Take Off When going away on a business trip it is important that you research your destination beforehand. Now that there are Internet-based resources to look up your exact destination, its amenities, the businesses that surround your destination, the time and cost of getting to a destination, do it. You?ll also want to check the weather and the news to ensure that any hindrance you could have, you?ve prepared for. Being prepared is always much better than being surprised, especially when it comes to business travel. When packing your things, you?ll want to pack light. In fact, if you can get away with using only carry-on bags, you will be one step further in the game. If you are going for an extended period (more than five days), however, you will likely have to acquire a lot of your toiletries and other essential daily items at your destination rather than taking enough of it to last you the whole time. It may be a little more expensive, but the convenience of not packing it all is totally worth it; and, will help get you through security checkpoints easier. You?ll also want to charge all of your electronics you plan on bringing before you leave. There are also affordable battery packs and portable chargers that can really be a godsend when you are away from an outlet for stretches of time. You?ll also want to print all your information beforehand so that you have an idea of your itinerary and your confirmations in writing. Travel and Arrival At the airport, you?ll be tempted to use the Wi-Fi, but before connecting any device to it, consider how secure an airport Wi-Fi could possibly be. If data security is at all a priority for you, you will avoid the Wi-Fi and use your device?s data instead. Once you get to your destination, the first thing you are going to want to do is ensure that you have everything that you came with. Nothing is more frustrating than getting to your destination without your stuff. Sometimes the airlines will misplace your luggage, but typically having everything you left with is possible when you get there but will likely be more challenging when you are returning (more on that in a bit). When you get to your destination (typically a hotel), you?ll want to get to your place of lodging and survey the technology landscape. Chances are you are going to need Internet access. For this, you can choose to use your smartphone, but this can get expensive for an individual if they are forced to use their data for work purposes. Sure, there are unlimited plans that you can get from almost any carrier, but even they often have language written in the fine print that provides less-than-stellar Internet access when you?ve used a certain amount of data. If you don?t want to use your data, you will need to find a reliable Internet connection. In places where business is routinely done, you can expect that people will utilize the Internet access that is made available to them. The problem with this is that many seemingly secure and reliable connections, aren?t. For this reason, many businesses have begun to utilize virtual private network (VPN) technology to ensure that any data transmission completed on outside […]

Shadow IT Time is money, and people will go to great lengths to keep themselves productive throughout the workday, even if it?s not sanctioned by your business. While you might have certain preferences for solutions, your employees might have other ideas. This is called Shadow IT, where your employees will download and use a piece of software that hasn?t passed the test of your company?s IT department. Most of the time, the employee who downloads the off-brand software isn?t doing it out of spite for the organization–only for their own convenience. In fact, 80 percent of employees use software that hasn?t been selected, tested, and released by the IT administrator. These applications are more vulnerable than those that would be implemented by your business. Cryptojacking There are over 1,500 kinds of cryptocurrency out there, and cryptojacking was a popular method of cybercrime in 2018. Cryptojacking is when a malware will use a target?s computer resources to mine for cryptocurrency. Due to how resource-intensive cryptojacking is, it affects the computer?s effectiveness and longevity. Most studies that have been performed as of late show that cryptojacking will get much worse in 2019, as the value of cryptocurrency has fallen considerably over the past year. This means that more machines are needed to mine cryptocurrency, which means more attacks will be needed to create the same level of profit. You should take measures now to learn about these attacks and how to keep them from becoming a problem for your business. Ransomware Ransomware might be on the decrease since 2018, it?s still important to keep a lookout for it, primarily because it?s such a huge danger to network security. Ransomware is capable of encrypting all of the files located on a computing system. It then demands payment to unlock access to the files. Ransomware tends to target organizations that have a lot of sensitive files who are likely to pay up in the event of an infection. Others might have operational technology systems that are critical to maintain at all times, making restoration a priority–even if it means paying up. Unsecured Internet of Things Devices The IoT is only growing larger, and you know what that means: more devices that could potentially create a disaster scenario for your business. It becomes incredibly important to keep your network safe from any and all devices connected to it at any given time, whether it?s from employees or visitors. Even a simple unsecured IoT device with smartphone connectivity could become a major network vulnerability. To be fair, there have been improvements to IoT security, so you?ll have plenty of options over how to utilize IoT devices securely and effectively. Phishing All businesses see a phishing email at least once in a while. It?s estimated that an average of 156 million phishing emails are sent every day, making it a very common method of hacking. Basically, since most accounts are secure enough that they cannot be hacked through conventional means, the hacker will instead directly reach out to whoever owns the account to get the information they need to infiltrate it. One specific example of this is business email compromise, which targets specific members of an organization and can cause up to $12 billion in losses all over the world. Most phishing messages can be stopped with […]

Benefits The benefits of social media are numerous and far-reaching. The first we have to mention is that it is social, meaning that the people who would buy a company?s products or services are on there. So, no matter what kind of marketing and advertising a business has done up until the advent of social media, the platforms are an absolute game-changer for these companies. In fact, studies show that about half of all adults use more than one social media application. This provides businesses with the exposure they need to be successful. Another benefit of social media is the information businesses and consumers get about the other. For instance, being able to understand what people like/dislike or products they will/won?t buy is extremely useful for any business. On the other hand, it helps individuals have direct access to the company on a platform of their choosing, which is a major benefit for them. Additionally, social media is free to use for the most part, but there are options to target specific groups of people (people who would me most apt to have interest in your product/service). This give the business the exposure they want while providing the following benefits: Knowledge about customers/prospects Interaction with customers/prospects Increased traffic to a company website or store Increased sales leads (and therefore increased sales) Promotion of a business? authority Promotion of a business? willingness to help others And many more Detriments Anything that comes with that much benefit has to have some drawbacks, right? One of social media?s drawbacks for businesses comes from the fact that every platform is constantly changing. Since your workers are the some of the people that utilize social media, you are going to be forced into making some difficult decisions about how to utilize these platforms effectively. Another issue that many businesses run into is that social media investments are hard to quantify. Sure, you know how much money you spend in it, but getting an exact ROI figure is more difficult than with other forms of digital advertising. This is because social media, while having direct access to customers, can often take a bit of time to return any immediate sales; or, it can be impossible to know given that it only kind of facilitates a conversation between a company and the consumer, rather than a direct sales conversation. As a result, it can me more difficult to truly manage conversions that start on social media. The worst effect that social media has on a business is far-and-away from employee use. Every business relies on consistent productivity. Social media often presents a roadblock to this as most people that work at a computer utilize at least one social media service and have a tendency to liberally access their social media in the workplace. The more time they are spending on social sites, the less time they are focusing on their work, which can have major negative effects on an organization?s ability to meet its demands. Some businesses have gone so far as to create scheduled times for their staff?s social media use. Business owners have learned that social media is important to their employees, so providing a set time for them to get whatever they need to get done on social media can keep the organization as […]

First, it?s important to understand why A.I. might seem like the answer. Why is A.I. So Appealing? You would think that relying on automated systems to protect a network would be less than ideal, but there are a lot of reasons why technology specialists find it such an attractive prospect. For one, there is presently a significant lack of IT expertise in today?s modern business world. This makes it difficult to find workers who are technically skilled enough to provide adequate network security. Furthermore, with more devices connecting to the Internet than ever before, the idea of making network security and threat detection automated through the use of A.I. and algorithms seems like the right call. It makes the jobs of your in-house IT department much easier, but at what cost? There are many reasons why artificial intelligence for network security should be approached with caution. Here are a few of them. Consider How Threats Are Detected by A.I. In order for artificial intelligence to detect threats, it somehow has to be taught how to recognize them. While machine learning can help it better determine the nature of threats over time, the point stands that it must be taught how to initially recognize the good from the bad. The MIT Technology Review explains, in this way, that A.I. is ?trained? to detect threats based on tags assigned to specific data sets, which can be reverse-engineered by malware developers to create threats that are more difficult to identify by automated systems. Over-Reliance on a Single Method This segues into the next point quite nicely, as with only a single method of detecting threats, A.I. is particularly vulnerable. Imagine that your office has hired a single security guard to keep watch over the front door at night. You don?t have any other guards on-site in the building itself, and no security cameras to alert the local authorities should anything happen that?s not expected. While this is great for that particular entry point, it makes the entire system vulnerable if it?s compromised. Basically, if you rely on only a single platform to detect and eliminate threats, you are exposed if that system is unable to ascertain a certain threat. Does your business want to optimize security? White Mountain IT Services can help. To learn more, reach out to us at (603) 889-0800.

Luckily, there are a few ways to spend this time that could prove beneficial to the day?s responsibilities, and that don?t require your computer to do! Prepare for Your Day Fortunately, your computer is only necessary to actually complete the tasks in store for you. Planning your strategy to tackle them doesn?t expressly require the use of your device, as you likely have a decent idea of what your agenda looks like. This means you can look at the time spent waiting on your workstation as an opportunity, instead of an inconvenience. Instead of blankly staring at your screen, take a sheet of scrap paper and focus on your strategy for the rest of the day. Are there any tasks that you need to complete more so than others? What do you need to accomplish–whether you need to check in with a coworker, call a client on the phone, or fulfill some other responsibility–and what needs to be rearranged to allow you the time you will need to do so? While it may seem silly at first, exercises like these could prove to be helpful to getting in the right mindset for a productive day. Plus, it?ll likely take just long enough to do so that your workstation will be able to start up. Straighten Up Your Workspace We?ve all been there? a desk is clean and tidy, everything precisely where it should be, until it suddenly isn?t at all. Between those moments of just plopping something down (to look at later, of course) and the habit many have of allowing things to be plopped down more and more frequently, it is little wonder that the workstation of today tends to be a bit unkempt. However, if the time spent waiting for a computer to start up is also utilized as the chance to organize the work area, not only will it make the work environment a generally more pleasant place to be, it?ll make a better impression upon any visitors that happen to come to the office. After all, a messy desk could be the difference between a client, and a missed opportunity. Refill and Mingle Of course, productivity can sometimes be measured in more than just minutes saved on a task. Oftentimes, productivity can present itself in other ways. For instance, a good working relationship can expedite no shortage of tasks, so getting a second cup of coffee and chatting in the break room can provide a surprising boost to the workflow. By simply establishing lines of communication and camaraderie between you and your co-workers through casual interaction, operations will likely run much more smoothly, and the workplace will be a more pleasant place to be. Otherwise, if you?d rather try to minimize the downtime that your users experience in general, you should consider implementing a policy that requires maintenance to take place after hours, reducing the likelihood of workday delays. A managed service provider can assist you by implementing these updates at the end of each workday, once your employees have left. As a result, your devices remain up-to-date, without the inconvenience of updating them when there?s work to be done. Interested in learning what else White Mountain IT Services can do to assist your business? Reach out to us at (603) 889-0800.