Phone System Services -Lombard, IL 60148

Whether you need a legacy phone system maintained, or an entirely new communications system for multiple offices, Andromeda Technology Solutions is the answer you have been looking for. As our expertise also includes complete data network solutions, you can rest assured that we can fully integrate a communications system that will best leverage your existing or future IT infrastructure.

In many cases, your telephone system is the first thing people will experience when dealing with your business.

• Does it show your company in a good light?
• Is it set up so your clients have a good experience?
• Does it help maximize employee productivity?

Let us show you how a phone system should be set up!

Experience the simplicity of having an experienced company to handle all aspects of your communication systems, letting you focus on running your business.

Contact us or fill out the Request form on this page now to ask us to contact you!

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Hybrid PBX and IP-based Phone Systems

We support a host of major phone systems—from Avaya, NEC, Panasonic to Toshiba— and are a certified Panasonic dealer for both a traditional PBX system, as well as a true IP-based VoIP system. The beauty of these systems lies in their very extensive feature set (over 800 features) and their mix-and-match capabilities. Each system can mix analog, digital and IP phone sets to match almost any application. Also, each system has extensive functionality built-in for incorporating branch offices, work-at-home employees and other remote workers.

We spend a great deal of time understanding all your requirements, so we can select the system and functions that are exactly what you need.

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The Phones Become the Network

If you are considering an IP-based telephone system, it is important to understand these systems are more data systems than phone systems. Unlike a traditional PBX system, a VoIP system puts a significant burden on your data network, and requires specific equipment and configuration to ensure everything is running properly.

Many traditional telephone service companies lack the skills to properly install and maintain a VoIP system. Andromeda Technology Solutions excels in all aspects of voice and data, and will ensure you get the system that is right for you.

Whether Cloud-based, Hosted/virtual PBX, or completely on-premises, we have the knowledge AND experience to guide you and implement your voice communication system to perfection.

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Replacement of Legacy Phone Systems

We have many years of experience upgrading/replacing legacy phones systems from: ComDial, Nortel, Toshiba/Mitel, and Samsung just to name a few. If you would like to experience service from a truly customer-focused organization, call us when you are ready to replace and upgrade your existing legacy telephone system.

			KX-TA KX-NCP KX-TDA KS-TDE
			IP Office Definity Magix Legend Partner
			Aspire Elite IPK I-Series DS/DSX

AndroPedia Tech Library

As part of our service, it is important to keep our client-partners well informed on Telephone system developments, news, and best practices. Here is just a sampling of typical items from our AndroPedia^SM library archive:

The current Pandemic has forced many of us to work from home. This “new” way of working is adding stress and may be creating greater cyber risks to our data. It is important to take a moment and review these popular scams and what you can do to protect yourself.

Verify Information Smartphone Scams

Criminals and identity thieves know that your personal information is valuable. A criminal can use it to open up fraudulent credit cards, empty your bank accounts, impersonate you or they can even steal it and sell it on the dark web for a quick profit.

With this in mind, criminals are always looking for new ways to get your data.

This popular phone scam begins with a criminal impersonating a representative at a company you probably already do business with or subscribe to. Many times, criminals will impersonate your insurance provider.

The criminal calls you and informs you that they are making a routine call to update and verify information on your account . . . sounds innocent enough . . . but don’t fall for it!

Some ways you can defend yourself:

• Most of the time these big companies automate this process through pre-recorded messages. If you get a call from a real human being asking to verify your information – this is your first sign of fraud. Your best bet is to get off the phone and call the company direct. Confirm that they are the ones actually trying to update your info that way.
• Don’t fall for threats or bullying! Often, when you resist these criminals they will begin threatening you and try to intimidate you into giving the info over. “You can lose your insurance” “You will face fines” If these kind of threats and bullying techniques are being used, you’re almost certainly being scammed.

The Tech Virus/Issue Scams

This scam has been around for a while but it still works on some people.

You get a call from a tech company of sorts letting you know about some issue with your equipment or software. The criminal on the phone may direct you to download a ‘patch’ or the solution to your problem. In reality, the criminal just got you to download and open a file with a virus attached. You weren’t infected before, but your equipment is now.

The criminal, still impersonating a tech employee or customer service rep, now explains that they can fix the problem for a fee.

The most popular version of this is a Microsoft scam where criminals call you to inform you that your computer is infected (wouldn’t that be some awesome customer service!). Once they get you to your computer they either have you change settings that will allow them to wreak havoc on your comp and steal data from you, or they prompt you to download a file/visit an infected website.

Once you are infected they extort you to get the outcome they desire.

At the end of the day, there are very few companies who are going to call you and tell you about a virus or an issue on your computer or smart device. If you get a call like this…disregard. If you want to make sure you don’t have a virus on your computer, contact your IT support staff instead.

Text Message Phishing or SMShing Smartphone Scams

With smart phones at our fingertips most hours of the day, criminals have turned their focus to these devices as a great way to steal information and cause trouble.

These text message phishing scams and SMS phishing (SMShing) smartphone scams use the same techniques you’ll see in an email phishing scam. They will send you messages via text designed to get you to click links, download programs/apps and they try to trick you into handing over personal information.

There are some techniques you can use to discover and avoid these scams:

• If you don’t know the person texting you or don’t recognize the number, don’t click links in their text messages.
• Your bank and other financial institutions aren’t going to text you to verify password info – if you do get a text from someone claiming to be from your bank etc. go direct to the website and handle things that way.

Fake or Look-alike Apps

A big new scam on the market, fake applications are designed by criminals to look like real applications you’d download and use on your smartphone. These applications are designed with malicious hidden code designed to steal your personal information, access your contacts, send spam messages from your phone to your network and even track your location via GPS tracking.

• Make sure you only download applications from trusted web stores and application stores.
• Take a look at the developers of the app and do some research. Make sure they are reputable and trustworthy.
• Read through the terms and conditions of applications before you download. Be sure you know what permissions you are giving developers and programmers when it comes to the data on your phone and usage.

These scams are some of the more popular ones in the market but there are many more including popup smartphone scams, IRS scams, Utility scams and the ‘yes’ scam.

The key to defending yourself is educating yourself and others on these criminal tactics as well as the techniques used to identify and outsmart them.

The post Beware! Popular Phone and Smartphone Scams & How To Defend Yourself appeared first on Andromeda Technology Solutions.

We’ve all been there. . .you’re on the line with tech support, trying to figure out why a piece of equipment isn’t working properly. You’ve been connected with a friendly (hopefully) employee at a help desk somewhere and they ask a few famous questions: “Did you check to make sure it’s plugged in?” “Is your internet working?” “Did you try turning it on and off?”These questions can seem a bit ridiculous when you are on the phone, but you wouldn’t believe how often something as seemingly simple as checking a cable, power source, or on/off switch can be the solution to some of your technical issues.These strategies don’t just work for your office PC or your entertainment system at home either. The questions might be a little different, but you can do some basic troubleshooting on your business phone system when things are acting up. Read on to learn three basic steps you can take to troubleshoot common telephone system issues before calling in your telecom vendor for advanced assistance.

Top 3 Common Professional Phone System Issues

1. Check to See if Your Power Source is Functional

There is almost nothing worse than walking into the office in the morning to find your professional phone system is down. This is a big deal and you’ll want to get the system back up as soon as possible: but before you panic, you’ll want to head to your IT closet (or wherever the PBX box is stored). Once there, our technical team recommends locating the power cord and your backup power source or UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply). Unplug the PBX power cord from the UPS and plug it directly into your electrical outlet. If the system receives power and turns on – you know that the issue isn’t your phone system. You just need a new UPS.

An average life cycle for a backup power supply is approximately 3-5 years. So having a spare is a good way to avoid issues related to UPS failure.

If plugging your system directly into your electrical outlet doesn’t get you up and running, it’s time to call your telecom service provider and get advanced technical assistance.

2. Check Phone Cords and Handsets

Sometimes your professional phone system is working, but call quality is on and off. For example, you are on the phone and you can hear the caller, but they can’t hear you speak or vice versa. You may also feel that the sound quality is distorted from time to time.

Often, these issues can be resolved by replacing the cord that connects your phone to the physical handset. If that doesn’t work, you may want to consider replacing the entire handset. It can be helpful to keep a few spare parts like these at the office to quickly change things out and fix these small issues. If you end up needing to replace an entire handset, you may need to call your professional phone system support team so that they can program your handset. In some cases if you have your system configured properly, this can be accomplished remotely and you don’t even have to have a technician come on site.

3. Determine if All of Your Lines are Down or if Only Certain Lines are Down

Sometimes for a number of reasons you may have one, multiple or all lines ‘down’ (no ring tone and no ability to make outbound or take inbound calls). Before you reach out to your service provider or your telephone system vendor, it is a good idea to determine which lines are impacted.

To do this, all you have to do is grab a list of your various phone lines and try to make an outbound call from each. If you can make a call, that line is working fine. If you don’t get a dial tone and can’t make a phone call – you’ve got a dead line.

Your next step is to call your telephone service provider and have them troubleshoot the issue to get your service reconnected.

It should be said that you can always call your professional phone system support company to help you troubleshoot any issue you have with the telephones at your office. That’s what we are here for! But, you can save yourself some time and potentially even some money by going through some of the tests above before scheduling a technician to come out on site or work on your system remotely.

The post 3 Professional Phone System Troubleshooting Techniques for Common Issues appeared first on Andromeda Technology Solutions.

Researchers have discovered a devilishly clever new stain of malware currently in use by hackers around the world. The new strain is appropriately called "Lucifer," and has been making life quite difficult for IT professionals managing Windows environments.

The malware exploits critical vulnerabilities in Windows-based systems to launch DDoS attacks and install cryptojacking code.

The latest version (2.0) of the code was discovered by researchers Durgesh Sangvikar, Zhibin Zhang, Chris Navarrete, and Ken Hsu, on May 29, 2020. They discovered it while investigating the exploit of CVE-2019-9081, which is a deserialization bug in Laravel Framework that can be used to conduct RCE (Remote Code Execution) attacks.

Their research revealed that CVE-2019-9081 is just one of many critical security flaws Lucifer exploits, including:

• CVE-2014-6287
• CVE-2018-1000861
• CVE-2017-10271
• CVE-2018-20062
• CVE-2018-7600
• CVE-2017-9791
• CVE-2019-9081
• CVE-2017-0144
• CVE-2017-0145
• CVE-2017-8464

Few malware strains incorporate code designed to exploit so many different security flaws, which makes Lucifer a serious threat indeed.

If there's a silver lining to be found, it is in the fact that all of these flaws have already been addressed via patches. So it comes down to making sure your software is up to date and running the latest and greatest security patches. The researchers who discovered it say that there are ongoing campaigns that are currently wreaking havoc on un-patched systems and urge all system admins to make sure the software they're running is patched as soon as possible.

In practice, Lucifer 2.0 works by scanning for open TCP ports 135 (RPC) and 1433 (MSSQL). When it finds a potential target, it will use credential-stuffing attacks to gain access to the targeted system. Once it gains a foothold, it installs XMRig, which is a program used to covertly mine Monero (XMR) cryptocurrency. Additionally, the malware connects to a command and control server where it can receive additional instructions.

As we said, it's a serious piece of work and not to be taken lightly.

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