Quanexus, Inc.

Q-News

VOLUME 4, ISSUE 1 JANUARY 2013

The Quanexus Newsletter by Jack Gerbs It’s a New Year

The last quarter of 2012 was extremely busy for Quanexus, Points of Interest: and I was only able to get one edition of the Q-News written (New Year’s resolution – keep up on the newsletter). We Introduction moved our web site to a new hosting company and are very — pleased with the service they are providing us. I have not updated our Blog TV Vulnerability at quanexus.com in many months, as I was waiting for the site to be AMBER Alert migrated. Now that the migration is complete, the blogging will continue. We made some great, new connections with web site developers so if you Security Update need help with a site, we’d be happy to give you a referral. Simple Website Google continues to innovate and produce great products such as the recently released Google Maps, but at the same time, they seem to be Dropping Google Sync isolating themselves by dropping Google Sync, which is used to sync and Google Apps with mobile devices and Microsoft clients. On another note, while somewhat predictable, exploits have been found on home consumer electronic devices such TVs. Finally, I want to thank all of our clients, partners and friends for your business and support in 2012, and I hope everyone had a great holiday season. May you all have a healthy and very successful 2013.

Inside this issue: Google’s Purchase of Quickoffice Update Google’s Purchase of 1 Quickoffice Update On June 5th 2012, Google announced the purchase of Quickoffice. Samsung TV Vulnerability 2 Quickoffice is a mobile productivity suite that is compatible with Microsoft and Adobe products, allowing you to create and edit existing Word, Excel, Wireless AMBER Alert 2 and other documents. I’ve been using Quickoffice on my iPad to take notes in meetings and then forward them to do final editing in Word when I get Microsoft Security Update 2 back to the office. Simple Quick Website 3 Google just announced the integration of Quickoffice with their Google Google Maps for iOS 3 Apps platform. Jonathan Rochelle, director of product management for in a blog post on December 19th stated that Quickoffice is now Google Dropping Google available for free to ―Apps for Business‖ customers on the iPad and iPhone Sync 4 and Android apps are being developed. In the post, he also showed an

example of how converting Microsoft to Google App files enhanced their appearance. Google is trying very hard to get into the business and enterprise markets, and is looking to get their Quickoffice platform into the Windows 8 tablet market. VOLUME 4, ISSUE 1 Q-NEWS PAGE 2

Samsung TV Vulnerability It was just a matter of time before attackers would look at going after smart TVs. On December 11th, IDG news service reported that ReVuln in Malta has found a vulnerability present in the current version of Samsung’s Smart TVs. Luigi Auriemma of ReVuln via email stated, "The vulnerability affects multiple models and generations of the devices produced by this vendor, so not just a specific model as tested in our lab at ReVuln." The flaw allows someone from the outside to take over your TV and change channels, turn on the webcam and microphone, and retrieve information from any USB drive that is connected to the TV. While this is a major concern, the bigger concern is, once they are into the TV, they may be able to scan and attack other devices in your home. The other devices may be computers you use to do online banking and shopping. Short of having a good firewall properly programmed, it will be difficult to protect these smart devices from hackers. It is, however very important to keep your computers properly patched and have a good antivirus program with current signatures. Another way you can protect yourself from on-line fraud is to use a separate credit card that is only used for on-line purchasing, and monitor it carefully. You should set up automatic alerts with your credit card company so you receive a notice each time something is charged to your card.

Wireless AMBER Alerts AMBER stands for ―America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response‖. In April 2012, the wireless industry went live with the Commercial Mobile Alert System (CMAS), also known as Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA). It is the counterpart to the Emergency Alert System (EAS), which originally started as the Emergency Broadcast System (EBS) (enough with the acronyms). Statistics show the first three hours after a child's abduction are the most critical to recovery efforts. Recognizing that wireless technology can help galvanize communities to assist law enforcement in the search for and return of the child, the membership of CTIA-The Wireless Association®, The Wireless Foundation, the United States Department of Justice and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children offer the Wireless AMBER Alerts Initiative. EAS was designed to allow the President to reach the American public in 10 minutes to warn of grave impending danger or communicate imminent severe weather threats (i.e. tornado). EAS was expanded to now include AMBER alerts. The first use of CMAS for an AMBER alert happened on December 18th, 2012. Not all phones are capable of receiving these alert . For phones that can receive alerts, all the alerts, except those coming from the President, can be turned off. You can manage alert options for your mobile device. For more information on managing your alerts, check out your mobile device carrier’s web site.

Microsoft Security Update December’s Patch Tuesday included 5 critical vulnerability updates which allow remote code execution (someone remotely taking over your system). The updates include important fixes to Internet Explorer and MS Word. The MS Word vulnerability is the most critical as it allows the attack to be accomplished through an e-mail using a flaw in Rich Text Format (RTF). The exploit could be activated just by clicking on the document and it opening in the preview pane. At this time, there are no known active threats against this exploit. VOLUME 4, ISSUE 1 Q-NEWS PAGE 3

Simple Quick Web Sites If your business still does not have a web site, or if you have a fairly simple site and would like to redo it and make it easier to maintain, or you are considering a personal website, you should take a serious look at WordPress. WordPress scales from basic, to very complex. The Quanexus web site was professionally built with WordPress, and I have put a few basic WordPress sites up that I am playing with. A great reason to consider a personal web site is, to keep non-confidential information on the site, so you have access to it anytime anywhere. I created www.jgstuff.com and have posted some useful items that I occasionally need and can refer friends to if they have a specific router or firewall feature they are trying to implement. I also use it to keep and post information related to Ham Radio. Setting up a basic WordPress site is free at wordpress.com. If you are a bit more adventurous, you can get a hosting account with many providers such as pair.com and manage many sites for a very reasonable fee. Setting up your first site may take a little bit of time, but once you get used to the feel of WordPress, it is easy to navigate and maintain, and WordPress offers a lot of on-line resources and examples. If you want to learn more about WordPress, there is a local users group that started a few months ago. The group is very diverse, with skill sets ranging from experts to novices. For more information about the group go to http://www.meetup.com/Dayton-WordPress/

Google Maps for iOS Google Maps for the iPhone can now be downloaded free of charge. Previously, Apple in their latest update of the iOS, removed Google Maps and replaced it with their own, homemade version of Apple Maps. This move was a small disaster for the company as Apple Maps had issues with the program and the maps were not current. This month Google released their new Google Maps app for Apple’s mobile devices. Within the first 48 hours of the release, the app had more than 10 million downloads. Google has produced an excellent app that now competes with mobile GPS units. The display view and voice turn by turn features make it very easy to use. We owe Apple a big thank you for removing the old version of Google Maps from their default iOS install and giving Google the opportunity to create this great product. A few handy features in this app are: The ability to zoom in or out without using the 2 finger pinch. Simply double tap and hold on the area you want to zoom and then move your finder up or down. The search feature by default displays a map with red dots indicating locations. If you are looking for a specific restaurant, gas station, store, etc., you can get a list view by clicking on the top right icon that looks like bullet points. The display will change to a list view and from here you can select the destination you want. If you want to stay on the map view, you can swipe the bottom of the screen to scroll through different destinations. If you want to get an address of where you are or a location that you are looking at on the phone, place and hold your finger at the spot and wait for the address to pop up. To change the views from map to satellite to traffic or other, push the 3 vertical dots at the bottom right hand side of the screen and select your view. If you are looking for a GPS application with a social networking twist, you should check out . Waze is a GPS that is interactive with other drivers on your path. It provides the ability to report traffic conditions, last sighted police vehicles and to be able to directly communicate with other commuters. It is available for Apple and Android, and it is free. VOLUME 4, ISSUE 1 QUANEXUS NEWS PAGE 4

For a fixed monthly fee, we are revolutionizing the QUANEXUS, INC. IT industry with our Q-Works program. Quanexus’ complete “managed services” package means that 9090 North State Route 48 you will see increased performance, security, and Dayton, Ohio 45458 reliability immediately, at an affordable price.

Phone: 937-885-7272 Your business success depends on your IT E-mail: [email protected] infrastructure. You need Quanexus to deliver proactive services that not only keep your network up and running, but running effectively and efficiently.

If you have any suggestions or topics you would like to see covered, please contact us with an email at [email protected] or give us a call at 937-885-7272. We would love to hear from you. www.quanexus.com

Google Dropping Google Sync As reported several months ago, on January 30th 2013, Google will drop their Google Sync platform. This means Google mail users will no longer be able to sync their free versions Gmail and Google Apps with a windows type device, using the active sync technology. Users can still sync with the IMAP protocol, but IMAP lacks the Push feature. What this means is, mail will be downloaded on a schedule, typically every 15 minutes, vs. real time with Push. On the Apple platform, you will have the option of running official Google apps to manage your mail, calendar and contacts. As of this time, Google has no plans to write native apps for Windows 8. As reported by Ed Bott on zdnet.com, ―It's a calculated and risky strategy on Google's part, which appears to be aggressively trying to increase revenue for its Google Apps service as Microsoft aggressively moves to a software-as-a-service model with Office 365. The new Office plans include Exchange Online and SkyDrive accounts that match Google feature for feature but also include access to the full suite of desktop apps for Office 2013‖.

Cloud Outages Amazon had another cloud outage December 24th, Christmas evening that lasted through December 25th, at 10:30 AM PST. This outage effected many customers and most notably Netflix. On December 28th, Microsoft experienced an outage of their hosted Azure storage services in the South Central US region and was off line for over 24 hours. With the growing popularity of Cloud services , you need to seriously consider these tradeoffs, costs and how you plan on accessing the service. The biggest consideration that needs to be made is who, do you want to ultimately be responsible for recovery of an outage. Remember, owning your own infrastructure represents a similar risk of outage. A note of caution here: When choosing a cloud provider (for data or hosted telephone services), you need to have total faith in the company from a financial and technical perspective because, you will be trusting them with your organization’s most critical data assets.