Google intends to provide the most likely targets of hacking attacks and cyber surveillance with the Advanced Protection Program. This includes election and campaign officials, victims of domestic violence, and other individuals who may be targeted for various reasons. For the loss of some of the convenience that Google usually packs into their programs and services, those who use the Advanced Protection Program can have their information protected by increased security measures. This program will affect many of the services that most people use in one form or another almost every day, including Google Drive, Gmail, and YouTube. After an individual has been brought onto the program, their accounts are automatically equipped with Google?s best security solutions. The Advanced Protection Program is largely in response to the high-profile attacks that were leveraged against officials throughout the United States presidential election of 2016. Google was caught up in the aftermath of the controversy surrounding John Podesta and his Gmail account, which was breached in a phishing attack. By implementing the Advanced Protection Program, Google is working to ensure that this backlash isn?t repeated in the future. The Advanced Protection Program relies on a security key, as well as a Bluetooth key verification process for use with a smartphone or laptop. The Advanced Protection Program does not allow any program that isn?t developed by Google itself to access the information on your Google account. It also features a more hacker-resistant, slower account recovery process. While this admittedly makes the process more arduous for the user, it provides the more secure experience that the audience described above needs. If you were in a position to use the Advanced Protection Program, would you? Sound off in the comments section with your answer.
Does your business use Google?s line of Android devices for business purposes? Well, you might be happy to hear about Google?s new zero-touch solution for enterprises for their Pixel line of smartphones. If you provide smartphones for your business? employees, you know how much of a hassle it is to set up these devices. This new zero-touch policy attempts to make a change to this. Google often targets businesses like this with specialized devices designed to make onboarding easier. Examples of these attempts include specialized versions of the Google Play store, additional security features, and even management dashboards to add a high level of customization for their clients. Due to this high level of customization, though, many businesses are finding that it takes quite a lot of time to configure each and every device that they are going to use for their organization. Thus, the need for zero-touch devices becomes quite apparent. When we talk about zero-touch, we mean devices that are already pre-configured so that your organization doesn?t necessarily have to do as much work to get them ready for action. However, while this might sound like the best way to approach devices, you might find yourself held back at first. For one, zero-touch is a concept that?s only available through certain carrier opt-ins (like Verizon). Another restriction is that it?s only available on Google Pixel devices in the United States. However, other providers like AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile plan on implementing these services soon. Additionally, third-party Android device manufacturers are willing to go the distance for these solutions. Samsung, HTC, Huawei, Sony, LG, Blackberry, and Motorola all want to bring zero-touch to devices in the coming months. Despite all of its restrictions, zero-touch solves one of the most difficult parts of managing mobile devices for your organization: multiple devices with different operating systems. You can be confident that there is a uniform OS being used on all of your devices, mainly because there is only one available at this moment. If nothing else, this is something that you can look forward to, along with the time saved by eliminating the time needed to set up each device. If your business needs mobile devices or mobile device management, reach out to White Mountain IT Services at (603) 889-0800.
1. Wireless Hotspot in Your PocketToday?s devices make it easier than ever to bring them with you as a means of increasing productivity. However, this is often defeated when there is no Wi-Fi connection available to connect to, as the cloud has brought much of the work that people do online. Your smartphone can help to solve this problem by acting as a wireless hotspot and providing Internet access to your other devices. In order to make the best use of the phone?s hotspot capabilities, you may want to ensure that your employees have an adequate plan. With a Bring Your Own Device strategy, you can provide them with a stipend to cover the costs, or if you prefer, you can provide them with company devices that already come with sufficient data service. 2. Sort Your ScreensYour smartphone allows you to rearrange the items on the display to pretty much match your personal preferences. Grouping your most-used apps and utilities together to make accessing them easier can help you save time and effort, and will help keep you from ?misplacing? a crucial app during a time crunch. 3. Try Out Your Email and Browser OptionsYou don?t necessarily need to stick to the factory-presets when it comes to your mobile browser and email management applications. The official application stores will have many alternatives for you to experiment and explore. However, make sure you stick to recognizable names to avoid installing any malware that might have slipped past the moderators. These non-default apps often have functions and capabilities that you just won?t find in the default apps that make your use of them much more smooth and efficient. 4. Use Your ShortcutsTry to become familiar with the shortcuts available for your device. While these shortcuts may only save you a moment or two when compared to the ?typical? way of doing things, these moments can add up to a lot less time spent fiddling with your phone that could be spent accomplishing something based on what you checked on your phone. Your model of phone will have an impact on how you can activate your shortcuts, due to differences in software. Some experimentation may be necessary, but once you discover your phone?s capabilities, you can use them to save yourself some valuable time. 5. Research Your InsuranceYour mobile device often serves as a key tool for you to use as you go about your business. Therefore, it is important that–should something happen to it–a replacement isn?t too time-consuming to obtain. You should be sure to collect as much information as you can to make the best decision regarding your insurance policy and the coverage you can expect for your devices. What are your favorite smartphone tips? Which ones do you think should have made our list? Let us know in the comments!
The issues present in voting infrastructure have been known for years. By using expensive electronic voting machines, many polling places are putting themselves in the position of being stuck with old, outdated systems without the necessary funds to replace them. In fact, it was predicted that 43 states would use ten-year-old electronic voting machines, an age that is uncomfortably close to the total lifespan of the machine. This could easily result in machine crashes and failures, potentially causing votes to be lost or–with some touch-screen machines–registered for a different candidate than the voter input. Adding to this issue is the fact that, with exclusively digital voting machine, there is no way to check the results against anything else if there needs to be an audit. This issue was only proven further during the 2017 DefCon conference, where the unprecedented Voting Village revealed what a hacker could do to an actual voting machine. This kind of activity had never been done before because, until late 2016, it had been illegal to tamper with voting machines–even if just for research purposes. Researchers discovered that there were plenty of ways to breach voting systems through both remote access and physical tampering. Influencing an election doesn?t even necessarily require tampering with the votes themselves, either. By slowing the systems to a crawl, or simply rendering them inoperable, hackers can easily keep many people from voting. Lawrence Norden, of the Brennan Center for Justice, argues that going low-tech is the best way to combat this kind of interference, supplemented by the use of encryption, blockchain, and other technological solutions. According to a blog post by Norden, the voting process needs to reintroduce paper. As he says in his blog: ?Specifically, every new voting machine in the United States should have a paper record that the voter reviews, and that can be used later to check the electronic totals that are reported. This could be a paper ballot the voter fills out before it is scanned by a machine, or a record created by the machine on which the voter makes her selections?so long as she can review that record and make changes before casting her vote.? According to Norden, this would eliminate the risk of an undetected change or error in software causing an undetectable change or error in the outcome of an election. Just like your organization, having accurate data and computing infrastructure that doesn?t work against your goals is key here. When hardware and software becomes out of date, not only do you deal with the same quirks and problems that were baked in from the beginning, but you also deal with new problems and unreliability. When your data is at stake, this can be a major issue. If your business has embraced digital filing (which we highly recommend), imagine putting the integrity of your data at risk by using an old computer. While going back to physical paper documents might be a solution, it will cost your business a lot of time and effort to accommodate, when compared to the cost of upgrading your IT. What are your thoughts? Leave them in the comments section below.
A surprising number of security issues come from inside your organization. User error on the part of the employee can present major problems for your workflow, data security, and the integrity of your business. User error could be something as simple as an employee clicking on the wrong links when they receive a suspicious email in their inbox, or if they are accessing data that they simply have no business accessing in the first place. Sometimes businesses will even completely forget to remove employee credentials when they leave a project or the company creating a breachable hole in your network. Regardless of the reason, user error can be a detrimental occurrence, and one which must be prepared for. Restrict User PermissionsYou may notice that every time you try to download an application to your computer, it requests specific permissions from the user. If it were your personal computer, you could just click OK without thinking twice. However, this isn?t your personal computer–it?s your office workstation. If you let your employees download whatever apps they want to their devices, who knows what kind of nonsense you?ll find on them? They could accidentally download malware or install something to give hackers remote access. This is why you limit what your users can do on their workstations. The only users who should have administrative access to your company?s devices are your network administrator and any IT technicians you employ, as they will be the ones primarily installing new software on your devices. Minimize Data AccessIf you give your entire staff access to every little part of your data infrastructure, they are bound to run into data that?s not meant for their eyes. For example, an employee might gain access to your business? payroll, which could cause unnecessary friction. They also might find other sensitive information that they aren?t supposed to see, like personal information or financial details. The best way to keep this from happening is to partition off your infrastructure so that employees can only access information that they need to do their jobs. Just ask your IT provider about your access control options. Remove Employee CredentialsWhat happens when an employee leaves your organization, but is still able to access their email, your network, and their workstation? You could run into an employee sabotaging your organization. This isn?t something that you want to deal with, and the easiest way to make sure it doesn?t happen is to begin the process of removing this employee from their accounts before they leave. Passwords need to be changed so that the employee cannot access your infrastructure any longer. You don?t want to delete the accounts entirely, though. You might want to check through the accounts, particularly because you might find reasons why they have chosen to leave your organization. Can your business keep itself safe from user error and other threats? White Mountain IT Services can help you keep the negative results of user error to minimum. To learn more, reach out to us at (603) 889-0800.
