Neglecting to Upgrade Your Technology Can Bring Several Deficits Higher Costs The financial issues that older technology can cause are threefold. First off, older technology tends to be more expensive to keep up and running. Secondly, older systems don?t have the assorted power-saving features that more up-to-date ones come with. Third, older tech tends to cause difficulties for a business? team members, who will frequently take time trying to make it work to some degree. As a result, their productivity suffers (as we?ll return to in a few moments) and your costs leap up. Compliance Issues Businesses of all sizes need to uphold the requirements that various authority figures and regulatory bodies have placed on them. Of course, ?needing to? and ?doing? are two separate things. Not ?doing? so could open up your business to consequences from regulatory bodies along with the threats that many of these compliances are meant to avoid. Security Vulnerabilities Here?s the facts: one of the primary motivations to upgrade your technology is to ensure that it is properly fortified against attacks, as older tools are less and less likely to be kept updated by the manufacturer. Maintaining them properly (including cycling them out when the time comes) helps to limit the risk that your business is apt to face. Tanked Productivity We?ve all experienced slow load times and patchy connections before, and so we all have a pretty good idea of how they can be detrimental to the amount that we can accomplish in a given time. The older (and more outdated) a piece of technology gets, the more these outliers become the norm? and not one that a quick reboot will fix. Speaking of fixes, that brings us back to the point we mentioned earlier: the more time your team needs to spend to get their essential tools working, the less time they have to actually put them to use. Ensuring your IT is up-to-date helps to cut back on this time and maintain the levels of productivity you?d like to see. Frequent Crashes and Downtime Finally, we come to the fact that older, outdated technology frequently just doesn?t work as well. System crashes can become more common, and downtime will more and more frequently rear up its unproductive head. Keeping your technology updated (cycling it out when the time comes) can help minimize these impacts. We Can Help You Determine When, and What, to Upgrade Using our remote monitoring and maintenance tools, we?ll be given a clear picture of when a piece of your IT infrastructure is becoming more of a problem than it is a solution, allowing us to resolve the issue for you. Working with us will give your business a clear roadmap to follow when it comes to upgrades, as well as complete support in making them. Give us a call at (603) 889-0800 today to learn more.

Keep in mind that, as always, these kinds of tips are not designed to be a replacement for asking questions when you do not know what to do next. If any of these tips go over your head and you are uncomfortable with doing some troubleshooting on your own, by all means, contact your help desk. It is better to ask questions and get help when it?s needed than to do something you are uncomfortable with, resulting in a potentially disastrous situation. Restart the Program or Application Your first step toward figuring out your technology issues is to determine if it is a hardware or a software problem. Therefore, your first response should be to try closing your programs and seeing if that helps. If this works, then great?you can get right back to work. Just make a quick note and be sure to report the issue to IT, though. The last thing you want is to let a problem become persistent. Check Your Internet Connection For connected services, your Internet connection is vital, but sometimes you might accidentally disconnect from your network or lose your connection. When all else fails, check to see if you are still connected to the Internet. Most apps that require it are pretty good about telling you when your connection has been lost, but it does not hurt to check. If there is no connection, try restarting the router and see if that helps. Power the Device Down and Turn It Back On When you aren?t sure what the problem is, one of the best things you can do is to first try turning your device off and back on again. No, we are not simply restarting it. We are doing a hard reset, or power off. Sometimes just giving your device a break for a moment is enough to get it back to normal, but other times the issue that you?re having will persist. If this does not work, then try these other tricks. Of course, when you find that these tactics do not work, it helps to consider as many details as possible regarding the situation that you require help with. Is it the computer itself that is not working properly, or is it the software on your computer? Can you explain in detail what happens when you experience the issue? Try replicating the problem yourself if it is a repeat issue?this will give you the knowledge you need to explain in detail to the help desk, which will go a long way toward helping them help you. If you want to give your team the ability to seek technology assistance when it?s needed, White Mountain IT Services has answers. We can equip your organization with a help desk that gives your team access to the expertise it needs to sustain operations and resolve problems with your technology. To learn more, reach out to White Mountain IT Services at (603) 889-0800.

What Kind of Centralized Authority Are We Talking About? Let?s establish something from the get-go: you need to be sure you have absolute control over your business? technology. You need to have the ability to dictate who can access what, and what devices can be used to do so. In order to get this kind of control, you need to rule over your domain? domain in this case referring to your network, your business? group of computers that share rules and managerial controls. To accomplish this, some of your server resources need to be dedicated to managing and enforcing your IT policies across your network. These resources are referred to as the domain controller. The domain controller makes sure that any device that is added into the domain is held to the same policies. This helps to enable a few key features: Policy Enforcement Establishing control over your network through the use of Active Directory helps to set limits that apply to different user groups, commonly as a means of securing against threats like shadow IT and less-than-adequate passwords. Standard Enforcement With Bring Your Own Device and remote work gaining popularity?particularly as of late?it is important that the security in place at home is the same as it is in the office. Your domain controller can be used to ensure that access to your network is only granted if certain requirements are met. Asset Management There?s a lot of technology that a business needs to maintain, each with its own software and various configurations to account for. Centralizing your authority requires that this information is kept in a specialized database. Centralized Management Active Directory and similar services are simpler to manage through the control that centralized authority provides. Divvying up users into groups, Active Directory makes it easier to give these groups different permissions. Managerial Efficiency Centralizing a network makes it a lot easier to keep everything maintained and secure, although remote work and Bring Your Own Device policies can make it somewhat more challenging. How to Establish Your Authority Over Your IT The first step to consolidating your control over your business? technology is actually ensuring that the user?s experience while under this control is nice and seamless. This can be accomplished by controlling things to the point that a user only has access to what they need, with the added benefit of the security this approach offers. We Can Help You Accomplish This Reach out to us to find out what we can do to simplify your network management. Give us a call at (603) 889-0800.

Here are four ways you can improve your social media security practices. Be Selective with Friend and Follow Requests Social media gives users a lot of control over who they can connect with and who can follow them. One of the best ways to keep yourself safe while using social media is to choose carefully who you allow to follow your accounts. Only connect with those who you would not mind connecting with in real-life and those you can trust. Set Your Profiles to Private Another great way to protect your profiles is to keep them set to ?private?. This gives you the ability to share content with only people who you allow to view your profile. You essentially limit access to your personal or sensitive data. Some social media even let you customize who can see what content on a user level, giving you the ability to modulate privacy in a sense. Stay Aware of How Much You Share Security questions like ?What is your pet?s name,? or ?What is your mother?s maiden name,? are common enough that hackers can find these things by just scouring your social media profiles. This is one reason why many people choose to not share personal information like this on social media, and you can hardly fault people for using an abundance of caution in this regard. If you want to prioritize privacy and security, you could probably take a page out of their book as well. Stay Cognizant of Phishing Scams Even if you take all of the necessary precautions, there is a chance that someone might try to use phishing scams to steal credentials or sensitive information from you. You might receive messages from people you haven?t heard from in years asking for information or sharing suspicious links. Be careful not to let your guard down until you can confirm the identity of the one sending you these requests. For more great tips on how to stay secure online, be sure to subscribe to our blog and reach out to us at (603) 889-0800.

Let?s take a closer look at the needs that a law firm has in terms of its security, and how these needs can be attended to with the right cybersecurity tools. What a Law Firm Needs in Terms of Security Naturally, a law firm needs the same kind of cybersecurity that any other modern business should have. However, this simply isn?t enough to sufficiently protect the sensitive data that a law firm will accumulate over time. Law firms deal in trust and confidentiality, so your capability to uphold these standards is critical. However, in addition to the typical standards, the modern law firm should also prioritize the use of advanced protections that prevent specific issues. With some of the data they store potentially being useful for an insider trading scheme, a law firm could find itself in some serious hot water. In addition to this, ransomware is a serious issue that could easily put the kibosh on a firm?s capacity to operate. Plus, is it really so unheard of that a stressed member of your staff might overlook the warning signs of an attack? Law firms need to have a way to ensure their security is comprehensive. This will require a few steps to be taken: Keep Permissions in Check It?s a simple fact that not everyone will need access to every bit of information that a law firm holds. Not only does it make it easier for your workers when they only have access to what they need, it is the more secure way of operating. Monitoring these permissions and updating them promptly as circumstances change is a solid strategy. Maintain Compliance Various laws and other regulations exist that dictate what precautions need to be taken for many different industries in terms of their data security. The legal industry is no exception, so it is necessary to understand what is required and what that will dictate your law firm to do. Enforce Authentication Standards Identity authentication is crucial, with the strength of your authentication measures needing to be substantial. While your passwords need to meet certain standards (with your infrastructure rejecting any that don?t), it is always better to secure yourself with additional requirements. Using multi-factor authentication is a very effective way to do so. Keep an Access Record Finally, any law firm should have the means to detect when data has been accessed in a way that doesn?t align with the firm?s use. This kind of technology can assist in the identification of various issues, as unusual behaviors become easier to identify. We Can Help Any Business Put These Needs First If you?re interested in putting these defensive capabilities to work in your law firm?or indeed, whatever kind of business you operate?give us a call today. Our team of experienced professionals are waiting for you to dial (603) 889-0800.