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8B — January 26 - February 8, 2018 — Property Management— ODM — M id A tlantic

Real Estate Journal

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P roperty M anagement Integrated Business Systems Inc. Cybersecurity: A cautionary tale

e’ve been talking about cybersecurity for quite some time.

an infected email link. Most viruses travel from an infected workstation to a server and then spread from the serv- er to other workstations. In the case of EMOTET, the infection runs laterally – meaning it travels across a network, from workstation to workstation. And it is incredibly hard to stop. We thought we had the vi- rus trapped during our initial inoculation. Two days later it was raging again. Ultimately, we had to wipe each of this client’s more than 50 desktops down to the boot track, rein- stall the operating system and

applications, add advanced end-point protection software, and then reconnect the to the main server. That process from start to finish took nearly two weeks. During this time, ac- cess to email, programs and data was interrupted sporadi- cally. One month later, we are still working to completely eradicate EMOTET from the company’s system. This is a cautionary tale. While we would love to report that we trapped and eradicat- ed EMOTET, and inoculated against re-infection quickly and effectively, the fact of the matter is that the sophistica- tion and aggressive nature of today’s “latest and greatest” viruses can challenge even the most experienced, knowledge- able, well-equipped IT provid- ers. That includes us. This also provides a very tangible example of why we continue to urge our clients to incorporate SentinelOne advanced end-point security software. “End points” are personal computers, network servers and other devices con- nected to the Internet. When they are exposed, systems and data become vulnerable. Unlike traditional anti-virus solutions, advanced end-point protection platforms do not require prior knowledge of an attack in order to detect and remediate it. They apply ma- chine learning and artificial intelligence to continuously outflank attackers. As such, ad- vanced end-point solutions are always evolving with the ever- changing threat landscape. They are even ready to stop threats that do not yet exist. However, deciding to imple- ment end-point protections the day after an attack is too late. The pain and distraction for our client has been severe, including a six-figure price tag and days of downtime. Additionally, several of its vendors and customers are now questioning the safety of email attachments they are receiving from employees at the company. Within this context, the an- nual cost of about $90 per workstation and $180 per server seems a small price to pay for advanced end-point protection. The moral of the story? Do not wait another day. It could be too late. Contact IBS today for a FREE cyber-security evaluation. n

Yes, the threats are real. Yes, damages resulting from a mal- ware infection or data breach can be catastrophic. Yes, every business needs to take precau- tions. But until last month the conversation was hypothetical – at least as it related to IBS clients. That is, unfortunately, no longer the case. In late November, one of our Managed IT Services clients got hit with a nasty virus called EMOTET (you can read more by way of a quick online search

– this bug likely will go down in history as the largest phishing

campaign of 2017). How did it happen? An employee opened

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