Your Guide to the Modern Varieties of Cybercriminal
There is an entire litany of stereotypes that are commonly linked to the term “hacker”… too many for us to dig into here, especially since they do little but form a caricature of just one form that today’s cybercriminal can take. Let’s go into the different varieties that are covered nowadays under the blanket term of “hacker,” and the threat that each pose to businesses today.
To give this list some semblance of sensible order, let’s go from the small fish up to the large players, ascending the ladder in terms of threats.
The Ethical Hacker
First and foremost, not all hackers are bad. Certified Ethical Hackers are high-profile cybersecurity experts that are designed to think like a cybercriminal. They can be employed to determine how secure your organization is.
The Unintentional Hacker
We all make mistakes, and we can all get a little bit curious every now and then. Therefore, it stands to reason that this curiosity could get people into trouble if they were to find something—some mistake in its code or security—on a website. This is by no means uncommon, and the question of whether this kind of hacking should be prosecuted if the perpetrator reports their findings to the company has been raised by many security professionals.
Regardless, if someone can hack into a website without realizing what they are doing, what does that say about the security that is supposed to be protecting the website… or, by extension, a business’ network? Whether or not you take legal action, such events should never be glossed over and instead be addressed as growth opportunities for improving your security.
The Thrill Seeker
Each of the hackers we’ll cover here has their own motivation for hacking into a network. In this case, that motivation ties directly back to bragging rights (even if the hacker only ever brags about it to themselves). While these hackers were once far more common, the heightened accountability and legal consequences that such behaviors now bring have largely quashed the interest in such hacking. Many of those that would have once been interested in this kind of hacking are now focused on modifying hardware over software, turning to interest-based kits like the Raspberry Pi and others to scratch their “hacking” itch.
The Spammer
Adware—or a piece of software that hijacks your browser to redirect you to a website hoping to sell you something—is a real annoyance, as it wastes the user’s valuable time and energy. It also isn’t unheard of for otherwise well-known and legitimate companies to use it in their own marketing, despite the risk they run of having to pay regulatory fines due to these behaviors.
While the real damage that adware spamming can do may seem minimal, it is also important to put the nature of these efforts into perspective. An adware spammer will use the same tactics that other serious threats—things like ransomware and the like—are often spread through. If you’re finding your workstations suddenly inundated with adware, you are likely vulnerable to a much wider variety of threats than you might first assume.
The Botnet Recruiter
Some threats to your network aren’t even technically directed toward your business itself. Let me ask you this: would you see it as a threat to have your computing resources taken over and co-opted for another purpose? After all, the result is effectively the same as many more directly malicious attacks—greatly diminished productivity and efficiency.
This approach is quite literally how a botnet operates. Using specialized malware, huge numbers of otherwise unassociated machines can be taken under control and have their available resources directed toward some other means. A particularly famous example of a botnet’s power came just a few years ago, when a botnet was utilized to disrupt the services of Dyn, a DNS provider. This took popular websites like Twitter and Facebook down for several hours.
Missing or neglected patches are one of the simplest ways for a botnet to claim your resources as its own—particularly when login credentials haven’t been changed.
Hacktivists
While political activism can be a noble cause, the hacktivist goes about supporting their cause in a distinctly ignoble way. Operating in sabotage, blackmail, and otherwise underhanded tactics, a hacktivist that targets your company could do some serious damage—despite the good that most of these groups are truly attempting to do.
Of course, the law also doesn’t differentiate between different cybercrimes based on motive, making this form of protest particularly risk-laden for all involved.
The Miners
The recent cryptocurrency boom has seen a precipitous uprising in attacks that try to capitalize on the opportunity, using tactics that we have seen used for good and bad for many years now. Above, we discussed the concept of a botnet—where your computing resources were stolen to accomplish someone else’s goal. However, the practice of utilizing borrowed network resources is nothing new. The NASA-affiliated SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute once distributed a screen saver that borrowed from the CPU of the computers it was installed on to help with their calculations.
Nowadays, cybercriminals will do a similar thing, for the express purpose of exploiting the systems they infect to assist them in hashing more cryptocurrency for themselves. The intensive hardware and utility costs associated with mining cryptocurrency often prohibit people from undertaking it on their own—so enterprising hackers will use their malware to find an alternative means of generating ill-gotten funds.
The Gamers
Despite the dismissive view that many have towards video games and their legitimacy, it is important to remember that the industry is worth billions (yes, with a “B”) of dollars, massive investments into hardware and hours poured into playing these games. With stakes that high, it is little wonder that there are some hackers that specifically target this industry. These hackers will steal in-game currency from their fellow players or launch their own distributed denial of service attacks to stifle the competition.
The Pros-for-Hire
The online gig economy has become well-established in recent years—where a quick online search can get you a professional to help you take care of your needs, whether that be for childcare or for car repairs or any other letter of the alphabet. Similar services exist for directed cybercrime efforts as well.
Using a combination of home-developed malware as well as examples that they’ve bought or stolen themselves, these professionals will license out their services for a fee. Whether it’s a governmental body seeking sensitive intel or a business seeking to undermine a competitor, these mercenaries can pose a significant threat against anyone who lands in their crosshairs.
The Thief
On a related note, a lot of modern cybercrime is simply a digitized version of crimes we have seen in years past. Without another stagecoach to hold up, highway robbery has simply been shifted to the information superhighway, the stick-‘em-up translated to ransomware, dating scams, or denial-of-service attacks. The overarching motivation behind most of these efforts is simple: illegitimate fiscal gain.
The Corporate Crook
Corporate spying is a decidedly more direct version of the pro-for-hire trend that we discussed above, where a hacker will target a business’ documents and resources to help their competition in any way they can. While there may not be honor among thieves, there can be amongst the businesses that these thieves will try to sell stolen data to, as some companies have reported the theft after being approached.
The Nation State
Finally, we come to perhaps the biggest threat out there to many: massive teams of professional, government-employed hackers working to undermine the operations and machinations of other nations—both in their governments and their industries. This is generally intended to put the other nation in a diminished position should hostilities ever erupt.
If you remember the 2014 satirical movie The Interview—and more pertinently, the hack that Sony Pictures suffered in retaliation for the film—you’re aware of a very recognizable example of this kind of threat actor.
Clearly, the idea of a hacker that so many have is far too minimalistic to be relied upon anymore… especially if you’re staking your company’s cybersecurity preparedness on it. That’s why Point North Networks, Inc., is here to help. Our professionals are well-versed enough in best practices to help prepare you to deal with a much more realistic cyberattack. You just have to reach out to us at 651-234-0895 to get started.
Counting the Reasons for the 3-2-1 Data Backup Rule
I hope I don’t have to tell you how important your business’ data is to its continued survival, just as I hope I don’t need to explain why this makes this data a priority to protect, regardless of your business’ size. What I do want to explain is the concept of the 3-2-1 Rule and how it pertains to your data backup, and why we would recommend that one for your business’ purposes.
What Makes a Data Backup Such an Important Asset?
In a word: insurance.
Data is, as we’ve well established, a crucial component to your business’ continued operations and survival. Tons of it is generated, collected, stored, and updated each day to support our daily lives. If a business were to lose the data that it had accumulated, it would suddenly find itself in a very bad spot.
This is what makes the idea of a data backup such a good one—in many cases, it is this backup that keeps a business from going under. Of course, this requires that the data backup be properly maintained as well.
To put themselves in the position that offers the most success, we generally recommend that businesses prepare their data backups in accordance with the 3-2-1 Rule.
What is the 3-2-1 Rule of Data Backup?
Simple: keep at least three copies of your data, in two mediums or formats, at least one copy of which kept off site and separate from the others.
Why multiple copies? Multiple copies ensure that—should one of your backups become corrupted or infected or otherwise infiltrated, you have a spare or two to fall back on. While we say three, three should really be considered the bare minimum.
Why multiple formats or mediums? Well, consider what would happen if you made yourself two lunches in case it rained, but packed both into a paper bag. With both in a paper bag, the backup lunch would end up equally soggy as the original lunch. Keeping your backup in a different format or storage medium helps prevent it from being impacted by the same thing that damages the original.
Why the offsite version? Keeping a backup offsite helps to ensure that—even if a disaster were to completely annihilate your business’ physical location—the data you rely on would still be accessible to you by virtue of the data backup. This gives us something else that is important to consider: the concept of an “air gap” in terms of data security.
What is an “Air Gap?”
Let’s go back to our “backup lunch” example, for a moment. While having an extra lunch was a good idea—our example made it clear why—keeping it so close to the original removed its benefits. However, if we were to take the same concept of having a backup lunch and add in an air gap (keeping an extra lunch in the break room at work, or stashing a few bucks to order something out, perhaps), we removed the threat of a single disaster preventing us from eating.
In terms of the data on your network, an air gap is just that—physical distance and separation helping to isolate resources and protect them from many threats.
Point North Networks, Inc., is here to help businesses like yours manage all the complexities of their technology so that you have more room to succeed. Give us a call at 651-234-0895 today to find out more.
Tip of the Week: How to Take a Screenshot in Windows 10
Okay, so first off: when it comes to taking a screenshot, today’s user has a lot of options baked into Windows. Of course, there’s the Print Screen key on most keyboards—but that only allows the user to literally take a screenshot of their entire display and edit it down in some other program.
This simply isn’t a convenient enough option for today’s productivity-focused workflows. Instead, let’s go over how to use Windows’ integrated Snip & Sketch tool, which gives you greater functionality at comparable ease.
Using Snip & Sketch
Snip & Sketch is a utility that offers four options for you to use in terms of your screenshots and can be easily called up by pressing Windows Key+Shift+S. There, you’ll have access to four different screenshot format options at the top of your screen:
- A basic box selection, where you click and drag to encompass your selection
- A freeform selection that allows you to draw out your boundary
- Window snip, which allows you to select an active monitor to screenshot
- Fullscreen snip, which takes the place of the Print Screen key and allows you to take a picture of all your monitors simultaneously
Any of these can be useful in the right situation, and these situations are only too common in the workplace.
Hopefully, this will help you communicate more clearly in the office, using images to help get the message across. For more handy tips and other useful IT information, make sure you check back here every so often—and don’t forget to give our team a call at 651-234-0895 for more direct assistance from us!
How’s Your Password Hygiene?
I’m not sure we need to tell you how important passwords are: they are the front-line defense to most of the accounts you create. What is often overlooked is the strategy of how to use a password to successfully protect accounts and data. Today, we will discuss best practices when creating and managing your passwords and how you are likely approaching your password strategy improperly.
Creating Strong Passwords
It’s true that passwords can be a pain to manage. Anyone who has been locked out of an account because they can’t remember their password knows this all too well. That’s why it is important to create passwords that are both easy to remember and that are secure enough to protect you. Cybercriminals have tools at their disposal that do a pretty good job of being able to crack passwords, so you need to keep that in mind when you are choosing yours.
As you set out to create your passwords, you should keep the following two points of emphasis in mind.
- A hacker may try to brute force attack any password that cannot be guessed or cracked, rapidly trying each combination possible.
- A password’s security and its resistance to brute force attacks are two different things.
Brute force attacks can really be devastating, but when you create your passwords, you have to keep in mind that any hacker with the will to brute force your computing network and left with the time to complete their hack, will likely find a way into your network. What you are doing when you are selecting a strong, memorable password is trying to make certain that the only way they are cracking your password is through brute force.
Typically we like to encourage that your passwords meet the following metrics:
- Are longer, typically over 16 characters
- Use a combination of numerals, letters (with upper and lower case characters), and symbols
- Don’t use privileged or personal information, or any information that can be tied to you through online searches
- No common words or numbers
- No consecutive letters or numbers
So How Do You Optimize Your Password’s Effectiveness?
With those practices, you will be pretty far along, but you also have to understand that the hackers’ tools are extremely powerful. That’s why on top of those suggestions, you will also want to add some complexity to your passwords. Studies have shown that about 41 percent of all passwords are composed exclusively of lowercase letters. If we have access to this information, it stands to reason that someone who makes a living breaking into networks and stealing data knows it as well. Therefore, along with adding symbols, varying cases, and numerals, one strategy is to use a passphrase of random words.
The reason for this is that, with a password that looks like this “7i&3RkIn&4L1f3” the chances that you remember it if you use the account sparingly is pretty low. Besides, it is not that secure, as it is effectively a complex sentence. Remember, the hacker has to get your password completely correct to effectively gain access, so instead of trying to come up with intricate ways of typing statements that can be easily guessed, try taking three words that don’t have any natural connection, incorporating numbers and some varying capitalization, and padding either side with symbols.
A process like this makes the password more usable. It very likely won’t be guessed, is long enough to protect your account, is effective against the brute force attack, and will be easier for you to remember.
Speaking of which, since you shouldn’t use the same password for multiple accounts, you will end up with dozens of passwords. Keeping them straight, especially over the long haul (as you will likely have to reset passwords from time to time), is difficult. That’s why we recommend using a password manager. Many people take advantage of the password saving feature inside their browser. This is effective, but we recommend using a third-party manager that features encryption. This tool will be the most secure and reliable; and, you won’t have to worry about remembering every password.
At Point North Networks, Inc., we consider cybersecurity one of the most important parts of a business’ IT strategy. Give us a call a 651-234-0895 to see how we can help you keep your IT assets safe
Dangerous Android App Masquerading as System Update
Let’s face it, most people are glued to their phones when they have downtime. Many don’t look up to cross the street. With this much dedication to their individual mobile devices you’d think that people would be more careful about what they download.
Apparently, that Instagram feed is just too distracting to worry about individual data security.
Researchers from the mobile security firm Zimperium have discovered a malicious app that pretends to update your Android device, but is just spyware that can steal almost all of your data and monitor your search history and your location. Simply called “System Update” it has tricked many unsuspecting Android users as of this writing.
What Can “System Update” Do?
The spyware, or officially Remote Access Trojan (RAT), attached to this malicious download can only be downloaded outside of the Google Play store, which is fortuitous for many would-be victims of a malware attack like this. The spyware can effectively steal messages, contacts, device information, browser bookmarks, user search history, and can gain access to the microphone and the camera.
What’s more, it continuously tracks a user’s location, which can be really dangerous for anyone. The app starts spying every time the device receives new information, which for any heavy user is constant. After stealing your data, the app will work to erase the evidence of it’s activity, effectively covering its tracks indefinitely.
All-in-all, it is a pretty tough cookie.
How Are People Accessing This Malware?
You won’t be surprised to learn that phishing is the number one way people are being exposed to the corrupt “System Update” app. Google continuously warns people to not install apps from outside the Google Play app store, but as people’s devices age, they aren’t always compatible with older operating systems found on these devices and start looking for options outside of the Google Play app store. This can lead to people downloading apps that seem useful, but are completely nefarious. “System Update” seems to be one of those apps.
What You Can Do to Protect Yourself
While there have been nefarious apps found on the Google Play store in the past, the malicious app rate is extraordinarily low when sticking to the official app store. Users should also consider questioning any situation where an app is suggested for you outside of the app store, even if it seems to redirect you to the Google Play apps store. You just never know what you are going to get when you trust third parties on the Internet.
If you need a comprehensive plan to protect your business data from employee impulse and mobile negligence, give our technicians a call today at 651-234-0895. We can help you with mobile device management (MDM) and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) which can have all types of benefits for your business.
Tip of the Week: How to Keep Your Team from Burning Out
Considering what the past year has been like, the idea that workplace burnout has been a hot topic isn’t all that surprising—even though less time has been spent in many offices than almost any other time to date. Regardless, burnout simply isn’t an office issue, meaning that remote workers are still susceptible to its ill effects.
This isn’t something that you want to encourage, so let’s go over what constitutes burnout and how to identify and address it for the benefit and betterment of your team.
What is Burnout?
Let’s face facts—most people that read this blog will have likely felt burnout for themselves at some time or another. Having said that, many likely underestimate the full experience that burnout can bring.
Most probably understand the all-encompassing tiredness that burnout is commonly associated with, both mentally and physically, but this state can also have additional impacts. Burnout also tends to make people feel apathetic and cynical, and it can lead to impaired motivation, lessened self-confidence, and other negative attributes.
When these outcomes come together, it can encourage the development of toxic workplace conditions that—if not avoided entirely—need to be addressed and resolved. To do that, you need to be able to spot burnout as it happens.
Spotting Burnout Amongst Your Team
If you hope to have any chance of catching burnout, you need to have a good awareness of your team members’ (and your own) mental state. Dedicating a few moments to brief self-evaluation to help identify the triggers that dictate how you are engaged (and likewise disengaged) in your work can make a huge difference over time.
With so many people currently feeling a loss of control over many aspects of their life, such stresses need to be kept under control in the office environment. One way to accomplish this is to establish some consistent and predictable routines to be followed in the office, emphasizing control, and decreasing the potency of employee burnout.
Resolving Burnout
Finally, one of the biggest key points to preventing the ill effects of burnout is the importance of taking a step away from it all—particularly when you don’t seem to have any time to waste.
While the human brain is a shockingly complex and capable construct, it does have its limits. Like anything else, it just isn’t built to support 100 percent efficiency, and forcing it will work out about as well as it sounds like it would. Giving yourself some respite in the form of some time off—even a few moments of it during the workday—can help prevent burnout from taking hold.
On an organizational level, incentivized collaboration and other support incorporated into the workday can help prevent burnout even further.
Point North Networks, Inc., can help you where this comes into play. By giving your team the tools necessary to cultivate a cohesive and collaborative environment, we can help reduce the factors that contribute to burnout in general. Find out more by giving us a call at 651-234-0895 today.
Why Phishing Attacks Such a Huge Risk for Your Business
As one of the biggest cybersecurity considerations the modern business has to make, how to combat phishing has to be at the top of any business’ cybersecurity strategy. Let’s take a look at phishing and why it’s such a big problem for today’s business.
You’ve Probably Been Phished
When trying to explain what phishing is to someone who has no idea about it, we typically start with the namesake. Phishing is the same as fishing. A hacker will bait a hook and users will bite on it. It’s that simple. Instead of worms or minnows, a phishing attempt needs some bait that will fool an unsuspecting computer user into providing information that will allow a hacker to access secured networks and steal or corrupt data.
To say that this method is effective would be an understatement. First of all, the massive breadth of attacks—there are literally millions of these attacks per day—results in high levels (and low percentages) of successful attacks. In fact, 88 percent of organizations that were polled claimed to experience at least one phishing attack in 2019. In 2020, phishing emails were one of every 4,200 emails sent or about 73 million. The pace has actually quickened in 2021.
Successful phishing attacks result in stolen credentials, compromised networks, ransomware and other malware. They all lead to businesses losing money.
Phishing is More Prevalent Than Ever
Phishing has been an issue for quite a while, but the COVID-19 pandemic and the corresponding jump in remote work provided the perfect opportunity for these scammers to operate. In 2020, 75 percent of worldwide organizations were targeted by phishing attacks, while 74 percent of U.S. businesses were successfully attacked in some way. This often led to massive losses, some $3.92 million on average. That’s an average and takes into account loss of productivity from downtime, data theft, deterioration of consumer confidence, and other factors.
It is therefore important that you do what you can to train your staff about how to recognize and thwart phishing attempts before they have a chance to have a negative effect on your business.
Point North Networks, Inc., can help you put together a training strategy, as well as put together tools to help you keep your network and data safe. Call us at 651-234-0895 to learn more.
2020 Was Rough for Healthcare Where IT Was Concerned
2020 was, obviously, a challenging year for healthcare providers. In addition to the obvious issue of the COVID-19 pandemic creating serious operational, financial, and supply chain difficulties, cybersecurity concerns didn’t go away during this time. Let’s consider some of the additional stresses that IT security needs can, will, and have placed on healthcare providers.
The amount that healthcare practices invest in their cybersecurity services has been projected to exceed $65 billion in the span of time from 2017 to this year—but despite this, the industry isn’t improving. In fact, healthcare providers have had to turn away patients for these precise reasons… but the question remains: why?
There Are a Few Reasons that Healthcare Providers Have Had Problems As of Late
IoT Security Issues
Anyone who has been to a hospital in the past decade or so has likely noticed how connected many of these facilities have become. A nurse’s clipboard has been replaced by a laptop that they wheel around to input all information and logs into, while diagnostic equipment itself is now largely computerized.
This means that many of a healthcare provider’s tools can now be classified as Internet of Things devices, and as such, are prone to security inconsistencies and vulnerabilities as a result. Many IoT devices are notorious for iffy-to-non-existent security as it is.
Ransomware
While ransomware can be, and is, an issue in every industry, the healthcare industry is particularly susceptible to its impacts for obvious, life-or-death reasons. Ransomware has been responsible for many organizations actually closing their doors, unable to sustain the damages. This is largely due to the reliance that their organizations have on the data that they need to treat their patients and manage the business—without the support required to properly protect this data.
Insider Threats
Unfortunately, the employees in a healthcare organization are not infallible, which does sometimes lead to insider threats to data. In fact, some professionals have said that insider threats are the biggest challenge for hospitals and such right now.
New Threats May Be On the Horizon
Of course, cybercrime of all kinds constantly advances, and that which targets the healthcare industry is no exception. In healthcare, these threats can be downright frightening.
For example, a research team in Israel managed to develop a proof-of-concept computer virus that could artificially paste tumors into CT and MRI scans so that high-profile patients could be misdiagnosed by their physicians.
With ingenuity like that, it is terrifying to consider what cybercriminals may do moving forward.
Regardless of your industry or the size of your business, cybercrime isn’t something to be taken lightly. Point North networks, Inc., is here to help prepare for it. Give us a call at 651-234-0895 to learn more about the solutions we have to offer.
IT Service Checklist for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses
Most business owners that rely on their IT have heard about managed It services. Many already subscribe to some form of outsourced IT service. It is one of the best ways to cut down your business’ operational costs while gaining value through the use of services that, if they were to be purchased intermittently, would cost a lot more. Today, we thought we’d list some of the most important variables you should consider if you are looking to choose a managed IT services provider.
Fast, Fast, Fast
If your business is going to use a service over hiring your own IT professionals, you have to know that the service provider can provide you with the reaction speed necessary to do the job. At Point North Networks, Inc., we can do you one better. We use some of the most cutting edge management software available to monitor and maintain your hardware and network’s integrity, patch your software before there are problems, and do all of this proactively.
You need an IT service provider who can return your IT to an acceptable standard of working order as quickly as possible, but if it’s always working as intended, that would be better, no? Get proactive and forget downtime.
Disaster Recovery
Many business owners don’t know how to identify a disaster, let alone have a disaster recovery platform in place. With a comprehensive IT services platform from Point North Networks, Inc., you will. Not only does our managed IT service offering come with comprehensive backup and disaster recovery built in, it comes with the experience of our certified technicians who have seen everything and can get your business back up and running quickly after any type of disaster, whether it be malware, user error, or full-scale disaster.
Employee Support
Your staff is going to have computer issues. It goes with the territory. Sometimes they lose their passwords, sometimes the printer won’t print, sometimes the computer they’re using sounds like a small prop plane. No matter what the problem is, Point North Networks, Inc. offers a comprehensive help desk platform. Giving your staff direct access to certified technicians can provide the answers they need or the remote help required to deal with 98-out-of-100 situations.
Budget Planning
As mentioned above, our people have seen it all. Our consultants can help you plan out your IT budget for the year, to the dollar. In order to get control over your IT budget, you will need to have a strategy to not only support your staff, service the machines that you have in house, and handle your cloud and software vendor agreements, you will need a plan for the future. We can help you plan out every single aspect of your business’ IT, and do it cost effectively.
Point North Networks, Inc., Managed IT: Peace of Mind
The bottom line, if you don’t have managed IT services, you should really consider it, and if you do have managed IT services, you should know that not all companies deliver equal services. At Point North Networks, Inc., we take pride that our clients are better for having trusted us to look after their business’ IT.
If you would like to learn more about what we can do for your business, give us a call today at 651-234-0895.
Android Apps Suddenly Crashing? You May Have Had a Bad Update
Google’s Android operating system has about a 71.9 percent global market share, making it the most used smartphone operating system in the world. It’s well-trusted, and although the experience differs since phone manufacturers customize Android to fit their device, generally the operating system is pretty stable. This wasn’t the case for a massive number of users around March 22nd, 2021.
Around the 22nd of March, many Android users started to notice their apps crashing.
Not a particular app either. Instead, numerous apps that seemed to not be connected with each other were crashing persistently.
For instance, most users were reporting that Gmail was crashing, others noticed that doing a Google search crashed their browser app. Popular password management app Lastpass would crash for some users every time they tried opening it.
Not all apps were having an issue though. It wasn’t like all of the applications were made by Google, or some other developer. It seemed to affect a wide range of applications from communication apps to games.
Why Are My Android Apps Crashing?
This was such a sudden, immensely frustrating issue for some users. Fortunately the Internet prevailed, and a few users on Twitter figured out the culprit.
Android WebView, a system application that is powered by the Chrome browser and allows applications to view and access web-related content, had a bug in its latest update. This bug was causing your other applications to crash. The temporary fix was to uninstall the latest version of Android WebView by going into the Google Play store.
We’re not going to walk you through that process though, because Google fixed the bug in an update less than 12 hours later. Depending on when your phone searched for its updates, you may have missed the issue altogether.
It goes to show you that, while updates are generally important, an update isn’t inherently going to always go smoothly. Sometimes, updates have their own flaws that the developer doesn’t realize or didn’t experience in the testing process.
It’s important to consider when applying updates—not just to your smartphone, but to any software or hardware you use for your business. That’s why we test updates out in a test environment before deploying them, especially if they are for mission-critical applications. Google solved the Android issue in 12 hours, but that was a massive wide-spread issue. If you are running into a unique, uncommon issue due to an update, it could take days, weeks, or months for an official patch to come out. It’s better to test first, and if the test fails, determine how critical the update was, and go from there.
It’s always important to keep your hardware and software up to date, but always be prepared for something to go wrong.
If you need help keeping your IT maintained and updated, and want to reduce your overall risks for downtime and expensive problems, give Point North Networks, Inc., a call at 651-234-0895 and ask how we can take over your technology and treat it as well as we treat our own.
