Recent Blog Posts
How Impactful Can Remote Work Be? According to a recent survey by Intermedia, there have been plenty of impacts to businesses that should only motivate these businesses to continue it. For instance, in this study, owners of the 250 businesses surveyed indicated that they had experienced an assortment of positive influences, such as: Increases in employee availability in 19 percent of these businesses Increased job satisfaction?15 percent?and life satisfaction?seven percent?alike Decreased overhead costs Improved employee attitudes Reduced work-related stress Increased engagement These businesses had primarily operated out of a centralized office beforehand, at a rate of 85 percent. Since then, that number has dropped to 26 percent as remote work has been embraced. Conversely, the use of video conferencing jumped up by 27 percent, from 57 percent to 84 percent. This makes a lot of sense. After all, many businesses have needed to stay open in order to survive (which will continue for the foreseeable future) while simultaneously trying to preserve the safety of their employees, clients, and customers. Will Remote Work Stick Around? While it may still seem optimistic to look to a post-pandemic future, it is unlikely that many businesses will resume their unofficial moratorium on remote work. The largest concern that many of the survey?s respondents had were themed around engagement?how to engage and attract new and returning clients when an in-person meeting was once the preferred tactic for doing so. It is also important to mention, however, that technology restrictions were not the source of this unease. Just look at the jump in conferencing use that we mentioned above. Therefore, it seems overwhelmingly sure that many businesses will continue to implement remote work options in some shape or form even after the immediate need to do so has passed. After all, if a team is happier and more satisfied working remotely while still accomplishing as much as they could in the office, offering that freedom to them only makes sense. White Mountain IT Services is here to help your business deploy and manage its remote teams and technologies, among other crucial IT services. To learn more about the litany of solutions we offer, reach out to us at (603) 889-0800.
As you might imagine, your criteria for a business email should differ from what the average private email user may consider. A personal email account, or one that a private user would likely make use of, has a few standard qualities: Free to use Limited storage space and features Generic Domain, like gmail-dot-com or outlook-dot-com This is all just fine for a private user, but for a business? purposes, these options fall short. Limited storage space alone would make email far less convenient for the business in question, the lack of features could complicate business processes, and the generic URL renders your communications unrecognizable at first glance. While ?free? can be hard to argue with, the costs that you?re trading for that price tag make this option a non-starter. Instead, a business will need more control over its email platform, which has led to many hosting their own Exchange servers. While this option works, it is not without its assorted challenges, such as: A need for greater technical skill and experience A larger time investment for set up and maintenance An increased chance of significant downtime Spam filtering will cost extra in time and finances All responsibility belongs to the business for upkeep and updates Any one of these issues would be extremely costly on its own, never mind combined. Fortunately, there is another option, one that pairs the benefits of a local email server with the advantages of cloud email. Hosted Email Businesses now have enterprise-level hosted email solutions available to them that are commonly included in productivity suites. For example, both Google?s G Suite and Microsoft Office 365 have an enterprise-level email paired with each account. Utilizing these platforms can provide a plethora of benefits for your business, such as: No added infrastructure costs Scalable number of accounts No more email infrastructure management Unified billing Built-in productivity suites Built-in management and security No software licensing or maintenance Scalable storage Provided email backup Access from anywhere, at any time Need a solid set of productivity solutions for a more business-friendly expense? Give our IT professionals a call at (603) 889-0800 to discuss what White Mountain IT Services can do for you.
What is Ransomware? Simply put, ransomware is malware that holds either files or entire drives ransom, until the perpetrator of the attack is paid via cryptocurrency. If the scammer isn?t paid in the time outlined, the data/drives are deleted, and if not properly backed up, lost forever. You can see how this can be a major problem for any business unfortunate enough to be victimized by ransomware. Ransomware has been around for quite a while, but over the past few years, with the availability of an alternate source of payment (cryptocurrency), ransomware attacks have been commonplace. As media attention surrounding these attacks has grown, businesses have started being more vigilant. How Businesses Ward Off Ransomware It?s not just the one thing that can keep ransomware from being a problem for your business, but there are a few actions that need to be taken to help avoid exposure to these nefarious strains of code. Let?s take a look at a few now: Have a strategy for emails – Most ransomware attacks are sent through phishing emails. Make sure that you–and your staff–understands the best practices of dealing with emails and how to spot fraudulent messages. Have a backup strategy – Ransomware is a fabulous example of why organizations need to have offsite data backup in place. If your systems are hit by ransomware, having offsite backup in place will allow you to rest assured that your data remains unencrypted and available for use. Patch your security tools – One major problem with many organizations? cybersecurity platforms is that the tools they rely on for network and data security aren?t always updated regularly. Keeping your antivirus and firewalls updated is a good practice regardless of the presence of ransomware. Never pay – There have been high-profile ransomware attacks where the victims pay the ransom. There is no guarantee that these scammers will unencrypt the files/drives or won?t leave other malware behind after they successfully extort you. White Mountain IT Services is the trusted name in New Hampshire when it comes to helping businesses utilize IT the right way. Our expert technicians can help you outfit your IT infrastructure with the tools you need to keep your network up, running, and free from downtime-causing malware. Call us today at (603) 889-0800 to learn more.
What is Credential Stuffing? Credential stuffing is an aptly named method for an attacker to gain access to an account. It?s also the reason why we always recommend that you use a different username and password for each account. Let?s say that Website A, a popular social media platform, suffered a data breach, and some of its info was leaked, with usernames and passwords included in the mix. This means that John Q. Hacker can take this list, go to other sites, and start trying them out. If a user was reusing their credentials, our hacker has a match and now has access to their account and information, whatever it may be. So, by essentially running through a spreadsheet, an attacker can gain access to far more accounts than they should. The Current Problem In their most recent report, Akamai (a platform-based service provider) had reviewed data collected throughout 2018 and 2019 to deliver insights to the media industry. As they explain in their included letter from the editor, the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic quickly caused them to reconsider. Thanks to this reconsideration, the report also shows trends as influenced by the pandemic. As you might imagine, these trends are quite telling. Credential stuffing exploded as the coronavirus tightened its hold. In fact, reviewing the documents that Akamai produced shows that their graphs needed to be dramatically increased in scale, tens of millions transitioning to hundreds of millions as numbers increased fourfold. As Europe locked down, a video media service was hit on March 26 by over 364 million malicious login attempts, with over 6 billion attempts taking place in that month alone. The economics of these stolen credentials also share some insights. In the beginning of Q1 2020, researchers took note that video media accounts were priced at about $1 to $5, with bundled services coming in at $10 to $45 each. However, these prices plummeted by the end of Q1 with all the new credentials that were made available. Why This Matters As we have already stated, these kinds of attacks are exactly why it is recommended that access credentials aren?t recycled. ?Why would anyone hack into my stuff?? We?ve all had this rationalization sound off in our heads as we?re asked to provide a password for a new account. We wonder if it really matters how secure our password is, after all, we?re not anyone of interest, so is all that security really worth the effort? Besides, it?s easier to just remember the one. As a result, a sizable number of people have the same usernames and passwords on multiple platforms. This is where the problem lies. Sure, some person accessing your Netflix account is one thing, but someone accessing your bank, or your tax returns, or your work email (sending us down another rabbit hole) is quite another. So, where do we go from here? Well, first thing, you need to go over your own accounts and make sure that all of them are properly secured. At White Mountain IT Services, we tend to recommend that your passwords include the following, to help boost their security: Lots of characters A diverse mix of letters, numbers, and symbols No personally identifiable details (like your pet?s name, hobbies, etc.) Alternatively, you could consider a passphrase. A passphrase (like ?flankingcollisioncurtlytabletbovine?) takes […]
The concept of the managed IT services provider has only been around for over a decade. Many businesses that have pivoted in that direction were once break/fix value added resellers (VARs) that dealt in some pretty specific products and services. The shift from break/fix to managed services was facilitated by the development of powerful automation software that provided well-trained technicians the opportunity to proactively monitor computing networks from a remote location. This, in turn, provided the businesses with a much more affordable service, more effective IT, and a massive reduction in downtime. Industry Growth One of the major draws that partnering with a managed IT service provider brings to your business is that, for a small business, hiring expert IT talent is expensive. By simply choosing to outsource their IT management, a business can enhance the value of their IT support budget. They receive comparable attention to their IT, get access to the IT service provider?s direct availability to newer, more robust technologies, all while paying a static monthly rate to do so. . From hardware to software, from networking to security, the modern IT company has access to all of the technology the modern business needs. That?s why companies have been slowly switching over to managed IT services for the better part of the past decade. The industry?s growth is steady, but in that time, companies? use of technology has exploded. Some choose to hire in-house technicians, some choose to try and manage their own technology, but those that have chosen managed IT services get more bang for their buck. Most companies in North America and Europe expect their IT expenses to increase in 2020, and that was before the COVID-19 pandemic went ahead and through a major wrench in the works. Regardless of what is going on in some sectors, IT budget growth is as large as 30% in some markets. Small and mid-size companies have been extremely active upgrading their IT as newer solutions provide them with more upfront capital, while larger organizations have been rolling out strategic security upgrades to keep organizational risk down. Not surprisingly, the largest driver for IT growth is the need to upgrade outdated IT. This is leading the MSP into expanding their offerings, too. Many organizations have been utilizing cloud computing through their managed service providers. These days, almost anything you can do on a server, you can do on a virtual server hosted in the cloud. Emerging Technologies For some time, IT companies have looked to innovative new technologies to build a catalogue of solutions that would be attractive to any-sized organization. This hasn?t stopped. Today, with data becoming a major commodity for almost any type of organization, these IT companies have begun using their expertise with information systems to push new ways for companies to collect, process, and analyze that data. That?s why you see IT support companies dabbling in data warehousing and business intelligence services; providing value that simply wasn?t there a short time ago. Another technology that many MSPs have really ramped up on recently is managed security services. With the use of specialized tools and practices, IT service companies can now provide solutions for any type of organizational security threat. Today?s IT service company is capable of protecting your company with traditional methods of training and […]
