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For the individuals, getting a new computer is exciting, but for the business, the hardware refresh is looked upon a little less favorably. Of course, having working technology is a must, so recycling your company?s old hardware and upgrading to something new is essentially a necessary expense. There are many different ways that a business can choose to go about spending their hardware budget; and, many different types of computers that have different value to different workers.  Basic Considerations It may not seem like it?s all that important what type of PC you are buying as workstations. Of course, there are dozens of different manufacturers out there, but since they ultimately use the same type of hardware, you will be getting basically the same thing. There are some obvious questions you will want to answer. They include: How much do I have to spend? What are the workstations for? Do you need any special components? What software will you be running on the system? First, you have to purchase your new machines with your budget in mind. One thing that should be said: cheaper is not always better. Sure, you obviously don?t want to waste money, but buying bargain basement options may not give you the reliability your team needs.  Each workstation has to fit the position it is being used for. For example, if the person who is going to be using the machine most is someone that does a fair amount of their work outside of the office, purchasing a desktop computer may be shortsighted.  Moreover, each workstation needs to be able to handle the workloads and the minimum requirements for the software that they run. If you need a few workstations that are only for word processing or data entry, they will be simpler and less expensive to procure. Other Workstation Tips If you are buying computers, you will also want to take these variables into consideration:  Always get the same OS – To make it easier to maintain, you will want all your workstations to run the same operating system. Today, there are Windows, macOS, and Chrome that come equipped on most machines, with the predominant computers running Microsoft Windows 10.  Get the most powerful processor you can afford – This consideration is actually tougher than you may think, considering that there are so many processor types to choose from. The faster the processor, the faster the computer. Get enough RAM – Make sure that your computer has enough memory. Depending on what the user needs to do, you may need additional RAM to handle the workload. Typical office users might be fine with 8 gigabytes of RAM, but a user working in image editing or video editing would need a lot more. There are a lot of considerations to make when looking to onboard new hires or complete an IT refresh. Luckily the IT professionals at White Mountain IT Services can help you make the right IT procurement decisions for your needs and budget. If you would like some help making the right hardware choices for your business, call us today at (603) 889-0800.

How Coronavirus is Impacting Businesses To make a long story short, people aren?t very motivated to go into work when the news cycle is inundated with warnings about an infectious disease spreading worldwide. As a result, businesses everywhere will likely see more employee absences (as many have actually encouraged). While this is clearly better for the public health, an unprepared business will see significant detriments to its productivity and its overall operations. In lieu of this, what can a business do to prepare for absences resulting from a massive health scare, or any other disaster event? File Sync and Sharing One option is to adopt file synchronization and sharing technologies–an option that more businesses are taking advantage of, for many reasons. With these solutions in place, your workforce no longer needs to be in the office to complete the work responsibilities that must be fulfilled. Therefore, should one of your employees fall ill or otherwise can?t make it into the office, you aren?t losing the productivity they would otherwise offer. Why Businesses Use Secure File Sync and Share Solutions The biggest benefits of this approach are present right in its name: Secure Consider what could happen if your employees needed to access work resources outside of the office but lacked any approved means to do so. Either the work wouldn?t get done, or your employees would resort to workarounds that involved software that your organization had no control over. The tools that these workarounds utilize, known as shadow IT, can very easily put sensitive company data at risk. Providing your employees with an approved and secure alternative through file sync and sharing can eliminate these risks, as well as support your disaster recovery efforts. Sync On the subject of allowing employees the means to work outside of the office, imagine if they had worked for three days at home and made excellent progress on a particular project. Sounds great, but not if they showed back up at the office having forgotten to send their progress over–or worse, had neglected to save it. File sync means that as an employee makes progress on a given file, that progress is automatically saved as an entry in a referenceable version history. This has the added benefit of allowing productivity to be possible with any device that has received access to a given file in the solution.  Share As collaboration is such a priority in today?s offices, we would be amiss if we didn?t discuss the ?sharing? aspect of these solutions. Duplicate copies of a given document only make the collaborative process more confusing. Instead, file sync and sharing solutions allow multiple coworkers to share simultaneous access to a given file, permitting them to work together regardless of the physical distance between them. Interested in Learning More About File Sync and Share Solutions? Whether you?re proactively preparing for a disaster or you are simply trying to provide your employees with more flexibility, reach out to White Mountain IT Services to learn more about the solutions we have available to you. Our experts are available at (603) 889-0800 to answer your questions about your IT.

Most businesses rely on Microsoft Active Directory (AD) to handle permissions for users across the network. Active Directory lets you determine who has access to specific capabilities and resources on your network. Regardless of the solution that you use, it?s important to follow these thought processes when determining your access control. Check Who Has Access The first step to ensuring that your business and its data are safe is to ensure that access to your business and its data is appropriately limited. After all, John Q. Public almost certainly has no reason to walk into your offices at 2:30 AM. Similarly, a new hire shouldn?t have the same access permissions as an established manager does, either. Make sure you go through your network permissions and evaluate if any need adjusting. Limit Permissions To The Minimum A good rule of thumb to follow as you are evaluating your permissions is to give each user the fewest that they need to still be able to effectively complete their assigned responsibilities. Different departments need to access and edit different kinds of data for their specific tasks. For instance, if Department 1 only needs the data in Storage D in order to do their job, it doesn?t make sense to give that department access to Storage A through N. A good rule of thumb–only give those who need access to certain resources this requisite access. Enforce Password Best Practices Enforcing your users to use strong passwords, and forcing users to change passwords regularly will help prevent password sharing and duplicate passwords. The username and password have long been the required forms of identification that most accounts demand from a user. Unfortunately, the combination of the human race?s inherent laziness and the tools and strategies that cybercriminals use to crack passwords has made it so that an additional authentication measure has effectively become a requirement for security. Requiring 2-factor authentication can help to eliminate the risks that are posed to your business. For more assistance with your access control, or any other of your business technology considerations, give the team at White Mountain IT Services a call at (603) 889-0800.

That isn?t to say that cloud resources are lacking security, but many cloud options are managed by cloud providers and don?t give organizations enough control over the infrastructure to deliver sufficient peace of mind. As a result, cloud security becomes more end-point oriented, and like any other computing platform, requires a lot of the same strategies that you?d expect. They include: Ensuring data/solutions are securely accessed. Sufficient monitoring of all user/system access Thorough alert system in the event of unusual user/system behavior Obviously, managing and maintaining local infrastructure is much more intensive than managing end-points, but when a platform is accessible from anywhere on many different types of devices, maintaining vigilant policies that dictate user accessibility will go a long way toward keeping your cloud resources secure.  Understanding Cloud Security For small business owners, there is something that is relatively unsettling about cloud computing, especially when you consider how much companies have come to depend on those resources. Some businesses run their entire business in the cloud. Consider that, in essence, to manage the financial risk that you would take on by purchasing and managing onsite equipment, you are willing to take on the risk that your hosted solutions are managed and maintained up to your standards. For millions of companies, that transfer of risk pays off, but when it doesn?t, it can be catastrophic.  That?s why cloud security isn?t just a feature that comes with your business? cloud platform, it is an ongoing strategy that needs to be maintained. Consider how you protect the systems you host locally: you control access. You control who can access certain resources, how they can access them, and what types of authentication they need for access. Part of the benefit of cloud resources is its relative ease-of-use, and since cloud resources depend on the transfer of data/resources over an Internet connection, that simplicity can be problematic. One action you can take to adjust your security strategy is to make cloud platforms a little harder to access. Many cloud services offer solutions for multi-factor authentication. This technology goes beyond the password method by adding an additional step to the sign-on process. After a user enters their login information, instead of accessing the resources, the user will have to put in a randomly generated code to gain access. By adding a step to the sign-on process, the chances are better that the person accessing the platform is authorized to do so. White Mountain IT Services can help you use the cloud from start to finish. Our experts can help you find the cloud platform that meets your organization?s needs and utilize it in the most productive and secure way possible. To learn more, call our IT professionals today at (603) 889-0800.

BlueKeep Background Discovered in May of 2019, BlueKeep was patched to try and prevent the malware from emulating EternalBlue, which was the exploit that enabled the infamous WannaCry cyberattacks which, among other terrible effects, took several hospitals out of commission in the United Kingdom. Now, with precedent established as to how important it is to keep solutions patched and up-to-date, you?d think that hospitals would move fast to implement it. Unfortunately, this isn?t the case.  Worse, BlueKeep impacts Windows 7, along with Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 (R2). You may recognize these systems, because they all have recently passed their end-of-life date and are therefore no longer protected against cyberattack. So, what does this mean? Simple: Not only was BlueKeep resolved via a patch, the impacted systems should no longer be in use in the first place. Reports have also indicated that an entire 22 percent of devices vulnerable to BlueKeep have not added the patch, and that almost half (45 percent) of connected medical devices are still vulnerable. These connected medical devices include things like x-ray machines, anesthesia machines, and other components critical to care. In summation, the state of medical IT looks grim. We can help. White Mountain IT Services is here to offer our assistance to healthcare organizations–and any other organization in a similar predicament–that need to improve their IT so that their patients are safe. For assistance with your IT (even if it only supplements your internal team) give us a call at (603) 889-0800.