Birdboro, PA Mar. 21, 2012 – When it comes to helping managed IT service providers and IT consulting firms get a leg up on IT security or gain the right knowledge to get started with IT security, there is no one better than Accell Security’s Wendy Frank.

Ms. Frank ran a very successful MSP in Eastern Pennsylvania and centered Accell Technology’s MSP practice on providing small and mid-size businesses across the region with IT support.

Ms. Frank always had a passion for serving the community that provided her with the knowledge needed to build a successful business.  Today, Ms. Frank and the team at Accell Security support those managed service providers and IT consulting firms in their efforts to protect their clients from threats.

“Security is crucial today,” said Ms. Frank.  “When a managed service provider can ensure that clients are completely protected, she truly becomes a trusted IT advisor and not just an IT person.”

Accell Security has released a white paper on what MSPs need to do now to properly prepare to offer security to clients.  This white paper is available free of charge to any IT service firm needing the right security advice.  Download Accell’s MSP Security whitepaper at http://www.accellsecurity.com.

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About Accell Security: Accell Security, Inc. is the expert IT security specialist looking out for your business.  The company was founded in 2002 with the goal of providing personal IT services and support to businesses in the Eastern Pennsylvania area.  Accell Security provides a number of IT security services including forensics, penetration testing, ethical hacking services and compliance auditing.  To learn more about Accell Security’s complete range of services, visit http://www.accellsecurity.com.

Wendy Frank is a trained and certified professional holding CISSP, CISA, MCSE, MCT certifications.

Birdsboro, Pa. Mar. 9, 2012 – When it comes to securing businesses in North America,  Accell Security president and CEO Wendy Frank, CISSP, CISA, MCSE, MCT  is one of the best in the country.

Her experience and resume are extensive.  Working with some of the top corporations in the United States and Canada, including government organizations, Ms. Frank is at the top of her game when it comes to securing the assets of large and small businesses.

Ms. Frank is scheduled to discuss how IT professionals and vendors can help business leaders secure their clients’ information in today’s world of cloud computing.  The CompTIA Annual Member Meeting, scheduled for Apr. 10 -12, 2012, in Chicago brings together many of the technology industry’s top thought leaders for three days of sharing best practices, learning from industry leaders and building strong relationships with key industry vendors.

“It is an honor to be sharing cloud security concepts at CompTIA’s annual members meeting,” said Ms. Frank. “The cloud scares many businesses, but by following proper security procedures, business leaders can leverage cloud-based solutions and drastically minimize risks.”

Ms. Frank joins an elite group of speakers for this year’s event including Mr. Stephen M.R. Covey who is scheduled to speak on Wednesday, April 11 at 5:15 pm CST.

To learn more about the CompTIA AMM event, visit http://www.comptia.org.

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About Accell Security: Accell Security, Inc. is the expert IT security specialist looking out for your business.  The company was founded in 2002 with the goal of providing personal IT services and support to businesses in the Eastern Pennsylvania area.  Accell Security provides a number of IT security services including forensics, penetration testing, ethical hacking services and compliance auditing.  To learn more about Accell Security’s complete range of services, visit http://www.accellsecurity.com.

In 2011, we saw many large enterprises and government agencies come under attack from “hacktivist” groups like Lulz Security and Anonymous. That doesn’t mean that small-business owners and individuals are safe.

As part of an attack on Booz Allen Hamilton, a hacker group revealed the email addresses of 90,000 military personnel, ordinary people who had no reason to expect that they would be targeted by hacktivists. A similar and possibly more damaging attack came at the hands of the hacker group Anonymous when members revealed the email and IP addresses of some of the Family First Association’s newsletter subscribers. They shared the credit card information of a dozen others. The Family First Association drew Anonymous’ fire when it protested the television show “All-American Muslim” and encouraged retailers like Lowe’s to withdraw their sponsorship of the program. Cyber attacks are anything but victimless crimes.

Hackers can access personal data in a number of ways. They can infiltrate company databases and lift customers’ information. If an employee has sensitive company information stored on a laptop or smart phone and it gets lost, whoever recovers it could have access to that information. Hackers also gain access by sending email messages with tainted links or attachments. One way that both businesses and individuals can protect themselves is by encrypting files and/or password protecting them. Encryption is something that all business leaders should consider, especially if they allow their employees to take work home on company laptops, tablets or smart phones.

Beware of malware that masquerades as security software. Many people have probably had popups appear on their computer screens letting them know that their computers contain about a dozen different viruses, worms and other threats. Don’t believe it. Clicking on the link to have the threats removed could start the installation of real malware. Although this particular ruse has begun to abate, authorities recommend that people remain on guard. Sadly, sometimes people have to be on guard even against people they know.

Spoofing the email address of someone’s friend or colleague is another way that hackers can get an unsuspecting individual to open malicious email. Sometimes, the friends’ or colleagues’ email accounts are hacked and the attackers go through their address books. Either way, be careful about opening emails from friends or colleagues if the subject line is left blank or if it has something incendiary like “Did you see what someone said about you on Twitter?” That should raise an immediate red flag.

Neither small-business owners nor average individuals should ever allow themselves to believe that only big businesses and government agencies have to worry about hackers. Cyber criminals don’t discriminate. We’re all fair game.

In November 2011, the FBI began warning people about a virus called DNS Changer that allowed Estonian-based hackers to gain control of people’s computers.  A domain name system (DNS) is “an Internet service that converts user-friendly domain names into the numerical Internet protocol (IP) addresses that computers use to talk to each other,” explained the FBI in its consumer guide. The way DNS Changer works is it puts a fake DNS server that the hackers control in place of the one on their victim’s computer. This allows the hackers to redirect an unsuspecting victim to websites with bogus software or money-making advertisements.

If you think security software could have helped, you’re wrong. Besides giving the hackers control of their victims’ Web travels, the malware also blocked their victims’ ability to update their operating systems or anti-malware protection.

But what does all this have to do with losing Internet access? Well, on March 8, 2012 the deadline for those who know they’re infected to remove the DNS Changer malware from their computers will expire. Anyone who hasn’t removed the malware by then will lose Internet access when the FBI shuts down the bogus servers for good.

Anyone who is uncertain about whether or not his computer is infected can download the FBI’s consumer guide, have a computer professional run a diagnostic – which may or may not reveal anything – or use the Avira DNS Repair Tool. The tool is free and requires no installation, but it won’t remove the malware from your computer. Using the repair tool will simply “reset the entries to Windows standard.”

If your computer is infected and you don’t mind starting over, then reinstalling your operating system is probably the quickest and easiest way to rid yourself of the malicious software. Just make sure that you’ve backed up all of your important files on a jump drive or external hard drive first. The other alternative is, of course, to enlist the aid of a computer professional. This service will not come for free. So, if you have a tight budget, reinstalling your operating system might be the way to go.

For some people, being able to access the Internet is an absolute necessity. If you’re one of them, you might want to take advantage of one of the options available to you to find out if you, too, are in danger of losing your Internet access come March 8.

Why are small businesses easier to infiltrate? They tend to have fewer safeguards in place than larger enterprises. Small-business owners erroneously believe that because they have fewer clients and therefore less data to compromise, they offer little enticement for cyber thieves. On the contrary, because cyber criminals can penetrate small businesses’ systems more easily, they will hit several small businesses in the same amount of time that it would take them to get past all the security measures of a large enterprise.

Email is still the most common form of communication used in business. Hackers know this and will use email to infiltrate a company’s system. They can do this via tainted attachments or hyperlinks. Other, bolder criminals will call or visit a business pretending to be network administrators or representatives from a security firm. Teach your employees how to recognize when someone is on a phishing expedition. One mistake could ruin your business and your reputation.

Data security is paramount to the success of your business. You are responsible for protecting your clients’ information. If their credit card information gets stolen because a hacker infiltrated your system, even if their credit card companies don’t make them pay for the fraudulent purchases, they will still blame you. Trust is one of the most valuable things you can get from your clients. Once that’s lost, it’s almost impossible to get back. In fact, some clients will never put their trust in you again. And they certainly won’t be referring any of their friends or colleagues to you. So, not only have you lost current business but also future business.

Besides making sure you install firewalls and update security software programs regularly, establish best practices for you and your employees to follow. Use complicated passwords that use numbers, symbols and capital letters. This makes them tougher to guess. Complicated passwords are also tougher to remember, so keep them written down in a small notebook that it’s store away from the computer. Change login passwords about once a month. Also, teach your employees how to recognize suspicious emails. To make it easier for people to remember to follow these best practices, you could post them in the break room and above copiers and fax machines. When it comes to recognizing suspicious callers or visitors, you could run regular drills. You could make them fun by offering a prize to the person who “catches” the most suspicious visitors. Or you could divide your employees into teams, depending on how many you have. Gift cards or branded merchandise could be offered as prizes.

You really can’t take too many precautions when it comes to protecting your company data. Your clients rely on you to keep them protected from cyber criminals, too, so anything you do to protect your business also protects your clients.

Looking for a trusted IT security firm to help you protect your business information and data?  Call us today.

Well, for individuals who plan to recycle or re-use their hard drives, one option would be to download free hard drive erasing software, such as Freeraser, KillDisk or SDelete. If you’re leery of downloading freeware from the Internet – as you should be – then you can buy software like WipeDrive for as little as $20. But that’s for individuals or small-businesses with fewer than 10 employees. But what if your small business has 20, 30 or 50 employees?  Is erasing computer hard drives really the best use of your IT team’s time? Probably not.

Fortunately, it’s not necessary for small-business leaders to spend time wiping clean every hard drive on every desktop or laptop computer that they plan to recycle or discard. Just as you can shred paper documents before throwing them in a recycle bin or dumpster, you can also shred or, more accurately, have shredded, any hard drive that you no longer plan to use for your business.

If you’re going to do that, then you probably should check, double check and triple check to make sure that all relevant or mission-critical information has been transferred and stored elsewhere. The same thing applies to small-business leaders who decide to completely erase their computers’ hard drives. Once that data is gone, it’s gone forever.

Hard drive shredding must be catching on because there are a few companies already offering these services. Data Killers, for example, offers hard drive shredding, hard drive erasing and degaussing (another way to wipe clean a hard drive that renders the hard drive unusable) services, on site and off site, for corporations and government agencies. Federal Document Shredding also provides on-site shredding for small and large businesses, government agencies and health care facilities. The company is HIPAA compliant and even offers x-ray destruction services. PC Recycler, Inc. offers its services not only to corporations and government agencies but also to individuals in the Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C. areas. For only $10, an individual could bring the hard drive from his PC to one of PC Recycler’s “shredding events” and watch as the hard drive is torn into tiny bits. As with Data Killers, PC Recycler offers on-site and off-site shredding services to businesses.

It’s more than a little daunting to think about where your last computer went and who’s using it, especially if all you did was reformat your hard drive before donating your computer to Goodwill or selling it to a pawn shop. Individuals and small-business owners who want to ensure the data on their hard drives are forever inaccessible, could use software like WipeDisk or Freeraser to wipe their hard drives themselves if they don’t want to hire a shredding service. But for leaders in larger businesses, hiring a service like Data Killers or PC Recycler to come in and do the wiping or shredding for them really is money well spent.

This is a fairly long read, however we urge you to chip away at it when you can. Every business owner should all be keenly aware of the security threat landscape. Ultimately it will help us protect our systems (both in the office and at home) more effectively.

As always, please contact your trusted IT security team with any questions or concerns.

Download the report - Sophos Security Threat Report 2012

Accell Security is the leading computer forensics company throughout Eastern Pennsylvania and the entire Eastern seaboard.  In this particular case, an employee had initiated suit for alleged violations under Title VII of the Federal Civil Rights Act, as well as the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act.

Under both Pennsylvania and Federal law, once a company has reasonable notice that a claim will likely be asserted against it, the company has a duty to take reasonable steps to preserve data potentially relevant to the claim and defenses.  Accell Security already had proper e-Discovery, Archive, and Disaster Recovery in place for the law firm, so this was already met without any additional time or stress.

Prior to the employee leaving the law firm, the individual deleted all email, files, folders and documents on the individual’s pc thinking that all incriminating content would be erased, leaving the firm with nothing to use to counteract pending claims.  Such was not the case, however.

Accell Security was able to perform the following services in order to build a case for the law firm:

• Performed forensics investigations and found pictures, emails and documents which showed that the employee was having, trying to keep, and pursuing personal relationships with multiple employees of the opposite sex.
• Used the Archive and Disaster Recovery data to gain additional information as stated just above as part of a “Litigation Audit of Electronic Documents”.
• Presented all the data collected to the defending attorney of the law firm.  That attorney, in turn, presented everything to the Alleged Victim, the Attorney and appropriate courts.

Through the diligent efforts of the Accell Security professional forensics experts, all previously filed and threatened lawsuits were dropped the same day.  Accell Security is the trusted partner and advisor to contact for all matters on computer security, network security, penetration testing, ethical hacking and much more.  Businesses need to protect themselves now against security threats.

Whether from the front office or the back office or even out in the field, it takes computers and networks to run the business efficiently.

That’s where Accell Security comes in.  We are 100% focused on making absolutely certain that your business and people are safe!  We cover everything from:

• A higher level of Level 3 technical assistance
• Helping businesses start their security practice
• Certified Ethical Hacking
• Security Audits, Assessments & Programs
• Compliance Audits, Assessments & Programs
• Computer forensics

As more and more construction businesses step up their game plan and get into technological advances such as virtual design and construction (VDC), building information modeling (BIM), and lean construction methods (LEAN), Accell Security will tell you that security of these systems are going to be of paramount importance to those systems.

Accell Security can help your business with any or all of the above IT and computer security services.  When it comes to your computer security, don’t wait until you are hacked to call the professionals.  Call us at 610-230-0085, or use their convenient contact us form.

Birdsboro, PA  / January 24, 2012 — The need for Managed Services Providers (MSPs) to provide a strong security offering to their clients is becoming more and more crucial as cybercrime skyrockets.  That is why special guest speaker, Wendy Frank, will be sitting down on the MSP Show on January 25 at 8:00a ET and discussing how to Master Your MSP Security Offering.

According to a recent Horizon Scan 2012 survey published by the Business Continuity Institute (BCI), among the top 2012 business worries for respondents from a total of forty-nine countries are data breach and cyber attack.  According to another report, both the US and Canada shared the same concerns as their international counterparts.

Since 2002, Accell Security specializes in providing IT security consulting, computer forensics and technology consulting.  According to Ms. Frank, Founder of Accell Security Inc., “In 2012, you must have a security practice in place to help your clients stay concerned and productive.  Security threats are always on the rise and threats exist everywhere.  The best approach is to prepare yourself — and your clients — now.”

During the call, Ms. Frank will be addressing the following topics:
- The importance of ensuring IT security standards are at their highest
- Trends that Threaten Security
- Cloud Security
- Security Testing
- Importance of having a managed security service in place

Accell Security has the wealth of knowledge that comes from many years of being a trusted IT security partner.  Her organization offers a wide range of security services.  MSPs will not want to miss this show starting at 10:00a ET on January 25.

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About the Company:  Accell Security Inc. specializes in providing IT Security consulting, computer forensics compliance and technology consulting. We are expert IT security specialists looking out for your business. Accell Security Inc. was founded in 2002 with the goal of providing personal IT services and support to business in the Eastern Pennsylvania area.

As a result of business growth, Access Technology, Inc. was spun off creating two separate corporations with an ever-increasing focus on expansion throughout the entire Eastern Seaboard.

If you have additional questions or have an IT support issue you would like to have resolved, call our main office number at 610-230-0085. We look forward to serving you.