Password Pitfalls Passwords are great tools for managing access to data, but only if they are made properly. If a password is created without knowledge of best practices, it could be figured out with relative ease and used to crack any accounts that the password is used for. It?s not uncommon for those who don?t know any better to use the same password for multiple accounts. It can be challenging to make your password easy to remember while also keeping it secure and difficult to guess. You don?t want it easy enough for someone to figure it out on their own, but you don?t want to forget it yourself. A passphrase is a great way to keep track of your password, and it?s much more difficult to guess than a singular word. If you substitute certain letters for characters and numbers, you can make it even more difficult to crack. So, instead of using ?dorothy? or a random series of letters and numbers, a Wizard of Oz fan might use ?&Ur1i++leD0g2?. Malicious Mobile Applications Applications meant for use on your smartphone aren?t always created with the best quality, and that?s saying nothing of their intentions. Even though smartphone app distributors have made attempts to eliminate threatening downloads, it?s impossible to find them all, and they will occasionally make their way onto the platform. These malicious applications pose a considerable risk for your business. Even the safe apps that you download from the app store could pose a threat, though. Some are quite loose with how they treat a user?s data, so make sure you keep track of what permissions you?re allowing for each of them. Make sure that any permissions you have for your apps make sense. If they don?t, perhaps you?re better off without it. Phony Phishing Cybercriminals will often resort to underhanded tactics and deception to make their way into your business? infrastructure. They might try to manipulate your employees into acting a certain way or making decisions that aren?t the best for the business. These methods are called phishing, and it?s one of the big reasons why your organization needs to be cautious with messages from both known (and unknown) senders. These phishing scams vary in scope and scale, ranging from the classic Nigerian Prince example to the countless messages that are sent out every day warning the user that their system has been compromised, insisting that ?tech support? must be called. Your staff can prevent these messages from making trouble for your organization by keeping a healthy dose of skepticism when going through their email. It?s also critical to confirm the identity of the one who sent the message via a secondary means of communication, particularly if the message seems to have come from someone internally. This might seem like a hassle, but it?s well worth the annoyance of dealing with a phishing scam. Wi-Fi Worries Wireless Internet access has given businesses a lot of freedom in the workplace, providing a way to be productive without sitting in front of a desktop for eight hours or more. Wi-Fi has given businesses more opportunities to get work done, but it also creates opportunities for cybercriminals to access networks and infrastructures if they aren?t properly secured. Some organizations might keep default passwords on routers which makes them prime […]
There are mandates businesses must be aware of if they hope to maintain compliance, and HR functions as the connecting tissue that makes sure employees know and are in compliance with these regulations. If you are like many organizations that don?t have a dedicated HR department, there are options available that can help you manage these roles through dedicated cloud-based platforms; but first, let?s take a look at what the primary responsibilities of an HR department are. We have put together six of them: Employee retention Health and safety Personnel Payroll Training and compliance Employee management Software developers have invested a considerable amount of time into building dynamic human resource software solutions that can make management much easier for small businesses. Some of these services even offer automation for HR directors to control many of their responsibilities in an easy-to-manage way. Here are some of the services this includes: Human Resource Information System (HRIS) Applicant Tracking System (ATS) OnBoarding Benefits Administration Time and Compensation Management Training Management Performance, and Recognition Management HR Analytics Wellness Management It?s safe to say that the majority of today?s tools can accomplish most, if not all, of these tasks. It used to be common practice to host all the applications a human resources department would need on a single computer or network, but a truly hosted solution would include secure storage on servers managed by a provider. These services would also be accessible anywhere through an Internet connection, making them much more dynamic and flexible than your traditional in-house HR solution. Human Resources as a Service Like many services out there, HR as a Service (HRaaS) aims to create a fully outsourced solution to a problem that many businesses face. HRaaS aims to eliminate the need for an in-house HR staff by providing all the services and skills they require in one central location. The benefits of this include a significant cut in spending and resources traditionally needed to amass a human resources department on-site. HRaaS can enable your business to eliminate significant costs associated with HR management. It can both standardize your HR processes and cut down on potential issues you might face through the traditional method, such as finding the right platform and hunting down the right people for the job. White Mountain IT Services can help your business determine the best technology solutions for your organization?s needs. To learn more, reach out to us at (603) 889-0800.
Situation #1: A Power Surge Strikes a Server Imagine that your business is struck by a storm that brings with it immense amounts of wind, thunder, and lightning. A tree limb drops and severs the power lines surrounding your office, causing a power surge and frying your server?s hard drive. Just like that, your business is set back by a considerable amount, both financially and operationally. It?s likely that your business doesn?t have extra server hardware on-hand, as the sheer price of this expensive hardware would be enough to deter such a thing. Plus, consider the fact that your business can?t work as it needs to without this server hardware; this downtime can effectively cripple your business and make it much more difficult to recover. A quality data backup and disaster recovery platform like White Mountain IT Services?s BDR solution will give your business the ability to eliminate downtime. Plus, since the BDR device can be used as a temporary server, you can keep your business running while you get your hardware back in proper working order. Situation #2: A Team Member Goofs on an Email With so many emails coming in from clients and customers, it?s easy to click on something without thinking about what you?re actually clicking on. For example, an employee could download an attachment that is infected with malware, hampering your business? ability to function and potentially exposing your data to theft or the threat of ransomware. Ransomware is one of the most devastating threats to your business? future. Locker ransomware can lock access to a specific computer, but crypto ransomware will lock access to personal data and other important files. These ransoms come in addition to a countdown with the hope of expediting the decision process. A backup and disaster recovery platform will give your business a lifeline in these troubling times. A data backup is one of the only ways to get around the annoyance and embarrassment of having to pay a hacker to release your data. Therefore, any methods you can use to prevent such a travesty should be considered. Situation #3: Time Will Always Catch Up Imagine that you haven?t experienced a technological hiccup in a long time. This might seem like the new normal, but when you go for so long without experiencing an issue, you get complacent. This means that you?re not proactively looking for threats, and a business that isn?t preventing attacks and issues will inevitably suffer from them. A hardware refresh can go a long way to help your IT withstand the test of time, and it can help your organization eliminate costs associated with downtime. A BDR solution can make migrating your data to new hardware easier and more efficient by offering you a safety net in the event the migration process doesn?t go as planned. Plus, during the migration process, your data might not be accessible by your employees, so having a backup in the cloud will allow for productivity to continue unhindered. Does your organization need data backup and disaster recovery? White Mountain IT Services can help. To learn more, reach out to us at (603) 889-0800.
Of course, you might just think you can do the exact same thing with a simple pen and pad of paper, and if you prefer to do it that way, that?s totally fine. But you?re going to be missing out on several great features that will help you keep track of your notes in the near future. We all know that notebooks disappear when we least expect them to, so it?s no surprise that OneNote helps users by keeping their notes in one single location on your desktop. That?s not all, though; there are countless other ways that the desktop version of OneNote can benefit your employees. Here?s how: It?s quite easy to review the notebooks that a user has access to. You can do this if you?re logged in to OneNote. On the home screen, you?ll see whoever is currently logged in to the application in the top-left part of the screen, right under the menu. If you click it, you?ll be shown all the notebooks that the user has access to. This makes it easy to shift from one to another. You can also create another notebook if it?s needed. Once you?ve created a notebook, you can add tabs to it, then group them together. These tabs can also be password-protected, but you?ll need to remember the password in order to access them. Microsoft cannot unlock these sections, and there is no option to recover the password, so make sure you want to do it before applying this measure. Each of these sections can have their own sub-pages, which can be added by using the Add Page button. You can merge your notebook sections by right-clicking on a tab and then selecting Merge into Another Section. The option to add formatting is also available. First, click on the View tab. Then, add Page Color and Ruled Lines. You can then save this as a template if you?d like to use it again in the future. Under the Insert Tab, you can access the menu under the Page Templates button. This gives you the option to apply different templates. You can also click on Save current page as a template to use it for later as a notebook?s default formatting. Once you have your formatting squared away, you can either use the traditional typing method to take notes or use your touchscreen and stylus instead. There is also the option for inserting pictures. You can also record audio that is linked to the note that was written as the audio is recorded, providing the opportunity to listen back and improve the notes at a later time. Add Tags to sort out your notes. You can then search for notes based on the tags. In the View tab, you can select Dock to Desktop. This basically enables you to take notes while something else is happening, like a presentation or a meeting. This splits the screen between your notes and whatever else you?re doing at that moment. To undock, just click on the arrow on the right-hand side of the screen. OneNote even offers solutions for collaboration, but there are far too many features to include here. Maybe we?ll cover them in a tip of the week in the future, so stay tuned to our blog!
What Are the Alternatives? Depending on a business? current needs, they will generally be taking advantage of two types of IT management. The first relies on a business being self-sustaining enough to be able to hire a full in-house IT department. There can be no denying how important technology maintenance and management is for businesses, but it is difficult to handle if your organization doesn?t have fully trained IT professionals at the ready–and these skills don?t come cheap. This prompts many organizations to simply get by without IT, or at the very most, have their current employees (who are unlikely to have proper IT skills) handle the maintenance. Hoping to find some other alternative to hiring internal IT help, businesses then turn to break-fix IT to get the help needed, but only when it?s actually needed. Break-fix IT might seem cost-effective at first glance, but it?s far from it. Since break-fix IT doesn?t aim to solve the root of problems, it?s frowned upon compared to managed IT, which takes a more preventative approach to technology maintenance. Trust us when we say that managed IT services is the better options. The Benefits of Managed IT If you?re looking to take advantage of technology solutions without hiring an in-house IT department (either because you can?t afford it, or you can?t find qualified technicians), managed IT is the right choice for your business. There are many ways that managed IT can provide value for your organization. Here are just a few of them: Less downtime: Downtime can be classified as any time your infrastructure is not working as intended. Naturally, you want to mitigate it as much as possible to preserve operational efficiency. Since managed IT takes a proactive approach to IT management, you?ll suffer from fewer problems and, therefore, less downtime overall. Fewer costs: If you?re preventing problems from hitting a boiling point, your hardware and software solutions should last longer. This leads to cut costs over time. Furthermore, since you?re only paying a monthly fee based on your service level agreement, you can say goodbye to high, up-front, unpredictable repair costs in favor of a more standardized payment structure. More flexibility: Many managed IT providers also include a remote service component, meaning that the technicians don?t even have to be on-site in order for them to do their jobs. This cuts travel costs out of the equation, but more than anything else, it means that when you need help, they can accommodate your organization almost immediately. More time: Managing technology can be time-consuming, and if you don?t have someone dedicated to handling it, you could be sacrificing countless hours of your work week needlessly. When you have trusted technicians on the job, implementations can go right the first time, and you don?t have to waste more time than necessary just to make sure projects are completed in a timely manner. Instead, you can devote any time saved to other parts of running your business–perhaps more lucrative parts. To get started with managed IT, give White Mountain IT Services a call at (603) 889-0800.
