If you don?t have guards or security cameras in place, you?re more likely to suffer from a physical security breach, which can be just as devastating as a digital breach. Ask yourself how comprehensive your security really is. After all, the new year has just hit, so why not use it as an opportunity to protect your business? physical assets? With so many cyber threats out there these days, it?s no surprise that organizations focus on the digital aspect of security, but some people are just old-fashioned and would rather infiltrate a business the traditional way. It?s also important to keep in mind that not everyone is going to be the perfect employee. You might have a couple of bad apples in the bunch that see technology and want it for themselves. In this case, digital security might not mean much, but physical security like locked doors and so on could make all the difference in keeping them from making decisions that are bad for both themselves and your business. Basically, you need to take this two-pronged approach–one that considers both digital security and physical security–for the following reasons: Data access is restricted to those within your organization, but even the best employees make mistakes. A tiered approach means that employees only have permission to access data they need for their immediate work responsibilities. Knowing who is accessing devices and data, as well as when they are doing so, can help you to resolve issues as they occur. Let?s consider a couple of scenarios where it helps to have physical and digital security. Access control limits who can access specific information, so if the data is corrupt or missing, then you?ll have a clear idea for who is responsible for it. On the off-chance that it wasn?t the employee, then you know their credentials have been stolen and abused by a cybercriminal. Access monitoring is helpful for this, as it can also determine when someone is accessing data, as well as where they are located. Thus, if someone from another country is accessing data in the wee hours of the morning, it?s likely that you have a digital security problem on your hands. As far as physical security goes, consider what would happen if you didn?t keep track of who checks out devices. For example, let?s say you have company laptops that can be checked out for use by your employees. If you?re not keeping track of who checks out what device, you?ll never know who currently has the devices in their possession, as well as when they were last taken out. It makes it astonishingly easy to get away with stealing a device. Therefore, in order to make sure that you?re keeping your data as secure as possible from all avenues of attacks, we recommend you work with the folks from White Mountain IT Services. We can help you ensure security. To learn more, reach out to us at (603) 889-0800.
How Hosted VoIP Keeps You Secure A VoIP solution hosted in the cloud has several benefits over one that you would host yourself on-premises. We?ll explain how hosted VoIP can be better for your security and ease of management. Expert technicians on-hand: Maintenance is critical for a system like VoIP, especially in regard to security. If you host it in-house, you unfortunately have to take care of it yourself which is difficult if you?re not a trained specialist. If you have your VoIP solution hosted off-site or in the cloud, your provider is the one responsible for taking care of it, freeing up your staff from the responsibility to focus on more important tasks. Easy management and monitoring: If you juggle too many systems, chances are you?re spreading yourself too thin–especially without dedicated personnel to manage and monitor it. Security breaches are easier to prevent if the system is constantly under watch, and VoIP can provide a standardized way to approach this so that you?re spending less time worrying about communications security. Additional security benefits: Rather than risk a breach happening for multiple mediums, VoIP protects your singular communication solution with comprehensive encryption. This keeps all conversations private and away from those who might find the conversations ?interesting.? Every call?s data is encrypted before it leaves for its destination, thereby protecting your business? assets in a way that may not be possible otherwise. Additional Benefits A hosted VoIP solution gives your business many additional opportunities that extend far beyond security. For example, operations benefit considerably from the use of hosted VoIP. Imagine being able to forward a call to a mobile device to take it on the road, or change the basic phone settings more easily. These are just a small dose of what VoIP can do for businesses just like yours. Of course, any solution as flexible as VoIP presents the opportunity to change up the scope and scale of services rendered based on needs at any point during its implementation. This means that it doesn?t matter whether your business has 30 employees or 300. As long as your Internet connection can support the amount of activity on your network, VoIP can scale as needed, making it a valuable investment for any organization. Depending on the type of solution you?re looking to implement, VoIP can be an incredible way to change operations for the better. To learn more about how VoIP can help your business grow and improve, reach out to us at (603) 889-0800.
The Managed IT Services Provider The concept of the Managed IT Services Provider has only been around for over a decade. Many 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 knowledgeable technicians the opportunity to proactively monitor computing networks from a remote location. This provided the businesses with much more effective IT, and much less downtime. Over the past 10 years or so, the Managed Services channel has grown precipitously. Projected to come in at around $200 billion in 2019, the global IT services market is seeing substantial growth in Asia and Europe, and solid growth in North America where the practice was founded. ChannelE2E estimates that there are nearly 20,000 healthy IT service providers working to cover the IT needs of millions of small businesses, while some of the largest companies in the world continue to offer managed services as a part of their service deliveries. Industry Growth One of the major draws of partnering with a managed IT service provider for small businesses is the notion that hiring expert IT talent is expensive. By outsourcing their IT management, the business can receive comparable attention to their IT, while obtaining value from the IT service provider?s direct availability to newer, more robust technologies. Many of these organizations still consider themselves VARs and, as such, have access to the most innovative business-oriented technology. From hardware to software, from networking to security, the modern IT company has access to all of the technology the modern business needs. The industry?s growth is steady, but companies use of technology has exploded. Most companies in North America and Europe expect their IT expenses to increase in 2019, and in some sectors IT budget growth is as large as 30%. 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. The largest driver for IT growth is the need to upgrade outdated IT. This is leading the MSP into expanding their offerings. Many organizations have been utilizing cloud computing for all types of reasons, including communications, collaboration, hardware and software deployment, and much, much more. These days, almost anything you can do on a server, you can do on a virtual server hosted in the cloud. This provides modern businesses with an immense amount of security. 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 amped up on recently is managed security services. With use of specialized tools and practices, IT services companies can now provide solutions for any type of organizational security threat. Today?s […]
Don?t worry, this happens all the time. The truth is that no matter how good of an investment your business? technology is – no matter how much money you make as a result of that technology – no matter how much you depend on that technology? that technology will fail. Today, well look at common technology problems and how important it is to have a backup plan with the fickle nature of this technology. Broken Technology If yours is like the average business, you have all types of technology that you use to get things done. This technology, however, has a tendency to malfunction regularly if you don?t have a strategy in place to proactively monitor and maintain it. This happens throughout a business. Some of the most widespread problems a business may experience with their IT include: Software problems: Software can be a major frustration for users and IT administrators, alike. Most pieces of software that are released have their bugs, which should probably be expected. The problem, however, is that users expect that all software, no matter who has developed it, to work flawlessly every time they use it. This expectation is, at best, is optimistic since most software titles will have some type of erroneous error. The problem becomes when that software error negatively affects one of your staff?s productivity and costs you extra in maintenance. Additionally, many software problems (and computer performance issues) have to do with the existence of malware on your system or network. Hardware problems: Sometimes hardware problems cause software problems, but most of the time if you have a problem with a piece of hardware, whether it be a workstation, a monitor, a router, a switch, or even a server, if that piece of hardware fails, it will almost certainly lead to some type of downtime; and, will be accompanied with repair or replacement costs shortly thereafter. Peripheral problems: Hardware that isn?t essential to organizational computing effectiveness is typically thought of as a peripheral. This includes easily replaceable hardware like a keyboard and/or mouse, and hardware that performs a specific special function such as a scanner, a printer, a copier, etc. Depending on what the malfunctioning peripheral is, fixing it could cost you next to nothing or could cost an arm and a leg. No matter what part of your IT infrastructure fails, replacing it is likely going to have to become a priority for you. If you get into a situation where some of the more expensive parts of your IT infrastructure begin to fail at once, or you have to deal with a companywide disaster, you may be facing a major problem. What Are My Options? Thankfully, before you panic about the thought of losing all that you?ve worked so hard for, you do have an option that will work to mitigate both unnecessary costs and the stress over failing technology: managed IT services. The IT experts at White Mountain IT Services can provide you with comprehensive monitoring which keeps a watchful eye over all of your IT to ensure that it is working as intended. If a machine or other device on your IT infrastructure is on its last legs, the powerful automated monitoring software will notify one of our professional technicians who then can be proactive about replacing the malfunctioning hardware, […]
Defining Encryption Encryption means that your data is scrambled in a way that obscures it from just anyone viewing it. What this means for email is that only the intended recipient can decrypt it, preventing those who might try to intercept it from being able to read it. For business email, this is particularly helpful. Security Security is the biggest reason to use encryption, and since it?s such an effective way to obscure data from prying eyes, it?s no wonder why. Many businesses utilize private or sensitive data, making it extremely important that it?s not exposed while in transit. In contrast to the way that hackers used to go about their business–breaking into networks and stealing data–many have opted instead to simply take a peek at the data while it?s moving from point A to point B. Encryption means they can?t do this anymore? well, they can, but they won?t see anything worth stealing due to the encryption scrambling the data. Compliance If your industry is one that must comply with regulations regarding data privacy, you might have to use encryption, so you can dodge hefty fines for not doing so. One of the best examples is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA. What this states is that health information and records absolutely cannot be shared without the patient?s consent, meaning that if a hacker were to steal this information, the company responsible for storing it would be in direct violation of HIPAA. If you use encryption to make sure this doesn?t happen, you can protect your business from liability for this and your users from having their personal information stolen. Efficiency If you take the right measures to protect your email systems, then you?ll make the entire process easier as a whole. If you take the time to install systems that automatically encrypt your email, then that means you won?t have to manually do it. White Mountain IT Services can help you secure your email solution. To learn more, reach out to us at (603) 889-0800.
