News

Tyro have released a new product, called “Tap & Save”, allowing merchants to save money by processing debit tap-and-go payments through the more economical eftpos network. Tap & Save is a first-to-market initiative from Tyro offering leastcost routing to merchants.

Tyro’s Tap & Save offering has the potential to generate substantial savings on acceptance costs for eligible scheme debit tap-and-go payments for businesses using Tyro terminals. Tyro merchants will save on average six per cent on their Merchant Services Fees (MSF) and the majority of Tyro merchants will save between 20-30 per cent on re-routed transactions.

Currently in Australia, almost all tap-and-go card payments revert to the international credit card schemes, instead of the eftpos network. While the outcome is the same for the cardholder, the credit card schemes typically charge the merchant more than eftpos.

The launch of Tap & Save represents Tyro’s first iteration of least-cost routing, with further enhancements to come in future months which are expected to deliver even more savings to a larger proportion of its customer base.

To activate Tap & Save, call 02 8907 1778.

Remote Desktop connections (sometimes referred to as Terminal Services or RDP) are a convenient way to remotely access and administer computers in your network. Readysell uses Remote Desktop to access customers’ servers to ensure your software is running as expected and to correct any issues, without having to interrupt your day-to-day operations.

But, if your system is not correctly configured, convenient remote access for yourself, your staff and Readysell can also mean convenient access to malicious third parties. Remote Desktop has been used as a vector for installing malicious software within networks, ranging from relatively benign crypto-currency mining through to full blown ransomware attacks.

We’ve updated the Readysell Security Guide with some guidance about securing Remote Desktop, but wanted to cover some of the basics here so that you can quickly check to make sure you’re following good practices in your business.

The basics

At minimum, the following actions should be taken to ensure the security of your organisation to external breaches via Remote Desktop or SMB.

Ensure all users with Remote Desktop access have strong passwords

One of the ways third parties can gain access to your system is by just “guessing” the password of one of the users on your network. Based on research by SplashData the 25 most common passwords make up more than 10% of passwords. When picking a new password, make sure the password is not common, try it in Pwned Passwords at https://haveibeenpwned.com/Passwords. Do not use a password if it’s been used before.

Disable vulnerable SMBv1 protocol

This obsolete protocol has been leveraged in various malware attacks including WannaCry and Petya, which caused significant disruption in 2017. There’s a great guide at HowToGeek that explains how you can turn this off.

Secure your Remote Desktop endpoint

There’s a number of steps you should take, including:

• Moving Remote Desktop to a non-standard listening port
• Ensure NLA (Network Level Authentication) is enabled
• Ensuring the highest level of client encryption is enforced

Again, HowToGeek has come to the rescue with a guide covering how to complete all these steps.

Restricting remote access

The best thing you can do is to restrict access to Remote Desktop rather than leaving it open to the entire internet. There are multiple approaches to do this, including:

Whitelisting

Whitelisting means only allowing certain remote IP addresses to use Remote Desktop ports from the internet. This means creating a list of IP addresses that need access (including Readysell’s IP address – 110.175.89.111) and setting these up in your router or firewall. This is the simplest approach and works if you don’t need remote access to your server, or only access from the same static IP address each time.

Setting up a VPN

More technically difficult to set up, but works if you require access from various locations. Each user who needs to remotely access Remote Desktop will first need to connect to your VPN before access is possible.

If you’d like assistance with any of the above, please get in touch with Readysell Support and we’d be happy to help you out.

For those who have been paying attention, ransomware is the number one threat small businesses face today. To assist our customers in staying up to date with the latest guidance, we’ve put together the Readysell Security Guide at readysell.com.au/security

Today, we’ve updated the security guide with a new feature in the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update (also known as version 1709), which was released yesterday. The feature is called “Controlled Folder Access”, and it’s another tool in your toolkit to help protect your business.

Controlled Folder Access allows you to select folders on your system that should have an extra layer of protection. Typically this means folders where you store crucial documents. Once you’ve done this, only applications which you’ve explicitly allowed will be able to edit or delete documents in those folders. That means even if you do get infected, the damage will be more limited.

To enable the feature, search for and open the Windows Defender Security Center from Start, go to the Virus & threat protection settings section, and set the switch to On:

As well as the default settings, we also recommend allowing Readysell to bypass Controlled Folder Access to ensure you can use features such as file attachments and export of reports.

If you want more information, below is a great video put together by PDQ to help you get started. Additionally, How-To Geek have put together a great guide for getting started.

Going forward, we will continue to keep the security guide updated with the latest recommendations. We encourage you to review the security guide periodically and ensure you’re following all the best practices. We hope this serves as a valuable resource. If you have any questions or suggestions, we’re keen to hear your feedback.

You may have heard about KRACK, a recently disclosed vulnerability in the WPA2 protocol commonly used to secure WiFi. While the vulnerability is real, there’s been some misreporting about the threat and what you should do to protect yourself. As such, we wanted to provide some quick information to put your mind at ease.

• The vulnerability allows an attacker who is nearby to see traffic on your WiFi – but that’s only a threat if that traffic is not encrypted. That means if you’re using HTTPS or a VPN, you already have an extra layer of protection.
• Microsoft patched the issue on the 10th of October, so make sure you are using a supported version of Windows (Windows 7 or newer) and have installed all the latest updates installed.
• iOS and macOS devices should be getting an update soon to resolve the issue.
• Android device updates will be handled by your phone’s manufacturer and carrier and will vary.
• The vulnerability exploits WiFi clients, not WiFi access points. Various router manufacturers have released patches to fix the protocol bug anyway, and it’s a good idea to stay up to date, but the main concern is to patch your clients

This is on the heels of a number of other recent security vulnerability disclosures (including ROCA) and data breaches. It’s clearer than ever that you should take security seriously to protect yourself and your business. To get started, visit the Readysell Security Guide at readysell.com.au/security