True Story:
Don’t Let This Happen To Your Company!
Here’s a true story with the names changed to protect the innocent…
During Friday’s lunch break, Peggy ate lunch at her desk so she could surf the Internet for coupons to cash in over the weekend. She discovered that she needed to temporarily disable her anti-virus software so a coupon printer could be installed. She felt it was innocent enough because the web site explained this was a common step in the process of accessing the coupons. Besides, she really wanted those $25 dollars in savings!
Later that night at the grocery store, Peggy discovers her coupons are worthless counterfeits. That’s because they were printed from a coupon web site designed to fool the end user into downloading a program that would connect her computer to a network of bots (also called a botnet). This network of illegally hacked computers is used to flood the Internet (and your inbox) with spam.
When Peggy got in Monday morning, she discovered the company’s entire e-mail server was blacklisted as a spam source stopping ALL e-mail communications internally, as well as to clients and vendors. It took two full days to discover the source of the spam, clean up the mail server, and begin the process of removing Peggy’s company from the blacklist at clients, vendors and various anti-spam monitoring services. It took another two weeks before everything was back to normal.
Don’t let this happen to you! This episode could have been prevented with properly installed and monitored anti-malware software, an anti-malware network appliance and an acceptable use policy in place for all employees to follow. There are more than 12 million zombie computers in the United States alone. If your network hasn’t been attacked yet, it will. Though this numbers game is rigged in favor of the bad guys, you don’t have to let it destroy your company’s productivity and good reputation!
FREE Network Security Audit
Contact us before Oct.15th and we will send a senior technician to your office to determine where you are at risk for malware attacks or downtime and what options you have for protecting yourself. Call today at 773-516-5718 before the zombies start gnawing on your network!
