New Security Layer Added for Clients

We are excited to announce that we’ve added a new security layer to our offerings, at no extra charge to customers.

No matter how strong a firewall is, or anti-virus solution is, a common weakness in tech security is people. Even with lots of education about phishing attempts and social engineering, it just takes one slip to allow bad actors into a computer and once they are there, they can then work from the comfort of being inside your firewall.

Operating systems such as Windows have a line of defense against this, where they restrict certain at-risk operations from casual execution. This includes installing new software, new device drivers, or software that can access files outside of a user’s own authority level. You certainly have seen it happen when you get a prompt asking for administrator privileges. They happen so often that people often just hit Yes just to get it out of the way. And there’s the risk.

A common protection against this is to not allow users to have administrative rights on their PC. When this happens, it prompts for an administrator ID and password. But this is horribly inconvenient for a user to open a ticket or call IT support just to get their work done.

Hence our new solution. We’ve recently obtained a license for exciting new software called AutoElevate that helps solve this dilemma. It monitors for these events and when one happens, it alerts our support staff via a popup on their computers and mobile phones that an elevation request is pending. It also vets the request and allows the tech to verify legitimacy of the request. If it passes, the tech will approve it and the software will install on the user’s computer. This often happens in under a minute.

If it’s a common event, like a software updater (like Quicken loves to fire off often), the event can be pre-approved for the future so the approval happens right away.