Zombie Defense Plan

Okay, this one may be hard to believe but, here we go… It has been discovered that the US Military has developed a strategic defense plan against zombie attacks. That’s right, your government has spent tax-payer money on creating a defense strategy against mindless, reanimated, fictional corpses (don’t we have enough real enemies that we should be actually planning defenses against).

According to Foreign Policy Magazine (http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/05/13/exclusive_the_pentagon_has_a_plan_to_stop_the_zombie_apocalypse), “Buried on the military's secret computer network is an unclassified document, obtained by Foreign Policy, called ‘CONOP 8888.’ It's a zombie survival plan, a how-to guide for military planners trying to isolate the threat from a menu of the undead”.

Now let's be fair. The reality is that the US Military is using “zombies” as a pseudonym for any unknown threat to the US. US Military spokespeople have stated that this fictional Zombie Defense Plan is only a creative endeavor for training purposes. It is meant to be a focal point for training against any kind of disaster (whew… I was worried for a minute that our government leaders didn’t realize that zombies weren’t real). Since I pay (through my taxes) for the US government to protect me and my family against attacks, I guess I am pretty happy that they are planning against ALL kinds of incidents.

This zombie non-sense got me thinking about paying for protection (No, this isn’t a reference to the Mafia or extortion). As business owners and executives, we pay for protection all of the time. We pay our attorneys for legal protection, our accountants for financial protection and yes, our IT companies for digital information protection. In return, we should expect that each of these professionals has an individualized strategy to protect our companies’ assets and interests (a “Zombie Defense Plan”). Not only should we expect for them to have a plan but they should be able to verbally describe what that plan is and how it protects us.  But as business executives, are we asking the right questions and focusing on the right details?

When it comes to supporting your company’s information technology investment, your IT vendor should be able to provide specific details about their services to you. It doesn’t matter if you have a formal contract with a company or if you just have your nephew fixing your PCs for you. They should have a plan to not only protect your investments, but also a plan to support you in case that protection fails. What specific steps are being taken so that you do not lose data, or have downtime that affects your business operations? What happens if hardware fails or if you have a major computer virus outbreak? How quickly can/will then respond? How long will your systems and data be unavailable to you and your employees? Anyone that you are paying for IT support from, should have a detailed plan that answers all of these questions. You have a responsibility to ensure the livelihood of your company, so make sure anyone supporting your IT systems has a “Zombie Defense Plan” in place for you.

What To Do When Your Toilet Flush Breaks and Other Technology Repair Issues?

I was trolling the web (I do this a lot and no I am not a "stalker"...), and I stumbled across an article about how to turn your toilet into a touch-less flushing toilet for $75 (https://www.yahoo.com/tech/make-your-toilet-touchless-with-this-75-gadget-84920428289.html). Obviously this grabbed my attention. First, because the 8 year old boy in me still silently giggles inappropriately about anything related to using the facilities. And second, because who doesn't want to avoid touching as many objects in a bathroom as possible – yuck! Then my mind started to wander (my wife will tell you that my head is like a funhouse for random thoughts), what do you do when the touch-less flush stops working? – Double Yuck!

Obviously if I went through all of trouble of installing a touch-less toilet flush I must have spent some time considering what to do if it breaks, right? Well if you know me, you know that sometimes the lure of cool things temporarily overrides my wisdom and life experiences. Truth be told (please don’t tell my wife), I rarely have a plan when it comes to these things. If this issue really occurred, I would probably do what most “manly-men” would do, start by troubleshooting the batteries, cleaning the motion sensor, check the Internet, and then I would call in the professionals and have a plumber take a look at it.

This started to get me thinking, what can/should people do if other technology devices stop working properly. What if your laptop or PC starts running slow or you think you have a virus? Most people treat their critical technology devices like toilets, they will play around with some settings and try some stuff they read about on the Internet and then they decide this is over their head and they need help. Now what?

When PCs and laptops stop working correctly and you can’t fix it yourself, what do you do? Here are your limited choices today. You could have your 17 year old nephew, who is “good with computers” look at it. This usually results in you being belittled by a teenager for your lack of techy knowledge and a host of new unrelated computer issues. You could take it to one of the Big Box national chains that sells TVs and have them charge you over $100 to look at it. Or you could call the plumber… Not really the plumber, but a trusted professional that has vendor-certified engineers on staff to cost-effectively deal with computer issues. Certified-IT companies will treat you with professional respect and the ones that have a full team on staff, have decades of experience between them to solve your issues quickly and efficiently. Some certified-IT companies even have support plans that are half the price of what the Big Box stores charge.

Do your research now, so you can know what to do when your toilet flush, and computer, have repair issues.

Nothing Beats Having a Plan

“The worst ___ ever!!!”. That’s a phrase that is incredibly overused. We use it to emphasis how bad something really is. When I hear that phrase, I immediately listen, but always with a grain of salt. Very few stories ever live up to the proper level of respect that “The worst ever…” deserves. The tale I am about to tell you is an exception.

Back in November of 2013, we received a support call from one of our best customers that some of the files on their server would not open. We remote connected to their server and discovered that their files were in the process of being encrypted. A few minutes later, a scary red window (see an example below – tell me that’s not scary) opened and gave all of us the bad news that we all feared. This customer’s server had Cryptolocker malware running.

This is, wait for it… the worst malware I have ever seen in my 20+ years in this industry! Without getting into a ton of technical details (otherwise known as techy-speak or mumbo-jumbo), this software locks your files out and requires you to pay a ransom in order to get them unlocked or after 72 hours the files will be deleted permanently. As you can see above, they even give you a countdown timer for you to watch before your files “blow up”.

As expected, the customer immediately asked, “What do we do now?”. We told them that they have two options. One, they could pay the relatively small ransom of $100 and see if the bad guys would unlock their files. Two, since we had a good, clean backup of their data prior to the malware being installed, we could restore the affected data from backup. The second option is more labor intensive, but there were no guarantees that the bad guys would truly unlock their files even if our customer paid the ransom. Since bad guys usually are not very trustworthy, the customer decided to take advantage of their disaster recovery plans and restore their data from backup. In the end, our customer was back up and running in a few hours and we were able to easily remove the malware from their server.

My point to sharing this story today, is to demonstrate how planning is everything, in today’s world of information technology (IT). Our customer survived this catastrophe by having a solid plan in place. The plan began when they hired our company to support their IT. Then they took our advice and implemented a data backup plan. That data backup was then periodically tested to make it would work in case of a disaster. This plan wasn’t formal per se, but when the need arose, our customer was ready to respond.

Nothing beats having a plan. What happens if you have a fire? What happens if you have a flood? What happens if your computer breaks? Have a plan. Find a smart person you can trust and make a plan. Don’t get caught in the middle of “The worst ____ ever!” without a plan.

How Long Can Your Company Operate Without Technology? (Don't Worry. This is not about Disaster Recovery...)

How long can your company operate with technology? In this case we are talking about information technology (IT). How long can your company make money, service customers, and meet its business objectives without access to computers, email and the Internet? The answer to that question has changed dramatically for companies in the last few years. And no, this is not a post about Disaster Recovery…

Businesses and their requirements, have greatly changed over the last few years. More and more companies now rely on information technology to not only produce and sell their products, but also to communicate with, and market to, their customers, streamline overall operations, and to rapidly evaluate their health and market position. Workforce mobility and flexibility are also drivers in the increase of information technology in corporate America. The impact of information technology is wide reaching in both large and small businesses.

Even with all of the aforementioned examples, many business owners are still not convinced that they need information technology to meet their business goals. Being an IT consulting company in Buffalo, NY, we have used a simple test to evaluate how much a business owner feels that they need information technology to run their business. We start by asking the owner, “How long can your company operate without technology?”. Most times we hear, “We don’t need the Internet or email or even computers. We can do everything by hand like we used to. We were successful before we had computers.”. At this point we then respond (while typically holding a power cable to some server rack or Internet router) with, “So I am going to go ahead and pull this plug…”. I think out of all of the times we have done this test, we have had the same result. The owner begins to sweat and jumps between us and the power cords, while at the same time, explaining what he really meant by, “ …we can do everything by hand like we used to.”.

Information technology is invasive. It touches everything we do and for most businesses, it needs to be functioning and stable. The irony is that most IT devices are still very mechanical and full of breakable, moving parts. Add to that, software that is typically created in a vacuum, and in complete disregard for other third-party applications that may also reside within a particular device. What most users are left with is a formula for eventual disaster. Information technology breaks. The faster that business owners understand and appreciate this, the better protected they will be from finding out the answer to “How long can your company operate without technology?”.

How can business owners protect their businesses from experiencing unexpected and unwanted IT downtime? Two words, Trusted Support. Find a company that specializes in supporting similar IT environments to yours. Fully vet them by asking for references, checking software and hardware certifications, ask a lot of questions and demand smart answers. Good, experienced IT support companies are out there and they are not always expensive. Look for a company that will put their neck on a line and offer you Do-Not-Exceed Pricing and Fixed-Price Support (a monthly/annual fee to cover all support issues). That way you know what you are going to pay before they do any work.

If you spend some time doing some research, accept that information technology is vital to your business, and that good, experienced IT support from a trusted IT support company is an investment in your company’s overall success, then you should never have to find out, “How long can your company operate without technology?”.