![\"\"](\"http:\/\/kinetics.co.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Win7RIPG.jpg\")
<\/a><\/h2>\nCOVID : Lockdowns, work from home, toilet paper shortages, return to level 3, hand cleaners, level 2, mask envy, normality (kind of), lockdown again, election(s), housing market and more.\u00a0 Perhaps the only thing we can be sure of is that the surprises are not over yet.<\/p>\n
With all this going on, it is easy to have missed a milestone from the start of the year.\u00a0 Windows 7 and Server 2008 went out of support.<\/strong><\/p>\n That\u2019s important in 2020.\u00a0 Whilst we have all been focused on family and business, cyber crime has exploded.\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s only a few weeks ago that the FBI announced they had seized US$1 billion in bitcoin from a dark web cybercriminal.\u00a0\u00a0 That gives you a real sense of just how large some of these enterprises are.<\/p>\n Extortion via data theft or encryption has remained very lucrative. The average reported payment is around $50,000, with rumours of a number of million dollar demands.\u00a0 CEO and Bank email fraud\u00a0 is often for far larger amounts.\u00a0 Reportedly the incident at Team NZ was $2.8 million and that\u2019s not a unusual amount.\u00a0 We hear of plenty of Kiwi companies that have lost hundreds of thousands in these scams.<\/p>\n When they went out of support, updates stopped for them.\u00a0\u00a0 That includes those little updates that protect you in ways you never really notice.\u00a0 Throughout the year, Kinetics KARE Core Fundamental and Premium KARE clients have continued to receive patching support for these devices. We have been able to deploy updates to third party products and some of the Microsoft signatures.\u00a0 We are still keeping anti-virus going and running those other background tasks which keep the devices performing as best we can.<\/p>\n Patches have however reached the point were we can no longer say that Windows 7 and Server 2008 are protected.<\/strong><\/p>\n They no longer correctly report their update status and installs refuse to recognise them as valid Windows versions.\u00a0\u00a0 We are now removing them from the patching statistics on your monthly reports.\u00a0 We will continue to keep anti-virus working and up to date and supply the best service we can.<\/p>\n But, whenever possible, these devices need to be retired for the safety of your network and your business.<\/strong><\/p>\n These older Windows version are being highlighted in the KARE monthly reports,\u00a0 and we will continue to recommend their retirements.\u00a0 Your Engineer or Account Manager are more than keen to talk with you about what can be done to reduce your risk.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There is no doubt about it, 2020 will be a year to remember. COVID : Lockdowns, work from home, toilet paper shortages, return to level 3, hand cleaners, level 2, mask envy, normality (kind of), lockdown again, election(s), housing market and more.\u00a0 Perhaps the only thing we can be sure of is that the surprises […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":5169,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"[header2 text=\"There is no doubt about it, 2020 will be a year to remember.\u00a0\" align=\"left\" color=\"#336A40\" margintop=\"\"]That gets us back to Windows 7 and Server 2008.<\/h2>\n
<\/a>\n\nCOVID : Lockdowns, work from home, toilet paper shortages, return to level 3, hand cleaners, level 2, mask envy, normality (kind of), lockdown again, election(s), housing market and more.\u00a0 Perhaps the only thing we can be sure of is that the surprises are not over yet.\n\nWith all this going on, it is easy to have missed a milestone from the start of the year.\u00a0 Windows 7 and Server 2008 went out of support.<\/strong>\n\nThat\u2019s important in 2020.\u00a0 Whilst we have all been focused on family and business, cyber crime has exploded.\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s only a few weeks ago that the FBI announced they had seized US$1 billion in bitcoin from a dark web cybercriminal.\u00a0\u00a0 That gives you a real sense of just how large some of these enterprises are.\n\nExtortion via data theft or encryption has remained very lucrative. The average reported payment is around $50,000, with rumours of a number of million dollar demands.\u00a0 CEO and Bank email fraud\u00a0 is often for far larger amounts.\u00a0 Reportedly the incident at Team NZ was $2.8 million and that\u2019s not a unusual amount.\u00a0 We hear of plenty of Kiwi companies that have lost hundreds of thousands in these scams.\n\n[header2 text=\"That gets us back to\u00a0Windows 7 and Server 2008.\" align=\"left\" color=\"#336A40\" margintop=\"\"]\n\nWhen they went out of support, updates stopped for them.\u00a0\u00a0 That includes those little updates that protect you in ways you never really notice.\u00a0 Throughout the year, Kinetics KARE Core Fundamental and Premium KARE clients have continued to receive patching support for these devices. We have been able to deploy updates to third party products and some of the Microsoft signatures.\u00a0 We are still keeping anti-virus going and running those other background tasks which keep the devices performing as best we can.\n\nPatches have however reached the point were we can no longer say that Windows 7 and Server 2008 are protected.<\/strong>\n\nThey no longer correctly report their update status and installs refuse to recognise them as valid Windows versions.\u00a0\u00a0 We are now removing them from the patching statistics on your monthly reports.\u00a0 We will continue to keep anti-virus working and up to date and supply the best service we can.\n\nBut, whenever possible, these devices need to be retired for the safety of your network and your business.<\/strong>\n\nThese older Windows version are being highlighted in the KARE monthly reports,\u00a0 and we will continue to recommend their retirements.\u00a0 Your Engineer or Account Manager are more than keen to talk with you about what can be done to reduce your risk.","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.kinetics.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.kinetics.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.kinetics.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.kinetics.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.kinetics.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.kinetics.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.kinetics.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.kinetics.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.kinetics.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.kinetics.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}