Controlling Purchases with a Password App store purchases, whether to purchase or subscribe to an application itself or to add features and functionality to a free version, can very quickly and very substantially add up?especially if someone else gains access to your device. Locking the ability to make purchases behind password-based authentication can help prevent such spending from taking place. Content-Based App Filtering As the Play Store caters to users of all ages and audiences, many applications include gambling, violence, and other inappropriate and otherwise ?Not Safe for Work? content. Naturally, you don?t want your business? users to be downloading these applications on company-owned devices?or, for that matter, using them during work hours. Filtering out these kinds of apps can be accomplished by navigating to the Play Store, accessing Settings, finding Content Filtering, and adjusting the settings to outline what is appropriate within your business. Review All Orders and Purchases Speaking of overspending and checking for inappropriate app downloads, keeping track of how much money has been spent in the Play Store is simple thanks to the record that is maintained. On the online version of the Play Store, access the Gear icon, and find the My orders section. View All Android Devices To close, the online version of the Play Store also allows you to keep track of every device associated to a particular Google Account and used to access the Play Store through it. Again, in the Gear icon, the Settings area will reveal this information. What else can the Play Store do to help you manage your mobile devices? Share anything we may have missed in the comments!

Explaining Best Practices Enterprise research company Gartner defines best practices as: ??a group of tasks that optimizes the efficiency (cost and risk) or effectiveness (service level) of the business discipline or process to which it contributes. It must be implementable, replicable, transferable and adaptable across industries.? How We Establish Practices as ?Best? When we talk about ?best? practices, we are simply outlining actions that can be taken to result in the best outcome. It?s that simple. If we are discussing IT strategies, security strategies, or actions you should take to improve your success rate with technology, we typically refer to them as best practices. As IT professionals, we are always actively seeking strategies to help our clients succeed more often. If you would like to have a conversation about a specific issue you are having with your business? IT, give us a call and our experts can help you establish practices that take your business where you want it to go. Reach out to us at (603) 889-0800 and stop back to our blog for more great technology and business-related content. 

The Threats Your Employees Can Pose When it comes to exposing your business to threats, there are a few ways that your cybersecurity may be undermined by your team members. To effectively reinforce your business? protections against these cyberthreats, you need to acknowledge this fact and prepare strategies to minimize the impact of all of them. By the most basic definitions, your employees can pose a threat to your business in three different ways: User Error Or, in simpler terms, an honest mistake. Just think about how often you?ve made an error where you clicked on the wrong thing or put information in the wrong place?these kinds of errors are only too easy to make in the workplace. Unfortunately, these mistakes can often have considerable impacts upon productivity, and can even influence your business? continuity. User Manipulation With so many businesses beginning to see cyberthreats as a real danger to their operations, security measures are finally being deployed more frequently. Unfortunately, cybercriminals have realized this and have responded by shifting their attention to the most susceptible way for them to access these newly hardened networks: the users who can grant them access. Through schemes like phishing, hackers can identify and focus on the users within an organization most likely to fall for such ruses. Of course, they also have other methods up their sleeve, so keeping your team aware of the warning signs is critical. Insider Threats Fortunately, threats that come from one of the business? employees are far less common, but it is still prudent to remain prepared and protected against them. An employee with a grudge may strike after they?ve left or steal a little data to make themselves more valuable at their next job. While you should cultivate a company culture that will discourage this, access controls and other preventative measures will help minimize the risks. Protecting Your Business from Internal Threats While we?ve touched on some strategies to help minimize the inherent threats your workforce will introduce to your company, the importance of security solutions combined with a security-first company mindset cannot be understated. Keeping your cybersecurity measures updated will make them more effective at blocking out threats. Access controls with role-based permissions will help keep your data on a need-to-know basis and in turn keep your data under better control. Your employees will likely pay more attention to their cybersecurity habits if reminded of the severity and prevalence of cyberattacks today. Your team can just as easily be a security asset as they are a security risk or liability, so training them sufficiently will result in significant benefits for you. Finally, you need to acknowledge any employee observations, as their insight might reveal security issues that would otherwise go unnoticed. At the same time, working to resolve any issues team members may have will help discourage the kind of ill will that leads to insider threats. While you won?t be able to please everyone, demonstrating a willingness to try can go a long way. White Mountain IT Services can help you out with both aspects, as we can both help ensure your productivity and security, while also providing your team members with IT support as they need it. Find out more about what we have to offer by calling (603) 889-0800.

Keep Systems and Solutions Maintained and Updated Let me ask you a question: would you drive to the office in a 1908 Ford Model T? Would you send a quick telegraph to someone to ask them a question? Of course not. As technology has improved, businesses have needed to embrace these improved options to ensure that their productivity and security remain competitive. Furthermore, with improvements to IT happening faster and faster (not to mention how quickly threats are now developed) your successful operations could very well rely on you having the right tools in proper working order. Therefore, you need to make sure that your hardware and the software it hosts are all kept in fine working order, updating them, and upgrading them when appropriate. By prioritizing this, you ensure that your team can efficiently do the jobs they are meant to do without undermining your security. Keep Data Backed Up Data is critical to your business? success, as it influences your capability to operate with optimal productivity. As this is the case, it is important that you ensure that your data is protected against circumstances of all kinds, as there are many ways that data can be lost. Whether a fire, equipment failure, theft, accidental spill, or whatever happens to your on-site data storage, a backup will help you minimize the adverse impacts it has on your data continuity. Our recommendation is that your data backup incorporate multiple copies of your data, with at least three in total: the original copy, a data backup that you keep onsite, and one hosted in the cloud. That way, you have a convenient and easily accessible version of your data at the ready to fix small issues, while also keeping (and least) one additional copy safe in the cloud in case your on-site backup is lost along with the original data. Keep Your Data Secured Finally, we must discuss data security. With cybercrime officially being more profitable for criminals than the global trade of illicit drugs, it should come as little wonder that 75 records are stolen each second, on average. For a few dollars, it?s possible to buy access to some poor soul?s bank account. Businesses aren?t exempt from these threats, either. With many user accounts holding more access than necessary and much of their network storage not having much internal security at all, phishing attacks have become a favorite tactic of cybercriminals. By fooling a business? team members into allowing them to access the network, a cybercriminal is given quite a bit of power. In addition to the phishing awareness and other best practices that should be taught to team members at all levels, there should be some authentication requirements and data handling parameters built into your network infrastructure and company policies. Requiring authentication to access certain materials and keeping your data on a strictly need-to-know basis otherwise, will reduce the potential number of leaks your business could be subject to. White Mountain IT Services is here to help your business ensure these measures are carried out, and more. For assistance in seeing to your organization?s cybersecurity preparedness and adherence to best practices, reach out to our team. Give us a call at (603) 889-0800 to get started, or at least to ask any questions you may have.

Personal Data Needs to Be Protected The first thing we are going to touch on really doesn?t have to do with businesses, it has to do with smartwatch users. The smartwatch is a cool gadget and can do a lot of really neat things as long as you remember to charge it. Unfortunately, there is some risk involved in allowing these devices access to your business? network. Some models don?t have completely fleshed out operating systems and could provide hackers an avenue of access to the rest of your business? computing infrastructure if they aren?t kept updated.  Many of the noted security shortcoming of these devices may not mean anything for your business, but should be a consideration. It?s a best practice to create, implement, and enforce a BYOD policy that extends to smartwatches and other wearable technology and IoT devices.  Here are a few tips that you can pass onto your employees to avoid problems with vulnerabilities brought onto your network through wearable technology:  Users shouldn?t use unofficial apps – Users need to avoid ?jailbreaking? a device to give them access to applications that they wouldn?t typically have. Jailbreaking is essentially installing a non-authorized version of an application or operating system on a device. It voids the warranty and can exacerbate the questionable security surrounding smart devices. If the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store can?t always catch malicious apps, importing apps from an unsupported platform is a risky proposition. Don?t jailbreak your phone – This should be common knowledge, but you really shouldn?t jailbreak your phone either, but especially don?t use a smartwatch with a jailbroken phone.  Don?t connect devices directly to your watch – Avoid hooking up things directly to the watch. If your plan was to use your watch as a cool controller for all of your smart devices, you should immediately reconsider. Since there are built-in vulnerabilities for many watches, it?s important to choose options that prioritize security.  Keep your smartwatch OS and other apps updated – Software vulnerabilities can cause major problems regardless of what platform they come on. Smart devices like smartwatches are no different. Keep their OS up to date for the best security.  Build an IoT Security Strategy With the popularity of smart devices, there is probably a pretty good chance that you have plenty of them already at your place of business. In order to get the control you need, you will likely need a BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) strategy that also considers the IoT endpoints that are brought in. This is called a Bring Your Own Internet of Things (BYOIoT) Strategy.  By extending your BYOD strategy to a BYOIoT strategy, you not only have the coverage you need to keep threats off of your organization?s network, but you also have the solutions in place to scale that platform as your employees plan on bringing in additional smart devices. Securing endpoints and monitoring data flow will be important strategies to consider in the days and years ahead.  Securing the endpoints on your network is extremely important. For more information about what White Mountain IT Services technicians can do for you, give us a call today at (603) 889-0800.