Protecting Home Base Physical security is one of those elements of business that you either love or hate. The people who love it tend to be deliberate, patient people. The people who don?t tend to want access right now and without hindrances. First, it is a balancing act. Secondly, it?s ants vs. elephants. You need to protect your investments, your staff, your data, and your physical technology.  There are all types of things that you can do to increase your level of physical security.  Get an access control system – This option is probably the most prudent physical security investment you can make. There are all types of solutions: key fob, ID card, smartphone, even biometric. The idea is simply to get a read on when people come and go, what they need access to, and to protect company assets with the use of technology. Get some security swag – When people feel like they?re being watched they don?t tend to be as foolish as when they know they aren?t. Getting some digital security cameras can provide you with eyes (and ears) all over your business, and they serve as a pretty good deterrent, too. Security! – If you don?t mind spending some money, one of the very best ways to promote security at your place of business is to, in fact, hire some. Albeit, expensive, if you have personnel on duty, not many physical security problems will come your business? way. Protecting your place of business is extremely important and, on some level, has to be a priority. Problems of physical security don?t just extend to peddlers and madmen; they can more often result in more subdued problems such as cybercrime. To that end… The Battle Against Cybercrime Cybersecurity can be a problem from inside your office, but more often it comes from outside your network, even if (as we?ll talk about later) it?s often triggered by someone on your side. In order to sufficiently protect your Internet-facing systems, you?ll need a plan that includes the following routine actions: Software patching – In order to keep the software your business relies on from being a direct avenue to your data, you will need to ensure that each piece of software is routinely patched and updated regularly.  Spam blocking – Your organization gets literally hundreds or thousands of messages per day coming in from senders you didn?t request anything from. In order to separate the legitimate mail from all the other rubbish, you will need to have a spam blocker in place. Firewalls – You will want to make sure that firewalls are set up on all applicable spots on your network. A well-updated enterprise firewall will catch most malicious software that is thrown at it.  Multi-Factor Authentication – Where you can, you should be using two-factor authentication. It may take a few moments longer to get into your account (more if you left your smartphone in the car), but it will be worth it when you don?t see a data breach.  Use of security tools for work outside of the office – Today?s business is a remote business. Making your team utilize secure connections–whether it be through a password-protected remote access software or with the use of a virtual private network–is a great strategy to keep business data safe. […]

What Are Business Communications? Business communications are effectively what it says on the package: the processes that a business has in place to enable communication to take place between different people, internal and external, that are associated with a business. Internal business communications are those that take place between different people within a business, from the intern to the CEO, while external business communications are those that involve parties that are not a part of the business itself?like your communications with your vendors or your clients. As you would probably imagine, these important communications can quickly spiral out of control, which is part of the reason why many businesses adopt a unified communications policy which is a means of connecting your various methods together into one integrated strategy. How Do Business Communications Interact Within a Unified Communications Platform? Think of it this way? let?s assume that your business has a messaging platform that allows for click-to-talk functionality. That platform would be considered a UC platform. As unified communications allow a conversation to take place across different platforms and formats, different methods of business communications can be leveraged in conjunction with one another to more productively convey information. As a result, collaborative efforts become simpler and more productive for a business. How Does This Impact Business Operations? While there are some considerations to keep in mind, like how unified communications can introduce new access points into your network and complicate your security, there are some considerable benefits to be had. For instance, aside from the productivity and collaboration improvements you would expect, unified communications can help simplify the remote work process for your team, while also helping to improve customer service. How Unified Communications Matter with COVID-19 As COVID-19 wreaks havoc around the world, it is crucial to your business? short and long-term survival that you maintain your ability to communicate both internally and externally. Internally, it is crucial that you use your tools to keep your employees in the loop for the remainder of the situation. While you need to keep your employees updated as to how your company will be operating considering COVID-19?s influence, you also need to continue the kind of communications that are required for your business-as-usual operations. Externally, you need to scale back any hard selling you may be participating in and focus primarily on maintaining contact with those you serve. If there is something that you?re doing that can help them, make them aware of that. Otherwise, focus on support and awareness. Communication is one of the most important things to keep in mind during any serious event. Make sure you put the systems in place to help maintain it now. Reach out to White Mountain IT Services at (603) 889-0800 for assistance.

Your Average Website People spend a lot of time online researching, buying, and interacting with companies. When you fill out a form with your name, and often your address, email address, and phone number, you are expecting that information to be secured on the other end. This information isn?t always protected the way you would assume. In fact, many companies actually take your information and bundle it with hundreds or thousands of other people and sell it off for a profit. Of course, this is happening less and less as individual data protection is taken more seriously.  The problem becomes, what happens when this company gets breached. All of the information they have attached to your name (and other personally identifiable information {PII}) is exposed by hackers; and guess who is responsible? You are. Nearly every website that you go to will have all of this information in the fine print, leaving you with almost no recourse but to have your personal information out there for people to buy. It?s even worse when the lost information is medical or financial information. It can get real personal real fast.  That may be the worst-case scenario, but privacy isn?t great on the Internet to begin with. Every message you send, every movie you watch on a streaming service, every time you search something using the search function on a website, every item you buy online, leaves a data trail right back to you; and, this goes for everyone. It isn?t only willing participation that strips you of your data, either. Almost everything you do on the Internet–whether it be messaging, streaming media, shopping, or simply surfing the web–leaves a data trail right back to you. Your data trail may not work against you, but it is always there and that data shapes your individual story online. If someone were to take an interest in you, there is a good chance that they would be able to find out a whole lot more than many people would be comfortable with.  How Do You Protect Yourself? If your data has value, then you need to make an effort to protect it. You?d actually be surprised how much money companies pay to get your information. It may seem like it is thrown around, but actually to get the data they want about you (consumers) they need to pay. Think about all the ads you see on an average day. Most of those ads are there because they know what you want, and how to get it right in front of your face. Here are a few things you can do to protect yourself online: Make up complex, unique passwords – Having passwords that protect your data online is essential. The trick is to use passphrases that only you can remember. Sprinkle in upper-and-lower-case letters, numbers, and symbols and never use a password twice.  Read the Terms of Service – Reading the fine print can really be a huge benefit; and, we get it, it?s tedious. If you want to protect yourself online, know what you are allowing a company to do, whether it?s at a website or in a mobile app. Monitor your financial activity – Today there are several services dedicated to helping people manage their finances more effectively. Finding one that you trust […]

Access to Power and Internet No matter what you decide to do about your home office, you definitely will need access to power and bandwidth. What good is a desk that doesn?t have power available? Not all people have the space to make a dedicated office, but if you carve out a space where the Internet is fast and there is a reliable power source, you should do alright. Position Your Workspace Aside from the connectivity issues, there are some solid practices you should consider when setting up your home office. First, you will want to situate your workspace in low traffic areas. If you have an extra bedroom, a loft, or simply a lonely corner you will definitely be apt to get more done than if you are working from the writing desk in the hallway you got from your grandmother. After all, the less distractions you have, the better you will perform. You will definitely want to have enough light to not nod off during your more menial tasks. You should also try to find a flat surface with a chair that doesn?t cry out ?nap here? while you are sitting in it. Avoid Clutter Obviously, when you are stuck in your house most of the time, constantly cleaning can be extremely annoying. You know what? Just do it. The more junk you have laying around, the worse your headspace is going to be. Comfort? Now this is the real challenge for the person working from home. Your house is built to be a refuge for you after you have completed all of your daily tasks. Now that you are stuck there, there is the tendency to use your comfy surroundings while you work away on your laptop. This isn?t ideal, but if you can make it work, do what you please.  Working from home can be a challenge for people who haven?t been allowed to before, but it can be a wildly rewarding experience that will change the way you look at your job, as long as you don?t let your home?s comforts eat up your productivity.  For support where and when you need it, make sure you reach out to us by calling (603) 889-0800.

Scenario 1: No Backup Chuck runs a small business that does a fair amount of work with various clients and customers, so he relies on an extensive record-keeping system to ensure that his agreements and contracts are up-to-date and honored. There are also the tools that enable his necessary inventory to be maintained, automatically contacting the appropriate vendors and suppliers when his materials run low. Chuck relies on his technology, as it has promoted growth and has expanded its reach. Unfortunately, a member of Chuck?s staff is using their email one day and automatically opens an attachment that contains ransomware. Chuck learns that this has locked him out of his entire system, preventing him from accessing any of his files or tools. To eliminate the threat, Chuck has no choice but to completely wipe his systems and start fresh? but in doing so, he is forced to sacrifice all the data that his operations rely upon. A few difficult months later, Chuck is unable to recover from this monumental setback, and closes the business. Scenario 2: Backup Laura runs a bustling small business, serving a healthy assortment of customers and clientele. To keep track of everything, she makes use of customer relationship management and inventory management tools, in addition to her HR software. While her own innate business sense has powered her success, her prioritization of technology as an indispensable asset has helped Laura apply these insights in a meaningful way. This approach also helps when a storm strikes and surges power into her location and fries her infrastructure. While replacing the equipment is going to be costly, the true cost would come from the data loss. Fortunately, Laura had taken the advice of her managed service provider and implemented a comprehensive backup solution, which had proactively taken incremental backups of her data and saved them in an off-site data center. As a result, her employees can work from home to some extent while replacements can be procured (with the proper surge protection now implemented) and maintain the business somewhat. After a brief interlude, Laura?s business can resume its full operations. So yes, our tip to you is to have a backup solution in place, that meets certain best practices: You have a total of (at least) three copies of your data. Two of these copies are maintained as backups. (At least) one of these copies is stored offsite in a cloud solution. Ideally, this cloud solution would itself have copies stored in various places for redundancy. White Mountain IT Services can help you establish the kind of data backup and recovery strategy that you need. We can also help you develop an entire business continuity plan to mitigate the aftereffects of any kind of data loss scenario, all while providing you with more tips and best practices to minimize the possibility of such a scenario in the first place. Reach out to us at (603) 889-0800 to learn more and subscribe to our blog today for more insights.