The first thing that should be mentioned is that, with all the threats out there, every business needs dedicated IT management. Many small businesses have tried to keep their crucial IT working properly through what is known as break/fix. The basic strategy of this is: when a part of your company?s IT infrastructure breaks, you get it fixed. This strategy has some merits for companies that don?t necessarily use enterprise-level, or complicated, IT solutions; but, no matter what their position is, when they rely on the break/fix strategy, downtime is going to end up being an issue. The average small business owner may not even consider this costly as much of the technology management services that you would call when your IT breaks (or starts acting up) is done onsite and only takes a short time to fix. However, it typically costs a pretty penny, and there is no telling if the problem will cause others, or come back again frequently. The problem with this is that every minute that your IT is down, your organizational profitability is hindered. Say you run a small retail store and your point of sale computer goes down. You make the call to the computer repair company and they come within an hour and your computer is up and running in two. That?s two whole hours where you are scrambling around trying to figure out how to service your customers? needs without the use of your most important computing system. If you are lucky, you will be able to keep your business open during this time, but often you simply cannot as many businesses not only have their register through their POS system, they also have their inventory system through it. When dealing with IT downtime your service will inevitably be hindered, and you may actually lose repeat customers because of the outage as word of mouth carries further than ever before as a result of social media. IT Services With Managed IT services, you?ll never have to shut your business down or deal with long stretches of downtime. This is because it is handled much differently. With an MSP looking after your business? computers and computing network, you will know in advance if one of your computers is going to fail. White Mountain IT Services?s brand of IT services proactively monitors your computers and network; and, using state-of-the-art software, is able to leverage its built-in and extremely innovative automation options to your advantage, effectively reducing your IT costs by keeping your systems up and running efficiently. The fact is that most of the problems the modern PC has can be remedied with dedicated monitoring and management. It?s easy to see how our proactive monitoring service can present value. Your return is properly functioning technology, boosting profitability, and effectively cutting your IT support costs; but that is just the beginning. An MSP provides several other services that are designed to deliver value. One such service is our Backup and Disaster Recovery service. You may be thinking, ?how could backup produce a significant return?? Not only is it part of the value-based approach, it also protects your business from data loss, a major problem for any business that depends on its data. Data loss doesn?t just happen when a disaster hits your business, it can happen any day […]

We?re starting to see that scammers are getting sneakier, and citing specific information about a user, like their computer?s model and serial numbers. Beyond that, they possess a lot of information about the user, including the device owner?s telephone number, email address, customer number, the device?s model number and their name. This is just the latest in what is a growing trend of sophisticated social engineering scams that are targeting technology consumers and end-users. One problem is that these scammers are calling people who have purchased products from some of the largest and most well-respected hardware and software distributors in the world. Companies like Lenovo, Microsoft, Apple, Dell, and more have all had support scammers falsely represent their companies, and with these new tactics increasing their effectiveness, expect these situations to grow in frequency. What You Should Do? It?s important to understand that no matter how proactive your IT support is, there is very little chance a manufacturer will call you to report issues with your computer, unless you?ve deliberately signed up for a service that does. Even then, there will be a pretty stringent authorization process attached to the support. Major technology vendors understand the types of threats out there, and while they want everyone that purchases their products and services to have a good experience, they are also huge corporations and don?t typically call people up to help them fix their computer issues, unless they are scheduled to do so. If you get a call like this, it?s better to play it safe than to be sorry later. This is doubly true if you share a network with other users. If you give an unwanted entity access to your system it could have negative effects on the entire network. So while it is true that the IT support scams are an industry-wide problem, ensuring a business? users aren?t duped into allowing access to these nefarious parties is important. At White Mountain IT Services, we make a point to help our clients promote industry best practices to their company?s users to ensure that they aren?t putting the company in bad positions. For more information about IT support scams, what real IT support looks like, and how to promote solid practices to your staff, call us today at (603) 889-0800.

Inventorying Your Vendors First, let?s list all the vendors you likely have to deal with. There?s the company that provides your network infrastructure, your Internet service provider, your phone provider, the people who provide your network security implements, anyone else that provides some aspect of your business? information technology, not to mention all the other vendors you have. Frankly, that?s a lot of vendors, which means that managing them is going to take a lot of time. Is that really time that you and your employees can spare? Furthermore, you have to consider any vendors that you utilize as an extension of your business. Their performance will have repercussions on your operations, influencing your ability to serve your clients and thereby affecting their impression of your company. In short, you need to be sure that all of your vendors deliver what they promised, when they promised, adding yet another layer to the task of managing them. Potential Issues with Your Vendors Of course, there is also the risk that your business could suffer due to the disparate priorities of your assortment of vendors. If a solution provided by one interferes with another solution?s performance, you?re hardly in a better position. Then there?s the question of quality. Not all vendors are going to provide the service that you rightly expect them to, so again, you need to be sure that they are held accountable. These issues can also complicate your vendor management, which wastes your valuable time. What If Someone Else Could Manage Them for You? With the right managed service provider, this question doesn?t have to be a hypothetical. At White Mountain IT Services, we can take responsibility for managing your many vendors. We?ll use our knowledge of your infrastructure and needs to ensure that your business gets the solutions and support it needs, when it needs it. In the meantime, all you have to do is continue your operations. You can be confident that your interests are being served under the watchful eyes of our staff. To learn more about how our vendor management services can help your operations, reach out to us at (603) 889-0800.

What is Breadcrumb Navigation? Breadcrumb navigation is more or less what the fairy tale would suggest it is: a path that leads back home (or in this case, the homepage). It is effectively an easier way to keep track of the path to and from a certain page (or area of an application) and is often displayed at the top of the viewed page. Each step provides a link that navigates back to the page in question. So, let?s say that you were looking at a service page on some website. If the path to that page led from the homepage, to the second menu on the homepage, to the fifth menu item in that menu, the breadcrumbs would look something like this: Home > [Menu 2] > [Menu Item 5] Because these breadcrumbs serve as links, clicking on the [Menu 2] breadcrumb would bring you to that menu?s page, allowing you to continue browsing from there. More Than Just Websites You may also recognize this style of navigation from the toolbars of the folders and files saved to your system. This just makes it easier to find certain files again later and can be shared with another user if they need to know where a file is located. Again, breadcrumbs are specifically meant to make navigation and organization easier for the user. Can you think of any other features that do the same? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

Nope! While yes, the fact that we no longer have to remember each different password for our online accounts may seem ideal, relying on the browser to remember them for us presents a few issues. Each of these browsers leaves some kind of opening for a hacker to review a user?s list of passwords. Google Chrome – When a user is logged into their Google account, Chrome will automatically save any passwords that user inputs. If a hacker was then able to gain access to that Google account, the entire list of passwords would be available to them. Mozilla Firefox – Utilizing low-level encryption, Firefox hides a user?s passwords, utilizing a single master password as the encryption key. However, because this encryption has such a low level, a brute force attack can break it. Plus, if someone is in possession of the device itself, they can access the passwords without having to log in. Safari – Just as is the case with Firefox, Safari stores all passwords in the browser?s settings, where they can be accessed without a login required. Internet Explorer – When Internet Explorer saves passwords, all it takes to expose them is a readily available tool. Microsoft Edge – Edge has had some security issues, such as a flaw that enabled hackers to read files that were browser-compatible (like the notepad files that some might keep a list of passwords in). In addition, some third-party password managers, like Edge Password Manager, have failed to require password authentication in the past. Of course, there are other threats to your password security as well. For instance, a bug that dates back 11 years was discovered early this year that allowed website credentials to be stolen. A secondary form was hidden behind the login form, stealing usernames (which were often just the user?s email) and passwords without the user having any idea. What Can Be Done? Your first step should be to disable your preferred browser?s built-in password manager. Google Chrome – Under the toolbar, select Chrome Menu, and from there, Settings. Scroll down until you can select Advanced, and from there, select Manage passwords (found under Passwords and forms). Finally, switch Auto Sign-in to off. Mozilla Firefox – In the toolbar?s Firefox Menu, access Options. On the left, access Privacy & Security, and find Forms & Passwords. Find the Remember logins and passwords for websites option and deselect it. Safari – Select Safari Menu from the toolbar, and then select Preferences and Autofill. Then you?ll need to deselect Using info from my Address Book card, Usernames and passwords, and Other forms. Internet Explorer – First, you need to reconsider utilizing Internet Explorer, assuming your organization gives you a choice in the matter. If you must, you will want to access the toolbar?s Internet Explorer Menu and select Internet Options. From there, click into Content, and select Settings (found under AutoComplete). Deselect both Forms and Searches and User names and passwords on forms. Finally, save your changes by clicking OK. Microsoft Edge – Again, from the toolbar, select Edge Menu and from there, Settings. Scroll down to find View advanced settings. Under Privacy and services, deactivate Offer to save passwords, and under Manage passwords, deactivate Save from entries. We understand, remembering all of your different passwords can be a real […]