It?s just as important for a network to be secured as it is for the individuals accessing the network to follow security best practices. Here are 4 procedures that you and your staff can employ today to give your network safety a boost! The Art of Hover-craft: Regardless of whether you know the sender or not, it is a great idea to hover over all email links and attachments before clicking on them. While it?s possible that you?ll never actually be targeted by cyber criminals, staying vigilant against them may prevent a very costly mistake. It only takes a few extra seconds to make sure that the message you?ve received isn?t a cleverly disguised attempt to defraud your company or steal data. The Password Is?.Not Strong Enough: You?ve probably heard bad password stories like the alleged report that the nuclear weapon password for the US was ?password? or the most popular password of 2017 is ?123456?. Unfortunately, it?s true that even though many users realize their passwords are less than safe, their desire to practice network security is often not as strong as their desire use one, easy to remember password. More and more SMBs are employing password requirement standards – and some even enforce them by holding those accountable when a breach results from a weak password. Avoid Sending Personal Information by Email: Cyber criminals are experts at tricking people into sharing sensitive information. A great example of a common ruse used by hackers is called whaling. Whaling schemes spoof an email address, giving the impression that it is coming from a high level executive, like CEO or President. Since many people will follow the instruction of a superior without question, the recipient will send account information or personal data without hesitation. Of course, this isn?t saying that you should question all executive decrees, but rather just be vigilant about the type of information that you are willing to send. For example, whaling schemes often contain small typos or slight misspelling of names. Whaling schemes are just one of many deceptions available to cyber criminals. The best thing that a user can do is to question and confirm the authenticity of a request. When possible, avoid sharing personal information via unencrypted email all together. Keep the Network Security Dialogue Open: Communication between employees, managers and IT professionals is something that is seriously undervalued. Think about how ransomware has really exploded into the limelight over the past several months. Your less tech-savvy employees may not understand the difference between ransomware and keylogging malware. They might not realize that some data loss can not be recovered by a data backup. Establishing a line of communication between your staff and IT professionals might be the difference between an employee recognizing the warning signs of a virus and missing them because of a question they were afraid to ask. Are your employees aware of the sizable role their vigilance and attention can play when it comes to keeping your network safe? Even a network that is up-to-date with the latest security patches can?t protect your data from an attack that walks right in through an open door. White Mountain IT Services?s team of experienced IT professionals can help you make sure that your taking the proper precautions against cybercrime – on both the network and individual […]
Today, with nearly every business leaning heavily on some sort of computer-based technology, it becomes important for decision makers and business owners to analyze the performance of their tech, and of their staff. In the past, the eye test worked just fine, but today there are ways to measure the productivity and efficiency of every department of your business. It?s called business intelligence. Business intelligence (BI) refers to the practices of (as well as the technology used in) analyzing available information to help you make the best decisions for your business. In the past, business intelligence was very much as it is today, finding practices and procedures that create a better business without all the bells and whistles that contemporary BI practices provide. Every business has plenty of people that depend on it, and the better the business is run, the more it can do for those people. So while it?s easy to think of business intelligence in the 21st century as a complex process, it is just the process of doing what every successful business owner has done from the day they put out their shingle. While BI has been around for some time, modern BI is the practice of using the enormous amount of data your business creates to help you make better decisions. How does this work? Your business has loads of information stored in various places, but most of it is in databases. One stand-alone database may not help you, but if you are able to bring all of your data together in what is called a data warehouse, you can then begin to link the information. Once the information is in this repository, you can begin using state-of-the-art BI software to crawl the data and deliver reports that take this enormous amount of information and provide relatively easy-to-read reports. The best part about this BI software is that you can customize definitions to get the specificity you are looking for out of these reports. The software will return detailed analysis. So whether you run a retail store, a product manufacturer, or a high-volume restaurant, you will be able to ascertain what the best decisions are going forward. These metrics work for operations, marketing, distribution, and any part of the business that can be represented in numbers. The small business has begun to use technology in new and interesting ways; and, using it to bridge the gap between their larger competitors. Many times BI analysis can surprise even the most savvy business owner with truths about their company. BI lets business owners build efficiency through analysis, not through conjecture. This targeted and analytical approach is sure to be a huge benefit for any business that finds itself battling operational inefficiency or any number of other deficits they encounter. White Mountain IT Services wants to provide our clients with the information they need to build a more efficient business. We offer small and medium-sized businesses comprehensive IT support and other proactive IT services that are designed to eliminate downtime and build overall efficiency. Call us at (603) 889-0800 today to see how our professional technicians can help your business be more efficient.
The Origins of Our Data Storage OptionsNAND flash memory, the method of data storage on a flash drive, continuously dropped in price throughout the 1990s. By the time the new millennium rolled around, a Singaporean company called Trek 2000 International released the first commercially available USB flash drive. Trek 2000?s ThumbDrive was released early in the year, soon followed in the United States by IBM?s DiskOnKey. Cloud storage?s roots can be traced back to 1969, when the concept was first conceived of by J.C.R. Licklider. Licklider had dreamt up a storage system that existed online, accessible on a global scale through an Internet connection. Of course, putting this idea into action was impossible until the technology existed to support it, but its capabilities were quickly adopted once it came into being. Google and Amazon were among the first to provide their users with utilities, like data storage, via cloud technology. Pitting Flash Storage Against the CloudTo be fair, this is an incredibly one-sided ?fight.? When all’s said and done, the lone advantage of a USB is that it allows a user to share files independent of an Internet connection. Other than that, the only real benefit they offer is convenience, but even that is shadowed by the convenience of the cloud and its other features. For starters, the cloud is secured against threats, with AES-256 encryption protecting it along with multi-factor authentication access control solutions. Your data is also backed up when it?s stored in the cloud, offering considerably more security than a USB drive could. As a result, the cloud is a superior option before one even considers its improvements in utility over a USB drive. Over a secure connection, the cloud allows you to use your Internet connection to access and edit your stored documents from any device. Furthermore, the cloud can benefit your ability to collaborate with other people, as you can share access to a document by sharing a link instead of handing over a USB (and entrusting the data within to the recipient). This also allows multiple users to collaborate on the document at the same time, something a USB simply couldn?t do. There was once a time that a USB drive might have been a handy (if risky) means of data storage. Now, the cloud holds that distinction. If your business is ready to embrace the next step in data storage and management, reach out to White Mountain IT Services. Your move to the cloud is only a call to (603) 889-0800 away.
It goes without saying that businesses that don?t want to invest in the latest and greatest software solutions will be denying themselves the opportunity for more productivity and efficiency, but most of all, security will be put on the line. A new study has proven that there is a direct correlation between businesses that run older versions of out-of-date operating systems and web browsers, and organizations that suffer from data breaches. The organization behind the study, BitSight, found that out of 35,000 companies analyzed worldwide across 20 different industries, over 2,000 of them had over half of their computers running on operating systems that are out of date. Around 8,500 companies also had been using out-of-date browsers. The study focused on those who use Apple and Microsoft operating systems, and included an analysis of the Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Google Chrome Internet browsers. The numbers speak for themselves. Businesses that use outdated operating systems are three times more likely to suffer from a data breach. On the other hand, businesses that use outdated browsers are twice as likely to suffer a data breach. Keep in mind that these numbers don?t necessarily reflect that the outdated browsers and operating systems were the direct causes of the data breach. Rather, they are just one factor that was taken into account during the study. Of course, this shouldn?t come as a surprise. Businesses have long understood that outdated software can provide all sorts of inconveniences, but the amount of organizations that don?t mind dealing with outdated software is a cause for concern. There are far too many businesses out there that don?t take proper care to upgrade away from unsupported software, like Windows XP and Windows Vista. It almost makes you wonder if your own business is vulnerable to attacks that exploit outdated software, and what you can do about it. For starters, you can perform a network audit to make sure that none of the software used by your organization–including operating systems and web browsers–are out of date. To do this, you need to reach out to an unbiased and trusted third-party consultant who can give you a clear idea of what needs to be done to shore up weaknesses in your infrastructure. The importance of this cannot be stressed enough, especially in the wake of highly publicized threats like the WannaCry ransomware and other dangerous threats. White Mountain IT Services can be the one to deliver this comprehensive network security audit. To learn more about what we can do for your business, reach out to us at (603) 889-0800.
When we talk about best practices, we are typically referring to the practices used by successful companies to garner the best results. A new study by Disaster Recovery has shown that, as backup and recovery solutions go, enterprises are providing some pretty disappointing results as many fail to continuously back up their data and it results in additional inherent risk. A lot of it has to do with perspective. Many businesses understand that there are too many risks out there to properly mitigate them all. In fact, in a study an amazing 72-percent of business surveyed would be happy to lose more than 24 hours of data if some type of cyber incident were to befall their network. This seems irrational, but since many businesses still rely on tape systems to back up their data, losing 24 hours worth of data is much more palatable than it probably should be. Sure, by using tape backup your procedures will likely be more labor intensive and less automated; and, would result in more lost data. Some organizations admit that they don?t have any solution to back up their data. Amazingly, 13 percent of businesses surveyed said they didn?t have any form of backup. While using tape backup is better than using no backup, being ?happy? to ?only? lose a day?s worth of data probably shouldn?t be the perspective these people should have. Businesses today rely on technology, even those that don?t handle a lot of data; but, data loss–of any kind–is unacceptable. So while some organizations consider a bit of data loss as the cost of doing business, the professional IT technicians at White Mountain IT Services can?t stress enough that the goal should be to lose nothing, no matter what kind of business you run. If the largest of retail outfits could be done in by a data breach, your business can be. As a result, the modern SMB has to be more diligent, more prepared, and more careful than ever before. For businesses that need a solution to protect their data from the numerous causes of loss, consider the managed IT services available through White Mountain IT Services the solution to your problem. We not only provide proactive monitoring and management for all your IT, we protect it further with our Backup and Disaster Recovery service. We deploy a network attached storage facility and powerful and secure cloud computing platforms to provide businesses like yours with the data redundancy you are looking for in a reliable data backup solution. For more information about data backup, disaster recovery, and the other IT services we deliver to protect your most crucial business assets, call us today at (603) 889-0800.
