, MalwareHunterTeam, and the malicious program is still in development. However, researchers claim that if left to develop fully, the innovative method of distribution could make Popcorn Time one of the most dangerous and wide-spread cyber-scams on the internet.

So what can individuals do to stay protected? And what does one do when they find themselves faced with paying a ransom or selling out their friends? The cyber-security experts at {company} want to make sure {city} individuals and businesses are well-versed in how to proactively keep data protected before nasty ransomware like this takes hold of data. The most important point of defense is securing reliable back-up solutions where an emergency copy of all important data is stored and protected on a separate machine or in the cloud.

Through proactive and strategic planning and preparedness, the {company} team is committed to ensuring that their client base is equipped with comprehensive back-ups in case of attack or disaster. Because of this foresight, {company} clients wouldn’t have to pay the ransom to retrieve their files in the case of an attack, nor would they have to consider selling out colleagues or friends to avoid the bitcoin payment.

Even with backups in place, damage-control and restoration time to get business back on track can be costly. Though the {company} team is equipped to help clients recover from disaster quickly, there is a cost associated for the man hours needed to restore data. Not to mention the lost productivity and wage expenses that businesses suffer because their employees are unable to work for a certain amount of time. Furthermore, ransomware attacks like Popcorn Time are getting increasingly sophisticated and malicious and can manifest in ever-evolving ways. Therefore, it’s critical to have a variety of cyber-security measures in place to ensure protection.

Investing in the correct preparation and protection mechanisms may seem time consuming or costly, however, the cost pales in comparison to the potential damages that a ransomware attack can cause. As the prevalence and sophistication of ransomware continues to rise, the potential cost and productivity savings of enlisting IT support is becoming increasingly evident.

If you’d like to connect your business-minded audience with more information about this nasty new strain of Ransomware, other daunting cyber-security threats and tips for staying informed and protected, please don’t hesitate to reach out to {company} at {phone} or email us at {email}.

Keeping the masses informed is the first and most important step against beating cyber criminals.

Network downtime can be a costly issue that many tend to overlook. With many businesses ignoring moments of network failure or how often their network fails, the silent killer of network downtime can go undetected until it’s too late. Thankfully, there’s a few things one can do visualize the costs of network downtime and avoid the pitfalls of such circumstances.

Network Downtime & Your Financial Gain

In total, network downtime easily costs companies a total of $26.5 billion annually. Large businesses tend to lose $1,000,000 during network downtime, as medium-sized businesses lose $91,000 and small businesses lose around $55,000 every year. Considering the time lost during network downtime is rarely retrieved, ill-prepared sites rarely have a chance to bounce back given the significant losses.

Network Downtime & Your Reputation

In addition to the money your business loses, network downtime can also destroy your reputation. For example, let’s say your business is a brick and mortar business that regularly takes breaks during the busiest time of the day. When a customer comes your the service to find out it’s closed, it annoys the customer and makes them want to visit a different service that can cater to them.

It wasn’t too long ago when The New York Times website went down for two hours and their competitors took advantage of the situation. Their stocks dropped and the competitors dropped the prices of their service to soak up the subscribers the New York Times had lost. Although some businesses are prepared for such situations during network downtime, many don’t have the extra funds to recover from a major setback.

Network Downtime & Your Search Results

In addition to destroying your reputation and profits, network downtime can also ruin your ranking in search engines. If network downtime is a regular issue for your service, Google could drop your business from the search index altogether if the service isn’t reliable. Even if your service is successful in search engines, it’s possible that your business could see a drop in how it shows up in general searches.

So now that the damage of network downtime has been put into perspective, it’s important that your business avoids such issues at all costs. Thankfully, {company} is here to make sure that network downtime isn’t a problem your business adapts to. So if you happen to live in the {city} area, feel free to contact us by email at {email} or by phone at {phone} so we can make your network downtime issues a thing of the past.

When you are in the insurance business, adaptability matters. When systems are antiquated, it’s impossible to remain competitive in a tight business climate. Insurers who can offer customers diversified products to meet their needs come out on top. With the desire to grow in the forefront of most businesses, keeping customers happy is the number one way to grow. Insurers that adapt new strategies can provide policies that give customers only what they need and nothing extra. With the ability to pick and choose what the policy covers, the insurer can now create unique packages for the clients they serve.

Data Migration is Necessary to Create an Electronic Policy Administration System

Migrating data from paper files and inputting policies into an electronic policy administration system is fraught with potential problems. This is why so many companies have continued to rely on old ways, even though the methods are completely old and just about obsolete. The process is time consuming, and during this time it can be difficult to address the needs of both current customers and new ones looking for policies for protection. It’s important to remember that it’s a process, mistakes are going to happen, and vigilance is essential when migrating data from one system to another. This is one area where you can’t try to save money on employee costs, as it’s imperative that a system is set up correctly from the beginning and all of the checks and balances have been laid out.

Optimal Insurance Requires Flexibility for Insurers and Policy Holders

Once an automated process for handling insurance has been established within an agency, this brings many advantages to both customers and insurers. Data is always available, and there’s no need to go looking through old paper copies of policies to determine what a policy holder is entitled to when trying to make a claim. With the flexibility of a searchable database, insurance companies can process claims much faster. It’s possible to gather data on claims, and to look for ways to reduce costs over time. Once the system is in place, the insurer can look over the offerings carefully and make sure that they are cost-effective by analyzing data. Policy holders will get what they want, and nothing else. This saves money and time for everyone involved.

Old Systems are Going to Eventually Stop Working

The gap between old systems to provide insurance coverage and new, electronic systems is widening, so much in fact that businesses relying on these old systems are simply going to go out of business. Businesses that embrace technology and systematically create a platform that works for the broker and policy holder will see growth, while those still trying to hang on to the old ways are going to decline until they are completely gone. Customers want action, they want diversity, and they want transparence when it comes to choosing the right policies for their needs. An electronic platform is the only way to provide optimal insurance options to customers.

AI is becoming part of our daily lives without us even knowing it. Here’s what’s going on with AI now, and what’s coming.

One of the big topics in technology today is artificial intelligence (AI). You have probably seen examples of AI in television shows and movies, where robots that look similar to (or sometimes exactly like) humans do all of our work for us, leaving us to pursue our leisure activities freely; in these imagined worlds, robots are our mechanical, unpaid servants, who are programmed to only want to do our bidding. There have been some exhibits of imaginings of this kind of future at world and national fairs, and there was even one at the Disney World theme parks for a long time called The Carousel of Progress.

While we may not be at the point of having a class of robot servants at our disposal just yet in our society, we are getting close. AI is already used in many everyday applications. If you have ever used SIRI or an Amazon Echo, where you talk to a machine, usually asking it questions, and it responds with the information you were seeking, you have used AI. Much of modern AI is data-based, with machines known as “bots” looking up information for us. The bots are trained to learn based on how we speak to them, so after we have had them for a while, we can ask them the vaguest of questions, and they can give us back incredibly accurate information. They may even find information we didn’t know we were seeking, or an amazing deal on something like a flight or a retail object we didn’t know about at the time. The bots are even programmed to ask you to provide more information if they need it in order to answer your initial question.

This type of AI is becoming a common part of our lives, so much so we often don’t even think about it. Only a few decades ago, it would have seemed strange to ask a robot to find what local store was selling that must-have Christmas toy at the cheapest price, or to ask it to use your pre-programmed credit card information to book a flight for you. Now, it just seems normal, like this is how the world works now. And, it’s true. The world does work like this now, and the AI we are currently using is going to seem primitive in comparison to the AI we will be using in the future. The world of AI is becoming more sophisticated, and is being gradually integrated into our lives without us even knowing it.

There are already machines that are being programmed to send information about their mechanics and electronics back to monitoring companies, so the health of those machines can be examined in real time from afar. This allows maintenance crews to be sent out to fix things before a problem actually occurs. There is already a company called ThyssenKrupp that is doing exactly this with elevators across entire cities. With ThyssenKrupp’s AI, elevators in public buildings, and private ones that subscribe to the service, will always be safe for anyone to ride, because any potential issues with their service or reliability will have been handled long before anyone boards them.

More AI is being developed to do similar things, and it is being designed to be intelligent like the bots of today. AI will continue to be programmed to learn, and it will soon be learning new things on its own, much as humans and animals do. It will be integrated into the technology you already use every day, so adopting it will be seamless for you. It won’t seem strange. Instead, it will appear like a normal part of the world, when once it was only in the realm of science fiction.

And, yes, those robots that look like humans that are supposed to do all our housework for us are already being developed in Japan. One day, even those will be a reality, and not just something you see on TV and in the movies. Better start making room for those mechanical servants now, because they’re coming.