Have you ever wondered what happens to your old devices after you throw them in the trash? Eventually, any discarded devices of yours will find their way into a landfill or shipped to a third-world country where they will accumulate. Anything used to construct these devices will have ultimately been wasted, as they are now useless hunks of precious metals, glass, and other resources. Here are some statistics about e-waste that might make you rethink tossing that old smartphone into your garbage can. 45 million tons of electronics were thrown away in 2016. Only 20% of e-waste is properly documented and recycled. $55 billion worth of raw materials are wasted on devices that are thrown away–with smartphones alone accounting for about $9 billion. 76% of all e-waste is ultimately unaccounted for with an unknown endgame. With more technology being produced every year, it?s natural to see the amount of e-waste rise as time progresses. Yet, e-waste is a considerable issue for your organization. There is one major pitfall that you?ll want to consider regarding your business?s e-waste: data security. Data SecurityAny data that can be found on your business? devices is at risk of being compromised, and if you no longer own the devices, this risk grows much greater. Consider this scenario; you discard your old smartphone when you purchase a new one, and a hacker finds it after you have disposed of it. They then proceed to access any accounts connected to it, including access to your company?s cloud-based network and data storage. They can do this even with something like an external hard drive. The logical conclusion to this dilemma is to make sure that your devices are properly wiped or destroyed prior to disposing them. You can do this by either physically destroying the device itself, or by reaching out to White Mountain IT Services. We can properly take care of your unneeded devices and follow the right steps to make sure that any devices you no longer need won?t unexpectedly place your organization at risk. Plus, we can help you recycle your devices so that they have a reduced chance of filling a dump somewhere halfway across the world. To learn more about how to eliminate unnecessary devices in an unwasteful manner, reach out to us at (603) 889-0800.

Tidy UpRegardless of the season, an Internet outage is an excellent opportunity to do some spring cleaning. Whether your workspace itself is getting a little cluttered, or the files on your local network need to be organized, what better time is there to make sure things are spic-and-span? Making sure that your workspace is tidy, and that your employees do the same, can also have benefits that will impact each employee and your organizational collaboration. An organized desk features fewer distractions than a cluttered one, and makes resources easier for someone else to find, should the desk?s tenant be out that day. This benefit extends to storage space around the office. A cluttered cabinet is one that?s hard to find things in. Taking the time to tidy it up will help you save time later, and doing it during an Internet outage means that you aren?t taking up time that could be spent doing something else. If you still have access to your data storage, take the opportunity to organize them. Folders are your friend in this case, as you can develop a hierarchy that permits you to arrange those ?loose? files scattered around your desktop into a concise and logical system, making them much easier to find. Teamwork!If there?s one weakness to a workplace being so technology-intensive, it?s the boundaries that it can put up between team members. Communicating through a screen all day doesn?t allow for the camaraderie that some old-fashioned facetime can develop, which can lead to improved synergy and productivity when working collaboratively. If your Internet fails you, you may want to take advantage of that time to encourage some face-to-face interactions. Whether they take the opportunity to hold meetings or fraternize with other departments, your employees can engage in some team building as they wait for Internet access to return. Alternatively, they can also meet up and discuss ideas they may have and never had the opportunity to share before. It isn?t just your employees who can benefit from this, either. Letting your employees get to know you a little better, and vice versa, can help keep them engaged and allow you to understand who they are a little better as you manage them. This allows you to better sculpt your management style to suit each employee, maximizing your impact. Go MobileMany employers may find that mobile devices can be distracting in the office, they can be a real blessing as well. Should your Internet fail you, your team may be able to continue working on some of their tasks by utilizing their mobile data, either as a part of a BYOD strategy with data reimbursement, or on a company-provided device. For assistance in setting up these solutions, reach out to us. What are some of the things you do to combat the loss of productivity due to an Internet outage? Share your strategies in the comments!

The most popular social media platforms generally have different uses in the business world. These include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and even some other emerging technologies like Snapchat and Instagram. If your organization learns to take advantage of these platforms, it can reap considerable benefits, but only if the risks are navigated effectively. The BenefitsThe social aspect of social media is the biggest reason your organization can make an impact with these platforms. When your organization has online accounts on social media platforms, you?re earning almost free exposure for your business. Prospective clients can see what your business does at a glance, more so than with a website in some ways. Individuals can share your page with others who might find it interesting. On the other hand, if more people are seeing your organization online, your competitors can catch a glimpse of what you?re doing to earn your share of the market, which can give them ideas to usurp your spot at the top. The RisksEven with these benefits, your organization faces significant risk from social media networks. Most of these issues stem from network security and user productivity, both of which can harm your business?s success. Network Security: Social media networks might create more of a web presence for your organization, but this is a double-edged sword that cuts both ways. More hacking attacks can target your organization, and the passwords or usernames could be potentially stolen during data breaches. Phishing attacks could come through messaging apps as well. The best way to stay safe is to keep your users focused on social media best practices, and to remind them that they shouldn?t be posting about your workplace or practices on their own personal pages. User Productivity: Your employees might find the draw of social media to be too tempting–particularly during work hours, as quality of work can suffer or distract others. Your employees might find that Netflix is more fun than their current responsibilities, or that they simply can?t keep themselves from trash-talking your organization online in full view of the public. There are ways to keep your employees from accessing social media on your workplace workstations, but doing so can create a troublesome conflict. Therefore, you should have measures put into place that don?t lead you to ruin one good thing for every employee because of a few bad apples. A content filtering solution from White Mountain IT Services can help you maintain productivity while still allowing your employees to browse social media in a fashion. You can block access to time-wasting and dangerous websites, among these social media, on a per-user basis, allowing you to segment ?punishment? to only the truly unproductive employees. To learn more about content filtering, reach out to us at (603) 889-0800.

In a blog maintained by a user known only as Python Sweetness, a post went up stating that ?an embargoed security bug impacting apparently all contemporary CPU architectures that implement virtual memory, requiring hardware changes to fully resolve.? In layman?s terms, there was a bug that interfered with how other programs interacted with the CPU. A functioning CPU has two modes, kernel and user. User mode is the one that is generally considered ?safe? mode, while kernel mode grants access into the computer?s inner workings. Python Sweetness, however, realized that there was a bug that blurred the lines between user and kernel mode. This issue created a means for malware and other malicious programs to access a system?s hardware directly. This bug was expected to cause the system to have to switch entire processes back and forth between user mode and kernel mode, which would ultimately slow any of the computer?s functions to a crawl. What?s worse, the initial expectation was that the computer could only be fixed with a hardware change. Fortunately, a fix was devised and released as a Windows update, costing only 2 percent of system performance (much less than what would be lost otherwise). For PCs with Windows 10 installed and an antivirus that supports the patch, the fix should already be in place. However, to confirm this, go to Settings > Update & Security to see if there are any updates waiting to be installed. If not, check your update history for Security Update for Windows (KB4056892), or check with your antivirus provider to find out when it will be supported, the patch will not install until it sees that the antivirus has been updated to a version that the vendor verifies supports this patch. If you have an Android device, there was an update on January 5 that provided mitigations, with the promise of more, further updates to add to these protections. Google-branded phones, including the Nexus and Pixel lines, should have already received the patches, and other Android phones may have as well. It is something that you should check, and if you haven?t received an update yet, reach out to your carrier and ask why (public forums get you extra points). An update to Google Chrome is expected on January 23, with other browsers following suit, that will also include mitigations. In the meantime, ask your IT resource to help you activate Site Isolation to help keep a malicious website from accessing your data from another. Other devices (like NAS devices, smart appliances, networking equipment, media equipment, etc.) may also be at risk, as they are using similar hardware. It?s really important for business owners to have their entire infrastructure reviewed and audited. Of course, for the fix to take place, the update has to be installed. This is the reason that it is worth having a managed service provider looking out for your business. The MSP would be there, ear to the ground for news of updates, ready to jump into action on your behalf. As a representative of you business, you wouldn?t have to worry about dealing with any of it. This means that you and your staff would be free to focus on profit-generating initiatives, without the distraction of maintenance and updates.White Mountain IT Services can be that MSP for you. Call […]

Server Software in Need of an Update… or SevenA server acts as the epicenter of a business, a central point that allows each workstation to share data with each other. This makes it very important to keep your server?s software up-to-date. Otherwise, your server will not be able to send and receive data as efficiently as your business needs. Additionally, an updated server is also more resilient against cyberattack. As hackers and other malicious users are always working to improve their tools, the only way to keep your servers (and by extension, your business) protected is to keep the security that protects them up-to-date. After all, just because your defenses were able to stop one attack doesn?t mean they?ll be able to stop the next. Keeping Your Servers MaintainedIt is also important to remember that there is more to your servers than their software. The hardware that powers your server also needs some TLC in order for your company to maintain operations. In order to keep your servers properly maintained, you need to undergo a few specific activities on a regular basis to ensure your network has a reliable foundation. Dust can wreak havoc on your IT components, so keeping dust and other such debris away from your server is a critical concern. The entirety of your business relies in some way or another on that server, so in order to maintain business operations, you need to keep it in proper working order. Furthermore, it is also important to keep in mind that even the most well-maintained technology will not last forever. Your server?s components will eventually need to be replaced. Making regular maintenance a priority will help you get the most out of your servers, optimizing your return on your investment and making it less painful to replace them when the time comes. Considering VirtualizationA business will often require that many applications are running in tandem with one another, which might eventually lead to a need for multiple servers as the business grows. As a result, the business is then responsible for supporting and maintaining each of these high-end devices, in addition to powering them and cooling them. This is an expensive option, especially when a business? server needs can be consolidated to a single device through virtualization. By dividing a powerful server into sections, that lone server can then host multiple operating systems, each OS with its own resources. This way, a business can take multiple servers, each operating at a fraction of their capacity, and replace them with a single server that still meets their needs. Unlike the elephants that can be found in any given room, your server?s issues cannot be disregarded. White Mountain IT Services is in the elephant-wrangling business, at least where IT is involved. Call us today at (603) 889-0800 for assistance with your IT, infrastructure and all.