Sandra Viveiros

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E-TECH Ranked Second Year in a Row Among Elite Managed Service Providers on Channel Futures 2023 NextGen 101 List

E-TECH Ranked Second Year in a Row Among Elite Managed Service Providers on Channel Futures 2023 NextGen 101 List

By Sandra Viveiros|2023-07-05T08:33:38-04:00July 5th, 2023|About Us, Awards|

JULY 5, 2023: E-Tech has been named as one of the world’s premier managed service providers on the prestigious Channel Futures 2023 NextGen 101 rankings again for a second year in a row.

The NextGen 101, an MSP 501 list, honors industry-leading managed service and technology providers that are driving a new wave of growth and innovation for the tech channel via the groundbreaking solutions they deliver to their customers. Many of these MSPs generate recurring revenue from cloud, security, unified communications, and other solutions to small, medium and large clients. These MSPs – based on their growth, drive and innovation – represent the future of the technology channel and IT industry. This year’s NextGen 101 winners were selected from applications received for the 2023 Channel Futures MSP 501. Channel Futures is pleased to name E-Tech as one of the top MSP’s in Canada for 2023 NextGen 101 List.

Channel Futures is pleased to name E-Tech #61 in the ranking for the 2023 NextGen 101.

“We are so honoured to receive this award for the second year in a row,” said Ian Evans, CEO & President of E-Tech. “A big thanks to my employees, without their dedication and passion everyday, this wouldn’t be possible.” Channel Futures strives to ensure their partner communities are recognized for what they do best and creates programs that recognize their contributions to the IT industry. The NextGen 101 represents that effort. “I love following these companies and talking with their owners,” said Jeff O’Heir, Channel Futures senior news editor and manager of the MSP 501. “They’re excited about the latest technologies, embrace innovation, and often bring new sales and marketing strategies to the table. Many of them quickly move into the MSP 501 list where they have an even bigger impact on the industry.”

The data collected by the annual NextGen 101 and MSP 501 drive Channel Futures’ market intelligence insights, creating robust data sets and data-based trend reports that support our editorial coverage, event programming, community and networking strategies and educational offerings. “As the technology industry and channel enter a very challenging market, channel leaders are looking for ways to accelerate growth,” said Robert DeMarzo, vice president of content for Informa Tech Channels. “The Channel Futures NextGen 101 represents some of the fastest-growth and high-potential MSPs in the market today. These companies are providing innovative approaches to customer solutions and partner engagement never seen before. They truly represent the future of the channel.”

Background

The 2023 MSP 501 and NextGen 101 lists are based on data collected by Channel Futures. Data was collected online from February to May, 2023. The MSP 501 list recognizes top managed service providers based on metrics including recurring revenue, profit margin and other factors.

About E-Tech

E-Tech has been providing system support and information technology consulting services to our clients since 2005. We attribute our strength and success to our close working relationship with each and every one of our clients – regardless of size. We design our services specifically to help our clients succeed in today’s complex business environment, keeping in mind our client’s goals, objectives, and bottom lines. Since our inception, we have been establishing a strong bond with small to medium businesses and not-for-profits by delivering cyber security protection, website hosting services, IT support solutions, and website design services.

About Channel Futures

Channel Futures is a media and events destination for the information and communication technologies (ICT) channel community. We provide information, perspective and connection for the entire channel ecosystem, including solution providers (SPs), managed service providers (MSPs), managed security service providers (MSSPs), cloud service providers (CSPs), value-added resellers (VARs) and distributors, technology solutions brokerages, subagents and agents, as well as leading technology vendor partners and communication providers.

Our properties include many awards programs such as the Channel Futures MSP 501, a list of the most influential and fastest-growing providers of managed services in the technology industry; Channel Partners events, which delivers unparalleled in-person events including Channel Partners Conference & Expo, Channel Futures Leadership Summit, Women’s Leadership Summit, the MSP Summit and Channel Partners Europe; and a DEI Community Group, our initiative to educate, support and promote diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) in the ICT channel industry. Channel Futures is where the world meets the channel; we are leading Channel Partners forward. More information is available at channelfutures.com.

Channel Futures is part of Informa Tech, a market-leading B2B information provider with depth and specialization in ICT sector. Every year, we welcome 14,000+ subscribers to our research, more than 4 million unique monthly visitors to our digital communities, 18,200+ students to our training programs and 225,000 delegates to our events.

Feel free to Contact Us for more information.

Phishing Attacks are on the Rise! How to Spot a Sophisticated Phishing Attack

Phishing Attacks are on the Rise! How to Spot a Sophisticated Phishing Attack

By Sandra Viveiros|2023-05-09T12:58:36-04:00May 9th, 2023|Cyber Security Awareness, IT Support|

What is phishing? In terms of cyber security, when we talk about phishing, we aren’t talking about spending hours on a lake trying to snag the biggest bite. It’s much more sinister than that.

Phishing is a type of social engineering attack often used to steal a user’s data, often including login credentials and credit card numbers.

It occurs when an attacker – pretending to be a trusted entity – tricks a victim into opening an email, instant message, or text message, opening an attachment, or entering their credentials into a fake login page.

Why is this important? Because phishing attacks remain on the rise, year after year. According to Statista.com, almost 350 billion emails are estimated to be sent daily in 2022. What is really shocking with this stat is that over half of all emails sent contain some sort of malware, ransomware, spyware, etc.

Email phishing remains a top security threat. Now more than ever, phishing attacks are even harder to spot. Cyber thieves are using information that companies have gathered on you by means of the Dark Web, and they’re using social media to personalize their attacks against you, your customers and your business.

Just like it is recommended that you take at least 20 seconds to wash your hands to avoid germs, we recommend you take at least 20 seconds to review each email to avoid falling victim to a phishing scam. We call this Good Email Hygiene.

It’s obviously important to have good email hygiene! But it is a lot easier said than done. So, how can we have good email hygiene?

Here are seven ways you can protect yourself from phishing scams:

WATCH FOR OVERLY GENERIC CONTENT AND GREETINGS
Look for examples like “Dear valued customer, Dear id number, dear sir, hello madam.” Any of these greetings are a sign of a cyber attack because hackers like to send a batch of thousands of emails at time. They can buy these huge email lists from the dark web, and they just don’t have the patience or even the need to learn everyone’s names, especially when they can have the same success without as much detail.

EXAMINE THE ENTIRE FROM EMAIL ADDRESS
The first part of the email address may be legitimate, but the last part might be off by letter or may include a number in the usual domain. An example of this – we are all shopping from home now more than ever before on sites like amazon… As we know, amazon sends notification emails as your purchase is being processed, and the hackers know this as well. They imitate amazon emails all the time, but you can tell it’s a phishing scam simply by checking the from address for a misplaced letter in the domain.

LOOK FOR URGENCY OR DEMANDING ACTIONS
Phrases like “You’ve won! Click here to redeem prize,” or “We have your browser history pay now or we are telling your boss.” With phrases like these, the hackers are basically trying to trick you right away. They’re trying to create a sense of panic because the longer you look at the email, the more likely you’ll be able to figure out that it’s a scam.

CAREFULLY CHECK ALL LINKS
Mouse over the link and see if the destination matches where the email implies you will be taken. The actual URL will either pop-up as you are hovering or display at the bottom left corner of your screen. If you are not familiar with the URL, do not click it.

NOTICE MISSPELLINGS, INCORRECT GRAMMAR, & ODD PHRASING
It’s no longer a case of a hacker not knowing proper English with all these spelling mistakes in their scam emails. It’s actually about the email spam filters. Microsoft, Google, Apple, they all do a great job catching most phishing scams, but the ones with spelling errors tend to slip through because the filters see mistakes as a sign it was made by a human.

CHECK FOR SECURE WEBSITES
Any webpage where you enter personal information should have a url with https://. The “s” stands for secure. What we’re talking about here is if a url has HTTPS, any information that’s being entered into the website is being encrypted. If there are any hackers lurking on that website, they won’t know what’s being written because of the encryption. If you’re on a website that has only HTTP, any and all information entered is in simple/plain text, meaning no encryption.

DON’T CLICK ON ATTACHMENTS RIGHT AWAY
Attachments containing viruses might have an intriguing message encouraging you to open them such as “Here is the Schedule I promised.” Never click on an attachment from an unknown or unreliable source, especially if you are not expecting one. If you do, you run the risk of having malware installed on your device. If it is possible that the email is legitimate, check with the sender directly by different means to confirm they sent you an attachment before opening it.

Want to get your business started on the path to better cyber resilience? Contact us about our Managed Services to find out about our best Cyber Security Solutions!

Protect Your Loved Ones From Romance Scams This Valentine’s Day

Protect Your Loved Ones From Romance Scams This Valentine’s Day

By Sandra Viveiros|2023-02-10T13:01:03-05:00February 10th, 2023|Cyber Security Awareness, Dark Web Monitoring, Uncategorized|

When you hear “romance scam” you may think of a little old lady falling for the classic “Nigerian Prince” scam. But romance scams have become far more complex and difficult to recognize, adapting to today’s online dating landscape. With the popularity of platforms like Match.com, Tinder, and Bumble, scammers have set their sights on these popular apps and even social media.

In fact in the United States, consumers have lost $770 million to fraud scams started on social media in 2021, according to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). In the first half of 2021, the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) received over 1,800 complaints related to online romance scams, resulting in losses of approximately $133.4 million.

In Canada, based on fraud reports to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (CAFC), romance scams were responsible for the second highest amount of fraud-related dollar loss in 2021. These scammers are using advanced methods to appear legitimate and trick people into trusting them.

Romance scams can be part of a much larger cybercriminal ecosystem. International cyber gangs will even use dating sites to recruit victims as “money mules” and use them to unknowingly launder funds, according to AARP.

Often, scammers prey on victims experiencing loneliness, which has not been uncommon during COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. If your friend or relative has started a new online relationship, or even if they’ve been in one for several months, it’s important to check in and look for any red flags.

Some red flags may include:

A request for money. A request for money is a major red flag of a scam. Scammers may pressure you into sending money for “urgent” matters, such as medical expenses. They may also say it’s for a plane ticket to visit you. Never send money to someone you haven’t met in person. Scammers may also ask for payment in the form of pre-loaded gift cards or wire transfers.
They may often make and break promises to come see you in person. The person claims to live far away, overseas, or be in the military.
The relationship is moving fast and the person professes love quickly.
There’s pressure to move the conversation off the platform to a different site or want to continue the conversation through text. Dating platforms search for scammers on their sites. Scammers will want to move their victim off-platform to avoid any detection.

If you believe a loved one is the victim of a scam, it is important for them to take the following steps:

Cease communications with the scammer immediately and take note of any identifiable information you may have on them, such as their email address.
Contact your bank or credit card company if you’ve given them money.
Report the scammer if in the United States to the FTC and the FBI.
Report the scammer if in Canada to your local police and also the CAFC.
Notify the website or app where you met the scammer.

Remember that romance scams can happen to anyone at any age and falling for a scam is nothing to be ashamed of. By speaking out, reporting scams, and encouraging others to do the same, you can help protect others from becoming victims. While you’re at it, watch the Tinder Swindler, which is about a guy that scammed Woman out of millions of dollars, it’s a NEW Documentary on Netflix. For more information, please feel free to Contact Us.

#StaySafeOnline

5 Online Scams to Look Out For This Holiday Season

5 Online Scams to Look Out For This Holiday Season

By Sandra Viveiros|2022-12-07T14:03:14-05:00December 7th, 2022|Cyber Security Awareness, IT Support, National Cyber Security Awareness Month|

Holiday season is the universal time for giving, family & friends, and showing people how much you care for them. However, holiday season is also the time for scams. It is no secret that criminals will attack you when you are most vulnerable. Holiday season is a time where you are thinking of everything but security, whether physically or online, and that makes it the perfect time for criminals to strike. This holiday season keep a look out for the 5 most popular scams circulating around the internet!

1. E-Cards & Fake Gift Cards

Around this time, it is expected to be receiving holiday greeting cards from your loved ones, businesses, business partners and the like, and you may be sending them off yourself. We all know that gift cards are a perfect gift as well. Especially now, e-cards and gift cards are being sent virtually, typically by email. Cyber criminals are aware of this booming business, and they are going to capitalize. It is not just a possibility that you’re going to receive scam e-cards & gift cards, you should expect it. Before clicking on any free offer you receive in your email, always check the validity of the sender first. Send a quick but separate thank you email/text/call to the sender to check the validity.

2. Fake Package Delivery Notices

Online shopping has truly become the norm. It is the safest way for businesses to stay open during a global pandemic. And as resilient and COVID-19 is, there is no way it could stop the resiliency of the holiday season! What online shopping means however, is delivery notifications. We get so many that we can get numb to them, but it’s a perfect opportunity for cyber criminals to sneak right under your nose. Fake scams can come in many forms! SMS Text message scams, like that one shown in the picture above, are popular. Clicking on a fraudulent link can compromise your phone and any apps that you have downloaded. Email phishing remains to be the #1 reason cyber attacks occur. Typically, businesses will send notifications via email, but you can be sure there are fraudulent links lurking in your inbox that look just like the real thing. Clicking on a link in a scam email can come with real consequences: you can download ransomware on to your computer, you can be tricked into giving out credentials, download keylogging software… Really whatever the cyber criminal chooses.

3. Copycat Websites

Copycat website are not new on the internet, but it is still one of the most common used tools for cyber criminals, and worse, one of the most fallen for tricks. Victims of these scams can have no idea that they are not on the website they believe they are on. Cyber criminals will imitate the most used websites like Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, Email logins, etc. In the image above, we can see how these websites can get. How can you distinguish between real and a copycat? If you are a frequent visitor to the real website you might be able to notice the few nuances by simply looking, but clear cut signs of a fraud can be found in the website’s URL, its content, and its links. If you come across a fake website by accident, it is possible that you have already been compromised simply by being on the page. Best practices would be to exit the page immediately, then run your system’s antivirus and antimalware.

4. Fake Online Advertisements

Cyber criminals are so cunning and have gotten so smart that they can slip past even the smartest company’s protocols and precautions. Be on the lookout for fake advertisements while you search your favourite search engines. Cyber criminals have started using search engine ads to promote their fake websites to the top of the search. In the example shown, we can see an absolutely perfect advertisement scam of the amazon website. This ad is harmless if no one clicks on the link, but it’s so well done that a majority of people will find no reason not to click on it. Only when you get on the website can you start to deduce if it is fake, using the tools outlined in the last example.

5. Charity Donation Scams

During the holiday season and the season of giving, we are reminded to open our hearts to the less fortunate. While it’s always great to give to charity, cyber criminals have no censorship to what is beyond their limits. Charity scams certainly start to take the stage at this time of year. How do you make sure you are donating to the right charity? Double check to see if the charity is registered. The Canadian Government has an A-Z index that is reliable, and American charities are listed on varies indexes, a popular one being GuideStar.

Holiday Season 101 – 5 Best Ways to Shop Safely Online

Holiday Season 101 – 5 Best Ways to Shop Safely Online

By Sandra Viveiros|2022-12-02T15:00:54-05:00December 2nd, 2022|Cyber Security Awareness, Uncategorized, Website Security|

Holiday season is here, and it’s the time for giving. Everyone loves to give a gift and see the smile on their loved one’s face – but there’s a lot more that goes into buying the perfect gift. We are seeing more online shopping than ever before, especially with the huge influence of Amazon. In the wise words of our favorite superhero’s Uncle Ben, “with great power, comes great responsibility,” but in the case of the cyber world, “with great ideas, comes great risk.”

It’s unfortunate that there will always be someone looking to exploit the innocent, and it has certainly become a lot easier than ever through the world of cyber crime. There are an increasing number of ways for cyber criminals to attack you and your business! Threats and tools continue to get smarter and more sophisticated. Whether you’re clicking on a malicious link in a phishing email, accidentally transferring funds to a fraudulent account, or watching your business cripple from ransomware, it’s important to know the biggest cyber security threats against you, and how to fight against them.

Let’s start with the holiday season – here are the 5 best ways to shop safely online:

1. Never use public Wi-Fi networks to shop.

Public Wi-Fi from your local coffee shops are just that… public – meaning you never know who is on that network, and anyone with the know-how can compromise it. You can think of Wi-Fi this way: public Wi-Fi is like a public water fountain where you saw the person before you coughing on the spout. You certainly wouldn’t touch the spout without making it safe, and most people will ignore it all together. Private Wi-Fi is your own personal water bottle – sure you can share it if you want but no one has access except who you choose. Even better is a private Wi-Fi on a virtual private network (VPN), which is like having a room all to yourself to drink your own personalized filtered Fiji water. All this is to say, public Wi-Fi should only be used for your basic internet browsing, and you should always consider the potential consequences. Huge mega malls with free Wi-Fi are one of the biggest traps for cyber criminals – it’s like open season for hackers.

2. Beware of rock bottom prices

Put your hand up if you don’t love a good sale….No? No one? Everyone loves a good sale, but there’s a reason why everyday retailers won’t go below a certain price. Bottom line: if you’re paying rock bottom prices, expect a rock bottom product or no product at all. You will start to see a lot of social media advertisements across different websites with low prices on they’re “unbelievable” product, but it’s remarkably easy to set up a social media account and pay for advertisements, luring innocent people into buying a product that’ll never arrive. If you start seeing offers that look too good to be true, they probably are. Always double check the vendor, and see if the product is being sold on trusted sites like amazon and what their prices are.

3. Check for website securities

This is a very important step. Website securities are a tell-tale sign of a website that can or cannot be trusted. Look at this picture. What I mean by “website securities” is the padlock icon, and “https” displayed before the website URL. These two symbols show anyone on the website that any credit card transactions, social insurance numbers/social security numbers, login credentials, etc., are all secure transactions through encryption.

In technical terms, it means that the site you are visiting has a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) Certificate. Whenever you’re doing any online shopping, you have to be mindful of this. There is a significant difference between a website displaying “http” vs “https”. A website displaying “http” is not encrypting any information given throughout the website, meaning any hacker can access that information – including your credit card information. A basic rule is to never conduct transactions on a website without an SSL certificate.

4. Email marketing scams

The holiday season is when you’re going to start getting all the marketing emails from your favorite stores promoting their big sales. It’s no surprise that the number of fake marketing emails start to rack up as well. Imitation emails can be so well crafted, that it’s hard to distinguish between them and the real thing. Amazon, Best Buy, PayPal are just a few examples of companies hackers love to imitate during the holiday season. It’s important to be double checking all emails for validity, especially if you weren’t expecting an email from that company. Take the time to review our guide on how to identify phishing emails.

5. Don’t give personal info

A site that will ask for a lot of information in the process of payment are signs that it’s a scam. Typically, a website won’t need much else other than your name, payment method, mailing address and billing address. If the website starts to ask for additional information like your social insurance number/social security number, date of birth, and more personal information, it’s a sign that you might be getting scammed out of your money.

BONUS: Use credit cards

This is more about IF you do get scammed, rather than protection from scamming. Using a credit card is a safer and more secure way to conduct transactions, seeing how you’re not using your actual money but rather you’re using credit. When you report a scam to the authorities or to your bank – which you should always do – you’re more likely to receive your credit back rather than any funds from your debit account. It’s always important to stay ahead of the game when it comes to cyber protection. With the holiday season, it gets even more essential.

Feel free to Contact Us for more information.