Message from General Computer Development 

Metaverse: How will it impact your business?

The metaverse, or new internet as some call it, is a virtual reality platform. Rendered in 3D, social media, online video games, and other apps will be housed within the same cyberspace. 

Today's world is changing rapidly, and technology continues to take giant leaps. Embracing technology and establishing a place in the online world is how your business can remain competitive to retain customers. 

Take note from the big tech companies. Facebook (Meta) is at the front and center of this super platform. While some will keep their retail spaces, giants like Microsoft has already moved out of retail locations and looks to focus in their online presence only, gradually building an enterprise metaverse. 

The business landscape will see a big change, the online presence of companies will be even more important than ever. Metaverse will give businesses the opportunity to step up their game in customer engagement, experience, and retention. All customer relations could be centralized with virtual customer service avatars. Phone, email, and chatbots will gradually lose focus. 

Business owners must start learning about metaverse and how their service and product can be housed in this "parallel" world. For example, Nike is preparing to sell virtual sneakers for avatars. The question is, how can consumers shop or experience my product/service in an interactive and immersive way?

The pandemic forced many to transition operations abruptly, while some transitioned smoothly, others missed the train and struggled to leverage technology in a positive way. Virtual reality spaces will be used for teams to connect, collaborate, and develop ideas, but unlike today, teammates will be across the table, even if they are in different continents. This will also facilitate interactive and immersive training of staff in different regions. 

While we are not yet living in a parallel reality, we are living in a digital one. This is the time to bring your business operations up to speed. Build your business online presence now and stay open to what the new internet brings, whatever that will be.     

1. Alert issued by the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has issued and alert to U.S. businesses to prepare themselves for a potential cyber-attack related to the Ukraine situation. 

The U.S. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Agency (CISA) has issued a “Shields Up” warning, and has asked that all organizations, regardless of size, adopt a heightened cybersecurity posture. 

Some of the actions are listed below:

• Leverage multifactor authentication to restrict access to known-trusted source

• Rigorous patch-management to remediate known vulnerabilities

• Quickly respond to zero-day threats as they emerge

• Utilize advanced machine-learning and artificial intelligence capabilities to detect patterns of activity pointing to potential intrusions by bad actors

• Step up threat-hunting efforts to identify the presence of bad-actors on the network

• Validate backups are working and recoverable

You can help us by being our eyes and ears and reporting suspicious activity. While we have strong controls and tools in place to keep your environment protected, sometimes things slip through. 

Please stay vigilant and report issues to the GCD team that are suspicious in nature, especially phishing and text scams. 

2. Office 2013 end of support

Reduce your exposure to security risks by moving to a newer version of Office. Office 2013 will end support on April 11, 2023. Please start upgrading to Microsoft 365 Apps, which is designed to receive regular updates, and will help you stay current by getting security updates and our latest features. 

3. Important Google Chrome Updates 

Google Chrome emergency update fixes zero-day exploited attacks. Google released new Chrome update to fix a high-severity zero-day vulnerability used by threat actor in attacks. Google states that Chrome updates automatically; however, to install the update manually, simply go to:

Chrome menu > Help > About Google Chrome. 

The browser also checks for new updates and installs them the next time you close and relaunch Google Chrome. It is important to close browser sessions at the end of the day. 

Zero-day attacks happen once a flaw, or software/hardware vulnerability, is exploited and attackers release malware before developers can find a fix.   

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