Google Chrome Updates – Is Your Site Secure?

The world’s most popular Internet browser, Google Chrome, is releasing an important update in the coming weeks.  Starting with the public and stable release of Chrome update 68, the browser will show a yellow “warning” icon next to the URL of web sites which are not protected by a SSL cert, and when this icon is hovered over a “Not Secure” warning will be displayed.  With over 53% of total browser market share, this update is sure to affect a wide swatch of users and websites.

Read the Google blog post here.

Not sure if your website will be affected by this change?  Visit your site in a browser, and then look at the URL in the address bar.  If your address begins with “HTTP” and not “HTTPS”, your visitors may start to see a warning when this update is released.

To get ahead of the curve on this, give us a call or send us an email – for $175 a year, we can purchase, coordinate, and install a fix for this issue for any DataYard hosting customers.  Just another way we are here to help you make IT better.

 

Just Keep Swinging : DataYard Celebrates 23 Years

This year at DataYard we celebrate 23 years of hard work, ambition, and success. First things first, we want to thank all of our wonderful, loyal clients who have chosen us for 20 years or just over the last year, your trust in us means everything. Secondly, we want to thank our team that is committed to serving our clients day in and day out. Lastly, we wanted to take a minute to thank and recognize, Dave Mezera. Who knew that what three Air Force buddies cooped up out of passion and tinkering would become the finest IT company in the Gem City.

If you’ve had the chance to experience a DataYard award then you know they are all unique and often recognize the most extraordinary to the most nominal achievements. This year while celebrating our 23 years together at a Dragon’s game we wanted to recognize the giver of the most awards at DataYard, Dave Mezera. Without Dave, DataYard would cease to exist the way that it does today. His love and attention have made DataYard great to its clients and its team.

This year, 2018, marks 23 years of business for DataYard, but it is not the first time that 23 years has been a monumental year. In fact, one hundred years ago exactly in 1918, another fine accomplishment was achieved by none other than the great Babe Ruth. The Boston Red Sox were coming off an incredibly successful season where Ruth had played nearly every game due to his affinity for hitting. He mostly played in the outfield in the shortened season of 1918 but would beg to return to his role pitching.

That year the Boston Red Sox faced off with the Chicago Cubs for the pennant. In Game One, Ruth was on the mound and ended up giving the Red Sox their first victory. Prior to Game Four Ruth injured his hand in a fight but still took the mound and pitched the game. Thanks to some outstanding support from his team he was able to get the Sox a victory and a 3-1 series lead. Here’s the thing, before allowing the Cubs to score in that 4th Game, Ruth had pitched twenty-nine and two-thirds consecutive scoreless innings, a record for the World Series that stood for more than 40 years. The next year in 1919, Babe Ruth would go on to have an unprecedented spell of slugging home runs, which gave him much of his notoriety. But, Ruth would reminisce that he was prouder of that record more than any of his jaw-dropping batting feats.

What does a historically spectacular baseball player have to do with DataYard today? Nothing, we have no company baseball team, we don’t have a World Series of I.T., we don’t even host a website that talks about Babe Ruth, but we can celebrate greatness. The last 23 years have been nothing less than incredible for our DataYard family and for Dave, or El Capitan as we call him. Similar to a baseball team there have been people who have come and gone, changed the game and ultimately made this team great, but one thing is constant Dave has been there and he’s invested time, resources and energy into this thing we call DataYard and the clients, community, and staff are all the beneficiaries.

Babe Ruth’s greatest personal feat was throwing some pitches, but his notoriety and fame were seen in his ability to hit the ball. His pitching success proceeded the incredible batting future he would achieve. We too believe that the best years are to come for DataYard. Some of our fondest memories and great accomplishments may be in the past but our greatest feats are still to come. So, we want to say thank you, Dave, and just keep swinging!

Securing Your Home Network

Earlier this month was Safer Internet Day, which is focused on educating and creating awareness for a safer internet. As Dayton’s only local ISP (Internet Service Provider), DataYard knows the importance of internet safety and security. While we do our part to keep the internet safe as a provider, the only one who can keep your home and your family safe on the internet is you. Don’t worry DataYard is here to help you make IT better.

These are all suggestions that we believe to be the best option within reasonable expectations, these are suggestions where economically and technically feasible.

Defining Home Network.

DataYard defines a home network as the primary private network that an individual uses to access the Internet when in their home. Home networks do not include public carrier networks (LTE, 4G, 3G, etc.), public hotspots or public Wi-Fi access points (hotels, coffee shops, airports, etc.) The definition of a home network is limited to private networks typically controlled by you at your residence.

Wireless Security

One of the major considerations of securing a private network is wireless (Wi-Fi) security. DataYard recommends periodically changing SSID names, changing Wi-Fi passwords, and utilizing the current wireless security standard WPA2. WPA2 uses an encryption that encrypts the network with a 256-bit key. As an additional layer of security, you could implement MAC address restrictions to restrict access and further security private network.

Stay Up To Date

On any device that is accessing the internet through your home network it is important to be using the latest Operating System (OS). Keeping the OS updated will ensure you have the most recent security features enabled by default and prevent common attacks. In addition, making sure that all software and applications are up to date will prevent outdated software breaches.

Network Security.

We highly recommend deploying a physical firewall between the internet access connection and the internal network/device(s). This could be accomplished by deploying a router with an integrated firewall (Best Routers in 2018). By default, these devices will filter incoming access to the private network, excluding normal operating protocols for accessing Internet resources. Many internet service providers supply a modem/router combination device, in which case you should ask for administrative privileges to make adjustments where necessary.

Remote Access for Home Networks

It is increasingly common for users to allow remote access into their home networks for various functions, applications, and systems (IOT, Home Security, Media Centers, etc.). In order to provide remote access to these various technologies, users may open various ports/protocols on both the filtering devices and the end devices. In these scenarios, we strongly encourage you to:

  1. Allow remote access to the system only when required
  2. Restrict access to IP address, ports and protocols as much as possible
  3. Perform IP filtering when technically feasible

Additional Security Measures

Additional best practices include regarding securing a private network include the following:

  • Keeping all internet capable devices up-to-date with security patches
  • Changing the default privileged edge password of all devices on the private network
  • Using strong and complex passwords for access to home equipment and devices
  • Maintaining active anti-virus and anti-malware on all applicable devices
  • Implement Full Disk Encryption (FDE) on Laptops

If you’d like to learn more about securing your home network or how to maximize the security of your online presence please feel free to reach out to us on social media or at [email protected].

5 Reasons Why Disney’s Channel Facade is Falling

An article by The Wall Street Journal came out yesterday revealing Disney’s struggles with ratings and viewership decline and honestly, we’re not surprised. As a company that values innovation, we’re not shocked when large companies fail to innovate quickly. As online providers such as Netflix, Amazon and the infamous, endless blackhole of YouTube have garnered more and more viewership, the audiences are drifting from the endless channel surfing to the instant gratification of online video sources. From Joe Flint’s recent article, Disney’s Channels: Children Are Tuning Out, alone we can identify five alarming trends in the media-moguls outlook of their current condition.

1. Ratings Over Reality 

Experience is everything and the reality is the ratings don’t reflect the reality of viewership. The measurement for success for the last several decades in media was two-fold; ‘ratings’, and, ‘number of viewers’, but ratings were the leading value driver. If the ratings were high then viewership was up. This perception assumed, for many years correctly, that high ratings meant higher viewership because if the audience liked the show they kept watching.
However, in the digital age things have changed and how media is consumed is becoming the larger measure in the war for viewers. Making the ‘number of viewers’ of equal or more value that the ‘rating’ of the content. Trends like ‘Netflix and Chill’ and ‘Binge-watching’ have challenged traditional television by giving viewers all the content immediately verses waiting week by week for the next show to be aired. The crazy thing is that Disney has identified their challenge but has failed to make the changes needed to stay competitive, leading us to our second point.

2. Failure to Perceive & Pivot 

In 2012, Netflix had a considerable amount of viewers at over 23 million, and has grown substantially year-after-year to the point of recently even beating out cable viewers in Q1 of this year according to Leitchman Research Group. (Don’t believe it? Read more about this in Forbes). No one is surprised by this type of growth, especially with the increasingly, On-Demand generation of viewers, yet Disney has failed to pivot quickly to this challenge.
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In the WSJ article, Disney Chief Executive Robert Iger said that the company is preparing to offer its channels, in part or whole, directly to consumers online rather than just through costly cable television packages. Preparing! That is quite an alarming statement with the trends moving the way they have been for such a long time. We’re shocked to see that they’re just now considering their options and preparing – clearly they’re feeling the pinch. It’s not uncommon to see these larger corporate conglomerates, challenged in the fast-paced tech world, to fall behind to their smaller more agile counterparts.

3. Preparing Instead of Perceiving 

Piggy-backing off the last point, Disney’s cable-entertainment has been challenged just like many other cable based media companies by slowly preparing for change and not perceiving the trends. What makes Amazon so great is their innovation, their ability to perceive new markets and tackle them quickly with purpose. Cable companies and their channel providers have been persistently challenged by the online media movement, without long-standing solutions. They’ve band-aided issues and failed to truly perceive market trends and create valuable end-user solutions.
Sorry cable, your DVR function is just not comparable to our Netflix accounts. Not only do you interrupt our DVR’d shows with commercials but you still make us record and watch each week, and the demand feature isn’t much better. The days of waiting for the next episode have passed away and the longer more grueling waits for instant bulk access to new seasons has taken over. Disney is going to need to look past its currently problems and start perceiving where, how and what the audience wants, and jump to that point if it wants to compete with current online media services.

4. Money Over People

And we quote, “Distributors have said they are wary of too much content being available outside of the pay-TV ecosystem.” Why you might ask? Well this is why, “Online video currently carries fewer ads and generates significantly less revenue than network programming, particularly if it is available to people who don’t subscribe to cable.” Let us summarize, we’ve been choosing the more profitable route instead of pleasing our customers. For example, when Disney first launched its Disney Channel app it came with one full episode and a bunch of clips, sorry Disney, but that was not satisfying to us nor our children, so back to the Netflix app we went and honestly we were hurt that you didn’t give us more of your shows. Netflix wooed us with less production value but an endless amount of content that kids did love and adults are sharing the same experience.
Disney has always been in it for the money, and that’s not inherently wrong, we all need to eat and have the ability to increase profits. However, it is a balance and one that is starting to tip in the wrong direction for Disney and other cable channels. In a “people over profit” generation new tech startups and smaller more agile media providers are seeking to please the individual user rather than just the general population. To take the market back Disney is going to have to start thinking about its end-user experience and not it’s users-for-profit model.

5. Dealing With The What Over The How 

Our heads were shaking when we read, “that both Freeform and Disney Channel are confident that their new slate of shows will lift ratings.” Have they really not seen that its not the content they are delivering, but rather the way they are delivering it?! We’re not saying that their new shows have been hits, we haven’t seen them, we’ve been watching Netflix, but they’re not addressing the root issue which is how their content is consumed. The market trend is saying that people want to have access to their media anytime, anywhere, which is the ‘how’ to media delivery. Yet here Disney stands saying that  their focus is on the ‘what’ – their content to try and win over viewers in an old model, but unfortunately again, that is only a band-aid to the real issue.

Conclusion.

First of all, we’re not saying that Disney is going to fail, they will be fine and they will eventually adjust and survive, although ESPN isn’t helping either!
Why does DataYard care and write a blog about TV channels? Great question, we care because we’re committed to being informed and informing our audience about trends and shifts in markets. We also want to help provide solutions to our customers who might be feeling the same challenges in a new generation of audience users and consumers. DataYard is committed to:
  1. Taking a hard look at reality. We take an honest look at our services, products, and innovations, to ensure that we are providing what our clients need, but also keeping our finger on the pulse of what our clients want so we can exceed their expectations.
  2. Constantly Perceiving and Pivoting. Our goal is to help our clients find the long lasting solution, and in the IT space that means creating solutions that can pivot easily towards never-ending improvement.
  3. People Over Profit. We’re not looking to lose money and go out of business, but were also not going to choose out dated solutions that might be more profitable over what our customer needs. We’re committed to providing excellence in everything for our clients and their audience.
We see Disney as a corporate giant that has had trouble keeping up with the times and we’re not going to point fingers and say, “Oh, you stink”, but we are going to learn from their challenges and see how we can help our clients facing similar issues, while also making sure that we don’t make the same mistakes. DataYard is committed to helping others overcome the ever-changing landscape of IT, and like we always say, we’re here to Make IT Better!

A Commitment to Radical Privacy

On April 3rd, President Trump signed legislation repealing the FCC’s privacy regulations. As a result, Internet Service Providers (like DataYard, AT&T, Spectrum, etc.) can now quietly gather, store, and sell the Internet histories, communications, and usage patterns of everyone they provide Internet access to. The legislation goes further, by placing restrictions on the types of privacy guidelines the FCC can attempt to institute in the future. If you’re reading this on a screen, this action covers you at this very moment.

I’ve worked at DataYard (and previously DONet) for 11 years, four of those as a Systems Administrator and Data Center Engineer. I know first-hand the level of access that ISPs have to customer data, and the gravity of that access. We have a mantra at DataYard, “with great power comes great responsibility”, attributed to either Voltaire or Ben Parker, depending on who you ask. It is incredibly true in this and many other industries and vocations, but as more and more of our daily lives are driven online…well, ours is a unique business. We at DataYard make it our practice to log only the data we need to maintain our systems and provide the best customer service to our clients. We’ve got a database with your address in it, but so does Trader Joe’s.

If you are a business owner, work with Intellectual Property (IP) or Personally Identifiable Information (PII), are a HIPAA covered entity, or simply don’t want your personal preferences and business browsing data tracked and categorized – this new reality is an uncomfortable one. When ISPs begin to track, store, and replicate this personal data, it exponentially increases the potential attack footprint for malicious access. We’ve all heard about the Target / Yahoo / Verizon / [insert name here] hacks. Can you imagine the fallout if those companies had the last four years of your Internet usage stored and indexed for the taking?

We at DataYard want to publicly voice our disapproval of these legislative actions, undertaken with the sole purpose of opening new profit centers in an exploding industry. We know better than most the implications this decision has. It’s our business to know. Every customer we work with can rest assured that DataYard is not, and will not be, interested in the collection or sale of your communications and activities.

In a time when every move is tracked, every bit is stored forever, and everything is for sale, promising to forgo those profits is a radical move. But it’s a promise we make proudly.

See more: Dayton Daily News story here.

DataYard’s Privacy Policy:

https://www.datayard.us/about/policies/open-internet-compliance-statement/

DataYard – At Your Service

DataYard – At Your Service!

Now available by popular demand, DataYard has created a brand new offering under a brand new division, At Your Service.  AYS will help regional companies with all aspects of business IT – whether it is managing existing workstations and servers, migrating to a VoIP phone service, upgrading network equipment, or guiding your transition to the cloud – DataYard has you covered.

The DataYard Difference

For over two decades, DataYard has helped thousands of local businesses use technology to improve business efficiency and reliability. But we noticed that we were getting more and more requests from clients to assist with projects beyond just Internet services or hosting projects – they needed help with technology inside of their businesses, and turned to us for advice. AYS is an answer to those questions and needs, and DataYard can now bridge the gap between on-premise IT work and cloud-based hosting services.

We’ve built some great partnerships over the last twenty years – with Microsoft, VMware, and Cisco, to name a few – and these relationships make it possible for DataYard to be your full-service, end-to-end IT partner. If you have a problem, project, or just want to talk through an issue, give us a call – DataYard is here to help you make IT better.

“Venom” Vulnerability Details Released

This week the “Venom” vulnerability was announced, affecting a number of virtualization systems, like Xen, KVM, and VirtualBox (http://www.zdnet.com/article/venom-security-flaw-millions-of-virtual-machines-datacenters/). Hackers can use the defect to exploit flaws in code written more than 10 years ago, a virtual floppy disk controller, to shut down the hypervisor. With the hypervisor disabled, a hacker would then able to access the virtual machines of other people or companies running on the same server.

Prior to Wednesday’s announcement software makers developed patches to close the door to the exploit, but not all hosting providers have been able to roll the patch out to their affected systems. As a result, a number of virtualization platforms running these distributions remain vulnerable to possible exploits.

Since our systems are built on VMware, DataYard’s cloud infrastructure is not vulnerable to this exploit. Microsoft’s Hyper-V and Bochs are also not affected by this bug.